In the coming century and beyond, the world will see many dramatic shifts in technologic development. As a nation, the United States need to ensure policy fosters the development and prompt integration of these emerging technologies to dramatically strengthen our national defense and maximize our defense potential.
In a panel titled “Emerging Technologies and the Future of Global Security,” leading experts Dr. Zachary Davis, Dr. Frank Gac, the Hon. Ron Lehman, Dr. Tai Ming Cheung, and Dr. Michael Nacht outlined the need for “strategic latency.” Strategic latency is defined in the e-book Strategic Latency and World Power: How Technology is Changing Our Concepts of Security as the “inherent capacity of science and technology to produce game-changing threats to our national security…The potential for a technology to cause harm is often ‘latent’ until an adversary uses it for military purposes.” It is the increasingly critical period between the emerging availability of new defense technology and its integration into defense programs.
As the future approaches, it is increasingly critical to minimize this latent period, though it cannot be done without thorough research and development. New technologies have the dramatic potential for “both wonderful and terrible future capabilities” from so many world powers, and it is ever more essential to develop planned countermeasures for potential threats of terrorism.
Dr. Cheung, Director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California, spoke on China’s defense policy and the nation’s approach to strategic latency and national security through technological innovation. China, as he said, has been very much a latecomer to the strategic latency initiative, but has recently advanced leaps and bounds since the late 2000s, funding national technological defense programs for nuclear development and cyber defense, among others, to compete at an international level. Though funding is now available through their explosive economic growth and willingness to spend on defense programs, the Chinese are still hitting a plateau—the lack of education of high-tech workers prevents the maximization of resources.
With such a new program, this is understandable, but in the coming years, especially considering the current exponential growth of these programs, the push towards education in these areas is expected to dramatically increase, greatly bolstering their defense potential. To compensate, China is also actively working to “leverage external sources to overcome the serious deficiencies” in these areas and working to build the research infrastructure to compete on a global level. In areas like the development and reverse engineering of stolen defense information and the use of youth initiative programs in science and technology, the legitimacy of their alignment with the PLA and state-owned enterprises is questionable, according to Cheung. This “human talent deficit” is China’s biggest challenge to overcome in the next generation of global security.
Ultimately, defense technology is of immense importance globally, and as a nation, the United States clearly needs to encourage both private and government-funded latency initiatives in the coming years.
Photo: Mississippi State University Libraries (cc).
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Emerging Technologies, Strategic Latency, and China’s Rapid Rush towards Innovation
July 24, 2014
In the coming century and beyond, the world will see many dramatic shifts in technologic development. As a nation, the United States need to ensure policy fosters the development and prompt integration of these emerging technologies to dramatically strengthen our national defense and maximize our defense potential.
In a panel titled “Emerging Technologies and the Future of Global Security,” leading experts Dr. Zachary Davis, Dr. Frank Gac, the Hon. Ron Lehman, Dr. Tai Ming Cheung, and Dr. Michael Nacht outlined the need for “strategic latency.” Strategic latency is defined in the e-book Strategic Latency and World Power: How Technology is Changing Our Concepts of Security as the “inherent capacity of science and technology to produce game-changing threats to our national security…The potential for a technology to cause harm is often ‘latent’ until an adversary uses it for military purposes.” It is the increasingly critical period between the emerging availability of new defense technology and its integration into defense programs.
As the future approaches, it is increasingly critical to minimize this latent period, though it cannot be done without thorough research and development. New technologies have the dramatic potential for “both wonderful and terrible future capabilities” from so many world powers, and it is ever more essential to develop planned countermeasures for potential threats of terrorism.
Dr. Cheung, Director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California, spoke on China’s defense policy and the nation’s approach to strategic latency and national security through technological innovation. China, as he said, has been very much a latecomer to the strategic latency initiative, but has recently advanced leaps and bounds since the late 2000s, funding national technological defense programs for nuclear development and cyber defense, among others, to compete at an international level. Though funding is now available through their explosive economic growth and willingness to spend on defense programs, the Chinese are still hitting a plateau—the lack of education of high-tech workers prevents the maximization of resources.
With such a new program, this is understandable, but in the coming years, especially considering the current exponential growth of these programs, the push towards education in these areas is expected to dramatically increase, greatly bolstering their defense potential. To compensate, China is also actively working to “leverage external sources to overcome the serious deficiencies” in these areas and working to build the research infrastructure to compete on a global level. In areas like the development and reverse engineering of stolen defense information and the use of youth initiative programs in science and technology, the legitimacy of their alignment with the PLA and state-owned enterprises is questionable, according to Cheung. This “human talent deficit” is China’s biggest challenge to overcome in the next generation of global security.
Ultimately, defense technology is of immense importance globally, and as a nation, the United States clearly needs to encourage both private and government-funded latency initiatives in the coming years.
Photo: Mississippi State University Libraries (cc).
