The White House has released a 24-page National Security Science & Technology Strategy that places undersea capabilities, outer-space systems, and artificial intelligence and autonomy at the top of a four-tier framework for military technology priorities. The strategy identifies the three areas as priorities for U.S. battlefield dominance and power projection while also outlining critical supporting capabilities and longer-term technologies.
The document distinguishes the level of advantage sought in each area. It calls for “clear technological superiority” in undersea and outer-space capabilities, while setting a threshold of “competitive advantage” for artificial intelligence and autonomy, as described by Breaking Defense.
The strategy’s second tier includes three additional critical areas: airpower, long-range strike, and C5ISR. Airpower is framed around stealth, electronic warfare, and defenses against air attack. Long-range strike covers the ability to penetrate an adversary’s defense-in-depth with speed and precision. C5ISR, standing for command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, provides the force’s sensing, decision-making, communications, and coordination functions.
The three supporting areas overlap operationally. Aircraft can conduct long-range strikes, while C5ISR helps direct those operations, according to the account of the strategy.
A third tier covers key enabling technologies intended to support the higher priorities. The strategy lists advanced manufacturing, including 3D printing, hypersonics, nuclear energy, and semiconductors among these enablers. Its main text identifies about a dozen such technologies, while an appendix expands the list across three pages by updating an Office of Science and Technology Policy inventory of critical and emerging technologies.
The fourth tier addresses technologies that could alter the strategic balance after future breakthroughs. The strategy calls for long-term resilience in areas whose national-security effects and development timelines remain uncertain. It specifically names biotechnology, quantum technology, and artificial general intelligence as technologies to monitor and develop over the longer term.
Biotechnology is linked in the document to enhanced human performance and countering hostile biological weapons. The quantum category includes quantum computers, sensors, and communications. Artificial general intelligence is listed among the potentially transformative emerging technologies discussed in the strategy, the strategy report says.
The framework also sets an acquisition principle alongside its technology rankings. It supports the Pentagon’s pursuit of fast, low-cost, and expendable systems, including drones, while retaining high-cost, sophisticated programs. The strategy says the United States will combine larger numbers of lower-cost, lower-tech, or attritable platforms with smaller numbers of advanced platforms, reviving a version of the military’s longstanding high-low procurement approach.
The result is a priority structure that combines near-term operational capabilities with technologies that may not produce military effects for years. Undersea warfare, outer space, and AI and autonomy occupy the top level; airpower, long-range strike, and C5ISR provide critical support; enabling technologies underpin both; and quantum, biotechnology, and artificial general intelligence remain longer-term areas for resilience and potential strategic change.