Winning the US–China Technology Race.

The United States' current rivalry with China should be seen as a technology race in which the ability to imagine, discover and apply innovations will decide who wins. While the United States spends more than China on research and development (R&D), China's state-centred system enables it to transform funding and talent into deployed capabilities faster than the United States' private-enterprise-centred system can. Accordingly, the US must avoid complacency about the inherent advantage of the democratic-capitalist system in scientific discovery and devise more effective mechanisms for stimulating free enterprise to develop new military technology. This requires the US Department of Defense to devote more resources to R&D by asking allies to contribute more for military operations, and to better incentivise military innovation by investing funds in private enterprise to defray start-up costs before production can yield steady revenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]