Any problem in the military is a leadership problem. The leadership challenges are typical to each service. Unless the reader understands each service's current problems, it would be hard to appreciate the new challenges posed by AI. Therefore, the challenges faced by the military in the current day, in brief, are given below:
Army. Considering the Army first, the Indian Army is dominated by its ranks who hail from rural or semi-urban areas. They form the bulk of the fighting force. The officer cadre is made of young men who come from urban and semi-urban areas. The integration of thought processes and a common culture between the men and the officers is effected through training and regimentation. Officers' training has many components, but man management is one of the essential subjects. Understanding the command (Men under the command of an officer, e.g. Company Commander, Battalion Commander) devolves around the officer. Thus, the most common leadership challenge in the Army is to lead the men in situations of war or a counter-insurgency operation or in the aid of civil authorities. Leadership is built through trust and a deep sense of duty to look after the men under command. Only when the two are entwined is the role of the leader complete. The leadership challenge starts from the junior rank, a non-commissioned or a junior commissioned officer, and goes on to a General officer. As the leader rises in rank, the quantum of men under command increases. Challenges increase and take different shapes and forms. Training his command (men) becomes the principal responsibility for the senior rank. The low educational standards of the men pose a typical challenge in increasing the cognitive limits of men under command.
Another significant leadership challenge is to deal with scarcity. There is always a dearth of resources required: men, ammunition, transport or time for training. The challenge is to perform a series of tasks with the minimum resources. It is a challenge for the leadership to train their command for it.
The role of an Indian army Battalion (the smallest independent fighting unit) tends to change every three years on average. This results in an unending cycle of training the men to their new roles. However, it is not easy when, every three years, the tasks assigned and the place of their execution change. A soldier operates in the desert today and in a high-altitude mountain tomorrow. The characteristics of the areas of operations are so diverse that for ordinary human beings, even survival is a challenge.
Navy & Airforce. The leadership challenges to the Navy and the Air Force are similar, though not the same. The Navy operates in a closed environment with a strict chain of command, where every sailor is expected to do his job. Training on the job and remaining motivated in that job in a close, confined environment for long periods, like a submarine, is the most significant leadership challenge. For the Air Force, maintaining its fleet of aircraft to total operational efficiency is the biggest challenge. In the Air Force, the challenge lies in maintaining the aircraft on the ground and getting the better of the enemy in the air. The latter requires hours and hours of flying skill and teamwork. Thus, for the Airforce training and maintenance are the two biggest challenges.
Likely Challenges AI Would Bring to the Indian Military in Future
What changes would AI bring to the Military? As enunciated in the earlier part of the paper, the nature of AI should suggest that AI would automate the Decision Support System (DSS) and establish a link with the weapons platforms. The takeover of the DSS would be the principal nature of the change in all three services. Other changes, like the logistics of provisions of the ammunition rockets and missiles, would be a subset of the weapon systems link. Though the chain appears to be a two-link chain (The CC & Weapon), it encompasses the entire gamut of the operational paradigm. The decision support system encompasses all the Command Centres (CCs), the decision-making hubs in the chain of command. Each level has its Command Centres, sometimes called the 'Command Posts'. These are linked to fighting formations that hold the shooter links attached to them as part of their fighting resource. They await the orders to act based on decisions taken by the command elements. AI will automate many functions in the CCs.
We will understand AI's effect on military leadership affairs through Colonel John Boyd's OODA (Observe-Orient-Decide & Act) loop. Lt Col John Boyd was a fighter pilot with the US Air Force and later a military strategist. He devised the OODA loop for the pilots to make quick yet correct decisions in the aircraft by going through the OODA loop. Later, the scope broadened, and became so popular that its use became standard across the three services. Now, the corporate world has embraced it as its own.
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The OODA loop ( Diagram 1)
The seeker loop, which represents the first two elements of the OODA loop (Refer to Diagram 1 above): 'Observe and Orient', is connected with the seeker link. At present, the analysis of inputs coming from these two stages is done by the human brain, helped by automated software. However, in an AI-driven environment, AI systems would analyse all the information received from the sensors and conclude the target profile. Similarly in the decision making process, the CCs would process the information and enable decision making either by commanders or by the AI when specified. Final link in the loop is the ‘Action’. The AI based on the target analysis select the weapon needed for achieving the desired effect. When to fire the weapon could be in the hands of humans or the AI, based on the operational need.
Leadership challenges in the OODA loop are enunciated below:
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