Artificial intelligence and foreign policy decision-making

Abstract

With the advent of a global information society, the US will seek to tap the potential of advanced computing capability to enhance its ability to conduct foreign policy decision making. This thesis explores the potential for improving individual and organizational decision making capabilities by means of artificial intelligence (AI). The use of AI will allow us to take advantage of the plethora of information available to obtain an edge over potential adversaries. Another purpose of this thesis is to give guidance to the software community as to what policymakers will need in order to improve future decision making processes. The third purpose is to encourage government and private sector decision makers to allocate adequate resources to actualize the potential of AI. The method of analysis this thesis uses is to examine US foreign policy decision making on the cognitive or individual, group, and organizational levels. Using the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Yom Kippur War as test beds for critical analysis, identification of both decision enhancing and impeding functions is accomplished. Finally, a counterfactual analytic framework, using an AI model, tests the likely influence of AI on decision making. The results substantiate the value of AI as both a decision making enhancer and an impediment reducer for the policymaker. Additional conclusions are derived that improve the decision making system and its processes by means of introducing an AI capability