"Can Defense Keep Up?" Is the Wrong Question

How defense keeps up with AI, cyber threats, and private-sector innovation. In this episode of The Watchtower, Ash Hunt sits down with Jimmy Harrington, retired Air Force colonel and former Deputy CIO at U.S. Special Operations Command, for a conversation about cyber resilience, defense innovation, and what large organizations often misunderstand about speed. From NATO and the Pentagon to AI-enabled defense systems and private-sector collaboration, Jimmy shares what defense can teach enterprise security leaders about resilience, leadership, mentorship, and building organizations that can operate through uncertainty.   Highlights Why “keeping up” may be the wrong question How zero trust changes the goal from prevention to resilience Why defense innovation can become “innovation theater” What it takes for new technology to actually scale What CISOs can learn from military leadership and mentorship    Connect Jimmy Harrington on LinkedIn   Chapters 0:00 Can organizations keep up with innovation? 1:14 Jimmy Harrington Deputy CIO 5:36 The pace problem inside defense institutions 6:50 Reframing cyber success: stop trying to stop everything 8:49 Run fast, trip less - operating under uncertainty 12:12 Threat-agnostic vs threat-specific cyber defense 14:09 Defense tech: from leading edge to catching up 15:14 Innovation theater: the $5B that never scaled 18:55 Slow is smooth, smooth is fast 21:16 Palantir, Anduril, and selling belief to the DoD 24:33 Building the plane while it's flying 27:23 Why CISOs and defense leaders don't collaborate enough 31:34 The military's leadership DNA corporate lacks 35:49 Mentorship and the replacement-first model 41:24 How leaders are actually built 43:10 The hardest part of leaving the military 46:28 What corporate underestimates about veterans Presented by Cyera. Produced by Mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.