[Editor’s Note:  The TRADOC G-2 appreciates the value of Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) in informing us about emergent trends across the Operational Environment (OE). For almost two years, analysts within the G-2 ACE collated insights on Russia’s on-going “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine to learn about the contemporary Russian way of war, understand how they were adapting and innovating across enduring Large Scale Combat Operations, and identify potential ramifications for U.S. Army...

  [Editor’s Note:  Humanity is entering an era of hyper-innovation as the potential of Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and Neurocognitive Sciences are harnessed to revolutionize human endeavors. As these exponential convergences of technologies spin ever faster cycles of adaptation and innovation, the quest for dominance and advantage will favor those who jettison outdated industrial age processes and implement (and resource!) whole-of-nation strategies integrating private and public...

[Editor’s Note: Crowdsourcing remains an effective tool for harvesting ideas and concepts from a wide array of individuals, helping us to diversify thought and challenge conventional assumptions. Army Mad Scientist seeks to crowdsource the intellect of the Nation (i.e., you — our community of action!) with two concurrent opportunities this Spring. In our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, we explore these crowdsourcing opportunities — Read the highlights here, listen to the podcast,...

“China sits in INDOPACOM, but the playground is Africa.” [Editor’s Note:  Regular readers of the Mad Scientist Laboratory will recall that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) reported, “Relatively poor countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia will account for almost all global population growth during the next two decades…” The World Economic Forum supported this assessment, projecting that Africa’s population is likely to triple by 2100. Specifically, Nigeria is...

This is a special off-schedule episode of The Convergence where we talk with a mystery guest, possibly for the last time!

[Editor’s Note:  It has almost been a decade since U.S. forces and coalition partners assisted Iraqi government forces in dislodging ISIS fighters from Mosul in what some observers described as the toughest urban battle since World War II.  With the Islamic Resistance Movement’s (aka Hamas) October 7, 2023 cross-border terror attacks on Israel and subsequent Israel Defense Forces’ combat operations in Gaza, new lessons are emerging about engaging an entrenched adversary across 360 square...

[Editor’s Note:  Grizzled readers of the Mad Scientist Laboratory will recall their well-thumbed copies of the forty-year-old FM 100-2 series, The Soviet Army.  U.S. Army Soldiers and Leaders from the Cold War-era were expected to know their Soviet adversaries’ Operations and Tactics; Troops, Organization, and Equipment; and Specialized Warfare and Rear Area Support cold — as international tensions and crises could (and frequently did!) escalate to trigger alerts at a moment’s notice, sending...

[Editor’s Note:  As longtime readers of the Army’s Mad Scientist Laboratory know, our adversaries are deploying capabilities to fight the U.S. Joint Force through multiple layers of stand-off in all domains – space, cyber, air, sea, and land. Per the Defense Intelligence Agency‘s Challenges to Security in Space 2022: Space Reliance in an Era of Competition and Expansion: “Between 2019 and 2021 the combined operational space fleets of China and Russia have grown by approximately 70 percent....

[Editor’s Note:  Regular readers of the Mad Scientist Laboratory are familiar with the potentially disruptive effects of cognitive and neurowarfare. As guest blogger Robert McCreight observed, “Most non-kinetic threats — or the NKT spectrum — consist of silent, largely undetectable technologies capable of inflicting damaging, debilitating, and degrading physical and neural effects on its unwitting targets…  A determined and patient covert enemy can inflict strategic damage non-kinetically...

[Editor’s Note:  Regular consumers of Army Mad Scientist content — via this blog site and The Convergence podcast — understand how wargaming can enhance Professional Military Education (PME), hone cognitive warfighting skills, and broaden our understanding of the Operational Environment. Wargaming removes hierarchies and encourages players to attempt innovative solutions, while also creating a safe environment in which to fail repeatedly and learn from mistakes.  Wargaming can also help us...

[Editor’s Note:  As we reported earlier this month, “The Operational Environment is increasingly lethal with the ubiquity of sensors and proliferation of battlefield automation facilitating effective precision and massed strike capabilities.  Forces that can be sensed are targeted, and if targeted, are destroyed or rendered inoperable. ” This increasingly transparent battlespace has been wrought by the democratization and convergence of commercial satellite imagery, inexpensive Unmanned...

[Editor’s Note:  Regular consumers of Army Mad Scientist content — via this blog site and The Convergence podcast — will understand how wargaming can enhance Professional Military Education (PME), hone cognitive warfighting skills, and broaden our understanding of the Operational Environment.  Wargaming removes hierarchies and encourages players to attempt innovative solutions, while also creating a safe environment in which to fail repeatedly and learn from mistakes.  Wargaming can also help...

