[Editor’s Note: Army Mad Scientist continues our series of blog posts and podcasts in the run up to our Game On! Wargaming & The Operational Environment Conference, co-hosted with the Georgetown University Wargaming Society, on 6-7 November 2024 — additional information on this event and the link to our registration site may be found at the end of this post (below).

In today’s episode of The Convergence podcast, Army Mad Scientist interviewed Sebastian Bae, Senior Wargame Designer at CNA, adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University teaching graduate wargame design, and designer of the phenomenally popular Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacific — the single most cited game in the host of responses we received from our Calling All Wargamers crowdsourcing exercise last spring.  In this fascinating conversation, Mr. Bae explores how wargaming can help better prepare our Soldiers and Leaders for a complex Operational Environment — Read on!]

 

Sebastian Bae is a Research Scientist and Senior Game Designer at CNA’s Gaming & Integration program — working in wargaming, emerging technologies, the future of warfare, and strategy and doctrine for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. He is the game designer for Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacific, a commercially available, professional military educational wargame exploring peer conflict and future technologies. Sebastian also serves as an adjunct assistant professor at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University, where he teaches a graduate course on designing educational wargames. He has taught similar courses at the U.S. Naval Academy and the U.S. Marine Corps Command & Staff College. He is also the faculty advisor to the Georgetown University Wargaming Society, the Co-Chair of the Military Operations Research Society Wargaming Community of Practice, and a former Non-Resident Fellow at the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Creativity. Previously, he served six years in the Marine Corps infantry, leaving as a Sergeant. He deployed to Iraq in 2009.

Army Mad Scientist sat down with Sebastian Bae to discuss his views on wargaming in the military, his thoughts on the various technology evolutions, and  how the Department of Defense can better harness this unique tool. The following bullet points highlight key takeaways from our conversation:

• “Wargaming is sort of like golf –it is often the refuge of the “wealthy” — the senior leaders — and it does not get lots of play at different echelons typically.” Wargaming capabilities are rarely pushed down to the lowest echelons and tactical level. They tend to be concentrated at the Combatant Command-level, creating a unique challenge as the games often only serve a specific viewpoint on any given problem.

• Integrating different types of wargames throughout different echelons allows Soldiers to practice decision making at all levels of their careers.This is critical because a Soldier’s decision space and perspective changes as they move from echelon to echelon. Ideally, the games should evolve as the Soldier moves up through their career path to represent the changes in their decision-making requirements. 

• Establishing a wargaming ecosystem consisting of both microgames and larger wargames creates an opportunity to explore topics outside of the typical kinetic, combat-centric wargames, such as Medical Services and CASEVAC, water distribution, and maintenance, that may be better suited for smaller games that can be played in 20-minutes. Additionally, a war...

[Editor’s Note: Army Mad Scientist first introduced Andrew Olson to our community of action with his insightful submission to our Calling All Wargamers crowdsourcing effort entitled Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR) Considerations in Wargaming LSCO.  In today’s episode of The Convergence podcast, we sit down with Mr. Olson to learn more about CHMR — now a DoD priority with the implementation of DoDI 3000.17 on 21 December 2023 — and how incorporating it into the Army’s wargaming activities can help our Leaders understand how it “supports U.S. national security interests… furthering strategic objectives to achieve long-term strategic success, enhancing the effectiveness and legitimacy of military operations, and demonstrating moral leadership.”  CHMR helps ensure we retain the moral high ground when executing military operations, are more precise with our application of lethal force, and are more effective at the operational level — all essential components of achieving victory — Enjoy!]

Andrew Olson is an Associate Research Analyst at CNA, specializing in wargaming. He has experience with a variety of educational and analytical approaches, with a particular interest in wargaming policy challenges, climate change wargames, and emerging technologies wargames. He has facilitated wargames for the National Academies, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Navy, Pew Charitable Trusts, U.S. State Department, and the Joint Staff, among others. Prior to joining CNA, Mr. Olson worked for the Department of State examining technology cooperation challenges. He has managed several print publications, including the Science and Technology section of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, and served as lead researcher and lab manager for a biological research lab examining the genetic foundations of empathy. Mr. Olson holds a Master of Science in foreign service from Georgetown University and Bachelor of Arts degrees in biology and political science from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.

Army Mad Scientist sat down with Andrew Olson to discuss CHMR, its evolution within wargames, and its impact on Army planning. The following bullet points highlight key takeaways from our conversation:

• Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR) is not a constraint – it is how we win. Effective CHMR is a part of how the U.S. can achieve its strategic and operational outcomes. Wargaming provides Leaders with the opportunity of exploring unfamiliar scenarios in a fail-safe environment. Future conflicts are likely to include the possibility of civilian harm – integrating CHMR into wargaming is essential in allowing our decision-makers the space to understand the full consequences of their decisions and actions. 

• CHMR is not a single inject to tack on at the end of a wargame – it must be a consistent approach that is incorporated into the development of commanders’ guidance, mission planning, courses of action, and targeting plans. Diffusing CHMR throughout every step of a wargame forces every player to account for civilian harm in decision-making at all levels and steps of mission planning and execution. The importance does not fall on CHMR simply being injected into every step of a wargame, but in making informed decisions towards a strategic outcome, of which C...

“China sits in INDOPACOM, but the playground is Africa.”

[Editor’s Note:  Regular readers of the Mad Scientist Laboratory will recall that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) reported, “Relatively poor countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia will account for almost all global population growth during the next two decades…” The World Economic Forum supported this assessment, projecting that Africa’s population is likely to triple by 2100. Specifically, Nigeria is set to become the second most populous country in the world by 2100, trailing only India.

The significance of this growth is not lost on China — our pacing challenge has already established a permanent military presence in Djibouti and it is seeking to establish another military base at Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.  China is investing strategically throughout sub-Saharan Africa — it is now Africa’s biggest trading partner, with Sino-African trade exceeding $200 billion per year, and Africa has surpassed Asia as the largest market for China’s international construction projects. China continues to exert its influence across the continent via its Belt and Road Initiative.

In today’s episode of The Convergence podcast, Army Mad Scientist sits down with Selina Hayes, Founder and CEO of The Hayes Group International, to discuss the nexus of space investment and operations in Africa — a critical region of focus for our adversaries — and the potential implications for the U.S. Army — Enjoy!]

Selina Hayes founded Hayes Group International (HGI) to provide unique access to people, places, and data.  Designed to disrupt, Ms. Hayes has access to strategic partners and networks across Africa and the Pacific.  With her intelligence background and unique on-the-ground experience, HGI has developed and delivered solutions involving multiple intelligence sensors, information gateways, information operations, cultural intelligence, data collection, geospatial, ISR, and Space-as-a-Service.  Ms. Hayes has extensive experience leading defense and international business development strategies for emerging and disruptive ISR, PED, and geospatial technologies. She successfully combined the innovation of Silicon Valley with Washington, having successfully launched three new technologies in the DoD ecosystem to expand the capabilities of our country. As HGI’s CEO, Ms. Hayes has introduced her connections in Africa and the Pacific with this unique access to exquisite data sources and nonconventional methodologies.

Army Ma...

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk to research fellows from The College of William and Mary’s Project on International Peace and Security (PIPS). PIPS is one of the premier undergraduate think tanks in the country. Based at W&M’s Global Research Institute, PIPS is designed to bridge the gap between the academic and foreign policy communities in the area of undergraduate education. PIPS research fellows identify emerging international security issues and develop original policy recommendations to address those challenges. Undergraduate fellows have the chance to work with practitioners in the military and intelligence communities, and they present their work to policy officials and scholars at a year-end symposium in Washington, DC.

In this episode, we discuss biotechnology, artificial intelligence in the DoD, and authoritarianism affecting the U.S. with Marie Murphy, Clara Waterman, Caroline Duckworth, and Katherine Armstrong. Highlights from the conversation include:

• The US can be outcompeted in certain biotechnologies and become dependent on other countries for their access. States with different ethical standards and regulations compared to the United States could more quickly pursue and adopt these technologies, possibly resulting in novel bioweapons. Eventually, bioweapons will be able to target people based on their genetic code. Biotechnology is becoming a democratized technology.
• Data is the most critical component of artificial intelligence. However, much of the DoD’s data is inaccessible in stovepiped repositories, while that which is accessible has not been vetted — you don’t really know who’s had it or where it’s coming from. There is also a huge gap between those who are technically informed and those who are technically literate.
• Transnational authoritarianism is the targeting of co-ethnics and co-nationals; for the United States, these co-ethnic and co-national targets are US citizens and residents. The U.S. government and the public need to recognize this phenomenon, which has often been overlooked as isolated incidents, as cybercrime, as a civil society issue, and as infighting between outsiders.

Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory, as we will be releasing Part 2 of this podcast with the PIPS research fellows next week!

If you enjoyed this post and podcast, check out our GEN Z and the OE event page on the Mad Scientist APAN site to read each of the PIPS research fellows’ abstracts…

… and watch Panel 1 and Panel 2 as they discuss the ramifications of their research on the OE and the changing character of warfare.

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk to Dr. Alexander Kott, Chief Scientist for the Army Research Lab (ARL). In this role, he provides leadership in development of ARL’s technical strategy, maintaining the technical quality of ARL research, and representing ARL to the external technical community.

In this episode, we discuss the Internet of Battlefield Things and modernizing the Army.

Highlights from the conversation include:

• The battlefield is becoming saturated with devices that can do computation, some kind of thinking, and can communicate. These are not just things the Army owns.
• Complexity can actually be a good thing. Being able to “hide” on the battlefield is a good thing and we can hide in the complexity of the Internet of Battlefield Things.
• The battlefield of the future will be populated by multiple intelligent species. Humans will be very important but just one among them. How do humans co-exist with those intelligent species? We humans are not known for working and living well with other species, not even ourselves.
• The Army (and larger Department of Defense) has a collaborative relationship with industry that is actually beneficial. It is not just a competition for talent but rather a relationship that is a strength. A rising tide lifts all our boats.
• Every war has seen greater and greater ranges in magnitudes from the Civil War up to the Global War on Terrorism. In the future we may see an Army missile that could be intercontinental. We could see artillery “spanning a fraction of the globe.” This leads to global ground warfare and changes the battlefield calculus. Such a shift in warfare could change the Army’s relationship with other services and actualize the reality of multi-domain operations even more.
• Regimes that are unethical, immoral, and authoritarian lose the technological edge in the long run because as they run out of ways to use technologies they have developed for unethical and immoral purposes, they do not have thorough investment in other technology areas where the United States is excelling.
• Long-range, intelligent, precision fires may be a major threat to our Homeland in the future. The Homeland may not be as defensible as it has been for centuries.

Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory as we will be releasing a new podcast every other week with exciting and impactful guests — next up:  The College of William and Mary’s Project for International Peace and Security Fellows!

In the fifth episode of “The Convergence” we talk to Zachery Tyson Brown, who is an Army veteran, analyst, consultant for the DoD, and Security fellow at the Truman National Security Project. Zach is a career intelligence officer now working at the intersection of emerging technologies, organizational structures, and strategic competition. Zach is most recently a graduate of the National Intelligence University, where his thesis, Adaptive Intelligence for an Age of Uncertainty, was awarded the LTC Michael D. Kuszewski Award for Outstanding Thesis on Operations-Intelligence Partnership.

In this episode, we discuss conflict and competition, how to create intelligence from the onslaught of data, and structural and process changes to the Intelligence Community (IC).

Highlights from the conversation:

We have all this data that the IC collects. We spend billions of dollars on it every year, and a lot of it is left on the cutting room floor.

We have a clog in the system that gets worse as the amount of information out there keeps increasing and we still have this outdated mechanism of delivery…we can’t keep pace with the volume of information that’s growing out there every day.

The amount of data out there is going to very rapidly, probably already has, eclipse the ability of un-augmented humans to keep up with it.

I really think we have to disaggregate that whole system. Move about to a federated sort of network architecture. Push autonomy down to the units at the forward edge of the battle area.

We’re not focusing on that competition aspect involving the whole of government to use another buzzword. The commerce, treasury, state department. Because that information space is where the competition is happening today and it’s not just information it’s manipulation of public awareness and psychology.

Now we have ISIS propagandists, the guys on Twitter that are like recruiting or spreading messages, and those guys are targets of kinetic strikes now because they’re considered to be combatants in that information space.

One of the reasons, again, where I think we have to rethink this whole structure of the way we do interagency coordination, decision making at the national level, [is] because it’s too slow to keep up with the pace of emergent threats today.

I really believe we are living through a revolutionary era and we have to question all the assumptions we’ve kind of inherited from the past couple hundred years.

In this episode, we talk with Michael Kanaan, Director of Operations for U.S. Air Force and MIT Artificial Intelligence. Following his graduation from the U.S. Air Force Academy he was the Officer in Charge of a $75 million hyperspectral mission at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, and then the Assistant Director of Operations for the 417-member Geospatial Intelligence Squadron. Prior to his current role, Michael was the National Intelligence Community Information Technology Enterprise Lead for an 1,800-member enterprise responsible for data discovery, intelligence analysis, and targeting development against ISIS, and most recently the Co-Chair of Artificial Intelligence for the U.S. Air Force.

