America’s military is choking on old technology

The current rate of technological change may make many current U.S. military systems obsolete in the coming decades. Advances in artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, material science, and nanotechnology threaten to produce qualitative — not just incremental — change in the conduct of warfare in the near future. Although the U.S. has spent far more on standing military forces than other countries, for far longer, this accumulated advantage is also a vulnerability. It presents an opportunity for Washington’s international adversaries and competitors to reap the advantage of their backwardness and leapfrog the U.S. with emerging technology. This is exacerbated by the Pentagon’s commitment to significant investment in existing systems, the proverbial “last year’s model.”