The Western Hemisphere is the de facto core position for undisputed U.S. power, integrity, and uncompromising sovereignty. While the U.S. commitment to Europe remains, European nation-states must step up to the plate and take charge of funding and leadership of their own defense. The segment on “civilisational erasure” is directly aligned with the position already made explicit by Vice President JD Vance in early 2025 at the Paris artificial intelligence conference in France and the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

One of the most meaningful merits of the NSS is its call to reposition economic security, industrial renaissance, and technological leadership at the heart of the U.S. strategy to deter and prevail in the event of military conflict. The NSS refrains from mentioning “major power competition,” opting instead for an acknowledgement of spheres of influence.  The NSS does not antagonizes China, instead framing it as an economic and technological competitor, rather than an ideological one. Sustaining American reshoring, reindustrialization, industrial base funding, technological edge, manufacturing supply chains, and access to critical materials, is what underwrites how the U.S. deals with China, deterrence postures notwithstanding. A clear focus on economic competition allows the NSS to remain as vague as possible on the potential for military confrontations in the Indo-Pacific.

Economy, Industry, Technology

In the 2025 NSS, the terms “economy/economic” are used 66 times and “industry/industrial” 19 times, including under “industrial base,” “industrial production,” and “industrial supply chains.” As for “technology/technological,” they appear 17 times. The core meaning of a dozen such mentions is captured as follows:

U.S. military power and diplomatic influence rest on a strong, resilient domestic economy. National security depends on rebuilding America’s industrial base, restoring economic self-reliance, and securing critical supply chains. Economic and technological competitiveness over the long term is essential to preventing conflict and sustaining global leadership. Further, the United States will actively protect its workers and firms from unfair economic practices.

American power requires an industrial sector able to meet both civilian and wartime production needs. Reindustrialization is a top national economic priority, aimed at strengthening the middle class and regaining control over production and supply chains. The U.S. will reshore manufacturing, attract investment, and expand domestic capacity, particularly in critical and emerging technologies. Hence a credible military depends on a robust and resilient defense industrial base.

Preserving merit, innovation, and technological leadership is essential to maintaining America’s historic advantages. Strengthening the resilience of the U.S. technology ecosystem, especially in areas such as AI, is a national priority and a foundation of global leadership. Thus, long-term success in technological competition is central to deterrence and conflict prevention.

Economic Security First

The 2025 NSS references industries primarily through a national-security lens, rather than civilian market categorization, including defense (industrial base, munitions production, weapons systems manufacturing, military supply chains), manufacturing (re-shored industrial production, domestic manufacturing capacity, wartime and peacetime production), energy (oil, gas, coal, nuclear) and its infrastructure and exports, strategic supply chains (critical materials, components and parts manufacturing, logistics and production networks), infrastructure, both physical and digital to be built at industrial-scale, and strategic technologies.

The 2025 NSS strategic technologies are artificial intelligence, explicitly cited as a comparative U.S. advantage; other critical and emerging technologies such as dual-use and strategic technologies tied to national power; defense and military technologie integrated with industrial and innovation advantages; intelligence and surveillance technologies such as monitoring supply chains, vulnerabilities, and threats; cyber technology including espionage, theft, and protection of intellectual property; industrial and manufacturing technologies aiming at re-shoring, reindustrialization, and advanced manufacturing; energy technologies directly linked to economic and national security; and sensitive technologies protected via aligned export controls.

The 2025 NSS treats economic power, industrial superiority, and technological edge as inseparable pillars of national security. Technology is framed less as a civilian growth driver and more as a strategic asset, a competitive weapon, and a deterrence multiplier. Civilian industry is subordinated to national resilience, mobilization capacity, and deterrence, reinforcing the 2025 NSS’s broader fusion of economic security, industrial policy, and military strategy. This constitutes an optimal response to the Chinese “civilian-military fusion” and “unrestricted warfare” model.

Space

While a mention of “space” appears only once on page 21 of the NSS, the second Trump administration published on December 18th an Executive Order “Ensuring American Space Superiority“ prioritizing lunar basing and economic development by 2030 with a clear focus on Artemis, cislunar security as a theatre, and space nuclear power on a schedule. To secure U.S. assets and interests from Earth orbit through cislunar space to the Moon, integrating commercial capabilities into the defense complex, reforming acquisition, and modernizing the nation’s military space architecture become paramount. Space traffic management and space situational awareness services are no longer solely provided by the U.S. government for free.