In this episode, we’ll discuss the impact of AI on the armed forces, how we identify and cultivate talent, and the challenges that arise.

Highlights from the conversation:

AI is multidisciplinary. I’m not a computer scientist. The barriers to education have never been lower. You can teach yourself these kinds of things. And it’s what you do with AI that’s the real question. But make no mistake, I think the future rock stars in the AI sphere are most certainly sociologists and psychologists.

Why don’t we treat programming languages as the equivalence to as the equivalent to foreign language aptitude and proficiency? We have a long history of doing this in the DoD. In fact if you bring that skillset into the DoD, we cherish it, we try to cultivate it the best we can. Well, why aren’t we doing that with computer languages?

We need to team the techniques of the old with the ideas of the new. Experience is not dictated by age any longer. You can’t fall back and say, ‘well because I’ve done this for so long, I know about AI.’

It’s not supervising. We want to do this all transparently, very openly. So we published the Air Force AI strategy unclassified. So why we did it in principles was it’s not supervision. It’s not telling you how to get there, it’s providing and environment to get there. That’s the kind of flip in the digital age.

In this latest episode, we talk to LTG Eric Wesley, who is currently serving as the Director of the Futures and Concepts Center in Army Futures Command at Fort Eustis, VA. General Wesley has served in numerous operational units throughout his 34 year career and served as a staff officer and director at the Pentagon and White House. Prior to taking over the Futures and Concepts Center, General Wesley was the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Georgia. We talked to General Wesley in this episode about multi-domain operations, modernization, and the future Army.

The second episode of The Convergence features Dr. Margarita Konaev, Research Fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET).  Dr. Konaev is an expert in Russian military innovation in emerging technologies and her research on international security, armed conflict, non-state actors and urban warfare in the Middle East, Russia, and Eurasia has been published by the Journal of Global Security Studies, Conflict Management and Peace Science, the French Institute of International Relations, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Lawfare, War on the Rocks, Modern War Institute, Foreign Policy Research Institute, and a range of other outlets.

Previously, she was a Non-Resident Fellow with the Modern War Institute at West Point, a post-doctoral fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. Before joining CSET, Dr. Konaev worked as a Senior Principal in the Marketing and Communication practice at Gartner. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame, an M.A. in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University, and a B.A. from Brandeis University. In this episode. Dr. Konaev provides her opinions on the role of technology in warfare, autonomous systems in the military, the ethical questions that arise, and the importance of diversity. 

The first episode of The Convergence features Dr. Sean McFate, foreign policy expert, author, and novelist. Dr. McFate is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington DC think tank, and a professor of strategy at the National Defense University and Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Additionally, he serves as an Advisor to Oxford University's Centre for Technology and Global Affairs. Dr. McFate's newest book is The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder, which was picked by The Economist as one of their best books of 2019. On the episode, Dr. McFate provides his opinions on the changing character of warfare, the rise of private military contractors, information warfare, and the effects these trends will have on the operational environment.

This is a special off-schedule episode of The Convergence where we talk with a mystery guest, possibly for the last time!

[Editor’s Note:  It has almost been a decade since U.S. forces and coalition partners assisted Iraqi government forces in dislodging ISIS fighters from Mosul in what some observers described as the toughest urban battle since World War II.  With the Islamic Resistance Movement’s (aka Hamas) October 7, 2023 cross-border terror attacks on Israel and subsequent Israel Defense Forces’ combat operations in Gaza, new lessons are emerging about engaging an entrenched adversary across 360 square kilometers of densely populated (over 2 million Palestinian civilians) and highly urbanized terrain.

As Dr. Brent Sterling reminded our readers and listeners, other observers are also watching and learning — especially our pacing challenge China with regard to potential operations in dense urban centers on Taiwan, North Korea with its subterranean operations beneath the Demilitarized Zone, and Iran and its “Axis of Resistance” in continuing to target U.S. and Israeli interests.

In today’s episode of The Convergence podcast, Army Mad Scientist sits down with LTC Kenneth Hardy, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) liaison officer to the Israel Defense Forces, and discusses the on-going Israel/Hamas Conflict and key lessons the U.S. Army is learning about contemporary asymmetric warfare in dense urban terrain — Read on!]

LTC Kenneth Hardy currently serves as the U.S. Army TRADOC Liaison Officer to the Israel Defense Forces.  A Middle East Foreign Area Officer, LTC Hardy’s previous assignments have included In-Region Training (IRT) as a U.S. Security Cooperation Officer to the Moroccan Military in Rabat, Morocco; Political/ Military advisor to the Commander, USARCENT, and Security Cooperation/Liaison Officer to Kuwait and Qatar Armed Forces; Security Assistance Officer to the Egyptian Land Forces and Border Guard in Cairo, Egypt; and Middle East Analyst and CENTCOM J2 International Engagements, Tampa, Florida.  LTC Hardy has a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry from the University of Central Oklahoma, an Associate’s Degree in Arabic from the Defense Language Institute, and a Master’s Degree in International Relations and Policy from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Army Mad Scientist sat down with LTC Hardy to discuss his observations regarding the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel and insights into how this larger conflict is informing the U.S. Army about the Operational Environment.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our conversation:

• The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas showcases the battle between low-tech and high-tech — for example Hamas employed massed salvoes of inexpensive, home-made Q...

[Editor’s Note:  Grizzled readers of the Mad Scientist Laboratory will recall their well-thumbed copies of the forty-year-old FM 100-2 series, The Soviet Army.  U.S. Army Soldiers and Leaders from the Cold War-era were expected to know their Soviet adversaries’ Operations and Tactics; Troops, Organization, and Equipment; and Specialized Warfare and Rear Area Support cold — as international tensions and crises could (and frequently did!) escalate to trigger alerts at a moment’s notice, sending units racing forward from their garrisons to occupy their GDP positions… ready and prepared to counter Soviet and their Warsaw Pact allies’ forces advancing across the Inner German Border (IGB)!

Flash forward to today’s Army, where knowledge of the Operational Environment (OE) and the five National Defense Strategy Threats — China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Violent Extremist Organizations (VEOs) — remain critical competencies within the Profession of Arms.

In this episode of The Convergence podcast, Army Mad Scientist partnered with the Breaking Doctrine podcast from the Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center (CAC), to co-host a fascinating discussion with General Gary M. Brito, Commanding General,  U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), Colonel Rich Creed (USA-Ret.), Director, Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate, U.S. Army CAC, and Mr. Ian Sullivan, Deputy Chief of Staff Intelligence, TRADOC G-2, exploring how understanding the OE and knowing Threat Doctrine remain core Soldier and Leader competencies, underpinning how the Army will fight and win decisively in the 21st century battlespace — Read on!]

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General Gary M. Brito assumed duties as the 18th Commanding General, United States Army TRADOC, on September 8, 2022.  He is responsible for building and sustaining a highly trained, disciplined, and fit Army by acquiring the best people, training the most lethal Soldiers, developing the most professional leaders, guiding the Army’s culture, and shaping the future force.

 COL Rich Creed was commissioned an Armor officer in 1989 from the U.S. Military Academy and retired from active duty in 2021 after a variety of command and staff assignments from platoon to four-star level. Mr. Creed has been the Director of the Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate at Fort Leavenworth since December 2016, where he helped write and edit the last two versions of the Army’s capstone operations publication, FM 3-0. He was one of the authors and editors of ADP 6-22 (Mission Command: C2 of Army Forces) and ADP 3-13 (Information).

Mr. Ian Sullivan is the Deputy Chief of Staff Intelligence, TRADOC G-2. He holds a BA from Canisius University in Buffalo, New York, an MA from Georgetown University’s BMW Center for German and European Studies in Washington, D.C., and was a Fulbright Fellow at the Universität Potsdam in Potsdam, Germany. A career civilian intelligence officer, Mr...

[Editor’s Note:  As longtime readers of the Army’s Mad Scientist Laboratory know, our adversaries are deploying capabilities to fight the U.S. Joint Force through multiple layers of stand-off in all domains – space, cyber, air, sea, and land. Per the Defense Intelligence Agency‘s Challenges to Security in Space 2022: Space Reliance in an Era of Competition and Expansion:

“Between 2019 and 2021 the combined operational space fleets of China and Russia have grown by approximately 70 percent. This recent and continuing expansion follows a period of growth (2015–2018) where China and Russia had increased their combined satellite fleets by more than 200 percent. The drive to modernize and increase capabilities for both countries is reflected in nearly all major space categories—satellite communications (SATCOM), remote sensing, navigation-related, and science and technology demonstration. Since early 2019, competitor space operations have also increased in pace and scope worldwide, China’s and Russia’s counterspace developments continue to mature, global space services proliferate, and orbital congestion has increased.”

Preserving our advantage in the space domain is critical — a contemporary U.S. Army maneuver Brigade Combat Team (BCT) has over 2,500 pieces of equipment dependent on space-based assets for Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT). This number of dependent systems will only increase as emerging technology on Earth demands increased bandwidth, new orbital infrastructure, niche satellite capabilities, and advanced robotics. Dominance in the space domain is vital to Joint Force and U.S. Army operations.

In our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, we sit down with Dr. Olga Bannova, Director of the Space Architecture Graduate Program, University of Houston, to discuss designing vehicles and habitats for space, how we can use austere environments here on Earth as proving grounds, and what these environments can teach the U.S. Army. — Enjoy!]

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Dr. Olga Bannova, conducts research and design studies that address a variety of topics, including: planning analyses for a broad range of space vehicles, habitats, and systems; inflatable hydroponics laboratory and logistic modules; special design influences and requirements for different gravity conditions in space; and habitat concepts for extreme environments on Earth. She is a corresponding member of International Academy of Astronautics, IAC Space and Society Symposiums coordinator, senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a Chair of the AIAA Space Architecture Technical Committee, and an elected member of the ASCE’s Executive Committee on Space Engineering and Construction. She recently received 2019 Outstanding Technical Contribution Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Aerospace Division. Dr. Bannova earned her PhD from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, in 2016, and Master in Architecture and M.S. in Space Architecture from the University of Houston in 2001 and 2005. She authored Space Architecture Education for Engineers and Architects (Springer, 2016) and Space Architecture: Human Habitats Beyond Planet Earth (DOM Publ...

[Editor’s Note:  Regular readers of the Mad Scientist Laboratory are familiar with the potentially disruptive effects of cognitive and neurowarfare. As guest blogger Robert McCreight observed, “Most non-kinetic threats — or the NKT spectrum — consist of silent, largely undetectable technologies capable of inflicting damaging, debilitating, and degrading physical and neural effects on its unwitting targets…  A determined and patient covert enemy can inflict strategic damage non-kinetically before we can recognize the attack, resist it, or recover from it.” Overmatch in the Land, Air, Sea, Space, and Cyber Domains is irrelevant if our adversaries can harness and unleash capabilities that manipulate the brains of our Leaders.

In our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, we sit down with Dr. Guosong Hong, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University, to explore emergent research behind one such NKT — brain manipulation. Dr. Hong discusses neuro-engineering tools, controlling brains from a distance, and how the Army might one day need to protect our Soldiers and Leaders against mind control — Read on!]

Dr. Guosong Hong is Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University.  His research aims to bridge materials science and neuroscience, and blur the distinction between the living and non-living worlds by developing novel neuro-engineering tools to interrogate and manipulate the brain. Specifically, the Hong lab is currently developing ultrasound, infrared, and radiofrequency-based in-vivo neural interfaces with minimal invasiveness, high spatiotemporal resolution, and cell-type specificity.

Dr. Guosong Hong received his PhD in chemistry from Stanford University in 2014, and then carried out postdoctoral studies at Harvard University. Dr. Hong joined Stanford Materials Science and Engineering and Neurosciences Institute as an assistant professor in 2018. He is a recipient of the NIH Pathway to Independence (K99/R00) Award, the MIT Technology Review ‘35 Innovators Under 35’ Award, the Science PINS Prize for Neuromodulation, the NSF CAREER Award, the Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Rita Allen Foundation Scholars Award.

Army Mad Scientist sat down with Dr. Hong to discuss neuro-engineering tools, controlling brains from a distance, and how the Army might one day need to protect Soldiers against mind control. The following bullet points highlight key insights from our conversation:

• During Dr. Hong’s pursuit of his PhD at Stanford University, he createda method using short wave infrared light to non-invasively observe rodent brains without removing the scalp and skull, which was traditionally necessary. During his post-doctoral studies, he created ultra-small devices that can be loaded into a syringe and injected directly into the subject’s brain to stimulate and observe neural activity.
• As a faculty member at Stanford, Dr. Hong developed nano particles to inject into the bloodstream which convert ultrasound into local light emission. This allows for optogenetic stimulation based on ultrasound alone.
• Rattlesnakes have the unique natural ability to sense infrared radiation. This assists them when hunting for prey – like mice. Dr. Hong was able t...

[Editor’s Note:  Regular consumers of Army Mad Scientist content — via this blog site and The Convergence podcast — understand how wargaming can enhance Professional Military Education (PME), hone cognitive warfighting skills, and broaden our understanding of the Operational Environment. Wargaming removes hierarchies and encourages players to attempt innovative solutions, while also creating a safe environment in which to fail repeatedly and learn from mistakes.  Wargaming can also help us assess concepts and capabilities with a reasonable degree of verisimilitude — before committing the Nation to costly, and in some instances, irrevocable courses of action.

