Using Artificial Intelligence to Help Human Commanders Fight Future Indo-Pacific Wars

Military forces are beginning to use artificial intelligence (AI) in warfighting. One of the first AI uses is in decision support systems (DSSs), computerised tools that assist commanders in understanding the battlefield, planning future courses of action and directing their forces. The use of such AI-enabled DSSs by humans creates a shared cognition. The use of DSSs in Gaza and Ukraine has revealed both their strengths and shortcomings, and suggested ways that the nature and character of war may change. These various aspects reflect that AI brings a new collective intelligence to the waging of war that thinks fundamentally differently from that of humans alone. This article discusses some implications of using AI to help guide humans in fighting future wars in the Indo-Pacific. The first part of the article examines military AI-enabled DSSs; the second discusses their recent use in the Gaza and Ukraine Wars; the third considers some implications of this initial use of AI-enabled DSS in war; the fourth section looks forward to consider US contingency plans for a hypothetical AI-enabled DSS battle of the Taiwan Straits; the conclusion proposes some steps Indo-Pacific armed forces may need to take to partly address the identified problems.