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AI & Domestic Response
Militaries worldwide are racing to harness artificial intelligence to gain a tactical advantage on the battlefield.
Using AI, analysis that usually takes hours or days, such as processing large amounts of sensor data, can be accomplished in seconds. It can also simulate battlefield scenarios and predict likely outcomes. The results greatly accelerate the decision-making loop of observe, orient, decide and act.
The advancing technology can also aid in domestic response, where faster and more precise situational awareness during a wildfire or after a hurricane can save lives and pinpoint the delivery of relief to where it’s needed most, say current and former National Guard leaders.
AI will become “absolutely essential” for domestic response, says retired Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, a former National Guard Bureau chief and now the managing director and practice lead for domestic and international planning, training and disaster response at Sitrick and Company.
“It’s the next step into providing information, knowledge for training, for exercising, preparing for and responding to any manmade or natural disaster,” he said. “It will clearly be an invaluable tool for those that are charged with that responsibility.”
Blum has seen natural disasters at their worst. He oversaw the massive Guard response to Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005. The storm caused widespread devastation, including catastrophic flooding in New Orleans, resulting in more than 1,800 deaths and tens of billions of dollars in property damage.
He says AI can be a game-changer both before and during a domestic response.
“Modeling for events like floods, hurricanes, blizzards or even terrorist exercises gives the planners really unlimited options to run scenarios and exercises that are very realistic and that show the second, third and fourth order effects of some of the actions and decisions they’ll take,” Blum explains. “It should make our responses far more effective and timely. The end result is it saves dollars and lives.”
The National Guard Bureau is all-in with AI and machine learning, according to Delester Brown Jr., the chief data officer at NGB.
“The NGB chief information officer, Kenneth C. McNeill, has discussed at length that AI is a game-changer with an exponential multiplying effect to those willing to use it,” he said in an email. “With those implications in mind, we understand that AI usage is a requirement to multidomain dominance.”
He added that AI real-time situational awareness will become the baseline for tactical and operational response teams along with the capability to predict secondary disasters.
“The National Guard will be able to maximize AI to optimize the use of resources, reducing waste and ensuring that aid is delivered where it is most needed; thereby improving efficiency across enterprise readiness,” Brown said. “Specifically, Project Theia currently permits detection of various objects. In the future, the National Guard will have abilities that leverage AI to forecast potential secondary disasters, such as landslides or flooding, and proactively deploy resources to mitigate their impact.”
Project Theia is named after the Greek goddess of sight. It centralizes video captured from an aircraft and applies AI solutions to increase situational awareness among those responding to natural or manmade disasters.
AI is a game-changer with an exponential multiplying effect to those willing to use it.
—Delester Brown Jr., the chief data officer at the National Guard Bureau
THE CALIFORNIA AIR NATIONAL GUARD'S 163rd Attack Wing is at the forefront of putting Theia into practice, primarily as a system to combat and respond to the state’s infamous wildfires.
California firefighting officials have used the wing’s MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft for a few years to provide real-time video of wildfires. The wing’s Capt. Douglas Witherspoon recently developed a web-based platform that uses Google Earth and the video to provide clearer depictions of the disaster area.
He says creating the platform was easier said than done. He had a limited budget. In addition, the effort required the novel approach of pairing military equipment and a commercial circuit. Witherspoon got the green light needed from his superiors to build a network atop the commercial circuit that was accredited through the Twenty-Fifth Air Force.
“Now, artificial intelligence can take data from a video and create an overlay and then allow the aircraft’s video program to connect to it,” he says. An overlay involves using Theia’s software to render markings on top of a digital map of the disaster site.
Because the overlay is constantly updating the imagery, Witherspoon adds, analysts can better track fires.
“The technology we have now is more advanced and fully automated,” Witherspoon says. “Using artificial intelligence to visually augment live video feeds with highly accurate overlays of roads, key landmarks, and other mission-critical data allows analysts to make time-sensitive decisions.
“Previously, decisions were made using printed maps that failed to convey current conditions, leading to delayed or less precise responses,” he adds. “This shared real-time situational awareness not only enhances response efficiency but reduces operational costs and improves outcomes through better-informed decisions.”
AI made its disaster-response debut in the wake of Hurricane Helene, a tropical cyclone that caused widespread damage and numerous fatalities across the southeastern United States, notably western North Carolina, in September 2024.
But it wasn’t the Guard using it, although more than 6,300 Guard Soldiers and Airmen were involved in the response. It was the active-component Army, which dispatched roughly 1,000 members of the 18th Airborne Corps from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to assist state and local officials. They employed Maven Smart System.
Maven is a data analysis and decision-making tool that sifts through voluminous data from multiple sources and employs AI/machine learning to visualize the information. It’s designed to enhance battlespace awareness, global integration, contested logistics, joint fires and targeting,
After Hurricane Helene, the Army used the program to help first responders determine where resources were most needed and how to get them there, such as where to send medical supplies or how many truckloads of water to take into certain storm-ravaged areas.
