Combatant commands generating war plans ‘faster and sooner’ with AI
The U.S. military’s nuclear and mobility forces are using AI to generate higher-quality options for logistics and sustainment maneuvers and operations, according to two combatant commanders who lead them.
“We are constantly discovering new areas and new ways to apply these tools, and in each case we are finding that we can get to solutions and get to meaningful conversations sooner — with better information — and, actually, it’s making us stronger and much, much faster,” said Gen. Randall Reed, the commander of U.S. Transportation Command.
During a joint interview with DefenseScoop at a Sierra Nevada Corporation facility in Colorado last week, Reed and U.S. Strategic Command Commander Adm. Richard Correll said their teams are increasingly deploying AI and machine learning to speed up planning processes for routing and asset management.
“Not to sound trite,” Correll noted, “but we’re at an inflection point, and this technology is accelerating — and it is the mega-trend that underpins this discussion of the changing character of warfare.”
Stratcom is known for its management of America’s nuclear arsenal. Beyond that work, the command supplies global surveillance and intelligence to other commands, including capabilities to help ensure the logistics networks and nodes that Transcom relies on to move troops and equipment are not disrupted by adversaries.
Correll said Transcom enables “so many different aspects of Stratcom’s mission” to deliver strategic deterrence to the nation while also supporting multiple, real-world military campaigns.
“The obvious one is the global strike capability,” Correll told DefenseScoop, referring to the strategic U.S. military assets and operational doctrine.
Different combatant commanders will receive instructions from the defense secretary to drive certain outcomes when new conflicts or issues arise.
In some cases, Reed said Transcom may provide forces for Stratcom or other commands to complete particular parts of the missions. Transcom could play a part in posturing or repositioning other commands’ forces to ensure everyone and everything is where they need to be for the operation to succeed.
“It’s much more complicated than just providing an airplane, and it’s much more complicated than a logistics node — it’s really Transcom going back with its global perspective to assess what needs to happen around the entire world to make sure that we are set, and in some cases set ahead of [Correll], in order for him to do his job,” Reed explained. “By including AI, we can generate options for him faster and sooner for him to consider, such that he can accelerate the development of options for his scheme of maneuver.”
Offering another modern use case, Reed said Transcom is also deploying AI and machine learning to better gauge natural elements that could influence the military’s operations and movements.
“One important thing for us is weather and environmental factors, such as sea states. AI helps us to predict when we can accelerate a flow through a certain area, or when we may be slowed down, or when we may have to change a routing and that kind of thing,” Reed told DefenseScoop.
For Stratcom, AI is allowing personnel to “accelerate decision loops” at a faster pace than U.S. adversaries, Correll said, noting that the technology is also “enabling all kinds of insights” for the “military element of national power.”
“Data advantage for decision advantage for warfighting advantage — that’s how I think about it,” he said. “And within Stratcom’s portfolio, when you’re talking about our strategic nuclear capabilities, we will be very deliberate about the technology we will employ [and] we will maintain a human-in-the-loop for decision-making.”
