The Institute for National Strategic Studies serves as a focal point for analysis of critical national security policy and defense strategy issues.
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Nov. 18, 2025
Convergent Critical Technologies Part 1: The Integrative Transformation of Warfighting
The Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering’s designation of six Critical Technology Areas [JG1] (CTAs; viz.- Applied Artificial Intelligence, Biomanufacturing, Contested Logistics Technologies, Quantum and Battlefield Information Dominance, Scaled Directed Energy, and Scaled Hypersonics) constitutes a fundamental conceptualization of how power will be projected, contested, and sustained across the conflict spectrum.
Darwin Monkey: Next Generation Neuromorphic Computing and Competition for Cognitive Capability and Control
The Darwin Monkey System represents a substantive pivot from conventional AI toward synthetic cognition through neuromorphic architectures that emulate the structural and functional dynamics of the brain.
Nov. 17, 2025
The Agentic Database and Military Command: A Perspective on Autonomous C2 Systems
As recently noted by Yasmeen Ahmad in a piece appearing in InfoWorld, the shift from passive databases to “active reasoning engines” in commercial agentic AI signals a fundamental transformation in how decisions are made, authority is exercised, and accountability is maintained. To be sure, there’s a time- and cost-effective attractiveness of “off the shelf” AI systems that might be viable for military use.
The Logos and Limits of Artificial Cognition: The Exemplar of Military Use
The paper contends that as AI increasingly emulates tasks of human judgment, abstraction, and decision-making, it challenges foundational conceptions of mind, agency, and moral responsibility.
China’s "near space" legal warfare
Mr. Todd Pennington and Ms. Emmy Kanarowski published an op-ed in SpaceNews.
Keeping Turkey in the fold
Turkey has become one of the most active middle powers navigating the erosion of the post-Cold War order.
Sept. 24, 2025
Beyond Mechanistic Control: Causal Decision Processing in Neuromorphic Military Artificial Intelligence
Recently, a paper by Kevin Mitchell and Henry Potter in the European Journal of Neuroscience provided a valuable overview of current understanding of causation in neurocognitive processing, which has interesting implications for military applications of neuromorphically-based artificial intelligence (AI) systems. As we transition from traditional mechanistic AI architectures to those that are designed and developed to more closely mirror the complex causal dynamics of neural systems, military stake and shareholders (and oversight organizations) must confront new paradigms of autonomous decision-making that can challenge conventional understandings of predictability, command control, and accountability in AI.
Sept. 17, 2025
Autonomous Artificial Intelligence in Armed Conflict: Toward a Model of Strategic Integration, Ethical Authority, and Operational Constraint
Artificially intelligent systems are being developed to have iteratively autonomous function, and these systems are increasingly being considered for use in military settings, weapon platforms, and operations.
Sept. 15, 2025
The Greatest Danger in the Taiwan Strait
Dr. Joel Wuthnow writes a piece for Foreign Affairs on how a war between China and Taiwan could result from an accident or miscalculation that spirals out of control.
Sept. 9, 2025
ROK-U.S. Alliance: The Near Future—A Dialogue with Dr. Clint Work
Dr. Clint Work joined the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS) Dialogue podcast.