Quantum Sensing and the Future of Warfare: Five Essential Reforms to Stay Competitive

Quantum sensing is primed for a breakout that will radically change both conventional and nuclear warfare, requiring essential reforms for the Department of Defense (recently renamed to the Department of War) to maintain a competitive advantage. Submarines, stealth bombers, and advanced fifth-generation fighters form the backbone of the United States’ deterrent posture through their survivability and ability to penetrate adversary defenses undetected. Quantum sensing technologies detect atomic-scale interactions in gravity, magnetism, and light, which could nullify weapon systems that rely on stealth and invisibility. Just as radar transformed the air war over Europe in World War II, so too will quantum sensing alter air and undersea warfare.

Unfortunately, the United States faces this challenge with fragmented investments and no coherent vision. Researchers in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, services, national labs, academia, and industry are chasing breakthroughs without a national strategy or unifying technical vision, making it harder to advance quantum technology for both commercial products and military weapon systems. The Department of War should create a coherent vision and plausible path to achievement that includes a willingness to take risks on mid- to long-term technologies, so that even modest efforts, such as quantum sensing trials in space, will not continue to struggle for funding and traction. Meanwhile, China tests seabed sensors to track submarines, and Russia is building quantum navigation to counter electronic warfare.

The first country that operationalizes quantum technologies for defense applications will eliminate the comparative advantage of submarines and stealth aircraft, reshaping nuclear deterrence and conventional warfighting alike. This is not science fiction. Prototypes are already being tested, defense ministries are funding scaled programs, and alliances are placing quantum development high on their priority lists. As first-generation quantum sensing systems edge toward military use, we must consider: What happens if China gets there first, and U.S. submarines and stealth aircraft lose their invisibility?

Quantum’s Military Promise

Quantum sensing turns exquisitely small physical effects into useful signals. Quantum magnetometers can map minute changes in Earth’s magnetic field to potentially enable the tracking and targeting of an undersea target, such as a submarine. Quantum gravimeters can spot density anomalies underground and around the seabed to reveal tunnels, shafts, or large objects. Cold-atom inertial sensors and advanced clocks could keep platforms on course in GPS-denied environments for days rather than hours. Quantum-enhanced optical techniques can improve detection and geolocation capabilities without electromagnetic emissions. These sensing technologies have massive military implications.

Operational value comes from pairing classical sensors and quantum technology. Hybrid stacks, such as quantum plus acoustic, electromagnetic, or optical inputs, filtered by machine learning, can find the signal amid the noise, reduce false alarms, and convert faint signals into targeting-quality tracks. This is already visible in first-look trials: The Royal Navy tested quantum magnetometers for small, submerged objects; China experimented with drone-mounted quantum magnetometers to track undersea movements from the air; U.S. scientists explored GPS-free navigation kits based on atom interferometry; and British researchers demonstrated gravity sensors to detect voids and tunnels. These developments contribute to the concept of Integrated Sensing and Communications as an organizing frame: distribute sensors, move timing and processing closer to the edge, and fuse outputs across platforms so a single weak quantum return becomes militarily useful when combined with traditional data streams.

The near-term payoff is not a science-fiction-style radar that “kills stealth” in a single leap. It is better cueing, more resilient navigation, and more persistent wide-area search, especially in the undersea and littorals, where many military systems are vulnerable to saturation or deception. Quantum must be treated as a force multiplier for what the joint force already does: find, fix, and shoot, while staying oriented in highly contested domains with a jammed and saturated electromagnetic spectrum.

The Defense Intelligence Assessment 2025 Worldwide Threat Assessment notes China and Russia are expanding quantum communication networks while investing in quantum magnetometers, gravimeters, and inertial navigation systems. These investments are developing operational tools to find, track, and target once invisible weapon systems. Whether or not these investments prove decisive, the trend is clear: adversaries seek to shrink the uncontested maneuver space for U.S. submarines and stealth aircraft, a cornerstone of extended deterrence.

More Quantum, More Problems

While advances in quantum technology are showing promise, there are still many challenges to be overcome before those advantages can be realized on the battlefield. These challenges do not negate quantum’s military value but serve as a reminder of the contested nature of current quantum terrain. Every revolutionary technology, from radar to GPS to stealth, matured through complex engineering phases before transforming combat. Quantum sensing is now in that phase: fragile but advancing quickly, with each iteration bringing it closer to rugged, deployable systems. Countries investing and experimenting the most will own the decisive edge in the post-stealth battlespace.

Extreme sensitivity is both an advantage and a liability. Sensors that can detect the faintest magnetic or gravitational changes also absorb vibration, thermal drift, electromagnetic clutter, and the noise of their own host platforms. On moving steel hulls and fast jets, background interference overwhelms weak signals. Magnetometers throw spurious tracks near power systems, gravimeters lose stability in turbulence, and inertial packages drift without constant recalibration.

This fragility has slowed the transition from laboratory to the battlefield. Devices that perform well in controlled conditions will malfunction when exposed to the motion, temperature swings, and background noise of real-world military operations. Size, weight, power, and cost constraints add another layer of difficulty, as few systems can meet the rugged demands of combat.

Other oft-touted applications face similar limits. “Unhackable” quantum communications remain vulnerable to hardware exploits and require major infrastructure investments in repeaters and memory. Claims that quantum radar will “expose advanced stealth aircraft and missiles” or be a “submarine killer” should be treated with skepticism, because it will have limited range and be susceptible to photon loss, atmospheric interference, and noise. More likely, quantum radar will evolve into hybrid systems, paired with conventional radar and signal processing, to improve detection in certain niche environments rather than revolutionize air defense outright.

