Focusing on information operations is critical. Drones, for example, use artificial intelligence capabilities, as do defensive systems. However, conflict between near-peer adversaries and competitors is still unlikely as gray zone and hybrid conflict are the dominant avenues for competition. With the information environment transcending all domains of warfare, artificial intelligence capabilities become the go-to capability to ensure and maintain information advantage.

China’s AI-enhanced information operations are becoming increasingly sophisticated. For example, the Chinese advanced persistent threat actor Spamouflage Dragon uses generative AI to create online personas to influence public opinion. China and its proxy companies seek to develop or compete for AI supremacy within the information environment.

Of course, China will use anything within its arsenal to shape strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war to its advantage, expand its influence, and create an ecosystem that is dependent on its technologies. For example, Baidu, known as the “Google of China,” invested billions into AI capabilities, creating the proprietary ERNIE model, which has been trained on billions of parameters, increasing the output’s quality and complexity.

However, China is also leveraging open-source AI models to shape the information environment. With the recent release of open-source large language models such as DeepSeek and Qwen, Chinese-linked subsidiaries, High-Flyer and Alibaba Group created a way to expand their influence, revise history, and likely create a dependent ecosystem for target countries. Unlike the much more expensive ChatGPT, for which the more basic model is free, China’s investment in generative AI models is free for the public and even surpasses ChatGPT’s in some respects.

There is a debate about how China’s proxy state companies were able to create these advanced models without US-based critical components. China allegedly did not have access to the advanced critical Nvidia chips for which most AI models are dependent. China seems to have created generative models just as suitable or even better than that of ChatGPT, but allegedly at a fraction of the cost and free of charge to the public. The US limited Nvidia chip exports to China, a market predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade. Still, the accusation is that the Chinese subsidiary leased or bought the more advanced Nvidia chips from Singapore, circumventing restrictions, and used ChatGPT to train its model.

Regardless of how China secured these critical technologies, the cat is indeed out of the bag. China has shown that it has the capability to develop new and emerging AI technologies. From the capabilities already built, it now has a baseline to create even more capabilities to develop its own AI chip ecosystem. With such capabilities, China will become more active within the information environment with the help of AI capabilities, and its motives are far from benevolent.

Why is the Chinese model free? China has several motives, but it is likely in hopes that data and information across the globe are the price tag for using the model while lessening a dependency on Western technologies and becoming a global leader in AI by 2030. Whatever data is obtained by the United States is icing on the cake. The West is not the primary target audience. Both models have servers in Singapore and China, where information is likely subject to Chinese laws, and terms and conditions are meaningless.

The Chinese will use AI technologies to gain an advantage in the information environment and seek to expand influence by creating an ecosystem for which other countries are dependent on their models. The incentive is to give countries this technology to foster dependency. The idea is similar to China’s debt-trap diplomacy—the Belt and Road Initiative. While ChatGPT’s basic model is free, China seeks to develop better models at a cheaper price to serve as leverage over countries that cannot afford the higher-end US-based models.

The United States is taking the right approach to maintaining its information advantage through AI development and investment. The billions pouring into creating AI data centers will play an important role in ensuring the United States has the edge in AI.

These data centers remain critical for identifying and countering any malign information operations against the United States, its partners, and its allies. When Iran attempted to influence the 2024 presidential election using the generative model GPT, OpenAI detected and shut it down. Without this expansive investment in AI data centers that keep information within the letter of US law and oversight, these interventions would be out of reach, and information operations may be even more challenging to detect.

However, this approach is insufficient without incorporating artificial Intelligence into all aspects of military operations. The DoD uses artificial intelligence within some branches, but given the expansive nature of AI, this is not enough. AI is expected to touch nearly all aspects of military operations, especially information operations, and may not have time to wait for its major AI initiative, Project Maven, to fully develop.

Some military scholars have called something like this a revolution in military affairs, but perhaps, given the impact of war, it could be classified as such. The concept is somewhat antiquated and outdated without some context, but it remains the best way to describe what should take place within the DoD. The foundation is already in place through the conceptual framework of multidomain operations.

Artificial capabilities are widely available through graphical user interfaces in deployable, ready-to-use form, such as ChatGPT or even internal large language models. The joint force should use these capabilities to the broadest extent possible. If anything, artificial intelligence, including large language models, will make joint and combined forces more lethal and accurate as they counter Chinese efforts within the information environment.

The DoD must adopt incentives for service members to understand the capabilities of AI and incorporate them in all training environments. These incentives can include bonuses for taking AI-driven courses. The DoD can also increase awareness and accessibility of AI courses on its education platforms which now have a paucity of artificial intelligence courses.

