Alphabet, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt is going to Washington to chair a new advisory group for the Department of Defense (DoD).

Called the “Defense Innovation Advisory Board,” the new board is said to be an effort to enhance DoD’s culture, organization, and processes by tapping innovators from the private sector, in Silicon Valley and beyond.

According to the official announcement, the board has a mandate to provide department leaders within the DoD independent advice on innovative and adaptive means to address future organizational and cultural challenges, including the use of technology alternatives, streamlined project management processes and approaches.

Other members of the board, which will eventually consist of 12 people, are to be selected by Schmidt and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, and will all be “individuals who have successfully led large private and public organizations, and excelled at identifying and adopting new technology concepts.”

The board will not engage in discussion of military operations or strategy.

“If we don’t innovate and be competitive, we’re not going to be the military that the country needs and deserves,” Carter told reporters at the RSA conference in San Francisco. “We should have done it a while ago.”

Precedent

The new board itself is modeled on an existing board, the Defense Business Board, which was founded in 2001 and provides advice on best business practices from the private sector.

Defense Secretary Carter is part of a lame duck administration who has less than a year left in office, so it’s questionable any decisions made late in President Obama’s second term will ultimately be supported by an incoming new president, but that said given it’s modeled on a board set up under the Presidency of George W. Bush it may yet gain bipartisan support.

Ultimately as the world continues to change innovation in defense industries is vital as the geopolitical landscape includes the rise of the Chinese military, and ongoing saber rattling from Russia.

It’s a historical fact that American technological supremacy during the arms race of the Cold War, particularly in its last decade, helped bring down the Soviet Union as mother Russia just couldn’t afford to compete.

While the geopolitical landscape is different today, if America want’s to continue its role as the world’s policeman, complete with the largest standing military force in the world, innovation and the delivery of cutting edge technology is a must.

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