DoD spending in recent decades has reflected a sense that there's perpetually an r > 0 chance that we'll be in the middle of World War III in twenty years, and

DoD spending in recent decades has reflected a sense that there's perpetually an r > 0 chance that we'll be in the middle of World War III in twenty years, and that we're willing to spend what it takes to ensure technological advantages for when that happens. Throughout world history, military technology has been a determining factor in when many civilizations stopped existing. The mission of the DoD is to secure the U.S. in perpetuity, so this is their core competency. Private industries, which can only approach moonshots tepidly out of fiduciary responsibility, are already making good progress on this. My hunch is merely based on the liklihood that the DoD - which spends unfathomable amounts on R&D and does not answer to shareholders - has been going at this longer and much stronger than any private organization.