The future belongs to artificial general intelligence (AGI). China and the United States are pursuing different strategies in the contest for global leadership.
But one US national security think tank wants to take the rivalry to an extreme. The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) has gone so far as to suggest that Washington consider extreme measures to stop China from achieving AGI first.
CNAS released “Superpowers and AGI” report late last month.
Jacob Stokes, one of the report's authors and a former White House official, called on the US to prepare itself. He listed possible extreme measures, from diplomacy and espionage to cyberattacks and coercive steps. Among them: military strikes on Chinese data centers.
Stokes, one of the authors of the report urged extreme steps, even strikes on Chinese data centers.
CNAS is headquartered in Washington and was founded in 2007. It has long advised the US government on defense, Indo-Pacific and China strategy. Its lean is hawkish.
Late last month, CNAS released a report titled “Superpowers and AGI”. The document reeks of gunpowder. It argues that the race for AGI, and the technology's potential emergence, could profoundly affect US-China competition. It could also heighten the risk of military conflict or catastrophe on multiple fronts.
The Containment Checklist
To that end, the report urges US policymakers to act on several fronts. First, ensure that American resources and technology do not aid China's AI development. Second, establish AI-focused diplomatic channels with allies and with China, so that the potential emergence of AGI is placed on the agenda. Third, develop a technically sophisticated method to track the inputs into AGI and the key performance thresholds of frontier AI systems.
The list goes on. Washington should conduct scenario exercises testing when and how the US should intervene to halt China's AGI development. It should prepare to reverse-engineer or steal the technology should China obtain AGI first. And it should limit and contain the reach of authoritarian digital infrastructure.
The most extreme proposal of all is military strikes. The South China Morning Post reported on 4 September that Stokes, deputy director of CNAS's Indo-Pacific Security Program, addressed an online event on Thursday.
His message was blunt. The US Department of Defense, the National Security Agency and other agencies should begin assessing what intelligence would be needed to justify such operations. That would pave the way for the "hard action" to follow.
The Cold War Playbook
Stokes served as a national security staffer under former US president Barack Obama. In the report he unabashedly lays out a menu of what he calls "diplomatic, espionage, cyber and kinetic measures." Among them are military strikes on the data centers that train and run China's AGI systems. He even touts preventive strikes before China develops AGI at all.
Stokes goes so far as to compare the undertaking to the way "in a past era, policymakers would learn about nuclear weapons." His declared method is to "work backwards from the science to the policy implications."
Citing assessments by research outfit Epoch AI, the report notes that the US currently leads China in advanced AI models by only "months." But it warns that China could pull off an "unexpected technological breakthrough" in fields such as robotics and "embodied AI."
Citing research institute Epoch AI data, the report sees China pulling off surprise breakthroughs.
Notably, Stokes also concedes a gap on the American side. The US government and its intelligence agencies have "not been organised for espionage to gather technological secrets for decades."
"The Height of Recklessness"
Stokes' extreme remarks have drawn questioning within the United States itself. William Hartung, a senior arms and defense budget expert at the Washington-based non-profit Project On Government Oversight (POGO), publicly slammed the report as "the height of recklessness."
Hartung warned that any strike on Chinese data centers would "risk starting a shooting war between two nuclear-armed powers". Such a war could bring tragic consequences for all concerned.
China has consistently maintained that AI should be people-centered and that intelligence should serve the good. Military applications must remain under human control. Beijing opposes turning technological issues into bloc confrontation or weaponry.
Make no mistake: technological competition is no casus belli. When individual American politicians and think-tank figures reach for threats of "military strikes" and "espionage" at every turn, they gravely violate the basic norms of international relations. They also expose a dangerous bid to politicize and militarize technology.
Deep Throat
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
Talk about a boomerang. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took aim at Iran in a post on X on the 27th, local time. The post did not produce the effect he intended. Many Americans even suspected the post was an elaborate self-own, a sly dig at the United States itself.
Commenters taunted Bessent: "replace 'Iran' in the post with 'the United States'", "Find a freaking mirror", "Read this tweet back to yourself". The post has so far drawn more than 8,000 comments.
The timing makes the boomerang hurt even more. On the same day, the 27th, Britain's The Guardian published an exclusive. It reveals that the US military is mired in a severe financial crisis. The US Navy has been forced to divert money from service members' payroll account and other funds to cover combat expenses.
