NEWS AND ANALYSIS:
American submarines are a key focus in protecting U.S. military advantages against foreign enemies, along with new national security space systems know-how, according to a recent White House strategy report.
The National Security Science and Technology Strategy, made public this week, also states that applying artificial intelligence will remain a priority for advanced technology development.
“The United States will prioritize technological advantage in areas integral to deterring attack and prevailing in conflict against sophisticated and capable adversaries, capitalizing on existing U.S. advantages in key areas,” the report states.
Undersea battlefield dominance and underwater power projection is listed first in three target technology areas in the strategy.
“Clear technological superiority in the undersea domain, including submarine survivability and anti-submarine warfare” remains a key priority, the report said.
For space, technological superiority will be used to detect, identify and counter threats to American satellites ranging in zones from very low-Earth orbit through the space between Earth and the moon, known as cislunar space.
Supporting the rapidly advancing field of AI and robot weapons technology is identified in the strategy as a third goal.
Other sectors that are the focus of the new strategy and deemed critical for American national security include building air warfare superiority through stealth technology, electronic warfare and anti-aircraft power.
Missiles also will remain a high-tech priority with a focus on long-range strike weapons and the ability of missiles to penetrate advanced defenses and “reach targets on operationally relevant timescales, and strike with precision” — likely a reference to new and soon-to-be deployed hypersonic missiles.
U.S. military command and control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, a major American strategic military advantage, is listed in the report as another area for funding and support.
Military command control advantages will provide what the strategy calls “information dominance in all phases of conflict, and superior ability to direct, coordinate, and control forces and assets, including in the face of adversary cyber operations.”
Navy submarines, both nuclear missile and conventional attack boats, remain a vital mainstay of U.S. military power and strategic nuclear deterrence.
American submarines are regarded as the quietest in the world and thus capable of destroying Russian and Chinese submarines and warships in a future conflict without being detected.
For example, military leaders project that U.S. submarine power is a key deterrent for Chinese plans to launch an amphibious assault across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait.
Elbridge Colby, undersecretary of defense for policy, said in a recent speech that the Navy’s submarine force is the most advanced in the world. He noted the use of a submarine to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles during the joint operation with the B-2 bombers and advanced stealth jets to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“I mean, you look at our submarine force, it is the best in the world, and I don’t say that lightly. It is absolutely devastating, and that’s a product of technology,” Mr. Colby told a conference at the Strategic Command earlier this month.
The submarine advantage is the result of 80 years of development and “constant, constant practice and learning and refinement,” he said.
“If you go into the maritime domain, you are going to deal with our submarine force, and that is going to be very, very, very dangerous,” Mr. Colby said.
The Navy currently operates three types of submarines — strategic nuclear missile, conventional cruise missile and fast attack vessels.
Current deployments include 18 Ohio-class nuclear missile subs, 22 Los Angeles-class fast attack subs, three Seawolf attack submarines and 22 Virginia-class submarines.
To bolster the cruise missile-firing submarines as older Ohio-class SSGNs are retired, the Navy plans to deploy Tomahawk missile launchers on some Virginia-class boats.
China, the sole adversary mentioned by name in the report, is seeking “global technological dominance” through coercive industrial policies and state security tools, the report said.
The new administration’s technology strategy calls for targeted federal research and development funding and partnerships with companies and universities to assist in meeting national security goals.
Federal investment also will be made in science and technology education and training.
Report warns on China AI data commercialization
Communist China is commercializing and monetizing data sets in ways designed to boost both commercial trade and intelligence collection and military capabilities, according to a congressional China commission report.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party regards its data collection as a strategic resource and is now using data as a factor of production.
“Beijing’s ambitions extend beyond economic growth. It is marshaling data to drive productivity, power its AI and technology goals and improve its intelligence collection and military capabilities,” the report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission warns.
The commission report reveals the effort to create a market for its data includes a bid to set global standards for such trade in ways controlled by the CCP.
Unlike American AI companies that have largely exhausted the open internet for training AI data, China is gathering valuable “enterprise, operational and physical-world data that cannot be scraped,” the report said.
