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Future Tech

Alexa, Write my OPORD: Promise and Pitfalls of Machine Learning for Commanders in Combat

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By Jeff Wong

Introduction

Jump into the time machine and fast forward a few years into the future. The United States is at war, things are not going well, and the brass wants to try something new. John McCarthy,1 a Marine lieutenant colonel whose knowledge of technology is limited to the Microsoft Office applications on his molasses-slow government laptop, mulls over his tasks, as specified by his two-star boss, the commander of Joint Task Force 58:

1. Convene a joint planning group to develop a plan for the upcoming counteroffensive. (Check.)

2. Leverage representatives from every staff section and subject-matter experts participating virtually from headquarters in Hawaii or CONUS. (Roger.)

3. Use an experimental machine-learning application to support the planning and execution of the operation. (We’re screwed.)

Nearly 7,000 miles from a home he might never see again, McCarthy considered two aphorisms. The first was from Marcus Aurelius, the second-century Roman emperor and stoic thinker: “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.” 2 The second was from Mike Tyson, the fearsome boxer, convicted felon, and unlikely philosopher: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”3

Artificial intelligence (AI), including large-language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, is driving a societal revolution that will impact all aspects of life, including how nations wage war and secure their economic prosperity. “The ability to innovate faster and better – the foundation on which military, economic, and cultural power now rest – will determine the outcome of great-power competition between the United States and China,” notes Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive officer of Google and chair of the Special Competitive Studies Project.4 The branch of AI that uses neural networks to mimic human cognition — machine learning (ML) — offers military planners a powerful tool for planning and executing missions with greater accuracy, flexibility, and speed. Senior political and military leaders in China share this view and have made global technological supremacy a national imperative.5

Through analyzing vast amounts of data and applying complex algorithms, ML can enhance situational awareness, anticipate threats, optimize resources, and adapt to generate more successful outcomes. However, as ML becomes more widespread and drives technological competition against China, American military thinkers must develop frameworks to address the role of human judgment and accountability in decision-making and the potential risks and unintended consequences of relying on automated systems in war.

To illustrate the promise and pitfalls of using ML to support decision-making in combat, imagine the pages of a wall calendar flying to some point when America must fight a war against a peer adversary. Taking center stage in this fictional journey are two figures: The first is McCarthy, an officer of average intelligence who only graduated from the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy thanks to a miraculous string of B+ papers at the end of the academic year. The second is “MaL,” a multimodal, LLM that is arguably the most capable – yet most immature – member of McCarthy’s planning team. This four-act drama explores how McCarthy and his staff scope the problems they want MaL to help them solve, how they leverage ML to support operational planning, and how they use MaL to support decision-making during execution. The final act concludes by offering recommendations for doctrine, training and education, and leadership and policies to better harness this capability in the wars to come.

Act One: “What Problems Do We Want This Thing to Solve?”

The task force was previously known as “JTF-X,” an experimental formation that blended conventional legacy platforms with AI and autonomous capabilities. As the tides of war turned against the United States and its allies, the Secretary of Defense (SecDef) pressured senior commanders to expand the use of AI-enabled experimental capabilities. Rather than distribute its capabilities across the rest of the joint force, the SecDef ordered JTF-X into duty as a single unit to serve as the theater reserve for a geographic combatant commander. “Necessity breeds innovation… sometimes kicking and screaming,” she said.

 Aboard the JTF command ship in a cramped room full of maps, satellite imagery, and charts thick with unit designators, McCarthy stared at a blinking cursor on a big-screen projection of MaL. Other members of his OPT looked over his shoulder as he impulsively typed out, “Alexa, write my OpOrd.” Undulating dots suggested MaL was formulating a response before MaL responded, “I’m not sure what you’re asking for.”

The JPG chief, an Air Force senior master sergeant, voiced what the humans in the room were thinking: “Sir, what problems do we want this thing to solve?”

The incredible capacity of ML tools to absorb, organize, and generate insights from large volumes of data suggests that they hold great promise to support operational planning. Still, leaders, planners, and ML tool developers must determine how best to harness the capability to solve defined military problems. For instance, the Ukrainian military uses AI to collect and assess intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) data from numerous sources in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.6 But as Ukrainian planners are probably discovering today, they must do more than throw current ML tools at problem sets. Current LLMs fall short of desired capabilities to help human planners infer and make sense within the operating environment. Military professionals must tailor the problem sets to match the capabilities and limitations of the ML solutions.

Although tools supporting decision advantage comprised a small fraction of the 685 AI-related projects and accounts within the DoD as of 2021, existing efforts align with critical functions such as the collection and fusion of data from multiple domains (akin to the DoD’s vision for Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2)); multidomain decision support for a combatant command headquarters; automated analysis of signals across the electromagnetic spectrum; and location of bots to support defensive cyber operations.7 There are numerous tools with various tasks and functions, but the crux of the problem will be focusing the right tool or set of tools on the appropriate problem sets. Users need to frame planning tasks and precisely define the desired outputs for a more immature LLM capability, such as the fictional MaL.

McCarthy mapped out a task organization for the JPG to align deliverables with available expertise. The team chief scribbled dates and times for upcoming deliverables on a whiteboard, including the confirmation brief for the commander in 24 hours. An Army corporal sat before a desktop computer to serve as the group’s primary interface with MaL. To help the group develop useful queries and troubleshoot, MaL’s developers in Hawaii participated via a secure video teleconference.

MaL was already able to access volumes of existing data – operations and contingency plans, planning artifacts from previous operations, ISR data from sensors ranging from national assets to stand-in forces in theater, fragmentary orders, and mountains of open-source information.

Act Two: MaL Gets Busy to the ‘Left of the Bang’

Some observers believe that ML capabilities can flatten the “orient” and “decide” steps of the late military theorist John Boyd’s observe-orient-decide-act decision (OODA) loop, expanding a commander’s opportunity to understand context, gain an appreciation of the battlespace, frame courses of action, and explore branches and sequels to inform decisions.8 Nevertheless, the greater capacity that ML tools provide does not eliminate the need for leaders to remain intimately involved in the planning process and work with the platform to define decision points as they weigh options, opportunities, risks, and possible outcomes.

Planners should examine frameworks such as the OODA Loop, IPB, and the Joint Operational Planning Process (JOPP) to guide where they could apply ML to maximum effect. To support IPB, ML can automate aspects of collection and processing, such as identifying objects, selecting potential targets for collection, and guiding sensors. ML capabilities for image and audio classification and natural language processing are already in commercial use. They support essential functions for autonomous vehicles, language translation, and transit scheduling. These commercial examples mirror military use cases, as nascent platforms fuse disparate data from multiple sources in all five warfighting domains.9

MaL’s digital library included the most relevant intelligence reports; adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures summaries; videos of possible target locations taken by uncrewed systems; raw signals intelligence; and assessments of the enemy orders of battle and operational tendencies from the early months of the conflict. The corpus of data also included online news stories and social media postings scraped by an all-source intelligence aggregator.

 McCarthy said, “As a first step, let’s have MaL paint the picture for us based on the theater-level operational context, then create an intelligence preparation of the battlespace presentation with no more than 25 PowerPoint slides.” After the clerk entered the query, the graphic of a human hand drumming its fingers on a table appeared.

Two minutes later, MaL saved a PowerPoint file on the computer’s desktop and announced in a metallic voice, “Done, sir, done!” McCarthy and his J-2 reviewed the IPB brief, which precisely assessed the enemy, terrain, weather, and civil considerations. MaL detailed the enemy’s most likely and dangerous courses of action, discussed adversary capabilities and limitations across all domains, and provided a target-value analysis aligning with the most recent intelligence. The J-2 reviewed the product and said, “Not bad.” She added, “Should I worry about losing my job?”

“Maybe I should worry about losing mine,” McCarthy said. “Let’s go through the planning process with MaL and have it generate three COAs based on the commander’s planning guidance and intent statement.”