The DoD must also improve the training environment. With proprietary or off-the-shelf software, the DoD can incorporate AI offensive and defensive platforms within all training and mission-critical tasks. Even simply assisting with identifying generative outputs, e.g., deepfakes, will counter Chinese influence within the information environment, especially during hybrid conflict. Furthermore, military doctrine should recognize the importance of AI, especially information operations, with an emphasis on psychological operations.

While AI investment is critical to countering Chinese influence within the information environment, the only way to truly embrace multidomain operations is to ensure service members have the AI technical competency necessary to maneuver within the information environment deterring Chinese aggression.

US Army Lieutenant Colonel Matthew J. Fecteau is a PhD researcher at King’s College London studying how artificial Intelligence will impact conflict. He can be reached at matthew.fecteau.alumni@armywarcollege.edu.

China’s AI-Driven Information Operations Are Here: The US Needs an AI RMA was originally published on Global Security Review.

The FY 2025 budget focuses on simpler satellite networks. Notable decreases occur in launch and classified activities, while increases are found in position, navigation, and timing. The Space Force continues moving towards more distributed, resilient, and cost-effective space capabilities, including GPS satellites and narrowband communications. The intention signaled for space operations is to enhance the Space Force’s ability to adapt and respond to emerging threats. By prioritizing the development of distributed and proliferated satellite networks to ensure resilient space operations, the Space Force places a continued focus on low Earth orbit (LEO). This aligns with defense goals of redundancy and rapid deployment, enhancing space “competitive endurance,” a strategy announced in early 2023 by Chief of Space Operations General B. Chance Saltzman.”

In General (Ret.) John Raymond’s often quoted words, the Department of Defense (DoD) and Space Force need to “exploit what we have, buy what we can, build what we must.” The DoD will increase the integration of commercial satellite services to reduce costs and accelerate deployment. The belief behind this policy is that to strengthen partnerships with commercial satellite providers is to capitalize on existing technologies and infrastructure, which is largely preferable to government doing it by itself. While it is a politically and operationally challenging process, the budget sequence necessitates more flexible and adaptive budget planning processes within the Space Force and other related agencies. By adopting these practices, the Space Force might better navigate budget constraints and funding adjustment, while advancing its strategic goals in space defense.

Regarding proliferation of smaller commercial assets for the sake of resilience in space, and within the currently prevalent DoD cognitive framework for the Space Force, the link between resilience and deterrence was further validated in April 2023 by John F. Plumb, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy. In remarks at the Space Foundation’s 38th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Plumb said, “We will do that first and foremost by investing in resilience. We must expect to take punches in space in a near-peer conflict. A resilient architecture means we will be prepared to absorb those blows. With sufficient resilience, we hope to deter an adversary from attacking in the first place, because the value of any such attack will be greatly diminished.”

However, in space as in any other domains, resilience does not qualify as deterrence. Before events occur on the battlefield, deterrence is first and foremost built not merely based on actual capabilities, but on the ability to clearly communicate to the adversaries what such capabilities will do to them, if used. But deterrence requires a third factor, which is credibility. And the credibility of passive defensive posturing is where the real problems start.

To prevail over adversaries such as Russia and China, the West requires a genuine understanding of the adversary’s own decision-making process. If the West fails to understand that adversaries fundamentally value space as an offensive domain, the West will fail to protect its space assets—unless the Space Forces build a credible offensive counterforce capability. For active defense of critical Western space and terrestrial infrastructures to be sufficient to ensure credible deterrence, the Space Force must view space systems as a critical infrastructure and not merely a support desk for terrestrial operations.

The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on June 14, 2024, cleared its version of the FY 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill was then headed to the Senate floor. The legislation, which is yet to be released in full, includes compromise language on a long-standing dispute over the transfer of Air National Guard space units to the active-duty Space Force. That does not mean the political process ends there. In the meantime, the House passed its own version of the NDAA, which includes several social policy amendments, that eliminates paid leave for servicemembers to cross state lines for an abortion, eliminates controversial diversity initiatives, and eliminates taxpayer funding for “gender-affirming care,” which is likely to start another cycle of congressional haggling.

There are professionally constructive developments on the commercial side, though, as the Senate Armed Services Committee includes requirements for reviews of investment policy and performance evaluation. The bill also authorizes DoD to identify poor-performing contractors and require approval for additional contracts. The question remains, though, whether government should still retain an exclusive role in building certain specific space defense capabilities on its own and which ones these should be.

When and how the congressional process concludes, and the end game for the FY 2025 Space Force budget, remain to be seen. It should be extremely clear—no less is at stake than the US and its allies prevailing against common adversaries, for, in, and from space. In short, getting funding priorities right may affect who controls the high ground.

Christophe Bosquillon is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. He has over 30 years of international experience in general management, foreign direct investment, and private equity and fund management across various industries in Europe and the Pacific Basin. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Congressional Haggling Jeopardizes the US Space Force FY 2025 Budget was originally published on Global Security Review.

