Hold on tight, this episode is a whirlwind of data-infused targeting, intel, and logistics. Joe O’Callaghan joins host Tom Spahr in the virtual studio to discuss the Department of Defense’s Maven Smart System. Maven was first developed to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to help speed intelligence analysis, but has since been applied to targeting, logistics, and even disaster relief. Joe, as the former Chief of Fires in the XVIII Airborne Corps, was one of the key architects of the system. He is the perfect guest to describe the digital and procedural nuts and bolts required to make the Maven Smart System work. Their conversation also touches on the trail-blazing development process and the kind of leaders required to drive such innovation.
AI is about data and about how you have the governance on that data to make that data usable for your algorithms.
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Joseph “Joe” O’Callaghan, is from Chicago, Illinois, and was commissioned as a Field Artillery Officer from Christian Brothers University, Memphis, Tennessee in 1994. He retired as a colonel and was previously the XVIII Airborne Corps Chief of Fires overseeing the Corps Joint Fires and Targeting Enterprise and the Corps subject matter expert on Algorithmic Warfare. He has served in both Conventional and Special Operations units. He is one of the key architects of the Department of Defense’s Maven Smart System (MSS).
Thomas W. Spahr is the DeSerio Chair of Theater and Strategic Intelligence at the U.S. Army War College. He is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army and holds a Ph.D. in History from The Ohio State University. He teaches courses at the Army War College on Military Campaigning and Intelligence.
The views expressed in this presentation are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, U.S. Army, or Department of Defense.
Photo Description: U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Jesus Bustamante, a Houston, Texas, native and a high mobility artillery rocket system operator with 1st Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2d Marine Division rides in a M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System during exercise Scarlet Dragon in Dugway, Utah, Feb. 2, 2023. Scarlet Dragon is a joint exercise in which the U.S. military branches test their interoperability capability with joint units.
Photo Credit: U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Emma Gray
The principal way in which our state and non-state challengers, and our foreign and domestic challengers, would seem to be winning their conflicts today, this would seem to be by:
a. Emphasizing to the world that the post-Cold War goal of the U.S./the West — both at home and abroad — has been to change critical aspects of the cultures of the states and societies world and by
b. Suggesting that they (our state and non-state challengers, and our foreign and domestic challengers) are the ones that the people of the world must come to rely on — and come to rally to — this, should they wish to (a) retain their, thus gravely threatened, current degree of culturally-derived power, influence, control, status, privilege, prestige, safety, security, etc., and/or to (b) regain — recently lost — such matters.
Question: As to these specific matters/as to this specific aspect of conflict and war today, how might we bring to bear such things as AI, algorithms, the Maven Smart System, data-driven defense, etc., etc., etc.; this, so to (a) prevail in these such conflicts/these such challenges and (b) achieve our transformative goals both at home and abroad in spite of same?
(Or is this an impossible task now; this, due to recent events, and [b] are we better off, or worse off, for it?)
As to my question immediately above, to wit: how can such things as AI, algorithms, the Maven Smart System, data driven defense, etc., be used in our conflicts today — conflicts which find our internal and external challengers “winning” by (a) emphasizing the threat posed by all those who owe their power, influence, control, etc., to the status quo (or to a status quo ante; this, if too much unwanted change is thought to have already taken place) and by (b) suggesting that only they (our internal and external challengers) can help these such threatened entities to maintain, and/or to restore, their such power, influence, control, etc. —
As to this such question, let us consider that (a) if data is the “input” for algorithms, and (b) if algorithms process data to generate meaningful results, then (c) what data might be used — to produce algorithms — which might help us to (1) overcome the resistance to transformation and cultural change problems which I present in my paragraph (and indeed my initial comment) immediately above and to (2) achieve our transformative goals in spite of same?
Note: As to this such requirement — which is to find and/or to produce significant and meaningful data, which is massively supportive of, and thus massively influential re:, our transformative/our change goals — as to this such requirement, IS THIS, in truth, what is missing here? To wit: specific, meaningful and massively supportive “change” data which, in truth, we really have not been able to put our hands on?
Thus, while our internal and external opponents can easily put their hands on massive amounts of meaningful and supportive data — which identifies how our efforts to achieve our transformative goals “harm”/potentially harm various entities both here at home and there abroad — we, ourselves, would not seem to so easily put our hands on data which identifies how our efforts to achieve our transformative goals “help” various/these exact same such entities?
(Thus, while “they” can find/produce sufficient data to “feed” their algorithms, “we” cannot. This making such things as AI, algorithms, the Maven Smart System, data driven defense, etc. — re: the “kind of war” that I discuss and address above — useless/much less useful?)
Change the end of my last, in parenthesis, paragraph above to say “… useless/much less useful as relates to our transformative/our achieve change goals.”
Apologies.