Repositioning the U.S. as an unrivalled economic-industrial-technological leader provides valuable opportunities to the Western Hemisphere and Indo-Pacific and Europe-Middle-East-Africa regions: “The goal is for our partner nations to build up their domestic economies, while an economically stronger and more sophisticated Western Hemisphere becomes an increasingly attractive market for American commerce and investment.” After 35 years of the West divorcing itself from Reality, we now face a technology-savvy tripolar world. The NSS, complemented by the Executive Order on Ensuring American Space Superiority, merely reflects a long overdue readjustment to 21st-century geopolitics. These are fundamentally the space, nuclear, and disruptive industries, focused in ways that achieve techno-strategic power.

Christophe Bosquillon is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The views expressed are the author’s own.

Techno-Economic power at the heart of the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy was originally published on Global Security Review.

The national security strategy outlines the president’s strategic vision and serves as the closest approximation to a U.S. grand strategy. It orients the POTUS’ goals and associated efforts in foreign and defense policy within the executive branch and informs Congress of the POTUS’ priorities and direction. The NSS declares what is important to America—its national interests, goals, and priorities—and emphasizes how the President envisions the use of America’s diplomatic, informational, economic, military, and technological instruments of power to achieve or service those interests. The 2025 National Security Strategy is not the most comprehensive ever produced; that distinction belongs to the President’s first NSS in 2017.

The 2025 NSS identifies three core national interests that collectively shape U.S. strategy. First, it is the “balance of power,” which focuses on U.S. security and emphasizes preventing any rival from gaining regional or global dominance that could threaten U.S. sovereignty or freedom of action. Second, a predisposition to non-interventionism, which reflects a desire to limit U.S. involvement in long-lasting or discretionary foreign wars, emphasizing restraint, burden-sharing, and deterrence over “fruitless ‘nation-building’ wars.” Third, economic security, a key strategic goal, which requires the United States to maintain its position as the world’s leading economy through balanced trade, secure access to essential resources, reindustrialization, energy security, and mutually beneficial economic ties with other countries. Collectively, these interests reveal a strategy that prioritizes American strength and strategic stability over “forever wars,” while recognizing that economic vitality and security are inseparable from national power.

Only a strong nuclear deterrent will ensure these core national interests are both protected and advanced. The core idea of 2025 NSS is “peace through strength,” asserting credible military power and the fear it projects as the best safeguard against conflict amid geopolitical turbulence and great-power competition. This NSS espouses a more realist disposition, unapologetically relying on deterrence to project strength in a world fraught with nuclear weapon expansion. President Reagan reminded us in 1986 that “Nations do not mistrust each other because they are armed; they are armed because they mistrust each other.”

The 2025 NSS clearly states on page three, “We want the world’s most robust, credible, and modern nuclear deterrent.” This is the engine of a U.S. balance of power policy—acting to prevent other states or coalitions of states from achieving dominant power over the U.S., thereby maintaining a balance between stability and security. Moreover, the NSS emphasizes that deterrence depends on maintaining U.S. military “overmatch.” An abundant, modern, and resilient nuclear arsenal not only provides the military advantage sought but also does so at a lower cost than a conventionally armed force with equivalent destructive capability.

Next, instead of open-ended overseas wars or nation-building, the 2025 NSS frames military engagement as justified only when U.S. core interests are directly threatened. This predisposition to non-interventionism requires maximum deterrence strategies to prevent regional conflicts from escalating into large-scale wars that could “come to our shores, [which] is bad for American interests.”

Moreover, empowering and enabling allies and partners—removing imperial perceptions of American behavior—by letting them lead, investing in their capabilities, and treating them as co-architects rather than subcontractors signals that America is not trying to dominate outcomes but to share responsibility. This creates economic value through burden sharing and arms sales, while fostering an equally shared commitment to security goals and deterrence. Capacity building is not short-sighted; it is a long-term investment in partnerships that advance the balance of power without relying solely on American taxpayers.

The 2025 NSS further stresses that economic security and vitality—one of President Trump’s central goals—requires a sustained focus on deterrence to prevent war in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. By creating the strategic space for economic expansion, successful deterrence enables reinvestment in the very capabilities that preserve it. This dynamic not only offers a long-term sustainment pathway for America’s nuclear deterrent force but also reinforces deterrence as the essential buffer between competition and conflict.

Finally, the NSS contends that durable deterrence rests as much on economic and technological dominance as on military power. By preserving America’s lead in high-tech innovation, increasing its industrial capacity, ensuring energy dominance, and securing reliable access to critical minerals, the United States reduces adversaries’ incentives to challenge it militarily while incentivizing a realignment of countries toward U.S. interests. At the same time, the strategy underscores that economic strength alone is insufficient; it must be coupled with a military that is rigorously recruited, trained, equipped, and modernized to remain the world’s most lethal and technologically advanced deterrent force, protecting U.S. interests and preventing conflict.