This means the cost is going to be exorbitant over using the cloud’s “in-place” structure of GPUs, distributed power etc.  The DOD procured and set up their own system, but where is the data coming from?

Air Force Launches Its Own Generative AI Chatbot. Experts See Promise and Challenges

The Air Force has entered into the ChatGPT game.  was originally published on Global Security Review.

The report, which is an annual requirement mandated by Section 1202 of the 2000 National Defense Authorization Act, provides an authoritative assessment of military and security developments in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The 2023 report’s findings speak to the consistent failure of Western idealism and a failure to acknowledge the oncoming threat of China.

The report is replete with alarming “takeaways” and disquieting gaps in known information about the PRC’s capabilities and current plans. The word “probably” was used 102 times within the report, indicating a nascent level of awareness so low that analysts could do little more than venture guesses or futile estimates for Congress.

Additionally, missing from this report is an acknowledgment that the PRC is likely seeking to “acquire a first-strike capability.” While garnering a first-strike capability does not always mean an intent to “go first,” for a country with a stated “no first use” policy, this nuclear arsenal expansion is distressing. By not acknowledging this perceived PRC goal, the report mutes the clarion call this report should evoke.

While this annual report has plenty to cheer and jeer, below are ten points from the report that should alarm Congress, the Biden administration, and the American people.

First, as of May 2023, the DoD estimates that the PRC has at least 500 operational nuclear warheads (p. 104). This is a significant increase from the DoD’s 2020 estimate, which placed China’s stockpile in the low 200s—with an expectation of doubling by 2030 (p. 111). This is juxtaposed by a 2012 estimate in which retired Russian generals asserted that China had enough fissile material for 3,600 nuclear warheads, with 1,600–1,800 nuclear weapons in the stockpile.

Second, the report suggests, “The PRC probably completed the construction of its three new solid-propellant silo fields in 2022, which consists of at least 300 new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos and has loaded at least some ICBMs into these silos.” This may be the first public announcement that “some” of the completed ICBM silos are now loaded with potentially both DF-31 and DF-41 ICBMs (p. 107).

Former USSTRATCOM commander Admiral (Ret.) Charles Richard and his predecessor General (Ret.) John Hyten have both noted that the DF-41 carries up to ten warheads. When combined with the scores of road-mobile ICBMs in China’s nuclear arsenal, the number of land-based ICBM launchers exceeds the number of American land-based nuclear missiles.

During the summer of 2021, open-source researchers using commercial imagery discovered, documented, and tracked the construction of new ICBM missile silos at Yumen, Hami, and Yulin. The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies first identified the construction of an estimated 119 silos at the Yumen site. US Strategic Command tweeted a link to a New York Times story about the Hami discovery, a poor substitute for the requisite and timely official statement a revelation of this magnitude demanded.

Third, the PRC has approximately 350 ICBMs that can all reach the United States (p. 106). In addition to the DF-31 and DF-41, the PRC is also deploying the new DF-5C, a silo-based ICBM with a multi-megaton-class nuclear warhead (p. 107). A January 31, 2017, Bill Gertz article reported that a flight test of the DF-5C missile carrying ten warheads was conducted, which indicated the PRC “is increasing the number of warheads in its arsenal.”

Generally, megaton warheads are designed as a counter-value capability for destroying American cities. The PRC likely considers DF-5Cs as an asymmetrical advantage designed to hold American cities hostage and ransom their safety in exchange for abandoning Taiwan during forced unification.

Fourth, the newly constructed network of silo-based ICBMs is likely to operate under China’s emerging “Early Warning Counterstrike” posture. This launch-on-warning (LoW) operating concept enables a rapid counter-nuclear strike before an adversary’s first strike destroys the Chinese arsenal. The LoW concept of operations has long been vilified by American strategists as destabilizing and fraught with risk of accidental launch.

Fifth, the PRC officially established its own nuclear triad. The vintage H-6N bomber features a modified fuselage to allow an external nuclear-capable air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) (p. 63). According to the report, the nuclear-capable ALBM “appears to be armed with a maneuvering reentry vehicle,” thus indicating the ALBM is likely capable of conducting nuclear precision strikes (p. 108). This capability and the report’s assessment indicates China is developing a nuclear warfighting approach, not just maintaining deterrence.

Sixth, the PRC may be developing a conventionally armed ICBM. If fielded, such capability would allow the PRC to threaten conventional ballistic missile strikes against the continental United States (p. 66). The report notes that conventionally armed ICBMs would present significant risks to strategic stability, which is one reason why the United States Air Force abandoned the concept.

