Nexus 22 in review
Welcome to the Nexus Newsletter
The Nexus Newsletter
Welcome to The Nexus Newsletter—a bi-weekly email newsletter covering recent announcements from Applied Intuition and important news bridging national security and autonomy.
This inaugural edition of the newsletter focuses on the themes discussed at Nexus 22—our symposium hosted at the National Press Club in collaboration with the Atlantic Council. Future editions of The Nexus Newsletter will cover news around dual-use technologies, emerging use cases for autonomy in national security, and more.
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Nexus 22 in review
The Forward Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center produced a helpful summary of Nexus 22 that outlines several key questions discussed at the symposium. Below, we have collected a few key responses:
Why does the U.S. need to invest in autonomous systems?
“As Michèle Flournoy noted [...], the next 5-7 years will be a critical time for innovating and integrating these technologies, which many panelists suggested will be fielded by our adversaries during that time. Adversaries have been clear on their intentions to achieve next-generation capabilities first and dominate the defense space. The United States must keep pace.”
How can DoD accelerate cutting-edge capabilities?
“The number of tanks, planes, and ships is the wrong qualitative paradigm for measuring U.S. capabilities. Instead, measuring speed, accuracy, and resilience of decision-making and command and control (C2) can help benchmark DoD success and shortcomings.”
Defense Keynote with Michèle Flournoy: What are the takeaways from the Russia-Ukraine war?
“After the invasion of Ukraine, several NATO allies (including the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.) deployed special operators to help train the Ukrainian military in asymmetrical tactics to use against a larger force such as Russia. During the war, Ukrainian troops have shown remarkable aptitude in nimbly integrating old technologies with new ones.”
Nexus 22 in the news
Several topics from Nexus 22 resonated particularly well with the press. These topics included potential use cases for artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy technologies in 21st-century conflicts, a potential revamp of the Pentagon’s autonomous weapons rules, and lessons learned from the conflict in Ukraine.
Defense News | McMaster says AI can help beat adversaries, overcome ‘critical challenges’
Lt. Gen (Ret.) H. R. McMaster, former National Security Advisor, highlighted use cases for AI-enabled technologies, including humanitarian use cases, identifying and deterring aggression, augmenting situational awareness, and understanding patterns in enemy behavior. According to H. R. McMaster, seizing the opportunities presented by emerging technologies will “help us build a better future.”
C4ISRNET | Time is now to reconsider autonomous weapons rules, Horowitz says
The DoD’s first-ever Director of Emerging Capabilities Policy, Michael Horowitz, revealed that the Pentagon’s governance of autonomous weapons systems could be poised for a refresh: Directive 3000.09 is undergoing a re-assessment required by the DoD every ten years. Horowitz said that DoD is committed to “being responsible about autonomous weapon systems, and having guidance [...] that incorporates all that has happened over the last decade.”
FedScoop | What Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is revealing about tech in modern warfare
Nexus 22 included a robust discussion of lessons learned from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Gregory C. Allen, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, observed that “unmanned systems, remotely piloted systems, and autonomous systems were all the sorts of things that some have argued were not going to be a part of a high-intensity fight [...]. I think that myth has been blown wide open.”
At the same time, Margarita Konaev, Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, highlighted a sharp difference between the development of military technology and actual adoption in the context of Russia’s performance: “What we’re seeing right now is that the technical barriers to innovation are really not the most significant barriers to the use and scaling and integration of some of these sophisticated and advanced technologies and operations. A lot of it has to do with institutional, bureaucratic, cultural, [and] human trust issues.”
China, too, is learning from the conflict and is “in the midst of a major AI-enabled modernization effort,” said Allen. Liza Tobin, Senior Director for Economy at the Special Competitive Studies Project, suggested that this effort is connected to China’s bet that “by exploiting the many benefits and opportunities of data, they can actually grow their economy in ways that we can’t.”
Nexus 22: Ongoing conversations
The Nexus 22 symposium only represents the beginning of the conversation around national security and autonomy. The Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security will continue to explore the implications of autonomous systems for the future of defense across several themes, including the threat from adversaries, the challenges for trust and acquisition, and the opportunities for national security.
The first of those thought pieces - published just prior to the Nexus 22 symposium - discusses the future of autonomous warfare.
Forward Defense | What does the future of autonomous warfare look like? Four critical questions, answered
Trade-offs and trading up: What opportunities do autonomous systems create for defense planners?
Laying down the law on LAWS: What level of risk are U.S. commanders willing to accept in deploying autonomous systems?
Science fiction vs. reality: How does autonomy feature in the DoD's broader integration of AI-enabled technologies?
Keeping up with conflict: How should international law be adapted to the realities of autonomous systems and other emerging technologies on the modern battlefield?
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