Defense and National Security

Daniel Castro speaks about the impact of emerging technologies on national security and the economy at the Margalla Dialogue in Islamabad, hosted by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI).

The best way for U.S. policymakers to think about China, at least in the realm of technology and industry, is that we are engaged in a form of war: China is seeking to defeat the United States on the techno-economic battlefield.

Stephen Ezell presents on the state of global geoeconomic competition and avenues for United States-Japan economic security collaboration for the Japan Foundation.

The chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, is using the crisis facing aerospace giant Boeing to press her case that “national champions” invariably behave badly because they are protected from competition. It is disappointing that Khan’s critique of Boeing reflects so little sectoral expertise and understanding of markets.

Watch now for an expert panel discussion of Europe’s efforts and the implications for an allied approach to economic security in an era of economic warfare.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 illustrated that Europe is neither as secure nor as prepared as it thinks it is. The European defense industry's fragmentation has come with higher costs and fewer R&D capabilities, making Europe less competitive and less safe.

Please join ITIF, The Hamilton Project at Brookings, and the National Network for Critical Technology Assessment in a press release and showcase event launching the release of the report, Securing America’s Future: A Framework for Critical Technology Assessment.

Export controls exist at the perilous intersection of economic policy and national security. What could go wrong?

A growing number of countries have banned TikTok for alleged security threats. If the threat from China is real, a TikTok ban alone is too limited, but if the threat is overstated, these bans are a wasteful exercise in security theater. Either way, these bans are misguided.

At the height of the Cold War, perhaps the most important U.S. national mission was to drive military innovation to ensure that the Soviet Union’s numerical superiority (in terms of soldiers and weapons) would not translate into superiority on the battlefield. The current geopolitical landscape presents a similar challenge in the United States’ rivalry with China, which is investing heavily to surpass the United States in technological capabilities to gain a global economic advantage and at least military parity in the Indo-Pacific region.