The use of AI in war games can change military strategy

The emergence of commercially viable generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform a wide range of industries. This transformation will be particularly profound in contemporary military education.

Generative AI will fundamentally reshape war gaming – analytical games that simulate aspects of warfare at the tactical, operational or strategic level – by enabling senior military and political leaders to pursue better tactical solutions to unexpected crises, solving more complex logistical and operational challenges and deepen their strategic challenges. think.

The art of war gaming

From its inception, war gaming has been intended to provide commanders with realistic training that could otherwise only be obtained through hands-on experience.

Originally instituted by Prussian staff officers in the early 19th century and using highly detailed scale models and complex graphs to calculate casualties, war games often serve as educational exercises designed to give commanders experience against a living opponent.

By forcing commanders to adapt to an opponent’s tactics and rely on their own intuition to deal with unexpected situations, war games are an attempt to mirror the human combat experience.

War gaming also provides a way to test operational plans, allowing leaders to gain experience planning large-scale operations and dealing with complex logistical challenges.

By visualizing vast distances on a single board, operational war games allow doctrine to be tested on a scale impossible for most professional military forces to replicate.

From the Japanese attacks on Midway, which were rehearsed and planned primarily through war games, to NATO’s long-running series of naval war games, such exercises are often a crucial part of operational planning.

Finally, war games provide the basis for a common strategic culture within a country’s military and national security institutions. Because these exercises often reflect the most likely crises facing senior military and political leaders, war games provide officers with an opportunity to share their perspectives.

Generative AI

AI is already being used in active conflict situations, including by Israel in Gaza. The rise of generative AI is also poised to profoundly transform the practice of war gaming as an exercise to train human commanders, perfect operational plans and doctrine, and develop stronger strategic cultures.

As with other strategy games such as chess, Risk And To gogenerative AI will be able to challenge commanders’ handling of battlefield tactics.

Rather than relying on human intuition, AI commanders will be able to model an opponent’s tactics almost flawlessly, allowing enemy officers to train against a range of contemporary forces at virtually no cost.

As AI systems have become increasingly adaptable, commanders will also be able to train against facsimiles of themselves, helping them overcome their own weaknesses.

This process may even eventually extend to human-machine interactions. Advances in AI could enable military leaders to gain additional competencies in dealing with advanced military AI and receive tactical advice from a broader range of perspectives.

In addition to training commanders to take on the battlefields of the future, AI-enabled war games can also lead to significant improvements in operational planning. Borrowing from commercial industries, AI can potentially direct equipment and personnel to support specific campaign objectives while optimizing flexibility to respond to unexpected threats.

Given the enormous computing power, AI war games will also allow professional military planners to test their assumptions against a virtually endless range of possible contingencies, strengthening internal decision-making processes and refining pre-existing models.

Finally, generative AI will allow war games to incorporate more strategy, allowing both military and political leaders to gain valuable insights and experiences.

Preparing for uncertainty

By generating a wider range of underlying scenarios to guide play, AI will also allow participants to consider a multitude of possible developments, each stretching into virtually limitless possibilities.

This allows participants to adapt to changes in each player’s strategic calculations, including alliance structure, economic considerations, political developments, and societal trends, all of which put pressure on military strategy in the real world.

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AI’s ability to introduce new developments into gameplay, including through its faulty assumptions, will force commanders to prepare for uncertainty and the ‘fog of war’, an increasingly necessary skill in the complex environment of contemporary combat.

AI-enabled strategic war games will also increase the likelihood that senior leaders will be forced to contend with doubts about their own strategic doctrines, contributing to deeper discussions within their respective organizations.

Revolution in military science

The use of war gaming as a tactical, operational and strategic exercise has been a hallmark of advanced militaries since World War I and has enabled political and military leaders to conduct wars with complexities unimaginable just a generation ago.

The rise of generative AI and its contribution to war gaming is likely to lead to a new revolution in military science. These games will enhance the realism of training exercises and prepare leaders for the future of conflict, solving complex logistical challenges and fueling new innovations in the overarching military strategy.

As today’s battles become increasingly chaotic and complex, learning the art of war has become even more important.