Through its publications, INSS provides rigorous, forward‑looking research and analysis on critical national security issues that support the joint warfighter and inform Department of War decision‑makers.
Sept. 3, 2026
Mind, Machine, Mission
Listen to Dr. James Giordano's interview on the Mind, Machine, Mission podcast, hosted by Military Times contributor Aliya Sternstein.
A Framework for Adaptive Human-AI Teaming in Military Contexts
AI is enhancing military planning by expanding computational capacity, accelerating information synthesis, and strengthening decision support across complex operational environments. As multidomain operations, persistent sensing, and compressed decision timelines continue to shape the future battlespace, the effective integration of AI will depend upon structured approaches that align computational capability with commander intent, human judgment, and accountable command.
Sept. 1, 2026
SYNTHComm: What AI Portends for Warfare…and Requires of Coordinated Command and Control
INSS experts Dr. Elise Annett and Dr. James Giordano authored a chapter in the newly released AI and Ethics Handbook titled "SYNTHComm: What AI Portends for Warfare…and Requires of Coordinated Command and Control."
Aug. 24, 2026
Cognitive Warfare and the Brain-as-Battlespace: Neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence, and the Emerging Domain of Neurostrategic Competition
Introduction: The Human Brain as BattlespaceEvery competitive or conflictive human activity wields some form of power in attempt to affect behavior. Diplomacy seeks to influence it through politics; economic sanctions seek to modify it through the distribution and access of goods; military operations seek to compel it through the threat or use of
Aug. 21, 2026
INSS Research Intern Receives STRATCOM Award
INSS Research Intern Alex Richter received the Larry D. Welch deterrence writing award on August 5 from U.S. Strategic Command at the STRATCOM Deterrence Symposium in Omaha, Nebraska for his essay titled “Chinese and US Approaches to Artificial Intelligence in Nuclear Strategy.”
Aug. 18, 2026
Decision Advantage in Cognitive Warfare, Part 2
A central challenge of cognitive warfare is governing the relationship between institutional cognition and an operational environment in which informational, behavioral, and social dynamics evolve continuously and often independently of military decision timelines. To meet this challenge, we propose that future command architectures should emphasize and integrate mechanisms for the adaptive synchronization of human judgment, AI, and the cognitive ecosystem being engaged.
AI Versus AI: Human Engagement Via SYNTHComm in AI Warfare
In the AAIRR journal, INSS experts Dr. Elise G. Annett and Dr. James Giordano propose and define a dialectical command framework that represents a synthesis of human cognition and artificial intelligence (SYNTHComm), which is designed to realign the ethics of force projection in an era of increasingly autonomous systems.
The Agentic Olympus: The “Gods” of AI in Irregular Cognitive Warfare
INSS experts Dr. Elise G. Annett and Dr. James Giordano and Irregular Warfare Center researcher Dr. John A. Pennell recently published an article about “Agentic Olympus,” which establishes a strategic theory of AI-enabled command. It conceptualizes military AI as an evolving ecology of specialized intelligent agents whose relationships determine the quality, resilience, and adaptability of operational decision-making.
May 12, 2026
Irregular Warfare, Part Two: AI Approaches, Implications, and Proposed Recommendations
The convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and non-kinetic irregular warfare (IW) represents both a qualitative shift in the nature of strategic threat and a quantitative increase in adversarial operational effectiveness. To be sure, IW has always relied upon exploitation of asymmetries of expectation, capability, attribution, legality, and response thresholds. Certainly asymmetries, and tactics like indirect approaches (e.g., employing covert and clandestine and non-kinetic operations) are factors in both regular warfare and IW.
May 5, 2026
Irregular Warfare, Part One: Updating the Term and the Toolkit
Irregular warfare (IW) is not a new phenomenon, although its contemporary character has been substantively reshaped by advancements in technology, and more specifically, by the developments in AI.