American military planning frameworks – JOPP and its nearly identical counterparts across the services – are systematic processes that detail the operational environment, the higher commander’s intent, specified and implied tasks, friendly and enemy COAs, and estimates of supportability across all warfighting functions. They benefit the joint force by establishing uniform expectations about the information needed to support a commander’s estimate of the situation. However, current planning frameworks may hinder decision-making because a commander and his staff may become too focused on the process instead of devoting their energies and mental bandwidth to quickly orienting themselves to a situation and making decisions. Milan Vego, a professor of operational art at the U.S. Naval War College, writes of “a great temptation to steadily expand scope and the amount of information in the (commander’s) estimate. All this could be avoided if commanders and staffs are focused on the mental process and making a quick and good decision.”10

An ML-enabled decision-support capability could help planners stay above process minutiae by suggesting options for matching available weapon systems to targets, generating COAs informed by real-time data, and assessing the likelihood of success for various options in a contemporary battlespace, which features space and cyberspace as contested warfighting domains.11

MaL developed three unacceptable COAs which variously exceeded the unit’s authorities as outlined in the JTF’s initiating directive or extended kinetic operations into the adversary’s mainland, risking escalation.

McCarthy rubbed his face and said, “Time for a reboot. Let’s better define constraints and restraints, contain operations in our joint operational area, and have it develop assessments for risks to mission and force.” He added, “And this time, we’ll try not to provoke a nuclear apocalypse.”

The planning team spent several more hours refining their thoughts, submitting prompts, and reviewing the results. Eventually, MaL generated three COAs that were feasible, acceptable, complete, and supportable. MaL tailored battlespace architecture, fire support coordination measures, and a detailed sustainment plan for each COA and mapped critical decision points throughout the operation. MaL also assisted the JTF air officer develop three distinct aviation support plans for each COA. 

The planning team worked with MaL to develop staff estimates for each COA. The logistics and communications representatives were surprised at how quickly MaL produced coherent staff estimates following a few hours of queries. The fires, intelligence, and maneuver representatives similarly worked with MaL to develop initial fire support plans to synchronize with the group’s recommended COA.

McCarthy marveled at MaL’s ability to make sense of large amounts of data, but he was also surprised at the ML platform’s tendency to misinterpret words. For instance, it continually conflated the words “delay,” “disrupt,” and “destroy,” which were distinct tactical tasks with different effects on enemy formations. The planning team reviewed MaL’s COA overviews and edited the platform’s work. The staff estimates were detailed, and insightful, but still required corrections.

During the confirmation brief, the JTF commander debated several details about MaL’s outputs and risk assessments of the planning team’s recommended COA. McCarthy said, “Respectfully, Admiral, this is your call. MaL is one tool in your toolbox. We can tweak the COA to suit your desires. We can also calibrate the level of automation in the kill chain based on your intent.”

After a moment, the admiral said, “I’ll follow the planning team’s recommendation. Notice that I didn’t say MaL’s recommendation because MaL is just one part of your team.”

Act Three: MaL Lends a Hand to the Right of the ‘Bang’

Contemporary military thinkers believe that ML-enabled tools could improve decision-making during the execution of an operation, leveraging better situational awareness to suggest more effective solutions for problems that emerge in a dynamic battlespace. However, critics argue that developing even a nascent ML-enabled capability is impossible because of the inherent limits of ML-enabled platforms to generate human-like reasoning and infer wisdom from incomplete masses of unstructured data emanating from a 21st-century battlefield. Some are also concerned about the joint force’s ability to send and receive data from a secure cloud subject to possible malicious cyber activities or adversarial ML. Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz reminds practitioners of the operational art that “War is the realm of uncertainty; three-quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.”12 Technological solutions such as ML-enabled capabilities can temporarily lift parts of this fog for defined periods. Still, users must understand the best use of these capabilities and be wary of inferring certainty from their outputs.

Emerging capabilities suggest that ML can augment and assist human decision-making in several ways. First, ML systems can enhance situational awareness by establishing and maintaining a real-time common operational picture derived from multiple sensors in multiple domains. Greater battlespace awareness provides context to support better decision-making by commanders and more accurate assessments of events on the battlefield. Second, ML can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of kill-chain analytics by quickly matching available sensors and shooters with high-value or high-payoff targets.13 This efficiency is essential in the contemporary battlespace, where ubiquitous sensors can quickly detect a target based on a unit’s emissions in the electromagnetic spectrum or signatures from previously innocuous activities like an Instagram post or a unit’s financial transaction with a host-nation civilian contractor.

Indeed, some AI observers in the U.S. defense analytic community argue that warfighters must quickly adopt ML to maintain a competitive edge against the People’s Liberation Army, which some observers believe will favor the possible gains in warfighting effectiveness and efficiency over concerns about ethical issues such as implementing human-off-the-loop AI strategies.14 ML-enabled feedback constructs will enhance the control aspects of command and control to employ a large, adaptable, and complex multidomain force.15

It was now D+21. JTF-58 achieved its primary objectives, but the campaign did not unfold as intended. During the shaping phase of the operation, several high-value targets, including mobile anti-ship cruise missile batteries, escaped kinetic targeting efforts, living to fight another day and putting U.S. naval shipping at risk for the latter phases of the campaign. MaL failed to update the developers’ advertised “dynamic operating picture” despite attempts by forward-deployed sensors and reconnaissance teams to report their movement. Incredibly, the DoD still did not have access to data from some weapon systems due to manufacturer stipulations.16

MaL’s developers insisted that the forward-deployed sensors should have had enough computing power to push edge data to the JTF’s secure cloud. The CommO speculated that environmental conditions or adversary jamming could have affected connectivity. McCarthy shook his head and said, “We need to do better.”

MaL performed predictably well in some areas to the right of the bang. The task force commander approved using MaL to run networked force protection systems, including a Patriot battery that successfully intercepted an inbound missile and electronic-warfare (EW) systems that neutralized small unmanned aerial systems targeting a fuel farm. MaL’s use in these scenarios did not stretch anyone’s comfort level since these employment methods were barely different than the automation of systems like the U.S. Navy’s Phalanx close-in weapon system (CIWS), which has detected, evaluated, tracked, engaged, and conducted kill assessments of airborne threats for more than four decades.17

MaL’s communications and logistics staff estimates were precise and valuable for the staff. The CommO adjusted the tactical communications architecture based on MaL’s predictions about enemy EW methods and the effects of weather and terrain on forward maneuver elements. Similarly, the LogO worked with the OpsO to establish additional forward-arming and refueling points (FARPs) based on MaL’s fuel and munitions consumption projections.

In the middle of the operation, the task force commander issued a fragmentary order to take advantage of an unfolding opportunity. MaL leveraged open-source data from host-nation news websites and social media postings by enemy soldiers to inform battle damage assessment of kinetic strikes. Some of that information was fake and skewed the assessment until the intelligence officer corrected it by comparing it with satellite imagery and human intelligence reporting.

