Who Draws the Line on Dual-Use Defense Technology? Sumajja Denysiuk

There is a line somewhere between a commercial drone and an Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV), between a data analytics platform and a targeting system, between satellite internet and military communications infrastructure. The question is not whether that line exists embedded in export control regimes, procurement rules, and legal definitions, but who drew it, how it evolved, and who benefits from keeping it where it is? That question matters because the line is doing national security work. When a government classifies a technology as military, it restricts who can build it, sell it, and export it. When it classifies that same technology as commercial, those restrictions fall away. The difference determines whether a rival state can acquire, through an ordinary commercial transaction, the same AIenabled targeting tools that took allied defense establishments decades and billions to develop. A well-functioning classification system slows that diffusion and preserves the technological edge that underwrites deterrence. When it does not work, the erosion is quiet, incremental, and by the time it is visible, largely irreversible.

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