The next major conflict may not begin with bombs or bullets but with keystrokes and code, a senior official for the U.S. Army warned Tuesday at the Association of the United States Army annual conference.
“The first shots will be fired in the cyber domain,” said Maj. Gen. Jake Kwon, director of strategic operations for the Army’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff. “The Army has to think differently, and we have to fight faster, more integrated, and more data-driven than ever before.”
Kwon emphasized that preparing for the digital battlefield will require embracing artificial intelligence, treating data as a strategic asset, and reshaping training to reflect the complexity and speed of modern warfare.
At the heart of the Army’s future planning is AI-driven mission command.
In leveraging AI, Kwon explained that the goal should be to achieve “decision dominance” – using AI to allow commanders to make faster, more informed decisions.
“AI has to become the nervous system on the battlefield to help enable commanders not only to maintain speed and agility, but also be able to interpret and make decisions faster to keep our adversaries on their back foot,” he said.
He pointed to recent experiments like Project Convergence, which have shown the potential of combining AI with sensor data.
“We actually reduce that cycle time from what used to be days to hours, and then hours to minutes and minutes to seconds,” Kwon said. “That’s definitely going to help our commanders seize the advantage.”
Still, he stressed that human judgment must remain central.
“Humans will always remain in the center of that loop,” he said. “AI informs but doesn’t replace the commander’s judgment. Speed and accuracy of decision making will only be more important for defining success on the future battlefield.”
A second pillar of modernization, Kwon said, is building a data-centric Army.
“We have to treat data as a strategic asset. Some people mention it as ‘data is the new ammunition,’” he said.
Efforts are underway across the Army Secretariat and staff to set policies and procedures for handling battlefield data: from collection and processing to aggregation at different echelons.
“That’s going to be the nature of the future fight,” Kwon said.
Training will also have to evolve, moving beyond linear, scripted scenarios to more ambiguous and contested environments.
Kwon emphasized that soldiers must learn to trust digital tools, interpret AI-driven insights, and operate under degraded conditions, including cyberattacks and electronic warfare.
“Our training has to continually evolve,” Kwon said, “to reflect a contested environment and account for the data-rich nature of modern warfare.”
He pointed to exercises like Cyber Quest and Project Convergence that have already tested how troops respond under these conditions.
With divisions now serving as the Army’s key units of action for large-scale combat operations, much of this experimentation will happen at that level, Kwon said.
“Divisions equipped with integrated electronic warfare and cyber planning cells demonstrated they could fight dispersed yet connected, which is important on the modern battlefield,” he said.
“As a division goes into the dirt at one of the combat training centers, cyber work will feature prominently,” Kwon added.
Commanders can no longer treat cyber as a niche capability, he warned. Cyber and electronic warfare must be integrated at the division and corps levels.
“That’s the future we’re building toward – divisions and corps that can generate multi-domain effects and ensure resilience, survivability, and speed on the battlefield,” Kwon said.