Small Wars Journal

Mad Scientists Initiative

The Mad Scientist Initiative by U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) explores the future through collaboration and partnerships with academia, industry and government. It seeks to uncover emerging and disruptive technologies and ideas by engaging outsiders and unconventional sources, bringing insights from the global marketplace of ideas into the Army through a credible, fair, and transparent process. More information here and an overview video here.

SWJ is pleased to help TRADOC extend their outreach for inputs and provide a vehicle for broadcasting findings to the Small Wars Community of Interest.

This page is dedicated to the memory of Mr. Joel Lawton, U.S. Army TRADOC civilian analyst, U.S. Marine, and veteran of the war in Afghanistan.

by U.S. Army TRADOC G2 Mad Scientist Initiative | Thu, 01/09/2020 - 6:12am | 0 comments
The U.S. Army's Mad Scientist Initiative is seeking to expand our understanding of the Operational Environment (OE). To that end, we are conducting a short on-line survey -- please take about 5 minutes to complete our Global Perspectives Conference Survey.
by U.S. Army TRADOC G2 Mad Scientist Initiative | Thu, 12/05/2019 - 6:04pm | 3 comments
The Army’s Mad Scientist Initiative wants to harness your diverse intellects to mine new knowledge and imagine the possibilities of the Operational Environment in 2035. Continue on for all the details.
by Alfred Negron | Fri, 06/28/2019 - 6:02am | 0 comments
by Andrew Fox | Sat, 06/22/2019 - 12:46pm | 0 comments
by U.S. Army TRADOC G2 Mad Scientist Initiative | Mon, 06/17/2019 - 1:20pm | 5 comments
At the conclusion of another successful Mad Scientist Science Fiction Writing Contest, we had received over 75 highly imaginative short stories. In addition to listing and linking you to the contest’s winning submission (as well as those of our finalists), today’s post reports back on the major cross-cutting themes we were able to distill from your collective creativity and provides effective writing tips from Dr. David Brin, our contest’s senior judge and multiple award-winning science fiction author. Enjoy!
by Chris O’Connor | Sun, 06/16/2019 - 2:56pm | 4 comments
by Peter Soendergaard | Thu, 06/13/2019 - 10:06am | 0 comments
by Bob Shalala | Mon, 06/10/2019 - 5:12am | 0 comments
by David Pickering | Fri, 06/07/2019 - 12:10am | 1 comment
by Rob Hodges Jr. | Mon, 06/03/2019 - 6:25am | 0 comments
by National Defense Magazine | Sat, 06/01/2019 - 2:05pm | 0 comments
"To better understand new technologies and scientific efforts that could aid warfighters, the Army is connecting with industry and academia through its “Mad Scientist” initiative."
by Matthew Ader | Thu, 05/30/2019 - 11:43am | 0 comments
by Marc Meeker | Mon, 05/13/2019 - 12:20am | 0 comments
by Cassandra Ulrich | Fri, 05/10/2019 - 7:19pm | 0 comments
by Robert Hranek | Thu, 05/02/2019 - 1:13am | 0 comments
by U.S. Army TRADOC G2 Mad Scientist Initiative | Fri, 02/01/2019 - 3:55am | 1 comment
"Mad Scientist welcomes back returning guest blogger Dr. Nir Buras with today’s post. We’ve found crowdsourcing (i.e., the gathering of ideas, thoughts, and concepts from a widespread variety of interested individuals) to be a very effective tool in enabling us to diversify our thoughts and challenge our assumptions. Dr. Buras’ post takes the results from one such crowdsourcing exercise and extrapolates three future urban scenarios. Given The Army Vision‘s clarion call to “Focus training on high-intensity conflict, with emphasis on operating in dense urban terrain,” our readers would do well to consider how the Army would operate in each of Dr. Buras’ posited future scenarios."
by Anthony DeCapite | Mon, 10/01/2018 - 12:05am | 1 comment
by Christopher Flaherty | Tue, 09/25/2018 - 1:29am | 0 comments