How Artificial Intelligence Is Reshaping the Way Military Planners Think About Operations

Summary

The article explores a growing tension in military operational planning as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into the planning process, building on concerns raised by Marco Lyons about the perceived decline of operational art in Western military practice. The authors, drawing from their experience teaching operational art and conducting planning experiments, argue that the difficulties observed — such as fragmented campaigns, sequential decision-making, and weak operational coherence — may stem not simply from a deterioration of skills, but from the limitations of applying a single, rigid operational framework to increasingly complex and adaptive environments. A particularly significant problem identified is the "checklist effect," where planners focus more on completing structured templates and procedural products than on genuinely understanding the operational problem itself, resulting in plans that appear sound on paper but fail to capture the true nature of the challenge. The authors warn that as AI tools shape what information planners see and treat as relevant, they risk further entrenching certain ways of thinking while marginalizing other valid approaches to operational reasoning. Ultimately, the piece calls for a broader discussion about how different traditions of operational thinking coexist in planning practice and how the rise of AI may unintentionally privilege procedural coherence over genuine strategic understanding.