The path to America-first AI



America’s AI debate is a hot mess. Policymakers, technologists, investors, and activists cannot agree on the destination, the strategy, the acceptable costs, or even what “winning” the artificial intelligence race means.

That confusion shuts ordinary Americans out of a debate that will shape their jobs, businesses, institutions, and way of life. Yet an America-first AI regime cannot be designed only by Washington policymakers, Silicon Valley moguls, or a priesthood of engineers. It must serve the people who build businesses, sign paychecks, raise families, and sustain the country.

America’s technological order should be built around productive citizens rather than a handful of companies pursuing a woo-woo race to turn the planet into a cyber-utopia.

My Independence Day forecast looks more accurate now than it did when I wrote it: No single political authority controls America’s technological future, and no shared moral authority guides it. We still have the Declaration, the Constitution, federalism, and one another. Almost everything else remains unsettled.

The Kimi shock

Since July 4, factional warfare among the AI elite has intensified after the release of Kimi, a Chinese open-source model that reportedly outperformed leading American closed-source systems on important benchmarks.

Kimi did not emerge from an isolated Chinese laboratory. Its engineers trained it by distilling capabilities from American proprietary models — the very systems OpenAI, Anthropic, and their allies argue must remain closed to preserve America’s lead.

The result presents a serious problem. America has poured immense financial, scientific, and political capital into closed frontier labs. If Chinese developers can cheaply reproduce much of their practical value, Washington faces a nightmarish choice: either cede global AI leadership and control to Beijing or allow the pursuit of AI dominance to transform our form of government into something we may not recognize as “American.”

America’s historic model combines private innovation, free markets, and strategic federal investment. That model has supported both prosperity and national power. But if massive collaboration between government and closed-source hyperscalers cannot sustain an AI edge, Americans deserve a debate about what comes next — not a panic-driven transfer of more power and money to the same institutions.

How can America face the future if its greatest strategic advantage has become a liability? Without public agreement on what should replace the old model — or even what kind of country a “refounded” United States should be — what can we do next?

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Three rival factions

Right now, among the AI elite, three factions have emerged in response to this problem.

The first faction argues that Kimi changes less than it appears. Chinese engineers did not surpass American frontier models across the board; they optimized around the most expensive benchmarks and competed where open systems could win. Closed labs can adjust, Washington can revise its strategy, and American dominance can survive.

That may be partly right. Frontier labs still possess enormous resources, talent, and political support. They will not disappear simply because open models become more useful.

The second faction believes such economic and political concerns will soon become obsolete. Its members expect recursively self-improving artificial superintelligence to transform or absorb human civilization. Their task, as they see it, is to accelerate the transition and ensure that it occurs under acceptable management. If done right, we would enter a new age that would be pleasurable beyond comprehension.

The test of an America-first AI policy is whether advanced technology strengthens the constitutional nation and the people who give it life.

The left-coded version appears in Effective Altruism. The right-coded version insists that America, not China, must command the coming superintelligence. Both treat maximum acceleration as a moral imperative. From that perspective, open-source AI is dangerous because it disperses capability, slows the drive toward a single frontier breakthrough, and weakens the control of the institutions leading the race.

The third faction rejects the bargain behind closed-source supremacy. Its argument is that hyperscalers are frightening Americans into financing their rise as private governors of technological progress. The companies gain ungodly wealth and authority; Washington gains the hope of planetary AI dominance; citizens inherit the cost and the risk.

Kimi strengthens that argument because it competed by optimizing for what businesses actually need: efficient computing, useful workflows, enterprise deployment, and practical web applications. Open models can undercut closed systems precisely where American economic life is strongest — decentralized experimentation by workers, entrepreneurs, and firms.

This faction therefore urges America to embrace and encourage domestic open-source AI. The point is not that every model must be public or that frontier capabilities require no safeguards. It is that America’s technological order should be built around productive citizens rather than a handful of companies pursuing a woo-woo race to turn the planet into a cyber-utopia.

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The real America-first path

Of the three positions, the third offers the clearest route to America-first AI because it begins with the right political subject: the American people. Technology should enlarge their capacity to create, compete, govern themselves, and live well. They should not be treated as raw material for a government-corporate project aimed at controlling the future.

The first faction is also correct that closed frontier labs will remain part of the system. Some Americans genuinely want to invest heavily in the most powerful possible models. The federal government also believes its military, financial, and geopolitical position may depend on sovereign access to frontier AI.

