Beneath the Surface
Palmer Luckey: I Saw the Future of War. Now It’s Up to Us to Prepare for It
September 30, 2025 • 11 minute, 58 second read
“Victory is reserved for those who are willing to pay its price.”
—Sun Tzu
September 30, 2025 — A version of this speech was delivered by Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril Industries, at National Taiwan University on August 4, 2025.
Just a few weeks after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine in 2022, I went to the front lines. I’m not a soldier. I’m not used to setting foot in a war zone. I was there to train Ukrainian soldiers on advanced military technology that I had developed. I wanted to understand the future of war, in practice.
And what I saw was remarkable.
Ukraine wielded technology in a devastating fashion against the enemy. In doing so, they’ve upended decades of conventional wisdom in how wars are fought and won. Today, victory on the battlefield does not depend on who has the shiniest, most capable weapons system. Success relies on the ability to apply new technologies in the largest numbers.
With drones costing just a few thousand dollars each, a handful of Ukrainian pilots remotely carpeted airstrips with explosives thousands of miles into Russia. Ukraine does not even have a navy. But a few years later, Vladimir Putin would need to pull back his Black Sea Fleet because of the constant threat of maritime drones. These and so many other examples demonstrate battlefield dominance through high technology at the appropriate scale.
Ukraine’s defenses have persisted for more than three years—far longer than the three days that U.S. planners expected. Despite the devastation in Ukraine, Putin has been forced to trade the equivalent in casualties of a large Russian city to capture less than 20 percent of the country’s territory.
Deterrence has now gone digital. A stockpile of decades-old munitions collecting cobwebs in a depot is no longer enough to keep the enemy from acting. But developing and manufacturing these new weapons and defense systems cannot happen overnight.
So how does the West develop such overwhelming force that when our enemies look at us, they know better than to attack? And who will answer the call to build the new arsenal of defense urgently needed for our technological age?
We need more of the free world’s best technologists among them.
Before I founded Anduril Industries, I began my career as an inventor and entrepreneur, building consumer products and technology. I founded Oculus VR and brought virtual reality to the masses. Then, in 2017, I was fired from Facebook—because I donated $9,000 to the wrong political candidate. That left me with a choice: fade into irrelevance, or build something that actually mattered.
So, that same year—I founded Anduril. At the time, defense was wildly unpopular in Silicon Valley. In that same period, Microsoft and Google employees alike protested work with the U.S. government. Concurrently, Silicon Valley executives increasingly turned to the Chinese Communist Party to solve their business problems. The iPhone says “designed in California,” but it had been for years made in China. That’s no coincidence.
Simmering in the background was the fact that the nation’s best technologists had begun to take the freedoms that had made them so successful for granted. Meanwhile, it became increasingly obvious that those freedoms were coming under threat from countries that had studied the American way of war and designed fighting forces specifically to overtake our own. I knew that if both the smartest minds in technology abandoned defense innovation, the United States would forever lose its ability to protect our way of life. And if no one else was willing to solve that problem, I would.
Enter Anduril. Our aim is to build the capabilities that would serve as the ultimate deterrent in an unstable era, and our goal was straightforward: Move fast, build what works, and get it into the hands of people who need it. That approach was untested in national security at the time—but in recent years, we’ve seen how crucial speed and adaptability are on real battlefields.
What Anduril is doing for the United States, we increasingly want to do for our allies and partners to deter those same threats to our shared freedom. And no threat is larger than that of the Chinese Communist Party.
This is why I’m standing in this room before you today. You, the bright students of National Taiwan University, have the opportunity to indeed answer the call to build and innovate in service of your country.
If Ukraine has taught us anything, it’s that we should believe dictators when they speak. Luckily for us, Xi Jinping speaks a lot. Here are just a few of the things he’s said in the last decade or so:
The Chinese military should be “built to fight.”
“Reunification” with Taiwan is “inevitable.”
There will be a “great struggle” with the West.
These quotations are not abstractions. They represent Xi’s genuine beliefs. They are his way of saying that he is willing to take Taiwan by force—and that he wants a military strong enough to do it. He desires a Chinese century. And he is determined to realize his imperial ambitions by any means necessary.
Last year, former Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen noted that both Taiwan and Ukraine are on the front lines of defense against authoritarian expansion. Others have been blunter: What’s happening in Ukraine today could happen in the Pacific tomorrow.
In the face of Xi’s imperialism, Taiwan must learn from the Ukrainian soldiers holding the line against Russia. Taiwan must adopt an arsenal equipped for real, high-tech deterrence.
China, after all, has built the largest navy in the world. A recent unclassified assessment from U.S. Defense Intelligence suggested that Beijing will build thousands more boosted hypersonic missiles and cruise missiles in the next decade. Xi is kicking shipbuilding into high gear by making even his commercial shipyards increasingly compliant with military requirements for future use. They aren’t keeping these weapons in reserve. This year has seen by far the largest number of incursions into Taiwanese airspace by Chinese fighter jets. And late last year, China practiced war drills off Taiwan’s coast in exercises called “Joint Sword.” What good is a sword if you don’t swing it?
Forget the “Arsenal of Democracy” that won World War II. Xi is building a War Machine for World Communism. If China’s investments in military power projection capabilities and so-called Belt and Road diplomacy are any evidence, Xi hopes to turn all of East Asia into his sphere of influence.
But if a few thousand cheap drones can deal the Russian military heavy blows, what can Taiwan do to stop Xi’s aggression?
The answer lies in my presence here today. Taiwan is already a technology superpower. It must use this advantage to build superweapons. And it has Anduril’s support to build its self-defense capacity through the development of high technology: fleets of robot submarines and scores of autonomous munitions. Artificial intelligence–enabled strikes from hundreds of miles away. These are the capabilities Taiwan can develop to fashion itself into a veritable floating fortress.
