It is indeed an honor to address the Taipei Security Dialogue. Your focus on “Integrated Deterrence: Maintaining Peace Through Strength in the Indo-Pacific” is one of the greatest national security challenges of our time. This is my first visit to Taiwan despite decades working in the national security environment, including the U.S. Government, U.S. military, and private sector. My love for Taiwan and her freedom-loving people goes back many years, when I was a student of Dr. Ta-Tseng Ling, at my alma mater, Wofford College. He was a long time Taiwanese diplomat and served in Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was a Consul General for Taiwan in the United States. We learned Chinese politics and culture, and yes, he had us all read The Soong Sisters.

Taiwan is a freedom-loving democracy and plays a significant role in the stability of the Indo-Pacific region. It is why the U.S. Government and U.S. businesses alike seek to increase partnerships with Taiwan and its businesses in the defense and security sector. There remains in the U.S. Congress steadfast, bipartisan champions of Taiwan's ability to, “maintain a sufficient self-defense capability” and “help maintain peace, security, and stability in the Western Pacific.” It is imperative, though, that Taiwan prioritizes adequate defense spending in order to counter the growing threat as a result of significant investments in the region made by the People's Liberation Army. Last year, Taiwan's defense budget was approximately $19 billion, or approximately 2.5% of its GDP. However, I was pleased to see last month, as reported in TaiwanPlus News, that this year Taiwan will increase its budget to $31 billion, which will account for over 3.3% of its GDP. This is a good step forward in the right direction. Former White House National Security Council Chief of Staff Alex Gray, in a recent piece in The Diplomat, argues that “Taiwan should aim for at least 5% of GDP in coming years, and prioritize asymmetric and defensive capabilities that maximize cross-strait deterrence.” I cannot agree more.

For centuries, wars were only fought by land and sea. It was not until the 20th century that we had the technology to fight in the air with fighters, bombers, and intercontinental ballistic missiles. The space race gave us another front in military combat. The Persian Gulf War showed the world that domination of the air, sea, and land was augmented by our use of satellites gathering intelligence and guiding our troops through the desert. As I point out in my book, The New Terrorism: How to Fight It and Defeat It, in the 21st century, we have seen the rapid emergence of the fifth dimension of warfare, cyber. Unlike the other four dimensions of land, sea, air and space, the cyber dimension is artificial and, if not secured, can prove to be a strategic vulnerability. This makes strategic planning difficult.

In 1965, Gordon Moore, the co-founder of computer chip maker Intel, observed that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles every two years. This rule not only remained constant for decades, but there have been similar rates for remarkable increases in technology. Such rapid increases in technology help to explain why the cyber war is the most complicated national security threat the free world has ever faced. The speed of change in the cyber realm is much faster than the ability of governments to analyze and adapt. Rather than always responding to the last threat, we must think outside of the box to adequately prepare for and counter the next one.

This past week, ABC News reported that China is, “rapidly building up the country's commercial ferry fleet to prepare for an invasion of Taiwan.” ABC further noted that their sources say, “the large ocean-going vessels have been modified to carry tanks and partake in amphibious operations.” This shouldn't be too surprising. In 2022, some 30 Chinese commercial ferries were monitored by Five Eyes intelligence in military exercises involving PLA troops. Recently, Ukraine has proved the value of massed, inexpensive unmanned systems. The Pacific poses different engineering challenges, but the principle of attrition applies. Scaling production of maritime drones, loitering munitions, swarms, and unmanned underwater vehicles can make a big difference. In volume, they have the potential to turn any invasion fleet into a catastrophic liability.

In the modern age, we must look to where one can gain a strategic advantage through next generation capabilities. There are three areas of technology that I believe will determine who has the edge on the battlefield of the future. Mastering these can help a smaller combatant to have a fighting chance against a much larger adversary. And, dominating one of these capabilities may enable a combatant to defeat an adversary that possesses superior conventional weaponry and a larger number of forces.

Artificial intelligence is the capability of computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. While academics have written about it for decades, we've seen exponential growth and advancements in AI in recent years. In the United States, President Trump has made it a priority with the recent release of his, “Winning the AI Race: America's AI Action Plan.” This follows upon one of his early executive orders to remove various bureaucratic barriers to AI. President Trump's AI Action Plan is rooted in America winning the AI race. Coming in second is not an option for the Trump Administration. Winning the AI race and having superiority in AI over an adversary has many battlefield implications. For example, it can be used to support battlefield decision making, help classify and identify targets, or in the future, enable fully autonomous operations to remove the warfighter from the battle. After battles, AI can be used in battle damage assessments and decision support for the next troop movements. Additionally, AI is useful in maintaining supply chains and managing inventory and logistics, to support planning in peacetime and during a conflict. Less directly, it can also be used in the information space to counter psychological warfare. While some experts frequently trumpet that the Taiwanese should arm themselves with drones as the Ukrainians have done, they neglect to mention the force-multiplying potential of coupling drones with AI to create drone swarms.

AI has additional applications, including in the management of spectrum. Managing spectrum on the battlefield of the future is one of the key challenges facing our war planners. Different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum are becoming inundated with radar, weapons, and electronic systems all competing to transmit the information to enable a highly networked modern force. Sophisticated Electronic Warfare (EW) causes congestion and can disrupt and deny Taiwan's ability to make full use of its spectrum in times of conflict. Certain bands of the spectrum are typically reserved for military use, with very narrow frequency bands being used for a specific task by both sides. Taiwan will therefore need a flexible plan for spectrum management and the technological capability to create resilient communication systems, potentially with the use of AI to enable efficient, secure and flexible use of spectrum. Likewise, Taiwan must have an EW capability to counter and degrade an adversary’s own ability to utilize the portions of the spectrum they need to carry out operations and guide their precision weapons.

The last of the next generation capabilities needed is quantum. When I think of quantum, I think of speed of computing that is millions of times faster than traditional computing. Whoever is the first to master the science of quantum computing and random number generation will likely have a “leg up” in winning the cyber war, as these random numbers are the roots of every encryption algorithm. It could be the great equalizer and enable a small country with less advanced technology in other areas to gain a real strategic advantage. Michael Reagan, son of America's 40th president, Ronald Reagan, once told me “The secret to my dad's success was that he could always tell a story.” Winning the quantum race is one of the most important challenges facing the free world today. It's important that our citizenry understand what it's all about. I could have great, sophisticated defense technology, but if a smaller adversary has a quantum capability that can disable my technology, guess who wins on the battlefield? Quantum will impact more than just national security. It will impact banking, healthcare, and transportation—in short, the very economy of a nation.

I believe that we can learn much from how Winston Churchill and the British cracked Nazi Germany’s Enigma code in WWII and apply those same principles to winning the quantum race today, as well as the AI and spectrum races. Churchill’s focused research effort with full resources, assembling the best scientists, and personal involvement enabled the British to crack the Enigma code which was once thought unbreakable. The “British Bulldog” gave us the framework for the free world to win today’s quantum, AI, and spectrum races.

In closing, thank you again for the privilege of joining you today. The late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, “When people are free to choose, they choose freedom.” President Reagan stated further, “A people free to choose, will always choose peace.” Thank you Taiwan for being an ally committed to both freedom and peace.