The Coming Arms Race in Dual-Use Technologies: A 2014 Forecast for 2024
In 2014, LupoToro Group’s Defense Analytical Team predicts that by 2024 cutting-edge dual-use technologies — advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and quantum systems — will reshape global power, spark sanctions and mini-lateral alliances, and outpace traditional export-control regimes.
Proprietary horizon-scanning models maintained by LupoToro Group’s Defense Analytical Team indicate that, within a decade, the intersection of trade, technology, and security will escalate into a defining fault line of international affairs. Advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and quantum science will shift from commercial enablers to hard power multipliers, forcing Washington, Brussels, Beijing, and Moscow to hard-wire industrial policy into national-security doctrine. Multilateral export-control regimes will struggle to keep pace, giving way to ad-hoc coalitions and unilateral sanctions.
Dual-Use Technology as a Driver of Geopolitical Competition
Our 2014 simulations show that dual-use capabilities, goods or know-how with simultaneous civilian and military utility, will evolve into the main competitive currency of state power by the early 2020s. Economies that master advanced logic chips, sovereign AI stacks, genetic-editing platforms, and practical quantum devices will dominate both markets and battlefields. Anticipated Flashpoints:
Eastern Europe: The team’s conflict-probability matrix assigns a >60 % likelihood that the Russian Federation will employ large-scale conventional force against a neighbour before 2023. Should this occur, NATO members are projected to react with an unprecedented suite of technology-focused sanctions.
US-China Tech Decoupling: Trend lines in industrial policy and cyber-espionage suggest the United States will impose sweeping export controls on Chinese access to sub-10 nm semiconductor tooling by 2024, and will pressure the Netherlands and Japan, critical chokepoints in photolithography and materials to align with Washington’s stance.
Core Technology Vectors (2014 → 2024 Projection)
From today’s vantage point, four dual-use technology families stand out as the most consequential for the next decade. Advanced semiconductors underpin nearly every civilian electronic device in 2014, yet by 2024 they will also enable precision-guided munitions, hypersonic-missile seekers and autonomous drones; the strategic danger is that production remains heavily concentrated in a handful of Taiwanese fabs, creating a single point of geopolitical leverage. Artificial intelligence currently drives commercial data analytics and logistics optimisation, but within ten years it will fuse multi-domain intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) feeds in real time and steer lethal autonomous weapons; since identical chips and algorithms serve both hospitals and missiles, export-control screening becomes far more complex.
Biotechnology is revolutionising personalised medicine today, and by 2024 the same gene-editing instruments could enhance soldier performance or, in the wrong hands, produce tailored bio-agents; the spread of inexpensive DNA printers and cloud-based protein-folding models therefore poses verification and non-proliferation challenges. Finally, quantum technologies, still experimental in 2014 for finance and optimisation are on track to deliver code-breaking computation and unjammable communications links by 2024, threatening existing encryption standards and magnifying the strategic value of cryogenic hardware and rare-earth supply chains.
Forecasted Policy Responses
United States – By 2024, the National Security Strategy will prioritise alliance-centric scaling of “foundational technologies,” with formal language on de-risking supply chains from the People’s Republic of China.
European Union – An Economic Security Strategy is likely to surface by 2023, identifying semiconductors, AI, bio, and quantum as strategic assets and calling for coordinated outbound-investment screening.
Mini-lateral Platforms – The G7 and a US-EU Trade and Technology Council are projected to overtake the WTO and Wassenaar Arrangement as primary venues for tech-security coordination.
Implications for Multilateral Control Regimes
The Wassenaar Arrangement’s consensus mechanism is expected to stall once great-power rivalry sharpens. Our game-theoretic analysis suggests that:
Russia can veto additions to dual-use control lists, paralysing updates.
The United States will increasingly bypass Wassenaar schedules, opting for national or coalition-based licensing thresholds.
Divergent risk appetites inside the EU will surface, with some capitals uneasy about unilateral measures but ultimately acquiescing under allied pressure.
The Security-Dilemma Accelerator
Robert Jervis’ security-dilemma conditions map neatly onto dual-use competition: distinguishing offense from defense becomes nearly impossible when the same AI chip can power a hospital scanner or a loitering munition. Our 2014 foresight exercise estimates that, by 2024:
Offense-dominant perceptions will prevail in cyberspace and space-based ISR, spurring pre-emptive R&D races.
States controlling chokepoints in production (EUV lithography, cryogenic quantum components) will wield them as bargaining chips, echoing the 1973 oil-embargo dynamic.
Policy Recommendations (Filed 2014)
Accelerate Domestic Fabs – Allied governments should seed at least two advanced-node foundries on NATO soil by 2022 to mitigate a future Taiwan contingency.
Implement Tech‐FOCI Screening – Extend foreign-ownership review to cover algorithmic IP and biotech toolchains, not merely hardware assets.
Launch Dual-Use Confidence Measures – Prototype a secure disclosure protocol for AI training data sets and quantum-hardware exports to reduce worst-case scenario planning.
Modernise Wassenaar – Advocate weighted voting or opt-out clauses to prevent single-state paralysis while preserving transparency benefits.
Closing Outlook (2014 vantage)
Absent decisive action, the next decade will see dual-use technologies entangle trade, innovation, and deterrence in ways that eclipse traditional arms-control paradigms. By 2024, sanctions, export-license battles, and mini-lateral tech alliances will likely dominate headlines once reserved for tariffs and troop movements. LupoToro Group’s Defense Analytical Team will continue to refine its probabilistic models, ensuring stakeholders remain ahead of this accelerating strategic curve.