The 2025 NSS is far from “business as usual.” It embraces sovereignty, fairness, and balance of power, asserting that peace rests on strength—not wishful thinking, unchecked interventionism, or self-imposed restraint. The strategy states that “in the long term, maintaining American economic and technological preeminence is the surest way to deter and prevent a large-scale military conflict,” thereby framing deterrence not simply as a matter of nuclear or conventional force posture, but as the cumulative product of industrial capacity, innovation, and sustained national investment. Within this logic lies a clear call to expand and emplace a robust, modern, flexible, and resilient nuclear arsenal capable of deterring nuclear attack, averting major war, and safeguarding America’s national interests.

Col. Curtis McGiffin (U.S. Air Force, Ret.) is Vice President for Education at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies and visiting professor at Missouri State University’s School of Defense and Strategic Studies. Views expressed in this article are his own.

The Case for Deterrence: What the 2025 NSS Gets Right was originally published on Global Security Review.

Why Trust and Continuity Matter

Recent trust surveys show that public confidence in both government and business has declined, with many people believing institutional leaders are not honest with them. The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, for example, highlights a “crisis of grievance,” in which large segments of the population feel left behind and are more inclined to distrust complex policy and technology initiatives.[2]​

This erosion of trust is particularly dangerous at a time when artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and advanced biotechnologies are central to economic and military competition. A report submitted to Congress by U.S.–China policy experts emphasizes that both countries now treat these technologies as strategic industries, tying them directly to national power and long-term security.[4]​

Building Durable Relationships with Legislators

For technology companies, increasing national trust starts with treating Congress as a long‑term strategic partner, not simply as an annual budget gatekeeper.[4]​

• Institutionalize bipartisan technology engagement: Firms can create recurring, nonpartisan briefings and workshops with relevant committees to explain how artificial intelligence (AI), quantum, cyber, and bio tools affect national resilience, economic competitiveness, and workforce opportunity. By engaging members and staff from both parties, companies reduce the perception that emerging technologies are aligned with a single political faction.[5]​
• Lead with ethics, safety, and security: Research on public attitudes toward AI suggests people are more supportive when they see clear safeguards, transparency, and accountability mechanisms within the tech industry. Companies can build trust by proactively presenting their AI safety frameworks, data-protection policies, and supply‑chain security measures, aligning them with federal guidance and international norms on responsible technology use.[6]​

Securing Sustained Funding for Critical Technology

Trust is reinforced when technology programs are clearly tied to enduring strategic missions and supported through stable, multi‑year funding rather than fragile pilots.[5]​

• Connect capabilities to mission portfolios: Instead of scattered line items, technology programs can be organized into mission‑driven portfolios—such as quantum‑resilient communications, AI‑enabled national preparedness, or biosecurity infrastructure—that span research, prototyping, and deployment over several years. Multi‑year authorizations and appropriations make it harder for any single administration to abruptly cancel essential capabilities.[4]​
• Use innovation tools that protect both government and industry: Policy analyses highlight the value of mechanisms like Other Transaction Authority and structured public‑private partnerships to bring nontraditional vendors into national security and infrastructure work more quickly. By pairing these tools with clearer intellectual property protections and streamlined oversight, legislators can encourage top-tier tech firms to stay engaged in sensitive missions over the long term.[8]​

Embedding Technology in Law, Not Just Budgets

To prevent critical technologies from being swapped out with each political shift, their roles must be written into statute and tied to democratic oversight.[9]​

• Statutory roles for key technologies: Laws governing defense planning, critical infrastructure, and economic security should explicitly call for the use of AI, secure digital infrastructure, and advanced analytics in defined mission areas, such as threat detection, disaster response, and supply‑chain monitoring. Once these roles are codified, dismantling them requires visible legislative action rather than quiet executive changes.[9]​
• Multi-stakeholder governance in legislation: Legislated advisory councils and oversight boards that include government, industry, academia, and civil society should supervise high-impact technologies and publish regular reports. This structure signals that powerful tools are subject to ongoing, pluralistic scrutiny rather than being controlled solely by political appointees or corporate executives.[10]​

Quantum Networking Testbed Infrastructure

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) put forth by Congress each year does not typically use a single, generic phrase like “quantum networking testbeds” in isolation; instead, it authorizes and directs specific programs and experiments that collectively constitute quantum networking testbed infrastructure. Several provisions and related authoritative documents are especially relevant to the future of quantum technology growth.