As with any emerging capability, commanders and their staffs must consider the risks of integrating ML into the planning, execution, and assessment of operations. One of the risks is inherent in forecasting, as the ML platform artificially closes the feedback loop to a decision-maker sooner than one would expect during real-world operations. Retired U.S. Navy Captain Adam Aycock and Naval War College professor William Glenney IV assert that this lag might make ML outputs moot when a commander makes a decision. “The operational commander might not receive feedback, and the effects of one move might not be recognized until several subsequent moves have been made,” Aycock and Glenney write. “Furthermore, a competent enemy would likely attempt to mask or manipulate this feedback. Under such circumstances … it is difficult to ‘learn’ from a first move in order to craft the second.”18

Another risk is that the data used by ML platforms are, in some way, inaccurate, incomplete, or unstructured. Whether real or training, flawed data will lead to inaccurate outputs and likely foul an ML-enabled tool’s assessment of the environment and COA development. “Unintentional failure modes can result from training data that do not represent the full range of conditions or inputs that a system will face in deployment,” write Wyatt Hoffman and Heeu Millie Kim, researchers with the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University. “The environment can change in ways that cause the data used by the model during deployment to differ substantially from the data used to train the model.”19

The corollary to inaccurate data is adversarial ML, in which an enemy manipulates data to trick an ML system, degrade or disrupt optimal performance, and erode users’ trust in the capability. Adversarial ML tricks can trick an ML model into misidentifying potential targets or mischaracterizing terrain and weather. In one notable demonstration of adversarial ML, researchers at the Chinese technology giant Tencent placed stickers on a road to trick the lane recognition system of a Tesla semi-autonomous car, causing it to swerve into the wrong lane.20 Just the possibility of a so-called “hidden failure mode” could exacerbate fears about the reliability of any ML-enabled system. “Operators and military commanders need to trust that ML systems will operate reliably under the realistic conditions of a conflict,” Hoffman and Kim write. “Ideally, this will militate against a rush to deploy untested systems. However, developers, testers, policymakers, and commanders within and between countries may have very different risk tolerances and understandings of trust in AI.”21

Act Four: Hotwash

McCarthy took advantage of an operational pause to conduct a hotwash. Over lukewarm coffee and Monsters, the conversation gravitated toward how they could use MaL better. The group scribbled a few recommendations concerning integrating ML into doctrine, training and education, and leadership and policies until the ship’s 1-MC sounds general quarters. 

Doctrine: To realize the utility of ML, military leaders should consider two changes to existing doctrine. First, doctrine developers and the operational community should consider the concept of “human command, machine control,” in which ML would use an auction-bid process akin to ride-hailing applications to advertise and fulfill operational requirements across the warfighting functions. Under this construct, a commander publishes or broadcasts tasks, including constraints, priorities, metrics, and objectives. “A distributed ML-enabled control system would award-winning bids to a force package that could execute the tasking and direct the relevant forces to initiate the operation,” write naval theorists Harrison Schramm and Bryan Clark. “Forces or platforms that accept the commander’s bid conducts (or attempts to conduct) the mission and reports the results “when communications availability allows.”22 This concept supports mission-type orders/mission command and allows C2 architectures to flex to instances and areas subject to low-bandwidth constraints.23

Second, doctrine developers should adjust joint, service, and domain-centric planning processes to account for additional planning aids, such as LLMs, modeling and simulation, and digital twins, which can more deeply explore COAs, branches, and sequels and accelerate understanding of threats and the operating environment. Explicitly changing planning doctrine to account for these emerging capabilities will encourage their use and emphasize their criticality to effective planning.

Training and Education: Tactical units must train and continually develop ML technical experts capable of conducting on-the-spot troubleshooting and maintenance of the tool. Meanwhile, the services should develop curricula to train budding junior leaders — corporals, sergeants, lieutenants, ensigns, and captains — that introduce them to machine-learning tools applicable to their warfighting domains, provide best principles for generating productive outputs, and articulate risks – and risk mitigations – due to skewed data and poor problem framing.

Best practices should also be documented and shared across the DoD. Use of ML capabilities should become part of a JPG’s battle drill, featuring a designated individual whose primary duty is to serve as the human interface with a decision-support tool such as MaL. Rather than work from scratch at the start of every planning effort, JPGs should have a list of queries readily available for a range of scenarios that can inform a commander’s estimate of the situation and subsequent planning guidance, and formulation of intent based on an initial understanding of the operating environment. Prompts that solicit ML-enabled recommendations on task organization, force composition and disposition, risks to force or mission, targeting, and other essential decisions should be ready for immediate use to speed the JPG’s planning tempo and, ultimately, a unit’s speed of action as well. The information management officer (IMO), which in some headquarters staffs is relegated to updating SharePoint portals, should be the staff’s subject matter expert for managing ML capabilities. IMOs would be the military equivalent of prompt engineers to coax and guide AI/ML models to generate relevant, coherent, and consistent outputs to support the unit’s mission.24

Leadership and Policies: There are implications for senior leaders for warfighting and policy. Within a warfighting context, senior defense leaders must identify, debate, and develop frameworks for how commanders might use ML to support decision-making in wartime scenarios. It seems intuitive to use a multimodal LLM tool such as the fictitious MaL to support IPB, targeting, and kill chain actions; in the same way, campaign models are used to inform combatant commander planning for crises and contingencies.

However, leaders and their staffs must also understand the limitations of such tools to support a commander’s decision-making. “Do not ask for an AI-enabled solution without first deciding what decision it will influence and what the ‘left and right limits’ of the decision will be,” Schramm and Clark warn.25 Likewise, AI might not be the appropriate tool to solve all tactical and operational problems. “Large data-centric web merchants such as Amazon are very good at drawing inferences on what people may be interested in purchasing on a given evening because they have a functionally infinite sample space of previous actions upon which to build the model,” they write. “This is radically different from military problems where the amount of data on previous interactions is extremely small and the adversary might have tactics and systems that have not been observed previously. Making inference where there is little to no data is the domain of natural intelligence.”26

Meanwhile, future acquisition arrangements with defense contractors must provide the DoD with data rights – particularly data generated by purchased weapon systems and sensors – to optimize the potential of ML architecture in a warfighting environment.27 Such a change would require the DoD to work with firms in the defense industrial base to adjudicate disagreements over the right to use, licensing, and ownership of data – each of which might bear different costs to a purchaser.

Epilogue

Technologists and policy wonks constantly remind the defense community that the Department must “fail fast” to mature emerging technologies and integrate them into the joint force as quickly as possible. The same principle should guide the development of AI/ML-enabled warfighting solutions. Commanders and their staffs must understand that this is a capable tool that, if used wisely, can significantly enhance the joint force’s ability to absorb data from disparate sources, make sense of that information, and close kill chains based on an ML tool’s assessment.

If used unwisely, without a solid understanding of what decisions ML will support, the joint force may be playing a rigged game against a peer adversary. ML-enabled capabilities can absorb large amounts of data, process and organize it, and generate insights for humans who work at a relative snail’s pace. However, these nascent tools cannot reason and interpret words or events as a competent military professional can. As strategic competition between the United States and China intensifies over Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Russian-Ukraine war, and other geopolitical issues, American political and military leaders must develop a better understanding of when and how to use ML to support joint force planning, execution, and assessment in combat, lest U.S. service members pay an ungodly sum of the butcher’s bill.

Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Wong, a U.S. Marine Corps reserve infantry officer, studied artificial intelligence at the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, National Defense University in the 2022-2023 academic year. In his civilian work, he plans wargames and exercises for various clients across the Department of Defense.

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

References

1. The fictional hero of this story, John McCarthy, is named after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher who first coined the term “artificial intelligence.” Gil Press, “A Very Short History of Artificial Intelligence,” Forbes, December 30, 2016, https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2016/12/30/a-very-short-history-of-artificial-intelligence-ai/?sh=51ea3d156fba.

2. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, audiobook.

3. Mike Berardino, “Mike Tyson Explains One of His Most Famous Quotes,” South Florida Sun-Sentinel, November 9, 2012, https://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/fl-xpm-2012-11-09-sfl-mike-tyson-explains-one-of-his-most-famous-quotes-20121109-story.html.

4. Eric Schmidt, “Innovation Power: Why Technology Will Define the Future of Geopolitics,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2023.

5. “Military-Civil Fusion and the People’s Republic of China,” U.S. Department of State, May 2020.

6. Eric Schmidt, “Innovation Power: Why Technology Will Define the Future of Geopolitics,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2023.

7. Wyatt Hoffman and Heeu Millie Kim, “Reducing the Risks of Artificial Intelligence for Military Decision Advantage,” Center for Security and Emerging Technology Policy Paper (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, March 2023), 12.

8. James Johnson, “Automating the OODA Loop in the Age of AI,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 25, 2022, https://nuclearnetwork.csis.org/automating-the-ooda-loop-in-the-age-of-ai/.

