Strategic Insights is a forum for concise analyses of critical policy issues that affect U.S. national security interests. It is maintained by the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the National Defense University (NDU). Strategic Insights is intended for the exchange of research-informed analysis. It is not a venue for the dissemination of unofficial information and comments, or as a means to survey visitor opinions. The views, findings, conclusions, and recommendations made by Strategic Insights are solely those of the author. They do not constitute the official position of INSS, NDU or the U.S. Department of War (DoW).

Strategic Insights

Strategic Insights |

Artificial Intelligence and a Reconfiguration of Military Power

Elise Annett and Dr. James Giordano

Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael has emphasized that the DoW has historically under-deployed artificial intelligence (AI) and that the current moment demands rapid, enterprise-wide integration of AI capabilities across the DoW workforce to better support both efficiency and warfighting functions.

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Strategic Insights |

Fortifying Technologic Innovation in National Defense: Strategic Security Imperatives for Research and Acquisition

Dr. James Giordano and Dr. Diane DiEuliis

The recently announced Fundamental Research Security Initiatives and Implementation Memorandum, intended to strengthen protections for Department of War (DoW)-funded research, represents a crucial evolution in how the United States (U.S.) secures innovation enterprise within the defense industrial base (DIB). This initiative affirms that security and innovation are equal, co-foundational components of national defense and activities of the DIB.

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Strategic Insights |

Cognitive Warfare 2026: NATO’s Chief Scientist Report as Sentinel Call for Operational Readiness

Dr. James Girodano

The recently released NATO Chief Scientist’s 2025 Report on Cognitive Warfare provides a timely acknowledgment of a strategic reality that contemporary conflict is increasingly behavior-centric, and the decisive terrain is often not geographic but how individuals and groups perceive, interpret, decide, and act.

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Strategic Insights |

Cognitive Warfare 2026: NATO’s Chief Scientist Report as Sentinel Call for Operational Readiness

Dr. James Girodano

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Photo by: NIH/National Human Genome Research Institute.
A stylized digital illustration of a glowing DNA double helix suspended in a futuristic blue interface. Surrounding the helix are schematic icons representing molecular structures, chemical formulas, data grids, network nodes, and atomic symbols. The image visually conveys the convergence of biotechnology, data, artificial intelligence, and advanced scientific systems in a highly networked, modern research environment.

Strategic Insights |

Biotechnologies and the Treaty Gap: Why Biological Weapons Governance Is Falling Behind; and Some Thoughts on How to Fix It

Dr. James Giordano

The Scottish ballad Auld Lang Syne, written in 1788 by poet Robert Burns is a tune traditionally played to ring out the passing year and herald in the new. The lyrics offer an invitation to celebrate that which was good, and toast to what may come.

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Strategic Insights |

Biotechnology in the FY 2026 NDAA: Strategic Implications — and Recommendations — for Joint Force Readiness

Dr. James Giordano

The newly released FY 26 NDAA places explicit emphasis upon the increasing involvement of biotechnology in US military missions. As 2025 comes to a close, and we look ahead to the new year, Dr. James Giordano, Director of the CDTFW, offers a view to why biotechnology is — and will be ever more — intrinsic and important to national defense and offers a set of recommendations for fortifying Joint Force engagement in the biotechnological domain.

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Strategic Insights |

Artificial Intelligence: A Double-Edged Sword in Support and Subversion of the Biological Weapons Convention; Part Two: Implications and Recommendations

Dr. Diane DiEuliis, Elise Annett, Dr. James Giordano

As we noted, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into biosurveillance and biodefense architectures to strengthen verification and enforcement mechanisms associated with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) can also enable state and non-state actors to obscure, circumvent, or strategically exploit the very compliance frameworks that AI is intended to enhance.

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Strategic Insights |

Artificial Intelligence: A Double-Edged Sword in Support and Subversion of the Biological Weapons Convention Part One: Framing the Issues

Elise Annett, Diane DiEuliis, Ph.D., James Giordano, Ph.D.

The recent announcement that artificial intelligence (AI) will be employed to surveille and support compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) reflects both the capabilities for data collection, integration and analysis that such systems enable, and the iterative integration of AI within biodefense ecologies and operations.

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A soldier wears virtual reality glasses; a graphic depiction of a chess set sits in the foreground. Illustration created by NIWC Pacific.

Strategic Insights |

Critical Technology Areas Part 2: Implications and Recommendations for the Warfighter and Warfighting

Dr. James Giordano

As noted in last week’s special edition Strategic Insights, the Department of War will focus upon furthering research, testing and use of six key domains of disruptive technology (viz., applied artificial intelligence [AI], biomanufacturing, contested logistics technologies, quantum and battlefield information dominance, scaled directed energy, and scaled hypersonics).

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Strategic Insights |

Convergent Critical Technologies Part 1: The Integrative Transformation of Warfighting

Dr. James Giordano

The Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering’s designation of six Critical Technology Areas (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.

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Soldier using virtual tablet hologram army technology

Strategic Insights |

The Agentic Database and Military Command: A Perspective on Autonomous C2 Systems

Elise Annett and Dr. James Giordano

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.

