RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

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.

 

Research and Commentary

Results:
Tag: OODA loop

An image of a brain with a target on top. By engaging the tools and techniques of the neurosciences, contemporary and near future approaches to cognitive warfare increasingly target key structures and functions of the human brain to affect thought, emotions and behaviors, essentially establishing the brain and mind as a viable and valuable battlespace.

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

A street sign depicting OODA Loop sits on display February 3, 2020, at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

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.

A street sign depicting OODA Loop sits on display February 3, 2020, at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

Aug. 11, 2026

Decision Advantage in Cognitive Warfare, Part 1

The functions of observation and orientation, central components of the OODA (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act) loop posited by Colonel John Boyd, U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, military strategist, and influential theorist of decision-making, have long been used to explain the cognitive processes that underpin military leadership and operational effectiveness.

white and yellow light digital wallpaper

Feb. 10, 2026

Decision-Based Artificial Intelligence and the Strategic Reordering of Military Power

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.