Transforming the National Security Culture: A report of the Harvard Kennedy School's Defense Leadership Project

The graduate students who initiated the Defense Leadership Project were deeply concerned that leaders within the defense community were increasingly ill-equipped to understand, visualize, or respond effectively to the modern security environment. Composed mainly of midcareer students with fresh operational experience, the group included military veterans, homeland security officials, intelligence officers, private contractors, and many others. While the diverse backgrounds certainly produced many differing opinions regarding national security, this team of rivals unanimously agreed on the need for more adaptive, strategically minded leadership in our defense community.