Drawing on deep,
exclusive reporting, a veteran national security correspondent reveals how a
new military-industrial complex is arising from the cradle of Silicon Valley,
with vast implications for American democracy and the global balance of power.
Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Alexander Karp. These
tech titans are fast becoming some of the most powerful figures in the realm of
national security, with enormous implications for us all. As Sharon Weinberger
reveals in this gripping account, the American military and spy agencies helped
to create Silicon Valley as we now know it, and some of its biggest and most
valuable companies today owe much of their success to the Pentagon and CIA.
Beginning with the War on Terror and accelerating under Donald Trump, however,
the old alliance between elected leaders in Washington and the unelected CEOs
of Silicon Valley has grown increasingly uneasy as power has shifted to the
private sector and Big Tech exerts greater and greater influence over its old
patrons. Companies such as SpaceX and Palantir, along with newer entrants to
the field such as Anduril, are proudly supporting—and quietly shaping—US
national defense, whether by providing spies and soldiers with AI and
cloud-computing tools or actual military hardware such as microwave weapons,
hypersonic missiles, and advanced drones.
The implications of this historic shift are poorly
understood and fraught with peril. What happens when mercurial billionaires
like Elon Musk control weapons and technologies that were once the preserve of
the US government? How will this new military-industrial complex affect the way
wars are fought, or even which wars are fought? That is the urgent question
before us today, at the dawn of this new era—and as Weinberger reveals, it is one
on which our collective future might well hinge.
