When it matters, I think we have shown to be perfectly capable of moving fast. Just look at how quickly we came up with a vaccine for covid. In a state of war (or cold war, or pandemic) you cut the red tape. Approval processes that typically take weeks magically take only hours.

But it is true that when there is no particular urgency, the multiplication of bureaucracy and regulations compounded with the complexity of modern technologies makes it difficult to deliver cheap and fast.