About the Initiative

For the third year in a row, the French École de Guerre has had the great opportunity to work in close cooperation with PRISM. Six École de Guerre students completed research papers with the support of PRISM. The partnership has enhanced the ability of the officers in École de Guerre to understand key global issues and has further strengthened their ability to interact with American partners.

Soldier fights in tandem with various robotics in Human-Machine Integrated Formations during Project Convergence Capstone 5 experiment, March 15, 2025, at Fort Irwin, California.

Joint Force Quarterly 119 | Jan. 9, 2026

Cognitive Warfare and Organizational Design: Leveraging AI to Reshape Military Decisionmaking

Michael S. Silver, Kellen D. Sick, Matthew A. Snyder, and Justin E. Farnell

The military and economic dominance of the United States in the post-Soviet era compelled adversaries to shift their strategies away from largescale conventional warfare. Instead, they have increasingly focused on contesting American decisionmaking through cognitive warfare, leveraging psychological, informational, and technological domains to erode strategic advantage. Unlike traditional warfare, cognitive warfare shapes how individuals and organizations perceive reality, evaluate choices, and act on information.

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U.S. Coast Guard members conduct a boarding of a fishing vessel in the Eastern Pacific, August 3, 2022. The Coast Guard completed a counter-illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing operation for the first time under the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO). The SPRFMO convention area covers nearly a fourth of the Earth’s high seas. The SPRFMO Commission consists of 16 members from Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Oceania as well as three cooperating non-contracting parties.

Joint Force Quarterly 119 | Jan. 9, 2026

Combating IUU Fishing in the South American Pacific: An Opportunity to Counter Chinese Influence Closer to Home

Alexander Goodno

In August 2022, USCGC James took evasive action to avoid a Chinese-flagged vessel that was attempting to ram the cutter in the Pacific Ocean. While most confrontations between the United States and China center around Taiwan or the South China Sea, this event took place off the coast of South America—nearly 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) from mainland China. The incident had little to do with Chinese territorial expansion. Instead, it focused on illicit fishing activity, the Chinese vessel being a member of China’s distant water fishing (DWF) fleet, the largest in the world.

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Dr. Kevin Pollpeter, Director of Research for the China Aerospace Studies Institute, and Professor David T. Burbach, Ph.D., Director of the Naval War College Space Studies Group, answer questions during Naval War College’s Future Warfighting Symposium onboard Naval Station Newport, Rhode Island, August 7, 2025 (U.S. Navy/Connor Burns)

Joint Force Quarterly 119 | Dec. 30, 2025

Breadth or Depth: The Ongoing Battle in Professional Military Education

Ryan Wadle and Heather Venable

The subject of military history as taught in the U.S. Army’s school system is much in the air of late. The editors of Parameters chose in 1981 to reintroduce Michael Howard’s timeless article on military education writ large. Such an introduction could serve just as well some 40 years later, when the state of joint professional military education (JPME) remains a heated source of debate.

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