About the Strategic Technologist

About The Strategic Technologist

In 2023, I sat in the Eccles Library at the Naval War College reading Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War. As a computer scientist who was twenty-plus years into a career building and implementing defense technology systems, I expected ancient Greek city-state conflicts to feel quaint, maybe academically interesting, but fundamentally irrelevant to modern challenges.

I was completely wrong.

The strategic errors that doomed Athens (threat inflation, tactical tools applied to strategic problems, mistaking capability for strategy) were the same errors I'd watched unfold in the modern era. How could this be? Things feel so different from ancient Greece? The technology had changed. The strategic principles hadn't.

That realization activated my brain in ways it had never experienced before. History, political science, philosophy, the complexity of the international system: suddenly these weren't just academic subjects. They were the things I wanted to learn and position as central to my life's work.

After spending 25 years as a practitioner in defense technology, first as a Marine, then as a contractor and government civilian, eventually leading strategic planning for a major naval research facility, I'd seen the pattern repeatedly. Policymakers treat strategic problems as technical challenges. Export controls that accelerate exactly the technological independence we want to prevent. AI regulations fighting science fiction scenarios while missing actual competitive dynamics. Critical infrastructure designations so broad they become strategically meaningless.

These failures don't stem from lack of technical expertise or good intentions. They stem from dismissing accumulated strategic wisdom because it predates current technology. The writings of Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, Mahan, Jomini aren't (just) dusty old books or museum pieces. Their insights about competition, friction, center of gravity, and strategic concentration are as relevant to modern technology policy as they were to naval warfare.

The Strategic Technologist applies classical military strategy frameworks to contemporary technology policy challenges. Each week, I examine current policy debates through the lens of strategic theory that's been tested across centuries. The goal isn't nostalgia for simpler times. It's recognizing that technological progress hasn't obviated the need for strategic thinking. It's made it more urgent.

This newsletter is for policymakers, technologists, defense professionals, and anyone who suspects we're not as unique as we think we are. For people who believe that reading widely, thinking historically, and questioning assumptions matters more than chasing the latest hot take.

I've changed a lot since 2023. I'm now the Senior Director of Technology and Innovation Policy at the R Street Institute and a PhD candidate in International Relations at Salve Regina University. But mostly, I'm someone who discovered that the best preparation for understanding 21st-century technology competition was written before computers existed.

Subscribe to join the conversation. Comment when you see patterns I'm missing. Share when something resonates. Let's think through these challenges together, informed by history, focused on strategy, and skeptical of technological solutionism.

The strategic problems we face aren't new. We've just forgotten that we've solved them before.