Journal on Baltic Security

Professional Military Education faces a fundamental challenge: preparing leaders to collaborate effectively with AI capabilities that evolve faster than curriculum cycles, in operational contexts still being defined, against adversaries who conceptualise AI through different strategic logics. This editorial introduction frames the Journal on Baltic Security special issue on Artificial Intelligence in Professional Military Education, presenting a distinction between command functions (requiring human judgment) and control functions (amenable to AI augmentation) that emerged from collaborative exploration among Baltic-Nordic defence organisations and NATO institutions. Three patterns of effective human-AI collaboration – Strategic Sense-Making, Ethical Responsibility, and Adaptive Command – provide the conceptual thread connecting six diverse contributions spanning adversary paradigm analysis, technology survey, NATO cognitive infrastructure, gender and inclusion, practitioner reflection, and empirical framework development. The introduction identifies implementation gaps requiring continued attention and points toward future collaborative work addressing practical solutions for PME institutions navigating AI integration.

As the global competition for the mastery of artificial intelligence (AI) intensifies, militaries are assessing AI’s future role for the conduct of warfare. Our article analyses and compares recent Chinese and Russian (academic) debates on the impact of AI for warfare, and for the prevailing ‘paradigm of warfare’. By paradigm of warfare we mean a socially constructed conception, shared within a state or among a group of states, on the prevailing characteristics of warfare and on the nature of military power. This includes ideas concerning technologies and operational approaches, the nature of military threats, and even legitimate uses of military force. We argue that the paradigm of warfare stands on a limited number of ‘core assumptions’, which can be distilled from a manageable sample of research data. In our article we analyse and compare the core assumptions prevalent in Chinese and Russian debates, through the role of AI, and discuss whether a shared paradigm of ‘intelligent warfare’ is emerging between the states.

NATO’s 2030 digital transformation demands innovative approaches to harness specialised capabilities and ensure readiness against hybrid threats. Cyber reserves are pivotal in bridging military and civilian technologies, enabling digital objectives, and countering sophisticated tactics like cyberattacks and GPS jamming. These reserves integrate military training with civilian expertise, leveraging private sector knowledge – controlling 90% of critical infrastructure – as a strategic asset. They serve as a force multiplier in digital transformation, connect industry and technology to military planning, and enable rapid deployment of advanced capabilities like cloud, AI, and data analytics. Cyber reserves enhance a country’s response to hybrid threats by improving vulnerability assessment, attribution, and civil-military coordination, emphasising societal resilience and military preparedness. They foster digital literacy, cultural change, and partnerships with industry and academia to strengthen holistic defence. However, challenges include standardising training, securing information exchange, and ensuring flexible service models that respect civilian commitments and national sovereignty. By addressing these, a military can calibrate cyber reserves to bolster defences and accelerate digital transformation, creating a full-spectrum, multi-domain force capable of countering 21st-century hybrid threats in both digital and physical spaces.

This article examines how Professional Military Education (PME) can strengthen human interoperability as NATO transitions toward data-centric warfighting. While artificial intelligence and data integration drive technological transformation, their effectiveness depends on officers’ ability to cooperate across national and institutional boundaries. The central claim of this article is that standardised heuristics – conceptual models taught in PME – function as critical cognitive tools enabling such interoperability. Using a qualitative, conceptual design, this study assesses established frameworks such as Ends-Ways-Means, fighting power, and the interoperability schema. The analysis suggests that these heuristics stabilise cognition, foster shared understanding, and anchor NATO’s digital transformation in human coherence.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly discussed as a transformative tool for professional military education, particularly through simulations, adaptive learning platforms, and data-driven assessment systems. However, the integration of AI into military education has largely proceeded without sufficient attention to gender equality, despite extensive evidence that algorithmic systems can reproduce and amplify existing social biases. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature on AI and education, feminist military studies, and international policy frameworks such as NATO’s Principles of Responsible Use and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, this article critically examines the implications of AI-supported military education from a gender perspective.

This review assesses Ethan Mollick’s Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI (2024), which conceptualises artificial intelligence as a collaborative “co-intelligence” rather than a mere tool or autonomous agent. While recognising the book’s clarity, accessibility, and balanced treatment of AI’s potential and limitations, the review adopts a cautious, albeit critical, perspective in an effort to balance against Mollick’s overarching optimism. It foregrounds concerns related to safety, equity, sustainability, and risk. The book’s discussion of education is identified as a key strength, particularly its emphasis on AI literacy and human oversight. Considered through the lens of Professional Military Education (PME), Mollick’s advocacy for experimentation is shown to sit uneasily with risk-averse, high-stakes environments. Nonetheless, the review concludes that Co-Intelligence offers a timely, pragmatic, and valuable contribution to debates on human-AI interaction.

We educate tomorrow’s military leaders for operations involving tools we cannot access, doctrine not yet codified, and threats evolving faster than curricula. This article presents empirical findings from systematic exploration of human-AI collaboration in military education involving thirteen Baltic-Nordic defence organisations. Through AI-assisted facilitated workshops, three empirically grounded patterns of human-AI collaboration emerged alongside a command-control distinction derived from practitioner wisdom. The probe-sense-respond methodology enabled pattern discovery where traditional planning approaches fail. Findings offer transferable frameworks for professional military education institutions navigating AI integration while maintaining human primacy in command authority. Regional collaboration achieved what no single institution could accomplish independently.