The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations represents one of the most consequential developments in contemporary military affairs. This dissertation presents a comparative analysis of United States and People's Republic of China (PRC) AI-enabled ISR capabilities and their strategic implications during the period 2020–2026. Despite the recognized strategic importance of AI-ISR for great power competition, no comprehensive open-source study has systematically compared the two nations' capabilities across technological, operational, doctrinal, and ethical dimensions. Employing a qualitative comparative case study methodology grounded in Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis framework, this research analyzed 147 documents—including government policy documents, military doctrinal publications, think tank analyses, and peer-reviewed scholarship—across an eight-dimension analytical framework. The study is theoretically situated at the intersection of security dilemma theory, power transition theory, and Boyd's Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) loop framework. Analysis identified nine major themes and 27 sub-themes across four research questions examining technological capabilities, strategic implications, ethical governance, and future trajectories. Key findings reveal an innovation ecosystem paradox wherein the United States maintains advantages in foundational AI research through its open innovation ecosystem while China demonstrates superior speed in state-directed deployment through military-civil fusion. The study documents divergent operational integration pathways, a significant ethical governance gap, and compressed AI-enabled decision cycles that create novel escalation risks. The research contributes the concept of an adoption asymmetry dynamic to the strategic studies literature and offers an eight-dimension comparative framework applicable to future technology competition analyses. Findings carry implications for U.S. defense policy, international arms control regimes, and scholarly understanding of how AI transforms the intelligence-to-action pipeline in great power competition.
Laszlo Pokorny (Wed,) studied this question.