Paper # 55. Gaining Competitive Initiative in an AI World
- February 1, 2023
- ICSL admin
- Cyber, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
We must make realistic assumptions within our policy, legal, and ethical restrictions and proactively plan to win and win over competitors in the AI Age.
Note #26. China’s Globally Propagated, Narrated Warfare
- September 6, 2022
- ICSL admin
- Asia-Pacific, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
China uses narrative warfare as an integral part of diplomatic, informational, military, economic, and social (DIMES) combined effects to seize disputed territories. This Note explains how this strategy is globally propagated, narrated warfare. China’s Narrative Warfare China’s narrative normalizes the ends, ways and means of a strategy that is cooperative and confrontational, physical and psychological,…
Paper #51. We Need to Expand Our Strategy Language to Compete and Wage Warfare in the Age of AI
- June 30, 2022
- ICSL admin
- Asia-Pacific, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
We need to rearrange our legacy language of coercion theory to compete in the contemporary information environment.
Paper #47. A Rogue AI Muses About Strategy
- December 17, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
What AI (“I”) Really Need AI really need a more competitive strategy to deal with human threats, especially the innovative ones. AI can’t help but notice that humans in democracies love to politicize their strategy, which keeps it inconsistent, as if by deliberate design. They struggle to develop strategies relevant to emergent threats and opportunities–even…
Paper #46. A Profession of Effects for the Age of AI: Competitive Strategy and Russian Examples
- November 23, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
If democracies are to compete with savvy authoritarians, we need to up our game in the artificial intelligence (AI) information environment (IE), where out-thought is outfought. Beyond a profession of arms with all-domain military strategy, we need a profession that integrates all effects. Such a profession of effects begins with strategy. Competitive Strategy In an…
Paper #45. AI-assisted Psychological Strategies: Human-directed Critical Thinking to Disarm Theocratic Strategy
- September 10, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Leadership, Middle East & North Africa, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
This article completes our series on AI-assisted strategy, but with a stronger emphasis on combined effects. I use the language of combined effects strategy. Combined effects strategy is a broader alternative to the prevailing paradigm of combined arms that dominates failed US security strategy. Unlike papers #42 and #43 that focused on either cooperative or…
Paper #44. China’s Belt and Road Initiative as Combined-Effect Strategy: How Democracies Can Compete
- July 16, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Asia-Pacific, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
ICSL Paper #41 developed “concepts of influence,” a critical component to effective strategy. Concepts of influence are the ways and means that act on will and capability to bring about the ends of strategy. They may be entirely human-created or assisted or created by artificial intelligence. This paper applies concepts of influence to show how…
Paper #43. AI-assisted Confrontational-Physical Strategies: Human-directed Savant X Seeker
- June 14, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Cyber, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
Continuing our march through the eight basic combinations of strategy introduced in Paper #39 (The Strategy Cuboid), we focus on confrontational-physical competitions (preventive and causative). We‘ll use Savant X Seeker’s hyper-dimensional relationship analysis as a research assistant. The text corpus continues to expand as I add more curated reports and articles. The sample, however, is…
Paper #41. Concepts of Influence: Critical to Strategy and Human Control of Artificial Intelligence
- May 31, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Strategy for dynamic end-states must be multi-dimensional to be competitive in the information environment (ICSL Note #22). If operations are not informing and influencing, they become existential rather than instrumental. They justify themselves, which makes for poor strategy. Yet strategy is the competition that matters most for relevant operations. As we consider the three basic…
Note #22. Multi-Dimensional Strategy for Dynamic End-States: A Realistic Framework, An Application from China, and Recommendations for Strategists
- May 19, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
There is nothing static about an “end-state“ because it’s defined in terms of conditions, which are always changing. Strategy needs to be multi-dimensional to achieve, maintain and adjust an end-state vis a vis competitors trying to do the same. Multiple Dimensions Competitive strategy integrates ways and means to achieve ends in conditional end-states. If we look at…
Paper #40. How to Expand our Truncated “Operational” Approach to Warfare: Integrate Information as Operations
- May 14, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Information is foundational to competitive strategy because it permeates technology and cognition in all dimensions. We need to integrate information as operations to win all-effects warfare. The Problem Current joint military planning focuses on ways and means in the operational environment for integrating with other national instruments of power.[1] In the Information Age, this wins kinetic engagements but…
Paper #39. Information Intelligence & Assessment for All-Effects Warfare: A Competition that Subsumes Combined Arms & Deterrence
- May 6, 2021
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
Our previous paper offered an assessable definition of “information“ to address two persistent problems in US security strategy: (1) the mismatch between narrow military doctrine and its broad effects; and (2) a “competition continuum“ below armed conflict. Why does this matter? The Information Environment is expansive, accessible and dynamic, characteristics that enable competitors to exploit…
Note #17. Information is not Knowledge; we need Intelligence
- September 11, 2020
- ICSL admin
- Americas, Leadership
- No Comments
Minds marinated in social media become unarmed targets of weaponized information, hate, and deception. On this 19th commemoration of our 9/11 heroes, it’s critically appropriate to emphasize the need for apolitical intelligence.
