Join War on the Rocks and gain access to content trusted by policymakers, military leaders, and strategic thinkers worldwide.
U.S. allies have long balanced between leaning on American leadership and resisting its immense gravitational pull: political, economic, and structural. Historically, the United States invests at a scale no other democracy can match, spending hundreds of billions annually on defense-linked research and tens of billions more on civilian science through agencies like the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. These budgets dwarf those of even its closest allies. Many nations, limited by population, fiscal constraints, or social priorities, maintain only modest research capacity. The result is a structural asymmetry: breakthroughs, standards, and even the vocabulary of “innovation” often originate in Washington, shaping global technology ecosystems that smaller partners must adapt to rather than direct.
Yet that same pull now risks collapsing under its own inconsistency. Power without predictability breeds hesitation, not alignment, and the nations once anchored by U.S. leadership are beginning to hedge, building new frameworks to protect themselves from American volatility. For allied policymakers, this moment demands less faith in U.S. correction and more preparation for prolonged instability. What was once a manageable imbalance of power has become a crisis of credibility. Allies no longer doubt America’s resources or ingenuity — they doubt its reliability.
U.S. innovation leadership now depends less on scale than on consistency and trust. Strategy dissonance, the domestic contradictions that undercut allied cooperation, has become America’s diplomatic blind spot. Restoring credibility requires institutional continuity, depoliticized science, and alignment between domestic and foreign policy so allies can invest with confidence rather than caution.
Three principles should guide U.S. policy. First, continuity should be institutional, not ideological: enduring frameworks such as the Atlantic Declaration and National Quantum Initiative Act should be insulated from partisan cycles. Second, domestic and foreign policy should be complementary. Washington cannot invite partners into shared technology ecosystems while restricting access through shifting export or regulatory policy. Finally, trust should be treated as a strategic asset: return competence and delivery to the center of governance, empower civil and foreign service professionals, stabilize science programs against political turbulence, and reward execution over spectacle. Dollars buy access, but only reliability sustains influence. Without renewed credibility through continuity, coherence, and disciplined execution, the United States risks turning allied unease into open strategic distance.
Admiration and Resentment
I have seen America’s dominance from both sides of the table — first in corporate government relations and later in diplomatic service, where admiration for American innovation often coexists with frustration with its unpredictability. During George W. Bush’s second term, when America’s standing in Europe had fallen sharply, though not to today’s depths, the United States was often viewed as overbearing, its wars unjustified, and its moral authority diminished. Representing Microsoft in that climate, I managed European government relations on Windows Vista’s trust and security issues while navigating the paradox of officials who condemned U.S. technology dominance publicly but courted its benefits privately.
Later, as a U.S. consular officer in Canada, I interviewed former anti-American activists eager to retire in the very country they once decried. Those experiences taught me how admiration and resentment often coexist in America’s global relationships, and how fragile credibility becomes when trust is treated as expendable.
The Vanishing Reserve
Trust is the invisible bridge between uncertainty and cooperation. What has changed in the United States is that trust is no longer our default setting; too many actions now contradict our assurances.
In the past, irritation at U.S. dominance could be softened by humility and personal connection. But when policies swing, leaks emerge from senior officials, and commitments appear conditional, irritation turns to doubt. The “Signalgate” breach, in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s strike plans were exposed, did more than embarrass Washington. It revived longstanding fears among partners that sensitive information shared with the United States may not remain secure. Following the disclosure, The Associated Press reported that allied defense officials initiated internal reviews of intelligence-sharing protocols and requested assurances from Washington regarding information-security procedures. The episode echoed earlier incidents, such as the 2023 Pentagon document leak, when European and Asian partners expressed unease and re-evaluated the scope of operational coordination with the United States. In national security, credibility is fragile. One lapse may not dissolve frameworks such as Five Eyes or nuclear cooperation, but it weakens the confidence that sustains them.
