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[Outlook on Global Affairs 2026-Special Issue No.12] 2026 Outlook on Global Security Dynamics in Emerging Technologies |
| December 11, 2025 |
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Joonkoo YooSenior Research Fellow, Sejong Institute | jkyoo88@sejong.org
- In 2026, the global security environment surrounding emerging and disruptive technologies is expected to remain marked by uncertainty and periods of strategic stagnation, coinciding with a major transition in the international order. Security threats leveraging key emerging technologies are likely to become increasingly sophisticated and complex, while intensified competition over technological development and innovation will further heighten frictions between the United States and China over technology controls. As artificial intelligence continues to advance rapidly and diffuse broadly, AI-enabled cyber and space security threats are expected to grow in both scale and impact. This evolution will complicate existing threat typologies, expand the range of relevant actors, and place increasing strain on established norms and governance frameworks. Against this backdrop, persistent U.S.-China technological rivalry, ongoing supply chain reconfiguration and technological bloc formation, intensified competition in dual use and military civilian integrated technologies, and the formalization of AI regulatory and standards debates are all likely to generate policy confusion and strategic friction. However, these dynamics are unlikely to produce a fundamental structural shift in the global emerging technology landscape in the near term. At the same time, the Trump administration’s skepticism toward multilateralism is expected to reshape alignments surrounding emerging technology security. This may introduce new tensions within the broader Western camp, including the potential for policy divergence between the United States and European partners. In this environment, China and Russia are likely to pursue a more assertive role in shaping international narratives, norms, and institutional agendas related to emerging technologies. Nevertheless, with the prospect of more aggressive U.S. policy shifts surrounding the 2026 midterm elections, the overall global security environment surrounding emerging technologies is expected to remain in a state of uneasy stagnation marked by persistent volatility and strategic uncertainty.
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The Acceleration of AI-Driven Military Security Competition
With the rapid advancement and diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI), the risks and threats associated with AI are also expanding. In 2026, AI-related security issues are expected to move decisively to the forefront of the global security agenda. In addition to the growing intrinsic risks of AI itself, emerging technology security threats enabled by AI, including cyber operations, cognitive warfare, disinformation and manipulation, and bio-related threats, are likely to evolve and become more sophisticated. In particular, the convergence of AI and cyber capabilities is expected to produce more advanced forms of security threats. Machine learning based automated attacks, adaptive malware, and self-improving intrusion algorithms will increasingly be able to bypass conventional security systems. At the same time, deepfake, digital psychological operations, cognitive warfare, and information manipulation are being rapidly upgraded through the integration of AI technologies. Critical infrastructure sectors such as energy, transportation, communications, and healthcare are becoming more dependent on AI-enabled automated control systems. This growing reliance is expanding their vulnerability as priority targets. The potential for offensive operations leveraging AI technologies is therefore expected to continue to rise.
In 2026, the military application of AI is expected to expand rapidly, encompassing not only existing autonomous weapons systems but a far broader range of operational domains. The United States, NATO, and other actors are already extending the military use of AI across intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, command and control, and communications. As a result, AI driven military and security competition among major military technology powers such as the United States, China, and Russia is likely to intensify further. In response, international discussions on the military and security implications of AI are likely to enter a new phase in 2026. Since 2024, multilateral initiatives such as REAIM have served as platforms for debate on the responsible military use of AI, while the United States has pursued efforts to establish baseline principles through political declarations on military AI. However, following the launch of the second Trump administration, Washington has adopted a noticeably more cautious stance toward such initiatives throughout 2025. Against this backdrop, it cannot be ruled out that countries from the Global South, along with some European states, will press for discussions at the United Nations. Accordingly, 2026 is likely to mark the beginning of more structured international security level norm building processes on AI, comparable to those that have developed in the cyber and outer space domains.
Discussions on the commercial application and safety of AI have preceded those in the military and security domain, with risk based frameworks as well as domestic legislation and international norm building efforts already underway. Recently, however, the dual use characteristics of AI technologies have increasingly blurred the distinction between commercial development and military development. Moreover, the expansion of gray zone strategies and the growing ambiguity between peacetime and wartime operations are making both AI-related risks and responses to those risks more difficult to define and manage. Reflecting these trends, major powers’ national AI strategies are expected to undergo adjustments in 2026. While continuing to strongly promote AI-driven technological innovation, states are also likely to formulate and announce comprehensive national AI security strategies at the level of national security.