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A digital 3D illustration of interconnected cubes, representing a blockchain or network system, with blue connecting lines forming a web-like structure.

Strategic Insights |

Beyond Mechanistic Control: Causal Decision Processing in Neuromorphic Military Artificial Intelligence

Dr. James Giordano

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.

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Soldier interacting with futuristic interface

Strategic Insights |

Autonomous Artificial Intelligence in Armed Conflict: Toward a Model of Strategic Integration, Ethical Authority, and Operational Constraint

Elise Annett and Dr. James Giordano

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.

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Strategic Insights |

Tiny Particles, Big Stakes: The Strategic Implications of Micro‑ and Nanoplastics

Dr. James Giordano and Dr. Ashok Vaseashta

During World War II, plastic production was ramped up to meet demands from the defense industry. In the post-war consumer culture, using technological innovations and advanced synthesis methods to create and manipulate isomers, synthetic polymers became an integral part of our daily existence. Since then, global plastic production has increased exponentially, and current production is over 502.5 million tons (MT) worldwide. At this trajectory and barring any binding treaty to limit plastic production, the number is on track to more than double by 2050.

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Strategic Insights |

Moving at WARP Speed Toward Developing the Cyborg Soldier

Dr. James Giordano and Dr. Diane DiEuliis

There is an adage that the fruits of scientific achievement applicable to real-world settings tend to blossom with the fertilization of time and trends.

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Two figures. Figure 1 (left): All Military Leader Engagements with Africa. Figure 2 (right): CMC Vice Chair travel to Africa.

Strategic Insights |

China’s Military Diplomacy in Africa

Matt Kuhlman, Raina Nelson, and Phillip C. Saunders

This article shows another application for regional researchers, analysts, and policymakers. Specifically, it uses the database to explore some specific aspects of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA’s) evolving engagement in Africa.

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Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan meets with Vietnamese Minister of Defense Ngo Xuan Lich in Beijing, January 13, 2017
(Liu Fang/Xinhua/Alamy Live News)

Strategic Insights |

Visualizing China’s Military Diplomacy

Raina Nelson, Matt Kuhlman, and Phillip Saunders

The National Defense University (NDU) recently released a major update to its comprehensive, publicly available database tracking the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) international military-diplomatic engagements from 2002 to 2024.

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Strategic Insights |

Bold New Bioweapons: Part 2 — Bold Bolstering of Deterrence and Defense

Dr. James Giordano

Last week’s Strategic Insights addressed how biotechnology has emerged as a foundational and formidable element in the evolving character of warfare. The integrative convergence of big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and advanced bioengineering and manufacturing has created rapidly expanding dual-use capabilities that can be leveraged in both non-kinetic and kinetic engagements.

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Strategic Insights |

Bold New Bioweapons: Part 1 — The Burdens of Detection and Attribution

Dr. James Giordano

It has been more than fifty years since the ratification of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1972, which sought to provide a formalized venue for international control and prohibition of development, production, and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons.

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A circuit board contains multiple examples of important microelectronics innovation. The Defense Department's microelectronics commons aims to close gaps in America's ability to bring new microelectronics technology to market.

Strategic Insights |

Major Concerns About Microelectronics

Elise Annett, Steven Hanson, Dr. James Giordano

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is decisively shaping the future of warfare. It accelerates decision cycles, extends operational reach, and enables exercised control of the informational, and cognitive dimensions of engagement.

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Strategic Insights |

Strategic Innovation in the DoD FY 2026 RDTE Budget: Leveraging Disruptive Technologies for Deterrence, Defense, and Command and Control

Dr. James Giordano

The Department of Defense FY 2026 Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDTE) budget request marks a strategic inflection that reflects a doctrinal shift toward convergent disruptive technologies, and with it, a re-posturing of how deterrence, defense and decisive command will be engaged on the near-future battlefield.

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Strategic Insights |

The Orb’s Eye: Seeing the National Security Implications of Iris Based ‘Proof of Humanity’

Elise Annett, James Keagle, James Giordano

As recently reported in the cover story of Time magazine, the launch of The Orb — a beach‑ball‑sized biometric device developed by Tools for Humanity (co‑founded by Sam Altman) — marks a paradigmatic shift in digital identity and biosecurity technology and its implications.

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Strategic Insights |

Brain Scanning: Assessing Emigration of U.S. Scientific Talent to Surveille Strategic Implications for China’s Dual-Use Technological Capabilities

Dr. Diane DiEuliis and Dr. James Giordano

Intensifying global competition in science and technology (S/T), particularly in fields with considerable disruptive potential - such as artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, synthetic biology, and neurotechnology—has become a defining feature of 21st-century geopolitical dynamics.

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Illustration of a human head and brain, set against a futuristic blue digital background representing neural activity and data flow.

Strategic Insights |

The “Ins” and “Outs” of Cognitive Warfare: What’s the Next Move?

Elise Annett and Dr. James Giordano

INSS has relaunched Strategic Insights. Read the latest post by Elise Annett and Dr. James Giordano.