From my Microsoft years managing relationships with E.U. officials, I saw how the erosion of trust in U.S. integrity reverberated through the commercial ecosystem. For firms with global footprints, waning confidence in U.S. governance shapes procurement policies, influences purchasing decisions, and constrains market access. The blowback extends well beyond government contracts, distorting consumer perceptions and eroding reputations that took decades to build. Even brands once synonymous with innovation, like Tesla, have learned how quickly political posturing corrodes market trust. Credibility, once squandered, exacts a price that public relations campaigns struggle to repair.
That loss of confidence is measurable across sectors. Partners delay ventures, hedge with others, and treat U.S. commitments as provisional. Government buyers raise barriers, both overt and subtle. Even scientific collaboration now withers under the fear of carelessness or exploitation. America once thrived in a “trust economy” where credibility, not dominance, sustained alliances. That currency is now dangerously depleted.
Leadership and Trust in U.S.–U.K. Innovation
Nowhere is this tension clearer than in U.S.–U.K. science and technology cooperation, the oft-invoked “special relationship.” It is longstanding, resilient, and essential, yet it also exposes how contradictions in U.S. domestic policy reverberate outward, forcing even America’s closest allies to second-guess Washington’s reliability. Two threads illustrate the point: the evolving U.S.–U.K. technology frameworks of recent years and the stalled reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act. Together they show how strategic dissonance weakens partnerships, undermines credibility, and erodes the competitive edge the United States claims to defend.
From radar in World War II to Cold War nuclear cooperation, Anglo-American scientific collaboration is as old as modern geopolitics. Few bilateral partnerships are so deeply institutionalized, spanning intelligence sharing, joint laboratories, research consortia, and workforce pipelines.
In my recent role as senior science and technology policy adviser to His Majesty’s Government, after retiring from the U.S. State Department, the scope of that cooperation often defied accounting. Counterparts at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy described the same vast landscape, an ecosystem so intricate that even cataloguing it was difficult.
In the 2020s, the relationship has refocused through emerging technologies such as AI, quantum computing, nuclear energy, and advanced telecommunications. The Atlantic Declaration (2023, Biden–Sunak) and the Technology Prosperity Deal (2025, Trump–Starmer) stand as the latest attempts to anchor this cooperation in durable frameworks. The Atlantic Declaration outlined a broad “21st-century economic partnership,” integrating technology with trade, energy transition, and climate policy. Its successor, the Technology Prosperity Deal, offered a more focused, technology-driven approach centered on bilateral projects, private-sector engagement, and standards coordination. Both, however, function more as statements of shared intent than as binding instruments.
I advised the British Embassy in leading the first bilateral joint committee meeting in London in 2024, and on research and development partnerships and expert working groups under the Atlantic Declaration. Through extensive interagency coordination through the State Department, we set clear bilateral commitments with delivery timelines. Yet those plans unraveled within weeks of President Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory.
The State Department’s science diplomacy capacity, already weakened by hiring freezes and attrition during the first Trump term, never fully recovered. In 2025, Trump’s second term has further hollowed out the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, the office responsible for leading international science and technology cooperation. This bureau was my final assignment before retirement, where I witnessed firsthand how decades of institutional expertise and global trust eroded through neglect, politicization, and the loss of qualified officers. The State Department’s inspector general and the Government Accountability Office confirmed the same pattern: chronic staffing shortfalls have left the State Department unable to deliver on the commitments it signs with the White House. Today that situation is dire. You can draft the grandest memorandum imaginable, but without professionals to execute it, every promise becomes performance art.
On paper, at least, the Biden administration and Trump’s second administration appear aligned. Both the Atlantic Declaration and the Technology Prosperity Deal cast shared innovation as essential to shared security, elevating AI and quantum technologies as priorities, and emphasizing workforce development and corporate collaboration. Yet that is where the resemblance ends. Between these frameworks sits America’s AI Action Plan (2025), a domestic strategy that upends the trans-Atlantic script and further muddles the terms of partnership.
