Imagining the security of innovation: technological innovation, national security, and the American way of life

ABSTRACT In US national security policy the protection of technological innovation is of signal importance. US policy stresses, on the one hand, the need to protect technological innovation to ensure its global economic and military predominance. This reflects the classic view of innovation articulated in security studies: technological innovation is the foundation of economic and military power. Yet this account captures only one aspect of technological innovation in US national security thinking. Drawing on a combination of socio-technical imaginaries frameworks and critical theories of technology, this article argues that technological innovation is not merely a means to the end of American national security. Rather, a series of sociological and normative ideas disclosed by US policy frame market-led innovation as necessary, just, and central to the reproduction of American national identity. A specific way of creating technological systems and artefacts is the object of security in American national security policy. The security of technological innovation is central to securing the American way of life.