In our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, we return to last fall’s “Fight Night,” hosted by USA Fight Club, CAE, Inc., and Army Mad Scientist in Washington, D.C., for Part Two of our discussion with wargame designers and players, exploring what makes a great wargame and why they are important to the U.S. Army — Enjoy!]

Army Mad Scientist sat down with five wargame designers and players at “Fight Night” in Washington, D.C., on 23 September 2023, to discuss what makes a great wargame and why they are important to the U.S. Army.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our conversation:

• Wargames act as an effective tool to systematically explore potential futures and test different hypotheses. They provide a confined, contextualized space to practice strategic decision making while in a safe-to-fail environment. As a teaching tool, players can make decisions and explore the consequences of their actions.
• Wargames offer an effective way to work through the challenge of ambiguity.As certain tools may not be sufficient for some ambiguous problems – modeling and simulations or pure analysis – wargames help to fill the methodology gap. For example, they allow players to explore the human dimension of a problem – how people perceive and understand the world around them, and how that influences their ability to accomplish the objective. 
  
  
• Game designers must create wargames with the end-goal or objective in mind at the beginning of the design process.Throughout this process, designers are constantly trying to ensure the game developed meets the objective, while also maintaining internal and external validity needed for a scientific approach.
  
  
• Technologyhas drastically changed wargaming in recent years. Wargames can be conducted more rapidly and with a significantly larger scope of information enabling the gameplay – including real-time data and AI-enabled activity. Newer wargames also facilitate linking all five domains (land, air, sea, space, and cyber) together for optimum results. 
  
  
• Wargames help the Army better understand the evolution of the Operational Environmentwhich underpins all Army training and Leader development.

[Editor’s Note:  As we reported earlier this month, “The Operational Environment is increasingly lethal with the ubiquity of sensors and proliferation of battlefield automation facilitating effective precision and massed strike capabilities.  Forces that can be sensed are targeted, and if targeted, are destroyed or rendered inoperable. ” This increasingly transparent battlespace has been wrought by the democratization and convergence of commercial satellite imagery, inexpensive Unmanned Aerial System (UAS)-borne sensing platforms, and the Internet of Everything and Everyone. The resulting web of networked sensors could usher in the end of covert movement for combat units and their associated command and control and logistical support nodes, and with that spell the demise of strategic and operational deception and surprise.

This battlespace transparency is driving a renewed quest for concealment.  In today’s episode of The Convergence podcast, we sit down with Dr. Andrea Alù to discuss the reality of invisibility, the science behind metamaterials, and the associated possibilities for the U.S. Army.

[If the podcast dashboard is not rendering correctly for you, please click here to listen to the podcast.]

Andrea Alù is a Distinguished Professor, founding director of the Photonics Initiative at the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center, Einstein Professor of Physics at the CUNY Graduate Center, and Professor of Electrical Engineering at The City College of New York. He is affiliated with the Wireless Networking and Communications Group and the Applied Research Laboratories, both based at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is a Senior Research Scientist and Adjunct Professor. His research interests span a broad range of technical areas, including applied electromagnetics, nano-optics and nanophotonics, microwave, THz, infrared, optical and acoustic metamaterials and metasurfaces, plasmonics, nonlinearities and nonreciprocity, cloaking and scattering, acoustics, optical nanocircuits and nanoantennas.

Army Mad Scientist sat down with Dr. Alù to discuss the reality of invisibility, the science behind metamaterials, and the associated possibilities for the U.S. Army.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our conversation:

• Alù’s work focuses on wave physics, specifically looking at how to structure materials at the nanoscale to change their interactions with waves – light, sound, and radio – and demonstrate phenomena that would not be possible otherwise, for example invisibility.These new structured materials are called metamaterials because their properties go beyond those of natural materials. 

• By structuring materials in specific ways, a “cloak” can be created and, when wrapped around an object, can suppress the scattering of light or waves which is what allows the object to be visible. This process causes a transparency effect on the object, effectively causing it to disappear.  

• There is a limit, however, to making an object fully transparentwhen using passive materials which require no energy. There is a tradeoff between the size of the object and the amount of suppression of scattering waves from the object –- the larger the object, the harder it is to achieve full suppression of the scattering waves. 

[Editor’s Note:  Regular consumers of Army Mad Scientist content — via this blog site and The Convergence podcast — will understand how wargaming can enhance Professional Military Education (PME), hone cognitive warfighting skills, and broaden our understanding of the Operational Environment.  Wargaming removes hierarchies and encourages players to attempt innovative solutions, while also creating a safe environment in which to fail repeatedly and learn from mistakes.  Wargaming can also help us assess concepts and capabilities with a reasonable degree of verisimilitude — before committing the Nation to costly, and in some instances, irrevocable courses of action.

In our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, we report back from “Fight Night” in Washington, D.C. , where we sat down with the Hon. William M. (“Mac”) Thornberry, former U.S. Representative for Texas’ 13th Congressional District and former Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, to discuss the importance of wargaming to public policy, his experiences with it on Capitol Hill, and what we can do to better emphasize it with our lawmakers — Enjoy!]

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The Almanac of American Politics 2020 called William M. (“Mac”) Thornberry “one of Congress’ brainiest and most thoughtful members on national and domestic security issues,” and said that he “has long been at the forefront of national security issues.”  USA Today said Mac has “experience in Washington, a rare long view and a reputation for serious, thoughtful problem-solving.”​ Since leaving Congress after 26 years, which included service as Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mac continues to work at the intersection of technology and national security.  He serves various companies and non-profit organizations as a board member and advisor.

Consistently on the leading edge of critical national security issues during his time in Congress, Mac led in creating the National Nuclear Security Administration to improve management of the nation’s nuclear weapons complex; establishing the Department of Homeland Security (introducing a bill to do so six months before the attacks of 9/11); preparing the military to defend the nation in new domains of warfare such as space and cyber; and improving DOD’s innovation and acquisition efforts.

In addition to serving on the House Armed Services Committee throughout his time in Congress, Mac also served on the House Intelligence Committee for 14 years. He has written widely on defense matters and appeared on all major television channels providing insight on national security-related issues.

In December 2021, Mac received the Peace Through Strength Award from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.  He is also the recipient of the Distinguished Service Medals from the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, as well as the Marine Corps Foundation’s Semper Fidelis Award, the American Legion’s Distinguished Public Service Award, the Sam Nunn National Security Leadership Award from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and awards from the Aerospace Industries Association, Military Officers Association, National Defense Industrial Association, Non Commissioned Officer Association, Computing Technology Industry Association, USO-Metro among others. During the fall 2021 semester, he was a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics in Harvard’s Kennedy School and has been named a Distinguished Alumnus of Texas Tech University.

Born in Clarendon, Texas and raised on the family ranch in Donley County,...

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist continues to explore issues impacting the Operational Environment, especially those directly affecting U.S. Army operations in the contemporary battlespace. Over the past decade-plus, dual use automation technologies have increasingly been weaponized by state and non-state actors alike, democratizing warfighting capabilities in the air, land, and sea domains.  In the air domain, Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) initially provided Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities without the associated costs and infrastructure required to operate manned platforms.  More recently, we’ve witnessed ISR and strike capabilities converge in small UAS (sUAS), granting lesser powers the ability to identify, reach, and strike targets — “lower[ing] the ‘entry fee’ into combined arms operations.”

With this democratization of the air domain, we’re also witnessing the resurgence of Mass.  Virtually anyone will “be able to use these small, cheap, and individually expendable platforms to almost continuously gather real-time intelligence and choose the time and place to overwhelm an adversary’s defenses through sheer volume” — creating, in the eloquent words of proclaimed Mad Scientist Zachery Tyson Brown, Jomini’s Revenge: Mass Strikes Back!

Today’s episode of The Convergence podcast features our interview with COL Bill Edwards (USA-Ret.) exploring the very real, contemporary threat presented by sUAS, what trends he’s seeing emerge from current and recent conflicts, and how the U.S. Army, the Joint Force, and the Nation as a whole should respond.   Read the highlights from our interview below, then listen to this important podcast — it’s not too late, but the time to act is now!]

[If the podcast dashboard is not rendering correctly for you, please click here to listen to the podcast.]

 COL Bill Edwards (USA-Ret.) currently serves as President of Federal and Public Safety at Building Intelligence, Inc.  Before this role, COL Edwards was a Principal in Protective Design and Security for Thornton Tomasetti, a globally recognized structural engineering firm. As an organizational leader, he has been instrumental in expanding the organization’s global footprint by providing strategic direction in the startup of a new security consultancy division focused on providing comprehensive security-driven risk mitigation approaches and business continuity solutions.  

Before this, COL Edwards served as the Director of Intelligence, Special Operations Command North, where he oversaw the successful unification of interagency communications in support of Homeland Defense. He additionally earned recognition for transforming a struggling $400M DoD technical intelligence program as the Capability Director for the U.S. Army’s Intelligence Center, and served as a Commander in the U.S. Army, overseeing strategic military and intelligence operations in theatres across the globe.

From 2009 to 2011, COL Edwards served as a Commander and Director of Operations during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. In this highly complex leadership role, he led a U.S. Army Battalion of 800 personnel, a $50M operating and contract budget, and numerous governances, economic development, and security readiness programs. He additionally managed two major U.S. Base facilities, as well as numerous outposts, located througho...

“I don’t think America, or the West in general, is prepared in any sort of way to fight a static war like we’re seeing over there in Ukraine.”

[Editor’s Note:  One of the twelve key conditions driving the Operational Environment (OE) in the next ten years is its increased lethality.  According to the TRADOC G-2‘s recently published The Operational Environment 2024-2034: Large-Scale Combat Operations:

“LSCO will be increasingly lethal due to the intersection of sensor ubiquity, battlefield automation, precision strike, and massed fires.”

We’ve seen an increase in the production, employment, and success of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) on the battlefield in recent years. These systems were integral components of the Azeri victory in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War – specifically the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 and Israeli Harop – and are proving vital in the on-going Russo-Ukrainian war.  Indeed, during this latter conflict, the ever evolving Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)/Counter-UAS (C-UAS) fight has led to rapid adaptations on both sides as they seek to achieve battlefield advantage.  Yet any advantage achieved is fleeting — as observed by Daniel Patt, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, “The peak efficiency of a new weapon system is only about two weeks before countermeasures emerge.”

In our latest episode of Army Mad Scientist’s The Convergence podcast, we sat down with Wolfgang Hagarty to learn first-hand about the on-going war in Ukraine, its rapidly evolving UAS/C-UAS fight, and the overarching impacts of technological innovation on the changing character of warfare — Enjoy!]

Wolfgang Hagarty — a United States Marine Corps veteran — joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) in 2022 as an intelligence officer.  He took part in the UAF’s Kharkiv offensive as well as the Kherson offensive.  He became a team leader and focused primarily on the UAS/C-UAS fight as well as Electronic Warfare (EW) and counter-EW.  

Army Mad Scientist sat down with Mr. Hagarty to talk about his experiences fighting in Ukraine,  his opinions on the rise of UAS, and his thoughts on the evolution of Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO).  The following bullet points highlight key takeaways from our conversation:

• First-Person View (FPV) drones have become a very cost-effective way for Ukraine to achieve precision strikes. Their ubiquity on the battlefield initially arose from Ukraine’s shortage of artillery shells.  The UAF soon realized dismounted infantry teams could find and finish Russian targets with precision strikes using fewer drones than conventional artillery firing masses of ordnance.   

• To counter Russian reconnaissance UAS, like the larger Orlan-10and -30, the...

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist has extensively explored how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) can be harnessed to enhance our Warfighters’ ability to fight at machine speed and sustain our decisive Soldier overmatch. But as frequent contributor COL Stefan J. Banach (USA-Ret.) has noted, the evolution and convergence of technologies has added a new non-kinetic battle space to conventional warfare, which in turn requires the recruiting and retention of adaptive Warfighters, with highly-tuned aptitudes for tactical innovation and rapid, decisive decision-making. The challenge facing the Army is how to effectively identify and then screen for these and other requisite talents.

Today’s episode of The Convergence podcast features our interview with Mr. Loran Ambs, Chief Technology Officer, Ideal Innovations, Inc., regarding his company’s research into measuring the distinctive characteristics of innate talent, identifying potential high performers, and how the Army can harness AI/ML to screen and match these high performers with specialty vocations — Read on!]

Mr. Loran Ambs serves as the Chief Technology Officer for Ideal Innovations, Inc.  He supports the development and implementation of innovation processes at I-3 and DoD customer sites.  Mr. Ambs participates in the conception, development, and transition of technical solutions for problems affecting operations of the DoD and intelligence communities.  He conducts basic and applied research into techniques using measures of brain activation for the discovery of traits, aptitude, knowledge, interest, familiarity, group association and compatibility applied to selection and assessment of individuals for in military, government, academic and commercial environments. Mr. Ambs is inventor or co-inventor of more than 30 issued U.S. patents including several related to brain activation matching, brain matched compatibility, and knowledge discovery.   

