Alessandra Nisch
Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of ...

President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.

Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of Applied Friction

Future

How to Describe the Future? Large-Language Models and the Future of Military Decision Making

How to Describe the Future? Large-Language Models and the Future of Military Decision Making

Today, leaders across the world are seeing the early effects of another transformational technology: widely available large-language models. Viewed as the first step in true artificial general intelligence, large-language models incorporate massive amounts of data from books and articles into training sets that allow them to recognize patterns between words and images. Large-language models will likely have a larger impact on the battlefield than autonomous drones due to their ability to automate the many aspects of staff work that prevent military leaders from focusing on tactics and strategy.

Historical Guideposts: Illuminating the Future of Warfare

Historical Guideposts: Illuminating the Future of Warfare

A nation’s political and military leaders must objectively seek out and use history's lessons as guideposts, capturing and applying lessons learned from the most repeated, catastrophic missteps of others to remain adaptable to future warfare's most probable scenarios. History matters more in avoiding past catastrophes than predicting specific events years into the future.

When Predicting the Future, Remember, You’re Probably Wrong

When Predicting the Future, Remember, You’re Probably Wrong

History remains the best guide to predicting the future — but such predictions are still more likely than not to be wrong. Those who postulate and prognosticate on the future of warfare, and those consuming their output, would be well served by keeping this in mind. Such is the nature of predicting the future writ large, and this applies in the realm of warfare.

#Reviewing The Kill Chain

#Reviewing The Kill Chain

Christian Brose’s The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare is a book about death. It is a book about Senator John McCain’s legacy after pursuing defense reform as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. It is a book that makes a case for the death of the current tradition of American power projection. Correspondingly it is a book about the desired death of a defense acquisitions ecosystem that has, according to Brose, contributed to building a military ill-equipped for the 21st century.

The Ones to Watch: A Net Assessment of the Global Future

The Ones to Watch: A Net Assessment of the Global Future

Volatile. Uncertain. Complex. Ambiguous. Pick your euphemism. The world can be both rich with culture and diversity and at the same time violently unforgiving. From nuclear-ambitious despots to resurgent Cold War adversaries, from refugee crises to climate change, threats and challenges exist in every corner of the globe. The question most often posed each year is which of these threats and challenges deserve our utmost focus? Where should we target our effort? What truly awaits us over the horizon?