A Senate Armed Services Committee fact sheet on the fiscal year 2024 NDAA highlights language that “authorizes increased funding for a distributed quantum networking testbed” and the development of a next-generation ion‑trap quantum computer at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). While the fact sheet summarizes rather than reproduces the statutory text, it makes clear that Congress explicitly authorized a distributed quantum networking testbed as part of the defense Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) portfolio.[12]​

Within the fiscal year 2025 NDAA, Congress, “authorizes funding to create a ‘quantum communications corridor’ as part of Navy research, development, test, and evaluation.” This is an explicit description of support for a testbed or network to advance quantum communication research so the Navy and the Department of Defense (DoD) can securely transmit information resistant to quantum computer decryption.[15]​

Other recent NDAA cycles also include broader direction that reinforces these testbed authorizations, such as requirements for DoD to establish pilot programs for promising quantum computing capabilities and to identify near‑term use cases that can be fielded within two years. These provisions do not always use the word “testbed” in the operative clause, but they direct the department to stand up experimental infrastructure and pilots that, in practice, operate as quantum networking and computing testbeds for defense applications.[16]​

In parallel, the National Quantum Initiative framework and associated Department of Energy (DOE) efforts describe quantum networking testbeds as shared infrastructure for entanglement distribution and quantum communications, and Congressional action has repeatedly referenced these federal testbeds and network efforts as part of the broader quantum information science ecosystem that the DoD can leverage.[13]​

Ensuring key technologies not only protect the nation but are also provided with substantial investment and economic promise is a necessity for companies to further their developmental efforts. Demonstrating that quantum technologies are viable for multiple applications—within internal defense and external partnerships—is one possible solution as tech companies become increasingly concerned with the long-term payoff of their test bed programs. For now, defense authorization bills appear to be the most forward leaning avenue supported by government, but the long-term stability of this method has yet to be validated.

How This Approach Builds Public Trust

When the tech industry engages both parties and chambers in Congress, supports multi-year statutory programs, and accepts meaningful oversight, it demonstrates that emerging technologies are being developed within a framework of law, ethics, and long-term national interest. In such a system, citizens can see that AI, quantum computing, and other advanced capabilities are not partisan experiments or purely profit-driven ventures, but part of a durable national strategy subject to democratic control.[2]​

The tech sector can both strengthen U.S. strategic competitiveness and contribute tangibly to rebuilding public trust in government by positioning itself as a co-steward of national resilience, helping design governance mechanisms, committing to transparency, and working with legislators to hard‑wire critical technologies into law and funding.[5]​

Sources:

1. https://www.edelman.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer
2. https://cooleypubco.com/2025/02/11/2025-edelman-trust-barometer-grievance/
3. https://www.edelman.com/news-awards/2025-edelman-trust-barometer-reveals-high-level-grievance
4. https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2024-11/Chapter_3–U.S.-China_Competition_in_Emerging_Technologies.pdf
5. https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2024-11/2024_Annual_Report_to_Congress.pdf
6. https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2025-01/Global%20Top%2010%202025%20Trust%20Barometer.pdf
7. https://www.nationalsecurity.ai/chapter/executive-summary
8. https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1558121/download-documents?artifactId=z4DLuAiI8FBq5qxTCRlq-VPk-yx0lU4p_Mou2oSkOWL2OdIfZr8DAG4
9. https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/white-house-releases-2025-national-7517228/
10. https://www.biotech.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/NSCEB-Full-Report-%E2%80%93-Digital-%E2%80%934.28.pdf
11. https://www.imd.org/ibyimd/audio-articles/restoring-faith-in-leadership-in-the-age-of-grievance/
12. https://defensescoop.com/2024/01/08/ndaa-2024-quantum-provisions/
13. https://www.quantum.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/NQIA2018-NDAA2022-CHIPS2022.pdf
14. https://www.quantum.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/NQI-Annual-Report-FY2025.pdf
15. https://www.emergingtechnologiesinstitute.org/publications/insights/fy2025ndaa
16. https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2024/12/fy2025-ndaa-angles-enhance-dods-ai-and-quantum-sciences-capabilities/401545/

Beyond the Next Administration: Building Enduring Tech–Government Alliances for National Power was originally published on Global Security Review.

The digital Silk Road (DSR), China’s initiative to invest in critical telecommunications and emerging technology in foreign countries, is a vehicle to lower the barriers to cyber coercion and propagate the digital curtain. By embedding its “model of technology-enabled authoritarianism” in recipient nations, Beijing seeks to shape the digital ecosystems of other countries in ways that serve its strategic interests. Such attempts call for a proactive and coordinated response from the United States and its regional partners—one that builds a resilient, tech-driven organization capable of countering China’s digital expansion across the the Indo-Pacific.