Evolution of Cyber Threats and the Increase in Attacks on Critical Infrastructure Supply Chains
In 2026, the core agenda of cybersecurity is expected to center on the increasing sophistication of cyber operations and the expansion of cyber attacks targeting financial networks, including cryptocurrency theft. As digitalization and the spread of AI cloud systems and the Internet of Things (IoT) continue to extend cyberspace across industry, government, and finance, threats to critical infrastructure are becoming more advanced and complex. The evolution of established cyber threat vectors—including the widespread diffusion of AI-enabled cyber operations, the growing complexity of ransomware ecosystems, and the increasing sophistication of supply chain attacks—is expected to intensify in 2026. At the same time, the accelerated convergence and integration of emerging technologies are likely to increase cyber vulnerabilities across technological domains, raising the likelihood of the emergence of new forms of cyber attack.
Cryptocurrency theft has recently emerged as a core issue in cybersecurity. Unlike traditional financial systems, digital assets can bypass national regulatory frameworks, international financial sanctions, and established banking infrastructures, making them an attractive target for state sponsored cyber units, transnational criminal organizations, and hacker groups. Stolen digital assets are difficult to trace through liquidation pathways, and uneven security standards across private sector platforms, including exchanges and cryptocurrency wallet services, further exacerbate vulnerabilities. In particular, state supported hackers are increasingly systematizing the full spectrum of cryptocurrency related operations, from supply chain penetration and asset theft to laundering and cash out at scale. The likelihood that countries such as North Korea will continue to rely on cryptocurrency theft as a means of resource acquisition is expected to increase. Within this context, 2026 is likely to see a rise in AI enabled cryptocurrency theft, including cyber operations designed to scan for vulnerabilities in automated digital asset systems, expanded multinational phishing campaigns, and identity impersonation attacks employing deepfake technologies.
With the conclusion of the UN Open-Ended Working Group on Information Security (OEWG) process in 2025, discussions have moved toward establishing a new global mechanism to address cybersecurity governance. However, progress is expected to face significant obstacles, in part due to the cautious posture of the United States.
International discussions on cybersecurity norms have taken place at the United Nations for more than two decades since the early 2000s. These efforts have produced limited concrete outcomes because of persistent divisions among states and geopolitical blocs. While some progress has been made, including the articulation of how international law applies to cyberspace and the endorsement of voluntary norms of responsible state behavior, momentum toward binding agreements or new formal normative frameworks has remained weak. By contrast, regional level initiatives on cybersecurity law and norm development have advanced more steadily, contributing to growing fatigue with UN centered negotiations. After the shift from the UN Group of Governmental Experts on Information Security (UNGGE) to the more inclusive OEWG format, two five year OEWG cycles were completed. These processes reaffirmed earlier UNGGE conclusions and achieved incremental progress, including the clarification of existing norms and the identification of additional categories of cyber threats. However, deep divisions persisted over the question of whether a binding treaty should be pursued. In 2026, in conjunction with the Trump administration’s restrained approach, demands from the Global South and emerging states are expected to be articulated more assertively within any newly established negotiating framework. Overall, in 2026, competition and confrontation among states and geopolitical blocs in cyberspace are expected to intensify. Cyber operations targeting cryptocurrency assets and financial systems, as well as attacks directed at critical infrastructure and digital supply chains, are likely to continue increasing. Although a new international cybersecurity consultative mechanism is expected to be launched, progress toward norm development and cooperation based cyber governance is likely to remain constrained. In particular, the Trump administration’s restrained approach is expected to contribute to continued stalemate and polarization in global discussions on cybersecurity governance.
