U.S. Congress Signals Where the Next U.S. Wars Will Be Won or Lost.

Congress is receiving a January 2026 briefing from the Congressional Research Service on emerging military technologies senior defense and intelligence officials see as disruptive to U.S. national security. The briefing matters less for futuristic promise than for how it signals where oversight, funding, and operational debates are likely to intensify across the U.S. military.

A briefing released by the U.S. Congressional Research Service on January 6, 2026, provides a focused view of how lawmakers are being briefed on military technologies that could shape future conflicts. Rather than speculative concepts, the document highlights capabilities already seen by senior U.S. defense and intelligence officials as potentially disruptive to national security and modern warfare, with direct implications for oversight and funding. For defense planners and industry observers, the importance of this assessment lies in its strategic context. The technologies identified are those most likely to drive future defense authorizations, procurement choices, and operational concepts as the United States adapts to accelerating competition with peer adversaries, signaling where future battlefield advantages may ultimately be determined.
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Congressional analysts identify artificial intelligence, autonomy, hypersonic weapons, directed energy, biotechnology, and quantum systems as emerging technologies that could shape future U.S. conflicts, signaling where future military advantages, capability gaps, and funding priorities are likely to determine the outcome of the next high-end wars (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

CRS primers are designed to inform lawmakers rather than sell programs, and that makes this document a useful indicator of where Congress expects hard tradeoffs. The list is deliberately broad, spanning artificial intelligence, autonomy, hypersonics, directed energy, biotechnology, and quantum technology. Read together, they outline a battlefield in which speed of decision, resilience under electronic attack, and the ability to defeat massed salvos and swarms may be as decisive as traditional platform performance.

Artificial intelligence in the primer is framed through today’s reality. CRS notes that the U.S. government has no official definition of AI, and it distinguishes narrow AI from hypothetical AGI and superintelligence, while emphasizing that narrow AI is already being incorporated into military functions such as ISR, logistics, cyber operations, command and control, and semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles. The operational promise is familiar to any brigade or division staff drowning in sensor feeds: faster reactions, scalable data exploitation, and new concepts such as swarming that could overwhelm defenses. The caution is equally practical, with CRS highlighting algorithmic bias risks and pointing readers toward Pentagon guidance on responsible AI implementation.

On lethal autonomous weapon systems, CRS is careful with language and definitions, describing systems able to identify targets and engage without manual human control, a capability that could matter most in communications-degraded or communications-denied environments. Yet the primer also underscores why this topic is a congressional lightning rod: ethical objections from senior leaders are cited, including then General Paul Selva’s 2017 testimony arguing against “robots” deciding on human life, and CRS notes the absence of domestic or international legal prohibitions even as roughly 30 countries have called for a preemptive ban. For U.S. forces, the near-term implication is that autonomy will keep advancing, but the policy architecture and rules of engagement will likely be scrutinized as closely as the hardware.

Hypersonic weapons occupy the most immediate “strategic stability” space in the primer. CRS outlines the two main categories, hypersonic glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles, and stresses the core operational issue: unlike ballistic missiles, hypersonic systems can maneuver and do not follow a purely ballistic trajectory, complicating defense. The primer bluntly states that no defense against hypersonic weapons currently exists and that experts disagree on the affordability and feasibility of missile defense options. It also notes, via open-source reporting, that Russia has fielded Avangard since December 2019 and Tsirkon since 2023, and that China has reportedly fielded operational systems, while the United States has not fielded an operational hypersonic weapon.

CRS keeps the debate balanced, presenting competing assessments rather than a single verdict. Some analysts argue hypersonics compress decision timelines and create uncertainty about intended targets, raising risks of miscalculation and unintended escalation. Others argue that the strategic implications are limited because adversaries already possess ICBM capabilities that can overwhelm defenses in salvos. The pragmatic takeaway is that hypersonics are a forcing function for dispersed basing, hardened infrastructure, and air and missile defense modernization, regardless of whether they represent a revolutionary strategic change.

Directed energy is presented as a potentially high-payoff answer to the economics of saturation. CRS cites the Pentagon’s definition of directed energy as concentrated electromagnetic energy used to incapacitate, damage, disable, or destroy, and points directly to missions where ground forces feel the pressure first: C-RAM and SHORAD. The operational appeal is the combination of low cost per shot and near-limitless magazines, attributes that could change how commanders think about defending against missile salvos and swarms of uncrewed systems. CRS also highlights high-powered microwave weapons as a nonkinetic option against electronics and notes the U.S. exploration, and subsequent recall, of a nonlethal “heat ray” concept, a reminder that operational utility and ethics can collide even outside lethal autonomy.

Biotechnology appears in the primer as both opportunity and threat, anchored in gene editing and synthetic biology. CRS cites GAO assessments that tools such as CRISPR-Cas9 could alter genes or create DNA to modify plants, animals, and humans, with implications ranging from enhancing or degrading human performance to expanding the pool of actors capable of creating chemical and biological weapons. It also flags future-facing material concepts such as adaptive camouflage and lighter, stronger, potentially self-healing armor, while warning that adversaries may be less restrained in applying biotechnology, especially in areas tied to human modification and biological weapons.

Quantum technology is treated as immature for most military uses, but strategically consequential if it matures. CRS highlights the risk that quantum communications and quantum computing could enable adversaries to secure communications and potentially decrypt sensitive information, with downstream effects on targeting and operations. It also points to quantum sensing as a pathway to alternative positioning, navigation, and timing in GPS-degraded or GPS-denied environments, while noting the technical constraint that quantum states are fragile and environmentally sensitive.

Taken together, the CRS primer does not predict the next war, but it does indicate what Congress is preparing to oversee and fund as the character of conflict evolves. The strategic shift implied here is sober: advantages will accrue to militaries that can integrate these technologies into doctrine, training, and acquisition at scale while maintaining safety, legality, and credibility. For U.S. Army and allied planners, the document is a reminder that the next contest may be decided as much by resilient decision-making, defense against massed threats, and secure navigation and communications as by the headline performance of any single platform.