There will be no effective Third Offset reasserting American leadership in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence until there is simultaneous effort on a — well, call it a Fourth Offset, to revitalize global norms and rules of the road. 

Advances in autonomous systems, information warfare, and material sciences are well on their way to transforming national security. Not only have these technologies helped the United States’ authoritarian adversaries to solidify control over their own populations, they have also expanded the ways and means through which states and non-state actors compete, blurring the lines between war and peace. Thus, any normative offset must not just address the technologies themselves, but also the competitive environment they help create.