The next presidential administration should elevate technology in the U.S. foreign policy and national security apparatus, according to a new report.
Nine months ago—before Joe Biden became the Democratic nominee—experts at the progressive think tank the Center for American Progress began to hammer out actionable foreign policy recommendations for the first 100 days of the next administration, culminating in a report CAP released Monday.
A new Biden administration or a second Trump administration has to move government technology beyond keeping computers running and making sure help desks are functioning, Katrina Mulligan, managing director for national security and international policy at CAP, told Nextgov. Particularly in national security institutions, Mulligan said, technology is no longer a tactical issue alone—it’s also a policy issue.
“Yet we don’t have chief technology officers at most of our national security departments and agencies, and if we do most of them are really running the kind of IT infrastructure, they’re not engaged in policy, and that needs to change,” Mulligan said. Mulligan served a decade in the executive branch during which she worked at the White House, the Justice Department and in the intelligence community.
Establishing chief technology officers at every national security department and agency is one of the top tech recommendations in the report. It’s an organizational adjustment that would immediately create a connective tissue across the national security community engaged in substantive, high-level technology discussions, Mulligan said.
Another move to elevate technology as a principal issue in national security and foreign policy CAP recommends is to designate a liason from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to—or a task force within—the ..
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