[Editor’s Note: Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to present our latest edition of “The Queue” – a monthly post listing the most compelling articles, books, podcasts, videos, and/or movies that the U.S. Army’s Mad Scientist Initiative has come across during the previous month. In this anthology, we address how each of these works either informs or challenges our understanding of the Operational Environment (OE). We hope that you will add “The Queue” to your essential reading, listening, or watching each month!]
1. “A brain-controlled exoskeleton has let a paralyzed man walk in the lab,” by Charlotte Jee, MIT Technology Review, 4 October 2019.
“Amputees merge with their bionic leg,” in ScienceDaily, 2 October 2019.
“Boston Dynamics’ Atlas can now do an impressive gymnastics routine,” by Jon Porter, The Verge, 24 September 2019.
So what is the OE nexus for a new experimental capability that restores mobility to a quadriplegic man, prosthetics that provide realistic sensory feedback, and a bipedal robot that can split kick better than David Lee Roth in his Van Halen heyday? Scientists from Swiss universities ETH Zürich and EPFL and the latter’s spin-off SensArs Neuroprosthetics have fitted three amputees with prosthetic legs that provide sensory feedback, enabling subjects to feel the device. “Thanks to detailed sensations from [the] sole of the artificial foot and from the artificial knee, all three patients could maneuver through obstacles without the burden of looking at their artificial limb as they walked. They could stumble over objects yet mitigate falling. Most importantly, brain imaging and psychophysical tests confirmed that the brain is less solicited with the bionic leg, leaving more mental capacity available to successfully complete the various tasks.” Meanwhile, researchers at Grenoble University Hospital and Clinatec in France implanted an epidural wireless brain-machine interface into a paralyzed subject, enabling him to walk again via a four-limb neuroprosthetic exoskeleton in a laboratory proof-of-concept demonstration. Per MIT Technology Review, “researchers need to find a way to get the suit to safely balance itself before it can be used outside the laboratory.” Here’s where Boston Dynamic’s Atlas comes in — its “model predictive controller” allows the robot to anticipate forward momentum to “blend… one maneuver to the next,” without losing balance.
These three weak signals presage the potential for a dismounted Manned Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) capability on a not-so-distant future battlefield, with Soldiers in the rear area (or even the Strategic Support Area!) controlling via cerebral interfaces whole platoons of agile fighting systems at what was once the bleeding edge of combat. This potential for a nimble, semi-autonomous close quarters combat fighting capability could keep future Warfighters out of harm’s way on particularly hazardous, “forlorn hope”-type assaults against heavily defended positions, while simultaneously maintaining humans-in-the-loop in future conflicts.
2. “Coming Soon to a Battlefield: Robots That Can Kill,” by Zachary Fryer-Biggs, The Atlantic, 3 September 2019.
This detailed but engrossing piece by defense and technology reporter Zachary Fryer-Biggs provides an in-depth look at work on robotics being conducted across the Department of Defense but also helps to visualize and contextualize what a battlefield of the future looks like. This article shows the distinction between what 
is being explored, built, and tested by the DoD and the dystopian nightmare often portrayed in movies like The Terminator. The article addresses a number of current technologies – the U.S. Navy’s Phalanx Close-in Weapon System (CIWS) and Sea Hunter autonomous Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV), and Israel’s Harpy autonomous anti-radiation loitering munition – that are on the pathway to autonomy already.
Several prominent figures in the DoD Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation space, such as Mr. Bob Work (former Deputy Secretary of Defense and Dr. Bill Roper (former Director of Strategic Capabilities Office). Mr. Work is quoted as saying, “AI will make weapons more discriminant and better, less likely to violate the laws of war, less likely to kill civilians, less likely to cause collateral damage.” In a similar vein, Dr. Roper stated that the country that integrates AI into its arsenal first might have “an advantage forever.”
