What If the Sci-Fi Battles of Tom Clancy Novels Are Happening Right Now?
Published on Substack, October 3, 2025
Consumer drones in Ukraine, hypersonic missiles in the South China Sea and constant cyberattacks on infrastructure show that the "nonsensical" weapons of Tom Clancy, Dale Brown and Soviet science fiction have arrived.
Investor Max Kramer identifies five game-changers — power, edge AI compute, drone swarms, cyber and hypersonics — and argues that the free-market innovation of the US, UK and Germany, not state-directed science in Russia or China, will decide who writes the next chapter.
Defense tech startups raised nearly $3 billion in 2024, and the free world depends on these ideas attracting capital.
Max Kramer is a New York-based investor focused on defense, critical infrastructure protection, and public safety technology.