The National Security State and the Tech City: Social Structures of Militarisation in Seattle's Long Cold War.

Integration between the American state and technology capital has deep roots in the military‐industrial complex that has structured the US geopolitical economy since World War II. This article makes the case for understanding the urban‐regional dimensions of technology capital in terms of a transformation of, rather than as a departure from, Cold War geopolitics. It introduces the concept of a social structure of militarisation to analyse the transition from military‐Keynesianism to tech‐oriented militarism, developing this concept through a case study of high‐tech firms in the Seattle region. Our analysis shows how the class dynamics that underpinned the growth of Seattle's “high‐tech” aerospace sector in the postwar period conditioned the subsequent growth of the information and biotechnology sectors. Like other tech cities, Seattle's economy remains a privileged site of technical and managerial labour within the extended US national security state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]