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Despite two centuries of evolution, the structure of a modern military staff would be recognizable to Napoleon. At the same time, military organizations have struggled to incorporate new technologies as they adapt to new domainsair, space and informationin modern war. The sizes of military headquarters have grown to accommodate the expanded information flows and decision points of these new facets of warfare. The result is diminishing marginal returns and a coordination nightmaretoo many cooks in the kitchenthat risks jeopardizing mission command. AI agentsautonomous, goal-oriented software powered by large language modelscan automate routine staff tasks, compress decision timelines and enable smaller, more resilient command posts. They can shrink the staff while also making it more effective. As an international relations scholar and reserve officer in the U.S. Army who studies military strategy, I see both the opportunity afforded by the technology and the acute need for change. That need stems from the reality that todays command structures still mirror Napoleons field headquarters in both form and functionindustrial-age architectures built for massed armies. Over time, these staffs have ballooned in size, making coordination cumbersome. They also result in sprawling command posts that modern precision artillery, missiles and drones can target effectively and electronic warfare can readily disrupt. Russias so-called Graveyard of Command Posts in Ukraine vividly illustrates how static headquarters where opponents can mass precision artillery, missiles and drones become liabilities on a modern battlefield. The role of AI agents Military planners now see a world in which AI agentsautonomous, goal-oriented software that can perceive, decide and act on their own initiativeare mature enough to deploy in command systems. These agents promise to automate the fusion of multiple sources of intelligence, threat-modeling, and even limited decision cycles in support of a commanders goals. There is still a human in the loop, but the humans will be able to issue commands faster and receive more timely and contextual updates from the battlefield. These AI agents can parse doctrinal manuals, draft operational plans and generate courses of action, which helps accelerate the tempo of military operations. Experimentsincluding efforts I ran at Marine Corps Universityhave demonstrated how even basic large language models can accelerate staff estimates and inject creative, data-driven options into the planning process. These efforts point to the end of traditional staff roles. There will still be peoplewar is a human endeavorand ethics will still factor into streams of algorithms making decisions. But the people who remain deployed are likely to gain the ability to navigate mass volumes of information with the help of AI agents. These teams are likely to be smaller than modern staffs. AI agents will allow teams to manage multiple planning groups simultaneously. For example, they will be able to use more dynamic red teaming techniquesrole-playing the oppositionand vary key assumptions to create a wider menu of options than traditional plans. The time saved not having to build PowerPoint slides and updating staff estimates will be shifted to contingency analysis asking what if questionsand building operational assessment frameworksconceptual maps of how a plan is likely to play out in a particular situationthat provide more flexibility to commanders. Designing the next military staff To explore the optimal design of this AI agent-augmented staff, I led a team of researchers at the bipartisan think tank Center for Strategic & International Studies Futures Lab to explore alternatives. The team developed three baseline scenarios reflecting what most military analysts are seeing as the key operational problems in modern great power competition: joint blockades, firepower strikes and joint island campaigns. Joint refers to an action coordinated among multiple branches of a military. In the example of China and Taiwan, joint blockades describe how China could isolate the island nation and either starve it or set conditions for an invasion. Firepower strikes describe how Beijing could fire salvos of missilessimilar to what Russia is doing in Ukraineto destroy key military centers and even critical infrastructure. Last, in Chinese doctrine, a Joint Island Landing Campaign describes the cross-strait invasion their military has spent decades refining. Any AI agent-augmented staff should be able to manage warfighting functions across these three operational scenarios. The research team found that the best model kept humans in the loop and focused on feedback loops. This approachcalled the Adaptive Staff Model and based on pioneering work by sociologist Andrew Abbottembeds AI agents within continuous human-machine feedback loops, drawing on doctrine, history and real-time data to evolve plans on the fly. In this model, military planning is ongoing and never complete, and focused more on generating a menu of options for the commander to consider, refine and enact. The research team tested the approach with multiple AI models and found that it outperformed alternatives in each case. AI agents are not without risk. First, they can be overly generalized, if not biased. Foundation modelsAI models trained on extremely large datasets and adaptable to a wide range of tasksknow more about pop culture than war and require refinement. This makes it important to benchmark agents to understand their strengths and limitations. Second, absent training in AI fundamentals