Category: NATSEC

The “Arsenal Effect” refers to the cascading influence that remote warfare, defense-tech investment, and militarized infrastructure are having on America’s commercial ecosystem. It’s how technologies developed for the battlefield are infiltrating civilian sectors—from retail and logistics to talent acquisition and regional economics. What was once siloed under national defense is now bleeding into the civilian boardroom. This is not just a metaphor—it’s a measurable shift in how capital flows, how data is utilized, and how industries evolve under the gravitational pull of a new era of military conflict. It’s an era that resembles the days of old, where civilian and defense industries are separated by a blurring line. I live close to one of those blurring lines; I am in the blur.

For older generations, Beirut had a particular relevance. October 23, 2023 was the 40th anniversary of a bombing of U.S. Servicemen that killed 241 people in 1983. My first experience with Beirut was far less dramatic but jarring nonetheless. On August 4, 2020, while sitting in an online classroom at Harvard Business School at the height of COVID-19, I watched a classmate fly out of the frame of his web camera as his wall crumbled behind him. That explosion claimed 218 deaths and over 7,000 injuries. Unaware of the carnage of the moment, our professor continued the class. A screenshot of the moment captured my classmates in confusion, unaware of what happened until the news caught up with the chaos.

Believe it or not, there are a number of areas where retail (and its droves of consumer data) meet and surveillance. After the 45th President of the United States survived an attempted assassination, it was revealed that the suspect had a relatively small internet footprint. Even so, it didn’t require spy work by a government agency to understand the failed assassin. Rather, using location and consumer data, the job was attempted by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project (with questionable results). A media report on the matter noted: