Winners of the Inaugural Andrew W. Marshall Paper Prizes

Owen J. Daniels

Owen J. Daniels is a Policy Communications Specialist at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), shaping policy-relevant research across the organization’s analytical portfolio and exploring emerging tech’s defense implications in his writing. He sits on Young Professionals in Foreign Policy’s global leadership team as Publications Fellow. Before CSET, he worked at the Institute for Defense Analyses’ Joint Advanced Warfighting Division, researching AI and autonomous weapons norms and joint concepts. He has also worked in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center and at Aviation Week. Owen majored in International Relations with minors in Arabic and Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.

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The “AI RMA”: The Revolution Has Not Arrived (Yet)

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This paper examines the prospects for artificial intelligence (AI) military applications initiating a new, near-term revolution in military affairs (RMA). It analyzes this issue by applying the lens of four elements of RMAs (technological change, military systems evolution, operational innovation, and organizational adaptation) to U.S. and Chinese military AI development. It finds that, in the near-term, AI applications may be more likely to help fully realize the reconnaissance-strike RMA, but that understanding why AI will not bring on a new RMA soon can shape understandings of technological-military competition between the United States and China. It draws on historical lessons from past RMAs, in particular advances made in carrier aviation that emerged from U.S.-Japanese interwar competition, to draw relevant insights for how an AI RMA might one day emerge from current U.S.-China competition. It concludes by considering characteristics of the current security environment, including present understandings of human-machine teaming, that could change if one or both countries realize an AI RMA.

The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

Yelena Biberman

Yelena Biberman is an associate professor of political science at Skidmore College, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, and associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center. Her book, Gambling with Violence: State Outsourcing of War in Pakistan and India, was published by Oxford University Press in 2019. Her research has appeared in academic journals, such as Journal of Strategic Studies and Asian Security, as well as in policy and mainstream outlets, such as the Military Review and Foreign Policy. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College, Master’s from Harvard University, and Ph.D. from Brown University. She also previously worked as a journalist in Russia.

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The Biotechnology Revolution in Military Affairs

How might biotechnology revolutionize warfare? What role could genetically engineered bioweapons – drawing on advances in genome editing and synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology – play in the revolution? The contributions attempted here are threefold. First and foremost, using scenario analysis and drawing on interviews with scientists and warfighters, the paper explores how the biotech revolution in military affairs might unfold. Second, the paper draws connections between genetic engineering, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology to show how they are opening up a new domain of warfare: the genome. Advances in these fields are poised to solve the weaponization, delivery, and precision problems that had previously made biological weapons impractical. Third, history is used to develop a novel approach to revolutions in military affairs. The paper concludes by considering the long-term international security implications of the next revolution in military affairs. It may end war as we know it, but could it end war?

The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

The author studied political science and military history. He is a civil servant in the French ministry of Armed Forces and a reserve Army officer in the COMCYBER (French cyber command).

Control Superiority: A Framework for Future Warfare

A survey of Russian military publications over decades shows a trend toward a coherent theory named “control superiority.” This framework is consistent enough to unify four subordinate concepts: automation of control, disorganization of control, reflexive control and adaptive control. Automation of control results from connecting troops and weapons systems to the command staff and equipping staff officers with automated decision support systems which comprise not only computers but also mathematical models of operations. The rise of military control automation became obvious with the emergence of “reconnaissance-strike complexes” in the 1980s. This revolution in military affairs (RMA) indicated a shift from a war of attrition to a war of disorganization. Soviet military theorists understand that belligerents have to automate their control process but also degrade the adversary control system. The parallel developments of communication networks and of electromagnetic capabilities offer a fertile ground for tactics of disorganization and reflexive control (instigating conditioned reactions by the adversary). The confrontation of control systems eventually leads to the adoption of decentralized forms of control which prove more resistant to adversary aggression. Then, autonomous machines and units that are able to operate without command and control links, bear many advantages in the control competition.

The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

Listed alphabetically by paper title.

Hannah Dennis, Cultural Clues to the Future of Military Space

Ryan Fedasiuk, First Mover, Fast Follower: U.S. and Chinese Blueprints for 21st Century Warfare

John Maurer, The Future of Precision Strike Warfare: Strategic Dynamics of Mature Military Revolutions

Jason Lyall, How Social Structures within Militaries Condition the Battlefield Effects of Revolutions in Military Affairs

Nina Kollars, Benjamin Schechter, The ICT Firm and the State: The Role of Private Sector Control of Infrastructure in RMA

Stuart Anderson, Military Research with Chinese Characteristics

George Capen, Anand Datla, Paul Giarra, Gerard Roncolato, “Petro to Electro”: A Rapidly Developing Revolution in Military Affairs, the Spiraling Drivers and Implications of Battlefield Electrification

Ron Christman, Refocusing the Lens: The RMA Concept and the Evolution of U.S. NC3