America faces its most dangerous moment in decades. It needs a vision to meet it.

Launching SCSP's new report, Vision for Competitiveness: Mid-Decade Opportunities for Strategic Victory

Hello, I'm Ylli Bajraktari, CEO of the Special Competitive Studies Project. If you're fascinated by the way AI is revolutionizing our world, you're in the right place. Today, SCSP is excited to release a new report, Vision for Competitiveness: Mid-Decade Opportunities for Strategic Victory. This report is the culmination of research, analysis, and collaboration by the dedicated SCSP team.

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America faces its most dangerous moment in decades. It needs a vision to meet it.

In 1949, the Truman administration faced an existential threat. Communist expansionism threatened Europe and Asia. In August, the USSR successfully detonated its first atomic bomb. In October, Mao’s proclamation of the People’s Republic of China confirmed that Marxist-Leninists would rule the world’s most populous country. 

In response to these crises, the administration produced NSC-68 – A Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary on United States Objectives and Programs for National Security. Authored by Paul Nitze, the memorandum articulated strategic goals, evaluated different courses of action, set expectations across the government, and determined the pillars of its immediate response: a surge in defense spending, and the development of the hydrogen bomb. With minor changes, it would be the strategy that underpinned the foreign policy of the United States until the Cold War was won.

Almost seventy-five years later, America faces a similarly dangerous international environment. A new Axis of Disruptors – China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea – has emerged. They share a desire to subvert the global order, discredit democracy, and destabilize the United States. While they may not perfectly synchronize their campaigns, they often coordinate and share tactics. Militarily, they support each other’s aggression. They pursue political opponents abroad and spread disinformation to weaken free societies.  Each seeks to subjugate a free and democratic neighbor. 

Of this new Axis, China poses a particularly grave threat. It is close to outmatching the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific after rapid military modernization. Beijing’s emphasis on security over growth, self-sufficiency in critical technologies, and the development of ‘new quality productive forces’ all indicate its hardening ambitions. Meanwhile, rapid technological progress is shifting the nature and balance of power. Although the U.S. has made strides, it has fallen behind in critical areas, including advanced networks, batteries, hypersonics, and drones. In domains where America is ahead, such as artificial intelligence, it cannot take its lead for granted. If we continue on the present course, the U.S. awaits a gradual erosion of its relative power and a continuous decline in security. If the country slips into isolation, as seems possible, borders abroad will be violently redrawn, and prosperity at home destroyed.

Despite this, the United States has not articulated a strategy that rises to the occasion as NSC-68 did in 1950. We have not spelled out that winning is possible, what this victory would require, and the specific actions we must take to rebuild our instruments of power.  

What might such a vision look like? It starts with recognizing four truths. First, the road to victory begins with restoring the nation’s strategic confidence. Self-doubt neither inspires friends nor intimidates adversaries. Second, we must adapt to the changing nature of power. Military, diplomatic, economic, and soft power have been essential to our past success. As our primacy is contested, it is necessary to master a new form of power: innovation power. Third, the United States needs to defend and rebuild a global order characterized by freedom, openness, and democracy.  Fourth, as in 1949, the scale of the global threat will require a significant mobilization of U.S. and allied capabilities. 

Three pillars will underpin this build-up. First, the country will need to reimagine the fundamental building blocks of innovation. Rather than the Truman administration’s hydrogen bomb, today six different technologies will determine national power. Chief among these programs should be achieving, as rapidly as possible, artificial general intelligence (AGI).  Together with biotechnology, advanced computing and microelectronics, next-generation energy, advanced networks, and advanced manufacturing, these are the key technological battlegrounds on which America’s and China’s relative positional advantages are being decided, and with them, the course of the liberal order.

Achieving moonshots in these domains will require increased and selective R&D resourcing, better funding mechanisms that support innovation at all stages, attracting talent, and collaborative innovation ecosystems where government, industry, and academia seamlessly work together. To ensure it serves all Americans, the country will also need modernized technology governance for the innovation age.

