Welcome to SCSP’s Summer Reading List! As the summer heats up, so does the pace of global innovation and strategic techno-economic competition. This year, we’ve curated an essential collection of reads, listens, and broadcasts from the Special Competitive Studies Project—including our newly launched President’s Tech Brief —a live show to keep you informed on the critical technologies shaping our national security, our economy, and our future. Dive into our key highlights from the first half of 2026, featuring deep-dive insights on physical AI, industrial robotics, frontier AI models, scientific discovery, and global supply chain resilience.
At this spring’s 2026 Exchange—SCSP’s premier event designed to bring military commanders, defense technologists, policymakers, and industry leaders into the same conversation about the future of national security—SCSP Chair Dr. Eric Schmidt delivered a powerful keynote address titled “Technology at 300.” Looking ahead to the tri-centennial of the United States, Dr. Schmidt outlined a bold vision for preserving American techno-economic dominance.
To foster informed discussions on critical technology policy and American competitiveness, here is a selection of non-fiction titles to explore this summer:
Courage Can Save US by Rye Barcott
Ten interviews with a bipartisan group of post-9/11 leaders striving to rise above polarization and inspire us to serve with courage in our own lives.
Lethal Autonomy: The Future of Warfare Whether We Like It or Not by Frank Kendall
Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall explores how AI-driven autonomous systems could make today’s manned platforms obsolete, whether the Pentagon is ready or not.
Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China by Eyck Freymann
A fully integrated political, military, technological, and economic strategy for dealing with the Taiwan crisis.
Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare by Katrina Manson
The dramatic story of a secretive, decade-long Pentagon campaign to deliver America into the age of AI warfare.
Steve Jobs in Exile: The Untold Story of NeXT and the Remaking of an American Visionary by Geoffrey Cain
Drawing on unpublished footage and new interviews, Geoffrey Cain reconstructs the twelve humbling, near-bankrupt years at NeXT that quietly forged the discipline behind Jobs’s legendary return to Apple.
The Mission Generation: Reclaim Your Purpose, Rewrite Success, Rebuild our Future by Arun Gupta and Thomas Fewer
A new blueprint for building a career around purpose and public service amid a world of AI disruption.
This year, SCSP launched the President’s Tech Brief (PTB) — a live weekly show hosted by Ylli Bajraktari and Martijn Rasser, streaming every Friday at 11 AM ET. A nod to the President’s Daily Brief, PTB applies the gold standard of intelligence briefings to the one thing it struggles to keep pace with: emerging technology. Each week, the team tracks the shifting landscape of global technology leadership, leverages custom in-house AI tools to monitor key changes, and answers viewer questions live.
Since its debut, PTB has broadcast from the Munich Security Conference, covered a war in the Gulf, tracked the first-ever federal shutdown of a frontier AI model, and followed the AI race from Washington to Shanghai. Season one wrapped in July — and PTB returns in September, live twice a week.
A few standout conversations:
Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on AI-versus-human dogfight tests — and why the machines will soon beat the pilots.
Former Ambassador Puneet Talwar & Former NSC Iran director Joel Rayburn on the U.S.-Iran deal, and why one calls it “the least bad alternative.”
Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro — freshly sanctioned by Beijing — on China’s coercion playbook.
Ben Nimmo, OpenAI’s lead for intelligence and investigations, revealing a covert Chinese influence operation that used ChatGPT to pose as Americans.
Catch all full episodes and weekly clips on our YouTube Channel and tune in live for briefings twice a week starting in the fall!
Whether you want executive-level strategy, tactical intelligence tradecraft, or regional deterrence, check out these standout 2026 podcast episodes:
Memos to the President - Hosted by Ylli Bajraktari
Jensen Huang on Generative Computing, Re-industrialization, & Physical AI: NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang joins Ylli to discuss the shift to a generative compute paradigm and why leading physical AI is essential for a domestic industrial renaissance.
A Conversation with Taro Kono: Former Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Digital Transformation on allied technology strategy, semiconductor supply chains, and trilateral cooperation.
NatSec Tech - Hosted by Jeanne Meserve
Gina Raimondo & Eric Holcomb on States, AI, and Workforce Competitiveness: Recorded live at the AI+ Education Summit, discussing state-led outcome-based retraining, digital infrastructure, and preparing workers for automation.
Disinformation, Deepfakes, & Free Elections with Mark Murray: How AI tools are being deployed both to engineer and to counter election-season synthetic media and deepfakes.
Intel at the Edge - Hosted by Chip Usher
How Agentic AI is Enabling Intelligence-As-A-Service with Ansel Stein: Former CIA analyst and Vice President at Crisis24 Ansel Stein explores how corporate C-suites leverage AI-generated, tradecraft-vetted intelligence.
Why America Stopped Thinking About the Future with Ari Wallach: Long Path Labs founder Ari Wallach on scenario planning, megatrends, narrative warfare, and restoring long-range foresight to U.S. policy.
Strait Forward - Hosted by Channing Lee
The U.S.-Taiwan Semiconductor Education Alliance: Recorded live in Orlando with university leaders from SJSU, UCF, and NYCU in Taiwan on creating cross-border talent pipelines for microelectronics.
Why Taiwan Matters to Every U.S. City & State: TECRO Deputy Representative Andrea Yang breaks down subnational diplomacy, sister-city relationships, and tech investments across American heartlands.
