It’s one thing to wargame the impact of faster jets, bigger bombs, or tougher tanks. But how do you simulate something that’s smarter than you are?

Time-honored principles of command get weird when you add the fundamentally alien thinking of an artificial intelligence.

  China and Russia are outmaneuvering the US, using aggressive actions that fall short of war, a group of generals and admirals have concluded. To counter them, the US needs new ways to use its military without shooting, concludes a newly released report on the Quantico conclave. The US military will need new legal authorities… Keep reading →

ARMY & NAVY CLUB: To win the fast-paced and brutal battles of the future, Army generals must let their subordinates off the leash, the Chief of Staff said here yesterday. “What we do, in practice, is we micromanage and overly specify everything the subordinate has to do, all the time,”Gen. Mark Milley told an Atlantic… Keep reading →

ARMY WAR COLLEGE: If you want to know what the Army Chief of Staff is thinking, don’t just ask around the Pentagon. Drive a couple hours north through rural Pennsylvania — passing the Gettysburg battlefield on the way — to the Army War College here in quiet Carlisle. An institution whose influence has waxed and… Keep reading →

ARMY WAR COLLEGE: The brutal ground war in Iraq holds vital lessons for sophisticated future operations in the Pacific, Australian Maj. Gen. Roger Noble said today. Military pundits often draw a sharp distinction between what they consider low-tech warfare against irregular forces, as in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, and high-tech war against states like China… Keep reading →

  ARMY WAR COLLEGE: Global conflicts require global military decisions so the Joint Staff must step up to coordinate operations around the world, said a top aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But, Marine Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told faculty and officer-students at the Army War College here, the Joint Staff can manage this… Keep reading →

A new Army War College report, Outplayed: Regaining Strategic Initiative in the Gray Zone, argues that the United States should adopt innovative approaches against a new and more complex set of international security challenges. “Outplayed” is the culmination of a nine-month study effort that was sanctioned by the Army Chief of Staff and sponsored by… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Instead of begging for more money — which won’t come — it’s time to face facts and use the fiscal pressure to force efficiencies and reforms, says a new report from an elite group of officers at the Army War College, the service’s school for future generals. Army leaders “prefer to be prepared for… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is painfully aware the world is changing. What the military’s clearly still struggling with is how we should change to cope. That’s the less-than-reassuring implication of the new National Military Strategy, released a week ago by the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey. (I discuss the strategy and its… Keep reading →