That belief creates the greatest danger.

Washington may conclude that preserving its global dominance requires technological control beyond civilian resistance. If officials decide they must choose between the survival of the federal regime and the survival of America’s constitutional order, “national security” will become the justification for hoarding data, compute, models, and authority on a scale the country has never seen.

China would then win without beating America at the frontier. By flooding the world with useful, inexpensive, business-friendly open models, Beijing could tempt Washington into becoming more centralized, secretive, and coercive — less recognizably American.

America should refuse that trap. It should protect genuinely dangerous capabilities, preserve a competitive frontier sector, and make room for open models that empower American businesses and citizens. The test of an America-first AI policy is not whether it produces the most powerful machine at any cost. The test is whether advanced technology strengthens the constitutional nation and the people who give it life.

If our AI strategy requires America to stop being America, China has already won.

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The Senate wants to lock the door on cheap Chinese cars — is 'security' the whole story?



If you've spent any time on YouTube, you've probably seen videos of Chinese electric vehicles loaded with giant touchscreens, premium interiors, advanced driver-assistance systems, and impressive range — all selling overseas for the price of an entry-level compact car.

This week, Washington made sure they're likely to stay that way.

History suggests consumers usually benefit when new competitors arrive.

The official explanation is national security. But that's only part of the story.

Unacceptable risks?

On July 15, the Senate Commerce Committee advanced the Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026, bipartisan legislation introduced by Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno and Michigan Democrat Sen. Elissa Slotkin. The bill would permanently codify and strengthen Commerce Department restrictions on connected vehicles, software, and hardware from China and other designated foreign adversaries. It doesn't just target cars wearing Chinese badges; it targets the telematics units, cellular modems, GPS modules, and other connected technology that allows modern vehicles to constantly send and receive data.

Supporters argue that's necessary because today's vehicles collect enormous amounts of information, including location data, driving behavior, camera feeds, microphones, and wireless communications. Given China's national security laws, which require companies to cooperate with government intelligence requests, lawmakers say allowing Chinese-connected vehicles onto American roads creates unacceptable risks.

Those concerns deserve to be taken seriously.

But the legislation also blocks what could become the biggest source of price competition the American auto industry has faced in decades.

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Good for the goose ...

The average new vehicle now sells for close to record prices. Even compact crossovers routinely exceed $35,000, electric vehicles often cost much more before incentives, financing has become more expensive, insurance premiums continue climbing, and used-car prices remain stubbornly high. Americans can watch BYD, Geely, MG, Chery, XPeng, and other Chinese brands selling well-equipped vehicles overseas for thousands less than comparable models available here — sometimes for nearly half the price — and naturally wonder why they can't buy them.

Washington's answer is national security.

Fair enough — but if protecting Americans' data is the goal, why does the conversation stop with China?

Modern vehicles already collect extraordinary amounts of information about their owners. Domestic automakers know where many vehicles travel, how they're driven, and when they're serviced, while connected-car data has already found its way to insurers and third-party data brokers. Congress appears highly motivated to prevent China from collecting that information, but it has shown far less urgency about limiting who else can.

Competition wanted

There's also an economic reality. Keeping Chinese competitors out protects existing manufacturers from the kind of price competition they've largely avoided. Over the past decade, automakers have steadily abandoned affordable entry-level cars in favor of SUVs and pickups with much higher profit margins. Introducing dozens of lower-priced competitors would put pressure on those margins — which is exactly what competition is supposed to do.

History suggests consumers usually benefit when new competitors arrive. Japanese automakers forced Detroit to improve in the 1970s and 1980s, while Korean manufacturers evolved from budget brands into respected global competitors. Better quality, stronger reliability, and lower prices followed. Whether Chinese manufacturers would have had the same effect is now a question Americans may never get to answer.

Even if finished Chinese vehicles never reach U.S. dealerships, much of the global battery supply chain still runs through China. The country dominates battery mineral processing and many of the components used in electric vehicles assembled around the world, including those built in North America. America is trying to reduce its dependence on China while remaining heavily dependent on Chinese manufacturing for some of the industry's most important technologies — a contradiction that won't disappear simply because imported vehicles are banned.

The Connected Vehicle Security Act may ultimately prove to be good national-security policy. But Americans deserve an honest conversation about its economic cost as well.

