William Lynn:

Google's market value, nearly $400 billion, is more than double that of General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon put together. And with the $60 billion it has on hand, Google could buy all the outstanding shares of any one of them.

The combined R & D budgets of five of the largest U.S. defense contractors (about $4 billion, according to the research firm Capital Alpha Partners) amount to less than half of what companies such as Microsoft or Toyota spend on R & D in a single year.

Kate Brannen:

In Silicon Valley, Peter Newell said, "problems are currency." The challenge, he added, is that the Pentagon does a "crappy job" explaining those challenges to the bright minds likely to be most energized about trying to solve them.

At the Pentagon, "they make rules designed to save them a dime and end up wasting a million dollars in the process," he added.

Anthony Cordesman:

The end result is a military debate that borders on strategic infantilism. No one defines their terms, their objectives, the cost-benefits they expect, or any other aspect of a real strategy. The debate is essentially meaningless because no one states what they mean -- or in most cases seems to bother to have asked themselves what they mean before they have taken a position.

Rosa Brooks:

When did we come to believe that crucial national security decisions are best made by people too tired to think straight?

Daniel J. Levitin:

One of the first things we lose [when multitasking] is impulse control. This rapidly spirals into a depleted state in which, after making lots of insignificant decisions, we can end up making truly bad decisions about something important.