February 5, 2025: During the last decade the American military has been using software incorporating radical new technology for mission planning. That includes selecting targets for air strikes. An air force officer approves or modifies that decision but, in most cases, there was nothing requiring modification. In 2023 the software-based target selection system was able to quickly and accurately identify 85 targets in seven different areas in Iraq and Syria.

This use of this enhanced mission planning software has been around for nearly a decade, but the concept has been around for decades until technology and software capabilities reached the point that systems became reliable and useful.

While some civilians regard algorithm enhanced target selection as a nightmarish and improbable effort, the reality is that it works for the troops whose lives depend on it. The success in using the AI based software for target selections is being expanded to include other types of intelligence collection like elections in foreign countries or the probability of revolutions or other forms of unpredictable violence. .

The fact of the matter is that the algorithm-based system can make accurate decisions more quickly than human analysts. Human operators must constantly monitor this process to watch out for errors made in the process. Some of those errors were caused by faulty software which is ultimately created by human software engineers. There are always humans in the loop, either directly or indirectly.

US Central Command, while responsible for American operations in the Middle East, Central Asia, and some parts of South Asia, has regularly used algorithms to help decide the state of these regions and what actions the United States should take.

Central Command began using these new systems in real campaigns after Hamas' surprise attack on Israel during October 2023. Israeli intelligence was criticized for not detecting the Hamas operation. Israeli intelligence did detect the Hamas plans, but Hamas devised a deception that persuaded the Israelis that there was no danger. Successful deception and surprise are one of the most effective military techniques if you can make it work. Hamas did make it work.

The new Americans algorithm scrutinized large quantities of video and still photos of a combat zone, or potential combat zone, looking for patterns which identify, or indicate the possibility of, combat or violence occurring. The AI bases system is trained to detect such possibilities and provide warnings of attacks or unexpected military or militant movements. The October 2023 Hamas surprise attack was the sort of thing Project Maven could have convincingly predicted. More so than the Israeli intelligence analysis that did not indicate any dangerous actions by Hamas.

Systems using these algorithms can monitor trouble spots in the Middle East, Ukraine, and the Far East where North Korea remains an unstable threat. In combat situations algorithms can determine where targets are and what impact attacking them would have. Algorithms can also examine past combat situations, if there is enough visual and textual data available, and clarify what happened, how it happened and how that contributed to the outcome. This is a form of predicting the past, which is a standard tool for determining if a prediction system will be accurate and used in situations that have not taken place yet.

Currently there are a number of active combat zones in the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine that could be more effectively monitored with a system using algorithms, while also using algorithms to see how useful algorithms would have been in predicting if these situations would occur and how they will develop in the future. Algorithms don’t predict the future but can provide likely future developments. Compared to current intelligence prediction techniques, algorithms would be faster and incorporate actual outcomes to develop a real-time prediction of how these events are likely to evolve. Intelligence organizations already try to do this manually and have done so for a long time. The results have often not been timely enough or accurate enough to be useful to combat commanders or even planning staff. Having algorithms gives the same warning that humans give intelligence officials a little bit more credibility with their civilian bosses impending trouble, particularly when the bosses don’t want any.

With algorithms, combat commanders and their intelligence staff personnel can quickly evaluate actual or potential combat situations and do so in real time, or at least quickly, if potential situations are being examined and evaluated for useful predictions. Algorithms also strive to overcome the old problem of no combat plan surviving contact with the enemy. Warfare has two sides and algorithms strive to better understand what the enemy is likely to do.

One lesson of military history is that while enemy reactions to your moves are difficult to predict, it would be a major advantage if you could come up with accurate estimates of future reactions by the enemy. Experience has shown that such estimates, at least accurate and useful ones, are nearly impossible to achieve. Algorithms will try to overcome that problem.

Algorithms are already being used but the results are kept secret. If actual or potential enemies knew what algorithms were predicting they would do, the enemy would change their plans. This has always been a problem with intelligence work, but algorithms do it in more detail and can change predictions in real time to adapt to changes in enemy activity.

Algorithms may prove to be a major new intelligence tool, or maybe not because there may be unexpected pitfalls. You’ll never know unless you try and then you may find yourself reminded of the ancient ironic expression, may you live in interesting times.