In 1910, British technology journalist R. P. Hearne devoted a chapter of his new book on aerial warfare to the seemingly far-off question of whether “England [might] be raided” by an enemy “aerial navy.” It was a remarkably prescient line of inquiry: a mere seven years had passed since the Wright brothers’ first successful flight at Kitty Hawk. There was little evidence that anyone heeded Hearne’s warnings. Only thirty years later, the Blitz would devastate large areas of London.
The lesson: the transformation of societies, governments, and militaries by technology is not linear. It can happen more quickly than existing structures are prepared to absorb.
At Scale, we believe we are in such a moment. The era of Agentic Warfare has begun, defined by real capabilities that facilitate human decision-making and action on the battlefield. The U.S. Department of War already stands at the threshold of the artificial intelligence revolution: experimenting with chatbots, testing the capabilities of agents, and exploring the reliability of AI-enabled intelligence, planning, and analysis. Today we are sharing four policy briefs, following our whitepaper on Agentic Warfare, that lay out blueprints for the Department to maximize the potential for AI uptake across four areas of the Joint Force over the next year.
We begin with the need to get more AI into the force, faster. The Department has turbocharged acquisition reforms over the past year—especially the Software Acquisition Pathway and the use of Commercial Solutions Openings. However, according to one expert familiar with the programs, only about one hundred out of thousands of the Department’s AI and software programs are moving at the full speed these pathways enable. Transitioning existing programs to the new pathways, devising a readiness system that assesses the acquisition workforce, using AI tools to orchestrate program management, and developing robust testing and evaluation protocols for AI are important ways the Department can accelerate AI adoption.
In AI, The Humans are Central. AI is unreliable without humans. Real operational impact will only be achieved through human-machine teams working together. Success will hinge on designing AI systems with humans at the center while ensuring those humans are trained and prepared to operate them. This requires rethinking AI literacy across the force and developing an AI competency taxonomy that differentiates AI skills based on roles. Ultimately, the rigorous expert judgment of military operators working on and in the loop is the only way to ensure that as our agentic systems become more capable, they remain reliable and safe to deploy.
The next imperative is to adapt the wargaming enterprise for the era of AI. Breakout progress in agentic tools for military planning means the Pentagon must learn where AI adds value in the planning process—and where it does not. It must further integrate standards and scenarios, build a common infrastructure to enable faster iteration, and above all track how lessons learned are integrated into doctrine, training, and planning.
Doctrine, too, must evolve as AI increasingly powers the foundational logic of modern warfare. Transformation will occur in several steps: build a Joint AI Warfighting Concept that plans for AI’s deployment—and degradation—in contested environments; define and delineate how authority and responsibility flow in human-machine teams; ensure lessons are exported from pilots to programs and operational reality; and rework command and control for the era of AI.
Integrating AI capabilities into a three-million-strong, no-fail enterprise like the Department of War is an enormous undertaking. It is also an urgent one.
Aerial warfare’s rapid evolution—from proof of concept of human flight, to the low-altitude dogfights of World War I, to the civilian devastation wrought in the opening days of World War II—happened in an exceedingly short period. AI is advancing far faster than early aviation. The era of Agentic Warfare is here. The Department must move with even more speed to embrace and adopt it.
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