Driving Innovation: the Military, Technology, and Silicon Valley
Technology. Innovation. Disruption. For most people, these are words that evoke an image of Silicon Valley and the dynamic companies that have driven its growth.
Given the successes and notoriety of Silicon Valley, it’s easy to think about the contemporary model of venture-driven startups as having always been the key instigator of significant technological development. This view, though, suffers from a major historical oversight.
Before there was a Silicon Valley, revolutionary innovation happened because of research and development led by the military. For decades, defense needs motivated rapid creation of new knowledge and devices, and later, even as private technology development gained pace, the military remained a vital customer, allowing the modern tech industry to flourish.
The military remains an integral player in promoting R&D, and defense agencies are working to dramatically update their capabilities in software development, encrypted communications, and secure networks. These initiatives build upon the military’s history of innovation and have the potential to transform defense operations at multiple levels. As a partner and vendor to military agencies, CryptoMove plays a part in this ongoing effort to keep our armed forces on the cutting edge of technology.
Innovation and Military History
The history of warfare is marked by innovation. In every era, military leaders and organizations adopted novel changes in tactics and technology to gain an advantage over adversaries. Each new development brought countermeasures, continually pushing the cycle of innovation forward.
In considering military innovation, it is common to think first about weaponry. Certainly, improved armor and weapons have been a fundamental element of combat from the Romans to the Manhattan Project and beyond, but innovation does not start and stop with weapons.
Combat has also seen dramatic changes in tactics, ranging from the rapid, mobile strikes by Nazi Germany that have come to be known as blitzkreig or “lightning war” to the insurgency and counter-insurgency approaches used in recent conflicts. Less obvious, but equally important, communications has been an active arena for military innovation with developments ranging from code-breaking to harnessing the power of satellites for observation and messaging.
Traditionally, these innovations were brought about by initiatives led by the military itself. R&D conducted within or directly overseen by the military was the focus of new technologies for operational capabilities. A side effect of these research efforts was technology with civilian applications. Well-known examples include the foundations of the internet, miniaturized GPS, and flat screens.
Far less well-known, though, is that military innovation planted the seeds that would grow into Silicon Valley and the present-day private technology industry. Examples of this oft-ignored history were recently highlighted by venture capitalist Josh Wolfe and have been addressed in greater detail by entrepreneur and Stanford professor Steve Blank:
- During World War II, Fredrick Terman led the ultra-secretive Harvard Radio Research Lab that provided critical advances to the Allies in their air campaign against Germany and its extensive radar and anti-aircraft capabilities. After the war, Terman would hold positions as Dean of Engineering and Provost at Stanford, growing the university’s reputation, boosting its financial support from the federal government, and encouraging students — including William Hewlett and David Packard — to rapidly spin-off their research into the private sector.
- Georges Doriot was a professor at Harvard Business School who became active in managing research efforts for the U.S. Army during World War II and is now considered an early visionary of modern venture capital. In 1946, he founded the American Research and Development Corp. (ARD), which was the first VC firm to accept public investors and backed Digital Equipment Corp., an early leader in computing.
- William Shockley had a long track record in the Department of Defense and co-invented the transistor. In 1955, he started California’s first semiconductor company. Shockley was a poor manager, and employees of his company defected in 1957 to form Fairchild Semiconductor. Fairchild spawned a sprawling industry — including the formation of Intel in 1968 — that in its early stages was propelled forward thanks to its primary customer, the U.S. military.
These are just a few examples that illustrate the close link between the military and the development of Silicon Valley as a hub of technology.
“It’s not a stretch at all to say that Silicon Valley exists because of the federal government.” — Leslie Berlin, Project Historian for the Silicon Valley Archives at Stanford
Over time, defense continued to play an important role in innovation, but the nature of technology development began to shift. Changes to investment rules around pension funds drove new resources into venture capital and private technology development. The culmination of these changes has been that more and more research efforts are undertaken by the private sector. While in-house military research still occurs, a significant portion has shifted to collaboration with academia and private companies, and the military now serves as a major customer for innovative technology companies.
While the terrain of this R&D has evolved, it remains true that the military plays a fundamental role in driving innovation that affects not just military operations but civilian life as well.
New Directions in Military Innovation
Contemporary military research continues in traditional areas like weapons development, including billions spent on new capabilities like hypersonic weapons. At the same time, military innovation today reflects modern technological demands with greater emphasis on software development, secure networks, and harnessing the cloud.
These new directions in research are not strictly for the purpose of cyberwarfare capabilities. Instead, they are vital to managing all types of military operations and needs, and they apply throughout the Department of Defense.
The DoD has started an Enterprise DevSecOps Initiative, led by Air Force Chief Software Officer (CSO) Nicolas Chaillan, that will bring automated software tools and an agile development approach to systems across DoD. A key focus is using Kubernetes as a platform for containers that create flexibility and zero-trust security as a default.
“If you don’t know what Kubernetes is, you should know. It is the future of software. There is nothing done today that does not involve Kubernetes.” — Nicolas Chaillan, Air Force CSO
Because software is integral to so many military operations and technologies, more efficient coding has tremendous value for DoD. The DevSecOps initiative hopes to build on the success of Kessel Run, an Air Force coding program that has delivered impressive results, including a rapid coding patch for the F-35’s Autonomic Logistics Information System.
The military’s continued promotion of innovation is also evident in the Air Force’s AFWERX Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) Challenge, which will identify and deploy solutions to better collect, verify, and analyze data, utilize that data for decision-making, and communicate situational awareness. Rather than use a traditional bid process that is slow and dominated by experienced DoD contractors, the USAF issued a challenge to anyone — academia, startups, other government agencies, and established DoD vendors — to submit inventive proposals that can contribute to an integrated MDO solution.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been actively involved in fostering new research directions and collaborations as well. The Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP) engages industry to accelerate R&D and quickly implement leading-edge technologies.
As defense agencies advance these initiatives, data protection is a central concern. Ensuring the security of these programs is critical, especially because the proliferation of cloud-based resources and software applications can increase potential access points for attackers.
CryptoMove’s Moving Target Defense (MTD) technology is a secure data storage solution with established value for defense agencies. Originating in academic and military research, moving target defense makes the attack surface dynamic, continuously shifting and morphing defensive infrastructure and making it harder over time for attackers. This ability to protect keys and secrets through fragmentation and movement contributes an essential component to a successful DevOps program.
With DoD and DHS moving forward into this new era, it is an appropriate time to reflect upon the rich history of research and development that traces directly back to the military. CryptoMove is both proud and excited to contribute to a new chapter in this story of innovation.
You can read more about CryptoMove’s technology on our website, and developers can get immediate access to try out the CryptoMove vault for protecting keys, access tokens, and other sensitive secrets.