Intensifying U.S.–China–Russia Competition over Space Security Infrastructure
As the United States, China, and Russia increasingly recognize outer space as an independent domain of warfare, competition over space security among major powers is expected to persist and intensify in 2026. As a result, leading space powers are likely to accelerate the expansion of space security assets and capabilities, which in turn will contribute to a corresponding increase in space security threats. Recent space security competition has focused in particular on strengthening “Space Situational Awareness“ capabilities, advancing counterspace and anti satellite capacities, and expanding low Earth orbit satellite constellations for intelligence, surveillance, and military purposes. In addition, as demonstrated in the Ukraine war by the case of SpaceX, commercial satellites can be rapidly repurposed for military use, making the military application of commercial space technologies a central issue in space security competition. In response, major spacefaring states are actively pursuing the expansion of space security assets and the strengthening of related capabilities.
China and Russia, in particular, are strengthening their counterspace capabilities as part of their broader efforts to enhance space security forces. This includes not only kinetic capabilities designed to physically destroy satellites, such as traditional Anti-satellite Missiles (ASAT), but also the expansion of non kinetic “soft kill” capabilities intended to disable or degrade satellite functions, including electronic warfare, jamming, and Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO). Russia’s 2021 ASAT test and reported cyberattacks against satellite communications networks during its invasion of Ukraine illustrate how space infrastructure is already being employed in real world conflict. Although the United States and a group of like minded partners have declared a moratorium on destructive direct ascent ASAT testing, China, Russia, and India have not joined this initiative and continue to advance their ASAT capabilities.
Major spacefaring powers are racing to develop and operate large constellations of Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. Systems such as Starlink (United States), China’s planned pLEO networks, and emerging LEO communications and reconnaissance constellations pursued by the European Union, the United Kingdom, and India are rapidly becoming dual use space infrastructure serving both civilian and military functions. In response, research and development efforts are accelerating on technologies designed to disrupt LEO satellite operations, including drone based electronic jamming capabilities. Threats to space assets are also expanding beyond space based systems to include ground based space infrastructure. In particular, activities targeting ground user networks and terrestrial segments of space systems have increased in recent years. The United States, which currently maintains a position of relative advantage in space security, is pursuing policies aimed at further strengthening its dominance, including initiatives such as the development of a “space Iron Dome,” in response to the asymmetric counterspace capabilities being advanced by China and Russia.
With respect to space security norms and governance, 2026 is expected to mark a new inflection point. In 2025, discussions that had previously been conducted in two separate tracks are set to be consolidated into a single new OEWG. To date, sharp divisions among state blocs have prevented consensus, with China and Russia leading GGE on the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS), while the United States and Western countries have led the OEWG on space threats, and the two processes remaining deeply divided over the creation of a legally binding treaty versus the development of non binding norms. Contrary to earlier expectations, consensus was reached in 2025 to merge these two processes, and beginning in 2026, discussions on international legal instruments and norms related to space security will proceed within a unified OEWG framework. However, given the persistence of bloc level divisions on these core issues, negotiations in 2026 are likely to face significant difficulties.
Intensification of Emerging Technology Controls and the Advancement of Decoupling
In 2026, U.S.–China competition for technological primacy is expected to persist, accompanied by a deepening of controls on emerging technologies designed to support this competition. Although there is a high likelihood that the United States and China may pursue temporary stabilization measures in trade and supply chain relations in early 2026, the possibility of renewed frictions later in the year cannot be ruled out, depending on potential shifts in President Trump’s posture around the U.S. midterm elections. This outlook reflects the precedent set during the first Trump administration, when comprehensive U.S. measures targeting Huawei followed shortly after the conclusion of U.S.–China trade negotiations, suggesting that a similar sequence of tactical accommodation followed by strategic pressure could reemerge. Regardless of electoral outcomes, the Trump administration is likely to face incentives to initiate a new phase in its China policy, alongside growing strategic demands to constrain China’s advancement in emerging technologies. In this context, there are indications that the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Commerce are already conducting detailed internal reviews of potential domains and instruments for expanding controls on emerging technologies vis-à-vis China.
