This week’s launch of DeepSeek’s R1 must serve as a wake-up call for America and the West.
DeepSeek’s AI model, a highly capable Chinese open-source AI that was reportedly engineered without access to America’s cutting-edge semiconductor chips, did more than roil investor markets for advanced technologies.
It was a shot across America’s bow, highlighting how the advent of two major technological arenas — artificial intelligence and space exploration — has created new battlefields for geopolitical dominance.
The United States must win these races to safeguard its national security, economic prosperity
and global leadership in the 21st century.
China stands as the West’s chief adversary in this competition, and its investments in AI and space have been strategic and aggressive.
Beijing’s “Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan” aims to establish global AI supremacy by exploiting the Chinese Communist Party’s doctrine of civil-military fusion.
Under this framework, Chinese companies like Baidu, Tencent and Huawei are not only advancing cutting-edge AI technologies but also leveraging them for military purposes, including autonomous weapons and surveillance systems.
The People’s Liberation Army has integrated AI into its doctrines, while internally, the CCP has utilized AI-driven systems to create the world’s largest open-air concentration camps in Xinjiang — replete with facial recognition, biometric surveillance and voice and DNA recognition.
The CCP has identified AI as the next great technological frontier, and its ambition is global
dominance.
China has already made great strides toward that goal.
Its Beidou satellite system, for example, was developed to rival America’s GPS network, allowing Beijing to extend its influence across developing nations.
China’s Tiangong space station and ambitious lunar and Mars exploration programs signal its
intent to dominate beyond Earth’s atmosphere, while its ability to deploy satellite constellations
at scale poses a challenge to the United States’ own systems, including SpaceX’s Starlink.
Indeed, we can see even now how the CCP and other adversarial regimes, from Moscow to
Tehran, will utilize dominance in AI and space if allowed to succeed.
Ask DeepSeek about topics like the Tiananmen Square massacre, the CCP’s treatment of
Uyghurs or Taiwan’s independence, and you’ll get stock non-answers like “Sorry, that’s beyond
my current scope” — just the sort of response you’d expect from a human Communist Party
mouthpiece.
Russia, having learned from its mistakes in Ukraine, is utilizing more and more AI-driven
technologies to further that invasion, while its recently released 10-year defense plan included a
dedicated section on artificial intelligence, signaling its commitment.
One week before Hamas’ monstrous Oct. 7 attacks, Iran announced the integration of artificial
intelligence into its drone fleet.
Such regimes will use the awesome potential of these technologies the way they always have: to
further their own power, subjugate their people and destroy their enemies.
Humanity can have a different, better future than this — but the United States must lead the way.
To do so, our nation must prioritize investments in AI and space technologies across the public
and private sectors.
President Trump’s formation of the US Space Force was a significant step, but its success hinges
on robust funding, strategic partnerships and a clear vision for maintaining superiority in Low
Earth Orbit — the orbital range closest to earth and most utilized for satellite communications.
LEO initiatives like NASA’s Artemis program and the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence
Center must receive continued support and bipartisan backing, and the government should work
closely with new entrants, like Amazon’s Project Kuiper and others deploying new satellite
constellations, to take advantage of their capabilities.
Most of all, the United States must leverage its vibrant private-sector culture of innovation,
maintaining our commitment to the civilization that produced these advancements in the first
place.
Companies like Amazon, SpaceX, Palantir and others are driving these technological revolutions
because they were built by risk-takers in a nation that still rewards risk-taking.
That’s why the Trump administration should pursue partnership in these critical fields, not
regulation.
Trying to “protect” certain sectors from revolutionary changes brought on by AI only cedes
ground to the CCP.
We should bet the farm on the American people — not hold them back.
When I joined the Army in 1982 as a cadet at West Point, then commanded a tank platoon in
West Germany, the battlefield and the weapons we used were set.
We knew how many Soviet tanks and troops opposed ours, and how to deploy our own resources to deter aggression.
This essential equation is fundamentally changing, and the nature of that change will hinge upon
which coalition of nations achieves dominance in AI and space.
The United States overcame the Soviet Union and won the arms race of the 20th century.
Now we must dedicate ourselves to winning the new arms race of the 21st.
Mike Pompeo served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, 2017-18, and secretary of
state, 2018-21.
