From Security to Sovereignty: How Technological Investment in National Security Catalyzes Economic Growth
Guest blog by Manish Garg, Managing Director at VE3 #NatSec2025
Manish Garg
Managing Director, VE3
Manish Garg is the Managing Director at VE3, where he combines his roles as an entrepreneur, investor, strategist, and technologist to drive the company forward. With a deep-rooted passion for innovation and a keen eye for strategic growth opportunities, Manish excels in navigating complex business landscapes and transforming ideas into tangible success. His leadership at VE3 is marked by a commitment to excellence and a proven track record of achieving remarkable growth. Manish’s approach is characterized by his adeptness in merging technology with business strategies, making him a pivotal figure in the industry and a respected leader among his peers.
In an era where technological advancements are paramount, national security and economic assets remain intertwined and dependent heavily on the technologies. Nations like the UK and the US constantly invest in bolstering their national defence systems and security postures. Such security measures also catalyse the overall growth of the economy. In this article, let us explore how strategic investments in defence technologies can steer economic maturation, drawing insights from global examples.
National Security and Its Types
National security is the measure of a nation to protect itself from external and internal threats. It encompasses both military and non-military aspects. From safeguarding the citizens, economy, digital infrastructures, and institutions from various dangers such as terrorism, cyberattacks, and environmental hazards, national security is of utmost importance for a nation. To understand holistic national security, one should understand its types.
Military Security: It protects the nation from external military threats by ensuring that the national borders and internal forces have a strong military defence.
Economic Security: It safeguards the nation's economy from financial instability, trade crises, monetary imbalances, and reliance on vulnerable resources.
Social Security: It ensures robust protection of citizens from threats like terrorism, crime, robbery, and social unrest.
Cybersecurity: It focuses on securing the nation's digital infrastructure and data from cyber threats and various attack vectors through measures like encryption, Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), and other security tools like IAM, firewalls, etc.
Environmental Security: It involves protecting the environment from different forms of pollution, climatic change, and natural resource depletion. Distorting the balance of nature can threaten a nation's stability.
Energy Security: This involves ensuring a stable and secure supply of energy sources and national critical infrastructure (NCI) to meet the nation's needs.
National Security and Economic Growth – the Nexus of Two
Investing in the nation's security can lead to advancement in various sectors. From research and development, manufacturing, national infrastructure security, and education, securing the digital aspects of the nation has a direct relationship with economic growth. This complex and evolving relationship works both ways as various factors heavily influence each other. On one hand, a strong economy often provides comprehensive support for resources and stability required for setting up a robust national security apparatus with technological advancement.
On the other hand, in this digital era where banking, finances, investment, manufacturing units, agriculture, and national defence run on technology, securing them can help thrive and foster economic development. The balance in the equation between both not only helps keep stability within the nation but also contributes heavily to job creation, infrastructure development, and increased competitiveness and sovereignty in the global market.
Mechanisms Driving Economic Growth through Technologies
Various factors contribute tremendously to the growth of a country's economy. Technological investment in national security serves as one of the most powerful economic engines by triggering several interconnected mechanisms. These are:
Job Creation and Human Capital Development
Highly specialised skills in AI, cloud computing, robotics, blockchain, and space sectors can create new employment opportunities. But, without bolstering the security of these technologies, prospering in these domains will seem unlikely. To attain sovereignty, nations should invest in research and development (R&D), implement security frameworks, and expand educational institutions for training programs to uplift workforce competency. These effects ripple through the economy, enhancing productivity and reducing unemployment.
Boosting Innovation and Commercialisation
Research funded for national security and defence often results in inventions for a larger group of civilians. For instance, the original purpose of autonomous vehicle algorithms was exclusively for unmanned military drones. However, they are now a core component in commercial self-driving cars. Such commercialised innovations help nations like the UK accelerate private sector growth and enrich the technological ecosystem.
Industrial Diversification
Unplanned reliance on narrow economic sectors can make countries vulnerable to global market fluctuations. To make different forms of collaboration effective, data plays a critical role. Organisations and government-sponsored firms should invest in technologies. Technological investment encourages the development of diverse industries such as green energy, semiconductors, aerospace, and biotechnology. This diversification enhances economic resilience.
Strengthening Export Potential
Various critical components, such as encryption algorithms, processors, chipsets for wireless technologies, energy infrastructure automation, and national defence systems, play a significant role in nationwide security. Domestic production of these critical components reduces dependency on foreign suppliers and protects the economy from geopolitical shocks. Once a nation establishes these manufacturing units, these technologies can be exported to allied nations, generating foreign exchange and elevating a country's economic effect. Domestic manufacturing also helps enhance the technology's security aspects.
Advantages of Implementing Security in Economic Growth
Implementing security for sovereignty operates as the core element of economic strategy. It offers numerous advantages that drive sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Let us explore the benefits of implementing security in economic growth.
Protection of IP and Patents: A nation's asset lies in its innovation, research, and inventions that scientists and researcher’s patent. Enhancing the security of various technologies through technologies such as blockchain, cloud security, etc., can help encourage innovation, entrepreneurship, and technological breakthroughs.
Investors' and stakeholders' confidence: A secure environment for research and development enhances the market's stability to innovate and approach breakthroughs. It also encourages investors to invest in a service or product. Increased reliability is directly proportional to investment gains.
Bolstering digital economy: By securing the nation's digital infrastructure (such as cloud, e-commerce, and fintech), the government can ensure that all economic activities powered by technologies are uninterrupted. It will promote a safer expansion of digital payments, online services, remote work culture, and international R&D collaborations to grow the overall GDP.
Critical infrastructure continuity: Another critical aspect of enhancing security is the continuity of critical national infrastructure. Protecting power grids, transport, telecom, and banking systems prevents economic paralysis during attacks or disasters. It helps maintain the day-to-day operations while preserving productivity and public trust.
Job creation in security sectors: With the growing complexity of technologies and digital infrastructure, security experts are becoming the need of the hour. Various governments hire cybersecurity experts. Thus, for securing the infrastructure, opening up new career avenues increases employment opportunities.
National Sovereignty and Economic Autonomy: As governments like the UK invest in defence, data privacy, and secure supply chains, it helps reduce reliance on foreign products, brands, technologies, or imports. That way, the nation can shape its trade policies, economic agendas, and growth.
Conclusion
We hope this article provided a crisp idea on how security can enable sovereignty. We have gathered insights into how technological investments can catalyse economic growth. Securing digital infrastructure is no longer a matter of cost - it is a growth enabler. Nations that proactively invest in enterprise-grade security and safety of the nation's critical infrastructure can eventually benefit from stability, innovation, resilience, and international competitiveness. Thus, we can conclude that with the growing number of threats, a nation should strengthen its security to boost the economy. Furthermore, the nation should integrate security with economic policies as its foundational strategy to make the citizens' lives better.
We are deeply aligned with this vision. Our mission is to empower enterprises and governments with secure, AI-driven digital solutions that uphold sovereignty, enable growth, and safeguard critical infrastructure. Through our cutting-edge platforms and a strong commitment to cyber resilience, we strive to be a trusted partner in building a secure and prosperous digital future. To know more about our solutions visit us directly, or contact us.
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Tracy joined techUK in March 2022, having worked in the education sector for 19 years, covering administration, research project support, IT support and event/training support. My most outstanding achievement has been running three very successful international conferences and over 300 training courses booked all over the globe!
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