Last week, the US Army announced the creation of its Detachment 201: Executive Innovation Corps, a new unit within the Army Reserve that will enlist tech executives as uniformed officers. Among the first few enlistees was Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer at Palantir, the trailblazer of Silicon Valley expansion into the military. Sankar was not exaggerating when he wrote in the Free Press:

A decade ago, it would’ve been unthinkable for so many tech heavyweights to openly align with the U.S. military. Equally, it would’ve been out of character for the military to enlist the support of the nation’s business elite — much less to create a special corps so they could deploy their technical talents in service of the government. But a sea change has taken place in both places. . . .  Palantir was the forerunner in this effort.

This story is integral to Palantir’s self-conception. The Big Data firm, which was founded after 9/11 by Alex Karp and Peter Thiel, has never been squeamish about aiding American efforts to establish and maintain global military hegemony. As Karp tells it, Palantir stoically endured nearly two decades of suspicion in Silicon Valley until it helped form a new consensus. In a recent interview, Karp said: