Zachary Burdette, et al. | RAND Corporation
January 22, 2026
“Taken together, our analysis suggests that the U.S. military should look for ways to use AI in capabilities and operational concepts that leverage mass, deception, mission command, and cyber resilience,” states a recent report from the RAND Corporation. This report offers a new framework and preliminary assessment of AI’s implications for the future of war.
SSP alum Zachary Burdette contributed to a report as an associate political scientist at RAND.
How will advances in artificial intelligence (AI) shape the future of war? There is a growing belief among some policymakers and analysts that AI will transform the future of war, but researchers are still in the early stages of understanding how AI will actually change warfighting.
In this report, the authors offer a conceptual framework and preliminary assessment to help set the terms for a more systematic debate about AI’s military implications. The authors use the framework to evaluate how AI could affect four “building block” competitions in military affairs: (1) quantity versus quality, (2) hiding versus finding, (3) centralized versus decentralized command and control (C2), and (4) cyber offense versus cyber defense. Their findings suggest that the U.S. military might need to change important aspects of how it traditionally operates in order to exploit AI’s potential.
From RAND Corporation