The second pillar will involve deploying emerging technologies for national defense and to secure our interests. The nation needs new strategies and organizations to promote U.S. and allied technology systems as the leading global platforms across critical domains.  It will require modernizing existing alliances and international institutions – and designing new ones – to reflect developments in the strategic environment and emerging technology trends. To succeed, the nation cannot hesitate to counter destabilizing actions taken by America’s adversaries – it must prevent ‘self-deterrence’ from strengthening the axis of disruptors.

This pillar must also include building domestic institutions that can use new capabilities and confront novel threats. The war in Ukraine is a daily reminder that the changing character of war brought by new technologies is on an irreversible path. The Department of Defense should turn technological supremacy into new systems, including AI-powered command and control, establish dominance in AI for defense, and train the next generation of warfighters – fortifying deterrence through innovation. Creating a "Joint Futures Command" that identifies and helps integrate emerging technologies and revamps America’s deterrence models is but one step in that direction. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General CQ Brown Jr. has identified, we either accelerate change or lose.

Lastly, the intelligence community should adapt its intelligence gathering to account for new techno-economic threats, build new tools, such as AI-enabled open-source intelligence, and cultivate new partnerships with allies, partners, and the private sector. This adaptation should not just better warn of impending threats to our nation. The intelligence community should lean forward, and make use of these new capabilities to go on offense. By exposing the weakness of autocratic regimes, empowering their critics, training and equipping our allies, and promoting a true narrative that freedom and democracy will prevail over repression and autocracy, we can ensure it is so. 

The final pillar is about spurring enduring economic advantage. We are on the precipice of a new economic wave that will bring prosperity, resources, and long-term sustainability.  Technology is the main driver behind the generational shifts in the global economy. If we wish to succeed in the battlegrounds of tomorrow, the United States must modernize its manufacturing base. To do so, it needs to cultivate the talent to lead in advanced industries and strengthen economic partnerships with key allies to create robust supply chains.

Simultaneously, the nation must push back against the abusive economic playbook that drives our adversaries' innovations and undermines our industrial base. The government needs economic institutions that are fit for strategic competition. Updating and utilizing trade tools, and establishing a White House lead for economic security, are necessary steps to ensure America’s techno-economic power serves its interests rather than those of its adversaries.

At home, policymakers and educators must prepare for AI to rapidly diffuse across the economy and society before the end of the decade. Developing domestic talent and facilitating high-skilled immigration will be critical to ensuring the U.S. has the talent to build a durable lead in future technology battlegrounds. Only by leading in human capital can America retain its edge. 

How would we measure success? If the United States wins, democracies remain prosperous and lead the economies of the future. They are free of systemic vulnerabilities, both physical and digital. Continuous technological progress offsets adversaries' military expansion, deterring them from aggression and gray zone attacks. In short, we would witness the preservation of an order characterized by peace and freedom, while effectively isolating the existential challenges to its stability, prosperity, and way of life.

It took the Korean War for the vision of NSC-68 to become widely accepted. Today, it is in Ukraine, Israel, and the South China Sea where America’s adversaries have made clear what the stakes are. But victory will hinge on the race for emerging technologies. The government should focus on creating the conditions to win that race. Instead of the nuclear enterprise, policymakers must think of AGI and innovation power as a new offset. With this sustained effort, America can defend the world order. Without one, it threatens to be overcome. As former Defense Secretary Robert Lovett remarked to those drafting NSC-68 nearly seventy-five years ago, "We are now in a mortal conflict" but "there is practically nothing that this country can't do if it wants to."

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Delve deeper into SCSP’s Vision for Competitiveness report and its recommendations by visiting our website.

In 2025, SCSP will release implementation plans to accompany this report. We’d love to hear your thoughts and reactions to our work–comment below or contact us through our website.