Elise Annett
The public acknowledgement of the increasing use of decision-based artificial intelligence (AI) in U.S. defense provides a backdrop to a structural reordering of how military missions will be generated, exercised, and contested. The declassification of U.S. interest in AI-enabled decision operations, coinciding with the National Defense Authorization Act, the National Strategic Security Study, and the 2026 Responsible AI in the Military Domain summit advances a strategic transition in which military competition progressively centers on control over the decision-space itself. As this domain matures, differentiation in decision-making capability (and speed) will prove to be decisive; yet this emphasis tends to de-emphasize alignment with multinational norms; simply put, the tempo of AI-based action affords greater advantage than the more lethargic pace of norm development.
Decision-space therefore emerges as a battle domain that can be shaped, contested, and degraded through cognitive means. Recognizing this necessitates institutional structures that align command authority, planning horizons, and operational design around the structuring of choice. Decision-based AI enables actors to pre-shape operational environments by filtering information, sequencing options, and accelerating commitment in ways that constrain adversary response sets and compress opportunities for political intervention. In this environment, power increasingly derives from the capacity to structure choice rather than from the accumulation of force alone; and advantage accrues through decisions that channel opponent behavior toward predictable pathways and foreclose adaptive response. To exploit this dynamic at scale, command architectures will benefit from explicit designs that enable exercising human authority at machine speed rather than reliance on legacy models of human involvement that were shaped for slower paces of conflict.
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