During World War II and the first few years of the Cold War, military demand essentially pulled digital computing out from nonexistence.  The information technologies (IT) have since been used for a comprehensive make-over of the U.S. defense establishment.

This essay considers the demand-pull and technology-push drivers of the use of IT in the U.S. military.  Demand-pull factors stem from foreign threats and other tasking that arises from U.S. foreign policy initiatives, such as peacekeeping missions.  Technology-push factors stem from IT-related means and opportunities created in response to demands other than foreign threats or missions, for example, from commercial markets.  Since the initial heavy demand-pull weighting of the 1940s, the imbalance has shifted to the technology-push side.  This shift has accelerated since the early 1980s.  The reasons include revolutionary changes in technology, and foreign threats and missions.