Coronavirus has kept us close to home. It’s a helpful lesson for strengthening national defense.

Despite being warned, with impressive precision, about the dangers of so-called black swan events, America tends to ignore or downplay them because they seem remote, or the perceived financial, societal and political costs are too great. In the aftermath of 9/11, of Hurricane Katrina and other major domestic tragedies, we too often learn that our relevant capabilities have atrophied.

Now, following perhaps the most devastating such event — the COVID-19 pandemic — the defense industrial base is actively seeking billions of dollars to prop it up without necessarily committing to making step-function leaps forward in a highly complex threat environment.

And while keeping the thousands of small companies that support the defense primes alive is important , the Pentagon — flush with cash and a mandate to act quickly to react to the pandemic — should use this opportunity to refine its technology acquisition approach, in part by doing more to engage nontraditional defense firms.

The reasons for bringing in new ideas for defense are clear. Just last week, the Department of Defense released its annual report to Congress on China, which states that “China has already achieved parity with — or even exceeded — the United States in several military modernization areas.”

Even more concerning, DoD analysts describe China’s military-civil fusion development strategy as “a nationwide endeavor that seeks to ‘fuse’ its economic and social development strategies with its security strategies to build an integrated national strategic system and capabilities in support of China’s national rejuvenation goals.”

The United States doesn’t need and shouldn’t pursue a “fusion” strategy; rather, we need a better approach to strengthening the defense industrial base and engaging with innovators.

The United States is at risk of losing its ability to manufacture critical national security technology thanks to a combination of byzantine domestic procurement processes, offshoring and overseas competitors. To counter these and other negative trends, the DoD needs a sustainable, continuous innovation model.

In Silicon Valley , everyone from the biggest players to the youngest startups view working against or around slow, tired establishment organizations as almost a prerequisite to success (Uber vs. taxis, Tesla vs. legacy automakers, Amazon vs. everybody). Despite the Pentagon’s attractive budget and important missions, many innovators are repelled by restrictive requirements, lengthy sales cycles, high costs of bidding and a deck often stacked in favor of large prime contractors.

The DoD must throw open its doors to innovators and free itself to make bets; if it does, it will get more world-class tools for its mission owners. The department should:

Make requirements less prescriptive, easier to understand and run two ways. Develop an outreach program for innovators that uses channels they’re already occupying, in language they understand, with requirements that are compelling. Encourage two-way communication that surfaces non-obvious solutions to critical defense missions. At the Transportation Security Administration, we worked with an In-Q-Tel-backed company that was founded in Las Vegas to catch casino cheats; the Pentagon should look for similar outside-the-box opportunities.

Engage substantively with private sector innovation experts. The best investors and executives back successful entrepreneurs, mentor them as they refine their offerings and support world-changing scale. The DoD needs these skill sets and should set up (unpaid) innovation mentoring boards.

Insert flexibility into contracting and financing. To remove barriers to entry without sacrificing quality, the DoD should:

Create “off-campus” labs to mitigate procurement and security clearance delays.

Build on the work of Dr. Will Roper, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics. to ensure innovators don’t run out of funding .

In what would be a great advancement and threshold change, work with Congress to arrange for private sector investment in key technologies to bolster programs of record.

Lift government price and margin controls. Cost, often controlled through the anti-innovation technique of lowest-price, technically acceptable contracts, is not the key metric, particularly in emerging, dynamic technologies. What matters are outcomes and value. Restricting profit to a bureaucrat-calculated rate of 15 percent will drive innovative and nimble companies away from the DoD. Cost does not effectively incorporate other important metrics, including risk, prior investment and return on investment. Order quantities and frequency are also critical in determining reasonable costs, as these factors underpin business cases.

It’s not a coincidence that the world’s largest, most innovative economy belongs to the same country that has the world’s largest, most lethal military and is the world’s most attractive target for emerging threats.

The threat environment (intensified by the pandemic) makes clear that we need to change our approach; the state of our economy means that we need to start now.

Justin P. Oberman was a founding employee of the Transportation Security Administration after 9/11 and later served as a senior executive at the Department of Homeland Security. He also founded Apple Cart Ventures.

