Geotech Program
The United States and its partners are in a heated competition with authoritarian societies to set the technological standards for the future. Leadership in the field of Geotech—the linkage of geopolitics and technology—will determine the 21st century balance of power. Since late-2018, CSPC has convened leaders from government, the private sector, and academia to examine how the U.S. government can best position itself through the creation of a Geotech strategy. In February 2019, CSPC released its initial report examining the competition between authoritarian regimes and open societies; the advances in cutting edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and 5G networks; and the historical lessons on how the U.S. government has best organized itself and applied strategic solutions for past technological competitions—e.g. the Manhattan Project or the Space Race.
Today, the factors requiring such a Geotech strategy have only intensified. Tensions between the United States and China continue to increase, as divergence in economic and geopolitical interests—as well as fundamental differences in political ideology and values—fuel a range of disputes. At the same time, a growing and increasingly assertive China is demonstrating a greater willingness to challenge international instructions and the influence of open societies. With policies designed to protect and promote national champion tech companies that compete on the global stage, China is reaping the benefits of a strategy long designed to match, and surpass, the United States and its partners in technological superiority. This challenges long-standing assumptions about the techno logical supremacy of the United States and its allies. Ultimately, given the importance of the U.S.-China relationship, preparing for a Geotech strategy also requires an effort to best chart the potential strategic outcomes. Such an effort will allow policymakers to better understand the tradeoffs of various approaches to China, the important role played by allies and partners, and the tools needed to best foster American competitiveness, prosperity, and security.
Our Experts
Peter Sparding
Program Head
Joshua W. Walker
David M. Abshire Chair
Victoria Flick
Non-Resident Senior Fellow
Robert Gerber
Senior Fellow
Andy Keiser
Senior Fellow
Dan Mahaffee
Eisenhower Fellow
Erica Ngoenha
SVP, Programs & External Affairs
Jo-Anne Sears
Non-Resident Senior Fellow
Focus Areas
Economic Security
Economic security has become a core pillar of national security. Today, the deep connections and dependencies that once signaled the efficiency of global markets can also appear as strategic vulnerabilities. The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, when U.S. producers and consumers experienced shortages in critical goods and supplies, from medical equipment to semiconductors, served as a final wake-up call to many policy makers and business leaders alike. In recent years, the appearance of such vulnerabilities and the potential for yet undiscovered systematic weaknesses, has also raised concern among national security experts and military planners.
CSPC's work on economic security examines how the United States and its allies can reduce these vulnerabilities without sacrificing the openness that drives innovation and growth. Achieving the right balance between these interests lies at the heart of the economic security debate and represents a supremely difficult endeavor.
The Geotech Program brings together government officials, industry leaders, and researchers to work through these tradeoffs. For this, CSPC also focuses on improving coordination and cooperation with allies and partners, in order to align efforts that can improve the collective resilience of our economies and societies.
U.S.-Japan Relations
For eight decades, the United States has sustained a historically unique network of alliances, with Japan among its strongest pillars. Born in the Cold War, this relationship now confronts a fundamentally different strategic era, one that raises hard questions not only about how to modernize the alliance, but whether and in what form it will endure. Washington is rethinking the role, value, and cost of its commitments abroad. Tokyo, meanwhile, has responded to China's rise by reshaping its political and security institutions, committing to a significant expansion of military capabilities, and aligning closely with the United States on economic security: coordinating export controls in the semiconductor sector, strengthening supply chain resilience, and diversifying sources of critical minerals.
Efforts to deepen economic ties have proven harder. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) collapsed amid domestic opposition in the U.S., and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) yielded limited results as American negotiators found themselves with little to offer. Growing public skepticism about the value of international commitments, combined with competing demands on Washington's attention and resources, has raised real doubts about whether the long-promised strategic focus on the Indo-Pacific can be sustained. In Japan, unease is building that the alliance is becoming a transactional arrangement rather than a partnership rooted in shared interests.
The immediate risk is not dramatic rupture but gradual erosion, a slow widening of the gap between the alliance's formal architecture and the political will required to sustain it. Seeking to counter this erosion, CSPC's work aims to develop and employ a more forward-looking approach for the relationship, by making the case that the U.S.-Japan alliance remains vital to U.S. interests and a critical asset for America’s economic competitiveness, technological edge, and security in the decades ahead.
Quantum computing will eventually break the public-key cryptography that secures global communications, financial systems, and national security infrastructure today. The United States government has chosen post-quantum cryptography (PQC), new mathematical algorithms, as its primary response to this new threat, with federal agencies mandated to complete migration by 2035. A 2020 advisory by the National Security Agency (NSA) advisory declined to approve quantum key distribution (QKD), a hardware-based alternative whose security rests on the laws of physics rather than mathematical assumptions, citing five technical limitations. This report assesses the current state of the transition of quantum cryptography and the evolving role of QKD in the U.S. landscape.