David C. Gompert
The epic Sino-U.S. contest for primacy in the world’s most dynamic region hinges on which superpower is better at acquiring and using information militarily. This competition puts to the test the celebrated U.S. system of innovative propelled by free enterprise and venture capital.
China seeks to reduce U.S. influence, weaken U.S. alliances, reclaim its sovereign land and waters, and reassert its leadership in the Western Pacific. Whether this is expansionist or irredentist is for China-watchers to debate. No longer debatable is that China’s growing arsenals of advanced missiles and submarines, fed by extended-range sensors, pose growing threats at growing distances to U.S. aircraft carriers and bases in the region.
Given the multitude of Chinese forces, current generations of missile defense and anti-submarine warfare cannot adequately protect U.S. air and naval strike forces. Moreover, Chinese cyber-war capabilities increasingly threaten critical U.S. logistics and command, control, communications, computing, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) networks.
At the same time, advances in targeting capabilities on both sides could cause instability, as each side acquires the means and the incentive to strike the other’s strike forces before its own are struck. Though neither power seeks war with the other, incidents and crises cannot be ruled out. The advantage of attacking before the opponent does could shift the calculus during a confrontation from how to avoid a war to how to avoid losing one.
Having most of its strike power on a relatively few surface ships and bases puts the United States at higher risk. For this reason, the U.S. military is shifting toward
smaller, more numerous, more dispersed, subsurface and unmanned platforms for its weapons and sensors.
As strike capabilities of both sides improve, Sino-U.S. military-technological competition will center on gathering, distributing, using and securing information. This pits the United States against China in two crucial technologies: artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum. AI enables computers to learn, reason, and decide. Quantum technology, once mature, can either improve or degrade cyber-security. Here’s how the United States can exploit these technologies to enhance stability, deter war, and retain its clout in East Asia.
Of the ways AI can enhance the performance of military forces, two are critical to military balance in Western Pacific: autonomous platforms and networking of forces. AI can enable unmanned vessels, aircraft, vehicles and other platforms for sensors or weapons to conduct many operations, while still relying on humans for fateful war-or-peace decisions. Such autonomy can reduce platform-size requirements and costs, allow increased numbers and payloads, and disperse strike capabilities to foil targeting.
Even as AI can animate autonomous systems, it can also network them into an integrated force, comprised of autonomous and manned systems, that is less vulnerable and more capable than the sum of parts. AI-enhanced networks can unify operations of all military branches across all domains – sea, land, air, space, cyber.
Networks are only as good as they are secure. Because quantum technology can either harden or defeat encryption, it could revolutionize cyber-security (and other military and intelligence functions). Although practical quantum computers are a decade away, quantum communication – capable of networking today’s digital computers — is in reach. This could offer a synergy between quantum and AI, with profound effects on the military balance in the Western Pacific: Secure AI-enhanced networks of unmanned and manned platforms for weapons and sensors could restore U.S. military advantages, strengthen deterrence, sustain U.S. credibility, and increase stability in peace and crises. Conversely, Chinese superiority in this pair of technologies could work to the detriment of U.S. interests and regional security.
China and the United States are virtually neck-and-neck in the race for both AI and quantum superiority. China has the world’s only quantum communication satellite. Its “state capitalist” system lets it concentrate resources for quick impact in areas of national priority, such as regional military advantage. Yet, free enterprise, market forces, and entrepreneurial risk-taking can enable the United States to prevail, as it has in past strategic rivalries.
For this to happen, U.S. information-technology firms, especially start-up innovators, will need the financial wherewithal and encouragement to pursue work for the military and intelligence services. This points to a pivotal role for U.S. venture capital funds, especially those that combine knowledge of new technologies, business operations, and both commercial and national security markets. New opportunities and challenges await U.S. venture capital.
The Honorable David C. Gompert is former Acting Director of National Intelligence and currently Distinguished Visiting Professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and Special Advisor to Ultratech Capital Partners