The United States and China are engaged in a great power competition, one which has seeped into multiple theaters and domains. The Indo-Pacific region is generally understood to be the frontline of this contest.

However, China’s burgeoning technological capacity has led to cyberspace being a critical juncture in this competition; one where traditional borders fade, thereby allowing the proliferation of gray zone tactics. Such tactics are deployed in various ways—infiltrating critical infrastructure, cyber espionage, and disinformation campaigns—on key democracies in the region.

Considering the geopolitical significance of the Indo-Pacific, China’s attempts to use cyber coercion to cleave the region from the United States’ sphere of influence highlights a calculated strategy by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The region is home to over 50 percent of the world’s population, and 80 percent of global trade volume transits through its channels. It houses “seven of the world’s largest militaries, and five American treaty allies.”

Moreover, digital connectivity and internet adoption rates are the fastest growing compared to any region in the word, making it rife with opportunities and threats. These vulnerabilities not only indicate further volatility for regional governments but could also undermine American national security.

The list of cyber incidents already attributed to Chinese state-sponsored entities is extensive, and its targets are equally expansive. Advanced persistent threat (APT)—long-term, sophisticated, and entrenched cyber intrusions designed to hack, steal, and/or neutralize systems—have been a weapon of choice for those entities. For instance, APT-30 and APT-40, which targeted Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) members and New Zealand’s government, respectively, are reportedly linked to the Chinese government.

Furthermore, American intelligence and cybersecurity agencies recently confirmed that Volt Typhoon, a Chinese state-sponsored entity, compromised American critical infrastructure ranging from telecommunications to water systems; its reach even included US territories such as Guam.

While the specter of ATPs and digital intrusions have entered the purview of several governments in the Indo-Pacific region, individual efforts to deter those threats are futile. This is often due to strategic inertia, a shortage of specialized workers, and asymmetric capabilities.

A consolidated effort by the United States and its regional partners is needed to build consensus, direct resources, and establish a digital enforcement body. This could address those issues while mitigating any potential upheaval from China’s tactics. Fortunately, the groundwork for such a partnership is already in place.

On July 1, 2025, the 10th Quad foreign ministers’ meeting was hosted by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, where he was joined by his counterparts from Japan, India, and Australia. It was the second such meeting since January, signifying the importance placed on the vision of the group by the Trump administration.

The measures agreed upon as a result are further evidence to that fact—initiatives to bolster maritime and transnational security, economic security, critical and emerging technology, among others. Therefore, the vast security mandates of those initiatives provide a viable path to constructing a techno-centric partnership while addressing the region’s strategic, skills, and capabilities gaps when it comes to deterring China’s digital incursions.

The decision to expand the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA)—a technology-focused initiative to augment the maritime security landscape—provides a practical foundation for a techno-centric partnership. Its stated goal of developing a “common operating picture” for the IPMDA could lead to the basis for a strategic consensus among potential members.

Furthermore, incorporating insights from the first Maritime Initiative for Training in the Indo-Pacific (MAITRI) workshop could assist in closing the skills gap for a regional digital workforce, further adding to the partnership’s feasibility.

Additional features which could be utilized for the partnership and address the capabilities gap include the Quad Cyber Challenge and the Quad Partnership on Cable Connectivity and Resilience. The Cyber Challenge seeks to enhance the cyber ecosystem, digital awareness, and resourcing among member nations.

The Partnership on Cable Connectivity and Resilience, on the other hand, bears a more tactical responsibility of strengthening telecommunications infrastructure, specifically, undersea cables—arguably the most critical component of the digital ecosystem. Although these initiatives are focused on Quad member-nations, they could be expanded in a larger forum to engage ASEAN and Pacific subregional organizations such as the Pacific Island Forum, providing more opportunities for resource allocation.

There is institutional and strategic momentum behind the formation of a tech-centric partnership, not to mention the critical security imperative that exists. The broad consensus, coupled with the runway to take near-term action, makes this a prospective enterprise. Such concrete action is necessitated if the US and its regional allies expect to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific and establish an active deterrent to China, which seeks to write the rules and draw the margins of the evolving digital age.

Abrar Rahman Namir is currently interning at Associated Universities and assisting in the Batteries and Energies to Advance Commercialization and National Security program as a supply chains and trade analyst.

Tech-centric Partnership in the Indo-Pacific to Deter Digital Curtain was originally published on Global Security Review.