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April 5, 2016

China's Goldwater-Nichols? Assessing PLA Organizational Reforms

In the past few months, China has announced a series of major reforms to the organizational structure of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA): the Central Military Commission (CMC) has been revamped, the four general departments dissolved, new service headquarters created, and five new theater commands established in place of the seven military regions (MRs). These changes are part of a sweeping transformation of PLA institutions, force structure, and policy that will be ongoing through 2020. In pursuing these reforms, China’s leaders hope both to tighten central political control over a force that was seen as increasingly corrupt and to build the PLA into a credible joint warfighting entity. Yet important obstacles remain, and it may be years before the implications of these reforms come into full view.

By Christopher J. Lamb and Joseph C. Bond

March 29, 2016

National Security Reform and the 2016 Election

There are few issues of greater intrinsic importance to the United States than national security reform—or one riper for resolution. Twenty years ago most senior leaders were skeptical of allegations that the national security system was “broken”; they believed the system functioned well enough to manage the Nation’s most pressing problems. Since then numerous prominent experts have been sounding the alarm from inside the system and from without. No fewer than nine blue-ribbon groups have argued in favor of system reforms (see tables 1 and 2). The overwhelming majority of scholars publishing independently on the issue favor reform. During the 2008 Presidential election, the momentum in favor of national security reform was so strong that many thought it was inevitable. This presumption was reinforced when President Barack Obama appointed well-known proponents of reform to senior positions in the National Security Council staff, Department of State, Department of Defense (DOD), and Intelligence Community. Yet reform did not take place during the Obama administration, and so far it has not been an issue in the 2016 Presidential race, either. This paper examines why reform was sidetracked, whether it could emerge as a campaign issue during the 2016 Presidential election, and why it is in candidates’ and the Nation’s interest that it does.

March 16, 2016

Applying Jus in Bello to the Nuclear Deterrent

On December 7, 2015, the UN General Assembly passed A/RES/70/50, titled “Ethical imperatives for a

March 15, 2016

Violating Reality: The Lavelle Affair, Nixon, and the Parsing of the Truth

On December 20, 2010, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) denied the Pentagon’s request, endorsed by President Barack Obama, to advance posthumously Air Force Maj Gen John D. Lavelle to the retired list in the rank of general.1 Thirty-eight years earlier, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen John D. Ryan had fired the four-star Lavelle as the Seventh Air Force commander in Saigon for allegedly conducting unauthorized airstrikes against North Vietnam and ordering the falsification of mission reports. Senate hearings in September 1972 deemed Lavelle guilty of both offenses, resulting in his demotion to major general following retirement. Yet a careful reading of documentary and taped evidence, much of it recently discovered and not available at the time of the original Senate hearings, reveals that General Lavelle neither violated the rules of engagement (ROE) that prescribed America’s air war at the time of his dismissal nor falsified mission reports. Accordingly, Lavelle should have his rank restored, and the so-called Lavelle affair should serve as a cautionary tale for political and military leaders alike who question the proper conduct of “civil-military relations” in the complex and often confounding era of modern limited war.

March 10, 2016

Making Russia Think Twice About Nuclear Threats

On September 11, 2013, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, writing in The New York Times, issued “A

March 9, 2016

Countering Russia’s Strategy for Regional Coercion and War

Much of the discussion since the 2014 Ukraine crisis began has focused on how Russia could exploit a

By Phillip C. Saunders, James J. Przystup, and David F. Helvey

Feb. 2, 2016

North Korea 2025: Alternate Futures and Policy Challenges

National Defense University (NDU), the National Intelligence Council (NIC), and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) held a symposium in November 2015 that brought leading experts together to explore four alternative futures for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, also known as North Korea). The futures were: 1) A Status Quo Peninsula in a Changing Northeast Asia; 2) Korea Reunified; 3) A Reforming DPRK; and 4) The DPRK Must Be Stopped! This report summarizes key findings from this non-attribution symposium, which focused on the interests and potential actions of external powers rather than DPRK internal dynamics.

Feb. 1, 2016

Posing Problems without an Alliance: China-Iran Relations after the Nuclear Deal

Key Points China is poised to increase economic and diplomatic cooperation with Iran as a

Feb. 1, 2016

Korean Unification and the Future of the U.S.-ROK Alliance

Security alliances can take many forms. They can be bilateral or multilateral, symmetric or asymmetric, highly institutionalized or largely unstructured. Regardless of form, security alliances as instruments of statecraft, at their most fundamental level, reflect a deliberate commitment among states to aggregate resources in the pursuit of common interests. For over 60 years, the U.S.–Republic of Korea (ROK) alliance has defended South Korea from external attack and, through the combined efforts of both countries, contributed to peace and stability not only on the Korean Peninsula, but also in Northeast Asia, across the Asia-Pacific, and beyond.

Dec. 1, 2015

Japan’s Initiatives for Deepening Cooperation with Other Countries in the Areas of Defense Equipment and Technology

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who came to power in the December 16, 2012 general election and formed his second administration together with the Komeito Party, has promoted a substantial change in Japan’s national security policy. Key policy initiatives of the Abe government include the establishment of the National Security Council, formulation of the National Security Strategy[1], formulation of new National Defense Program Guidelines, and modification of the legal basis for national security.

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