That information is valuable for training AI tools for business, autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots, and could give Beijing an advantage over the United States in developing robotics software for both military and commercial use, the report said.
“Over the last half-decade, China has been able to consolidate data, find ways to label it and refine it, and Hoover up new data and make sure it’s quickly made available to entities,” Mike Kuiken, the commission’s vice chair, told Reuters.
“It has the benefit of advancing their innovation ecosystem, and it has the benefit of enhancing the control of the (Chinese Communist) Party.”
The report said China now views data as a “factor of production” similar to land, labor, capital and technology. In 2023, Beijing set up a National Data Administration organ to direct nationwide data standardization that seeks to create a national market for data trading.
Data is one of three major components of advanced artificial intelligence, along with computing power and software and algorithm capabilities.
Most U.S. technology experts say the United States leads China in the AI race in terms of computing power and algorithm development, but China is regarded as ahead in data collection.
The commission said the U.S. government has no similar policy toward data and Congress should consider a national strategy that regards data as an economic asset.
Allowing China to set global standards in a data trade would boost Beijing’s state-controlled approach to data and give its companies an advantage.
“Congress should consider how the United States, working with allies and partners, can lead on data interoperability and transaction standards rather than ceding that ground to China,” the report said.
Chinese military spies caught in South Korea
China’s military intelligence arm is conducting aggressive spying operations against U.S. and South Korean military and commercial targets in the Republic of Korea, according to retired Defense Intelligence Agency official Nicholas Eftimiades.
Mr. Eftimiades, a specialist on Chinese intelligence, stated in an online report that the Joint Intelligence Bureau, the spying arm of the People’s Liberation Army Central Military Commission, is waging a highly coordinated espionage operation in South Korea.
In the past year, at least six cases of Chinese espionage in South Korea were uncovered, Mr. Eftimiades said.
“China is executing a whole-of-society approach using scholars, students and business persons to support intelligence collection operations against U.S. and South Korea military targets and South Korea’s strategic semiconductor industry,” he told Inside the Ring in commenting on the report.
The report details PLA intelligence recruitment tactics, logistical timelines, and specialized spy methods used by a Chinese academic-turned-operative who infiltrated South Korean defense circles before he was arrested.
The academic was identified by South Korean authorities as a university professor named “Qing” who was convicted of violating military secrets laws while working under the direction of “Ken Jake,” the code name for a PLA spy unit. The unit was named after a pseudonym used on social media to target South Korean troops.
Qing and his handlers systematically recruited South Korean troops to obtain critical military secrets, including details on the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system, joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise plans and information on Taiwan.
“The conspiracy utilized sophisticated digital cover identities, encrypted communications, and physical dead drops on Jeju Island before it was compromised by an undercover counterintelligence operation,” the report said.
According to the report, Qing is from Shandong Province, China, studied in Taiwan and then South Korea, where he went to work at a university that was not identified by name.
His work as a Chinese military intelligence agent involved courier work and intelligence tasks.
Qing was recruited while in Taiwan from 2018 to 2022 by a PLA operative named Liu Nannan and was tasked with collecting intelligence on an unspecified Taiwanese female politician, the report said.
The PLA spy operation then successfully compromised a South Korean conscript who provided operational plans on the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield military drills, and a South Korean navy sailor who provided the PLA with GPS coordinates of a warship.
The report said PLA spies used aliases to gain access to military-themed social media groups and open chat rooms disguised as military researchers from Singapore.
The conspirators used technical gear in capturing classified documents with hidden camera wrist watches to record documents. Mobile phones were used to send the documents to the PLA, and dead drops — clandestine exchange points in public toilets — were part of the operations.
The report was published by Shinobi, a security firm that works exclusively on countering China’s espionage, covert influence and theft of technology and trade secrets.
The publication of the PLA spying operation report comes as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is set to visit South Korea this week, where he is scheduled to meet Foreign Minister Cho Hyun in Seoul and later President Lee Jae-myung, whose Democratic Party of Korea has shifted its policies sharply in favor of China.
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