13 May 2025

Neocentaur: A Model for Cognitive Evolution Across the Levels of War

William J. Barry and Blair Wilcox

The US Army is at an inflection point. Geostrategic and technological shifts are requiring rapid adaptation. On May 1, the secretary of the Army and the Army chief of staff published a letter to the force recognizing several initiatives to deliver warfighting capabilities, optimize force structure, and eliminate waste. Among the guidance to increase warfighting lethality, the Army’s seniormost civilian and uniformed leaders noted the requirement to shift toward capability-based portfolios that integrate AI into command-and-control nodes to accelerate decision-making and preserve the initiative. At the US Army War College, new approaches to AI capabilities are both a concept and a reality. The neocentaur model, which describes human-hybrid intelligence across the levels of war, has been tested in the classroom and in strategic wargaming. Furthermore, our ongoing research presents a technical solution, presenting deterministic AI capabilities that are more suitable for military use when lives are on the line. To maintain military superiority, the United States must adopt a human-hybrid approach—the neocentaur model—that leverages deterministic models, rather than purely generative, to mitigate the risks of cognitive atrophy and formulaic decision-making.

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