Mobilize: How to Reboot the American Industrial Base and Stop World War III

by Shyam Sankar, Madeline Hart

From the CTO of Palantir comes a bold call to arms for resurrecting America’s industrial base, and winning the defense technology race that will define the twenty-first century.

America is in an undeclared state of emergency. Not since the Cold War has the US faced such powerful enemies—and our military isn’t ready. Shyam Sankar, Chief Technology Officer of Palantir, issues an urgent call to Mobilize.

The American industrial base once underwrote American victory. Builders and workers rallied to win World War II. For most of the twentieth century, great American companies from General Mills to Chrysler had defense businesses that sent mankind into space and won the Cold War. But the forges fell silent and the furnaces went dark. America’s innovators and warfighters were ripped apart. Now China, not America, leads the world in manufacturing. America is the underdog. The good news is, we’ve been here before.

Mobilize tells the remarkable true stories of the Americans who moved heaven and earth to produce for our troops and help our country win the twentieth century. And it exposes the shocking blunders that broke the Pentagon and weakened our military.

There’s a war for America’s future, stymied between the forces of complacency and change. If we empower exceptional individuals and harness the power of capitalism and competition, America can unleash the brains and brawn we need to resurrect our industrial base, stop World War III, and help our country build—and win.

Genres: Military Fiction, Politics, Nonfiction, War, Technology, Business, Economics

365 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 17, 2026

Reviews

[Clay Davis]

An eye opening book on the defence establishment. Learned about the author from the Hugh Hewitt talk radio program. This book needs a bette front cover.

[Peter Tillman]

WSJ review by Tunku Varadarajan:
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/book...
(Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
Excerpt:
"Shyam Sankar is a Silicon Valley Paul Revere. The chief technology officer of the software company Palantir, Mr. Sankar comes at us with warnings of imminent danger, although not on a galloping steed. Instead, he delivers his hair-raising message—that we’re staring at “a humiliating and bloody defeat” if we go to war with China—in a jaunty, clever and sometimes breathless book. ....

“China is preparing for war,” Mr. Sankar tells us. That country, which once hid its strength and bided its time, has decided under Xi Jinping to “flex its muscles.” The U.S., once unrivaled, now has a “peer adversary.” Worse: America’s defense industry is worryingly dependent on China. Major subcontractors to the big U.S. defense companies are, in fact, Chinese."

Sobering stuff. Palantir is an interesting outfit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir

[Kevin T]

I am nearing 30 years in the military and I couldn’t agree more with the author and the conclusions in this book. I was skeptical going in because I have worked with Palentir in my last two positions and I thought this maybe a sales pitch to the American people. It wasn’t and regardless of your politics, you will see how the massive bureaucracy that is our Department of Defense and it’s congressional enablers wastes money that sometimes causes or fails to prevent casualties. 5/5 well written and the audio version was engaging and easy to listen to.

[Clayton Richardson]

Excellent book! Great book for understanding how the United States can revitalize its defense industrial base and spur innovation. Loved it!

[Joe Forti]

It's not really clear how much of this book is what's best for the USA vs what's best for Sankar's company (Palantir). That said, the book provides plenty of context, past and current history, close to home examples, and idea's in an engaging manner that would keep anyone but the most disinterest reader engaged. Sankar brings a founders perspective to DoW acquisition and procurement a lays down a optimistic future of what the Military Industrial Complex could be if the right steps are implemented.

[David Wurster]

This book gets 5 stars for its importance. It alerts us to the monumental damage facing us as a nation if we do not shake off our complacency and outmoded approach to defense. It prescribes the fundamental attributes of an effective way to address our needs. It illustrates through examples that successes are happening now.
I am retired after working for fifty years in the defense industry. This book brought back so many memories of working with the government bureaucracy. There were a number of intelligent and talented government employees who cared about the mission and worked to help the projects succeed. There were also so many government employees whose focus was on their power and that of their organization. Some were very proud of competing with industry and succeeding in keeping work in-house rather than contracting to industry. In program reviews with the government, I could describe in detail a problem that we jointly needed to address and receive a yawn or total silence with no recognition that they had a responsibility to be part of the solution.
I certainly hope that this book is widely read and acted on. It is hard to be optimistic in the face of the polarization in the country, the dumbing down of school curriculum, the embrace of leftist drivel, and so much more.

[Gretchie]

Yall need to read this fr. Super super interesting perspective and storytelling. A really compelling and captivating read. Highly, highly recommended to literally anyone who wants to do anything government or just interested in the topics of strategic studies, American history, business, tech, American policy, etc.

