Over the past decade, the center of America’s military-industrial complex has been slowly shifting from the Capital Beltway to Silicon Valley. Although much of the Pentagon’s $886 billion budget is spent on conventional weapon systems, and goes to well-established defense giants such as Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics,
Boeing, and BAE Systems, a new political economy is emerging, driven by the imperatives of big tech companies, venture capital, and private equity firms.2 As Defense Department officials have sought to adopt AI-enabled systems and secure cloud computing services,
they have awarded large multi-billion dollar contracts to Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Oracle. At the same time, the Pentagon has increased funding for smaller defense tech startups seeking to “disrupt” existing markets and “move fast and break things.”3 This report examines how the priorities of the tech industry, the peculiarities of venture capital (VC) funding structures, and Silicon Valley’s startup model are likely to lead to costly, hightech products that are ineffective, unpredictable, and unsafe when deployed in real world
conditioother complication that makes it challenging to analyze DoD procurement contracts is the fact that major tech firms are often awarded large subcontracts from relatively obscure intermediary or “passthrough” ns.
Another complication that makes it challenging to analyze DoD procurement
contracts is the fact that major tech firms are often awarded large subcontracts from relatively obscure intermediary or “passthrough” companies that are granted primary contracts from the Pentagon.
Such arrangements make it difficult—but not impossible—to determine the extent to which the tech industry is involved in military work.
described here by Malcolm Harris in his 2023 book Palo Alto:
War Capitalism could put on a blindfold and run into a maze of horrific, absurd plans with confidence because it had class power echolocation for a guide: As long as the rich strengthened and the working class weakened, then things had to be going in the right direction. It didn’t matter that capitalists were investing in finance sugar highs, monopoly superprofits, and an international manufacturing race to the bottom rather than strong jobs and an expanded industrial base. The twenty-first century was going to be all about software anyway, baby. The robots will figure it out. Silicon Valley leaders sat on top of this world system like a cherry on a sundae, insulated from the melting foundation by a rich tower of cream.
They likely still feel insulated from the consequences of their actions, which fall most heavily on their proxy fighters and the working class dealing with inflation and declining living standards, but the panic over this system’s implosion is real – and with good reason. The idea that the US can just spend more money and develop more wonder weapons is breaking down in humiliating fashion.
*They hollowed out the West in order to make a quick buck. Where the manufacturing isn’t completely gone, it’s entirely degraded (Boeing). Government has been reduced to a collection of worthless sycophants only looking to cash in on their servitude.
It was American elites’ greed that caused the American working class to lose 3.7 million decent paying jobs from 2001-2018 – and that’s only from shipping jobs to China.