One of the biggest implications from this article is the following question — at what point does autonomy become completely self-deciding? Many of the technologies featured are still struggling with contextual understanding and complex cognitive processes that humans can frankly breeze through right now. The current challenge is not intelligent machines capable of eliminating humans – it’s that the machines aren’t smart enough or capable of complex decision-making. As Dr. Fei-Fei Li, the inaugural Sequoia Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University, and Co-Director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute, noted “human vision is enormously complex and includes capabilities such as reading facial movements and other subtle cues.” But visual, facial, and object recognition in AI is improving rapidly in a short amount of time; we could see more autonomous systems on the battlefield faster than anticipated. Senior military leadership will be challenged 
with what approach must be taken: human-in-the-loop, human-out-of-the-loop, or human-starts-the-loop. Additionally, how much must be divested from manned or optionally-manned systems and invested into autonomous and optionally-teleoperated systems?
3. “China’s AI Talent Base Is Growing, and then Leaving,” by Joy Dantong Ma, MacroPolo.org, 30 July 2019.
MacroPolo is the in-house think tank of the Paulson Institute in Chicago that focuses on the U.S.-China economic relationship. China’s initiative to become a global leader in Artificial Intelligence is excelling at producing talent, but failing at retaining it. The author uses invitation data from the NeurIPS conference, one of 
the premier events that gathers researchers exploring artificial neural networks. Prospective attendees submit related research papers for consideration to be invited to the event. Analysis of the data shows that there were 2,800 Chinese scientists accepted over the past ten years. Of those, more than 2,000 were working outside of China and 85% of them were working in the U.S. So while China has made great strides and invested heavily in creating a population of AI researchers, scientists, and engineers, they haven’t been able to insulate themselves from the competition for AI talent raging outside their borders. In 2017, they took steps to curb this exodus by offering incentives and better compensation but it remains to be seen if that is enough to compete with some of the most innovative and sought after companies in the world, like Google, IBM, and Microsoft.
For the Army, this is both an opportunity and a challenge. As the Army increasingly develops and integrates AI into formations, the need for the highest quality technical personnel will follow. A larger pool of experts available to the Army will allow for quicker and better solutions to problems Soldiers face on the battlefield. However, the Army will still be in competition with the same 
industry that China is losing to, while simultaneously challenged by the prospect of Chinese intellectual property theft and industrial espionage. How can the Army and the United States at large best take advantage of and retain this resource? What are the potential security implications? Even if the experts are here, can the U.S. compete with the tech industry to recruit the best and brightest AI talent?
4. “Tree Planting Drones are Firing ‘Seed Missiles’ Into the Ground,” by Leo Shvedsky, Good, 17 April 2019.
In an effort to combat climate change, tech company BioCarbon Engineering has outfitted commercial drones with pre-germinated seed pods that they disperse and plant by firing them into the ground. This method is cheaper and exponentially faster than planting by hand. From a dual-use perspective, one can see many nefarious possibilities. Just as a drone can spread seeds waiting to sprout, it could just as easily spread a biological or chemical agent. The light 
payload of seeds used today could be replaced with a payload of powder or liquid that could infect humans, livestock, crops, or waterways. Further, this method, when employed judiciously, could be almost undetectable. Generally, when we think of weapons, we think of devices designed to destroy or kill, but with so many commercial products offering advanced capabilities and access, it’s becoming easier to achieve the same effects with none of the footprint.
5. “Netflix’s ‘Unnatural Selection’ Trailer Makes Crispr Personal,” by Megan Molteni, WIRED, 04 October 2019.
Netflix’s new four-part docuseries, which debuted last week (18 October 2019), explores the democratization of genomic engineering — “Using the bacterial quirk that is CRISPR, scientists have essentially given anyone with a micropipette and an internet connection the power to manipulate the genetic code of any living thing.” This scientific revolution raises a host of new political, legal, and moral concerns that public policy, laws, and opinion are only now beginning to address. As research using this game changing technology becomes an ever-more international enterprise, distinctions in cultural norms, mores, and practices will be challenged. Within the brave new world of genetic engineering facilitated by CRISPER, all of the bright possibilities of revolutionary new treatments and cures for disease are tempered by equally dark prospects when coupled with nefarious intent.