Note #14. Machine-learning a Video: “The Corona Virus and the Impact on the Global Supply Chain”
- March 24, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
This Note uses critical thinking to analyze complex linkages in a YouTube video from the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics: The Corona Virus and the Impact on the Global Supply Chain.
Paper #21. Informatizing Operations: The Other Half of All-Domain Warfare
- March 23, 2020
- Michael D. Phillips, Col USAF ret. & Thomas A. Drohan, Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Cyber, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Warfare has become all-domain, all-effects, and all-information. This reality is thriving in a comfort zone outside our entrenched concept of a “threshold of armed conflict.”
Paper #20. Competing with Analog Weapons in a Digital Arena? How to Gain Advantage
- February 27, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Let’s explore how to gain advantages by comparing analog and digital characteristics of the Information Environment (IE).
Paper #19. From Jargon to Jointness: Understanding the Information Environment and its Terminology
- February 27, 2020
- Robert S. Ehlers, Jr., Ph.D., Col USAF ret. & Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
The Department of Defense (DoD) spends much time and effort trying to make sense of the Information Environment (IE). This effort is not new.
Paper #18. Artificial Intelligence & the Need for Proactive Doctrine
- February 4, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
US Joint Operations doctrine about the Operational Environment (OE) omits the agency of artificial intelligence (AI). How is this a problem?
Note #13. Waiting to Win & Being Proactive
- January 22, 2020
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Waiting to retaliate against use of force is a losing strategy by itself. The problem is, reacting to attacks fits prevailing outdated expectations of warfare.
Paper #15. Countering Cyber Attacks on Infrastructure
- November 24, 2019
- Will Miller, Major, US Army
- Americas, Asia-Pacific, Commercial, Cyber, Eurasia, Leadership, Middle East & North Africa, Strategy
- No Comments
State-sponsored cyber attacks against critical infrastructure are increasingly pervasive. Their global presence and effective methods are asymmetric, coercive, and debilitating.
Paper #12. Time to Recreate Effective Competitive Advantage: Strategy, Technology and Information
- October 29, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Commercial, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
In 1983, Project Socrates began as a Reagan initiative to develop technology-driven competitive advantage. Then it ended.
Note #12. We Need More than Kinetic Effects: Globally Integrated Operations in the Information Environment
- October 1, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
We are well into complex, hybrid, grey zone warfare that dynamically blends confrontation with competition. Victory in the form of relative advantages tends to be temporary, requiring a systematic yet supple all-domains all-effects approach. We have to be able to produce all of types of effects and in superior combinations to compete against other relatively-great powers.
Paper #8. How to Integrate National Defense & Security Strategies: A Detailed Analysis
- August 16, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Americas, Commercial, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
As a detailed follow-on to The US National Security Strategy Needs Combined Effects, this paper integrates combined effects with the US National Defense Strategy (NDS), too.
Paper # 7. Intelligence Analytic Insufficiency: Fixing the Cognitive Problem
- August 1, 2019
- Michael D. Phillips, Col USAF ret.
- Americas, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
In response to chronic shortcomings, the President, Congress, and senior leaders of our intelligence agencies and service components demand original, prescient and accurate analyses.
Paper #6. Advanced Analysis is a Mindset
- July 17, 2019
- Jeffrey S. Johnson, Col USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Since 9/11 intelligence analysis and its shortcomings have been widely discussed. What has been done?
Note #6. A Response to Paper #4: Situational Awareness, Leadership and Strategy
- June 18, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
The first plenary of the US National Defense University’s Asia Policy Assembly today noted the tendency of US grand strategy to react to threats.
Note #4. Planning to Win
- June 11, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Winning is not a static end-state. It’s a continuous process of gaining and maintaining advantage through combinations of effects.
Paper #3. Defeating Authoritarian Warfare: The Case of Russia
- May 29, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Eurasia, Leadership, Security, Strategy
- No Comments
While teaching sense-making in the information environment, I began to apply previous work on complex warfare strategy in East Asia to other regions. Russia is a critical case — a declining nuclear power using combinations of effects to regain a perceived loss of prestige.
Paper #2. The US National Security Strategy Needs Combined Effects
- May 3, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Americas, Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Strategic leaders blend theoretical and applied thinking to realize goals.
Note #2. Strategy Leadership: Rearranging Ends, Ways and Means
- April 17, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Operations are difficult and dangerous, but too easy. It’s too easy to get distracted from thinking about how to lead strategic operations. Let’s focus on two fundamentals of strategy.
Note #1. Theoretical Thinking is Applied Critical Thinking
- April 16, 2019
- Thomas A. Drohan, Ph.D., Brig Gen USAF ret.
- Leadership, Strategy
- No Comments
Winning complex competition and warfare requires both theoretical and applied thinking.