[James Cogbill]

When recently teaching a cohort of Virginia Tech's Defense Civilian Training Corps (DoW scholarship for service program), probably my favorite class was when we discussed defense innovation and recent efforts toward defense acquisition system transformation. The principal homework assignment for that class was to read Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar's October 2024 treatise, entitled "Defense Reformation" (aka "The 18 Theses"). Even though I should probably see Sankar and his Palantir as a former adversary--having come from the Army G2 establishment that fought for the clunky Distributed Common Ground System-Army intelligence system over Palantir's sexy, speedy, and user-friendly intelligence app--I loved his article for elucidating in a fascinating and engaging way how our military's acquisition system had become calcified and dangerously irrelevant. Finally, I had a homework assignment that was exciting and not as dry and boring as the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Finally, I could inject some passion into our classroom discussions. Sankar's recent book Mobilize is the book-length version of that treatise, and it is just as fascinating and relevant as the earlier article. It covers many of the same themes, but with deeper explanations and plenty of historical examples that support his theses. Now, as a Virginia Tech master's student in the Science, Technology, and Society program, I've offered to lead a class for my peers on Sankar's essay, book, and a relevant piece by defense acquisition maverick, Bill Greenwalt. I look forward to continued engagement about the themes of the book, and I hope to see Sankar's recommendations implemented in the very near future so that we can restore deterrence, reemerge as the world's leading military and manufacturing power, and prevent World War III.

[Ray Ortensie]

It forced me to give it a start...shoddy research, historic facts wrong due to reliance on single sources, and just a lack of complete knowledge of some of the historical points in time hamper the reading. Was really looking forward to this due to title and chapter layouts

[Sean Ghion]

Upgrade to 5 stars. Last chapter was awesome: Another case study in why unregulated capitalism is the best economic system. The insane amount of PLTR glaze subtracts one star (understandable since written by PLTR CTO).

[Emmet Sullivan]

It's weird in the same way Karp's book was. It's a sort of disorganized collection of essays all loosely based around a sort of amorphous theme. Defense acquisition processes are broken, cost-plus contracts have to go. Some of it is just subtle flexes for Palantir much like Karp's book was. But some of the biographical chapters on people like Cukor & Higgins were cool and, I thought, compelling illustrations of some of the larger points the book attempted to drive home.

I guess nothing about this book was bad per se, but I just found it sort of underwhelming. I wanted to be floored by the intellectual energy that somebody like Sankar has in this area, and on that front it sort of fell flat. There's nothing particularly unique in here (even if the ideas are, on the whole, good). And the parts about how Palantir does everything great just feel tacky sometimes. It reads sort of like a campaign memoir for a company.

[Brian Thorson]

“To compete effectively in the 21st century, America must embrace a new industrial policy that prioritizes innovation and resilience.”

This book discusses the industrial base and its role in improving the US’s competitiveness globally. No surprise, but the author’s position is that we have much work to do. He lays out some opportunities to improve partnerships between government and private companies, how to increase acquisition agility, and incentivize performance in contracting.

One idea that stuck out to me was intentionally pursuing the same capability with multiple companies until a clear winner emerges, investing in the winner, and divesting of the others. The author posits this is a faster, better (effective), and cheaper (efficient) solution.

Worthwhile read.

[Mike Jenne]

Prescient advice for an uncertain future

Superbly written and exceptionally well organized, peppered with very relevant anecdotes from both history and present day, “Mobilize” offers national leaders concrete advice on how to effectively prepare for an uncertain future, particularly as it relates to China’s growing ambitions to dominate the world. A must-read for anyone concerned about our current state of military preparedness and strategic industrial capacity.

[Terry Tucker]

This is an interesting book that looks to provide the case for expediting and streamlining the defense R&D process and procurement. The lessons learned are quite familiar and the need for a better system that is not monopolized by the big 5 and one that could better rely on immediate off the shelf adaptions is sorely needed.

[Skate]

There are some good nuggets in here if you can get past the hagiography of Colonel Cukor, deification of Palantir, and misstatements like the Army Air Corps did not submit a requirement for a 4-engine bomber.

I most appreciated the historical overview of defense acquisition trailblazers like Bernard Schriever and David Packard.

[Paloma]

I’ve never read anything like this.

Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar and co-author Madeline Hart basically argue that the entire architecture of the American defense system needs reform. I learned how much of the DoD’s financial and procurement infrastructure is the accumulated product of decisions made decades ago, layered on top of legacy systems that apparently nobody has ever been able to fully unfuck. Shout out $600 toilet seats I know whoever was in charge of procurement for that was mad asf.

They describe ways the government could better work with and invest in commercial products to reduce casualties and increase effectiveness across spending and better military capability by using iconic DoD/Dow/Pentagon lore of a rebellious few to show it’s been tried and validated internally. Their broader argument is basically that we stopped organizing enough things this way inside government, while companies like SpaceX, Anduril and Palantir picked up a lot of the same operating principles commercially. Founder’s Fund notably loves companies that embody that whole Manhattan Project / Skunk Works ethos: extremely mission-driven, technically ambitious, small empowered teams, no bullshit, go build the thing.