Calls to control open source research and counter the potential use of gene-editing to produce biological weapons and/or affect global health may not be encompassing or sufficient enough. As Mad Scientist has previously explored, a growing community of individual biohackers and DIYers are pushing the 
boundaries of DNA editing, implants, embedded technologies, and unapproved chemical and biological injections. Not limited to the DIY community, China has announced their intent to become a global superpower and gene editing is one area where they seek to leap ahead of the United States. Their commitment to this objective is evidenced in their gene editing of 86 individuals and the births of “CRISPR babies.” In comparison, the United States is just now approaching human genomic trials (in a well-regulated environment).
Ethical principles are not standardized across cultures. State and non-state actors alike are now able to weaponize biotechnology with relative ease. The decisions we make today are crucial as we articulate, implement, and enforce public policy and international laws governing genetic engineering. These decisions will affect Soldiers and civilians alike, who face the threat of non-kinetic, genetically engineered capabilities on both the battlefield and in our Homeland.
If you read, watch, or listen to something this month that you think has the potential to inform or challenge our understanding of the Operational Environment, please forward it (along with a brief description of why its potential ramifications are noteworthy to the greater Mad Scientist Community of Action) to our attention at: usarmy.jble.tradoc.mbx.army-mad-scientist@mail.mil — we may select it for inclusion in our next edition of “The Queue”!
be the future of warfare. Near-peer competitors will seek to achieve national objectives through competition
but not necessarily cyclical. Potential adversaries will seek to achieve their national interest short of conflict and will use a range of actions from cyber to kinetic against unmanned systems walking up to the line of a short or protracted armed conflict. Authoritarian regimes are able to more easily ensure unity of effort and whole-of-government over Western democracies and work to exploit fractures and gaps in decision-making, governance, and policy.
and
substantial nuclear arsenals, as does the United States, which will continue to make Great Power conventional warfare a high risk / high cost endeavor. The availability of non-nuclear capabilities that can deliver regional and global effects is a new attribute of the OE. This further complicates the deterrence value of militaries and the escalation theory behind flexible deterrent options. The inherent implications of cyber effects in the real world – especially in economies, government functions, and essential services – further exacerbates the blurring between competition and conflict.
primary focus on challenging the U.S. Army all the way from its home station installations (i.e., the Strategic Support Area) to the Close Area fight. We can expect cyber attacks against critical infrastructure, the use of 
subsequently attrited. In LSCO with a near-peer competitor, the ability to reconstitute will be imperative. The Army (and larger DoD) may need to shift away from large and expensive systems to
remain constrained by “human-on-the-loop” or “human-in-the-loop” constructs when our adversaries are unlikely to similarly restrict their own autonomous warfighting capabilities. Further, the employment of this approach could impact the Army’s MDO strategy. The effects of “human-starts-the-loop” on the kill chain – shortening, flattening, or otherwise dispersing – would necessitate changes in force structuring that could maximize resource allocation in personnel, platforms, and materiel. This scenario presents the Army with an opportunity to execute MDO successfully with increased cost savings, by: 1) Conducting independent maneuver – more agile and streamlined units moving rapidly; 2) Employing cross-domain fires – efficiency and speed in targeting and execution; 3) Maximizing human potential – putting capable Warfighters in optimal positions; and 4) Fielding in echelons above brigade – flattening command structures and increasing efficiency.
China now has Combat Training Centers.
Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin on 24-25 April 2019 in Austin, Texas. Today’s post is excerpted from this conference’s Final Report and addresses how the speed of technological innovation and convergence continues to outpace human governance. The U.S. Army must not only consider how best to employ these advances in modernizing the force, but also the concomitant ethical, moral, and legal implications their use may present in the Operational Environment (see links to the newly published TRADOC Pamphlet 525-92, The Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Warfare, and the complete Mad Scientist Disruption and the Operational Environment Conference Final Report at the bottom of this post).]
mirror imaging. The Mad Scientist Laboratory offers it as a platform for the contrarians in our network to share their alternative perspectives and analyses regarding the Operational Environment (OE). We continue our series of “Tenth Man” posts examining the foundational assumptions of
The character of warfare will change in the future OE as it inexorably has since the advent of flint hand axes; iron blades; stirrups; longbows; gunpowder; breech loading, rifled, and automatic guns; mechanized armor; precision-guided munitions; and the Internet of Things. Speed, automation, extended ranges, 
broad and narrow weapons effects, and increasingly integrated multi-domain conduct, in addition to the complexity of the terrain and social structures in which it occurs, will make mid Twenty-first Century warfare both familiar and utterly alien.
