(B) Science, Technology and Innovation

By Sharon Weinberger – The U.S. military is pouring resources into the superfast weapons but has struggled to develop them. China and Russia are far ahead. …the weapons can attack with extreme speed, be launched from great distances and evade most air defenses. They can carry conventional explosives or nuclear warheads. China and Russia have them ready to use. The U.S. doesn’t….For more than 60 years, the U.S. has invested billions of dollars in dozens of programs to develop its own version of the technology. Those efforts have either ended in failure or been canceled before having a chance to succeed. Washington, having spent recent decades focusing on fights with terrorists and insurgencies, is once again pouring resources into hypersonics. Read More

By Seth Cropsey – The Chinese aren’t going to wait patiently. They are prepared to capitalize on an apparent shift in their favor. China enjoys a growing advantage in geographic position, fleet size and missile numbers. In Xi Jinping, it also has a leader willing to use force to achieve political objectives. China stands a better chance now than it ever has of defeating the U.S. and its allies in a major war. The U.S. should expect an attack on Taiwan within this decade, perhaps as soon as 2025…The imminence of conflict means the U.S. must consider how it would fight with the military as currently constituted. Read More

By Arthur Herman – The story told how China’s Zuchongzhi programmable quantum computer had surpassed Google’s best quantum computer in solving the kind of complex problem that would stump even the fastest supercomputers, such as factorizing large numbers. The announcement is one more indication that China is on track to achieve what every cybersecurity expert fears, and every politician outside Beijing should fear: the creation of a large-scale quantum computer that is able to break into every public encryption system currently in existence. Read More