Embracing the Future: Overcoming Path Dependence and Risk Aversion in AI Adoption
Over the past several years, the United States Naval Academy has served as a micro-laboratory for the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Initially, the conversation was confined to Generative AI, machines mimicking human creativity by identifying patterns in existing data. Early faculty workshops, sponsored by the Stockdale Center, revealed a palpable anxiety, a fear that […]
Grappling with Philosophy
Introduction If there has been one constant thread running through my personal and professional life, it has been my dual devotion to grappling and philosophy.1 On the surface, these disciplines seem to stand at complete opposite poles of the human experience: one forged through sweat, friction, and physical struggle; the other through reflection, argument, and […]
Forged in Tradition: The Chief’s Season and the Making of Enlisted Leaders
The Season of Becoming Every year, the Chief’s Season reminds me why the Navy’s backbone isn’t built in classrooms or through instruction manuals — it’s forged through challenge, reflection, and shared hardship. Watching this past season unfold, I saw once again how our Navy continues to develop ethical leaders the hard way — by asking […]
Leveraging Coaching to Support Midshipmen: A Research Review
Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy undergo a critical period of growth and change marked by academic challenges, significant personal development, intense physical training, and the promotion of ethical leadership. Over their four years at the Academy, midshipmen have multiple opportunities to be paired with a trained USNA coach who supports them in navigating their […]
Like Spartans
Shall we be Athens or Sparta? As long as there have been service academies, this comparison has been trotted out in debates over their proper form and function. For just as long, it has been a false dichotomy. Citing a 1979 work by John Lovell, Dr. Joe Thomas suggests the academies truly exist in an […]
Does Terminator Have Rights?
Within contemporary discourse on the ethics of AWS (autonomous weapons systems), one of the most popular in-principle moral arguments against the use of such technologies is the so-called ‘responsibility gap’ argument popularized by philosopher, Rob Sparrow. The argument can be summarized as follows: I have argued elsewhere, and continue to argue, that this argument fails […]
Great Power, Responsibility, and Killing in War
[T]he current surge … in robotic warfare is being driven by the promise of efficiency and control and the hunger for what militaries have tasted in Nagrorno-Karabakh and in Ukraine: the power of universal precision. George Dougherty, Beast in the Machine Smart. Fast. Lethal. Precise. These are the qualities our military needs in an era […]
The Yugoslav Wars and the Dangers of an Emotion Fueled Media Environment
Introduction In 1992, Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia, following in the footsteps of Croatia and Slovenia, who had done the same the previous year. Bosnian Muslim control over the new government immediately upset the large Bosnian Croat and Serb minorities in the country. With support from Croatia and Yugoslavia (Serbia), the Bosnian Croats and Serbs […]
This Kind of Academy
“The problem is to see not what is desirable, or nice, or politically feasible, but what is necessary.” – T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War Fehrenbach, as usual, has it right. Those examining the purpose of the Academies will profit by revisiting Fehrenbach’s masterful discussion of the kind of military we need to defend a […]
Reflections on Stockdale A Quarter-Century Later
As a newly hired ethics instructor at the Stockdale Center, I think it somewhat appropriate at this moment in time to share some of my thoughts and reflections on the man whom this center is named after, his legacy, and my specific relationship to both. In life, some people, some types of people, dare I […]