9. Hoffman and Kim, “Reducing the Risks of Artificial Intelligence for Military Decision Advantage,” 7.

10. Milan Vego, “The Bureaucratization of the U.S. Military Decision-making Process,” Joint Force Quarterly 88, January 9, 2018, https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Publications/Article/1411771/the-bureaucratization-of-the-us-military-decisionmaking-process/.

11. Hoffman and Kim, 7.

12. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 101.

 13. Hoffman and Kim, 7.

 14. Elsa Kania, “AI Weapons” in China’s Military Innovation, Brookings Institution, April 2020.

 15. Harrison Schramm and Bryan Clark, “Artificial Intelligence and Future Force Design,” in AI at War (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2021), 240-241.

16. Josh Lospinoso, Testimony on the State of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Applications to Improve Department of Defense Operations before the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, April 19, 2023, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/to-receive-testimony-on-the-state-of-artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning-applications-to-improve-department-of-defense-operations. “Today, the Department of Defense does not have anywhere near sufficient access to weapon system data. We do not – and in some cases, due to contractual obligations, the Department cannot — extract this data that feeds and enables the AI capabilities we will need to maintain our competitive edge.”

 17. MK15 – Phalanx Close-In Weapon System (CIWS), U.S. Navy, September 20, 2021, https://www.navy.mil/resources/fact-files/display-factfiles/article/2167831/mk-15-phalanx-close-in-weapon-system-ciws/.

18. Adam Aycock and William Glenney IV, “Trying to Put Mahan in a Box,” in AI at War, 269-270.

19. Hoffman and Kim, CSET Policy Brief, 8.

20. Ibid, 8-9.

21. Ibid, 11.

22. Schramm and Clark, “Artificial Intelligence and Future Force Design,” 239-241.

23. AI at War, 241.

24. Craig S. Smith, “Mom, Dad, I Want To Be A Prompt Engineer,” Forbes, April 5, 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/craigsmith/2023/04/05/mom-dad-i-want-to-be-a-prompt-engineer/amp/.

25. AI at War, 247-248.

26. AI at War, 248.

27. Heidi M. Peters, “Intellectual Property and Technical Data in DoD Acquisitions,” Congressional Research Service In-Focus, IF12083, April 22, 2022, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12083.

Featured Image: PHILIPPINE SEA (Sept. 22, 2020) Cpl. Clayton A. Phillips, a network administrator with Marine Air Control Group 18 Detachment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), and a native of Beech Bluff, Tennessee, tests the connectivity of the Networking On-the-Move Airborne (NOTM-A) communications system during flight operations from the amphibious assault ship, USS America (LHA 6). (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Brienna Tuck)

Wargames

Revamping Wargaming Education for the U.S. Department of Defense

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By Jeff Appleget, Jeff Kline, and Rob Burks

Introduction

The U.S. Department of Defense has failed to educate generations of military officers on the skills of wargaming. Wargaming creates the environment in which uniformed leaders practice decision-making against an active, thinking adversary. Wargaming is also required by the Department of Defense’s planning process to create sound and executable plans, is inherent to designing new doctrine and operational concepts, and is a vital element in the cycle of research.1

For these reasons, military leaders must have the ability to create and conduct wargames. However, the current military education process does not impart this critical knowledge.

Background

Ed McGrady, distinguished Center for Naval Analyses wargamer, opened a recent commentary on wargaming by saying, “There is a widespread misunderstanding of what wargaming is…” and we agree wholeheartedly. Too many in the Department of Defense believe wargames are computer-based combat simulations used to produce quantitative analyses, but they are not. Wargaming is about human decision-making. Joint Publication 5-0 Joint Operation Planning’s wargaming definition makes this clear: “Wargames are representations of conflict or competition in a synthetic environment, in which people make decisions and respond to the consequences of those decisions” (emphasis added).

Most defense wargaming practitioners recognize three purposes for wargames: educational, experiential, and analytic. Educational and experiential wargames are focused on the player. The primary output of these types of wargames is a better educated or experienced player. For example, success might lead to an officer who now knows how a new weapon system is employed or has experienced fighting against a threat in a different region of the world. There are usually no other ‘results’ to demonstrate the wargame’s value.

On the other hand, analytic wargames focus on producing findings and recommendations in response to a sponsor’s tasking. Therefore the product of these wargames is not player-focused but sponsor-focused. Planning wargames, as outlined in Joint Publication 5-0 (Step 4: Course of Action analysis and wargaming), are specific analytic wargames with the task of analyzing courses of action, which then inform the development of a plan. Other analytic wargaming activities include developing new concepts of operations, doctrine, Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP) for emerging and future technologies, and front-end wargaming for experimentation and exercises to ensure that these expensive endeavors are properly focused and can achieve a high return on investment. We can learn much about new technologies and concepts through wargaming without burning a penny’s worth of fuel.

Current Status

Department of Defense wargaming is at a crossroads. It seems self-evident that the Department of Defense should own the responsibility to improve its wargaming. While Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), educational institutions, and defense contractors may have roles to play in wargame improvement, only the Department of Defense can choose to lead and embrace a comprehensive end-to-end cycle of research construct. This construct includes wargaming, computer-based combat simulations, and other quantitative and qualitative analytic techniques that, when properly leveraged, provide quality decision support to the department’s leadership. It must begin by addressing the shortcomings in wargaming education.

The 2015 call to reinvigorate wargaming has inspired the reintroduction of wargaming into some service school classrooms. Hence, a portion of uniformed field grade officers have an appreciation for, and may have actually played, wargames. However, the inability of the Department of Defense’s uniformed members to design and conduct their own wargames still has not been addressed in professional military education. Today, the Department of Defense relies on FFRDCs, educational institutions, and defense contractors to design and conduct wargames on their behalf. While these organizations produce useful wargames, the sheer number of wargames that should be executed across the department cannot all be performed by these organizations—they simply do not have the capacity, nor does the department have the budget.

However, there is a far more fundamental problem on the department’s reliance on these organizations. This reliance is, in effect, outsourcing the intellectual underpinnings of the nation’s defense strategy, officer professional development, and the department’s acquisition process.

Wargaming should become an integral part of the military officer corps’ professional education. The skills required to design and conduct wargames go hand-in-hand with the skills required to plan and execute military operations. 

The lack of wargaming skills and experience in our field grade and senior officers should be a warning to the department’s leadership. Wargaming was once the primary venue for the exchange of ideas, debates on tactics and doctrine, the sharing of lessons learned from previous operations and experiences, and the operational and doctrinal education of junior officers.2 Now it has largely disappeared from officers’ professional development. The 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps’ Commandant’s Planning Guidance states this concern very succinctly:

“In the context of training, wargaming needs to be used more broadly to fill what is arguably our greatest deficiency in the training and education of leaders: practice in decision-making against a thinking enemy. Again, this requirement is inherent in the nature of war. In modern military organizations, it is, along with the fear of violent death, precisely the element of real war that is hardest to replicate under peacetime conditions. Wargaming historically was invented to fill this gap, and we need to make far more aggressive use of it at all levels of training and education to give leaders the necessary ‘reps and sets’ in realistic combat decision-making.”

Phil Pournelle, Senior Operations Analyst and Game Designer at Group W, points out a 2018 National Defense Strategy Commission finding that the military struggles to “link objectives to operational concepts to capabilities to programs.” Linking of objectives to operational concepts to capabilities is basic military planning. Yet our combatant commands and joint task forces struggle to conduct the planning wargames that Joint Publication 5-0 requires.

According to Joint Publication 5-0, each course of action should be wargamed against the enemy’s most likely and most dangerous course of action for a given plan. Assuming a modest number of three friendly courses of action to analyze, that is a requirement for six wargames per plan. And every plan that has sat on a digital shelf for more than a year needs to be dusted off and wargamed again, as the facts and assumptions that underpinned the plan’s development 12-plus months ago have undoubtedly changed, often significantly.

