Where Meridian stands on advanced technology, defense, deterrence, and the legitimate use of force. A short doctrinal statement for readers who want to understand how Meridian reconciles applied technology for humanitarian ends with a serious position on security and accountability.
An institute that builds advanced technology in the global-risk space has to be honest about where it stands on force, deterrence, and accountability. Silence is its own position.
Meridian operates at an intersection that many research institutes prefer to avoid: advanced technology, global risk, and the legitimate instruments of state power. Cronkite touches the information environment. Snow touches biosurveillance and humanitarian early warning. Marshall touches country-level political and security risk. None of that work is meaningfully separable from the broader question of when and how advanced capability should be applied, by whom, and under what oversight.
This page sets out Meridian's doctrinal position directly — what we support, what we oppose, and why the distinction matters. It is not a policy statement on specific conflicts or governments. It is a statement of principle about capability, accountability, and proportionality.
Meridian does not oppose advanced technology in defense and security. Credible deterrence reduces the likelihood of conflict. Well-governed military capacity is itself a risk-mitigation instrument — the absence of it creates conditions that make war more probable, not less.
European rearmament against a documented Russian threat is legitimate. Accelerating NATO's eastern-flank capacity is legitimate. Energy and logistics resilience in contested theaters is legitimate. Infectious-disease surveillance for combatant commands is legitimate. These are proportionate, institutionally authorized applications of advanced technology to genuine global risks.
What is not legitimate is the deployment of advanced technology without meaningful human oversight, in unauthorized theaters, or in service of political objectives that have not been subjected to institutional accountability.
The Madisonian logic that governs all of Meridian's work applies here: power exercised outside legitimate institutional structures is the problem — not the solution. The line Meridian draws is between measured and reckless, accountable and opaque, proportionate and arbitrarily offensive. That line is not always easy to hold. The attempt to hold it is not optional.
“The question is never whether advanced technology will be built. It is who builds it, for what ends, and under whose oversight.”
— Mark Greenhalgh
Meridian is the independent research and applied-technology project of Mark Greenhalgh. Views, analysis, and materials published under the Meridian name are his own and do not represent the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, or any U.S. government agency or component. Meridian operates independently of his official duties.