IS THE US DoD LOCKED IN AN IVORY TOWER?
I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University. William F. Buckley. The US Defense Department has a very strange approach to how it generates innovation. It, in stark contrast to the commercial world, thinks that innovation in warfare can only occur through the work of PhDs. To wit: People with these titles get the highest rates of pay afforded DoD consultants and almost all projects that attempt innovation or new thought require a PhD on the leadership team. As a result of this prominence, DoD affiliated PhDs have grown like mushrooms: in addition to the plethora of PhDs firmly entrenched within the military education system and the thousands of PhDs at the pointy end of defense contractor blood funnels, there are generously funded relationships with thousands of PhDs rented by hundreds of universities and colleges. Really? To those of us in the commercial world, this sit