Restricting Chinese vehicles limits competition, reduces consumer choice, and almost certainly helps keep vehicle prices higher than they otherwise might be. If lawmakers believe those trade-offs are necessary, they should make that case openly, because the people paying the price won't be members of Congress or auto executives.

They'll be the families walking into dealerships wondering why their next vehicle costs thousands more than they expected.

National security matters. Consumers deserve the full picture, including what those protections may cost them every time they shop for a new car.

America needs an artificial intelligence coalition, not an AI fortress



China has made its view of artificial intelligence unmistakably clear.

Beijing is reportedly preparing to restrict overseas access to its most advanced AI models even as second-tier Chinese firms race to capture global customers that American export controls may drive away. China treats frontier AI as a national asset to guard, not a product to sell freely on the open market.

America’s better bet is disciplined openness: protect frontier capabilities from adversaries while making it easy for allies and trusted partners to build with American AI.

No surprise. Authoritarian governments always seek to control information, technology, and who may benefit from either. The United States should not make the same mistake.

America’s technological advantage has never come from secrecy alone. It comes from building products others want to use, setting standards others trust, and scaling companies faster than any rival.

As Congress negotiates the National Defense Authorization Act, lobbyists are pushing for new AI export restrictions. The impulse is understandable. Advanced chips, large-scale cloud computing, and frontier model weights can help foreign militaries, cyber actors, weapons proliferators, and surveillance states.

Congress must distinguish between two goals: denying adversaries dangerous capabilities and keeping the world’s trusted AI ecosystem centered on the United States.

That distinction should guide every AI export policy.

The first principle is national security through technological leadership. American AI companies, cloud providers, chip designers, universities, and capital markets form the engine of that leadership. Export controls should protect the system, not cripple it.

Second, allies and trusted partners should receive privileged access. America needs an AI coalition, not an AI fortress.

NATO allies and partners such as Japan, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan, and New Zealand should not face the same practical restrictions as China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea when they meet strong security and anti-diversion standards.

Friendly countries will not build around American technology if they believe Washington can abruptly cut off access through broad and discretionary rules. They will build alternatives.

Third, controls should be risk-based and technically precise.

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A transfer of frontier model weights is not the same as API access to a safeguarded model. A massive training run is not the same as ordinary inference. A Canadian researcher is not a Chinese military-linked laboratory.

The more a transaction transfers durable frontier capability, the stronger the case for licensing. The more it resembles ordinary use of a monitored service, the stronger the case for presumptive access.

The United States already uses focused tools to keep dangerous technologies away from dangerous actors. Those tools work best when they target specific end users and end uses: foreign militaries, sanctioned entities, weapons programs, offensive cyber operations, surveillance abuses, and diversion through shell companies or intermediaries.

They work poorly when companies cannot determine what the law allows.

That is the problem with the Remote Access Security Act, which the Senate is considering.

The remote-access loophole is real. Export controls fail when restricted firms cannot buy advanced chips but can rent the same computing capability through the cloud.

The House-passed bill, however, does more than close that loophole. It allows the Commerce Department to regulate remote access by a foreign person through a network or cloud service whenever the secretary determines that the use could pose a serious risk to U.S. national security or foreign policy.

That grants regulators enormous latitude.

“Foreign persons” include individuals and businesses in friendly countries. “Foreign policy” is an elastic standard. Together, those terms could give the executive branch sweeping authority over global access to American AI infrastructure.

The bill requires Commerce to inform Congress about anticipated regulations, including the security risk, method of regulation, and likely economic consequences. It does not require congressional approval before the rules take effect.

That may be administratively convenient. It is not sufficient for a power that could reshape the global AI market.

Regulators need discretion in a fast-moving technology sector. They do not need unbounded discretion.

The bill’s vagueness would change business behavior long before any court tested its limits.

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When companies do not know who may receive access, they overblock. Cloud providers may exclude broad categories of foreign customers. AI laboratories may avoid international partnerships. Universities may slow research collaborations. Trusted allies and legitimate businesses may find themselves treated like hostile actors.

Customers who cannot obtain American AI will find it elsewhere. Increasingly, elsewhere means China.

DeepSeek, Alibaba, Huawei, Tencent, and Kuaishou’s Kling AI are aggressively courting users, developers, and investors worldwide. Every needless barrier Congress places before legitimate users of American AI gives those companies an opening.