and advanced analytical reasoning, many users tend to use mdels as a substitute for critical thinking. No smart model can make up for a dumb, or worse, lazy user. Seizing the agentic moment To take advantage of AI agents, the U.S. military will need to institutionalize building and adapting agents, include adaptive agents in war games, and overhaul doctrine and training to account for human-machine teams. This will require a number of changes. First, the military will need to invest in additional computational power to build the infrastructure required to run AI agents across military formations. Second, they will need to develop additional cybersecurity measures and conduct stress tests to ensure the agent-augmented staff isnt vulnerable when attacked across multiple domains, including cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum. Third, and most important, the military will need to dramatically change how it educates its officers. Officers will have to learn how AI agents work, including how to build them, and start using the classroom as a lab to develop new approaches to the age-old art of military command and decision-making. This could include revamping some military schools to focus on AI, a concept floated in the White Houses AI Action Plan released on July 23, 2025. Absent these reforms, the military is likely to remain stuck in the Napoleonic staff trap: adding more people to solve ever more complex problems. Benjamin Jensen is a professor of strategic studies at the Marine Corps University School of Advanced Warfighting and a scholar-in-residence at American University School of International Service. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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When Olivier Baroin moved into an apartment in Montmartre about 15 years ago, it felt like he was living in a village in the heart of Paris. Not anymore.Stores for residents are disappearing, along with the friendly atmosphere, he says. In their place are hordes of people taking selfies, shops selling tourist trinkets, and cafés whose seating spills into the narrow, cobbled streets as overtourism takes its toll.Baroin has had enough. He put his apartment up for sale after local streets were designated pedestrian-only while accommodating the growing number of visitors.“I told myself that I had no other choice but to leave since, as I have a disability, it’s even more complicated when you can no longer take your car, when you have to call a taxi from morning to night,” he told The Associated Press. Overtourism in European cities From Venice to Barcelona to Amsterdam, European cities are struggling to absorb surging numbers of tourists.Some residents in one of Paris’ most popular tourist neighborhoods are now pushing back. A black banner strung between two balconies in Montmartre reads, in English: “Behind the postcard: locals mistreated by the Mayor.” Another, in French, says: “Montmartre residents resisting.”Atop the hill where the Basilica of Sacré-Cur crowns the city’s skyline, residents lament what they call the “Disneyfication” of the once-bohemian slice of Paris. The basilica says it now attracts up to 11 million people a year even more than the Eiffel Tower while daily life in the neighborhood has been overtaken by tuk-tuks, tour groups, photo queues and short-term rentals.“Now, there are no more shops at all, there are no more food shops, so everything must be delivered,” said 56-year-old Baroin, a member of a residents’ protest group called Vivre a Montmartre, or Living in Montmartre.The unrest echoes tensions across town at the Louvre Museum, where staff in June staged a brief wildcat strike over chronic overcrowding, understaffing and deteriorating conditions. The Louvre logged 8.7 million visitors in 2024, more than double what its infrastructure was designed to handle. A postcard under pressure Paris, a city of just over 2 million residents if you count its sprawling suburbs, welcomed 48.7 million tourists in 2024, a 2% increase from the previous year.Sacré-Cur, the most visited monument in France in 2024, and the surrounding Montmartre neighborhood have turned into what some locals call an open-air theme park.Local staples like butchers, bakeries and grocers are vanishing, replaced by ice-cream stalls, bubble-tea vendors and souvenir T-shirt stands.Paris authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Visitors seemed largely to be enjoying the packed streets on a sunny Tuesday this week.“For the most part, all of Paris has been pretty busy, but full of life, for sure,” said American tourist Adam Davidson. “Coming from Washington, D.C., which is a lively city as well, I would say this is definitely full of life to a different degree for sure.” Europe’s breaking point In Barcelona, thousands have taken to the streets this year, some wielding water pistols, demanding limits on cruise ships and short-term tourist rentals. Venice now charges an entry fee for day-trippers and caps visitor numbers. And in Athens, authorities are imposing a daily limit on visitors to the Acropolis, to protect the ancient monument from record-breaking tourist crowds.Urban planners warn that historic neighborhoods risk becoming what some critics call “zombie cities” picturesque but lifeless, their residents displaced by short-term visitors.Paris is trying to mitigate the problems by cracking down on short-term rentals and unlicensed properties.But tourism pressures are growing. By 2050, the world’s population is projected to reach nearly 10 billion, according to United Nations estimates. With the global middle class expanding, low-cost flights booming and digital platforms guiding travelers to the same viral landmarks, many more visitors are expected in iconic cities like Paris.The question now, residents say, is whether any space is left for those who call it home. Thomas Adamson, Associated Press
