Trumps defense reset drags US military tech into the 21st century

This week I’m welcoming President Donald Trump to Pennsylvania for an unprecedented gathering.For the first time, the US defense industry will recognize that achieving the president’s goal of sustainable peace through strength demands new players and new ways of doing business. And at the Defense and Innovation Summit at the US Army War College in Carlisle on Wednesday, Pennsylvania is showing the way.America’s adversaries, including China, Iran, Russia, North Korea and radical Islamists, share one objective: weakening the United States.They’re working together to that end.Iranian-designed Shahed drones, built inside Russia with Chinese components and North Korean labor, are now being used against American interests in Europe and the Middle East.The face of battle is changing as artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and precision weapons produce battlefield effects unimaginable a decade ago — much less 35 years ago, when I deployed to Iraq with the 82nd Airborne in Operation Desert Storm.The innovation cycle that once took years now moves in weeks.Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are teaching us one lesson above all: The next war will be won or lost on the strength of our factories and laboratories as much as on the courage of our warfighters.The challenge we face is of our own creation.Our defense establishment has grown lethargic, and our definition of national security too narrow.In the past decade, small businesses in the defense industrial base have fallen by more than 40% — and we became dependent on foreign suppliers, many of them adversaries, for the raw materials our weapons require.The president and his team have made enormous progress, but meeting this moment requires industry, academia and Congress to step up dramatically.Congress recently delivered a $150 billion plus-up — the first trillion-dollar defense budget in American history.Next, we should pass the president’s defense supplemental and his $1.5 trillion budget req...