Every day, thousands of marines perform routine data-collection tasks and make hundreds of data-based decisions. They compile manning data on whiteboards to decide to staff units, screenshot weather forecasts and paste them into weekly commander’s update briefings, and submit training entries by hand. But anyone who has used ChatGPT or other large-scale data analytic services in the last two years knows the immense power of generative AI to streamline these processes and improve the quality of these decisions by basing them on fresh and comprehensive data.
The U.S. Marine Corps has finally caught wind. Gen. Eric Smith’s new message calls for the service to recognize that “[t]echnology has exponentially increased information’s effects on the modern battlefield, making our need to exploit data more important than ever.” The service’s stand-in forces operating concept relies on marine operating forces to integrate into networks of sensors, using automation and machine learning to simplify decision processes and kill chains. Forces deployed forward in littoral environments will be sustained by a supply system that uses data analysis for predictive maintenance, identifying which repair parts the force will need in advance.
However, there is a long way to go before these projections become reality. A series of interviews with key personnel in the Marine Corps operating forces and supporting establishment, other services, and combatant commands over the past six months reveal that the service needs to move more quickly if it intends to use AI and machine learning to execute this operating concept. Despite efforts from senior leaders to nudge the service towards integrating AI and machine learning, only incremental progress has been made.
The service depends on marines possessing the technical skills to make data legible to automated analytic systems and enable data-informed decisions. Designating a Marine expeditionary force or one of its major subordinate commands as the lead for data analysis and literacy would unify the service’s two-track approach by creating an ecosystem that will allow bottom-up creativity, scale innovation across the force, and speed the integration of these technologies into the fleet and supporting establishment.
New Technology’s Potential to Transform Operations, Logistics, and Education
AI, machine learning, and data analysis can potentially transform military education, planning, and operations. Experiments at Marine Corps University have shown that they could allow students to hone operational art in educational settings by probing new dimensions of complicated problems and understanding the adversary’s system. AI models, trained on enemy doctrinal publications and open-source information about troop employment, can use probabilistic reasoning to predict an enemy’s response. This capability could supplement intelligence red teams by independently analyzing the adversary’s options, improve a staff’s capacity for operational planning, or simply give students valuable analytic experience. And NIPRGPT, a new Air Force project, promises to upend mundane staff work by generating documents and emails in a secure environment.
Beyond education and planning, AI and machine learning can transform how the Marine Corps fights. During an operation, AI could employ a networked collection of manned and unmanned systems to reconnoiter and attack an adversary. It could also synthesize and display data from sensor networks more quickly than human analysts or sift through thousands of images to identify particular scenes or locations of interest. Either algorithms can decide themselves or enable commanders to make data-informed decisions in previously unthinkable ways. From AI-enabled decision-making to enhanced situational awareness, this technology has the potential to revolutionize military operations. A team of think tank researchers even used AI recently to rethink the Unified Command Plan.
But, achieving these futuristic visions will require the service to develop technical skills and familiarity with this technology before implementing it. Developing data literacy is a prerequisite to effectively employ advanced systems, and so this skill is as important as anything else the service expects of marines. Before the Marine Corps can use AI-enabled swarms of drones to take a beachhead or use predictive maintenance to streamline supply operations, its workforce needs to know how to work with data analysis tools and be comfortable applying them in everyday work settings.
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Will McGee is a Fellow at Yorktown Institue.
