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| Beijing (source) |
Defense scholars agree: China's military technology is developing rapidly, with AI leading the way. As Elsa Kania makes clear in a new report, America's historic dominance in this arena is at risk.
This is so for several reasons. Most fundamentally, the dual-use nature of artificial intelligence—meaning it has both military and nonmilitary applications—ensures that knowledge and know-how diffuse rapidly throughout the globe. Private companies, academic research institutions and military organizations all compete and cooperate in advancing AI, which refers to a bundle of statistical techniques with varied applications. This contrasts with more traditional military innovation that focuses solely on defense and, at least initially, has much less integration with the broader economy. Achieving a large and durable advantage in military AI may be difficult for any country, given the freewheeling shape of private research efforts.
Structural issues aside, the US lags China in military AI development for three main reasons, two of which are self-inflicted.
First, AI leaders in the US (Google, Facebook etc.) are less keen on working with the military to develop weapons and defense applications compared to China and its 'military-civil fusion'. US companies are subject to different sorts of competitive pressures involving reputation and brand, and may differ in their internal cultures.
Second, US policymakers have failed to outline a comprehensive AI strategy appropriate to the scale of the challenge. Consequently, the total amount of public resources and attention devoted to advancing US military AI is insufficient to maintain technological dominance. Although the military itself is aware of the problem, politicians in both parties have not prioritized the issue nor have they outlined detailed plans for investing in AI-focused training, education and research.
Third, certain advantages the US has long enjoyed over China relating to economic dynamism and human capital are increasingly being undermined by the Republican Party's descent into racism, xenophobia and anti-immigrant hostility. Frontier AI research is migrating to other countries like Canada, while US colleges and businesses struggle to attract and retain foreign students in light of unwelcoming rhetoric and policy.
This last point is perhaps the most pivotal. It also contains deep ramifications for the future of the Republican coalition.
The Republican Party is changing
Republicans have long been defined by a "three-legged stool" alliance of social conservatives, business/free market interests and strong national defense proponents. For equally as long, pundits have observed various instabilities inherent in the setup, frequently predicting an impending coalitional crackup.
Most recently, smart observers have noted the striking and rapid disappearance of gay marriage opposition as the core unifying symbol of social conservatives. Under Trump, the coordinating role of religion appears to have been swapped-out with a toxic mix of barely-concealed racism, white ethnonationalism and anti-immigrant scapegoating.
Political scientist Lee Drutman has described a potential realignment of US politics whereby socially-liberal, urban, cosmopolitan business types join the Democratic Party and white, rural/suburban, socially-conservative 'hard hats' flee to the Republicans. This is indeed happening to some degree—the most salient cleavage in US politics is now between roughly-described 'cosmopolitans' and 'anti-cosmopolitans'.
Over the last few years, much of this analysis about the future of the Republican coalition has tended towards the social and economic dimensions. Overlooked, however, is the fate and agency of its national security leg.
This is likely due in part to the curious fact that while US politics overall is at a moment of peak partisan polarization, national security has for some time been remarkably non-polarized. Rhetoric aside, there has been a great deal of continuity spanning the administrations of Bush to Obama to Trump. Both Democrats and Republicans enthusiastically supported the Iraq war, continue to support vast military budgets, and have not substantively objected to the ongoing drone-fueled foreverwar. The permanent national security bureaucracy ('the blob') appears firmly entrenched, despite the media's breathless commentary over Trump's latest personnel choices. Indeed, foreign policy critics on the Democratic Party's left flank seem energized, perhaps indicating the end of peak non-polarization.
National security now requires cosmopolitanism
This brings us to a key dilemma facing the Republican Party: the demands of military AI place its national security wing on a collision course with its ascendent anti-immigrant, anti-cosmopolitan elements.
As advanced technologies like AI become relatively more crucial to US military power, maintaining global leadership in higher education, frontier innovation and elite talent also become relatively more crucial. How Republicans choose to navigate the increasingly unavoidable fact that US military dominance requires an embrace of immigration, diversity and social tolerance is a core question for the coming decade.
While speculation has centered on when and how US politics will reorient along social and economic lines, the prospect that national security Republicans will jump ship seems underappreciated. Alternatively, the 'strong on defense' camp could succeed in leveraging its clout within Republican politics to force productive change.
Perhaps the likeliest scenario involves neither option: Republicans could simply keep the US on a path towards eventual military decline. A definite analog exists in economic policy, where curtailing immigration will result in less growth and an older, whiter, smaller America. This is undoubtedly a tradeoff that the current Republican Party resoundingly endorses. Yet there is some reason to believe that military matters will play out differently.
China benefits from the status quo
Unlike slow-moving population demographics and macroeconomic trends, military power has a habit of changing quickly and spectacularly.
Whereas a small decline in US GDP growth might never jolt elements of the Republican coalition into action, a cinematic display of China's military advancement could galvanize US national security interests and lead to a more coherent AI strategy. China, of course, likely understands this situation and recognizes its incentive not to show off or make flashy displays of capability. By keeping its progress under the radar, China avoids creating any focusing events that might prompt US political action.
That a sizeable share of the US national security state has its home in the current Republican Party is a dream come true for China's AI ambitions. The US is still the global nexus of AI innovation and human capital. But as long as its defense interests remain aligned with anti-immigrant, anti-cosmopolitan politics, America will struggle to unleash its underlying strengths and keep pace with the rapidly changing technological landscape.