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A lawsuit filed by families of the Uvalde school shooting victims alleging Instagram allowed gun manufacturers to promote firearms to minors should be thrown out, lawyers for Meta, Instagram’s parent company, argued Tuesday.Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.The families sued Meta in Los Angeles in May 2024, saying the social media platform failed to enforce its own rules forbidding firearms advertisements aimed at minors. The families, who were present at last month’s hearing, did not appear in court, with a lawyer citing the back-to-school season. Many plaintiffs attended the hearing virtually, he said.In one ad posted on Instagram, the Georgia-based gunmaker Daniel Defense shows Santa Claus holding an assault rifle. In another post by the same company, a rifle leans against a refrigerator, with the caption: “Let’s normalize kitchen Daniels. What Daniels do you use to protect your kitchen and home?”The lawsuit alleges those posts are marketed toward minors. The Uvalde gunman opened an online account with Daniel Defense before his 18th birthday and purchased the rifle as soon as he could, according to the lawsuit. He also owned various Instagram accounts and had an “obsessive relationship” with the platform, at times opening the app more than 100 times a day, plaintiffs’ lawyers found in an analysis of the shooter’s phone. Plaintiffs say minors can access gun content on Instagram Meta attorney Kristin Linsley argued that the families provided no proof that minors, including the Uvalde gunman, even read the Daniel Defense posts on Instagram. She also said the posts didn’t violate Meta’s policies because they weren’t direct advertisements and did not include links to purchase any products.Katie Mesner-Hage, representing the victims’ families, said the defense’s claim is “fundamentally unfair,” as the plaintiffs don’t have access to Meta data that would indicate whether the shooter encountered those posts. She added that if the content had landed on the shooter’s feed, as the plaintiffs allege, then Meta “not only knew about it, they designed the system so it would be delivered to him.”“They knew more about him than anyone else on the planet,” she said.Linsley said content advertising firearms for sale on Instagram is allowed if posted by “brick-and-motor and online retailers,” but visibility of those posts was restricted for minors under Meta’s advertising policies from the end of 2021 to October 2022.“This is not a playbook for how to violate the rules. This is actually what the rules are,” Linsley said.The plaintiff’s team, however, showed a fake profile they created for a 17-year-old boy earlier this month, through which they were able to search Daniel Defense’s Instagram account and see a post that included a picture of a gun, as well as a link to the gun manufacturer’s website.When the link was clicked, the gun-maker’s website opened, and the team was able to select a firearm and add it to their cart, all within Instagram’s app an experiment that refutes Meta’s assertion that posts relating to firearms aren’t visible to users under 21, Mesner-Hage said.Linsley said in her rebuttal that the experiment was done this year and not in 2021 to 2022, which is when the policy she described was in effect.The families have also sued Daniel Defense and video game company Activision, which produces “Call of Duty.” Case hinges on social media’s responsibility for content creation Linsley said the Communications Decency Act allows social media platforms to moderate content without being treated as publishers of that content.“The only response a company can have is to not have these kinds of rules at all,” Linsley said. “It just gets you down a rabbit hole very quickly.”Mesner-Hage argued Meta is not protected by the act because social media platforms don’t just host speech, but help curate it through its algorithms. Daniel Defense, she said, didn’t have to pay for ads to get free access to Meta’s analytical data through its business account on Instagram. That data shows the company which age bracket and gender engaged most with a specific post.“Daniel Defense is not on Instagram to make friends. They’re on there to promote their product,” Mesner-Hage said. “It’s not a paid advertisement, but I would struggle to describe this as anything other than an advertisement.”The lawsuit alleges that firearm companies tweaked their online marketing to comply with Meta’s policies, including by avoiding the words “buy” or “sell” and not providing links to purchase, and that the social media company did not protect users against such strategies.Last month, lawyers for Activision also argued that legal proceedings against them should be thrown out, saying the families allegations are barred by the First Amendment. The families alleged that the war-themed video game Call of Duty trained and conditioned the Uvalde gunman to orchestrate his attack.Lawyers for the plaintiffs asked the judge to allow them to amend their lawsuit with the new information they presented Tuesday before ruling on the defense’s motion. The defense claimed that was unnecessary, as the case would not have merit even with the amendments.The judge has yet to rule on Activision’s motion and did not immediately rule on the Meta case. Itzel Luna, Associated Press
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