Unfortunately, due to time, staff capability, and capacity constraints, at best there may be one wargame conducted per combatant commander’s plan: the commander’s favorite Course of Action against the enemy’s most likely Course of Action. Insufficient time is allotted to conduct the wargame, resulting in poor design, less thorough execution, and results that fail to illuminate the plan’s operational risks or propose contingencies. This lack of time inspires the quick application of seminar games that devolve into BOGGSATS – a Bunch of Guys and Gals Sitting Around a Table.

As recent commentary from Peter Perla, author of the seminal book The Art of Wargaming, and Phil Pournelle3 have pointed out, wargaming should also be an integral part of analysis, experimentation, exercises, and the broader cycle of research. Far too often this is not the case. Instead, the department relies on analysis methods such as cost-benefit analysis, capabilities-based assessments, and analysis of alternatives that provide technical rationales for procurement decisions. However, in the Department of Defense, these analyses must be tempered with a thinking adversary in mind. Our potential adversaries in the future are concurrently developing new doctrine and concepts, fielding new technologies and force structures, and procuring new systems that increase our risk or limit our military options. Wargaming is necessary to gain an appreciation for our competitors’ capabilities, options, and objectives.

Wargaming has always been an integral part of the Army’s analysis to support their department’s acquisition of new technology and weapons systems. Army analytic organizations, such as the Center for Army Analysis and the Training and Doctrine Command’s Analysis Center, integrated wargaming with their computer-based combat simulations to provide comprehensive qualitative and quantitative analysis to support key acquisition programs several decades ago. Both tools are still used together, productively, today.

This approach’s benefit is two-fold. First, the warfighters brought into the wargame’s concepts of operations (CONOPS) that employs units equipped with new technologies provide input into the analysis process and gain a better appreciation for the quantitative analysis products that the combat simulations could provide. Second, the analysts gain a better understanding of how a new force would fight differently and use that knowledge to inform the instantiation of the schemes of maneuver required by their combat simulations, which in turn improves their quantitative analysis products. To do this properly, operations research analysts must create the wargaming environment, conduct the wargames, and determine how to best integrate the wargame’s qualitative output into the computer-based combat simulations so that the study produces both qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Unfortunately, some of the department’s more senior analysts that cut their analytical teeth using computer-based combat simulations believe that wargames provide little or no analytic value. This view completely misses the fact that counterinsurgency, hybrid warfare, the gray zone of conflict, and competition short of war are not well addressed by the millions of dollars the department invests in the maintenance, staffing, and running of kinetic-focused combat simulations and the organizations that support them.

In a recent Naval War College Review article, Capt. Robert Rubel (ret.), professor emeritus of the U.S. Naval War College and former chair of its Wargaming Department, stated, “Two-sided gaming should be a widespread and essential part of the professional education process from pre-commissioning through senior service colleges and even flag level courses.” He went on to describe several virtues of wargaming:

  • “A routine diet of two-sided gaming can generate and hone the ability to reason competitively.”
  • “Making two-sided gaming the default PME vehicle will help to re-create a sandbox in which innovative reflexes can be developed.”
  • “Repeated struggling in competitive situations is more likely to produce new ideas and insights, especially if such experience is widespread in the officer corps.”

Rubel also goes on to caution: “Two-sided gaming is not easy. The design of such games must take care to channel competitive instincts properly.”

In summary, the Department of Defense’s need for increased capacity to conduct quality wargaming starts by educating its officer corps on how to design, conduct, and assess analytical, educational, and experiential wargames.

The Way Ahead

We propose jumpstarting wargaming education in the Department of Defense with a two-pronged approach. First, the Department of Defense needs wargame designers at an apprentice level. Any officer who is a candidate to serve on a general or flag staff (most field grade line officers) should complete a basic analytic wargaming course to enable them to bring value to a wargaming design team. We do not advocate for a specialty track for wargamers. Instead, all military leaders should be wargamers (such as the Navy’s flag ranks at the onset of WWII). The Army and Marine Corps do a decent job of introducing their young officers to some of the building blocks of wargaming. While sand table discussions, table-top exercises, and rehearsal of concept drills incorporate several of the elements of wargaming, they are typically missing the conflict or competition that a thinking adversary produces. These events provide a wargaming-like basis from which to build. A logical place for such a course is in the command and general staff college level of Joint Professional Military Education. 

Second, there needs to be an executive-level wargaming course for senior leaders. Senior officers who supervise and consume the results of wargaming today, such as primary staff officers on Combatant Command or other flag officer commanded staffs, need to understand what wargames are, how they are different from computer-based combat simulations, what to expect from well-designed wargames, and the level of resource investment required from them and their staff to obtain quality wargaming results. They also need to realize that their younger charges must couple their wargaming education with playing and designing wargames to become proficient wargamers. They must give their subordinates enough time to game. Moreover, senior leaders should lead by example, participating in and encouraging wargaming activities in their commands.

Over time, the wargaming apprentices, through playing, designing, and conducting wargames, will mature in their wargaming skills and take on wargaming leadership roles. Note that the goal is not to identify a pipeline to create wargaming masters. Such masters are rare individuals, and some may emerge from the ranks of military wargamers produced. But, just as most officers will never achieve flag rank, most uniformed wargamers will never become wargaming masters. The FFRDCs, educational institutions, and Department of Defense contractors have wargaming masters, and their expertise will still be needed to support the department. However, many good wargames can be designed without requiring the supervision of a wargaming master.

Since 2009, the Naval Postgraduate School’s Operations Research Department has offered an 11-week Wargaming Applications course to its resident students that focuses on the design, conduct, and analysis of wargames for Department of Defense, allied, and partner sponsors.4 The faculty designed the course recognizing that the Naval Postgraduate School’s Operations Research graduates – our military’s newest Operations Research analysts–needed to be able to design, conduct, and analyze a wargame. Acquiring these skills enables them to participate in, lead, and eventually supervise the end-to-end campaign analysis that incorporates wargaming, computer simulations, and other qualitative and quantitative analytic tools as future analytic assignments will require. The course organizers did not fully recognize the added benefit of this education until some of the Operations Research graduates started serving at Combatant Commands. These graduates, now staff officers, reached back to the Naval Postgraduate School to report how useful their wargaming design skills were in helping the Combatant Command staffs design and conduct useful planning wargames. They asked if the Wargaming Applications instructors could come to their location and teach a cadre of the Combatant Command personnel the same basic wargaming design skills they had internalized at the Naval Postgraduate School.

In response, NPS developed the week-long Mobile Education Team Basic Analytic Wargaming Course around the same philosophy as our resident wargaming course: learn by doing. The objectives for this course were two-fold.

First, it builds a cadre of personnel who can initiate, design, develop, conduct, and analyze a wargame. Unified Combatant Commands have leveraged this opportunity by having personnel from their operational planning teams and staff sections attend the course and work in teams to learn how to design, develop, and execute a wargame.

Second, since the sponsoring organization chooses the wargaming topic used in the course’s practical exercises, the organization can have the core foundation of a wargame created and demonstrated that can then be further built out and used by the organization to meet other organizational wargaming requirements. NPS has conducted over 20 week-long Mobile Education Team Basic Analytic Wargaming Courses around the world, including five at Combatant Commands. Today, NPS conducts 6-8 Mobile Education Team events annually, and demand remains high.

The philosophy in teaching wargaming is that it requires a hands-on, learn-by-doing approach. Both the resident and Mobile Education Team courses are over 70 percent practical exercises, where the students are applying the techniques that we illustrate in the lectures. In both courses, a Department of Defense, ally, or partner sponsor provides the wargaming topic that serves as the impetus behind the practical exercises. Student groups design, conduct, and then analyze wargames for their sponsors as the course’s graduation exercise. Since 2009, the Naval Postgraduate School resident student wargaming teams have conducted over 70 wargames for 35 Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Joint, International, and Industry sponsors. NPS views the wargaming course graduates as wargaming apprentices. They have enough knowledge and experience to make useful, often significant, contributions to any wargaming effort required in the department. Several recent graduates have actually led wargaming design initiatives at their respective organizations soon after graduation.