I thought it was kind of funny how the latter end acts as a self-help book for defense/manufacturing organizations. Like in a “you can be as effective and heretical as Palantir too, buddies!” Intensely patriotic in rhetoric but I don’t think it’s a totally bad thing.

I also don’t think you can read the book without noticing that Palantir obviously has business reasons to want the U.S. to take deterrence, Taiwan, and competition with China extremely seriously. A defense technology company stands to benefit from a government that buys more modern defense technology. Unfortunately, so do the rest of us even though we won’t make any money off it. Their key points about manufacturing and mobilizing key supply chains across defense and technology back here at home are sound. I liked that this did not seem like it was written by AI; if it was, whatever local model they used at their offices is tuned and prompted very well.

They are basically arguing for a different definition of what a defense company should be. Instead of: government defines requirement → contractor builds bespoke thing → government pays contractor, they want something closer to: company builds genuinely useful technology → proves that it works → government adopts it → company keeps improving the product. Conveniently, Palantir and the entire defense-tech ecosystem happen to sit on the side of that model that would benefit tremendously if the government adopted it.

Some of the worst information I learned reading this:
-The existence of cost-plus contracts . . . . .
-Their claim that the five major defense primes are technologically stagnant and complacent. Sankar and Hart’s argument is that the procurement environment does not punish incumbents for moving slowly or taking fewer technological risks the way a normal competitive market might. After the huge wave of defense-industry consolidation in the 1990s, the government ended up buying an enormous amount of capability from a relatively small group of dominant contractors, the byproduct of which has made them like spoiled kids of the monopsony.
-This incompetence of bureaucracy in terms of our national security is a major weakness AND is also unfortunately public information

[Sebastian Gebski]

Lobbing-as-a-book, but a much better one than a similar book by Alex Karp (CEO of Palantir).
The book is focused on just a few ideas: the weaknesses of monopsony, the failure of "Cost Plus" model, the lack of coop between Silicon Valley and DOD/DOW.

The book is far less Trumpo-sycophantic than I thought, the author is also very carefully not to make it into an ad campaign for Palantir as a vendor - in fact, there's very little Palantir in this book.

My biggest pain-point is that this book doesn't add much (facts, knowledge, insights) - it's yet-another-tool in the massive campaign that is supposed to shift American hearts when it comes to funding modern warfare. The book is very well crafted, so it's suited for both John/Jane Doe and a local congressman. It doesn't spread FUD (e.g., by fearmongering regarding China's advances), in fact it's a masterpiece of modern PR.

As a non-American and a person generally quite aware of what tells high-performing business from the rest, I don't see much value in reading this book. So I can't recommend it honestly.

[Raymond]

This is an intensive analysis by a staff member of Palantir about the unfortunate use of the pentagon in the use of cost plus contracts and the need to revolutionize the monopoly purchasing process of the pentagon and reinvigorate the US industry in producing and procuring military hardware and software but the entire revitalization of US industry.

[Stephan]

Mobilize opens from a geopolitical premise: the US is on a direct collision course with China, one that an invasion of Taiwan would likely escalate into World War III. According to Sankar, the US is unprepared for this confrontation—above all because the country's procurement system is broken and its production capacity has fallen far behind China's.

As someone professionally familiar with the procurement system of another NATO member state, few of the book's criticisms were new to me. There's no question that Western procurement systems often stifle innovation and are in need of reform.

What's less clear is how the procurement system should actually be reformed. And while Palantir itself receives relatively little direct discussion in the book, it's nonetheless obvious that the author is its CTO. There is no discussion of the pros and cons of different reform approaches—instead, the book paints a black-and-white picture: primes and procurement bad, tech companies good.

The anecdotal examples from World War II and the Cold War are illuminating, but don't always translate cleanly to the present day. In a few instances, historical facts are even misrepresented.

As a European, I approached the book critically: Palantir's proximity—and the author's—to Thiel, along with his sympathy for Trump and Hegseth, invite skepticism. It's noticeable that the author strives for a degree of bipartisanship. The pronounced American pathos of books like this is probably unavoidable, though I would have liked to see more structure and academic rigor in the analysis.

[Evan]

While I enjoyed this book, I found much of the content and concepts pulled directly from others' ideas or experiences. A great read for someone who is not familiar with the challenges associated with the Defense Industrial Base, but does not offer as much for someone who is well-read on the topic.

[Benjamin Kasman]

really great insight from shyam and madeline (who i got to meet). wish that literally anyone in our government would read this.

[Ryan Stanfield]

Listen to Audiobook

[Ethan]

Abundance but bombs

[Patrick Giangiordano]

Important.

[Dan Dawson]

Good to read with the kill chain

[William Fortune]

Moderately interesting. More of a sales book for Palantir than anything else.

[Jacob Georg Naur]

If only the European leaders would read this book..

[Bjørn Borud]

Occasionally insightful, often naive, always self-serving.

[J. Scott Frampton]

Good book. Should be required reading for all those interested in the defense industrial base (DIB), and its many details and nunaces.