assumes that humans will remain central to the rationale for war and its most essential elements of execution. The nature of war has remained relatively constant from Thucydides through Clausewitz, and forward to the present. War is still waged because of fear, honor, and interest, and remains an expression of politics by other means. While machines are becoming ever more prevalent across the battlefield – C5ISR, maneuver, and logistics – we cling to the belief that parties will still go to war over human interests; that war will be decided, executed, and controlled by humans.
Imagine that a machine recognizes a strategic opportunity or impetus to engage a nation-state actor that is conventionally (read that humanly) viewed as weak or in a presumed disadvantaged state. The machine launches offensive operations to achieve a favorable outcome or objective that it deemed too advantageous to pass up.
influence may not be conducive to victory. Victory may be simply a calculated or algorithmic outcome that causes an adversary’s machine to decide their own victory is unattainable.
– How much and how should the Army recruit and cultivate human talent if war is no longer human-centric?
– Should the U.S. military divest from platforms and materiel solutions (hardware) and re-focus on becoming algorithmically and digitally-centric (software)?
– Technology advances to the point of near or actual machine sentience, with commensurate machine speed accelerating the potential for escalated competition and armed conflict beyond transparency and human comprehension.
– Smaller, less-capable states or actors begin achieving surprising or unexpected victories in warfare.
Speakers at the Current and Future Operations in Megacities Conference emphasized the need to better promote collaboration between those bringing
All three countries’ militaries partnering during the conference have maturing operational concepts
Partner nations should take advantage of disasters as sources of lessons learned. As
We are all familiar with the current structure of international power, but nation-states as we know them are a relatively new concept. The “official” creation date for what is considered the modern nation-state is often pinned at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
Caucasus, and Central Asia. These major shifts occurred within the lifetimes of people today, demonstrating that the current world order is anything but set in stone.
But could this be taken to the next level? Facebook recently announced the potential launch of its own digital currency. While many consider this technology to be ahead of its time, and definitely ahead of regulatory standards, it may be a signal that online entities will be capable of encroaching upon what has historically been a governmental responsibility.
beyond the oversight of a government. A company’s entrenchment in a region or domain where conflict is developing may be sufficient grounds for direct involvement. If the company exerts more power than the government in that area, it may take on the roles and responsibilities of either mitigating or managing that conflict, possibly including the use of private forces or the co-opting of the legitimate military. Large and diverse online organizations begin to fray the social fabric of established nation-states as citizens’ lives increasingly move and are lived online. These organizations may develop the social organizational capacity that governments used to exclusively possess; the ability to coordinate the mass movement or participation of a large number of people or to control society in other ways, such as holding and managing their currency. In this scenario, nation-states play a somewhat diminished role as what used to be exclusively state-held power is now dispersed among various relevant international organizations.
Online organizations may overtake governments in cultural leadership, leaving governments to be little more than administrative units while citizens who live next door to each other have allegiances to groups and organizations formed from people from all over the world. These online groups may eventually take on governmental responsibilities as well (such as taxation used to provide services) and have the capability to incite mass mobility at a moment’s notice.
growth worldwide. Online organizations may divert critical human resources away from patriotic causes towards ones that fulfill specific personal ideologies which may not align with the Nation and the Army. Based on economic and technological advancements, the Army may find itself with different established allies and in the company of states and organizations whose interests and capabilities temporarily align with the U.S. The role of a nation-state in the global order may be evolving as other powerful players come to the table. Whether or not these players will be integrated, or are too big not to be, is yet to be seen.
A loud buzz pierced the quiet night air. A group of drones descended on a chemical plant near New York City. The drones disperse throughout the installation in search of storage tanks. A few minutes later, the buzz of the drone propellers was drowned out by loud explosions. A surge of fire leapt to the sky. A plume of gas followed, floating towards the nearby city. The gas killed thousands and thousands more were hospitalized with severe injuries. 
