A Tech Upgrade for Jamie Dimon’s Plan

In his September 28 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, “A Plan for the Western World’s Revival”, JPMorganChase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon offers a bold and nuanced nonpartisan, globalist message at a time when the geopolitics of the “Roaring 2020s” is tending toward tribalism, nationalism, and protectionist policies. 

Dimon calls for the West to act: “The world is very different from 10 or 20 years ago. The risks today are enormous and the stakes couldn’t be higher.” He notes passingly that Europe “has a tangle of rules that hamstring capital formation and technology innovation” but does not address the transformational role of technology in international collaboration for mutual economic benefit and defense. 

The iPhone debuted in 2007, less than two decades ago. Since then, more than 2 billion of the world’s 8.2 billion people have now gained the ability to call anyone on the planet at a moment’s notice; track any person, ideally with their permission, or asset globally using an AirTag or Bluetooth-enabled device; and download, through commercial apps, space imagery of the Earth, potentially as recent as 30 minutes ago, with a resolution approaching one-quarter of a meter (about 10 inches). The next 1 billion people on the planet to gain such capabilities will do so at a marginal, initial cost of less than $100. 

Over the last quarter-century, Western nations, including those with which Dimon encourages the United States to partner, have encouraged and fostered the commercial spread of these super-empowering technologies, mostly without restriction. Key parts of their national economies now depend on consumers using the internet and smartphones. 

Digital technologies have transformed what Western societies can do. And they are still undergoing parallel revolutions in AI, biotech, space technologies, quantum phenomenology, and the miniaturization of drones, robots, and Internet-of-Things devices. Like the internet and smartphones, these upheavals will super-empower individuals and organizations to do what until recently was in the domain solely of national governments.

Commercial space companies already have 10 times as many satellites than all the world’s governmental and military satellites do. Biotechnologies are leading to individualized therapeutics for cancer and chronic diseases, even as the risks of using such biotechnologies for nefarious purposes rises. Quantum technologies present the near-term risk of breaking online encryption schemes while potentially offering better solutions[AC1]  through quantum key distribution. Meanwhile, conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East show the disruptive capabilities of drones to deter conventional forces and strike asymmetrically and aggressively. 

Dimon’s call to action is sound, but only if policymakers acknowledge the realpolitik that tech is fundamentally changing how civil societies operate and challenging the effectiveness of the rule of law. The pace at which new policies and programs risk becoming irrelevant is without precedent. 

What does this mean for the tenets that Dimon proposes? 

First, policies can no longer be done via “waterfall” methods with the luxury of time to map out grand strategic policy agreements. Policymakers cannot expect any approved policies to retain relevance beyond five years. It may be as short as nine months. Given the rate of technological change happening outside government control, policymakers must instead find ways to develop agile policies in parallel to programmatic implications. This may prove particularly difficult for the EU, which must reach consensus among its member states before adopting shared policies. Even the United States may find tensions among state-level policies of 50 jurisdictions and with federal policies, especially given the Constitution does not assign oversight of technological domains. 

Second, the Roaring 2020s is an era in which unconventional, adaptive use of readily available, inexpensive technologies can overcome their expensive, exquisite counterparts. For Eastern Europe, this means creative uses of cheap drones, commodity sensors, and open-weight AI models can build defenses at a fraction of what conventional defense contractors would charge for their solutions. For Western militaries, it means facing novel asymmetric threats and opportunities if appropriately incentivized to think beyond historically “big ticket” items. It also means the drafting of US defense budgets and acquisition of defense capabilities must become more agile. 

Third, in an era in which human talent knows no geographical boundary, international collaboration among technological pioneers will be crucial to breakthroughs. Internet-facilitated communications and individuals’ digital relationships in free societies do not stop at national borders, in marked contrast to those in autocracies. As such, if Dimon’s goal of getting the West to regain its mojo is to be achieved, it must incentivize cooperation through talent-matching, joint ventures, and other economic endeavors that encourage networked collaborations. 

Unfortunately, such transborder activities run contrary to the almost exclusively national interests of elected politicians and present risks for hostile intelligence services’ stealing valuable intellectual property. Novel, networked-based methods to attract talent and uplift local and regional communities while deterring hostile actors will be required. 

It may be that a renewed Western alliance is better framed as a global network of government decision-makers, private-sector industry leaders, and citizens seeking whole-of-society solutions that employ new technologies for civil society, trade, commerce, law, and public safety. This may be the way to preserve globally the values of freedom, choice, and human dignity that characterize Western values.

The views expressed herein are those solely of the author(s). GMF as an institution does not take positions.