Nations have always raced one another for an advantage—in weaponry, resources, or land. But today that race is shifting into a new frontier: artificial intelligence. 

Across the globe, developed nations are treating artificial intelligence as a national-security obsession. Washington, Beijing, Brussels, and Moscow have each taken their own distinct approach to the development of what has been called “the last invention.” But undergirding each country’s distinct approach is an identical strategic impulse, the understanding that whoever develops the most capable artificial intelligence will vault to the top of the global hierarchy—so long as that global hierarchy remains intact.  

The United States is pushing aggressively towards the integration of artificial intelligence into defensive and offensive capabilities, yet with an emphasis on “keeping humans in the loop” and only using AI to process data and guide........

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