Mr. Ambs previously served as the on-site PM in Afghanistan for the installation and operation of stand-off biometric data collection, remotely operated ISR systems, wireless data communication, data fusion, aggregation and presentation capabilities leading to increased safety and effectiveness of our soldiers and coalition partners.  He served as the Chief Scientist for the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) in which he participated in the identification, acquisition, development, test, and transition of solutions for the detection, neutralization, and mitigation of IEDs.  He collaborated with the DoD Service branches, DoD labs, National Labs, operational units, Congressional staffers, Defense Science Board, Army Science Board, National Academies, JASONS, industry, and academic institutions to focus the Nation’s resources on defeating IEDs.

Army Mad Scientist sat down with Mr. Ambs to discuss his company’s research into measuring the distinctive characteristics of innate talent, identifying potential high performers, and how the Army can harness AI/ML to screen and match these high performers with specialty vocations (e.g., pilots, special operators, and other select duty positions).  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our conversation:

• Training is expensive – it costs $13 million to train one F-35 pilot – so devoting resources to personnel who are not suited to a specific competency or MOS is wasteful. Looking at a prospective trainee’s brain activation response, and comparing the re...

[Editor’s Note:  Regular readers of the Mad Scientist Laboratory and listeners to The Convergence podcast know that our Pacing Threat — China — is feverishly modernizing its People’s Liberation Army (PLA).  In addressing the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on October 16, 2022, China’s President Xi Jinping stated that quickly elevating the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to a world-class army is a strategic requirement, and that China would adhere to the integrated development of the PLA through the concept of “three-izations” (三化) — mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization — the latter being China’s concept for integrating Artificial Intelligence’s (AI’s) machine speed and processing power to military planning, operational command, and decision support.  Xi further stated that these three-izations were to be pursued simultaneously and in parallel.

Consequently, it behooves us to better understand how, in the words of Dr. James Mancillas, “AI will disrupt our current military decision cycles… [and] shape the future of AI enabled military operations.”  That said, understanding the limits imposed by our adversaries’ embrace of AI is just as important as appreciating how AI can help sustain and enhance our Warfighters’ overmatch — possibly allowing us to exploit the constraints wrought by an adversary’s overreliance on AI to our advantage.

Today’s episode of The Convergence podcast is the second in our The AI Study Buddy at the Army War College series, featuring Dr. Billy Barry discussing AI study technology, its impact within the Army War College, and how he sees it evolving in the future — Read on!]

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Dr. Billy Barry is a Professor of Emerging Technology and Principal Strategist of the Artificial Intelligence/Intelligence Augmentation (AI/IA) Program (GovCon) for the Center for Strategic Leadership at the United States Army War College. Before working at the Army War College, Dr. Barry was a visiting professor of Philosophy and Just War Theory at the United States Military Academy at West Point.  A pioneer in Human-AI/IA teams, he is the first to introduce AI-powered intelligent augmentation androids, robots, digital virtual beings, and strategic advisors as teaching and learning partners in civilian university and Professional Military Education classrooms. A sought-after TEDx and international keynote speaker, Dr. Barry’s influence extends to Fortune 500 companies and global leadership symposiums and conferences. His current research interest centers on non-invasive brain-computer interfaces, driving the conversation on ethical technology interactions. His contributions to academia and industry establish him as a leading authorit...

[Editor’s Note:  Sunday morning’s tropical idyll was shattered as the adversary’s surprise attack caught our naval, ground, and air forces completely unprepared. An hour and a half later, more than 2,400 U.S. Service members and civilians had been killed, with almost another 1,200 wounded. Despite three missed tactical warnings that could have alerted our local defenses of the impending attack (perhaps reducing its effectiveness), senior Army and Navy leaders on-site remained blithely unaware until the first wave of attackers struck their primary targets — as were the Nation’s political and military leadership in Washington, DC, when they received news of the catastrophic attack. Collectively, we had been lulled by perhaps the most insidious of cognitive biases — mirror imaging — believing that the Japanese Empire wanted to avoid war with the U.S. at all costs because of our perceived military superiority.

“Mirror imaging occurs when we subscribe our beliefs or ideas to other competitors. A corollary to this mirror imaging idea is the concept of railroading where we assume that other competitors, for example, are developing technology at similar pace and along the same track that we are. Mirror imaging places a premium on the notion that our way is the only way – discounting history and organizational, strategic, geographic, and cultural differences – as well as dismissing ideas that others might have.” As Dr. Nick Marsella stated so eloquently, “Thinking about the future is hard work, requiring us to continually examine the rigor associated with these efforts and avoiding the cognitive biases inherent in our future’s work. ”

Gaming is an invaluable tool for adding rigor to our exploration of Operational Environment possibilities – it also helps us to identify and avoid our cognitive biases. Frequent contributor LTC Nathan Colvin recently used game theory to explore the dynamics affecting three principal “actors” – the transnational “liberal order” (i.e., the West), the diffuse aggregate needs of the Russian people (a society of individuals), and the individual needs of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin himself (as an autocratic leader) — to clinically explain the rationale underlying the superficially irrational invasion of Ukraine. Today’s post features highlights from our latest episode of The Convergence podcast with LTC Nathan  Colvin discussing game theory and how it can provide insights into the pitfalls of mirror imaging our rationality and morality onto foreign leaders’ decision-making processes — Read on!]

LTC Nathan Colvin is currently an Army War College Fellow at the College of William and Mary. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Modeling and Simulations from Old Dominion University, where he is also completing his Ph.D. in International Studies as an I/ITSEC Leonard P. Gollobin Scholar. He earned masters’ degrees in Aeronautics and Space Studies (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University), Administration (Central Michigan University), and Military Theater Operations (School of Advanced Military Studies). He is an Army Strategist and former Aviator with deployments to Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.

Army Mad Scientist sat down with LTC Nathan Colvin to discuss game theory and how it can provide insights into the pitfalls of mirr...

[Editor’s Note: In recent weeks, Mad Scientist Laboratory has featured a number of podcasts and associated blog posts exploring the democratization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential ramifications for Warfighters and the Operational Environment (OE). From generating better proposals from a broader array of defense contractors, exploring the future of warfare and OE trends, the convergence of neuroscience and AI, and the future of learning through emerging technologies — large language models (e.g., Open AI‘s ChatGPT) can augment how we learn, work, create, and — most importantly to the U.S. Army — compete and fight.
Imagine a not-too-distant future when all of our Military Leaders (from platoon to echelons above corps) are able to harness the comprehensive thoughts and insights of the world’s military theorists and tacticians, from antiquity to the present, via a personal AI digital assistant — or as proclaimed Mad Scientist Juliane Gallina so eloquently stated — a “Patton in the Pocket.” Human-machine teaming has the potential to enable future Commanders to focus on the battle at hand with coup d’œil, or the “stroke of an eye,” maintaining situational awareness and processing inputs, generating potential courses of action, and down selecting the best way ahead — tailored to specific mission objectives and conditions at the bleeding edge of the fight — all at machine speed. Sustained Soldier overmatch indeed!

The application of Soldier-enhancing human-machine teaming isn’t limited to tactical applications, however. In today’s episode of The Convergence podcast, we interview LtCol Joe Buffamante, USMC, about his experience in applying human-machine teaming to support Professional Military Education (PME), leveraging large language models as effective learning support tools, and establishing and maintaining trust in AI applications — Enjoy!]

LtCol Joe Buffamante is a native of Great Valley, New York, and graduated from Miami (Ohio) University, receiving his commission in the United States Marine Corps in May 2003. Upon completion of The Basic School, he was designated an Armor Officer and graduated from the Armor Officer Basic Course in May 2004. He has commanded USMC units in combat tours to both Iraq and Afghanistan, and has served as a maneuver and fire support team instructor at 29 Palms, California. LtCol Buffamante assumed the duties as Chief of Readiness for Joint Task Force Civil Support (JTF-CS), Ft. Eustis, Virginia, in 2014, ultimately serving as the training chief for current operations where he was responsible for training all Joint Operations Center personnel. Following completion of this Joint assignment, LtCol Buffamante attended the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, earning a Master’s Degree in Defense and Strategic Studies. He also attended the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School (MAWS) and received the additional MOS of 0505 (MAGTF Planner). LtCol Buffamante is currently a student at the United States Army War College (AWC) in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Army Mad Scientist sat down with LtCol Buffamante to discuss his experience in applying human-machine teaming to support PME, leveraging large language models as effective learning support tools, and establishing and maintaining trust in AI applications. The following bullet points highlight key insights from our conversation:

• As a student at the AWC, LtCol Buffamante, along with Dr. Billy Barry, used a large language model as a learning support tool to explore the effectiveness of human-machine teaming research, specifically the effectiveness of the system itself and in collaboration with a human vice a human alone.

 

• LtCol Buffamante employed the system to assist in answering research questions related to his coursework. He coordinated with his professors to hand in three products for each assignment – AI produced, AI and human produced, and human produced –...

"We found that people systematically were more willing to reveal confidential or sensitive information to a virtual human than to a real person"

 

[Editor’s Note: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an emerging game-changer technology for our Warfighters — as Dr. James Mancillas espoused in a previous post, “AI systems offer the potential to continue maximizing the advantages of information superiority, while overcoming limits in human cognitive abilities.” Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work stated at the Mad Scientist Disruption and the Operational Environment Conference, co-sponsored by The University of Texas at Austin in 2019, that this is an “Own the Night Moment for the United States Army” — the Army (and TRADOC) must embrace and rapidly incorporate AI across the force.

 

One such AI application is enhancing Army learning and training. The Army will not only have to incorporate AI as a subject in its Professional Military Education (PME) — ensuring our Soldiers and Leaders have the requisite AI literacy — it has the opportunity to utilize AI in augmenting Field Training Exercises, Home Station Training, and Combat Training Center rotations to expose and prepare our Warfighters for the second and third order effects resulting from the compressed battle rhythms wrought by AI.

 

In today’s episode of The Convergence podcast, we interview Drs. Keith Brawner and Bill Swartout from the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies (USC ICT) — a DoD-sponsored University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) focused on immersive technology, simulation, human performance, computer graphics, AI, and narrative — about the Center for Generative AI and Society within ICT, their research into large language models, and their vision of the future of training through emerging technologies. Enjoy!]

 

Dr. Keith Brawner is the Program Manager of the Institute for Creative Technologies University Affiliated Research Center (ICT UARC) for the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, as managed by the U.S. Army DEVCOM Soldier Center, where he is also the lead for AI initiatives. He is a research leader in intelligent tutoring systems with over 100 publications in research/ application of simulation and training technologies.

 

While he manages the ICT at the University of Southern California, he works at the SFC Paul Ray Smith Simulation and Training Technology facility in Orlando, Florida. He has worked on, or contributed to, systems which train land navigation, marksmanship, hovercraft operation, destroyer decision making, physics, UAV route planning, calling for indirect fires, submarine harbor navigation, sonar system operation, helicopter flight, counterinsurgency, and many others. His current research focus is on enhancing simulations, the realism within simulations, the behaviors of simulated characters, and the creation of human behavior change. He earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Central Florida. He earned an MS and Ph.D in Computer Engineering while working full-time for the Navy (Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division) and Army (Army Research Laboratory), respectively. He is the recipient of the National Training and Simulation Association Governors award (2nd highest honor) and the UCF Alumni 30 under 30 award.

 

Dr. William Swartout is a research professor in the Computer Science Department at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and Chief Technology Officer at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, providing overall direction to the institute’s research. Dr. Swartout was also recently named Co-Director of USC’s Center for Generative AI and Society. In 2009, he received the Robert Engelmore Award from the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) for seminal contributions t...

[Editor's Note:  Crowdsourcing and Storytelling are two of Army Mad Scientist's most effective tools in exploring future possibilities regarding the Operational Environment. Crowdsourcing helps us harvest ideas, thoughts, and concepts from a wide variety of interested individuals, helping us to diversify thought and challenge conventional assumptions.  Storytelling — creative fictional writing and narrative building — helps us to explore how concepts, technologies, and other capabilities could be employed and operationalized. Together, they help us to effectively source, then impart knowledge about future possibilities — creating a network of people with a shared understanding of potential futures.
In today’s episode of The Convergence podcast, we sit down with John "Grant" Rafter to discuss the Air Force Futures’ mission, the recently published Air Force Global Futures Report: Joint Functions in 2040, and the associated AFGFR Vignette Writing Contest (see more about this in the Announcement at the bottom of today’s post) — Read on!]


[If the podcast dashboard is not rendering correctly for you, please click here to listen to the podcast.] 

John "Grant" Rafter is the Branch Chief for Futures and Foresight in Air Force Futures. He also has experience with the U.S. Secret Service, the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy as the Regional Director for Maghreb, and with the UN Development Programme in Myanmar.  Mr. Rafter has a B.A. in English from Dartmouth College, a J.D. from the University of Washington School of Law, and an M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School focusing on Management, Leadership, and Decision-Making in International Organizations.  He is finalizing an additional master’s degree with a focus on China.
In our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, Army Mad Scientist sits down with John "Grant" Rafter to discuss the Air Force Futures‘ mission, the recently published Air Force Global Futures Report: Joint Functions in 2040 (aka AFGFR), and the associated AFGFR Vignette Writing Contest — seeking to crowdsource engaging, plot-driven stories that illustrate a scenario from one of the many futures described in the AFGFR.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our conversation:

As the world becomes more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) – especially post-COVID – the demand for foresight increases. Foresight excels in a VUCA environment as linear projections become less certain and timelines increase. Foresight helps organizations like the Joint Force obviate and avoid strategic surprise.
  