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist continues to explore issues impacting the Operational Environment, especially those directly affecting U.S. Army operations in the contemporary battlespace. Over the past decade-plus, dual use automation technologies have increasingly been weaponized by state and non-state actors alike, democratizing warfighting capabilities in the air, land, and sea domains.  In the air domain, Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) initially provided Intelligence, Surveillance,...

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist has extensively explored how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) can be harnessed to enhance our Warfighters’ ability to fight at machine speed and sustain our decisive Soldier overmatch. But as frequent contributor COL Stefan J. Banach (USA-Ret.) has noted, the evolution and convergence of technologies has added a new non-kinetic battle space to conventional warfare, which in turn requires the recruiting and retention of adaptive...

[Editor’s Note:  Regular readers of the Mad Scientist Laboratory and listeners to The Convergence podcast know that our Pacing Threat — China — is feverishly modernizing its People’s Liberation Army (PLA).  In addressing the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on October 16, 2022, China’s President Xi Jinping stated that quickly elevating the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to a world-class army is a strategic requirement, and that China would adhere to the integrated...

[Editor’s Note:  Sunday morning’s tropical idyll was shattered as the adversary’s surprise attack caught our naval, ground, and air forces completely unprepared. An hour and a half later, more than 2,400 U.S. Service members and civilians had been killed, with almost another 1,200 wounded. Despite three missed tactical warnings that could have alerted our local defenses of the impending attack (perhaps reducing its effectiveness), senior Army and Navy leaders on-site remained blithely unaware...

[Editor’s Note: In recent weeks, Mad Scientist Laboratory has featured a number of podcasts and associated blog posts exploring the democratization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential ramifications for Warfighters and the Operational Environment (OE). From generating better proposals from a broader array of defense contractors, exploring the future of warfare and OE trends, the convergence of neuroscience and AI, and the future of learning through emerging technologies — large...

"We found that people systematically were more willing to reveal confidential or sensitive information to a virtual human than to a real person"   [Editor’s Note: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an emerging game-changer technology for our Warfighters — as Dr. James Mancillas espoused in a previous post, “AI systems offer the potential to continue maximizing the advantages of information superiority, while overcoming limits in human cognitive abilities.” Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob...

[Editor's Note:  Crowdsourcing and Storytelling are two of Army Mad Scientist's most effective tools in exploring future possibilities regarding the Operational Environment. Crowdsourcing helps us harvest ideas, thoughts, and concepts from a wide variety of interested individuals, helping us to diversify thought and challenge conventional assumptions.  Storytelling — creative fictional writing and narrative building — helps us to explore how concepts, technologies, and other capabilities...

[Editor’s Note:  Mad Scientist is an Army initiative and Community of Action that continually explores the Operational Environment and the changing character of warfare. We connect the intellect of the Nation to the Army and serve as an on-ramp for academia, industry, and other parts of the Government to share their ideas and innovations. Our latest episode of The Convergence podcast features “rock star” proclaimed Mad Scientists — Dr. James Giordano and Dr. James Canton — discussing the...

In today’s post and podcast, we feature the winning submission from our Back to the Future Writing Contest — Task Force Wolf — as a short audiobook and then interview its author — proclaimed Mad Scientist LTC Daniel Gomez — about his inspiration for the story, the impact of democratized technology and ubiquitous connectivity on the future of warfare, and why we should be experimenting with these commercially-available capabilities — Enjoy!] [If the podcast dashboard is not rendering...

“The Convergence of AI, robotics, and cyber-warfare could create new and highly complex military capabilities such as autonomous weapons systems that can make decisions in real time” — ChatGPT [Editor’s Note:  As described in the previous episode of The Convergence podcast, large language models like ChatGPT — democratizing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) — will potentially revolutionize (and disrupt!) how people around the globe access, process, and generate information from the...

[Editor’s Note: Large language models like ChatGPT — democratizing the power of artificial intelligence — have rocked industry and academia with their potential to revolutionize how humans process vast quantities of information and generate content. Our Federal Government, including the Department of Defense and its constituent Services, will similarly be transformed as myriad processes begin to harness this capability to augment traditionally human endeavors. But this sea change will require...

General Robert Brown (USA-Ret.) is an experienced commander who has led at every level, from platoon through Army Service Component Command. Serving as Commanding General of U.S. Army Pacific, General Brown led the Army’s largest service component command responsible for 106,000 Soldiers across the Indo-Pacific Region before his September 2019 retirement. General Brown is a 1981 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he was commissioned as an Infantry Second...