尽管美国曾被精准地警告过所谓“黑天鹅事件”的危险性，但它往往忽视或轻视这些事件，因为这些事件似乎遥不可及，或者人们认为其带来的经济、社会和政治代价过于巨大。在9·11事件、卡特里娜飓风和其他重大国内灾难之后，我们常常发现，我们应对这些事件的能力已经退化。

如今，在经历了或许是最具破坏性的此类事件——新冠肺炎疫情——之后，国防工业基础正在积极寻求数十亿美元的资金来支撑自身，但并不一定致力于在高度复杂的威胁环境中实现阶跃式发展。

虽然维持数千家为国防主承包商提供支持的小公司的生存很重要，但五角大楼——资金充裕，并被授权迅速采取行动应对疫情——应该利用这个机会改进其技术采购方式，部分方法是更多地与非传统国防公司合作。

引入国防新理念的理由很明确。就在上周，美国国防部向国会提交了年度对华报告，报告指出“中国在多个军事现代化领域已经与美国达到并驾齐驱，甚至超越了美国”。

更令人担忧的是，美国国防部分析人士将中国的军民融合发展战略描述为“一项全国性的努力，旨在将其经济和社会发展战略与安全战略‘融合’起来，以构建一个综合的国家战略体系和能力，从而支持中国的民族复兴目标。”

美国不需要也不应该奉行“融合”战略；相反，我们需要更好的方法来加强国防工业基础并与创新者合作。

由于繁琐的国内采购流程、外包以及海外竞争对手的威胁，美国正面临丧失关键国家安全技术制造能力的风险。为了应对这些及其他不利趋势，美国国防部需要一种可持续的、持续的创新模式。

在硅谷，从巨头企业到新兴创业公司，几乎所有人都将与行动迟缓、步履蹒跚的传统机构对抗或绕过它们视为成功的先决条件（例如，优步对抗出租车，特斯拉对抗传统汽车制造商，亚马逊对抗其他所有公司）。尽管五角大楼预算丰厚且任务重大，但许多创新者却因其苛刻的要求、漫长的销售周期、高昂的投标成本以及往往偏袒大型总承包商的局面而望而却步。

国防部必须向创新者敞开大门，勇于尝试；如果这样做，就能为其任务负责人获得更多世界一流的工具。国防部应该：

降低需求的强制性，使其更易于理解，并实现双向沟通。制定一项针对创新者的推广计划，利用他们已熟悉的渠道，使用他们能够理解的语言，提出具有说服力的需求。鼓励双向沟通，从而挖掘出解决关键国防任务的非常规方案。在运输安全管理局，我们曾与一家由In-Q-Tel投资、在拉斯维加斯成立的公司合作，该公司致力于打击赌场作弊行为；五角大楼也应该寻找类似的创新机会。

与私营部门的创新专家进行实质性交流。最优秀的投资者和高管会支持成功的企业家，指导他们完善产品和服务，并助力其实现改变世界的规模化发展。国防部需要这些技能人才，因此应该设立（无偿的）创新指导委员会。

在合同签订和融资方面增加灵活性。为了在不牺牲质量的前提下消除准入壁垒，国防部应该：

创建“校外”实验室，以减少采购和安全审查方面的延误。

以空军负责采购、技术和后勤的助理部长威尔·罗珀博士的工作为基础，确保创新者不会面临资金短缺的问题。

这将是一个巨大的进步和重大变革，与国会合作，安排私营部门对关键技术进行投资，以加强已记录的项目。

取消政府的价格和利润管制。成本，尤其是新兴动态技术领域中，往往通过以最低价格签订技术上可接受的合同这种反创新手段来控制的成本，并非关键指标。真正重要的是成果和价值。将利润限制在官僚机构设定的15%的水平，会将那些具有创新性和灵活性的公司赶出国防部。成本并不能有效涵盖其他重要指标，例如风险、前期投资和投资回报率。订单数量和频率对于确定合理的成本也至关重要，因为这些因素是商业案例的基础。

世界最大、最具创新力的经济体与拥有世界最大、最具杀伤力的军队，并且是新兴威胁最具吸引力的目标的国家，这绝非巧合。

疫情加剧了威胁环境，这清楚地表明我们需要改变应对方式；而当前的经济状况意味着我们必须立即行动。

贾斯汀·P·奥伯曼是9/11事件后美国运输安全管理局的创始员工之一，后来在国土安全部担任高级主管。他还创立了苹果车创投公司。