The gap between promise and practice is that quantum devices can detect what traditional sensors miss, but most prototypes are too fragile for combat conditions. Until engineers solve ruggedization and error correction at scale, quantum sensing will remain more of a vulnerability in theory than a military advantage.

Winning the Post-Stealth Era

Quantum sensors will keep pushing beyond the lab to real-world military applications. The implications will be stark in the areas of seabed warfare, stealth aircraft, and missiles. As quantum sensors improve, platforms designed around invisibility and stealth will have to adapt to increased odds of being detected. Militaries will need to learn to “fight in the light.” Navies will need to invest in real-time magnetic signature reduction to slip past quantum magnetometers. Air forces will need to rethink stealth coatings and shift tactics to account for new radar and LiDAR signatures. Electromagnetic warfare, on prominent display in the Russia-Ukraine War, will need to expand to target quantum receivers. Faster, more precise detection will compress decisionmaking timelines, raising the risks of miscalculation and escalation.

Such challenges to U.S. military primacy mean the United States needs a national technology strategy informed by the National Defense Strategy to synchronize investments, accelerate ruggedization, and integrate quantum sensing into joint warfighting concepts. The new administration’s research and development budget priorities elevate quantum in priority, but there are at least five essential reforms to ensure the United States achieves those goals and maintains an economic and military edge.

First, the Department of War must establish clear ownership of quantum sensing technology development. The Office of the Secretary of War should establish a Joint Quantum Technologies Transition Office, modeled on the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office, to synchronize research and development strategies and budgets across services to avoid duplication and gaps and enforce common standards. This office should anchor a National Quantum Sensing Strategy, led by the National Security Council and resourced through the standard five-year planning cycle. Strategy without budget is theater; budget without strategy is drift. A joint office focused on quantum technology transition would break service stovepipes, ensuring that federally- and industry-funded research leads to deployable capability.

Second, the United States should employ a focused industrial policy to develop a capable and resilient industrial base. Quantum hardware depends on secure access to minerals such as silicon, aluminum, copper, niobium, gallium, germanium, tungsten, and rare earths like yttrium, europium, and erbium. The United States currently relies on fragile, adversary-exposed supply chains for several of these materials. A Defense Production Act Title III program should underwrite domestic refining, allied processing, and device-grade feedstock. Beyond raw materials, the Department of War, Department of the Interior, and Department of Commerce should work together to establish a Trusted Quantum Foundry network to produce low technology readiness level and low-rate initial production fabrication of magnetometers, gravimeters, and inertial sensors with export-controlled design kits, radiation-hard packaging, and thermal management modules. Without a well-powered and resourced industrial base that can deliver ruggedized parts, quantum tech will not be combat-ready.

Third, experimentation and ruggedization should become the priority in technology development. Department of War metrics should shift from budget execution to leading indicators of combat performance like mean-time-between-failure, calibration holdover, clutter rejection, and tolerance to real-world vibration and electromagnetic noise. Linked experimentation campaigns, run at Nellis Air Force Base, Eglin Air Force Base, and the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center, would generate reference datasets and force prototypes onto operational platforms early. Coupling ruggedization and campaign testing with modular open system architecture standards as the down-select gates for continued funding will ensure that breakthroughs in physics are matched by breakthroughs in engineering at speed to field capable weapon systems.

Fourth, integration and counter-quantum operations are essential. Given the most likely near- and mid-term applications and recent space-based demonstration of quantum key distribution, the Department of the Air Force should lead quantum research and development. The Air Force should appoint a Technology Executive Officer for Quantum to establish a Quantum Task Force, with personnel contributions across the joint force, to spiral-integrate GPS-free navigation kits, magnetic anomaly mapping, and quantum-assisted electronic warfare payloads onto aircraft, submarines, and satellites. Each service should be required to field at least one quantum modality per year on an operational platform, such as quantum detection on a U.S. Army Patriot battery. At the same time, the Joint Force must prepare to fight in a post-stealth environment by investing in counter-quantum measures: real-time degaussing, decoy signatures, noise injection, and deception playbooks that scramble adversary sensors. Without a dual focus on integration and denial, quantum sensing will be a one-sided battlefield.

Finally, the United States should cultivate technical and scientific talent because quantum sensing requires specialists in atomic physics, photonics, cryogenics, and precision instrumentation—skills currently in short supply. Existing research investments in quantum must be augmented in the near-term by launching fellowships and lab residencies and speeding the clearance process, so scientists contribute to war readiness in months, not years. Visa policies should be reformed to recruit global experts into U.S. labs rather than ceding key global talent to Beijing. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Science Foundation, and service labs should also sponsor prize challenges focused on ruggedization, like a week-long inertial navigation stability on moving aircraft or vibration-tolerant gravimetry from drones, with awards tied to operational demonstrations.

Quantum sensing will not render U.S. weapon systems obsolete overnight, but it will erode survivability and deterrence over time. The United States has no time to indulge in fragmented efforts. It must impose a national strategy, secure the critical materials and a quantum industrial base, run experimentation campaigns that prove feasibility under operational stress, integrate quantum sensing into joint warfighting concepts, and develop talent to sustain momentum. The advantage will not go to the country with the most elegant physics, but to the one that fields first and adapts fastest. Without decisive reforms, the United States risks watching adversaries define the post-stealth era on their own terms.

Lt. Col. Jahara “FRANKY” Matisek, PhD, is a U.S. Air Force command pilot, nonresident research fellow at the U.S. Naval War College and the Payne Institute for Public Policy, and a visiting scholar at Northwestern University. Col. Katrina Schweiker, PhD, is a U.S. Air Force physicist and military fellow with the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Morgan D. Bazilian, PhD, is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at CSIS and the director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy and professor at the Colorado School of Mines.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Naval War College, U.S. Air Force, or Department of Defense.