Many have questioned the lessons learned from the 20-year war in Afghanistan following the chaotic withdrawal and subsequent takeover by the Taliban, but one major achievement has emerged from the US fight against the Taliban: the use of artificial intelligence to track terrorist attacks.
In 2019, U.S. and coalition forces began reducing their troop presence across the country, leaving remaining forces limited in their ability to maintain the human intelligence networks used to monitor Taliban movements.
In late 2019, the number of Taliban attacks against U.S. and coalition forces rose to levels not seen since the previous decade, prompting Afghanistan's security forces to develop an artificial intelligence program known as “Raven Sentry.”
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Taliban members sit in a military vehicle during a Taliban military parade in Kabul, Afghanistan, in November 2021. (Reuters/Ali Khara)
In a report published earlier this year, US Colonel Thomas Spahr, director of the US Army War College’s Department of Military Strategy, Planning and Operations, quoted AJP Taylor as saying: “War has always been the mother of invention.” Spahr pointed to the development of tanks during World War I, the atomic weapon in World War II, and the use of artificial intelligence to scour open-source intelligence as America’s longest-running war began to draw to a close.
Raven Sentry sought to ease the burden on human analysts by sorting through vast amounts of data from “weather patterns, calendar events, increased activity around mosques or madrasas, and activity around historic congregation areas.”
Despite some initial challenges when developing the technology, a team of intelligence officers came together to form a group called “Nerd Locker” to develop a system that could “reliably predict” a terrorist attack.
“By 2019, the infrastructure of the digital ecosystem had progressed, and advances in sensors and prototypes of artificial intelligence tools could quickly detect and organize these scattered indicators of insurgent attacks,” Spahr, who also participated in the program, first told The Economist.
Taliban fighters escort women marching in support of the Taliban government outside Kabul University, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
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Although the AI program was discontinued due to the withdrawal on August 30, 2021, its success was attributed to a “culture” of tolerance for early failures and technological expertise.
Spahr said the team that developed Raven Sentry “was aware of concerns from senior military and political leaders about proper oversight and the relationship between humans and algorithms in combat systems.”
He also noted that AI testing is “doomed” if leadership does not tolerate experimentation during program development.
By October 2020, less than a year before the withdrawal, Raven Sentry had reached a 70% accuracy threshold in predicting when and where an attack would likely occur — a technology that has proven critical in major current wars, both in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Taliban soldiers stand guard in Panjshir province, northeastern Afghanistan, Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Mohammad Asif Khan)
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“Advances in generative AI and large-scale language models are increasing the capabilities of AI, and the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East demonstrate further advances,” the US Army colonel wrote.
Spahr also said that if the United States and its allies want to keep their AI technology competitive, they must “balance the tension between computer speed and human intuition” by educating leaders who remain skeptical of the ever-emerging technology.
Taliban fighters patrol in the Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood in Kabul city, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
Despite the success of the AI program in Afghanistan, the Army colonel warned that “warfare is ultimately human and the adversary will adapt to the most advanced technology, often with simple, common-sense solutions.”
“Just as Iraqi insurgents learned that burning tires in the streets degraded the optics of American aircraft or Vietnamese guerrillas dug tunnels to avoid aerial observation, America's adversaries will learn to trick artificial intelligence systems and corrupt the data they input,” he added. “After all, the Taliban beat America and NATO's advanced technology to the punch in Afghanistan.”