The economic stakes are enormous.

PWC estimates that AI could add as much as $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, with China among the largest projected beneficiaries. The Stanford AI Index reports that American private AI investment exceeded $285 billion in 2025, more than 23 times China’s total.

That lead is extraordinary. It is not permanent.

Customers gravitate toward ecosystems that are capable, accessible, reliable, and politically predictable. American dominance will erode if Washington makes access uncertain while Beijing makes its second-tier products easy to obtain.

Congress should not discard the Remote Access Security Act. It should improve it. A better bill would close the cloud loophole while creating safe pathways for lawful use. It should provide privileged access for allies and vetted users, define clear thresholds for frontier-scale compute and controlled model weights, and distinguish among weight transfers, training compute, inference, and ordinary applications.

It should also establish licensing deadlines, appeals or advisory opinions, safe harbors for companies that perform good-faith know-your-customer and anti-diversion checks, and periodic reviews that update or retire controls as technology changes.

That approach is not soft on China. It is how America can confront China without sabotaging itself.

The United States should deny adversaries the tools they need for military modernization, cyber operations, weapons programs, and authoritarian surveillance. It should also make safe transactions easy and dangerous transactions hard.

China is betting that control will win the AI race. America’s better bet is disciplined openness: protect frontier capabilities from adversaries while making it easy for allies and trusted partners to build with American AI.

Congress should write export rules that preserve that advantage, not hand American customers to Beijing by accident.

That model has kept American companies at the front of global technology for decades. It is how they will stay there.

Glenn Beck: Far-left Democrats are plotting to destroy America right in front of our eyes



The Democratic Socialists of America have released their new platform, which is titled “Workers Deserve More.” And Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck has been left wondering — who are the workers?

“Well, you can ask Mamdani because he apparently knows. Well, no, actually, they asked him yesterday, and it stumped him. He couldn’t answer who workers were,” he says.

The new platform also commits to “abolish the United States Senate, replacing the president and the Supreme Court with an executive and a judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.”

“That means that you just want to abolish the United States of America,” Glenn comments.


The group also wants “to take the largest corporations into public ownership,” which Glenn immediately pegs as “communism.”

“Abolishing ICE, granting amnesty to all immigrants, defunding the Department of War, and eventually writing a new constitution,” he says. “That’s interesting.”

“In their words, ... some demands may be achievable under the current system, but complete victory, I’m quoting, ‘requires building a new society from the ground up,’” he explains. “Well, the good news is, we know how that society looks, because it looks like the former Soviet Union or the current Chinese government.”

“This has been done before, and this is where the left loses. They always lose because they combine communism with radicalism and explosions and terrorism,” he adds.

Leftists like Hasan Piker are even openly copying Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao, who oversaw the deaths of millions of his civilians under his “new society.”

In a clip from the College Democrats of America summer convention on July 18, Piker, dressed as Mao, said: “No more to Trumpism, but no more to the Democrats who compromise, who conciliate, and who betray us.”

“No more to the fascist reactionaries, but no more to the Democrats who will collaborate and cooperate with the fascists, who will fund ICE, who will fund Israel,” he added.

“This is exactly, exactly the way it has happened every single time,” Glenn comments.

“You’re teaching people to hate. You’re praising Chairman Mao, and you say you want to change the constitution,” he says. “No.”

Want more from Glenn Beck?

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Canada has become America’s northern security threat



Canada’s failed policies are doing more than fouling American air. Summer across the Midwest and East Coast has again brought unhealthy and hazardous air-quality warnings from Canadian wildfires. Poor forest management threatens public health and daily life. Canada’s immigration policies pose a deeper and more lasting danger.

Most Americans still regard Canada as a polite northern extension of the United States: familiar, friendly, and strategically harmless. That view belongs to another era. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that “nostalgia is not a strategy.” Neither is complacency.

America once regarded the northern border as its safest frontier. That assumption is precisely what now makes it dangerous. Nobody thought to watch it.

Canada is becoming one of America’s most underestimated national security vulnerabilities: a permissive northern platform through which mass migration, organized crime, and hostile foreign influence can reach the United States.