Seventh, the PRC is likely developing advanced nuclear delivery capabilities like the fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS) and hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV). A FOBS-HGV was tested on July 27, 2021—orbiting the earth before reentering the atmosphere to strike a target (pp. 67, 111). Chinese FOBS weaponizes outer space because it potentially places nuclear warheads into low-earth orbit prior to de-orbiting them onto their targets with the goal of evading missile defenses.

The risk to America from a realized Chinese FOBS-HGV is conspicuous. The system’s extreme range allows it to circumnavigate the planet placing any target on the face of the earth at risk, potentially from any direction. This greatly complicates an early warning system’s ability to detect, track, and target it for intercept. Moreover, once separated from the FOBS, HGVs would be very maneuverable and travel at least five times the speed of sound, “effectively reducing the defender’s warning and response time as well as understanding of the ultimate destination of the attack.” From a Western perspective, there is little deterrent value from a FOBS-HGV system other than to coerce adversary compliance amid a crisis or function as a first-strike pre-emptive attack.

Eighth, despite the PRC’s “No First Use” policy, China’s nuclear strategy likely includes consideration of a nuclear strike in response to a nonnuclear attack. As one senior People’s Liberation Army Colonel told this author on a trip to China, threatening the viability of China’s nuclear forces or command and control systems will likely elicit a nuclear response.

A recent assessment of China’s Proposal of the People’s Republic of China on the Reform and Development of Global Governance noted the omission of any “No First Use” policy while expressing other detailed positions on nuclear weapons could indicate a departure from China’s almost 60-year commitment. In 2021, the PRC sanctioned a video threat in which the narrator said,  “We will use nuclear bombs first. We will use nuclear bombs continuously. We will do this until Japan declares unconditional surrender for the second time.” It appears the PRC’s “No First Use” policy remains in name only and exists only to deceive Western policymakers and nuclear disarmament advocates.

Ninth, China deploys two land-based intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM), which can carry both nuclear and conventional warheads that can “hot swap”  between launching the nuclear and conventional warhead variants. The purported flexibility, precision, and range of these IRBMs suggest that they are well suited to limited nuclear use against American military targets in the Pacific.

And tenth, the PRC’s continued research on toxins and pharmaceutical-based agents has both military and civilian applications, which raises concerns about its compliance with the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions. The United States is unable to confirm if the PRC has fulfilled its obligations under either Convention (p. 114). The probability of chemical or biological weapon employment against American forces remains a real threat.

Since the United States does not possess an in-kind chemical or biological capability with which to respond to such escalatory attacks and thus must either deter or respond with conventional or nuclear weapons, China may view its capabilities as an asymmetric advantage. Adversaries who are signatories to such treaties but are unwilling to adhere to their protocols cannot be trusted to adhere to nuclear weapons treaties or risk reduction measures.

Conclusion

The DoD’s inability to provide a confident and consistent description of China’s increasing nuclear threat for public consumption raises questions of intentional underestimation. For the Department of Defense to construct and implement a coherent strategy to counter the Chinese nuclear threat, it must first understand the adversary’s capabilities and capacities. Next, it must accurately communicate the magnitude of the threat to the American people and their congressional representatives to ensure proper support and resourcing. Then it must be prepared to “hold at risk” the newly added PRC nuclear targets without uncovering other strategic targets in other parts of the world. This may well demand additional American capability, something the Biden administration has already repudiated without sufficient explanation.

The PRC views the development of its “asymmetric countermeasures,” primarily nuclear weapons, as a “trump card” for safeguarding the PRC’s core interest of achieving unification with Taiwan (p. 181). With breathtaking speed, the Chinese are fervently and consistently building the capability and capacity needed to ensure their “freedom of movement.”

If deterring a nuclear attack by the United States was its goal, the PRC would not have spent such time and treasure expanding a nuclear force that was already successfully deterring the United States. Rather, its nuclear force is expanding rapidly to prevent America and its allies from intervening in any aggression toward Taiwan or in the South China Sea. Simply said, China seeks to restore a hierarchical international order where the Chinese Communist Party sits atop the rest of the world and American influence is severely reduced or even eliminated.

The time has come to be honest with the American people about the true nuclear threat from China. We must replace “probability” with certainty and then act realistically to defend American interests with a more aggressive deterrence posture.

Col. Curtis McGiffin (U.S. Air Force, Ret.) is Vice President for Education at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies and visiting professor at Missouri State University’s School of Defense and Strategic Studies. Adam Lowther, PhD is Vice President for Research at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. Together, they have more than five decades of experience in uniform and DoD civil service in the nuclear enterprise. Both authors co-host the popular weekly podcast “The Nuclear View” found at https://thinkdeterrence.com/podcast-shows/.

The views expressed by the authors are their own.

The Pentagon’s China Military Report: Why Americans Should Be Alarmed was originally published on Global Security Review.