Joseph Dunford Jr., a retired four-star Marine Corps common, served because the nineteenth chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees from 2015 to 2019. He at present serves on the Nationwide Safety Advisory Board for the American Edge Undertaking.
The opinions expressed on this op-ed are these of the writer and don’t essentially replicate the views of Navy.com. If you want to submit your personal commentary, please ship your article to opinions@navy.com for consideration.
At a time when our nation appears extra divided than ever, we should unite on the problems which can be crucial to our nation’s future and safety. A type of points is expertise. Know-how is extra than simply one other sector of the financial system, it’s the spine of our nationwide safety, financial system and our core values. Efficient deterrence, and profitable the following battle if deterrence fails, will rely largely on whether or not we keep our technological edge.
As somebody who has devoted his profession to defending American pursuits at house and on the battlefield, who has studied our nation’s adversaries, and who has publicly criticized America’s tech sector when warranted, I provide our policymakers a set of ideas to information their considering on expertise points.
First, we should defend the flexibility of American firms to compete globally on a stage taking part in subject. This may fortify our capability to develop key strategic applied sciences. Though the U.S. has led the world in technological innovation since World Battle II, our continued management is now not assured. China is aggressively looking for to surpass U.S. capabilities in superior dual-use applied sciences, resembling synthetic intelligence, machine studying and quantum computing. America’s non-public sector, which now offers most of the navy’s crucial applied sciences, faces a spread of protectionist insurance policies from each Asia and Europe, together with market entry restrictions, the usage of antitrust legislation to advertise industrial coverage, and even outright theft of mental property. I applaud these in Congress and the administration who’re combating for honest therapy for U.S. firms overseas.
Second, we should harness all of America’s belongings to advertise innovation — our authorities, universities, college students, staff and corporations each massive and small. For instance, the current “CHIPS and Science Act” successfully melds America’s financial and nationwide safety pursuits to advertise the manufacturing of semiconductors and chips in the USA, serving to to safe our provide chain. The invoice additionally funds pure scientific analysis into superior dual-use applied sciences, creates 20 regional tech hubs across the nation, and invests closely into science, expertise, engineering and arithmetic (STEM) training and workforce improvement to construct a crucial home labor pipeline for rising industries.
Third, we should be certain that American firms proceed to have a predictable regulatory framework to handle the chance of sizable investments. For the previous 4 a long time, each political events have embraced the “shopper welfare commonplace” because the touchstone for U.S. antitrust legislation. This clear commonplace usually permits massive firms to put money into new applied sciences and startups, except the proof reveals that an funding would hurt customers. Due partly to this framework, our financial system stays probably the most dynamic on this planet; Europe, which has way more stringent guidelines, lags far behind us in enterprise capital funding and startups. Sadly, some pending laws would substitute this framework with subjective requirements that will invite uncertainty, allow politicized enforcement selections, and wrongly transfer our financial system within the course of Europe. Congress ought to assume lengthy and onerous in regards to the unintended penalties of such payments.
Fourth, we should keep the insurance policies that reward, relatively than punish, investments in high-end applied sciences. Capitalism and competitors are each cornerstones of American exceptionalism. They profit our residents, customers, staff, buyers, retirees and troopers. They’ve allowed American expertise firms to guide the world and, if allowed to proceed, will allow the following technology of smaller companies to garner the financing and technical experience they should turn out to be international giants. Our financial system and, in the end, our nationwide safety hinge upon the flexibility of those firms, a lot of that are barely within the thoughts’s eyes of immediately’s highschool college students, to develop and prosper.
The energy of our nation lies in our values, freedoms and the mental capital of the American folks. It additionally lies within the competitiveness, innovation and capability of our private-sector innovators, massive and small, aided by smart insurance policies that encourage development and reward threat. To win the longer term, America wants all of us to work collectively, as a result of it issues enormously which nation builds the longer term.