The first problem is demographic. In 1961, 96.8% of Canadians reported European origins, primarily British or French. By 2021, that figure had fallen to 52.5%, a decline of 44.3 percentage points in 60 years, even allowing for changes in census methodology. Canada has undergone one of the most dramatic demographic transformations in the Western world. A mass-migration regime has shifted the primary source of new Canadians from Europe to Asia, with Asian populations now making up roughly one-fifth of the country.

That change would carry fewer risks in a confident, assimilationist nation. Canada has chosen the opposite course. The United States has historically shown an extraordinary ability to turn foreigners into Americans. Canada instead embraced state-sponsored multiculturalism. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau even described the country as the world’s first “postnational state,” with “no core identity” and “no mainstream.” Canada has combined mass immigration with an increasingly vague idea of national belonging.

Immigration without assimilation has accelerated the country’s Balkanization. New arrivals often settle in established immigrant communities, producing ethnic enclaves first at the neighborhood level and, increasingly, across entire cities.

In Brampton, Ontario, Canada’s ninth-largest city, more than 52% of residents are South Asian. In Richmond, British Columbia, more than half the population is Chinese. Markham, Surrey, Burnaby, Mississauga, and Richmond Hill reflect the same pattern: not merely high immigration, but concentrated communal geography.

Lebanon offers an extreme warning of where such politics can lead. Once politics stops revolving around competing ideas and becomes a census of rival communities, foreign governments learn to exploit those divisions.

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That prospect should concern Washington. Canada has already become a major arena for foreign interference. Its own public inquiry has examined the activities of China, Russia, India, and other governments. Diaspora communities can become targets and instruments of intimidation, surveillance, political coercion, and imported ethnic conflict. The 2023 killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar illustrated the danger. Canadian officials alleged that agents of the Indian government were involved in his assassination on Canadian soil.

China presents the gravest strategic threat. Beijing does not need to turn Canada into an outright enemy of the United States. It needs only to use Canada as a gateway into the North American system. During the 2025 campaign, Carney identified China as a major geopolitical threat and source of foreign interference. His government has since adopted a more accommodating posture, even avoiding a direct answer when asked whether he still regarded Beijing as a threat.

Canada’s decision to allow Chinese electric vehicles into the country at reduced tariff rates shows the risk. Modern electric vehicles are not simply cars. Their cameras, microphones, sensors, software, and remote-update capabilities can collect enormous quantities of data. Washington may restrict Chinese connected vehicles in the United States, but those safeguards weaken if Canada allows large numbers of them into the shared North American market.

That policy could put tens of thousands of Chinese surveillance platforms on American roads, gathering information near military bases, power plants, communications infrastructure, and other sensitive sites.

The physical border creates another vulnerability. The northern frontier no longer deserves its old reputation as strategically irrelevant. U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions rose sharply from fiscal year 2022 through fiscal year 2024, although they have since declined under the Trump administration.

The increase showed how easily weak Canadian migration policy can undermine American border enforcement. When the United States tightens its southern border while Canada maintains looser entry policies, the northern frontier becomes an escape valve for foreign nationals seeking unlawful entry.

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The danger extends beyond illegal immigration. Criminal organizations, foreign agents, and potentially terrorist-linked individuals can exploit a border designed around an older assumption of trust. Fentanyl compounds the threat. Authorities have intercepted Chinese precursor chemicals in Canada and uncovered sophisticated drug “superlabs” north of the border.

The conclusion should be unavoidable: The Canada of the American imagination no longer exists. The old Canada rarely sent toxic smoke across the border. It served as a loyal northern shield — a NATO ally, a NORAD partner, and a dependable member of the Western alliance.

The new Canada is more ambiguous and more dangerous. It remains formally allied and culturally familiar, but it is also increasingly fragmented, increasingly open to commercial ties with American adversaries, and increasingly exposed to hostile foreign influence.

The United States need not treat Canada as an enemy. But we can no longer assume Canada will remain a fully reliable security partner. America once regarded the northern border as its safest frontier. That assumption is precisely what now makes it dangerous. Nobody thought to watch it.

The hidden danger in Trump’s drug-price plan



One of the most influential military strategists of the 20th century, U.S. Air Force Col. John Boyd, developed a decision-making process known as the OODA loop: observe, orient, decide, act.

His model emphasized a simple but powerful principle: Move quickly, but only after understanding the strategic environment.

Nations that lead biotechnology will enjoy not only economic advantages but also strategic leverage during future global crises. China understands this.

