Disruptive Technology Strike Force: Year In Review

On February 16, 2023, almost one year after the onset of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and among increasing scrutiny of broader geopolitical threats to US supply chains, the US Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and the Department of Justice's National Security Division (NSD) announced the creation of the "Disruptive Technology Strike Force." The Strike Force's mandate is to prevent US nation-state adversaries, identified by BIS and NSD as including China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, from acquiring "disruptive technologies," which the US Intelligence Community identified as a top threat to US national security in its 2023 Annual Threat Report.¹ The scope of "disruptive technologies" is not clearly defined, but the focus of the Strike Force is expressly on technologies that, if acquired by US adversaries, could be exploited to cause significant detriment to US national security, including those related to supercomputing and