Sunday, August 9, 2026 Strategy, technology, media, and social systems

I Think

Sorin Adam Matei

Analysis, research, maps, and essays from Sorin Adam Matei.

Category: Data, Strategy, and Defense

Transforming Warfighting: The Case for AI and Software-Centric Strategies

Please cite Matei, S. A. (2022-2025). Transforming Warfighting: The Case for Software-Centric Strategies. Matei.org/I Think Blog. https://matei.org/ithink/2024/05/27/doing-more-with-less-a-data-model-driven-methodology-for-efficient-war-fighting-platforms-design/             Since time immemorial military technologies have been built “just in case,” focusing on technical superiority features. Firearms, artillery, ships, and later planes and missiles…

What is a strategic technology?

What are the necessary and sufficient factors that lead to the emergence and use of war-winning strategic technologies? The following definitions and assumptions may lead to the criteria and propositions capable of imagining new war-winning strategic technologies. We use them in the…

What should a strategist know? A competency-based education program for strategic thinkers and doers

In my role as an Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research at Purdue University, I partnered with two colleagues with solid experience in military strategy research and education to propose a new methodology for training strategic thinkers and doers. David Benson,…

Can international trade instigate the next great conflict?

A potential favoring factor for the invasion of Ukraine and the threats made of China to occupy Taiwan could be that International trade clusters cut across political-military alliances. In a study I conducted with Nagisha Ishinabe and published in The National Interest…

China’s South China Sea Strategy is All about Taiwan: A Spatial Strategic Analysis

What can we surmise about China’s intentions in the South China Sea? Although I have no crystal ball, in this National Interest article I offer some hard geographic, military, and economic facts. Analyzing what configurations of power projection and claim China has…

The First and (Only) Law of Robotic Warfare

Preventing military Artificial Intelligence (AIs) agents from taking over from humans is simple: treat them as humans by teaching them the golden rule

The development of AIs capable of targeting, shooting, and eliminating enemies in seconds has reached the threshold of possibility. There is much promise for creating strong defensive weapons but there is just as much fear. What if these AIs could turn rogue…