Subscribe to all shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
SCSP newsletters deliver timely analysis and updates directly to your inbox. Subscribe to ensure you don’t miss our expert insights and timely analysis. Check out some recent highlights below:
Escape Velocity: Why America’s Discovery Engine is a Strategic Asset—and What It Will Take to Keep It One — A deep dive into preserving the nation’s scientific and R&D ecosystem as a foundational pillar of American power and global leadership.
We Saw This Coming. The Playbook Is Already Written. — Strategic takeaways from SCSP experts on geopolitical crises, supply chain resilience, and how actionable deterrence playbooks can prevent technological surprises.
Don’t Break the Engine of American Innovation — Commentary from SCSP leadership on maintaining the strength of the domestic tech ecosystem, protecting private-sector innovation, and aligning defense needs with commercial technology growth.
America at 250: The Beginning of the Next Century of Innovation — Looking ahead as the nation approaches its semiquincentennial, framing the next 250 years of techno-economic competition, industrial capacity, and sovereign leadership in frontier technologies.
Agentic AI: The Governance Race We Must Win — Examining the rapid rise of autonomous AI agents, their impact on intelligence analysis and workflows, and the strategic imperative of establishing trusted governance frameworks before widespread deployment.
Read all past editions and subscribe to not miss a release.
Add these strategic reports and frameworks to your summer reading list:
Charging Ahead: Southeast Asia — Analyzing how China is driving the world’s fastest-growing electric vehicle market and what it means for Western supply chain competitiveness in the Indo-Pacific.
U.S.-Israel Tech Alliance: A Strategic Technology Compact — A blueprint for deepening bilateral defense tech cooperation, joint AI research, and shared cyber resilience between American and Israeli innovation ecosystems.
The Space Race — Examining the new era of commercial and national security space competition, sovereign satellite infrastructure, and counter-space threats in orbit.
AI’s Potential Impact on the Army Officer Corps — Recommendations on adapting military career paths, talent management, and officer education for an AI-enabled battlespace.
Building on SCSP’s previous “Gaps Analysis,” the SCSP Tech Scorecard is a novel comparative framework that measures national advantages and vulnerabilities across critical technologies. By assessing five pillars—innovation, industrial capacity, market dynamics, talent, and national leverage—it delivers objective, multi-dimensional analysis to guide U.S.-China techno-economic policy.
Tech Scorecard: Quantum Technology — Assessing global leadership in quantum computing, sensing, and post-quantum cryptography readiness.
Tech Scorecard: Autonomous Vehicles — Evaluating the race for physical AI deployment, autonomous mobility, and vehicle data security.
Tech Scorecard: Robotics & Advanced Manufacturing — Diagnosing positional advantages in industrial automation, supply chain hardware, and physical AI adoption.
Upskilling the national security and public sector workforce is central to winning the techno-economic competition. Explore SCSP’s new 2026 course offerings on Coursera:
Human-Machine Teaming for Government: Dive into the core concepts of AI and human-machine teaming, including key technologies such as large language models (LLMs), and examine the ethical, legal, and policy considerations that guide responsible AI use in government contexts.
AI in Global Competition: The Defense Dimension: Gain a strategic overview of how artificial intelligence is shaping modern warfare and defense, including its role in autonomous systems, logistics, and command and control.
AI in Global Competition: The Intelligence Edge: Examine how artificial intelligence is reshaping intelligence, including its impact on intelligence collection, analysis, open-source intelligence (OSINT), and strategic competition between the United States and its adversaries.
The Future of AI: Navigating AGI and ASI: Explore technical timelines, compute demands, and strategic implications of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) for global power.
Fusion Explained: The Geopolitics and Future of Energy: Drawing on the work of the Commission on the Scaling of Fusion Energy, learn the fundamentals of fusion energy—the process that powers the sun—and explains why it is the defining technological race of the 21st century.
Gain access to the full catalog of Coursera: By signing up through SCSP, access Coursera’s entire course catalog to chart your full learning journey on artificial intelligence and emerging technology.
Enroll for free today via the SCSP Coursera Portal.
SCSP experts continue to shape the national dialogue across major media outlets:
Martijn Rasser — America Needs an Off-Ramp Between Doing Nothing and Shutting AI Down — War on the Rocks: Martijn calls for a statutory AI security review agency after June 2026’s export-control shutdown of Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5.
David Lin — Forged in a Knife Fight: China’s Brutal Domestic AI Competition — War on the Rocks: David argues China’s AI rise is driven as much by cutthroat domestic competition, or “involution,” as by state industrial policy.
Channing Lee — Has Taiwan made itself immune to American betrayal? — The Japan Times: Channing argues U.S.-Taiwan ties are now embedded deeply enough in law, defense, and supply chains to survive any one administration’s rhetoric.
SCSP continues its mission to ensure America’s long-term competitiveness in the age of AI and emerging technologies. Stay tuned for further reports, upcoming events, and continued analysis on the critical issues shaping our techno-economic future. Make sure to save the date for our fall AI+ Summits!
AI+ Health Summit, September 10
AI+ Robotics Summit, October 14
AI+ Quantum Summit, November 10
AI+ The Future of Work Summit, December 3
Thank you for your continued support of SCSP’s mission. We hope this list gives you plenty of thought-provoking material for the summer ahead.
Have a great summer, and don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave your thoughts in the comments below!
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