Dispatches

Notes from the wall.

How we think about deterrence, the industrial base, and the technologies that decide modern conflict — written for the founders building them.

All Dispatches04 Essays

THESISAugust 20266 min read

Deterrence is an industrial problem, not a software demo

The demos get better every year. The magazines do not get any deeper. Why production capacity, not stagecraft, is the number that matters.

PLAYBOOKAugust 20268 min read

From SBIR to program of record: the valley of death, mapped

Thousands of companies win a Phase II. A handful become programs. The difference is not luck — it is a map most founders never get handed.

TECHNOLOGYAugust 20267 min read

Autonomy at the edge: why mass is coming back to the fight

For thirty years the West traded mass for exquisiteness. Attritable autonomy is how we get mass back — if we build it for the fight we'll actually be in.

SPACEAugust 20266 min read

The new space race is a supply chain race

Launch got cheap. Orbits got contested. The bottleneck moved — from the rocket to everything that has to be on it.