October 14, 2026 | The Washington Times
The AI competition is a two-front war
We must win both
October 14, 2026 | The Washington Times
The AI competition is a two-front war
We must win both
Excerpt
Every conversation in Washington about artificial intelligence eventually collapses into a single idea: the “race” with China.
In that framing, the objective is simple. Go faster. Build better models. Get to the next breakthrough before Beijing. Anything that slows American AI development, even to determine whether the technology is safe, risks handing China the advantage.
Yet that is a false choice, and race is the wrong metaphor. This is a two-front war.
Leah Siskind is an AI research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery is the director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the FDD.