There can be wisdom in cliche. More than 120 years after philosopher George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” his well-known phrase remains an essential guide for national defense. Case in point: The French failed to draw the proper lessons from the brutal trench warfare of World War I and constructed a better, yet still fixed, static defense in the 1930s — the Maginot Line — that was simply bypassed by the Germans on their way to Paris during World War II.

It can also be a mistake to learn too much from a recent success, applying those lessons to different circumstances. For example, Israel has been remarkably successful at ballistic missile defense with its “ Iron Dome ,” built to defend against short- and medium-range missile

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