The AFGFR explores the seven Joint Functions for warfighting — command and control, information, intelligence, fires, movement and maneuver, protection, and sustainment — through four alternative futures:  Growth, Transformational, Constrained, and Collapsed. The AFGFR examined these competing Operational Environments and how the trends and forces within each impacted mission sets for the Air Force, as well as the DoD at large.

The Joint Functions for warfighting are cross cutting (across not only specific military branches, but the entire Joint Force), proving to be the best lens for utility and relevance. Using modified foresight methodologies, AF Futures was able to crowdsource and condense the expertise from hundreds of foresight practitioners – a diverse group from across Government agencies, academia, and Allied and Partner nations – into 32 pages of analysis. 

The AFGFR and associated four worlds help planners to assess how well their plan, team, or organization functions (or not) in any of the proposed futures. They can then identify weaknesses or opportunities in their concepts and refine as they go. 

The report identified six key trends overall, with the scope, scale, and speed of...

[Editor’s Note:  Mad Scientist is an Army initiative and Community of Action that continually explores the Operational Environment and the changing character of warfare. We connect the intellect of the Nation to the Army and serve as an on-ramp for academia, industry, and other parts of the Government to share their ideas and innovations. Our latest episode of The Convergence podcast features "rock star" proclaimed Mad Scientists — Dr. James Giordano and Dr. James Canton — discussing the convergence of neuroscience and artificial intelligence, its impact on future warfare, and where the U.S. falls short in technology development, relative to our competitors and adversaries — Enjoy!] 

Proclaimed Mad Scientist Dr. James Giordano is Pellegrino Center Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Biochemistry; Chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program; and Chair of the Subprogram in Military Medical Ethics at Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington DC.  Dr. Giordano is a Bioethicist of the Defense Medical Ethics Center at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences; Distinguished Stockdale Fellow in Science, Technology, and Ethics at the United States Naval Academy; Senior Fellow in Biosecurity, Technology, and Ethics at the U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI; Senior Science Advisory Fellow of the Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA), Joint Staff / J-39, The Pentagon; Chair Emeritus of the Neuroethics Project of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Brain Initiative; and serves as Director of the Institute for Biodefense Research, a federally funded Washington, DC think tank dedicated to addressing emerging issues at the intersection of science, technology and national defense. He previously served as Donovan Group Senior Fellow, U.S. Special Operations Command; member of the Neuroethics, Legal, and Social Issues Advisory Panel of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); and Task Leader of the Working Group on Dual-Use of the EU-Human Brain Project.

Dr. Giordano is the author of 340 peer-reviewed publications, 7 books and 45 governmental reports on science, technology, and biosecurity, and is an elected member of the European Academy of Science and Arts, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine (UK), and a Fulbright Professorial Fellow. A former U.S. Naval officer, he held designations as an aerospace physiologist and research psychologist, and served with the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. 

Proclaimed Mad Scientist Dr. James Canton is a global futurist, social scientist, author, and strategic advisor. As a former Apple Computer executive and high tech entrepreneur, he has been insightfully forecasting the key trends and technologies that have shaped our world, including AI-nano-bio-IT-neuroquantum-cloud. The Economist recognizes him as one of the leading global futurists. He has advised three White House Administrations, the DoD, Intelligence Community,  and over 100 companies over 30 years. Dr. Canton is CEO and Chairman of the Institute for Global Futures, a leading think tank he founded in 1990 that advises business and government. 

Dr. Canton is the author of Future Smart,  The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will Reshape the World in the Next Twenty Years, and Technofutures: How Leading-Edge Innovations Will Transform Business in the 21st Century. Dr. Canton has been a lecturer at Stanford University...

In today’s post and podcast, we feature the winning submission from our Back to the Future Writing Contest — Task Force Wolf — as a short audiobook and then interview its author — proclaimed Mad Scientist LTC Daniel Gomez — about his inspiration for the story, the impact of democratized technology and ubiquitous connectivity on the future of warfare, and why we should be experimenting with these commercially-available capabilities — Enjoy!]

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LTC Daniel Gomez currently serves in the U.S. Army Reserve as an Instructor of Innovation and Creativity at Joint Special Operations University, United States Special Operations Command. During his twenty years in service, LTC Gomez served two combat tours in Iraq, two Special Operations deployments to the Pacific Theater, and five years as an instructor, scenario designer, and course manager at the United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. LTC Gomez is the CEO of First Person Xperience LLC, an education and training company focused on teaching Creativity, Adaptability, and Human Dynamics to National Defense Professionals.

In our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, Army Mad Scientist asks proclaimed Mad Scientist LTC Daniel Gomez about his inspiration for his winning submission Task Force Wolf, the impact of democratized technology and ubiquitous connectivity on the future of warfare, and why we should be experimenting with these commercially-available capabilities.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our conversation:

• In LTC Gomez’s story, JTF Wolf is designed to track and interrupt illicit operations in Eurasia, specifically Turkey and its northern neighbors. His re-imagined geo-political structure describes the New Soviet Union and T’China(Taiwan re-joined with mainland China) as global powers using irregular and liminal warfare, regionally and internationally.

• Non-state actorshave employed mobile video games, ubiquitous connectivity, and cryptocurrency to conduct multi-domain, synchronized operations across multiple geospatial regions while operating as independent and self-sustained, but distributed, joint teams. Built-in communications software was leveraged for real-time translation of over 100 different languages.
  
  
• These teams were able to access home camera video feeds and manipulate them with deepfakes(Deep-Snapping) and access car toll passes to search for less than reputable locations for blackmail (Spot-Blowing) to charge victims monthly fees to support their illicit business. They identified and exploited...

“The Convergence of AI, robotics, and cyber-warfare could create new and highly complex military capabilities such as autonomous weapons systems that can make decisions in real time” — ChatGPT

[Editor’s Note:  As described in the previous episode of The Convergence podcast, large language models like ChatGPT — democratizing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) — will potentially revolutionize (and disrupt!) how people around the globe access, process, and generate information from the wealth of online data — per TechCrunch, “estimated at 97 zettabytes (1021 bytes) created or replicated in 2022 alone!  To put that number into perspective, to store 97 zettabytes on 1 terabyte hard disks, you’d have to stack the disks 27 million times—equal to roughly 15 round trips between the Earth and the Moon.”  Big Data indeed!  As the Internet transformed our lives some three decades ago, allowing us to harness and access this mass of online information, so too will democratized AI transform and augment how we learn, work, create, and — most importantly to the U.S. Army — compete and fight… and not just in the Cyber Domain!

Our adversaries understand the game-changing power of AI.  President Vladimir Putin virtually addressed over one million Russian school children and teachers at 16,000 schools on September 1, 2017, stating,  “Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind.  It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict.  Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”  Just as ominously, in addressing the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on October 16, 2022, China’s President Xi Jinping stated that quickly elevating the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to a world-class army is a strategic requirement, and that China would adhere to the integrated development of the PLA through the concept of “three-izations” (三化) — mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization — the latter being China’s concept for integrating AI’s machine speed and processing power to military planning, operational command, and decision support.  Xi further stated that these three-izations are not to be achieved in stages but are to be pursued simultaneously and in parallel.  

Recognizing that the AI Age is now upon us, the latest episode of The Convergence podcast features our interview with Chatty Cathy, an instance of ChatGPT by OpenAI, discussing the future of warfare, “her” thoughts on technology trends, and her responses to several questions from our Mad Scientist Community of Action — Read on!]

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Our visualization of Chatty Cathy, derived from her self-description, run though RunwayML‘s Text to Image App

[Editor’s Note: Large language models like ChatGPT — democratizing the power of artificial intelligence — have rocked industry and academia with their potential to revolutionize how humans process vast quantities of information and generate content. Our Federal Government, including the Department of Defense and its

constituent Services, will similarly be transformed as myriad processes begin to harness this capability to augment traditionally human endeavors. But this sea change will require work force flexibility and a willingness to learn and adapt to new ways of accomplishing mission requirements. Changing culture is hard…

 

Army Mad Scientist is pleased to present our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, featuring LTC Robert Solano, Commander of the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) at Boeing in Mesa, Arizona, discussing what DCMA does, how language models like ChatGPT can help the Army and the Nation’s industrial base work together, and some of the challenges and barriers these language models may face when it comes to wide-spread adoption in the Department of Defense (DoD) — Enjoy!]

 

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LTC Robert Solano is an accomplished Army officer and the Commander of the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) at Boeing in Mesa, Arizona. With 19 years of experience under his belt, LTC Solano has a passion for delivering quality aircraft and parts to support Warfighters while making a difference in the acquisition community. As a senior Army Aviator and Acquisition Corps officer with multiple combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, LTC Solano has honed his skills in organizational leadership, program management, and government contracting. As an engineer, he is skilled in artificial intelligence, augmented reality, aviation systems, and advanced weapons systems development. His impressive career has taken him to work at the Army Artificial Intelligence Integration Center, Palantir

Technologies, U.S. Special Operations Command, and other procurement and aviation units. LTC Solano holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point, a Master’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Master’s Certificate in Aviation Doctoral Studies (ABD) from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

 

In today’s podcast, LTC Solano discusses what DCMA does, how language models like ChatGPT can help the Army and the Nation’s industrial base work together, and some of the challenges and barriers these language models may face when it comes to wide- spread adoption in the DoD. The following bullet points highlight key insights from our discussion:

 

The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) has over 11,000 personnel throughout the

world. These personnel are on the factory floors, looking over the shoulders of the contractors who are designing and manufacturing materiel for the warfighter. They ensure end items are built to standard, at cost, and delivered on time.

 

ChatGPT, and other large language models, are artificial intelligence (AI) programs that are fed a large body of data (books, Tweets, articles, etc.) from which they can derive meaning and draw conclusions.

For example, you can ask ChatGPT, “Why is the sky blue?” and it will respond

with the science behind light refracting through the atmosphere. These programs are so adv...

[Editor’s Note: The Mad Scientist Laboratory featured LTC Kristine M. Hinds‘ assessment of private sector involvement in future conflicts in “Sixth Domain” – Private Sector Involvement in Future Conflicts last June. While some Army purists have taken exception to the Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security‘s use of the term “Sixth Domain” to describe the private sector’s sphere of activities supporting warfighting, no one disputes the vital role that the private sector has played in providing corroborative intelligence via space imagery, effective cyber security, and resilient Command and Control networks — heretofore the domain of public sector defense services and intelligence communities — in Ukraine’s on-going fight against Russian imperialism.

In today’s episode of The Convergence Podcast, Army Mad Scientist sat down with LTC Hinds to address Fifth Generation Warfare, the Sixth Domain, and how we may need to adapt to defend ourselves and the Nation in the evolving Operational Environment.

In our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, Army Mad Scientist sat down with LTC Kristine Hinds — a 90A Logistics Corps officer in the U.S. Army Reserve and Future Seminar student at the Army War College — to discuss her work on Team Sullivan’s Travels, what her research revealed, and the implications of a Sixth Domain and Fifth Generation Warfare. The following bullet points highlight key takeaways from our conversation:

• In focusing on the central theme of “how innovations from contemporary conflicts impact the future dynamics of warfare,” LTC Hinds explored the impacts of non-military or non-federally governed entities in crisis and conflict, specifically those of the private sector.

 

• Per The Atlantic Council, the sixth domain refers to the private sector’s role in warfare. In its on-going fight with Russia, Ukraine continues to receive private sector support in cyber, communications, and data migration services. The “sixth domain” has emerged as a critical consideration for operational planning and warfighting, not only for the assets and capabilities it can deliver, but also for its associated risk in blurring the distinction between noncombatants and combatants.

 

• Private sector support is not guaranteed – it can be pulled or even turned into a threat.There is risk in relying too heavily on support that can be easily turned off. The private sector’s ability to deny services or withhold information creates the possibility of them adversely impacting strategic, operational, and tactical operations, such as targeting.

 

• Fifth generation warfare loosely describes contemporary conflicts in which tactics like social media influence operations and cyberattacks play a more...

General Robert Brown (USA-Ret.) is an experienced commander who has led at every level, from platoon through Army Service Component Command. Serving as Commanding General of U.S. Army Pacific, General Brown led the Army’s largest service component command responsible for 106,000 Soldiers across the Indo-Pacific Region before his September 2019 retirement.

General Brown is a 1981 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he was commissioned as an Infantry Second Lieutenant. His assignments took him across the globe including deployments in support of Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti, Operation Joint Forge in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and two combat deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Before U.S. Army Pacific, he commanded the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; and the U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence and Fort Benning, Georgia.

He also served as Chief of Staff for U.S. Army Europe; Deputy Commanding General for the 25th Infantry Division; Commander, 1st Brigade (Stryker) 25th Infantry Division; Commander, 2nd Battalion 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division; the Joint Staff, J-8; Army Staff, Strategy and War Plans Division G3/5/7 in the Pentagon; Aide-de-Camp, Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army; Executive Officer to Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command; Assistant Professor and Deputy Director, Center for Enhanced Performance, West Point; and Infantry Assignment Officer, Human Resources Command.