Contradiction as Policy: The U.S. AI Action Plan
Released just months before the Technology Prosperity Deal, the AI Action Plan was meant to be America’s roadmap for leadership. Instead, it reads as contradiction codified: praising openness while tightening export controls, declaring neutrality while sidelining the climate and equity initiatives that once framed U.S. science diplomacy, promising to complement workers while mapping displacement schemes, and preaching deregulation while creating new bureaucracies.
For allies, this inconsistency is not theoretical. How can partners co-invest in shared AI infrastructure when U.S. policy simultaneously ring-fences the technology? To London, Washington often appears two-faced, professing openness abroad while imposing ideological limits at home. America’s allies need less rhetoric and more reliability. They cannot plan long-term investments when U.S. rules shift with each election or executive order. Credibility becomes a moving target.
This paradox of allied resilience runs deep. America’s partners, especially the United Kingdom, have long adapted to Washington’s oscillations between multilateralism and isolationism. But even resilience has limits. At what point do allies decide that hedging against U.S. incoherence is not only prudent but necessary? Washington insists its leadership rests on being indispensable, yet its contradictions drive allies to invest in redundancy, undermining that very indispensability.
The National Quantum Initiative: Continuity in Limbo
The same pattern appears in the stalled reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act, a bipartisan effort spanning administrations. If AI is the technology of the present, quantum is the frontier that will enable, accelerate, and ultimately make its evolution possible. The original 2018 Act authorized $1.275 billion over five years to accelerate research and coordination, aiming to prevent the United States from falling behind China and Europe in quantum information science.
In 2023, Congress introduced the National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act (H.R. 6213) to continue that focus, but it has since languished in procedural limbo, yet another bipartisan idea left hanging.
Superficially, the Act remains exemplary, with funding for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Science Foundation, and Department of Energy quantum centers, new testbeds, and reskilling hubs, and an emphasis on international cooperation. In practice, funding is contingent, priorities politicized, and cooperation hedged. Washington invites allies to participate but seeks to retain control. Smaller partners see the same asymmetry they face in AI — cooperation is promised, but always on America’s terms.
Even well-intentioned congressional staffers often lack international context. In my advisory work for the United Kingdom, I joined discussions on the Act with aides who spoke of “retaining” foreign talent, unaware of how such language reads abroad. To Washington, it seemed benign; to partners, it sounded like predation. When we raised the concern, the staffers looked genuinely surprised. The problem was not malice, but provincialism.
The Price of Incoherence
Across initiatives, the pattern is the same: lofty declarations paired with unstable delivery. Washington invites allies as partners but treats them as dependencies. Strategy that seems coherent inside the Beltway reads as contradiction abroad. The result is predictable: partners hedge.
Diversification can strengthen the democratic technology base, but when allies coordinate around rather than with Washington, balance hardens into exclusion. America’s credibility gap becomes structural. The problem is not ambition but dependability. Allies can accommodate disagreement; what they cannot manage is volatility sold as leadership. America still has the money, but not the focus.
When credibility slips, others fill the space. Canada now labels the United States “no longer a reliable partner.” Australia quietly broadens its defense and trade ties. Across NATO and the Five Eyes, partners are adapting to the question that now shapes every conversation: not whether America will lead, but whether it will show up.
Rivals Reap Dividends
America’s rivals do not need to outspend Washington; they simply exploit its inconsistency. Beijing presents itself as the “reliable partner” precisely because America oscillates between engagement and isolation. Moscow, though weakened by its own missteps, still exploits trans-Atlantic contradictions for narrative gain. Even middle powers such as India, Brazil, and Turkey leverage U.S. volatility for advantage, balancing Washington against Beijing, extracting favorable trade or defense terms, or positioning themselves as indispensable intermediaries in shifting regional alignments.
