The U.S. Military Risks Letting Contractors Define How It Sees the Battlefield

The U.S. military's reliance on contractor-provided integrated command platforms creates a significant risk by outsourcing the definitions of critical concepts. These proprietary systems use 'ontologies' to define terms like 'threat' and 'escalation', meaning software engineers, not military experts, control how the battlefield is perceived. This ceding of 'representational sovereignty' can lead to poorly informed decisions in a crisis, as leaders may not understand the underlying assumptions of the software they use. The military must establish its own governance over these definitional layers to maintain control over its strategic decision-making, a problem made more urgent by the advance of AI.