China is aware that these efforts reduce its ability to coerce free nations. Anduril’s entire leadership team has been sanctioned by China for supporting these principles. We see that as confirmation of the importance of this work, and I wear this as a badge of honor for my company. What’s most striking is that what China fears most isn’t some massive, state-run program, but innovation from individuals and small teams empowered to build.
My own path started that way—just a high school kid soldering circuit boards and eating frozen burritos, driven by curiosity and ambition. That’s the kind of environment I grew up in, one that celebrates builders and rewards initiative. It’s why I believe so strongly in the power of free societies to produce world-changing technology.
I’ve been coming to Taiwan for years as a tech entrepreneur, and the energy here has always reminded me of California—the freedom to dream big, to build, to innovate. It’s no surprise Taiwan produces some of the world’s best suppliers and technology companies. When I started Oculus, our only serious competitor was a Taiwanese VR firm, and every computer I use comes from here.
Increasingly, your government wants to lead in defense the same way that it does in technology. Next year will see the largest defense budget in Taiwan’s history. The military has already started to implement autonomous platforms into its army, and soon it will do the same for its navy. All the resources are there. It’s time to use them.
So what does this all mean for each of you as you go about your studies? To me, the answer is obvious: Taiwan is on the verge of a techno-industrial renaissance for its national defense. It has the highly skilled people—I’m looking at them. It has the world-class technology and the hardware available. It has government officials and private capital ready to support these efforts. But this moment demands bold individual choice, too: to put your extraordinary talents to work in defense of your nation.
President Lai Ching-te has said that defending Taiwan has never been solely the military’s responsibility; it is a reflection of the will of its entire population. He’s entirely right. Taiwan needs more than just top-shelf commercial tech. It needs hard power—the kind that is fueled by sweat and steel, but massively augmented by advanced technology. It needs robotics technicians. It needs welders. It needs software programmers and engineers. And it needs all of them, now.
In this effort, freedom is our secret weapon. You are free to choose your future—free to choose how to best apply your talents to make your country safer. And in the course of human history, that freedom is rare, precious and, for many, fleeting. Each of you has a vital role to play in protecting it.
I cannot promise you that any of these roles will always be a fun or easy vocation. But I can promise you that they will always feel fulfilling. Even on the hardest days, I find myself feeling grateful to work on these problems because they affect my fellow citizens and their future far more than any others. That’s how you’ll feel, too.
I want you to close your eyes, and imagine a scenario: In 2029, Xi Jinping orders the invasion of Taiwan. But after years of preparation, with support from strong allies and powerful partners, Taiwan is ready. Thousands of AI-powered drones spring toward the incoming Chinese fleet. Autonomous submarine systems and surface craft emerge from the sea to protect the island. Mass-producible missiles crowd the skies over Taiwan, stopping hundreds of Chinese fighter jets. The day is won. The military that the Chinese Communist Party spent decades to develop for that singular purpose—invading Taiwan—is destroyed for a generation, and Xi’s so-called “Chinese Dream” is dead with it.
Better yet, think of another scenario: Xi asks his top generals to analyze what an invasion of Taiwan would look like. They run the numbers, and they report back to him. A new result emerges, different from their previous war games: Taiwan wins, decisively. What Xi wants would come at too high a price because of the strength of Taiwan’s defenses. He is forced to surrender a lifetime of imperial ambition because his best-laid plans are upended by a technological revolution, powered by the free people in this room.
These scenarios are only possible if you choose to devote your skills toward realizing them. Like me, you can make the choice to put your technological talents to work for the mission of protecting your country.
You are your country’s finest engineers, technologists, and researchers. There is no secret arsenal. There is nobody else. It’s just you. So answer the call. Dare to build. And never yield in the defense of your country and its freedoms.
Palmer Luckey
The Free Press & Grey Swan Investment Fraternity
P.S., from Addison: Next week, we’ll be attending an event in D.C. hosted by Bari Weiss, founder of The Free Press.
Palmer Luckey will be the guest, with whom Bari shares insights on all manner of tech developments Luckey’s private company, Anduril, is developing. Anduril has been invited to advise on President Trump’s Golden Dome initiative.
The future of war is a theme we’ve been discussing since the foundation of Grey Swan with contributor John Robb, whose book, Brave New War (2007), was written about his experiences on the front lines with the Navy Seals in the Second Iraq War and as an advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
John’s on vacation in Europe with his family, but when he returns at the end of October he’s going to join us for another sit-down on Grey Swan Live! to further discuss the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza during the Trump grand realignment of the geopolitical order.
On our last visit, Mr. Robb gave us some detail of how he envisions a conflict between China and the United States would play out, with drones, over the South China Sea and Taiwan.
Just as tech and AI are rapidly changing the monetary landscape so they are the theatres of war across that plane.
Or friend Matt Milner, keeping track of private placements in the investment world, also has a bead on how Grey Swan members can get private shares of Luckey’s Anduril. We’ve invited Mr. Milner back on Grey Swan Live! to discuss those private placements here in the next few weeks.
There’s a lot going on!
This week, Mark Jeftovic joins us again for Grey Swan Live! at 2pm on Thursday, October 2, 2025. Mark will help us see the opportunities looming as stablecoins and tokenization are being used to bolster the U.S. dollar, affectionately known as Dollar 2.0. Mark will also take us through his logical reason for a pullback in Bitcoin this fall and into 2026.
Be sure you’re a member. And market your calendar for Thursday, October 2, 2025 @ 2pm ET. Join us!
If you’d like, you can drop your most pressing questions right here: Feedback@GreySwanFraternity.
