The alliance and differences between the US Department of Defense and the new generation of technology giants

 　　American technology giants represented by Google are using their world-leading information technology to serve the US Department of Defense. In September 2017, Google launched a military cooperation project code-named "Maven" to provide the US Department of Defense with artificial intelligence programs for drone warfare. At the same time, Apple, Amazon, Dell and other companies also have different degrees of military cooperation with the US government, building a strong national defense force for the United States.

　　Partnerships between the U.S. military and tech companies have a long history. As early as World War II, the United States used IBM's punch-card technology to deal with detainees in Japanese internment camps. During the Cold War, the United States used Fairchild Semiconductor's chips for ballistic missiles. By the 1960s, the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Agency funded the early development of the Internet.

　　Cooperation with the government has often raised questions from within tech companies. Less than a year after Google launched Project Maven, nearly 4,000 employees signed a petition asking the company to cancel the project's contract. Powerful protest groups are also forming within tech companies around the world.

　　Mass protests in the tech community could have a bigger impact on industry development and national military and defense policies. Disagreements between U.S. policymakers and the tech community are undermining U.S. national security. Currently, Democrats and Republicans are concerned about great-power conflict, arguing that China and Russia are using territorial aggression, coercion in global trade, cyber theft and information warfare to challenge U.S. interests, alliances and values. The tech world is clearly not so vigilant. For them, China is a supplier, an investor, a potential market, and Google has even been welcoming the Chinese government and helping the Chinese government develop a more efficient search engine. Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, former Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and others have been trying to bring a sense of national service to the tech industry, but their efforts have gone far not enough.

　　The rift between the government and the tech industry is a convergence of three major differences: First, the military-civilian relationship gap. Many in tech companies have deep moral concerns about war, and defense practitioners have equally deep moral concerns about the lack of patriotism in the tech industry. The second is the professional relationship gap. Lawyers leaders in Washington have trouble understanding technological advances, and engineering leaders in Silicon Valley have trouble understanding international power political dynamics. The third is generational differences. The founders of Facebook and Google both started companies in their early 20s. In policy, 30 years of experience often makes people strong; in technology, 30 years of experience often makes people obsolete.

　　The ideological differences between Washington decision-makers and the Silicon Valley tech community profoundly demonstrate that people's perceptions and ideas are as important as weapons deployment. So, how should we cultivate a new generation of technical talents with national defense awareness?

　　First, recruiting young engineers and graduates should send a new message. College students choose to go to tech companies because of their desire to impact society, a belief that tech companies are better at enabling large-scale change than the Department of Defense. A strict distinction between corporate work and helping the state will only push the wait-and-see attitude further away. What the Department of Defense really needs to do is to send the message that it doesn't take a lifetime of hard work up the ladder for tech talent to impact society on a massive scale.

　　Second, in order to train more engineers with national security awareness, a "Technical Scholars" program similar to the "White House Scholars" can be launched. The most talented U.S. engineering students are selected for one-year, high-impact jobs in government with senior leaders after graduation. The goal of this project is not to keep these talents in the government, but to have the experience of the government with them. The Tech Scholars program must be based on high prestige and low bureaucracy, while drastically reducing logistical hurdles.

　　Finally, in the long run, the Pentagon needs an entirely new model of civilian talent. The U.S. government needs technical talents who are willing to come out of the original industry, let them return to the industry, and then return to the government, and so on, so that they can continue to innovate ideas and generate creative thinking.