The national security state and technology leadership -- The U.S. puzzle -- The argument -- Re-viewing the NSS-private sector relationship -- Existing accounts: discounting, sidelining, civilianizing the state -- The approach of this book -- New thinking on the American state -- Rise of the national security state as technology enterprise -- Emergence (1945-1957) -- Growth: the Sputnik effect (1958-1968) -- Crisis: the legitimation and innovation deficits (1969-1979) -- Reform and reorientation : beginnings (1980-1989) -- Reform and reorientation : consolidation (1990-1999) -- Re-visioning (2000-2012) -- Investing in new ventures -- Geopolitical roots of the U.S. venture capital industry -- Post-cold war trends: new funds for a new security environment -- Beyond serendipity: procuring transformative technology -- Technology procurement versus R&D: the activist element of government purchasing -- Spin-off and spin-around: serendipitous and purposeful -- Breaching the wall: nudging towards military-commercial (re-)integration -- Reorienting the public-private partnership -- Structural changes in the domestic arena -- Reorientation: the quest for commercial viability -- Beyond a military-industrial divide: innovating for both security and commerce -- No more breakthroughs? -- Post-9/11 decline of the NSS technology enterprise? -- Nanotechnology: a coordinated effort -- Robotics: the drive for drones -- Clean energy: from laggard to leader? -- Caveat: a faltering NSS innovation engine? -- Hybridization and American anti-statism -- The significance of hybridization -- An American tendency? -- Nature of the beast: neither "privatization" nor "outsourcing" -- Innovation hybrids -- Penetrating the myths of the military-commerce relationship -- Four myths laid bare -- Serendipitous spin-off -- Hidden industrial policy -- Wall of separation and military-industrial complex -- R&D spending creates innovation leadership -- The defense spending question: in search of the Holy Grail? -- Hybrid state, hybrid capitalism, great power turning point -- Comparative institutions and varieties of capitalism -- The American state -- Great power turning point -- Notes -- References -- Acknowledgments.