The White House has released a 24-page National Security Science & Technology Strategy that ranks military technology across four tiers, placing undersea capabilities, outer-space systems, and artificial intelligence and autonomy at the top of the framework. The strategy sets different standards for those priorities: It calls for “clear technological superiority” in undersea and space capabilities, while seeking a “competitive advantage” in AI and autonomy, Breaking Defense reported.
The document describes the three areas as priorities for U.S. battlefield dominance and power projection. They represent capabilities already central to the U.S. military rather than speculative technologies, although the strategy identifies competitive pressure in each area, particularly from China, the report said. The strategy attributes the three priorities to the previous year’s National Security Strategy, while applying a more explicit technology-focused ranking.
Three additional fields fall into a second group that the strategy still labels “critical”: airpower, long-range strike, and C5ISR. Airpower is tied to stealth, electronic warfare, and defenses against air attacks. Long-range strike covers the ability to penetrate layered enemy defenses with speed and precision. C5ISR combines command, control, communications, computers, cyber operations, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, forming the force’s information and coordination network.
The framework places those capabilities above a broad layer of enabling technologies. The strategy identifies advanced manufacturing, hypersonics, nuclear energy, and semiconductors among the enablers supporting higher-priority military systems. Its main text lists about a dozen such technologies, while an appendix updates an Office of Science and Technology Policy list of critical and emerging technologies and goes on for three pages, according to the report.
The strategy also creates a category for technologies that could alter the strategic balance after a future breakthrough. In a section on technological resilience, it says the United States should lead in potentially transformative emerging technologies even when their national-security effects and development timelines remain uncertain. The examples named are biotechnology, quantum technology, and artificial general intelligence.
Biotechnology is discussed in terms of enhancing human performance and countering hostile biological weapons. Quantum technology includes quantum computers, sensors, and communications. Artificial general intelligence represents a more advanced form of AI and autonomy, including the possibility of an algorithm eventually exceeding human intellectual performance, the report said.
The acquisition guidance supports high-speed, lower-cost and sometimes expendable systems, including drones, while also emphasizing the continued importance of costly, sophisticated platforms. It calls for larger numbers of lower-cost or lower-technology systems to complement smaller numbers of advanced platforms, updating the longstanding “hi-lo mix” concept for current technology.
The four-tier structure places immediate battlefield priorities first, critical supporting areas next, enabling technologies beneath them, and uncertain but potentially transformative technologies at the longest time horizon. The document gives AI a prominent role while distinguishing near-term military priorities from technologies that remain dependent on future breakthroughs.