Small Wars Journal Policy on Generative Artificial Intelligence

Small Wars Journal exists to advance serious, informed, and constructive debate on irregular warfare, national security, military affairs, policy, strategy, and related fields. Our purpose is to publish work grounded in human expertise, professional judgment, evidence, experience, and original analysis.

Because the Journal depends on trust between authors, editors, and readers, we expect submitted work to reflect the author’s own thinking, argumentation, and writing. Generative artificial intelligence may not be used to produce draft articles, essays, op-eds, reviews, analysis, or other substantive written copy submitted to Small Wars Journal.

Authors submitting work to Small Wars Journal agree to the following:

1. They will not submit work that has been substantially written, generated, rewritten, or fabricated by generative AI tools.
2. They will disclose any use of AI tools in connection with the submission, including but not limited to research assistance, translation, transcription, editing, summarization, data analysis, image generation, or formatting.
3. They remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, sourcing, citations, quotations, and factual claims contained in their submissions.
4. They will not use AI tools to create false citations, fabricated evidence, invented quotations, synthetic case studies, misleading imagery, or misrepresented source material.
5. They understand that failure to disclose AI use or the submission of AI-generated material presented as original human work may result in desk rejection, withdrawal of acceptance, removal after publication, or refusal of future submissions.

Small Wars Journal may use human editorial review and AI-detection tools as part of its screening process. These tools are advisory only. Final editorial decisions remain with human editors. The Journal reserves the right to reject any submission when, in the editors’ judgment, the work appears substantially AI-generated, insufficiently original, unsupported by evidence, stylistically generic, or inconsistent with the Journal’s standards.

Limited use of AI tools may be acceptable when disclosed and when it does not replace the author’s own analysis or prose. Examples may include transcription of interviews, grammar or accessibility assistance, translation support, source organization, or technical formatting. In disclosing AI use, authors should briefly state what tool was used and for what purpose.

Small Wars Journal may also use vetted AI tools internally for administrative, technical, search, transcription, accessibility, or audience-engagement purposes. When AI is used substantively in published editorial content, the Journal will disclose how and why it was used.

The Journal’s standard is straightforward: submissions must be the product of human expertise, judgment, and accountability. AI-assisted work that obscures authorship, weakens evidentiary standards, or substitutes machine-generated text for original analysis is not acceptable.