you don’t class Utah as a big state, in terms of the tech sector?
In terms of military, we have:
one major Air Force base (Hill)
some storage and testing facilities
refueling facility for the Army
That’s it. We have ~3.5M people (~1/100 of US population), and only ~3 metros that matter (SLC, Utah County, St. George). Minnesota has ~5.7M people, so it’s almost twice as big, and the Twin Cities cities area (includes St. Paul) is bigger than the entire population of Utah.
So while Utah punches above its weight in tech, St. Paul area absolutely dwarfs it in population. Surely they have a robust cybersecurity industry there…
The National Guard just seems like a desperate move. When they’re deployed, they take orders from the the federal military, and at peace, monitoring foreign threats seems like a federal thing. You call in the National Guard to put down a riot or something where you just need bodies, not for anything niche. The only way that makes sense is if they think there will be an invasion (angsty/Canadians?) and they need boots on the ground for physical protection. Otherwise, just call a local cybersecurity firm to trace the attack and assess damage.
In terms of military, we have:
That’s it. We have ~3.5M people (~1/100 of US population), and only ~3 metros that matter (SLC, Utah County, St. George). Minnesota has ~5.7M people, so it’s almost twice as big, and the Twin Cities cities area (includes St. Paul) is bigger than the entire population of Utah.
So while Utah punches above its weight in tech, St. Paul area absolutely dwarfs it in population. Surely they have a robust cybersecurity industry there…
The National Guard just seems like a desperate move. When they’re deployed, they take orders from the the federal military, and at peace, monitoring foreign threats seems like a federal thing. You call in the National Guard to put down a riot or something where you just need bodies, not for anything niche. The only way that makes sense is if they think there will be an invasion (angsty/Canadians?) and they need boots on the ground for physical protection. Otherwise, just call a local cybersecurity firm to trace the attack and assess damage.