US Treasury Secretary Bessent publishes a post on X targeting Iran, and is hit by "boomerang-style" mockery.
In the post, Bessent declares: "As the Iranian people struggle to afford basic necessities, the corrupt regime continues to squander enormous sums abroad. Instead of funneling billions of dollars to its terrorist proxies, the regime should spend that money for its people."
Bessent's post slams Iran's "corrupt regime" for squandering billions abroad.
The post draws a flood of comments from American netizens. Many feel Bessent's words read more like a description of a warmongering United States, and they pile on the ridicule.
One netizen says Bessent wrote one word wrongly and kindly corrects it for him: change "Iran" to "the United States". That comment earns plenty of likes.
Others lash out directly: "You are LITERALLY describing America." Another writes that America is "Squandering trillions into never ending wars for the benefit of the MIC and Wall Street while the bottom 90% can’t afford to live except by taking on more debt." A third tells Bessent: "Find a freaking mirror." One netizen even suggests Bessent "Read this tweet back to yourself".
A netizen offers a "correction" to Bessent's post, replacing "Iran" with "the United States".
A netizen bluntly tells Bessent to take a good look in the mirror.
Pro-Iran accounts also weigh in. One account posts photos of the hundreds of Iranian children previously killed by US missiles. Its criticism is blunt: American taxpayers' money is being used to buy weapons that kill Iranian schoolchildren, while homeless people who cannot get enough to eat are everywhere in America's own cities. It is the United States itself that should be spending its money on people's livelihoods rather than on war.
A pro-Iran account posts photos of the hundreds of Iranian children previously killed by US missiles.
Then there is that Guardian exclusive. The paper reports obtaining a Pentagon memorandum on Navy funding. America's military operation against Iran has depleted US munitions stockpiles, and Iran's retaliatory strikes have inflicted heavy damage on multiple US military bases across the Middle East. Every part of the US military budget is now under enormous pressure.
The report says the Department of Defense has been pulling money from payroll accounts to finance combat operations. Those accounts have now developed shortfalls.
The report quotes Harlan Ullman, a retired US Navy officer: "The piggy bank is broken." Ullman sits on the National Commission on the Future of the Navy, though he stresses the interview does not represent the commission's position. One official and one Navy contractor also reveal that, owing to the funding crunch, non-emergency maintenance work at shore-based facilities has been deferred.
British media reports that the US-Iran war has drained US munitions stockpiles, putting US military budgets under enormous pressure.
Since February this year, the United States and Israel have been waging a large-scale military assault on Iran. The US Navy not only joined the initial wave of attacks but has also shouldered a prolonged maritime blockade. The White House subsequently applied to Congress for emergency funding. Approval of that request looks unlikely.
A Navy official says the service is shifting money around in every way it can: "The money for payroll was robbed to pay for overseas contingencies and is being backfilled by money that hasn't been spent. They are backfilling payroll so we get enough money in our paycheck."
The US Navy's total budget for fiscal year 2026 runs to nearly US$300 billion, according to the report. The money is divided into different purposes: personnel pay, shipbuilding, weapons procurement, and "operations and maintenance", the day-to-day running of the fleet and its bases. The law restricts the movement of funds between these appropriation items.
The funding problem has surfaced at hearings on Capitol Hill. Republican senator Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said on 21 July: "I’m told some military services face near-term solvency challenges." A staffer says the US Navy was among the services Collins was referring to.
A US Navy spokesperson says in a statement that maintenance and operations funds have not been exhausted: "The Department of the Navy is actively managing its resources to meet current pay obligations on time. We continue to work closely with Congress to address ongoing operational demands and sustain our personnel and readiness throughout the fiscal year."
But the real issue is what the Navy will not say out loud. Inside the US Navy, the funding shortage has long been an open secret. US defense analyst Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute puts it bluntly: "They're just not speaking publicly about it."
In his view, this may be a decision made by the Pentagon's civilian leadership out of political considerations. "They don't want to look like they're damaging future military readiness over a war that is becoming increasingly a political liability."
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been lobbying Congress to pass the emergency funding. He warned in July that the department will face a serious funding gap if the money ultimately fails to arrive.
