The Implementation Frontier: A Theory of National Competitive Advantage Beyond Innovation

Conventional frameworks for assessing national competitive advantage assume that original scientific discovery is the highest-order determinant of national power. This paper challenges that assumption. It proposes the Capability Hierarchy Thesis: de- ployment capacity—the ability to translate ideas into physical reality at speed and scale through rapid iterative cycles—is not parallel to discovery capacity but hier- archically superior, fully subsuming it. This subsumption is complete because the conditions producing theoretical breakthroughs—large educated populations, qual- ity universities, institutional incentives for risk-taking—are themselves deployable. The paper reframes the relationship between imitation and innovation through the concept of principled imitation: independently deriving the principles underly- ing an observed solution and reimplementing based on that understanding. This process requires the same capabilities as original innovation, differing only in in- formation conditions. A nation that imitates rapidly demonstrates deep scientific comprehension; when no external solution exists, the same capabilities produce orig- inal innovation automatically. Drawing on the theoretical foundations of The Entropy Frontier (Shuhao Zhong, [2026]), which redefines national wealth as accumulated human capital, physical systems, and institutional knowledge, this paper develops three contributions: the Capability Hierarchy framework, the National Iteration Capacity Index (NICI), and the Imitation-Innovation Continuum Model. Applied to the U.S.-China com- petition, the framework yields conclusions diverging significantly from conventional assessments.