Deception

MILITARY DECEPTION: AI’S KILLER APP?

The value of military deception is the subject of one of the oldest and most contentious debates among strategists. Sun Tzu famously decreed that “all warfare is based on deception,” but Carl von Clausewitz dismissed military deception as a desperate measure, a last resort for those who had run out of better options. In theory, military deception is extremely attractive. One influential study noted that “all things being equal, the advantage in a deception lies with the deceiver because he knows the truth and he can assume that the adversary is eagerly searching for its indicators.”

If deception is so advantageous, why doesn’t it dominate the practice of warfare already? A major reason is that historically, military deception was planned and carried out in a haphazard, unsystematic way. During World War II, for example, British deception planners “engaged in their work much in the manner of college students perpetrating a hoax” — but they still accomplished feats such as convincing the Germans to expect the Allied invasion of France in Pas-de-Calais rather than Normandy. Despite such triumphs, military commanders have often hesitated to gamble on the uncertain risk-benefit tradeoff of deception plans, as these “require investments in effort and resources that would otherwise be applied against the enemy in a more direct fashion.” If the enemy sees through the deception, it ends up being worse than useless.