Future Defense Technologies
A look into some of the exciting, and necessary, advancements in defense technology.
A vast majority of nerd-dom are into gaming and into military technology. I know for as long as I can remember I have been a personal fan of both. My love for technology traces it’s roots to Runescape and WoW, as well as an early fascination with cutting edge military technology (if you also watched G4TV and Future Weapons simultaneously then God bless you ha). As I got older and began my career, I quickly learned — much to my chargin — that the rate of technical progress that has occurred in gaming has not occurred within the defense sector. In fact, our military is vastly behind in critical technologies, so much so that were we to end up in a conflict with a hostile foreign power, we might lose.
For all of it’s faults, America is still the defender of the free world. Society and human propensity for evil has been held at bay for almost a century by the defending of liberty, democracy, human rights, free markets, open economies, and morality by America. The defense of these ideals is directly related to our country’s ability to project force to deter conflict. A world where that strength can be challenged, is a world where another nation that does not hold these values writes the rules — and the fragility of humanity will most certainly be tested. For a deeper dive into this, I highly recommend Christian Brose’s book — The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High Tech Warfare
Our US government used to lead the way in R&D spend, In 1960, the US government accounted for 69% of the world’s spend on R&D. In 2017, it was only 28%, yet in 2019 our defense expenditures were more than double Russia and China’s. We are still stuck supporting legacy systems (which are valuable but vulnerable) while our competitors are free to invest in future capabilities without the burden of a century worth of investments and assets. Government does still play a critical role in advancing future technologies, but the private sector has replaced government as the biggest investor in R&D all the while not translating those innovations at scale to our armed services. A recent GAO report found that in past years, defense contractors put only 40 percent of their independent research funding towards DOD priority areas such as AI, autonomous vehicles, hypersonic weapons, and directed energy weapons. The solutions are well known — change our military strategy, increase our support of new defense contractors and startups, optimize our budgeting process, give transparency to Congress to make allies, refine our government acquisition process, and partner with the private sector to get the best talent working on the most important problems.
Below are some of the future defense technologies modernizing 21st century warfare that will continue to need support from government and company funded R&D, as well as continued venture capital investment.
Drones
Drones have played, and will play, a critical role in the battlefield. C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) has become a bedrock of 21st century warfare and heavily relies on our ability to constantly — and autonomously — survey an area and provide real time visual data, object detection, and analysis. Fully autonomous systems, and drones specifically, are critical for the defense of US assets, as well as for an effective and informed military on the battlefield. The defense sector will continue to invest heavily in, and deploy at scale, sUAS and cUAS technologies.
Autonomous Vehicles
The US Reaper Drone has been a game changing vehicle in our military. Yet UAVs are one of the only pilotless vehicles deployed at scale, and are not fully autonomous. In fact, UAVs require the use of multiple humans to pilot the vehicle and do real time visual data analysis. This is not an efficient system. We need fully autonomous systems for a myriad of use cases within our military to react with greater precision and not put American lives at risk. Currently, our military is developing autonomous vehicles, such as aerial tankers, but we have seen slower adoption in this area due to the legacy systems we have from tanks to ship — as well as the incentives that keep us funding those legacy systems.
Directed Energy Weapons
Although still in the early stages, directed energy weapons could provide a near-unlimited, inexpensive, and instantaneous supply of precise firepower without having to reload, resupply, or even manufacture munitions. They may be the most effective means to defend against massed attacks from weapons such as swarming drones or a barrage of guided missiles.
Directed energy weapons use concentrated electromagnetic energy to strike targets. Two types of weapons currently in development are high-energy lasers (HELs) and high-powered microwave (HPM). Laser weapons heat a target until it melts and microwave weapons disrupt the electronics of a target.
Hypersonics
Hypersonic weapons will increase the speed and distance of modern conflict. Hypersonic glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles are maneuverable, long-range weapons that fly at a speed of Mach 5 or greater and do not follow a ballistic trajectory but rather can maneuver while traveling to their target. Prompt Global Strike (PGS) capabilities will change the way we think about conflict. Hypersonics will play a critical role in our A2/AD capabilities as we have invested very little in domestic defense infrastructure because no other country could ever have been able to mount any attack here, until the 21st century. I believe hypersonics will play a key role as a deterrent, similar to the role of nuclear weapons during the past century. At this stage, the technology is still nascent and there is currently no program of record for Hypersonics.