General Brown holds a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy, a Master of Education from the University of Virginia, and a Master of Science in National Security and Strategic Studies (Distinguished Graduate) from the National Defense University.

General Brown retired after more than 38 years of service. He was a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) before becoming President and CEO in October 2021.

In today’s podcast, General Brown discusses how the Army can reach the next generation of Americans, the creation of Multi-Domain Task Forces, challenges in the Pacific AOR, and the importance of the Human Dimension. The following bullet points highlight key insights from our discussion:

• AUSA, like many other thought-leading organizations, has found itself needing to adjust to changing demographicsand has focused its outreach on connecting the Army with the community. Army bases have become heavily fortified in the post-9/11 environment, making it more difficult to reach that next generation of potential recruits. With “community connectors” and “community partners,” AUSA has the opportunity to tell the Army story and make those critical links.

• The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is more aggressive nowthan in the last several decades. Relying on his experience as the Commanding General of U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC), GEN Brown believes the combination of an aggressive and over-confident CCP could be dangerous and potentially lead to accidental conflict.

• In the Indo-Pacific, it will be a Joint fight andevery domain matters. China’s Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) is powerful and can repel U.S. Forces at significant distance. To combat this A2/AD problem, GEN Brown and others created the Multi-Domain Task Forces (MDTF)

General Gary M. Brito assumed duties as the 18th Commanding General, United States Army TRADOC, on September 8, 2022.  He is responsible for building and sustaining a highly trained, disciplined, and fit Army by acquiring the best people, training the most lethal Soldiers, developing the most professional leaders, guiding the Army’s culture, and shaping the future force. 

In today’s podcast, General Brito discusses synchronizing modernization across the Army, critical aspects of modernization that are crucial to shaping the fighting force , and how changes in the Operational Environment affect this process.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our discussion with General Brito: 

• TRADOCis “that first layer of bricks” in building readiness for the Army.  In building this foundation, TRADOC acquires the very best people, trains the most lethal Soldiers, and develops the most professional Leaders. TRADOC also provides that connective tissue that guides Army culture and shapes the future force.

• Modernization ismore than materiel and the Soldier is the centerpiece. Technology does not replace them, but rather is enabled by them. This scales to the squad, platoon, company, battalion, and beyond, to give the Army the overmatch needed to contest our adversaries.

• Integration and synchronization across the entireDOTMLPF-P (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and education, Personnel, Facilities, and Policy) spectrum of capabilities is one of TRADOC’s major responsibilities.  Identifying the doctrine associated with a future tank or next generation aircraft has to occur at the earliest stages of acquisition, in coordination with other organizations like the Army Staff, Army Futures Command, FORSCOM, the Joint Force, and others.

• It’s vital that TRADOC takes the lessons learnedfrom current conflicts in Eastern Europe and elsewhere and feed them into how we train our Soldiers.  It is also important to measure the impacts of new technology and materiel in a multi-domain operation. All of this new knowledge needs to be infused into the accessions process and Professional Military Education.

• Balancing training, readiness, personnel, and modernization is a delicate and difficult balance in which all components need to be synchronized. It’s important to weave Soldier touchpoints into the acquisition process at specific milestones for user feedback. With a good plan and coordination, the Army can modernize and test e...

Joanna Siekiera is an international lawyer and Doctor of Social Sciences in public policy sciences. She studied under a New Zealand Government scholarship at the Victoria University in Wellington. Her specialization is legal and political relations in the South Pacific, and the law of armed conflict. She is prodigious author, having written a book, co-authored three monographs, over 90 scientific publications in several languages, and over 40 legal analyses.

In today’s podcast, we explore the legal aspects of Multi-Domain Operations and the protection of civilians, what we can learn from the on-going war in Ukraine as it pertains to U.S. policy and legal implications, and her concerns about security and policy in the Indo-Pacific.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview: 

• Dr. Siekiera’s goal is to advise commanders on how to lawfully accomplish their military aims by understanding legal possibilities.

• Law is important, both as a discipline and within the context of society.  Societal and cultural context help us to accurately analyze a conflict and understand the initial ideas and values that send countries to war, in order to respond appropriately and proportionally.

• There are no ethics in international law – one country’s system of values may not translate to another, creating differences in approaches to the law of armed conflict.  Context and history can teach us why countries may see things differently and help to predict further actions.

• Dr. Siekiera uses the terms “East” and “West” not to divide but to make people aware that the two are not the same.  Assuming that an adversary shares your cultural values is a dangerous and misleading bias —  mirror-imaging — that threatens security.  Alliances between nations are maintained when a shared identity is fostered.

• The legal aspects of Multi-Domain Operations and the protection of civilians are not being treated with the requisite importance.  Although international laws exist to protect civilians in armed conflicts, a nation that does not hold the same values cannot be relied upon to comply with these otherwise widely accepted humanitarian laws.  This must be recognized when planning all aspects  of military operations.

• China – the biggest threat not only to western civilization but to NATO – slowly influences economic and societal changes in surrounding nations, quietly creating a military threat decades before it is recognized.  Although NATO falls outside the Indo-Pacific region, China is still a threat through its influence in nearby nations.

Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Labor...

John Bicknell founded More Cowbell Unlimited to help America remain a beacon of hope and strength on the world stage. America must adopt Process Dominance as a core capability in order to innovate and survive in the Information Age.  His vision is for process technologies to be as ubiquitous as processes are.  John is a national security thought leader and passionate analytics visionary.  He has written extensively on national security matters related to information warfare, critical infrastructure defense, and space situational awareness.  John leads software and business development efforts for More Cowbell Unlimited. 

Before retiring from the United States Marine Corps in 2010 as a Lieutenant Colonel, John served worldwide, most notably in Afghanistan and at the Pentagon.  He led enterprise-level process intensive human resources supply chain projects designed to discover inefficiencies, architect solutions, and re-purpose manpower savings. In his corporate career, he operationalized an Analytics Center of Excellence for a large EdTech firm, among other accomplishments.

John is a member of the Military Operations Research Society (MORS) and InfraGard. He is also Vice President for the Information Professionals Association and host of The Cognitive Crucible podcast. His Master’s degree from the Naval Postgraduate School emphasizes econometrics and operations research. John lives with his family in the Pacific Northwest.

In today’s podcast, we explore complex systems, entropy, how data can be turned into action, and empowering Soldiers to make better and faster battlefield decisions.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview:

• More Cowbell Unlimited is a decision-support firm helping organizations make better, faster, data-driven decisions through process mining — a method that illuminates where there are inefficiencies in a process and turns data into action. It can be used to process complex systems, such as modeling ecosystems of satellites in the geostationary orbital regime for the U.S. Space Force.

• Complexity is here to stay. Complex systems have characteristics that are nonlinear and difficult to predict – much like the future battlefield. Bicknell has developed a powerful way of examining complex systems by synthesizing different theories from various prominent thinkers, like measuring the entropy in complex systems using Claude Shannon’s 

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist is pleased to present our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, recorded on location at I/ITSEC 2022, the world’s largest modeling and simulation conference in Orlando, Florida.  Co-hosts Luke Shabro and Matt Santaspirt spoke with Dr. Maria Kozhevnikov about non-relaxing meditative states, enhanced cognition, the relationship between video games and reaching that enhanced cognitive state, and the associated ramifications for Army training — Enjoy!]

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Maria Kozhevnikov, Associate Professor of Psychology at the National University of Singapore and Visiting Associate Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, is a cognitive neuroscientist with an interest in enhancing human cognition and understanding the potential of the human mind.  Her research uses modern technology, such as augmented, virtual, and mixed reality (AR/VR/MR), as well as ancient meditative techniques.  The following bullet points highlight key insights gleaned from our interview with Dr. Kozhevnikov: 

• Meditation is a great technique to induce relaxation and reduce stress, but there are many different kinds of meditation. To enhance cognitive capacity, a type of meditation can be used to induce stress to an individual in order for them to learn from it and combat it in a controlled environment.

• Meditation which is arousal-based or “good stress”-based will deliver stress that the individual can handle while still focusing on and completing the task at hand.This type of meditation is more suited to Soldiers on the battlefield who will be operating in austere environments with external factors competing for their focus.

• Arousal-based meditation releases adrenaline into the blood stream(as opposed to cortisol being released from “bad stress”).  Adrenaline triggers the body’s “fight or flight” response, which in turn amplifies cognitive and mental resources to meet the demand of the task at hand.

• People process information about the space around them in two ways: allocentric and egocentric. Allocentric processing involves an individual interpreting objects in space as they relate to other objects in space, while egocentric processing involves an individual interpreting objects in space as they relate to their own body. This distinction is important because it identifies two different ways in which learning and training occurs. It’s very important for a pilot to be egocentric while it’s important for an air traffic controller to be allocentric. Different job types require different learning methods.

• Game-based training does not necessarily have to be immersive or high fidelity to effectively train the mind.Two-dimensional video games have been shown to be just as effective as high fidelity, completely immersive, 3D first-person games, as long as the user feels there is a real threat to them or their avatar. Th...

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist is pleased to present our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, recorded on location at I/ITSEC 2022, the world’s largest modeling and simulation conference in Orlando, Florida.  Co-hosts  Luke Shabro and Matt Santaspirt spoke with proclaimed Mad Scientist Jenny McArdle from the Center for a New American Security, Cmdr. Paul Grøstad from NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT), and Whitney McNamara from Beacon Global Strategies, about emerging technologies and how they can better prepare us for both competition and conflict — Enjoy!]

 

Jennifer McArdle serves as an Adjunct Senior Fellow in the Center for a New American Security’s defense program and wargaming lab and as a Non-Resident Fellow at the Joint Special Operations University.  A former professor, Ms. McArdle has served on Congressman Langevin’s cyber advisory committee and as an expert member of a NATO technical group that developed cyber effects for the military alliance’s mission and campaign simulations. Ms. McArdle is a PhD candidate at King’s College London in War Studies, is the recipient of the RADM Fred Lewis (I/ITSEC) doctoral scholarship in modeling and simulation, and is a Certified Modeling and Simulation Professional (CMSP). She is a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations.  Ms. McArdle is also a proclaimed Mad Scientist, having frequently contributed to the Mad Scientist Laboratory blog site and The Convergence podcast.

 

Cmdr. Paul Grøstad  is Deputy Branch Head for Concept Development at NATO ACT.  A Royal Norwegian Navy officer with 29 years experience in Signals, C4ISR, and Cyber Operations, Cmdr. Grøstad is currently researching Cognitive Warfare, Malign Influence, the Information Environment, and Cognitive Effects. He has extensive international experience from serving in multiple positions at different levels of the NATO command structure.  A Norwegian Naval Academy and Joint Command and Staff College graduate, he holds a Master’s degree in military studies from the Norwegian Defence University College and a Bachelor’s degree in Information Science from the University of Bergen.  Cmdr. Grøstad is a certified PRINCE2 Practitioner.

 

Whitney McNamara is an Associate Vice President at Beacon Global Strategies and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.  She is also currently supporting the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, where she is the lead author on assessing critical technologies and their barriers to innovation in the Department.  She previously served on the Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Board (DIB), whose mission is to provide the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and other senior leaders across the DoD with independent advice and recommendations on emerging technologies and innovative approaches that the Department should adopt to ensure U.S. technological and military dominance.  Ms. McNamara is a former National Security Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and worked in t...

[Editor’s Note: Army Mad Scientist is pleased to present our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, featuring our interview with proclaimed Mad Scientist Jason Sherwin, CEO and Co-Founder of deCervo, discussing the science of quick decision making, how deCervo blends gaming with science to help individuals make the best decisions in high stakes and complex environments, how these technologies have enhanced professional athletes’ performance, and these technologies’ potential for enhancing Soldiers’ performance — Enjoy!]

 

Jason Sherwin, Ph.D., is a founder and currently serves as CEO of deCervo, a neuroscience tech company he founded with his research partner, Jordan Muraskin, Ph.D.  Since starting in 2014,  deCervo has provided cognitive training programs using neuroimaging and customized phone apps to over 15 Major League Baseball organizations, over 60,000 baseball and softball players worldwide, the umpires of the Major Leagues, and the officials of the National Hockey League.  deCervo has been an Army research grant recipient since 2017 and Sherwin himself has done contract research for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory going back to 2011.  Continuing to apply its novel approach to decision training, deCervo is currently launching apps in law enforcement and tennis training to complement its suite of five other apps for decision training.

 

• Analyzing quick decision-making is done by providing simple stimuli to people, imaging their response and its speed, and identifying how their brain reacts to different inputs. This can be accomplished by having a subject listen to a song with an unexpected, abrupt key change; not only do brains show a reaction to that unexpected change, but trained musicians’ brains produce a stronger response, as captured via electro-encephalogram (EEG), than a non-musician’s brain.

 

• deCervo’s apps for baseball players use accuracy measurements to estimate how well the user discriminates between different kinds of pitches.  This approach is an evolution from using EEGs, and shows that non-invasive methods can be just as effective in measuring responses.  Improving athletic prowess on the playing field has direct implications for improving warfighting prowesson the modern battlefield.

