The Pentagon Just Declared Wartime AI Mobilization. Here's Why That Makes a Treaty More Likely, Not Less.
Abstract: On January 9, 2026, the Department of War released its AI Acceleration Strategy—the most aggressive military AI posture in American history. Combined with Trump's proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget and the Manhattan Project-scale Genesis Mission, the US has shifted from cold war competition to wartime mobilization. This represents not a setback for global AI governance, but the creation of unprecedented leverage for a US-China treaty. The question is whether that leverage will be used.
Last week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth signed a six-page memorandum that may be the most consequential AI policy document of the decade. The Department of War's new AI Acceleration Strategy doesn't just call for faster AI deployment—it explicitly adopts wartime posture, declaring that "the risks of not moving fast enough outweigh the risks of imperfect alignment."
This follows Trump's January 7 announcement demanding a $1.5 trillion defense budget for FY2027—a $500 billion increase that would be the largest in American history. And it builds on November's Genesis Mission executive order, which invoked the Manhattan Project as precedent for mobilizing 40,000 DOE scientists and 17 national laboratories toward AI-driven scientific dominance.
The message to Beijing is unmistakable: America is no longer merely competing. It's preparing to win at any cost. It is not anymore a peace-time AI arms race but rather a war-time AI arms race.
Why the Acceleration Makes Strategic Sense
Before dismissing this as reckless, consider the logic.
In a race toward transformative AI capabilities, a small lead may be worse than no lead at all. If China develops near-peer AI systems shortly after the US, neither side can establish dominance without risking catastrophic escalation. An unstable multipolar ASI world might be the worst outcome of all.
From this logic follows a brutal conclusion: if you're racing, race to win decisively. The DoW strategy embraces this with 30-day deployment timelines for new AI models, "Pace-Setting Projects" with aggressive deadlines, and explicit rejection of bureaucratic constraints that might slow integration.
The administration is betting everything on Scenario B: America achieves AI superiority with sufficient margin to establish stable global dominance before China catches up.
Where the Strategy Fails—On Its Own Terms
The problem isn't that acceleration is irrational. It's that decisive victory requires everything to go right: technical breakthroughs arriving faster than China's, alignment problems solved under time pressure, political stability maintained through the transition, no accidents, no unauthorized actions, no loss of control.
What's the probability that all these conditions hold?
Meanwhile, China sees the same Pentagon reports acknowledging that Beijing is "narrowing the performance gap" on frontier AI models. Xi Jinping is not going to watch America build a $1.5 trillion "Dream Military" and accept subordination gracefully. The acceleration creates its own counter-acceleration.
Only two outcomes actually make sense:
A race where one side wins by such a large margin that the other cannot effectively respond—increasingly unlikely as both powers accelerate
A negotiated settlement where both powers pause at the threshold of uncontrollable systems, preserving option value for humanity
The DoW strategy pursues option one. But the very scale of American mobilization makes option two more achievable than ever before.
The Leverage Paradox
Here's what most commentators miss: the acceleration itself creates treaty leverage.
Before January 2026, American rhetoric about AI competition was undermined by bureaucratic drag, "responsible AI" constraints, and budget uncertainty. China could reasonably bet that US political dysfunction would slow American progress.
That bet is now off the table. The combination of the Genesis Mission, the DoW AI Strategy, and the proposed $1.5 trillion budget demonstrates that America is serious about winning this race at any cost. From Beijing's perspective, a negotiated settlement looks more attractive than it did two months ago—because the alternative is being crushed.
The DoW strategy itself acknowledges this leverage, explicitly aligning with Trump's AI Action Plan directive to "Lead in International AI Diplomacy and Security." The question isn't whether the US will engage in international AI diplomacy. It's what form that diplomacy takes.
A treaty negotiated from overwhelming strength is not a concession. It's the deployment of strength toward a sustainable outcome.
The Deal of the Century
President Trump now possesses leverage no previous president has held. The question is whether he'll use it for transactional edges in an unstable race—or for a durable settlement that locks in American advantage permanently.
The pitch isn't "slow down for safety." It's this:
You've built the leverage. Now use it. A race you might lose—even racing faster—is worse than a deal where you lock in American leadership forever. You can be the president who won the AI race. Or you can be the president who won something bigger: the survival of your country, your family, and your legacy.
Eighty years ago, barely an hour after Donald Trump was born in Queens, Bernard Baruch presented the first proposal for international control of transformative technology to the United Nations. That proposal failed. But the logic behind it—that some technologies are too dangerous for uncoordinated national competition—has never been more relevant.
The window for action is narrow. Trump's anticipated April 2026 meeting with Xi Jinping represents the critical diplomatic opportunity. The institutional momentum behind acceleration grows stronger each month.
Learn More
The Coalition for a Baruch Plan for AI has spent the past year developing the Deal of the Century initiative a comprehensive strategy for how a US-China led global AI treaty could actually work—and how key influencers of Trump's AI policy could be persuaded to support it.
Our Strategic Memo v2.6 (356 pages) includes:
Detailed psychological profiles and persuasion strategies for key Trump AI policy influencers including JD Vance, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Steve Bannon, and Pope Leo XIV
A Treaty-Making Roadmap with five summits from April 2026 through Q1 2027
A proposed Executive Order for the AI Peace Through Strength Initiative
Analysis of treaty enforcement mechanisms that prevent both ASI and authoritarianism
Our Roadmap explains our approach and next steps, including our upcoming engagement with influencers and introducers ahead of the April 2026 Trump-Xi meeting.
The Deal of the Century is still possible. But only if we act now.
The Coalition for a Baruch Plan for AI is a nonpartisan initiative supported by the Survival and Flourishing Fund and advised by experts from the UN, NSA, WEF, Yale, Princeton, and leading AI safety organizations. Join us.
