Defending forward: how cyber operations are redefining national security
- Yotam Avrahami
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 15 hours ago
Why the shift from passive defense to active intelligence represents the most durable opportunity in the modern security economy
Key Takeaways
Cyber operations have shifted from a supporting role to a leading one, frequently setting the stage for geopolitical conflict rather than just accompanying it.
Intelligence is now a strategic capability on par with kinetic power, as governments rely on data from connected devices to reveal adversary intent before attacks metastasize.
The U.S. has adopted a defend-forward policy, targeting malicious activity at its origin, and funding is rising for offensive operations.
For investors, the sector offers a durable opportunity characterized by long-duration government contracts, high barriers to entry, and consolidation around a few trusted players.
A new geopolitical reality
The global threat landscape is shifting in ways that are as consequential as any transformation in national security over the last half century. Nation-states, terrorist networks, and organized crime groups are all expanding their digital operations, often relying on the same shadow infrastructure of access brokers, anonymized hosting, and cryptocurrency rails. Western governments and critical industries remain high-value targets, and senior American officials have gone so far as to describe the industrial-scale theft of intellectual property by foreign actors as the greatest transfer of wealth in modern history. Terrorist organizations, once defined primarily by physical geography, now conduct influence and operational activity across a widening digital map. These dynamics illustrate a profound reality: cyber operations no longer accompany geopolitical conflict. They frequently set the stage for it.
In this context, cyber intelligence has emerged as a strategic capability on par with kinetic power or nuclear deterrence. Every connected device, whether a cloud workload, an industrial control system, or a field communications tool, produces data that can reveal adversary intent and illuminate how a campaign is unfolding. Credentials, metadata, behavioral signals, and network logs form a mosaic of intelligence that is often impossible to obtain through traditional collection. As adversaries embrace stronger encryption and more distributed infrastructure, the ability to extract meaning from the digital environment has become essential to preventing attacks, hardening infrastructure, and navigating crises before they metastasize.
The shift to active engagement
Defensive tools remain indispensable, but they are no longer sufficient on their own. Firewalls and endpoint systems can limit exposure, yet they rarely disrupt the larger networks that allow sophisticated adversaries to persist for years. This is why governments have adopted a posture that blends defense with active, intelligence-driven engagement. U.S. Cyber Command describes this approach through the twin principles of defending forward, which focuses on identifying and disrupting malicious activity at its origin, and persistent engagement, which calls for continuous work to intercept threats, weaken hostile infrastructure, and reinforce national networks.
These concepts reflect an unmistakable shift: information dominance in cyberspace is now a central pillar of national power.
Policy emphasized by growing budgets
Policy has evolved in lockstep with this understanding. Cyber intelligence is no longer treated as a niche capability but as critical infrastructure in its own right. Government agencies increasingly rely on the private sector for technical depth, rapid innovation, and specialized expertise, acknowledging that cyberspace itself runs on a web of commercial and government-owned technologies. As a result, digital intelligence platforms are being integrated into counterterrorism operations, state-actor tracking, critical infrastructure protection, and election security. Long-term investment programs across the United States and allied nations now treat cyber intelligence with the same seriousness as missile defense systems or early-warning satellites.
Budgets follow policy. The U.S. Government Cyberspace Activities Budget has grown from $14B in 2018 to $27.5B in 2025. Furthermore, a special provision in Trump’s recent “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” allocated $1B specifically to “offensive cyber operations” over the next four years.
The durable investment thesis
For investors, the implications are significant. Cyber intelligence has become critical infrastructure that protects billions of people and therefore demands the highest levels of trust and reliability.
As nations dramatically increase budgets to deepen their investment in digital intelligence to prevent attacks, manage geopolitical risk, and safeguard democratic processes, private-sector partners will become central to their cyber capabilities. The combination of technical scarcity, required reliability, and operational excellence will drive consolidation around a small group of highly capable firms.
These firms will further benefit from long-duration contracts, high compliance barriers for new entrants, and deep integration with government operations. The cyber intelligence sector represents one of the most durable opportunities in the modern national-security economy.
Learn more about VQ Capital’s “Golden Dome” for Cyber Intelligence thesis and approach to investing in this foundational security architecture.