The Defense Department launched Project Maven in 2017. The 18th Airborne Corps was at the forefront of testing. As the technology matured, it was deployed in real-world operations, including identifying targets in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, according to multiple published reports. During the Russia-Ukraine war, Maven played a pivotal role in processing satellite imagery and relaying intelligence to Ukrainian forces.
Last May, DoD announced a $480 million contract with Palantir, the Denver-based company that developed Maven, to expand its use to thousands of users at five combatant commands: U.S. Central Command, European Command, Indo-Pacific Command, Northern Command and Transportation Command. The system will also be available to members of the Joint Staff.
AI IS ELEVATING the domestic response-and-provide paradigm exponentially.
Tim Cooley, the founder and president, DynamX Consulting, a company dedicated to providing modeling, simulation and analysis solutions, believes the application of AI is having a considerable impact on efficient and effective response to natural disasters. Cooley, who evaluates Marine Corps training systems, says AI is adept at pattern recognition, offering analysis in seconds as opposed to the human lag time of hours and days.
“You train your AI models to know what’s normal, and we’ve got lots of normal data, and then you feed into it data from multifaceted sensors,” Cooley says. “And so the beauty of AI is that you can feed it photos, you can feed it radio frequency, you can feed it geography and you can feed it all into one model and it can go, ‘Ok, we have an issue,’ and it can pinpoint where those issues are.”
Cooley lived in Colorado during the hellish fire seasons of the 1990s and was told that response and fire prediction data was being collected and collated manually. While their predictive models proved to be intriguing, they weren’t very useful given the urgency of the situation.
“They were manually putting in wind data, weather data, environmental data, all that kind of stuff to predict where the fire was going to go,” he says. “Their models were kind of cool but antiquated. Today, you could feed it into an AI model and you’d know that answer in five minutes.”
Another AI innovation currently in production and slated for use by the Guard is Project Bellwether, which was developed by X LLC.
The technology assimilates images taken by the Civil Air Patrol and employs AI to query geospatial assets. This enables Bellwether to quickly find the positioning of the original CAP image and provide critical infrastructure within the snapshot, empowering the Guard to swiftly synchronize relief efforts. The AI tool can detect matches even when the disaster dramatically alters the landscape, such as after a tornado or a flood.
The Defense Innovation Unit, a DoD entity charged with implementing early-stage commercial technology into military operations, partnered with the Bellwether team.
“Right now, our analysts have to spend time sorting through images to find the ones that cover the areas most affected by natural disasters,” Col. Brian McGarry, who oversees operations, plans and training at NGB, said in a recent DIU press release. “They then have to correlate those images to surrounding infrastructure, label all the relevant features, and only then can highlight the significant damage and send it forward to first responder teams.”
In the future, Bellwether will be able to do this in minutes.
Meanwhile, Theia has undergone successful testing and is ready to support the Guard and local authorities during and after disasters.
“Most notably, it was tested during the most notable Joint All Hazards Assessment and Awareness Exercise in May 2024, where it proved highly effective,” Witherspoon says. “The exercise demonstrated the system’s capability to compile and disseminate live video feeds from multiple sources.”
Airborne video feeds from California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s King Air, California Emergency Operations Services’ King Air and the Civil Air Patrol Cessna 206 were directly distributed to analysts on the ground. In the past, consequential decisions were made based on printed maps. Now with applications such as Project Theia, analysts can use real-time intel to disburse resources and expeditiously deploy the appropriate personnel with accuracy.
Witherspoon adds: “Project Theia is a critical asset for a wide range of domestic operations, including hurricane and earthquake responses, as well as search-and-rescue missions. The ability to provide the last known position of a missing person or assess disaster impacts with live feeds can mean the difference between life and death.”
CHRIS ADAMS is a freelance writer based in Louisville, Kentucky, specializing in military subjects. He can be reached via [email protected].
NOT JUST THE MILITARY
U.S. industries, universities increasingly turn to AI to automate, accelerate tasks
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are becoming commonplace across society.
AI is transforming many industries by automating tasks, optimizing processes and enabling data-driven decision-making, with applications ranging from manufacturing and finance to education and retail, according to futureskillsacademy.com.
For example, manufacturing leverages AI for predictive maintenance, quality control and supply chain optimization, reducing costs and improving product quality.
In finance, it improves fraud detection, optimizes trading and enhances customer service with chatbots, boosting security and satisfaction.
Many businesses now tout their use of AI in their advertising.
The news media also now relies on the technology. The New York Times recently approved AI tools that newsroom staff can use for editing copy, summarizing information, coding and even writing stories, following the lead of other outlets.
Editors use generative AI, a type of machine learning that can create original content, such as images, text, music and even videos, that rival human creation. YouTube is full of AI-generated video.
Many people have had AI at their fingertips for years. Most mobile phones contain AI features like photo tools, voice assistance, predictive text and facial recognition. Now, newer phones are equipped with GenAI that can learn from user behavior to offer tailored recommendations and automate routine tasks.
AI also has its downsides. Bad actors use the technology to produce disinformation and confuse public policy discussions. And criminals, according to the FBI, leverage AI to create elaborate scams by creating fake documents and impersonating individuals through voice, image or video cloning.
—NGAUS staff report