In the area of economic security and supply chain controls, the prospect of U.S.–China decoupling is also evident in emerging technologies, where platform-level decoupling between the United States and China is more pronounced than in conventional trade and manufacturing supply chains. This trend is expected to become more visible in 2026. In practice, across Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa, intensified competition is unfolding between the United States and China over the expansion of digital infrastructures, space-based systems, and AI-enabled platforms. Although Washington and Beijing may seek to avoid direct bilateral confrontations, both are pursuing increasingly assertive decoupling strategies toward third countries. U.S. efforts during the first Trump administration to exclude Huawei, and China’s policies aimed at pressing Global South countries to adopt China-based technological ecosystems, are likely to be actively pursued again in 2026.
A key issue to watch in 2026 with regard to the global security environment surrounding emerging technologies is whether multilateral technology control regimes such as the Wassenaar Arrangement will undergo structural change, driven in part by Russia’s war against Ukraine and the rising influence of emerging states. Even if a substantively new regime does not materialize in concrete terms in 2026, U.S. diplomatic efforts to construct a post-Wassenaar framework are expected to advance in earnest at both bilateral and multilateral levels. This issue has emerged as a bipartisan concern within the United States and was also explicitly emphasized in the Trump administration’s 2025 “AI Action Plan.” In this context, the Trump administration is expected to actively pursue consultations in 2026—marking the 30th anniversary of the Wassenaar Arrangement—across bilateral, minilateral, and like-minded group formats. Should these discussions proceed in earnest across multiple forums, control lists covering a range of emerging technology sectors, including AI, semiconductors, quantum technologies, and space technologies, are likely to expand. Moreover, the prospective orientation of any new framework is unlikely to be limited to a simple extension of existing regimes. Rather, it is likely to move toward a more comprehensive control architecture situated within an economic security framework, potentially encompassing issues such as research ethics alongside traditional export control considerations.
Policy Implications and Considerations
In light of the growing significance of the global security environment surrounding emerging technologies, there is an urgent need in 2026 to review and formulate a national-level strategy focused on emerging technologies security. At present, aside from the National Cybersecurity Strategy, South Korea lacks a comprehensive national strategy that addresses technology security in an integrated manner. As emerging technologies increasingly exhibit dual-use characteristics and convergent, cross-domain applications, related security threats are becoming more sophisticated and complex. Under these conditions, a broad reassessment of national security strategy is warranted to ensure timely and effective threat response. Major countries have already moved forward with such policy initiatives, and South Korea may need to consider similar efforts at the level of a national security control tower. A national emerging technologies security strategy would be better structured around setting out fundamental orientations, national priorities, strategic objectives, and core task areas, rather than detailing overly specific operational measures.
As risks and threats associated with artificial intelligence continue to grow, issues such as AI safety regulation, data mobility controls, and governance over AI applications in critical infrastructure are emerging as central policy challenges in the field of emerging technologies security. At the same time, both the United States and China are actively promoting AI-driven technological innovation while increasingly using regulatory frameworks not as constraints on domestic technological development, but as instruments of strategic competition. It is also important to recognize that, in the absence of clear regulatory guidelines governing the use of emerging technologies, regulation itself can be more readily employed as a justification for development delays and external control. Competition and confrontation surrounding emerging technologies are not limited to bloc-based rivalries between the United States and its partners on one side and China and Russia on the other. They also extend to tensions among technologically advanced states, as well as between technology-holding states and those without such capabilities.
To address emerging technologies security threats, South Korea will need not only to strengthen technology-focused alliance diplomacy with the United States, but also to pursue proactive and pragmatic emerging-technology diplomacy with technologically advanced partners such as Europe and Japan, as well as with emerging powers including India. This trend is already evident among major technology-leading countries such as the United States, the European Union, Japan, and Australia, which have begun to institutionalize what they describe as cyber diplomacy, space diplomacy, and AI diplomacy as core foreign policy agendas. Advancing pragmatic emerging-technology diplomacy will require the prior identification and coordination of relevant government institutions, expert communities, diplomatic counterparts, and policy instruments. Such efforts should be anchored in a national emerging technologies security strategy that sets out overarching direction and principles, and further operationalized through concrete roadmaps and implementation plans developed and executed through whole-of-government coordination and public-private cooperation.
| Key Observations on the 2026 Global Security Environment Surrounding Emerging Technologies
※ The contents published on 'Sejong Focus' are personal opinions of the author and do not represent the official views of Sejong Institue
