government must craft a national technology strategy for an era of sustained competition with a highly capable contender: a comprehensive framework to plan, execute, and update its technology policies. The stakes are high and the window for action is closing. The country needs a new approach to regain the initiative. The United States is failing to rise to the occasion-its policies inadequate and disconnected and its response reactive and disjointed. The United States has maintained such leadership for decades. Technological leadership-how a country invents, innovates, and deploys technologies to compete economically and to secure its interests-will shape the coming years to a remarkable degree. Technology-a key enabler for economic, political, and military power-is front and center in this competition. A rising China poses a fundamental challenge to the economic vitality and national security of the United States and its allies and the currency of liberal democratic values around the world.
The United States faces a challenge like no other in its history: a strategic competition with a highly capable and increasingly resourceful opponent whose worldview and economic and political models are at odds with the interests and values of the world’s democratic states.