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Trusting AI: Integrating Artificial Intelligence into the Army’s Professional Expert Knowledge
Get PDFIntegrating artificially intelligent technologies for military purposes poses a special challenge. In previous arms races, such as the race to atomic bomb technology during World War II, expertise resided within the Department of Defense. But in the artificial intelligence (AI) arms race, expertise dwells mostly within industry and academia. Also, unlike the development of the bomb, effective employment of AI technology cannot be relegated to a few specialists; almost everyone will have to develop some level of AI and data literacy. Complicating matters is AI-driven systems can be a “black box” in that humans may not be able to explain some output, much less be held accountable for its consequences. This inability to explain coupled with the cession to a machine of some functions normally performed by humans risks the relinquishment of some jurisdiction and, consequently, autonomy to those outside the profession. Ceding jurisdiction could impact the American people’s trust in their military and, thus, its professional standing. To avoid these outcomes, creating and maintaining trust requires integrating knowledge of AI and data science into the military’s professional expertise. This knowledge covers both AI technology and how its use impacts command responsibility; talent management; governance; and the military’s relationship with the US government, the private sector, and society.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1955/thumbnail.jp
SRAD Director\u27s Corner: Afghanistan: The Logic of Failing, Fast and Slow
Get PDFIn the fifth installment of the SRAD Director’s Corner, “Afghanistan: The Logic of Failing, Fast and Slow,” George Shatzer focuses on the failure of the US-led war and reconstruction campaign in Afghanistan. He reviews The Forty-year War in Afghanistan: A Chronicle Foretold by Tariq Ali and The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan by Elliot Ackerman. He brings personal experience to bear in his review, painting a picture of why the United States failed in Afghanistan and posing these failures as lessons that must be learned before the next war. The books also provide insights for strategists attempting to plan for security in the region
Book Review: Useful Captives: The Role of POWs in American Military Conflicts
Get PDFEditors: Daniel Krebs and Lorien Foote
Reviewed by Dr. Michael E. Lynch, senior historian, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College
Published on April 7, 2023. A book of useful and thought-provoking essays, Useful Captives: The Role of POWs in American Military History explores 300 years of wars and the role POWs have played in them. Reviewer Dr. Michael Lynch walks readers through more than half of the groups featured in the book.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters_bookshelf/1001/thumbnail.jp
Book Review: Fighting for Time: Rhodesia’s Military and Zimbabwe’s Independence
Get PDFAuthor: Charles D. Melson
Reviewed by Charles G. Thomas, associate professor of comparative studies, Air University Global College
The struggle for Rhodesia, otherwise known as the Bush War, centered on the decolonization of Rhodesia and involved ugly racial dynamics. The reviewer sees this work as “as comprehensive and critical as a single volume may be about Rhodesia’s military during the Bush War.”https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters_bookshelf/1009/thumbnail.jp
A Call to Action: Lessons from Ukraine for the Future Force
Get PDFFifty years ago, the US Army faced a strategic inflection point after a failed counterinsurgency effort in Vietnam. In response to lessons learned from the Yom Kippur War, the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command was created to reorient thinking and doctrine around the conventional Soviet threat. Today’s Army must embrace the Russo-Ukrainian conflict as an opportunity to reorient the force into one as forward-thinking and formidable as the Army that won Operation Desert Storm. This article suggests changes the Army should make to enable success in multidomain large-scale combat operations at today’s strategic inflection point
The Future Role of Strategic Landpower
Get PDFRecent Russian aggression in Ukraine has reenergized military strategists and senior leaders to evaluate the role of strategic Landpower. American leadership in the European theater has mobilized allies and partners to reconsider force postures for responding to possible aggression against NATO members. Although Russian revisionist activity remains a threat in Europe, the challenges in the Pacific for strategic Landpower must also be considered. At the same time, the homeland, the Arctic, climate change, and the results of new and emerging technology also challenge the application of strategic Landpower. This publication serves as part of an enduring effort to evaluate strategic Landpower’s role, authorities, and resources for accomplishing the national strategic goals the Joint Force may face in the next conflict. This study considers multinational partners, allies, and senior leaders that can contribute to overcoming these enduring challenges. The insights derived from this study, which can be applied to both the European and Indo-Pacific theaters, should help leaders to consider these challenges, which may last a generation. Deterrence demands credible strategic response options integrated across warfighting functions. This valuable edition will continue the dialogue about addressing these issues as well as other emerging ones.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1959/thumbnail.jp
Book Review: Team America: Patton, MacArthur, Marshall, Eisenhower, and the World They Forged
Get PDFAuthor: Robert L. O’Connell
Reviewed by Rev. Dr. Wylie W. Johnson, US Army War College class of 2010
Although early twentieth-century America’s Army was small, meagerly funded, short on equipment, and rife with other struggles, it saw the rise of great leaders. Team America: Patton, MacArthur, Marshall, Eisenhower, and the World They Forged focuses on four of them. They came from different backgrounds, yet “Together they accounted for 19 stars; together they brought about victory in their generation. Two became Chief of Staff of the Army. One rose to become the US Commander in Chief.”https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters_bookshelf/1021/thumbnail.jp
Book Review: The Air War in Vietnam
Get PDFAuthor: Michael E. Weaver
Reviewed by Vince Alcazar, Air Force (retired) planner and fighter pilot, Department of Defense
The Air War in Vietnam addresses President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration’s use of airpower (or lack of it) and why American airpower underperformed, as well as airpower innovations that influenced the US warfare model in the Vietnam War. The reviewer bills this work as “…an indispensable volume of airpower scholarship. It is a richly developed analysis of airpower in a decade-long war with challenging hybrid characteristics and shifting US strategies.”https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters_bookshelf/1025/thumbnail.jp
From the Editor in Chief
Get PDFWelcome to the Winter 2023–24 demi-issue of Parameters. Released approximately one month before the full issue of the journal, the demi-issue addresses developing current events and topics critical to our readership, previews content for the forthcoming full issue, and tackles the big questions being asked today in the fields of military strategy and defense policy. This demi-issue includes two special commentaries focused on the Russia-Ukraine War
Ukraine’s Lessons for Future Combat: Unmanned Aerial Systems and Deep Strike
Get PDFThe Russia-Ukraine War holds many lessons for the US Army and American policymakers and leaders on the nature and role of reconnaissance-strike complexes in modern combat, especially Ukraine’s development of a battle-management system that fuses unmanned aerial systems and satellite reconnaissance to enable the fire coordination for deep strikes into the enemy rear. In the research presented here, open-source analysis and interviews in Ukraine focus on the development and employment of reconnaissance-strike complexes with respect to deep strike and the likelihood of mutual territorial attack