In the current modern age of artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cyberwarfare, crypto currencies, and digital landscapes, the future is no longer being written in code, it’s being legislated. Despite this uncomfortable truth, our United States Congress, one of the most powerful, well resourced and educated governing bodies in the world, remains structurally and culturally unprepared to be proactive and lead in this new era of rapid technological change.
While America’s private sector is embracing agility and thriving in our innovation economy, the US legislative infrastructure is focused on using time honored approaches to attempt to solve 21st-century problems. China, by contrast, is taking a more proactive approach, one where private sector technocrats, thought leaders and engineers are being incorporated into the decision making to not only influence policy but to be instrumental in the process of crafting it. Given the timeline and gravity of the current climate, if our U.S. leaders fail to respond, the long-term consequences could be devastating not only for our economy, but for our security, and our standing atop the global elite.
Beijing’s Strategic Edge: A Legislature Built for Tech Supremacy
China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) is often seen simply as a ceremonial rubber stamp, but the NPC has a much deeper function as an important springboard for political alignment and long-term strategic governance. Although the entire NPC only meets briefly each year, its Standing Committee of 175 members operates year-round and incorporates a wide variety of scientists, AI researchers, cybersecurity entrepreneurs, and quantum computing experts in their discussions and strategic planning sessions.
These influential tech leaders embedded directly into China’s national policy include Zhou Hongyi of Qihoo 360, the founder of Baidu, Robin Li, and AI visionary and former Microsoft executive Zhang Yaqin to name a few. And they’re working together to shape legislation and priorities like China Standards 2035, Made in China 2025 and massive investments into biotech, digital infrastructure and semiconductor technology as well as AI are aerospace technologies. China is not just trying to win the tech race, it is actively reengineering its entire system to do so.
Washington’s Blind Spot
Meanwhile, the 535 voting members of the U.S. Congress includes fewer than 50 members with a STEM background in any sense. Even fewer have had careers that dealt with building software, AI, or cybersecurity operations. These elected officials who are tasked with regulating generative AI, crafting data privacy laws, or modernizing military tech often lack even basic technical fluency.
This failure is a structural one. The political pipeline to public service in the United States rarely draws in technologists. Democratic elections more often than not reward charisma, polling issues and consensus-building, not technical proficiency or code literacy. Additionally our legislative committee system was designed for industrial-age challenges and has not yet adapted to the modern technological demands of a coding, AI and algorithmic future.
As a result, Congress too often legislates reactively, spending months if not years investigating, discussing and debating social networks like Facebook and TikTok or Section 230 while China funds quantum networks and AI transformations. A reactive system burdened by silos, bureaucracy and excess waste grinds innovation and agility to a halt as committee members try to lead in a rapidly advancing technological future without understanding its architecture or having the tools to succeed.
Why This Should Alarm the Pentagon
For the military and leadership, this isn’t simply a matter of digital governance but a question of national security. The future of modern warfare will not only include our men and women in uniform and ships and planes but through aerospace, satellites, and innovative delivery models. The Department of Defense is investing in emerging tech but our present structure of sprawling risk-adverse bureaucracies, innumerable silos and old acquisition pipelines stands in sharp contrast to the demands of modern warfare. This is not only a bureaucratic issue, but a security vulnerability.
A National Imperative: Rewiring Legislative Leadership
If the United States aims to remain a global leader in innovation, defense, and our democratic values, it is imperative to reimagine how technology and Agile expertise is integrated into our system. We need a new operational paradigm that embraces agility, flexibility, speed, joint integration, and agile delivery. One that demands that we learn from and borrow from our past successes in historic public-private and private-military collaborations and apply those lessons and achievements in our current challenges. It calls on the department and the entire Government to work together for the benefit of our country and support this transformation with bipartisan funding. It calls on the DoD to take the next step into technological modern warfare and challenge the status quo of institutional inertia. And to take a massive step forward in calling on every service branch to align under a shared unified warfighting vision of American unification, dominance and success.
It is important to acknowledge and accept the coherence of some aspects of China’s model. One that has adopted innovation and agility into its legislature and military technology. We can not afford to delay. It is time to innovate, test and deploy capabilities through agile methods and strategic foresight. With real time integration and forward thinking leadership we must ensure America moves with the authority and flexibility today’s technological revolution demands.