Cybersecurity
The global cybersecurity market is currently worth $173B in 2020, growing to $270B by 2026. Here are some interesting statistics:
- Enterprises are predicted to spend $12.6B on cloud security tools by 2023, up from $5.6B in 2018, according to Forrester.
- Enterprise spending on cloud security solutions is predicted to increase from $636M in 2020 to $1.63B in 2023, attaining a 26.5% CAGR.
- Spending on Infrastructure Protection is predicted to increase from $18.3B in 2020 to $24.6B in 2023, attaining a 7.68% CAGR
Cybersecurity is not only a critical industry within the commercial sector, but it is now known to be critical to national security. Our daily lives are increasingly enhanced by technology, but concurrently are made more vulnerable. The protection of our data, information, critical infrastructure (satellites, energy grids, transportation, etc.), financial systems, and more are of the utmost importance. There are interesting innovations in less talked about cyber defense strategies, such as crowd-sourcing (see Synak), as well as in Operational Technology cyber defense (see Shift5).
JADC2
JADC2 (Joint All Domain Command & Control) is the emerging term senior DoD officials are using to describe linking military sensors to all war fighters — across all services and domains — providing decision makers with the most accurate situational awareness possible. It is a multifaceted concept that requires near and long-term integration and modernization efforts to have all systems and departments fully integrated.
Our government is great at building massive platforms. No other country can build carriers and jets like we can. Yet our weak point, and one that is amplified in today’s kill chains, is software. Our government is just not good at building software, and the innovations in the private sector have not made there way into the defense sector. It is critical that our military invest in, and adopt, software that will enable a more integrated and efficient stack to empower our best and brightest to protect and serve our country. Our government operates on a fragmented, slow, and vulnerable tech stack, offering a fragmented experience with a myriad of applications for a multitude of use cases. In short — its not good. Today, in 2020, generals in the field can’t even check rely on networks to check their e-mail, or have difference vehicles and systems talk with eachother. Data, systems, vehicles, and individuals are siloed.
Recent initiatives such as the Navy’s ABMS can provide battlefield management (insights, sensory information, and control of products) in a single platform. Recent demonstrations have shown the potential effectiveness of these future systems. We need more of the leading Silicon Valley companies to support our government so we are remain at the cutting edge for AI, data management and analysis, cybersecurity, computer vision, AutoML, and more.
Space
Whoever maintains control of space, and holds the ability to use it to communicate, navigate, and see anywhere in the world almost instantaneously — in both peace and wartime — will have a critical advantage. ISR, GPS, and PNT technologies are critical for our military, and still remain extremely vulnerable in space. We have relied on this technology since we first demonstrated its immense value on the Desert War, and some of our most critical infrastructure will continue to be in Space. The Space Force is a step in the right direction. However, we need to further invest in this frontier which will rely on executing an integrated, focused, and long-term Defense strategy.
The continued acquisition of real estate in space, the ability to expand our infastructure in space, and the ability to protect our assets in space are primary focuses for the DoD right now.
In conclusion, these new and exciting developments are only made possible through public-private partnerships. Since Silicon Valley’s beginnings, rapid technological advancement was accomplished through our most talented people and companies working with the support of federal dollars and resources. The recent Future of Defense Task Force 2020 report published by the Senate Armed Services committed correctly stated that “to secure vital nation security interests both at home and abroad, the United States should embrace the doctrine of collective security by strengthening existing alliances and working to build new ones. A whole of government approach that engages global partners through diplomacy, economics, humanitarian aid, security cooperation, and military to military relations is among the most notable actions the United States can take to ensure continued peace, financial stability, and strategic overmatch when gaming out the future of defense.” A whole of government approach is indeed the key. It is important to note that better and smarter investments in our military will not just yield a more robust and capable force, but also free up wasted dollars to invest in domestic and societal problems such as poverty, inequality, healthcare, and infrastructure. Congress has long done what we in the venture and finance wold like to call putting good dollars after bad. It is important to also understand that developing new technologies for the purpose of deterrence is vastly different than for the purposes of aggression. This difference in philosophy, and goal, is what separates our country from others. The investments we make are to maintain our military superiority in order to protect and maintain the free world. It is a great economic, social, and military responsibility we took on post World War II that no other country is capable of doing. I recommend checking out Trae Stephens work on the ethics of investing in defense tech for further insight.
All in all, it is a true pleasure and blessing of mine to be able to partner with the entrepreneurs and companies building these technologies to help advance peace and freedom in our world. These companies are filled with people who unite across party lines, beliefs, and race in the support of what unites us all — our humanity, and our country.
— Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer, 137 Ventures
