Post-quantum cryptography for government and defense
Government and defense data can require confidentiality for 25 years or more — diplomatic cables, intelligence sources, weapons designs and personnel records. That lifetime is longer than the expected arrival window for a cryptographically-relevant quantum computer, which means classically-encrypted secrets captured today may be readable within their protected period. This is the clearest real-world case for harvest-now-decrypt-later.
The mandate is explicit
The U.S. National Security Agency’s CNSA 2.0 suite designates ML-KEM and ML-DSA as the quantum-resistant algorithms for national security systems, with a phased transition timeline running through the early 2030s. NIST’s parallel civilian schedule deprecates classical algorithms after 2030 and disallows them after 2035. For defense suppliers and agencies, PQC is no longer research — it is a procurement requirement arriving on a fixed calendar.
What migration actually involves
Beyond swapping algorithms, agencies must achieve crypto-agility: the ability to change cryptographic primitives without re-architecting systems. That means inventorying every place cryptography is used, isolating it behind clean interfaces, and validating that firmware, HSMs and long-lived embedded devices can be updated. Field systems with 15-year service lives need PQC support designed in now, because they cannot be patched later at scale.
Honest scope
ML-KEM and ML-DSA are resistant to known classical and quantum attacks per NIST and NSA analysis — a rigorous standard, not a mathematical guarantee of permanence. They protect confidentiality and authenticity of data; they do not address operational security, insider threats or supply-chain compromise. The value is durability under a documented threat model, on a timeline the recording adversary has already started.
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