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Title: August 4, 2025 AM

MARINES IN THE LAND DOWN UNDER

In the dawn light of July 24, Japanese and American amphibious vehicles churned through the sparkling coastal waters of the Coral Sea, before emerging onto the sands of a central Queensland beach in Australia.

Two hours to the east, another amphibious lodgment was occurring simultaneously at Freshwater Beach. This time the main participants were Australia and South Korea.

A high operational tempo was maintained during Exercise Talisman Sabre 25, which was designed to provide intense training to ensure all forces are capable, interoperable, deployable on short notice and combat ready.

Why It Matters:

The two events, part of a combined joint forcible entry operation, formed the culminating activity for Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025, held in Australia from July 13-27. They were the most sophisticated amphibious landings ever attempted in the eleven iterations of Talisman Sabre so far.

U.S. NEW ROBBERY TREND

Armed robbers target bar hoppers in ritzy blue city neighborhood: ‘Held the gun to my head’

Woman says Chicago attackers held gun to her head while demanding phone password and Cash App access.

Police in Chicago, Illinois are urging residents to be cautious after a slew of violent robberies targeting mainly drunk individuals in the city's River North neighborhood.

The men befriended people who appeared to be intoxicated before stealing their property and beating them, police said. The robberies occurred during the early morning hours when bars and restaurants were closing.

One of the individuals robbed, Tori Ledzema, told FOX 32 she was forcibly pushed to the ground by four individuals in ski masks while she was headed to Pilates at 5:30 a.m. She said the men attempted to gain access to her phone.

“If they can hold the phone up to your face, if they can beat you until you give them passcodes, they will go in and transfer money."

— Former FBI special agent Jonathan Gilliam

Why It Matters:

This could be something that is “copy-catted” elsewhere in blue cities and states where unconstitutional gun laws infringe on people’s right to have the means to defend themselves. More than just that, many Americans still incorrectly presume that their everyday life is protected by law enforcement officers — who simply cannot be everywhere all at once no matter how good they are. Martial Arts and self defense classes are available everywhere and situational awareness is a real thing. Not having planned for any contingency — is every one’s primary downfall. It is our own responsibility to be able to defend ourselves — and maybe don’t go out to bars and get drunk. My Dad uses to say, “Nothing good happens after dark in town.”

WARGAMING AND AI IN IT’S HEYDAY

Twenty years ago, an explosion occurred in professional baseball as traditional baseball scouts — relying on decades of personal experience — collided with data scientists bringing new approaches and technology into the evaluation of baseball players. There were raucous debates on which approach would reign supreme: human expertise or numbers and statistics? We now know that neither approach would win out; the best baseball teams across the major leagues rely on a mix of human expertise and advanced statistics to provide the most complete assessment of talent.

Fast forward to today and a similar tension has formed in the field of defense wargaming where traditional wargamers — relying on years of expertise and bespoke game designs — are coming to grips with rapid advances in modeling and simulation and artificial intelligence.

Just like in baseball, the future of wargaming lies in a marriage of modeling and simulation, human expertise and AI.

To understand why wargaming is having its “Moneyball” moment (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1210166/), you have to first unpack what makes traditional wargaming so valuable.

Wargaming is fundamentally about human decision-making, but its magic is in the experiential learning opportunities the games provide (https://warontherocks.com/2025/06/too-much-tech-can-ruin-wargames/). War is never simple. There is no “all-seeing eye” that provides perfect information. Hence, wargaming explores how humans make decisions in imperfect scenarios, and how other humans respond to those decisions.

Wargames have served as an indispensable tool in this exploration. They provide a way to exercise the decision-making process, explore why choices were made and determine what the implications might be. However, being human-centric isn’t always efficient. Wargames often require months of planning by experienced wargamers who deeply understand the defense issues at play. They also require human players with the expertise to emulate the various parties in a conflict. All this means wargames are often hosted on an annual cycle and can only explore a small number of the potential scenarios a national security leader might encounter.

After all, how many people could plausibly play the role of Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping? the Atatollah? Kim Jong Un? Machines absolutely cannot become accurate representations of those individuals — no matter how much data you study as a person or program into an AI application.

Why It Matters:

Armies of psychologists have spent entire careers attempting to understand human decision-making. It’s not easy to boil down to numbers and equations. Moreover, it’s conveyed through conversation, discussion and debate, something that technology has yet to harness or replicate.

This is what Rob Dodson and myself both agree on. Machines can help processes — but cannot replace human beings — especially when in comes to Intelligence Analysis & Conflict Threat Assessment.

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