The United States might get very little early warning of the specific science and technology (S&T) programs that China could use to create important new military capabilities that the U.S. military might confront in the future. For this reason, a tool that could identify activity to develop these capabilities early in the pipeline is of immense interest to the military and intelligence communities.

The authors developed the Military Advances in Science & Technology framework for gaining insights in these areas. Its top-down, analytic approach begins with the China's leadership's strategic aspirations for China, works through the military missions implied by those goals, and identifies new or improved capabilities required to execute those missions. The authors specified the technological bases for these capabilities and explored Chinese S&T activity as far back as the basic research phase. This resulted in a graphical dashboard, backed by qualitative and quantitative data, which indicates the status and trends of China's progress in these S&T domains.

The indicators supplied by this framework can focus U.S. research and development objectives and shape modernization priorities, point the intelligence community to new areas of China's S&T activity and assist in allocating intelligence assets and resources effectively, facilitate combatant commands and Pentagon planners in assessing the potential results of China's S&T undertakings, and help the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) inform its governmental, academic, and industrial partners about S&T areas in which caution should be exercised in both Chinese investment in U.S. firms and collaboration with Chinese researchers.