Recently published commentary from the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) makes familiar points regarding America's pressing need for additional, globally harmonized commercial spectrum – but also places the continuing spectrum-allocation impasse in a broader, geopolitical context characterized by serious national security and intelligence implications.
"Spectrum Allocations and Twenty-First-Century National Security," by James Andrew Lewis, echoes arguments raised by another CSIS scholar, Clete Johnson, that I summarized in an October 2024 post to the FSF Blog. Namely, that Congress must act quickly to renew the FCC's spectrum auction authority and work with the Department of Defense and other federal agencies to ensure that the same bands used in other parts of the world are made available for commercial use in the U.S.
The United States is in a global competition with China over markets, rule setting, and technological leadership…. To remain competitive, the United States will need to adjust how it has allocated radio spectrum to emphasize commercial innovation. The government-centric spectrum allocations of the last century will need to change if we are not to fall behind.
Specifically, U.S. policymakers must appreciate that, going forward, technological innovation by the commercial, rather than the government, sector is the key to national security in the twenty-first century: "[c]ommercial technologies underpin modern military strength." And that to facilitate that technological innovation, domestic commercial interests must have access to the same spectrum bands used in the rest of the world:
If the United States does not use a harmonized spectrum, it shrinks the economies of scale that trusted vendors need to compete with Huawei…. In simple terms, people will build devices to use specific spectrum bands for commercial purposes designated by the WRC. Essentially, if the United States does not use spectrum allocated everywhere else for commercial purposes, it will be handicapped in any competition.
In other words, U.S. policymakers must move beyond the antiquated notion that government control of certain bands, in and of itself, enhances our national security – and instead recognize that military might today hinges in large part upon America's ability to dictate the technological standards for mobile networks used worldwide. Commercial access to globally harmonized spectrum bands is critical to achieving that objective.
Mr. Lewis concludes with a warning: "[t]he timing for action is short, perhaps a year or two since a failure to act puts the United States at the cusp of a great strategic blunder that will let an ambitious China build the network that forms the backbone of the global economy."
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