 

• Emotion impacts all decision making, but deliberate decisions are more susceptible to influence from emotionand often require simulations generated by video or AI to produce environments that are closer to real life.  For Soldiers, decisions often need to be deliberate while dealing with fear and strong emotion in dynamic, austere, and potentially lethal environments; training for this kind of decision making requires teaching people how to respond quickly and correctly, despite emotional impacts or inhibition.

 

• Military decision making can involve simple decisions like target detection, but more often requires the ability to make complex, deliberate decisions.  Using effective human teaming and social sensing can help train for visual search type decisions where Soldiers analyze their own placement and their teammates’ placements and ...

The Army Mad Scientist Initiative is hosting our Back to the Future: Using History to Forecast conference, November 8th and 9th, at the National Museum of the United States Army.  It is our first in-person conference since 2019!

• The conference will feature world renowned historians, thinkers, innovators, futurists, and industry leaders. We’ll use history to set the foundation for our look into the future to determine what the Operational Environment might look like, what new and unique conditions a Soldier might encounter, and what capabilities they might need — Check out our exciting conference agenda hereand presenter and panelist biographies here !

 

• You can still attend the event in-person by registering here through Eventbrite — Hurry, space is limited! You must be registered with Eventbrite in order to gain access to the conference.  Museum security will have a list of all individuals registered and will check your name upon entry.

 

• You can also attend the conference virtually! Everything will be live-streamed through Zoom— you can connect and engage in real time remotely here, beginning at 7:45 am Eastern, Tuesday, 08 November 2022! 

 

Whether in person or virtually, please plan on joining Army Mad Scientist at our Back to the Future:  Using History to Forecast conference — you’ll be glad you did!

 

Check out content from previous Army Mad Scientist events on our All Partners Access Network (APAN) Conference page (just click on an event to drill down to explore event agendas, presenter bio’s, presentations, and notes) and YouTube Channel Video Playlists — content from next week’s conference will be similarly archived for future reference!

Back to the Future Writing Contest:  Crowdsourcing is an effective tool for harvesting ideas, thoughts, and concepts from a wide variety of interested individuals, helping to diversify thought and challenge conventional assumptions.  Army Mad Scientist seeks to crowdsource the intellect of the Nation (i.e., you — our community of action!) with our Back to the Future Writing Contest.  Entries should address one of the topics’ writing prompts listed here.  Entries will be accepted in two formats:

• 
  A written essay(no more than 1500 words, please!)

 

• A tweet @ArmyMadSci using #MadSciBacktotheFuture

 

We will pick a winner from each of these two formats! Contest Winners will be proclaimed official Mad...

Inderpal Bhandari rejoined IBM as Global Chief Data Officer in December 2015. In this newly created role, he has leveraged his extensive experience to lead the development of IBM’s data strategy and drive IBM’s internal cognitive enterprise transformation. The work has culminated in the AI Enterprise Blueprint; a roadmap for IBM’s clients on their own journeys to AI.  Inderpal is an expert in transforming data into business value and improved customer experiences by delivering strategic, innovative capabilities that use analytic insights to enable growth and productivity.  In 2017, he was named U.S. Chief Data Officer of the Year by the CDO Club, and has been featured as an industry expert by Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, US News & World Report, CNN, and FOX.  Inderpal earned his Master of Science Degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and holds a PhD in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.  Learn more about Inderpal’s insights on harnessing the power of data and accelerating Artificial Intelligence (AI) implementation at IBM’s Journey to AI and Think blogs.

In today’s podcast, we talk with Inderpal about data as a strategic asset, the challenge in ensuring new technologies are intuitive to engender user trust, and how Soldiers can be empowered to transform the Army into a data-centric culture.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview:

• Describing “data” as a field of study is like the “blind men describing an elephant,” each one will have a different, limited aspect of it, and thus, a different description. Data is now being recognized as more than just a record, as it can illuminate patterns and insights that can re-shape or invent new businesses and products. It is a strategic asset that is being referred to as the new oil, because it is “the fuel that drives the engine.” 

• Scaling is the goal of any chief data officer of a large company with a global footprint. The first key step is to understand what the company is trying to do, or for a commercial company, how they are trying to make money, and using the data strategy to enable that goal. For a large enterprise like the Army,the question will be how data can enable the Army to accomplish its various mission sets of deploying, fighting, and winning our Nation’s wars. 

• Culture change can occur in three ways:  Top-down as a strategy, laterally, and bottom-up/ grassroots. Bottom-up makes up the most significant portion of successful culture change in a system. Organizations need to make sure the users are prepared, and the technology interfaces are adapted to the change being sought. 

• You can’t make every employee or Soldier into a data scientist. It’s crucial to design systems or technology in a way that brings people along in a way that allows them to intuitively use them. Trust is a significant portion of...

Amy Webb advises Chief eXperience Officers (CXOs) of the world’s most-admired companies, three-star admirals and generals, and the senior leadership of central banks and intergovernmental organizations. Founder of the Future Today Institute, a leading foresight and strategy firm that helps leaders and their organizations prepare for complex futures, Amy pioneered a data-driven, technology-led foresight methodology that is now used within hundreds of organizations. Forbes called Amy “one of the five women changing the world.” She was honored as one of the BBC’s 100 Women of 2020 and is ranked on the Thinkers50 list of the 50 most influential management thinkers globally.  Amy is the best-selling author of several books. Her latest book, The Genesis Machine (PublicAffairs / Hachette 2022) examines the futures of gene editing, biotech, and synthetic biology. Synthetic biology is the promising and controversial technology platform that combines biology and artificial intelligence, opening up the potential to program biological systems much as we program computers. 

In today’s podcast, we talk with Amy about strategic foresight, emerging technologies like synthetic biology, and what she sees as vital implications for the U.S. Army.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview:

• There are always three stages of work, whether in government or private sector, when it comes to foresight: Inputs (forces, signals, and trends), outcomes (scenarios describing plausible futures), and some form of action or backcasting (reverse engineering a preferred future).

• Synthetic or engineered biology consists of modifying or manipulating biological code to give it new or enhanced purposes.In the “read, edit, write” analogy, synthetic biology gives the user the “write” function to make sweeping changes with more control. This is not limited to human biology as it can be applied to plants, viruses, and any other biological material.

• Access to synthetic or designer biology may create a new class of genetic haves and have-nots. Wealth will be a restricting factor, but religious beliefs may also prove to be less tolerant of these manipulations and changes, thus hard-coding specific social values into the DNA of the future
• Policy and regulation do not adequately address the synthetic biology issue in a cohesive way. In some countries, genetic screening for certain types of diseases is employed, but it is generally unfavorable to screen for attributes that correlate to higher intelligence.  However, in some countries it is not illegal, and there are commercial entities offering to screen for cognitive ability.

• There are many implications borne out of a democratization of synthetic biology technology that will affect the U.S. Army in the future. Researchers are developing a device similar in size to a mobile phone that, in a battlefield environment, could screen for and sequence a novel pathogen. This will allow Soldiers to identify which genetic material and re-agents to use as an antidote or mix for a vaccine in the field.This could potentially increase battlefield readiness. <...

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist is pleased to publish its 500th post!  Since its inception on 09 November 2017, the Mad Scientist Laboratory has continuously sought to explore the Operational Environment (OE) and the changing character of warfare on behalf of the U.S. Army.  Given this enduring mission, it’s fitting that this milestone post features the highlights from our latest episode of The Convergence podcast.  Army Mad Scientist sat down with Mr. Ian Sullivan, Deputy Chief of Staff Intelligence (DCSINT) G-2, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), to discuss the TRADOC G-2’s newly published The Operational Environment 2024-2034:  Large-Scale Combat Operations.  

The OE underpins how the U.S. Army is organized, trained, equipped, and operates — it is foundational in ensuring the Army’s mission success — fighting and winning our Nation’s wars.  This latest OE assessment focuses on how our adversaries are learning and adapting how they fight from recent and on-going conflicts around the globe (e.g., Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine, Gaza, and the Gulf of Aden).  It describes the twelve conditions that contribute to Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) and five resulting implications for the U.S. Army. 

This new OE assessment is central to how the U.S. Army integrates the threat within our Leadership Development Training and Education system, our doctrine, and our modernization efforts across the DOTMLPF-P spectrum of capabilities.  In preparing for LSCO against our pacing and acute threats (China and Russia, respectively), it represents the “gold standard” for which the Army must ready itself as a “precursor to victory.”  Any and everyone associated with defending this great Nation should familiarize themselves with its contents — Read on!]

Mr. Ian Sullivan is the Deputy Chief of Staff Intelligence, G-2, TRADOC.  He holds a BA from Canisius University in Buffalo, New York, an MA from Georgetown University’s BMW Center for German and European Studies in Washington, D.C., and was a Fulbright Fellow at the Universität Potsdam in Potsdam, Germany.  A career civilian intelligence officer, Mr. Sullivan has served with the Office of Naval Intelligence; Headquarters, U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army; the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) at the National Counterterrorism Center; the Central Intelligence Agency; and TRADOC. He is a member of the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service and was first promoted to the senior civilian ranks in 2013 as a member of the ODNI’s Senior National Intelligence Service.  Mr. Sullivan is a frequent and valued contributor to both the Mad Scientist Laboratory and The Convergence podcast.

In our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, Army Mad Scientist sat down with Mr. Sullivan to discuss the newly released The Operational Environment 2024-2034:  Large-Scale Combat Operations...

Karen Kaya specializes in Middle Eastern affairs with a particular focus on Turkey for the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) within the TRADOC G-2.  She has worked on numerous projects in national security as a defense and security policy analyst.  Ms. Kaya has a BA from Boğaziçi University (in Istanbul, Turkey), and an MA from Brandeis University.

In today’s podcast, we talk with Ms. Kaya about the Bayraktar TB-2 UAV, its employment in recent conflicts including Nagorno-Karabakh and Russia-Ukraine, as well as the implications of Turkey becoming a global drone manufacturer and distributor.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview:

• The Bayraktar TB-2 is a Turkish medium altitude, long endurance UAV capable of remotely controlled or autonomous flight operations. Because of its inexpensive price point and ease of use, it has been dubbed the “Kalashnikov of the 21st century.”

• The TB-2 is unique amongst combat drones in that it has a low radar cross-sectionand flight speed, thus making it difficult for air defense radar to detect. This allows the TB-2 toengage and destroy systems designed to provide short to medium  range air defense. It can deliver laser guided munitions that can adjust their trajectories in mid-flight to target.

• Turkey has been training the Azerbaijani Armed Forces on how to effectively employ the TB-2 in combat. The Azeris used them systematically in the 2nd Nagorno-Karabakh Waragainst Armenia’s Soviet and Russian-made air defense systems to breach the line of contact and take territory before the cease-fire agreement was signed.

• Their use and employment in Ukraine is different from that of Nagorno-Karabakh, as Ukraine is on the defensiveand has not trained with Turkey previously. However, it is important to note that this is the first time that the TB-2 has been used against Russian systems manned by Russian soldiers.

• In the last few years, Turkey has emerged as a drone superpower. It is one of the four leading countries in the world to produce, use, and export armed drones.The quality and relative low cost of the TB-2 has allowed Turkey to sell significant quantities to medium-sized countries without large defense budgets in Europe, Asia, and Africa. This, in turn, expands Turkey’s geopolitical influence.

• The other powers are watching. China is taking noteand seeing the importance of the relationship between 

Zach Schonbrun is a senior editor covering business and technology at The Week. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, Fast Company, ESPN the Magazine, SB Nation Longform, Vice, The Athletic, and Yahoo! Sports, among other publications.  Zach is the author of The Performance Cortex, which explores the neuroscience of motor skills, and was published by Dutton/Penguin Books in April 2018.  Before joining The Week, Zach covered five Final Fours, the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA postseason, US Open tennis and championship golf — among numerous other events — for the Times, as well as other business and sports features. Six of his articles have appeared on the front page of The New York Times. Zach received a B.A. in Economics from Syracuse in 2009 and an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia in 2011.

In today’s podcast, we talk with Zach about his book, how the brain — not the body — may be responsible for athletic prowess, and the implications for future Soldiers.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview:

• Soldiers share many characteristics with performance athletes, and researchers have identified ways to chart and measure brain activations when performing athletic tasks. Thesebrain activations provide insights into who can accomplish these tasks quicker and more accurately, helping to identify standout athletes, and possibly standout Soldiers, before they ever “take the field.”

• Movement is a very complicated system and it’s all controlled by the brain. Artificial Intelligence researchers have created computers that can beat humans in chess and Jeopardy, but roboticists still struggle with replicating motions and movements. Those who are adept at skilled movement, like star athletes, should be considered geniuses. They are using their brains in ways that challenge their decision-making, processing, understanding, and memory. 

• Emerging and current technology utilizing electroencephalogram (EEG) headsets for measuring brain activations is only the starting point. More sophisticated monitoring equipment and realistic simulation software will allow more in-depth tests to be conducted and more accurate readings to be collected.

• Neuroplasticity— the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life — is much more active at a younger age, as the brain is much more pliable. Practice and training in these younger years is vital to adequately learning required tasks and completing them successfully. New recruits should get much of their complex training early in their careers. 