The most important step is often “orient.” It requires leaders to look beyond the immediate problem, understand the broader consequences of their actions, and anticipate unintended outcomes. When leaders skip that step, they may solve today’s problem while creating a much larger one tomorrow.

President Donald Trump’s recent effort to reduce prescription drug prices illustrates that challenge.

One of the administration’s most significant health care initiatives is the adoption of a most-favored-nation pricing model. Under this policy, the United States would tie the prices of certain prescription drugs to the lower prices paid by selected foreign countries.

The objective is understandable. Americans often pay substantially more for prescription medicines than patients in Europe or Canada. Reducing those costs would help millions of families.

But sound public policy requires looking beyond immediate savings.

Economists have long recognized that government-imposed price controls often reduce investment and supply over time. In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon imposed broad wage and price controls in an effort to combat inflation.

Instead, the country experienced stagflation — the painful combination of high inflation and slow economic growth. Energy price controls contributed to gasoline shortages by reducing incentives for increased production. Rent-control policies in cities such as New York have similarly discouraged new housing construction, contributing to housing shortages.

Pharmaceuticals operate under similar economic realities.

Developing a single breakthrough drug often requires more than a decade of research, thousands of unsuccessful experiments, and billions of dollars in investment. The profits from successful medicines finance the research that produces tomorrow’s cures.

If government policies significantly reduce those returns, companies are unlikely to stop producing today’s medicines. More likely, they will reduce research and development spending, slowing the pace of innovation.

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That slowdown would be both an economic and national security concern.

Biotechnology has become one of the world’s most strategically important industries. It influences health care, agriculture, artificial intelligence, military medicine, pandemic preparedness, and protection against biological threats.

Nations that lead biotechnology will enjoy not only economic advantages but also strategic leverage during future global crises.

China understands this.

Just as Beijing has invested aggressively in artificial intelligence, critical minerals, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing, it has identified biotechnology as a strategic national priority.

Between 2016 and 2021, the market capitalization of Chinese biotechnology companies grew to approximately $300 billion, while the Chinese government invested heavily in research centers, biotechnology hubs, and advanced scientific education.

The numbers tell an even more compelling story.

According to the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, China completed more than 7,100 clinical drug trials in 2024, compared with roughly 6,000 in the United States. China’s share of global clinical trials has grown from approximately 1% in 2009 to nearly 30% today, while America’s share has declined.

Chinese scientists now produce roughly 60% of the world’s most-cited biotechnology research papers, and China accounts for 22% of international pharmaceutical and medical technology patents — an increase of nearly 380% over the past decade.

China also graduates approximately twice as many STEM students as the United States each year.

These statistics show that China views biotechnology as a critical component of future economic and military power. The United States, by contrast, risks treating one of its greatest strategic advantages primarily as a domestic pricing issue.

That should concern every American.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities created by dependence on foreign supply chains for medicines and medical equipment. Imagine a future pandemic — or a deliberate biological attack — in which America depends not merely on foreign manufacturing but also on foreign research, patents, advanced therapies, and biotechnology innovation.

The leverage China now enjoys through its dominance of critical minerals could become far greater if it also dominates the technologies needed to develop vaccines, precision medicine, or defenses against biological weapons.

None of this means prescription drug prices should remain high. Americans deserve affordable medicines.

The challenge is finding policies that lower costs without discouraging the innovation that has made the United States the global leader in biomedical research.

Trump’s leadership style has often been characterized by speed — moving rapidly to implement broad policy changes and challenge long-standing assumptions.

Speed can be an advantage in business, where quick decisions often create competitive advantages. But governing a nation is fundamentally different from managing a corporation. Public policy affects industries, scientific leadership, national security, and future generations.

Decisions that appear successful in the short term can produce unintended strategic consequences years later.

Boyd understood this better than most. The goal was never simply to act quickly. It was to understand the entire battlefield before deciding how to act.

America should pursue reforms that make prescription drugs more affordable. But before adopting policies that could reduce investment in biotechnology, policymakers should pause long enough to complete Boyd’s “orient” step.

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In an era of growing strategic competition with China, protecting America’s leadership in biotechnology may prove as important to national security as maintaining superiority in the air, at sea, in space, or in cyberspace.

Sometimes the most dangerous consequences of a decision are not the ones we see today.

They are the ones we fail to anticipate tomorrow.

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