Kristen Smith 
Two defense technology leaders have warned that the Pentagon’s lack of common definitions and protocols for autonomous systems is creating operational risk that could undermine U.S. military effectiveness in future conflicts.
In an opinion piece published on War on the Rocks, Randy Yamada, a vice president within Booz Allen Hamilton‘s Defense Technology Group, and Tom Schaefer, Shield AI‘s vice president of engineering for Hivemind, said the Department of Defense needs to establish a shared framework for how autonomous capabilities communicate, coordinate and receive tasking. Yamada and Schaefer argued that without this framework, the services are developing systems that may not interoperate under combat conditions.
Why Are Standards Needed?
The authors noted that autonomy is currently used inconsistently across the defense sector, spanning from advanced autopilot functions to systems capable of making independent decisions. “If the Pentagon does not lead in setting a common language for autonomy, industry marketing will fill the void, sowing confusion across the force,” the authors wrote.
They warned that without clearer definitions, the Pentagon cannot make informed investments and risks fielding incompatible systems across the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. The result, they said, could be a force that struggles to coordinate during a crisis in contested regions such as the Taiwan Strait.
What Lessons Come From Recent Conflicts?
Yamada and Schaefer pointed to Ukraine’s recent “Operation Spiderweb,” a coordinated semi-autonomous drone attack deep within Russia, as proof of how modern warfare relies on nuanced, layered autonomy. While human operators initiated the strike, autonomous functions managed distributed navigation, timing and deconfliction for more than 100 drones.
What Path Forward Is Available?
The executives urged the Defense Department to model its approach on successful commercial standards, such as the Universal Serial Bus, or USB, protocol that unified data transfer and power delivery across the tech industry.
Their recommendations include creating a universal autonomy messaging and tasking layer, aligning acquisition programs to enforce the standardized layer, and preparing operators to understand systems and interpret autonomous behavior.
Yamada and Schaefer concluded that failure to act quickly could result in operational confusion — a “fog of war” the United States cannot afford.