Conclusion

If the Department of Defense is serious about improving its wargaming capability, it needs to invest in its people through wargaming education. That education needs to be practical and applied at the company and field grade level, preferably as part of their Joint Professional Military Education or graduate school opportunities. If it is a priority to emphasize wargaming’s role in Department of Defense decision-making, simply “doing more wargames” is insufficient. Preparing warfighters to employ wargaming to the full extent of their purposes must be a necessary element.

Colonel (Retired) Jeff Appleget, Ph.D., spent 20 of his 30 years in the U.S. Army as an Operations Research/Systems analyst where he participated in and supervised acquisition and analysis studies using wargaming and computer-based combat simulations. Since 2009, Jeff has been a Senior Lecturer in the Operations Research Department at the Naval Postgraduate School where he teaches wargaming and combat modeling courses. Jeff has mentored over 70 wargames that have been created, conducted, and analyzed by NPS resident Operations Research and Defense Analysis student teams for DoD, Defense partner and allied nation sponsors, and the defense industry. He has led 20 NPS Mobile Education Teams to teach his week-long Basic Analytic Wargaming course in DoD and around the world, to include STRATCOM, CENTCOM, AFRICOM, MARFORPAC, Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (two courses), NATO Special Operations Forces, the Australian Defence Force (four courses), the Canadian Air Force, the Indonesian Navy, the Taiwan Armed Forces, and a Tri-lateral course for the Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish Defence Research Agencies. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School, an M.S. in Operations Research and Statistics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a B.S. from the United States Military Academy. His major awards include the 2016 Richard W. Hamming Faculty Award for Interdisciplinary Achievement, the 2011 Army Modeling and Simulation Team Award (Analysis), 2003 Dr. Wilbur B. Payne Memorial Award for Excellence in Analysis, 2003 Simulation and Modeling for Acquisition, Requirements, and Training (SMART) Award, 2001 SMART Award, 1993 Instructor of the Year (At Large), Department of Mathematical Sciences,  U.S. Air Force Academy, 1991 Dr. Wilbur B. Payne Memorial Award for Excellence in Analysis, and 1990 Concepts Analysis Agency Director’s Award for Excellence. Along with Dr. Rob Burks, Jeff directs the activities of the NPS Naval Warfare Studies Institute Wargaming Center.

Colonel (Retired) Robert E. Burks, Jr., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Defense Analysis of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) and with Jeff Appleget, directs the activities of the NPS Naval Warfare Studies Institute Wargaming Center. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Air Force Institute of Technology, an M.S. in Operations Research from the Florida Institute of Technology. Rob is a retired Army Colonel with more than thirty years of military experience in leadership, advanced analytics, decision modeling, and logistics operations. He spent 17 years in the U.S. Army as an Operations Research/Systems analyst and has led multiple analytical study teams responsible for Army Transformation and organizational restructuring and design efforts using wargaming and computer-based combat simulations. Since 2015, Rob has taught multiple educational, historical, and analytical wargaming courses at NPS. He has taught the NPS week-long Basic Analytic Wargaming Course 14 times to the Department of Defense and other organizations around the world, to include CENTCOM, AFRICOM, MARFORPAC, Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (two courses), NATO Special Operations Forces, the Australian Defence Force (four courses), and the Taiwan Armed Forces.

Captain Jeffrey E. Kline (ret.) served 26 years as a naval officer, including two sea commands. Jeff is currently a Professor of Practice in the Naval Postgraduate School Operations Research department. He directs the NPS Naval Warfare Studies Institute. He teaches campaign analysis, systems analysis, and executive programs in strategic planning and risk assessment. Jeff supports applied analytical research in maritime operations and security, tactical analysis, and future force composition studies. He has served on the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations’ Fleet Design Advisory Board and several Naval Study Board Committees of the National Academies. His faculty awards include the Superior Civilian Service Medal, 2019 J. Steinhardt Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Operations Research, 2011 Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) Award for Teaching of OR Practice, 2009 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Homeland Security Award, 2007 Hamming Award for interdisciplinary research, 2007 Wayne E. Meyers Award for Excellence in Systems Engineering Research, and the 2005 Northrop Grumman Award for Excellence in Systems Engineering. He is a member of the Military Operations Research Society and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of Missouri, a Master of Science in Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School, and a Master of Science in National Security Studies from the National Defense University’s National War College.

References

1. Peter Perla et. al, “Rolling the Iron Dice: From Analytical Wargaming to the Cycle of Research” October 21, 2019; https://warontherocks.com/2019/10/rolling-the-iron-dice-from-analytical-wargaming-to-the-cycle-of-research/

2. Matthew B. Caffrey, Jr., “On Wargaming” (2019). The Newport Papers. 43. https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/newport-papers/43

3. Phil Pournelle, “Can the Cycle of Research Save American Military Strategy?” October 18, 2019, WOTR, https://warontherocks.com/2019/10/can-the-cycle-of-research-save-american-military-strategy/

4. Jeffrey Appleget, Robert Burks and Frederick Cameron, “The Craft of Wargaming: A Detailed Planning Guide for Defense Planners and Analysts,” Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 2020.

Featured Image: EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (Oct. 22, 2020) – A U.S. Army M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launches ordnance during RED FLAG-Alaska 21-1 at Fort Greely, Alaska, Oct. 22, 2020 (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Beaux Hebert)

Capability Analysis

New Forms of Naval Operational Planning for Earning Command of the Seas

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Sea Control Topic Week

By Bill Shafley 

Introduction

Sea Control operations require a delicate balance of protecting the hunters and releasing the hounds. Strike Group and subordinate staff’s tactical planning, general thinking, and day-to-day operations are biased toward the defense of a High Value Unit. This is a direct result of nearly thirty years of fighting from-the-sea not for-the-sea – or to use operational terms – existing as a power-projection force without the burden of first establishing maritime superiority through sea control operations. Future operations against peer competitors will require a different mode of thinking to understand the nuances of employing a strike group’s combat power where near-constant tradeoffs are required between offense and defense. Staffs must refine their thinking and improve their methods in three ways to make planning for Sea Control operations more effective.

Warfighting staffs must develop an increased understanding of sea control from the strategic to tactical levels. This would improve risk assessment by ensuring decision-makers can link a resource informed theory, of establishing and maintaining it, to the value that maritime superiority brings to the larger operation. A review of Sir Julian Corbett’s Some Principles of Maritime Strategy provides this basis.

Planners must organize their tactical thinking around the joint battlefield and all domains of warfare to plan for sea control operations. Planning in terms of these functions (movement/maneuver, fires, protection, intelligence, and sustainment, and command and control (C2) will force staff members out of thinking about the tactical problem through the stovepiped Composite Warfare Commander (CWC) structure. Planners should appropriately balance limited strike group resources in a manner that sets task and purpose for each warfare commander to execute.

Staff and planners require a framework to examine and visualize the tactical problems associated with establishing and maintaining maritime superiority operations. Wayne Hughes’ well-known work Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat provides this inclusive framework. His methodology helps warfighters understand the resourcing tradeoffs necessary to establish and maintain the level of maritime superiority needed for mission accomplishment and effectiveness. And, more importantly, Hughes work can help staffs identify and capture risk in a manner that informs and communicates a commander’s risk appetite.

Theories and Degrees of Command of the Sea

It is important to understand sea control from its historic origins. Planners must apply critical thinking to the operational and tactical considerations of achieving the proper level of maritime superiority through sea control operations. While doing that, Sir Julian Corbett’s Some Principles of Maritime Strategy and the Green Pamphlet provide a good place to start. “Command at-sea exists only in a state of war.”1 This is an important distinction, where the use of the expression presupposes a fleet structure adequate to confront a maritime adversary and prevail.2

The relationship between war and command of the sea is an important one. In an active state of conflict with another maritime power, naval forces compete for command of the sea, or as modern doctrinal language would call it, maritime superiority or supremacy. The navy that leaves the competitor unable to seriously interfere with their ability or achievement of their own objectives is said to have it.3 Corbett structures command of the sea in terms of degree. It can be general or local, temporary or permanent.