Recent Five Eyes trade overtures to China also illustrate the shift. Australia’s 2025 accords with Beijing on agriculture and steel decarbonization signal pragmatic hedging. The United Kingdom’s revival of its Joint Economic and Trade Commission with China reflects the same instinct. These are not pivots but insurance policies, proof that when U.S. politics turn erratic, even its closest allies must diversify to preserve continuity.
Prescriptive Architecture
For U.S. policymakers, the task is clear: make sure America’s words survive the flight home. Strategic dissonance cannot be managed by slogans; it should be corrected through structure. From my years in the Foreign Service and in software development, I learned that credibility is built on discipline and architecture. Continuity should be institutional, not ideological, and embedded in law, not in executive order. Frameworks such as the Atlantic Declaration, the Technology Prosperity Deal, and the AI Action Plan should be built to outlast election cycles. Coherence depends on aligning domestic and foreign policy; Washington cannot invite partners into shared ecosystems while restricting access to the very tools they rely on.
Trust is not a talking point. It is a strategic asset that compounds over time, multiplying influence more effectively than funding ever could. Restoring trust means rebuilding predictable governance channels, letting technical experts and civil servants operate as trusted custodians of continuity rather than political adversaries. It means insulating science and technology programs from partisan turmoil so investors and allies can count on U.S. consistency. And it means rewarding competence and delivery over performance and outrage. Reliability, not rhetoric, is what restores confidence in American leadership.
From my own experience managing trade and intellectual property issues abroad, the most durable safeguard was never a clause; it was trust between institutions. The foundation of credibility is not charisma or volume — it is structure. America’s partners judge not what we promise, but what we build and deliver, and crucially, whether it endures when the next flight home departs.
Many of these ideas are not new. They are echoed across recent policy work on both sides of the Atlantic, from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s reflections on science and innovation governance to the U.S.–E.U. Trade and Technology Council’s joint statements, studies by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and strategies released by the European Commission and the U.K. Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Across these efforts runs a consistent theme: Credibility in science and technology policy depends on continuity, coherence, and institutional trust that endure beyond any single administration or government.
Blueprint for Uncertainty
A final word for America’s allies: engage the United States not as a source of stability, but as a system in motion. Continuity is not the absence of change. It is the disciplined management of it. The most credible alliances anticipate volatility and design for endurance. Waiting for Washington to “return to normal” is a strategic error. Normal is what allies build together through routine and continuous engagement. Using the same principles outlined above, partners can help define that new equilibrium by reinforcing the connectivity between science, technology, and diplomacy through structure, predictability, and shared stewardship.
America benefits as much from challenge as from support. Too often in negotiations and working groups, I have seen partners pause to ask, “What do the Americans want?” The better question is, “What do we want, and how do we shape it?” When allies see the gap, when they recognize their own capacity and advantage, they should set the agenda rather than wait for Washington to catch up. Conviction commands Washington’s attention: deference only fills the silence.
America’s partnerships will probably endure, but endurance is not the same thing as trust. Closing the gap between rhetoric and reliability demands courage, humility, and the unglamorous work of execution. That work should be steady and resistant to political cycles, the kind no administration can reset and no election can erase. Execution is not a talking point; it is a metric, measured in delivery, consistency, and the capacity to stay the course when politics shift. Allies notice. So do competitors. In the end, it is structure, not rhetorical statements, that determines who leads, and who follows.
Lawrence Pixa managed high-performance computing research programs at NASA Headquarters, Goddard Space Flight Center, and Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before moving to the private sector, where he led Microsoft’s internal mobile and security technology integration and later its government relations in Europe during the Windows Vista security and data protection debates. He then joined the U.S. Foreign Service, with assignments in Canada, Ukraine, Uruguay, and Washington, focusing on trade, intellectual property, e-government, and science and technology policy. After retiring from the State Department, he served as senior adviser on science and technology policy to His Majesty’s Government at the British Embassy in Washington, DC. He now writes on technology strategy and advises partners on practical architectures for cooperation. The views expressed are his own.
Image: Midjourney
