Reading List

Beyond reading this fine Substack, the following are books to consider to expand your Defense Tech and Acquisition knowledge. Thanks to the many on LinkedIn who contributed to this list.

Defense Tech and Production

The Kill Chain | Freedom’s Forge | Mobilize | Origins of Victory | The Bomber Mafia | Next War: Reimagining How We Fight | The Arsenal of Democracy | Army of None | The Arms of the Future | Four Battlegrounds | Skunk Works | Unit X | Chip War | The Battle Beyond: Winning the War in Space | F-35: Story of the Lightning II | Swarm Troopers | The Drone Wars | Poor Man’s Air Force | When the Heavens Went on Sale | Space Warfare

Innovation

Hacking for Defense Manual | The Innovators | Hack Your Bureaucracy | Recoding America | How Big Things Get Done | Boom! | FIRE: Fast, Inexpensive, Restrained, and Elegant | Simplicity Cycle | Simpler: The Future of Government | The Wright Brothers | Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story | The Case for Mars

Artificial Intelligence

Agentic AI | Irreplaceable: Standing Out in the Age of AI | AI, Automation, and War: The Rise of a Military-Tech Complex | United We Transform: Solving for Clarity in Age of AI | Human + Machine | T-Minus AI | Nexus: From Stone Age to AI | AI for Defense and Intelligence | Intelligent Automation

Business and Startups

Zero to One | The Lean Startup | Loonshots | Start With Why | Innovator’s Dilemma | Rework | Accelerate | Made to Stick | Switch | Startup NCO | The Hard Thing About Hard Things | Crossing the Chasm | Linchpin | The New Makers of Modern Strategy | Default Laziness | The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires | The Obstacle is the Way | Only the Paranoid Survive

Acquisition and Contracting

Defense Acquisition Reform | FAR in Plain English | Gov't Contracts in Plain English | Contracting in the New Economy | New Weapons Old Politics | Resourcing the National Security Enterprise

FICINT

Ghost Fleet | Burn-In: The Real Robotic Revolution | Wired for War | 2034: Next World War | Ready Player One | White Sun War | Marines and Mongols

Military Strategy and History

Boyd: The Pilot Who Changes the Art of War | The Mind of War | U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century | Air Force and the Great Engine War | Restless Wave: Novel of the US Navy | China’s Quest for Foreign Technology | Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future | The Hundred Year Marathon | Extreme Ownership | A Fiery Peace in a Cold War | The Pentagon’s Brain | Dream Machine: History of the V-22 Osprey | Predator: Origins of the Drone Revolution | In the Company of Heroes: Black Hawk Down | Countdown to Zero Day | GPS | Men, Machines, and Modern Times | The Cyberweapons Arms Race | Carnivore Leadership | War Without Rules

Have any good books to add? Let us know. Happy Reading.