Description
Fighting with Data examines how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping military decision making by changing both the speed of command and the structure of cognition within mission-command systems. Rather than treating AI as a tool that merely accelerates existing staff processes, this monograph recognizes AI redistributes cognitive labor across a network of people, data, tools, and operational processes. In this new environment, commanders and staffs spend less time assembling information and more time interpreting meaning, judging uncertainty, and deciding how to act.
This shift in the human role requires a new way of thinking about trust in military AI. Traditional standards based on reliability, transparency, or past performance cannot sufficiently evaluate systems that operate probabilistically and often opaquely. Instead, this monograph proposes an ecocognitive approach that evaluates whether AI-enabled systems fit the operational environment well enough to produce useful understanding and support sound judgment.
Drawing on military doctrine, cognitive science, and epistemology, this study develops a framework for assessing representational, inferential, and adaptive fit in AI-enabled command systems. This monograph concludes, in the future, decision advantage will depend less on systems that can process more information than on human-machine systems that are designed to turn data into understanding under conditions of uncertainty.
©2026 C. Anthony Pfaff
ISBN
1-58487-875-4
Publication Date
8-8-2026
Publisher
USAWC Press
City
Carlisle Barracks, PA
Keywords
mission command, artificial intelligence, distributed cognition, decision-support systems, epistemology, design, decision advantage
Disciplines
Defense and Security Studies
Recommended Citation
C. Anthony Pfaff,
Fighting with Data: Design Implications for AI-Enabled Mission-Command Systems (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College Press, 2026),
https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/988