This discussion of scope in terms of area and duration is important for planners to comprehend. The Fleet’s requirement to establish command of the seas are born of the necessity its operations support. Command of the sea comes with a price tag in terms of opportunity costs and scarce resources. Generally permanent command of the sea must be achieved throughout the theater of operations and it must be maintained indefinitely. This condition may be achieved only by the annihilation of the enemy’s capabilities and an associated set of resources and level of effort. Local temporary command more narrowly scopes the requirement in terms of a location and duration, tied to the necessary theater military objective of a fleet’s operations support.4 It is this more temporal control of the sea that is the providence of carrier strike groups and subordinate staffs, and may be met with a different set of resources and effort.

This logic forms the basis of a basic strategy question, which is answered at higher level echelons. Operational level fleet staffs do their best to translate Corbett’s thinking into action. Command of the sea as Corbett worked to define it, has been replaced with discussions of maritime superiority as achieved through sea control operations. Sea Control operations (the destruction of enemy naval forces, suppression of enemy sea commerce, protection of vital seal lanes, protection of shipping, and establishment of local maritime superiority in areas of naval operation) are introduced as terms of art to aid planners in further developing tactical tasks to subordinate units to achieve it.           

It’s important for planners, regardless of the what echelon they work at, to ensure Corbett’s distinctions do not get lost. His nuances are important. Corbett’s degrees of command of the sea are directly tied to the operational and tactical discussions surrounding establishing and maintaining maritime superiority. The degree of maritime superiority required shapes a theory of control that is based upon its relation to the larger operation it supports. If the success of the entire operation requires unencumbered access to seaborne lines of communication, then planners need to develop a theory of control and dedicate the resources necessary to ensure that objective is met. If in a more limited conflict, the seaward approaches must be made available to enable timed seaborne fires and effects to set the conditions for land-based operations, then planners will need to develop a different theory of control and dedicate a commensurate set of resources to meet those objectives. In either case, the type and degree of command of the sea required is different. Thinking through command of the sea in this manner allows a commander to communicate risk appetite, establish task priorities, and help planners assign tactical tasks and intimately understand the extent of resourcing necessary to meet the condition.

Command of the Sea in Operational Context

Warfighters responsible for sea control require a tool to help them better visualize a war at sea and the level of maritime superiority it requires. Strike group commanders must be able to issue intent that captures risk appetite, task priorities, and the tactical problems associated with establishing sea control. Wayne Hughes’ in his well-known work Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat provides such a model. Hughes contends that war at sea is attrition based and therefore revolves around the timing of successful delivery of effective firepower. To successfully deliver effective firepower, some sort of command and control must exist to task units to find, fix, and engage enemy ships and aircraft before they do the same to the friendly force. War at sea is therefore a dance where commanders, through C2, maneuver, firepower and scouting assets achieve successful engagements within the battle space to.6

Firepower, the ability to destroy an enemy, is countered with counterforce, the capacity to reduce the effect of delivered firepower. Scouts, units tasked to deliver tactical information about the enemy’s position, vulnerabilities, and intent are countered with anti-scouts, units tasked to destroy or disrupt, or degrade a scouting force. Command and Control Systems, the processes and equipment used to define missions and transform them into actions are met with actions and processes taken to limit their effectiveness.7 The goal of a commander being to achieve “[t]he fundamental tactical position…the early detection of the enemy”8 and therefore concentrate firepower at long ranges.9

With a refined sense of the level of maritime superiority required for mission success, this rubric can be a powerful tool. It can help a staff visualize the solution to the tactical problem associated with establishing command of the sea, prioritize tasks, as well as further the scope and communicate risk appetite from the commander to subordinate units. Thinking through a sea control problem using this method allows the commander to assess available combat power and think through the maneuver considerations necessary to place it in position to achieve effect. Firepower and counterforce considerations allow a commander to think through how much firepower will be necessary to adequately attrite an enemy in the face of active and passive defenses. Scouting and anti-scouting considerations allow a commander to think through how much firepower must be taken away from the main body to find and fix first. By considering maneuver with these pairings in mind, the commander has an opportunity to look beyond stationing considerations and really dig into where the strike group and its assets need to be to attack effectively first with resources and task priorities aligned to risk.

Augmenting the Composite Warfare Commander Construct

A Sailor’s thinking regarding operations at sea is informed by the Composite Warfare Commander (CWC) construct. The CWC organization is structured around warfare commanders and coordinators. Warfare commanders manage the defense of the carrier across various domains such as air, land, maritime, and space, as well as the information environment (cyberspace). Warfare coordinators manage common resources required by warfare commanders to enact those missions such as data in the case of tactical datalinks, aircraft, and ships as they are necessary to screen the main body. Operational Tasking (OPTASK) messages are drafted and generated to provide procedural controls put into action through command by negation. Each warfare commander has a modest staff that coordinates warfare responsibilities with the CSG staffs, as they are the primary point of entry for tasking from the Fleet Commander. This staff structure has proven effective for steady state operations for decades.

The application of Hughes’ tactical model does not align well with the CWC concept. As a result, it is important to understand possible implications and the effects on planning for sea control operations. The notion of a CSG planning staff generating planning products that inform the Warfare Commanders’ execution loses credibility as the sea control fight drives the warfighting staffs to resource problems to the balance of offense and defense required to attack effectively first. The CSG staff and warfare commanders will be challenged to create risk informed and prioritized phased courses of action (COA) that are nuanced enough to be successful.

Shifting the planning construct from a warfare commander-centric mode to one of joint battlefield functions (movement/maneuver, fires, protection, intelligence, sustainment and C2) may prove more beneficial. Achieving a degree of maritime superiority requires balancing offense and defense in the context of risk. It requires setting priorities. Hughes’ tool provides the framework to visualize the fight and communicate commander’s intent. Approaching COA development through joint battlefield functions will take advantage of the insights gained through Hughes’ model. Instead of each warfare commander and coordinator looking at a tactical problem through a narrow lenses of domain, battlefield functions afford a unifying approach to resourcing and prevailing in the fight.

If the sea control problem favors preserving combat power for prolonged action on station, a bias toward a Hughes’ counterforce approach may prevail. This makes less scouts available to find and fix the position of enemy targets in favor of protecting the main body. It could also portend that maneuver and counter-C2 approaches take precedence over offensive considerations until the timing is right. Protection tasks take precedence based upon the nature of the highest probability threat, intelligence demand is shifted from finding targets to looking for indications and warnings, fires (air and surface launched weapons) are prioritized appropriately, and the force is dispersed and maneuvered in a manner that mitigates detection risk. Starting the planning dialogue from here is a much different approach than to have warfare commanders take a supporting/supported commander approach to develop a COA.

Battlefield functions will provide a richer forum to discuss common questions such as:

  • Which warfare commander is in charge of protection in a threat environment that is coming from all domains (air, surface, subsurface, and information)?
  • Which warfare commander owns dual use fires and the associated targeting process?
  • How are priorities determined and risk appetite communicated?

It is not the point to propose a new operating construct. The CWC organization remains fit for purpose in most regards and would be impractical to change. Yet, introducing battlefield functions to staff planners across all echelons, to use in COA development, will complement their ability to plan for complex sea control operations.

Conclusion

Effective sea control operations require staffs to understand the nuances associated with establishing and maintaining maritime superiority. A deeper study of the background thinking surrounding command of the sea affords planners a solid foundation to build tactical plans to achieve maritime superiority. The degree of maritime superiority requires a theory of control that is balanced between resources and effort to meet joint force objectives. The CSG Commander and his or her warfighters should consider incorporating Hughes’ thinking about maneuver, firepower, counterforce, scouting, anti-scouting, and command and control to help better understand and communicate their priorities and risk appetite to ensure its limited assets make that necessary contribution to that theory of victory. Battlefield functions as an organizing heuristic in planning over one that is warfare commander centric improves the understanding of the associated tasks and will lead to better CONOPS development.

