Lt. Gen. (ret.) John (Jack) N.T. Shanahan and Kevin Frazier
The global competition over artificial intelligence is increasingly framed in stark and dramatic terms, often compared to the Manhattan Project, a new arms race, or a moonshot project requiring incredible resources to attain a difficult, if not impossible, goal. These analogies all suffer from a common flaw: they point us toward the wrong goal. AI is not a discrete project with a clear endpoint, like building a nuclear weapon or landing on the moon. It is a long-term, society-wide effort to develop powerful tools and ensure their benefits reach classrooms, battlefields, factories, and start-ups alike.
The country that leverages advances in AI to establish and maintain substantial economic and military advantages will not necessarily be the one that develops the most advanced models in the shortest amount of time. The United States is not going to win the AI race against China, for example, simply because U.S.-made OpenAI models beat Chinese-made DeepSeek or Kimi K2 models on capability benchmarks. Instead, countries that learn how to bridge the gap between invention and widespread societal adoption will reap the most crucial benefits in the long term.
By taking a longer view, the United States can make smarter decisions about how to align technological progress with national security and public welfare. If it continues to frame AI primarily as a short-term sprint toward technical milestones, it risks falling behind global peers and adversaries. Gaining and maintaining a long-term competitive advantage in AI will require more than technical superiority. It demands reorienting education and workforce training, modernizing institutions, and setting a national vision based on broad public engagement.
By adopting this strategy, the United States can accomplish what other countries may struggle to replicate: a whole-of-society approach to AI. When other nations experience widespread “techlash” from rapid job displacement, the U.S. labor force can remain resilient and flexible due to its AI literacy and access to ongoing education. When U.S. peers struggle with rigid, outdated institutions undermining AI diffusion, the United States can point to its schools, small businesses, and civil society organizations as early adopters of the latest models.
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