Stratcom Commander: ‘Absolute Dominance’ Cannot Be Assumed

U.S. Strategic Command can no longer assume American military dominance as adversaries expand their capabilities across cyber, space, the electromagnetic spectrum and other domains, Commander Adm. Richard Correll said Tuesday.

“This is the most complex strategic environment of my lifetime,” Correll said at the DODIIS Worldwide conference in Tampa, Florida. The U.S. faces multiple nuclear-armed strategic competitors who are modernizing their systems and working together militarily and diplomatically.

Responsible for the nation’s nuclear arsenal, Stratcom relies on data collected by the Defense Intelligence Agency to inform its leaders on national security issues. This input is vitally important to supporting the War Department’s global operations.

Adversary cooperation falls into five key threat vectors of cyberspace, counter-U.S. space, contested electromagnetic spectrum, novel missiles and delivery systems, and supply chain and infrastructure issues.

Countering these threats relies on controlling the electromagnetic spectrum and global information sharing. This is central to how Stratcom plans and operates, Correll said.

However, the U.S. cannot become complacent as adversaries gain new capabilities.

“Absolute dominance in any domain can no longer be assumed,” Correll said.

A Changing Strategic Landscape

New technologies and capabilities such as the mass use of inexpensive drones in warfare are changing the strategic environment.

Correll identified three trends: information warfare, precision strike, and machine learning and AI.

The U.S. operates in a highly contested global information environment. “There is no such thing as a regional conflict anymore. Every conflict is global in the information domain,” he said.

Nation-states are experimenting with synthetic media, deepfakes and AI-augmented influence campaigns. They are investing heavily in capabilities designed to influence decision-making and manipulate perceptions, all to constrain the political decision space and shape strategic outcomes for the intelligence enterprise, Correll said.

To counter this, the U.S. must be able to understand the information environment “as a battlespace in its own right,” and it must be able to protect the integrity of the information underpinning operational decisions.

Precision strike, precision weapons, autonomy and unmanned systems are making it “prohibitively costly” for armies to take and hold land. Correll noted that drones are responsible for over 70% of the more than 1 million Russian casualties in Ukraine. He added that an average Russian recruit is killed or injured within the first 30 minutes of arriving at the front lines.

The U.S. needs to coordinate autonomous systems with human control. Additionally, DOW must solve challenges in command and control deconfliction and human-machine teaming.

Third, DOW must incorporate machine learning and AI for decision and warfighting advantage. Correll noted that the nation that first fully harnesses AI responsibly for sensing, analysis, planning, logistics and command and control “will have a profound, possibly existential advantage.”

The question is not whether AI will be present in future conflict because it already is, Correll said. “The question is how we as a community shape its development and integration in a way that strengthens deterrence, preserves human judgment and reduces the risks of miscalculation.”

Using AI for Battlespace Dominance

“Innovation is meaningless if it does not translate into operational outcomes,” Correll said, noting that the U.S. is very good at developing new tools and strategies, but it must put more effort into moving them from demos to capabilities “a commander refuses to deploy without.”

There is also a need to deliver timely, actionable intelligence for the warfighter. This can be achieved with AI and tools to help spot patterns leaders may have missed. Additionally, space-based sensors and intelligence sources must be fused to better detect threats, he said.

However, the U.S. is “not where we need to be yet” regarding the integration and deployment of new technologies. Often programs do not mature or intelligence data is stovepiped in individual agencies and commands.

The U.S. must turn technology into operational advantage. AI is an example of this. Correll emphasized that AI will not replace humans for key decisions, but it will help enhance that decision-making.

AI can also help human analysts with intelligence assessments. AI can flag signs of change long before a human analyst can spot them. This technology will give the intelligence community more room to provide warning for leaders.

At the strategic level, AI can provide decision-support tools and wargaming systems to quickly model missions to support leadership objectives.

“We have to treat data as a strategic weapon, not a byproduct,” Correll said.