The US Military Doesn't Know Why It's Fighting

March 21, 2026·1 hr 44 min·5 clips

Silicon Valley firms like Palantir claim the defense primes are bloated and communist, but is that just a media theater?

The host introduces the episode by framing a struggle inside the US military-industrial complex between traditional defense primes (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics) and newer Silicon Valley defense firms (Anduril, Palantir, SpaceX). Historian Susanna Glickman is the guest, bringing research on the defense industry, computer history, and quantum algorithms. Glickman identifies two narratives driving the current push to reform defense procurement. The first is a stabbed-in-the-back narrative, championed by figures like Pete Hegseth, claiming the US could have won the war on terror if troops had been unleashed from legal accountability around civilian casualties. The second is a technocratic narrative arguing that the right high-tech precision weapons would have solved what were fundamentally political and diplomatic problems. On Palantir specifically, Glickman says that despite the company's cultivated mystique, its core product appears to be standard data analytics, integrating data from various sources into searchable databases. She notes the company spread rumors about its role in finding Osama bin Laden and dismantling a Chinese spy network, claims that reportedly frustrated the CIA. Their real competitive advantage, she argues, comes from vendor lock-in and political relationships rather than technological superiority. Glickman explains how Palantir's immigration OS platform is being used to centralize data from different government agencies, breaking down firewalls that were designed to prevent a unified surveillance state. Data given to the IRS for tax purposes is being merged with immigration status data in ways she describes as dubiously legal. The interview covers the history of defense primes, tracing their origins as aerospace companies that consolidated through the 1980s and 1990s, rolling up smaller firms into massive system integrators. Glickman explains that after the Cold War ended, pressure to shrink the defense industry led to rapid consolidation that created management challenges the companies never fully resolved. On learning from China, Glickman argues that US defense reformers misread the Chinese model. China's success stems from robust regional competition, state discipline of capital, innovative local financing, and long-term investment. Instead, US reformers see authoritarian top-down winner-picking, which conveniently resembles what they already do in private equity and venture capital. The discussion addresses the revolving door between military careers and venture capital, with former officers increasingly taking stints at VC firms before returning to defense roles, creating new patronage networks. The current deputy secretary of defense is a former private equity executive from Cerberus, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is a former venture capitalist. Glickman critiques Alex Karp's book The Technological Republic, which attacks frivolous consumer apps for diverting talent from defense. She points out the irony that ad tech data, particularly location tracking, is central to pattern-of-life analysis used in drone warfare and immigration enforcement. The host includes a mid-episode correction about a previous episode's claim regarding lead levels in meal replacement drinks, noting that the standard used (California's Proposition 65) sets thresholds far below EU or UK levels, making the original claim misleading. He frames this as part of the show's commitment to ongoing research accuracy.

As heard by us

A sharp, uneasy look at a military that can explain its tools better than its purpose.

The episode traces a familiar kind of defense drift: cleaner, more deniable, gadget-heavy force on one side, and a muddier sense of purpose on the other.

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Why you'd press play

You want a hard look at where U.S. war-making is headed.

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