Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

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Scharre, a former Army Ranger and vice president and director of studies for the Center for a New American Security, understands the realities of war as well as the tech side, so he is well positioned to examine this field. Scharre covers a lot of ground in the "intelligentization" or "cognitization" of militaries, from comparing Chinese and American AI military integration efforts to startups, procurement systems, and the possibilities of posthuman war. S. China’s government-driven model provides unity of purpose and unlimited funding but restricts innovation. MENA states are nonetheless, as Soliman says, “pursuing policies designed to build up the region’s digital and tech sovereignty,” echoing the emphasis on agency that runs throughout Four Battlegrounds.

In this riveting book on AI and power by one of the leading strategists of our time, Paul Scharre highlights an existential challenge: as Americans and Chinese militarize ever more powerful AI to avoid ceding control to each other, they risk ceding too much power to machines.Indeed, even within Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, a recent McKinsey survey of senior executives, board directors, and industry experts found that “organization and talent,” broadly construed, is the greatest challenge to commercial AI adoption. Four Battlegrounds is sprawling in scope, encompassing both the technical elements of AI and this “general-purpose enabling” technology’s geopolitical and military implications. Scharre does not consider the implications of his framework for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in detail.

Scharre’s four battleground themes do provide an interesting framework in which to discuss the implications and challenges of applying AI to today’s strategic competition. Four Battlegrounds argues that four key elements define this struggle: data, computing power, talent, and institutions.The levels of compute and equipment needed, furthermore, is potentially unsustainable for private AI labs, possibly shifting the burden to governments keen on harnessing AI.