The Carrier Strike Group will be the primary maneuver element in the maritime based engagements of the future. Fleet Staffs will look to CSGs and their warfighters to provide the sustained combat power necessary to exploit sea control for maximum effect. Staffs must understand their contribution to this larger fight, communicate priority and risk both down and up echelon to win. These three small shifts in thinking could have much larger impacts on the lethality of every CSG’s ships, aircraft, and Sailors and their readiness to plan for battle in the future fight.

Captain Bill Shafley is a career Surface Warfare Officer and currently serves as the Deputy Commodore, Destroyer Squadron 26. He has served on both coasts and overseas in Asia and Europe. He is a graduate of the Naval War College’s Advanced Strategy Program and a designated Naval Strategist.  He thanks Lieutenant Commander Matt Noland for his continued dialogue on these important issues. These views are presented in a personal capacity.

References

1. Corbett, Julian S. Some Principles of Maritime Strategy. New York: AMS Press, 1972. Print. p. 337

2. Ibid, p. 337

3. Ibid, p. 338

4. Ibid, pp. 338-339

5. CAPT Chris Senenko, LtCol Rob Gardner, and CDR Scott Croskey have been experimenting with this model with their Maritime Adavnce Warfare School students at the Naval War College. I am grateful for them exposing me to this thinking.

6. Hughes, Wayne P, Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat. Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Print. p.174

7. bid, p.175

8. Ibid, p.179

9. Ibid, p.179

Featured Image: GULF OF ADEN (Sept. 4 2018) – Lt. William Maloney, ship’s aircraft handler, uses the ship’s 3MC announcement system from flight deck control aboard Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2) during a regularly scheduled deployment of Essex Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Matthew Freeman)

Events, New Initiatives

Constructive Disruption: The Defense Entrepreneurs Forum

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DEFOne year ago today, an oft repeated, maligned and admired phrase kicked off a broad dialogue, bringing together a growing, widespread, and once-disparate community of defense innovators. Put simply, the idea of Disruptive Thinking was a call to question the status quo, to leverage existing innovative civilian institutions and to find crossover applications for use by the military. In the year since, however, a necessary question has been asked many times: What is Disruptive Thinking, really, and how do you put it into action? How do we link creative, emerging military leaders with the senior decision makers that can actually put their ideas to use?

We believe a compelling answer is the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum. Rank has no monopoly on innovative solutions, and DEF2013 will be the engine to match warfighters “in the arena” with senior mentors hungry for ideas generated by creative, emerging leaders. This three day event, to be held at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business over Columbus Day Weekend 2013, will be a significant departure from conventional military conferences.

The Forum

DEF2013 is not associated with any traditional Defense entities, but instead produced of, by, and for emerging military leaders. The only agenda is creating practical solutions to enable more flexibility for senior commanders, and to impart a sense of involvement and empowerment to warfighters brimming with valuable tactical and strategic contributions. It leverages the power of diverse, short presentations with the creative ideation of hack-a-thon weekend events. These aspects are designed to tackle those issues most pressing to the current generation of military leaders and veterans.

There are two main elements to the weekend: The first consists of 20-30 minute talks by emerging military leaders, both officer and enlisted, with robust audience engagement. The Saturday morning session will feature a variety of topics presented by a diverse crowd of Disruptive Thinkers. Sunday’s morning session will showcase military entrepreneurs – both veteran and currently serving servicemembers – as they explore the connection between building an actual business and serving one’s country.

The meat of DEF2013, however, is in the hack-a-thon like afternoons. Ideas, generated pre-conference by actual attendees, will be discussed at length, and solutions proposed in a collaborative, freeform way. To support these breakouts, professors from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business will give two roundtables on marketing and sales, as well as be placed as mentors within the ideation groups. At the end of the weekend, each of the self-assembled teams will have come up with a comprehensive, relevant solution to whatever military problem they set out to tackle.

Integral to this is the engagement of senior leaders. Coming up with good ideas by emerging leaders is one thing – but guiding them through institutional inertia to reality, and providing mentorship to ensure they are implemented, is something uniquely suited to tested leadership. We are recruiting current and recently retired senior mentors to come on board to hear out, and perhaps champion, the ideas generated from the deckplates. Such great minds as LTG (ret) James Dubik and LTG Frederick “Ben” Hodges have already joined up, and we’re working to bring two to three more flag officers from each service.

Finally, Monday morning will culminate with a venture capital-like panel of local, Chicago-based entrepreneurs and Flag Officers. They will judge the best idea, solution and presentation, and in return for identifying the best solutions, engage on behalf of the winning team to get their project implemented.

The Reason

Why do we believe this is needed? What value does this add to the already ongoing discussion?
More than ever, recent battle-tested leaders, both emerging and senior, have had to adapt under incredibly challenging and unforeseen circumstances. Capturing their agile minds and putting them to use in solving current fiscal and strategic problems is necessary for the continued progression of our services. Without a doubt, the current century will become more complex as technology evolves, unforeseen threats emerge, and fiscal constraints set in. More importantly, we need to create a dialogue that elevates the professionalism and creative capabilities of our services as a whole.

Those of us writing today believe the next step in the evolution of Disruptive Thinking is not just through increased online interaction or relying upon status quo bureaucratic processes. Rather, it will be accomplished by bringing the most agile and innovative minds from across the military together in one place for a lively exchange of ideas and solutions. This is the heart of the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum.

The Spark

While the original article on Disruptive Thinking was focused on leveraging education, we recognize that warfighting must always come first in any conversation about innovation and the military. This is inimically tied to the fact that people, not tech, are our greatest assets.

Immediately after the publication of the aforementioned article, members of what are now the DEF Board observed incredibly informative and coherent arguments related to military strategy and innovation over social media. Through many conversations via Twitter and Facebook, it became apparent that disparate networks of individuals, spanning all ranks and services, were effectively fleshing out the most pressing issues of the day in non-traditional ways.

It also became apparent that innovators have inherent ways of finding each other. As their distributed networks grow, cross-cultural (and cross-rank) engagement increases. Though they never meet, some even become close friends. There is a unique power in informal networks created by personal interactions, even if they begin in cyberspace.

Yet something was missing in this process. That element was the intangible benefit of seeing your intellectual sparring partner face to face. The discussions on Twitter, Facebook and various national security forums for emerging military leaders needed to come out of the virtual world and into the physical one.

While discussing this power of networking and the need for an in-person forum to build the relationships required to effect change, the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum was born.
Soon after inception, our personal networks pointed us towards the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, where they not only found a world class institution, but a strong veterans group. Leveraging the military experience and entrepreneurial education of recent veterans who are still engaged in national defense dialogue was a perfect fit.

Subsequently, the Executive Board was recruited and, quite inadvertently, spanned the armed services. Many were asked to join based on their disruptive writings – others because they were known practitioners of innovation. All are focused on creating a compelling experience that will unite, excite and build relational networks that will span careers.

The Call

And so, on Columbus Day weekend 2013, Saturday October 12th through Monday October 14th, we encourage the brightest and most creative emerging and senior military leaders to descend upon the Windy City. While there, we will discuss ways to push forward innovative and disruptive ideas, while doing so alongside senior mentors willing to consider our proposals.

We’ve lined up a great cast of speakers and professors to push this event forward. What we still need is you – your intellectual capital and your time – to engage with fellow innovators. We need both senior and emerging leaders to participate.

DEF2013 will be more than a conference to mingle and hand out business cards; it will be a unique opportunity to interact and connect with fellow military and veteran entrepreneurs to push your ideas forward. Sign up today at DEF2013.com, follow us on Facebook, and become a part of putting Disruptive Thinking into action.