One of America’s top defense CEOs says the biggest threat to national security isn’t technology, adversaries, or resources—it’s the fact that much of U.S. defense strategy has become anachronistic.
Speaking at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, SAIC chief executive Toni Townes-Whitley talked about how it may be “nerdy” and “geeky,” but the world of warfare is increasingly less and less about conventional theaters of conflict. “Those areas where we had large seas or oceans between us and adversaries are no longer the boundary conditions that we have experienced,” she said, noting that the U.S. has adversaries that operate in “domains” beyond land, sea, and air, such as cyber and space. She had a message: The U.S. has more work to do to successfully defend against enemies like this.