Drones offer terrorists low cost methods of delivering harm with lower risk to attacker lives. Drone attacks can be launched from afar, in a hidden position, close to an escape route. Simple unmanned systems can be acquired easily: Amazon.com offers seemingly hundreds of drones for as low as $25. Of course, low cost drones also mean lower payloads that limit the harm caused, often significantly. Improvements to drone autonomy will allow terrorists to deploy more drones at once, including in true drone swarms.
oil production capacity.
potential still exists for significant harm. Terrorists can strike popular tourist sites like the Statue of Liberty or San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. U.S. military vessels are ideal targets too, such as the USS Cole bombing in October 2000.
aroochy Shire, Australia, and released hundreds of thousands of gallons of raw sewage into the surrounding area.
Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT).
There are efforts, such as University of Texas-Austin’s tool 
In retrospect, it may have been one of the most ironic moments of the Cold War. Early in Dwight Eisenhower’s first term, during a meeting of the National Security Council, the President asked his advisors to propose an economic strategy to counter the emerging global threat posed by Soviet foreign economic policies. Not only were the Russians promoting their rapid industrialization model to foreign governments, the Marxist ideology that supported it was proving increasingly attractive to anti-colonial movements around the world. European empires were in full retreat, leaving a void the communists were eager to fill.
Eisenhower believed Western liberal democratic ideals, and the free enterprise and open trade that supported them, were under direct threat. The United States confronted a new “Era of Contested [Strategic] Equality.”
The grand irony of that moment was that the best strategy proved to be no strategy at all. Less than forty years later, the Soviet economic model was so discredited it had lost its global appeal. It had even contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union itself. Free trade and private enterprise proliferated around the world, leading to an era of growth and prosperity unprecedented in history. Communist countries, even China, were rushing to emulate capitalist success. The American economic model had proven superior without any strategy whatsoever. It was such a decisive repudiation of the Marxist material dialectic—the inevitable march of history toward communism—that Soviet ideology would never again pose an existential threat to Western democracies. All Eisenhower really needed was time.
The first term, Kairos, comes from the ancient Greek. Unlike chronos, a linear measure of time, kairos has a qualitative meaning. It considers context, for example “a time for every purpose under heaven.” Most commonly understood as momentary opportunity, it also describes a season of exigence, or the right thing(s) at the right time in the right measure. Within the realm of international competition, it can be understood as an era – one of national power and ascendancy, or the perpetuation and defense of national identity or a set of ideals.
Sthenos is the strength of will and purpose derived from moral character and energy. The familiar word calisthenic employs the term with regard to physical conditioning and beauty as well as the need to be disciplined in their pursuit. Sthenos combines psychological and physical strength. Thus, individuals, groups, and nations with more energy and determination have superior strength, compared to those with less.
geography, or natural resources as the primary, even deterministic, sources of a nation’s timestrength.
The Cold War strategic environment highlighted the importance of this economic competition. A central question during this century will be whether economic strength proves decisive once again.
Perhaps it was cultural determination, even amid setbacks, that propelled American economic performance over the past two centuries. China’s rapid economic development, and Chinese culture, may yet be tested in this regard.
The Cold War is over, but it is almost certain that we are moving into another Era of Contested Equality. If so, which nation or alliance will hold the edge in kairosthenic power? Will China’s ethnic nationalism and economic model prove 
superior over time, or do they contain subtle strategic weaknesses? With the many new challenges of the 21st Century, including technological convergence and the rise of peer competitors, the United States would be wise to remember that its kairosthenic competitiveness will be determined by more than economic or military policies.
But the U.S. tends to think more conventionally about future conflict, in part because it has been able to rest on technological superiority for so long. Now, though, it must think differently. Isaac Asimov offers a path toward new strategic solutions through creativity, a process that can be mastered by “becoming dissatisfied” with the current state of “knowledge” and then “rejecting” some or all of it for new approaches.
Innovation continually underperforms in part because it is the follow-on to ideas, not the precursor, and because it results in solutions for the tactical level of war. Previous eras of transformational change, however, required societies to tackle “primarily intellectual, not technical” challenges.
Take