Prof. Dr. Ghada Mohamed Amer
Professor of Electrical Power Engineering – Faculty of Engineering – Benha University
Fellow, Military Academy for Graduate and Strategic Studies
On August 18, 2026, the White House unveiled something Washington had not seen in more than three decades: an independent science and technology strategy dedicated exclusively to serving national security. The last document of its kind was issued under President Bill Clinton in 1995, when the Internet was still in its infancy and the Cold War had only recently ended. Today, however, the National Security Science and Technology Strategy (NSSTS), a 24-page document, emerges in an entirely different context—one in which artificial intelligence is reshaping the balance of power and major powers are competing for dominance beneath the oceans just as fiercely as they are competing for dominance in space.
What makes this document worthy of close examination is not only its timing, but also its carefully structured intellectual framework. Rather than simply presenting a list of “promising” technologies, as many government documents do, it establishes a clearly defined hierarchy of priorities. At the top are technologies considered “critical and urgent,” while at the base are technologies “under watch” because an unexpected breakthrough in any of them could potentially transform the rules of the game.
The Context of the Document: An Extension of a Broader Strategy
The Science and Technology Strategy cannot be read in isolation from the U.S. National Security Strategy, issued in December 2025. That broader and less technically focused document had already identified the same three areas—the undersea domain, space, and artificial intelligence—but within a longer list that also included nuclear energy and other fields, without assigning them the decisive priority granted by the new document.
In this sense, the NSSTS functions as a tool for implementing and technically elaborating the broader strategic vision, particularly at a moment when the Pentagon is seeking to rebalance its focus between massive traditional weapons programs and a wave of rapidly evolving, relatively low-cost innovation.
A Four-Tier Hierarchy: From the Urgent to the Uncertain
The strategy organizes its technological priorities into four progressive levels, resembling a pyramid in which the base encompasses a broad range of possibilities, while the top is defined by a narrow set of urgent and decisive priorities.
At the summit of this pyramid are three areas described by the document as “priority areas for U.S. battlefield dominance and power projection”:
- Undersea superiority, through submarines and anti-submarine warfare capabilities. The strategy calls for clear technological superiority in this domain rather than merely maintaining a relative advantage.
- Space, in an expanded sense that goes beyond “detection” to encompass “confrontation,” extending from low Earth orbit to the space around the Moon. Here too, the document calls for clear technological superiority.
- Artificial intelligence and autonomy, which the strategy describes as a “rapidly evolving field” without defining its boundaries as precisely as it does for the other two areas. Instead, it calls for a competitive advantage rather than decisive superiority—a semantic distinction that reflects the difficulty of establishing dominance in a technological race evolving at extraordinary speed.
The second tier consists of three vital areas: airpower enabled by stealth, electronic warfare, and air defense; long-range strike capabilities capable of penetrating layered defenses rapidly and accurately; and C5ISR—Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance—which represents the eyes, ears, brain, and nervous system of the armed forces.
These three areas are closely interconnected in practice. Long-range strikes are often carried out by air platforms, while all of these operations are managed through C5ISR networks.
The third level comprises key enabling technologies that form the material foundation for everything above them, ranging from advanced manufacturing, including 3D printing, to hypersonics, nuclear energy, and semiconductors. The document lists twelve technologies in its main text, while its appendix extends the official list of critical and emerging technologies across three pages.
At the base of the pyramid is the fourth and most controversial level: emerging technologies with transformative potential. These are technologies capable of shifting the balance of power if an unexpected breakthrough occurs before Washington is prepared for it. The strategy states that the United States will “build long-term technological resilience through leadership in emerging technologies that have the potential to be radically transformative.”
The Science and Technology Strategy as a Governing Framework
The significance of the NSSTS lies in the fact that it represents the first major American attempt in a generation to organize the race for technological superiority around a clearly defined hierarchy of priorities, rather than leaving it primarily to market forces or the pressures of the political moment.
The document rests on four fundamental pillars: technological competition; a strategy for maintaining U.S. superiority in priority areas; technological resilience to prevent adversaries from gaining access to sensitive systems and critical supply chains; accelerating innovation by removing regulatory barriers and reforming defense procurement; and protecting the national science and technology ecosystem through tighter scrutiny of foreign investments, entities, and individuals connected to research and development, with China emerging throughout the document as the central competitor.
What Does This Mean for the Arab World?
Far from being merely an internal American matter, the NSSTS carries implications that deserve serious consideration by policymakers and researchers across the Arab world.
The document offers a systematic model for developing a national technology policy linked to national security: setting clear priorities rather than dispersing resources across every promising technology; distinguishing between what is “critical and urgent” and what should remain “under long-term watch”; and linking investment in civilian technologies—from quantum computing to biotechnology and semiconductors—to the broader national security architecture.
This model merits serious study in Arab contexts that are already seeking to develop national strategies for artificial intelligence and digital transformation, including countries in the Gulf, Egypt, and Morocco, where there remains a need for frameworks that connect technological ambitions with national security and economic priorities.
The document also reveals the widening technological gap between the major powers—particularly the United States and China—and the rest of the world, including Arab countries, in fields such as quantum computing, generative artificial intelligence, and military autonomy.
As this competition accelerates, strategic choices become increasingly urgent: either investing in the development of local research and industrial capabilities in areas where a country possesses a comparative advantage; entering into balanced technological partnerships that preserve a degree of digital and security sovereignty; or accepting full technological dependence on one of the competing blocs.
The document also serves as a reminder, through its emphasis on undersea security and space, that these two domains have direct significance for Arab regional security. This is particularly evident in terms of safeguarding vital maritime corridors such as Bab el-Mandeb, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Suez Canal, as well as the growing reliance on satellites for communications, surveillance, and navigation.
Finally, the warning regarding uncertain transformative technologies, such as artificial general intelligence and advanced biotechnology, applies equally to the Arab region. The region needs forward-looking capabilities and institutional mechanisms capable of monitoring these transformations rather than being caught off guard once they become an established reality.
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