Managing the Impact of Emerging Technologies on Strategic Stability

Abstract: Sustaining strategic stability vis-a-vis Russia and China is a long-standing U.S. national security goal. Meeting this goal is growing more challenging due to tectonic geopolitical and technological changes. On the geopolitical side, new dynamics and new uncertainties are created by China’s emergence as an increasingly capable and assertive great power, Russia’s regional revanchism and political operations, and America’s uncertainty about its role in the world amidst its divisive domestic politics. On the technology side, advances in military capabilities for cyberspace, outer space, missile defense, long-range strike, and a range of AI-related areas including autonomous systems and big data analytics, are changing the dynamics of crisis management and conflict escalation. At the extreme, such technological advances could undermine confidence in one or more side's nuclear second-strike capabilities, thereby provoking arms racing in the near-term, and potentially “use or lose” dynamics in the longer-term. After outlining the dimensions of this growing set of challenges, Dr. Miller will offer a number of specific recommendations for U.S. policy, military force posture, and engagement with Russia and China.

Speaker Bio: Dr. James N. Miller is President of Adaptive Strategies, LLC, which provides consulting on strategy development and implementation, international engagement, and technology issues. He is a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs. He serves on the Defense Science Board, for which he recently co-chaired a task force report on cyber deterrence, the Board of Directors for the Atlantic Council, and the Board of Advisors for the Center for a New American Security. As Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from May 2012 to January 2014, Dr. Miller served as the principal civilian advisor to Secretaries Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel on strategy, policy, and operations, and as DoD’s Deputy for National Security Council deliberations. He served as Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from April 2009 to May 2012, and previously in numerous leadership positions in government, academia, non-profits, and the private sector over a thirty-year career in national security. He received a B.A. degree in economics from Stanford University, and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard’s JFK School of Government.