➽ Why Technology Will Define the
Future of Geopolitics
When Russian forces marched on
Kyiv in February 2022, few thought Ukraine could survive. Russia had more than
twice as many soldiers as Ukraine. Its military budget was more than ten times
as large. The U.S. intelligence community estimated that Kyiv would fall within
one to two weeks at most.
Outgunned and outmanned, Ukraine
turned to one area in which it held an advantage over the enemy: technology.
Shortly after the invasion, the Ukrainian government
uploaded all its critical data to the cloud, so that it could safeguard
information and keep functioning even if Russian missiles turned its
ministerial offices into rubble. The country’s Ministry of Digital
Transformation, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had
established just two years earlier, repurposed its e-government mobile app,
Diia, for open-source intelligence collection, so that citizens could upload
photos and videos of enemy military units. With their communications
infrastructure in jeopardy, the Ukrainians turned to Starlink satellites and
ground stations provided by SpaceX to stay connected. When
Russia sent Iranian-made drones across the border, Ukraine acquired its own
drones specially designed to intercept their attacks — while its military
learned how to use unfamiliar weapons supplied by Western allies. In the
cat-and-mouse game of innovation, Ukraine simply proved nimbler. And so what
Russia had imagined would be a quick and easy invasion has turned out to be
anything but.
Ukraine’s success can be credited
in part to the resolve of the Ukrainian people, the weakness of the Russian
military, and the strength of Western support. But it also owes to the defining
new force of international politics: innovation power. Innovation power is the
ability to invent, adopt, and adapt new technologies. It contributes to both
hard and soft power. High-tech weapons systems increase military might, new
platforms and the standards that govern them provide economic leverage, and
cutting-edge research and technologies enhance global appeal. There is a long
tradition of states harnessing innovation to project power abroad, but what has
changed is the self-perpetuating nature of scientific
advances. Developments in artificial intelligence in
particular not only unlock new areas of scientific discovery; they also speed
up that very process. Artificial intelligence supercharges the ability of
scientists and engineers to discover ever more powerful technologies, fostering
advances in artificial intelligence itself as well as in other fields — and
reshaping the world in the process.
The ability to innovate faster
and better—the foundation on which military, economic, and cultural power now
rest — will determine the outcome of the great-power competition between the
United States and China. For now, the United States remains in the lead.
But China is catching up in many areas and has already
surged ahead in others. To emerge victorious from this century-defining
contest, business as usual will not do. Instead, the U.S. government will have
to overcome its stultified bureaucratic impulses, create favorable conditions
for innovation, and invest in the tools and talent needed to kick-start the
virtuous cycle of technological advancement. It needs to commit itself to
promoting innovation in the service of the country and in the service of
democracy. At stake is nothing less than the future of free societies, open
markets, democratic government, and the broader world order.