Abstract

America has been the world's dominant military power for generations. How the US military fights, and the systems and weapons that it fights with, have been uncontested. That old reality, however, is rapidly deteriorating. America's traditional sources of power are eroding amid the emergence of new technologies and the growing military threat posed by rivals such as China. The future will be defined by artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and other emerging technologies that are revolutionizing global industries and are now poised to overturn the model of American defense. America must build a battle network of systems that enables people to rapidly understand threats, make decisions, and take military actions, the process known as "the kill chain." If this transition does not happen urgently and at scale, America risks losing the next war.

Bio

Christian Brose is the Chief Strategy Officer of Anduril Industries, a venture-backed defense technology company. He is responsible for business strategy, development, and growth and positioning the company to build technologies that solve the most important defense problems. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a member of the Aspen Strategy Group, and the author of The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare, (Hachette Books, April 2020). From 2014-2018, he was the staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee.