The critical national security risk for the U.S. isn't failing to invent frontier AI, but failing to integrate it. Like the French who invented the tank but lost to Germany's superior "Blitzkrieg" doctrine, the U.S. could lose its lead through slow operational adoption by its military and intelligence agencies.

In AI-driven cybersecurity, being the first to defend your systems or embed exploits gives a massive but temporary edge. This advantage diminishes quickly as others catch up, creating a "fierce urgency of now" for national security agencies to act before the window closes.

The military's career path rewards generalist experience, effectively punishing officers who specialize in critical fields like AI and cyber. Talented specialists are forced to abandon their expertise to get promoted, leading many to leave the service not for money, but to continue doing the work they excel at.

AI tools aren't just lowering the bar for novice hackers; they are making experts more effective, enabling attacks at a greater scale across all stages of the "cyber kill chain." AI is a universal force multiplier for offense, making even powerful reverse engineers shockingly more effective.

The greatest risk to integrating AI in military systems isn't the technology itself, but the potential for one high-profile failure—a safety event or cyber breach—to trigger a massive regulatory overcorrection, pushing the entire field backward and ceding the advantage to adversaries.

The long-term trajectory for AI in cybersecurity might heavily favor defenders. If AI-powered vulnerability scanners become powerful enough to be integrated into coding environments, they could prevent insecure code from ever being deployed, creating a "defense-dominant" world.

The Department of Defense (DoD) doesn't need a "wake-up call" about AI's importance; it needs to "get out of bed." The critical failure is not a lack of awareness but deep-seated institutional inertia that prevents the urgent action and implementation required to build capability.

The old security adage was to be better than your neighbor. AI attackers, however, will be numerous and automated, meaning companies can't just be slightly more secure than peers; they need robust defenses against a swarm of simultaneous threats.

The U.S. approach to cybersecurity is often reactive and hampered by political turnover and short-term thinking. This contrasts sharply with China's patient, long-game strategy of embedding assets and vulnerabilities that may not be activated for years, creating a significant strategic disadvantage for America.