• Accurately re-creating real world conditions — all real world conditions — in a training environment is absolutely essential to learning the desired task. Batting practice in baseball has little value to the player as the pitches are slower and have less movement than the pitches they will face in a live game — in essence, players are not practicing the skill they will need. Are our Soldiers practicing in conditions that they...

Army Mad Scientist interviewed the following world-class SMEs to explore how wargaming can enhance traditional training and education methods to help build better Leaders:

Ian Sullivan serves as the Senior Advisor for Analysis and ISR to the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2, at the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC G-2). This is a Tier One Defense Intelligence Senior Level (DISL) position. He is responsible for the analysis that defines and the narrative that explains the Army’s Operational Environment, which supports integration across doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy. Mr. Sullivan is a career civilian intelligence officer who has served with the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI); Headquarters, U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army, Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2 (USAREUR G-2); and as an Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) cadre member at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Prior to assuming his position at the TRADOC G-2, Mr. Sullivan led a joint NCTC Directorate of Intelligence/Central Intelligence Agency Counterterrorism Mission Center unit responsible for Weapons of Mass Destruction terrorism issues, where he provided direct intelligence support to the White House, senior policymakers, Congress, and other senior customers throughout the Government. He was promoted into the Senior Executive ranks in June 2013 as a member of the ODNI’s Senior National Intelligence Service, and transferred to the Army as a DISL employee in January 2017. Mr. Sullivan is also a frequent and valued contributor to the Mad Scientist Laboratory.

Mitchell Land has spent time in both the Navy and the Army National Guard, and has a life-long love affair with gaming war.  He is the designer of GMT’s Next War games. The series currently consists of five games (two of which are 2nd Editions) and three supplements, with more on the way.  In addition, Mr. Land was the developer for GMT’s Silver Bayonet: The First Team in Vietnam (25th Anniversary Edition) and Caesar:  Rome vs Gaul. When not playing or working on games, you can find him cycling — most often on the Katy Trail.

LTC Peter Soendergaard is an Infantry officer in the Royal Danish Army. He has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. For the last ten years, he has worked in various force development positions, from the Danish Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence to the Army Staff.  For the past four years, LTC Soendergaard has served as the Danish Army’s liaison officer to U.S. Army TRADOC.  He is currently serving in the strategic development section of the Danish Defense Command.

 

Jennifer McArdle is the Head of Research at Improbable U.S. Defense & National Security, a commercial start-up that is bringing innovative distributed simulation technology to defense. She also serves as an Adjunct Senior Fellow in the Center for a New American Security’s defense program and wargaming lab and as a Non-Resident Fellow at the Joint Special Operations University. A former professor, Ms. McArdle has served on Congressman Langevin’s cyber advisory committee and as an expert member of a NATO technical group that developed cyber effects for the military alliance’s mission and campaign simula...

COL John Antal (USA, Ret.) is a lifelong student of leadership and the art of war. His purpose in life is “to develop leaders and inspire service.” Today, he is an Amazon best-selling author, a defense analyst, a military correspondent, and a galvanic speaker. John has appeared on radio, podcast, and television shows and is the author of 16 books and hundreds of magazine articles on military and leadership subjects. His latest books are Leadership Rising (July 2021); and 7 Seconds to Die, A Military Analysis of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and the Future of Warfighting (February 2022). In the past year, based on his in-depth study of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, COL Antal has made over 108 presentations on the “changing methods of warfare” to U.S. military and national security leaders. He offers these presentations to the U.S. military at no charge and as a “Soldier for Life.” His previous The Convergence podcast — Top Attack: Lessons Learned from the 2nd Nagorno-Karabakh War — and its associated blog post remain Army Mad Scientist’s “best-selling” listens and reads to date!

In today’s podcast, COL Antal returns to discuss the challenges facing our Army in executing continuous and uninterrupted mission command in the contemporary battlespace, ensuring command post survivability, and achieving the Joint Force’s requirement for an All Domain Common Operational Picture.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview:

• Modern conflict is increasingly transparent; it is impossible to hide on the battlefield.  Consequently, it is imperative that the Army adopt and practice “masking” — a full spectrum, multi-domain effort to deceive enemy sensors and disrupt targeting.  Our Joint Force must obscure its optical, thermal, electronic, acoustic, and quantum signatures — or die! 

• Today’s centralized command posts are incredibly vulnerable to enemy fire, while “Command Posts-in-Sanctuary” — those out of reach of adversary strikes — are limited by communications capabilities. To find an appropriate middle ground, we should adopt decentralized, mobile command posts that can support command and control and mask their locations and communications. 

• It is unlikely that the United States will initiate the first strike in a conflict. Therefore, the U.S. military must consider how it will respond to a first strike by our adversaries. We should ask what we could do to prepare for a 

Army Mad Scientist interviewed the following world-class SMEs to address what we’ve learned about How Russia Fights 2.0:

Ian Sullivan serves as the Senior Advisor for Analysis and ISR to the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2, at the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC G-2). This is a Tier One Defense Intelligence Senior Level (DISL) position. He is responsible for the analysis that defines and the narrative that explains the Army’s Operational Environment, which supports integration across doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy. Mr. Sullivan is a career civilian intelligence officer who has served with the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI); Headquarters, U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army, Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2 (USAREUR G-2); and as an Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) cadre member at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Prior to assuming his position at the TRADOC G-2, Mr. Sullivan led a joint NCTC Directorate of Intelligence /Central Intelligence Agency Counterterrorism Mission Center unit responsible for Weapons of Mass Destruction terrorism issues, where he provided direct intelligence support to the White House, senior policymakers, Congress, and other senior customers throughout the Government. He was promoted into the Senior Executive ranks in June 2013 as a member of the ODNI’s Senior National Intelligence Service, and transferred to the Army as a Defense Intelligence Senior Level employee in January 2017. Mr. Sullivan is also a frequent and valued contributor to the Mad Scientist Laboratory.

Sam Bendett is an Adviser with CNA‘s Strategy, Policy, Plans and Programs Center (SP3), where he is a member of the Russia Studies Program. He is also an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. His work involves research on Russian defense and technology developments, unmanned and autonomous military systems and artificial intelligence, as well as Russian military capabilities and decision-making during crises. He is a Member of CNA’s Center for Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence, and a proclaimed Mad Scientist, having contributed multiple insightful blog posts to the Mad Scientist Laboratory addressing Russian autonomous weapons and presented informative topics during a number of Army Mad Scientist webinars and conferences. He is also a Russian military autonomy and AI SME for the DoD’s Defense Systems Information Analysis Center.

Katerina Sedova  currently serves at the Global Engagement Center in the U.S. Department of State. Formerly a Research Fellow at the Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Ms. Sedova helps coordinate efforts at the GEC’s Russia Division to analyze, expose, and counter Russia’s disinformation, including about its war in Ukraine. Following the 2016 election, the U.S. Government greatly increased its efforts to protect future ele...

MAJ John Spencer (USA-Ret.) is the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies with the Madison Policy Forum. He served over twenty-five years in the U.S. Army as an infantry Soldier, with two combat tours in Iraq as both an Infantry Platoon Leader and Company Commander. He has also served as a Ranger Instructor with the Army’s Ranger School, a Joint Chief of Staff and Army Staff intern, fellow with the Chief of Staff of the Army’s Strategic Studies Group, and Strategic Planner and Deputy Director of the Modern War Institute, where he was instrumental in the design and formation of the institute.

In today’s interview, MAJ Spencer returns to discuss what we’ve learned about LSCO, urban conflict, and the changing character of warfare from the last four plus months of Russia’s “special military operation” in eastern Ukraine.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview:

• Modern technology forces our societies, and those of our adversaries, to be more connected to the battlefield. As the Ukrainian “Tik-Tok” war demonstrates, such connectedness can allow actors outside of the war to leverage open-source intelligence to influence the conflict by providing either side with logistical support and operational advice. 

• It is important to study wars firsthand to understand how they are evolving to the modern context; the U.S. military used to employ appointed observers for this mission. Given that the battle for Kyiv is a truly urban fight, there is much the Army can learn from the conflict.

• The battle for Kyiv demonstrates that, especially in an urban environment, terrain still matters. Ukrainians flooded rivers and destroyed bridges to canalize Russian invaders into chokepoints and kill zones, demonstrating an understanding of their environment unthinkable to non-natives. 

• The Russian invasion also demonstrates the importance of civilian involvement in urban conflict, as volunteers collaborated to establish defenses in depth, targeting and ambushing their attackers. Here, too, technology played an important role. Images and messages from the Ukrainian government and their fellow citizens helped strengthen citizens’ resolve to defend their country.

• Today, Soldiers and their families are more connected by technology than ever, allowing them to live with a foot in each world. This feature of modern warfare is important as it prevents Soldiers from feeling isolated, but also gives civilian families a clearer understanding of the realities of warfare.

 

• What are we missing?  The Army is not learning the lessons of modern war.  Future conflict will happen in urban areas. ...

While Shubhi Mishra, founder and CEO of Raft, is a lawyer and data scientist by training, she’s better known as an intentional government technology (GovTech) disruptor at heart.  She loves solving complex problems, even the kind that give you a headache while you’re working through them. But that process of discovery, of realization, and coming to a solution makes it all worthwhile.  Her passion is working with bleeding-edge technology focused on the defense sector.  Raft provides an innovation space for people who are similarly mission-focused, tackling vexing challenges with passion and enthusiasm.  Ms. Mishra seeks to inspire other women in and out of the GovTech space and excite them enough to join the movement of providing better solutions and services to the defense industry through sustainable, emerging technology.

In today’s interview, Ms. Mishra discusses wicked problems in national security; finding creative, mission-focused solutions; and equipping the DoD with sustainable, emerging technology.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview:

 
Raft’s strategy seeks to build a data fabric, or mesh, on top of data lakes, to reduce silos and increase communication among data resources. This enables faster decision making, which ultimately benefits our warfighters.

 

When delivering a data product, it is important to maintain a human-centered design which considers for whom you are building the product. It is critical to experiment with the project and obtain user feedback.

 

When working with historical datasets, one must consider: [1] If the full data is present. Can other datasets be integrated to get a better picture?[2] How will we measure the success of the algorithm we are using the data to build? Will we obtain a new result, or are we simply pattern matching? [3] Who can we get comments from to ensure we have a beneficial feedback loop?

 

Warfare data presents unique challenges, as [thankfully] there is not high repetition. However, you do not necessarily need high volumes of data to get useful information. Being cautious about what outcome is being measured, using algorithms to pattern match, and enabling different values to be introduced for fair and non-biasedoutcomes can produce beneficial and informative results.

 

The Department of Defense (DoD), working with external partners, helps illuminate fresh perspectives and challenge assumptions, as well as pullnew talent. There is an appetite among private sector companies to work with the DoD, but many times companies are not aware of such opportunities.

 

Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next episode of The Convergence, to be published in a fortnight on 7 July 2022.

 

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COL Stefan Banach (USA-Ret.) is a Distinguished Member of the 75th Ranger Regiment and served in that organization for nine years, culminating with command of the 3rd Ranger Battalion from 2001-2003. He led U.S. Army Rangers during a historic night combat parachute assault into Afghanistan on October 19, 2001, as the “spearhead” for the Global War on Terror. Steve subsequently led U.S. Army Rangers in a second combat parachute assault into Al Anbar Province in western Iraq in 2003.  He served with distinction in the U.S. Army from 1983 to 2010. Since then, he has provided executive consulting services to a diverse range of clients at a number of prestigious institutions.  Steve Banach also serves as the Director, Army Management Staff College, an element of Army University responsible for “igniting the leadership potential for every Army civilian.”

In today’s interview with COL Banach, we explore non-terrestrial war, weapons of mass deception, and why we are at a pivotal point in the defense of our country.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview:

• The United States is experiencing a new form of conflict known as “non-terrestrial warfare.” Our adversaries no longer seek to confront us on the traditional battlefield. Instead, they will use non-tangible capabilities in cyber, big data, space, and the information space to influence entire societies and create tangible results, the effects of which may remain invisible for weeks, months, or even years. It is an unbounded, global, strategic form of maneuver, performed by nation and non- state actors that is an enduring, new approach to warfare. 

• Non-terrestrial warfare encompasses strategies like mis-and disinformation — weapons of mass deception — where social media has emerged as a tool that can influence the behavior of entire populations.  Data collected on human behavior while operating in this space creates new opportunities for actors to understand, exploit, and manipulate collective behaviors. This is a pre-meditated and well-orchestrated campaign that we are seeing implemented in algorithmic warfare today, dividing populations and creating dis-equilibrium and systemic shock in our society — it is a brilliant, elegant, strategic form of maneuver that is being levied against us.  It is not by accident, and it is pervasive and growing!
• As witnessed in the on-going conflict in Ukraine, the role of non-state actors is increasingly important.Elon Musk maneuvered Spacex satellites and provided Starlink ground stations to the Ukrainian government to ensure continued satellite internet communications in the face of Russian cyberattacks.  Hackers targeted Russian communications infrastructure, while Ukrainian citizens engaged in hybrid warfare in the defense of their homeland.  In non-terrestrial war, the lines between civilians and combatants will conti...