How Will Silicon Valley Rearm America?

War in Ukraine, conflict in the Middle East and the rise of China have pushed national security back to the center of US economic and industrial strategy.

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper says the country needs to spend more on defense and better use cutting-edge weapons coming out of places like Silicon Valley, Austin and Boston.

The opportunity is particularly striking in space, where companies like Apex Space are trying to industrialize satellite production as the US considers ambitious projects like Golden Dome.

But the new defense-tech boom still faces hard questions: will the Pentagon procure quickly enough; will startups scale production; is space-based missile defense technically and financially realistic; and will the future belong to startups, legacy primes, or a marriage between the two?

(Source: Bloomberg)