In their new open‑access article for Science as Culture, PLATFORM WARS’ Marijn Hoijtink, Jasper van der Kist, and Laszlo Steinwärder examine the historical and contemporary ties between major tech firms and the U.S. military.
Drawing on STS and political economy, they trace how military funding shaped the emergence of Silicon Valley, and show how digital platforms have become central to today’s military‑tech landscape. Through the case of Project Maven, they illustrate how the platformization of defense—from AI tools to integrated data ecosystems—is transforming procurement practices and reshaping military organization in line with Big Tech’s business models and logics.
The article highlights how this growing alignment between tech firms and the military is consolidating power in the hands of a small group of companies, raising urgent questions about dependency, accountability, and control in the security domain.
The article is open access and can be found here.
