2026 DoDIIS Worldwide Conference

[edited for clarity] Lt. Gen. James Adams: It is my distinct honor and pleasure to introduce the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Adm. Richard Correll, who took command of Strategic Command this past December. He has spent decades as a career submariner in the Navy's undersea fleet and fills a unique role at STRATCOM, strategic deterrence, nuclear command and control, and control of all our nation's nuclear forces. The technology and capabilities that we are discussing here at DODIIS have direct applicability to many of the missions at Strategic Command.

His global mission requires a threat picture that tries to prevent crisis from becoming catastrophes. We share a goal with Strategic Command at DIA to prevent strategic surprise. We attempt to understand the threat before it arrives, and Strategic Command ensures adversaries see no value in attacking our homeland.

You know, every DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) warning indicator and intel product is aimed at the core question of who has the capability and intent to strike the U.S. Technology and partnerships this week serve long-term strategic goals of peace through strength, which is tested every day by the more complex security environment that continues to unveil. Please join me in welcoming the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Adm. Richard Correll.

Adm. Richard Correll, commander of U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM):

Good morning. Thank you, Gen. Adams, for that kind introduction.

I've already ad-libbed because my speech says, thank you, Katrina.

You know, I have to confess, I'm a little disappointed. At the last DODIIS conference in Omaha, which was in 2024, speakers got to choose their walkout music.

So, I was generally looking forward to that. I understand that we don't have that this year, which is probably a good thing. It's hard to project professionalism and gravitas while walking on stage to Eye of the Tiger by Survivor or, even better, Thunderstruck by AC/DC.

In all seriousness, it's a privilege to join you here in Tampa for the 2026 DODIIS Worldwide Conference. And as a career submariner, it's great to be back on the waterfront. You sort of start to get a complex when the Navy continues you to send you to Omaha, which is as far from either ocean within the continental United States, pretty much, as you can get.

Let me begin by recognizing folks in this room, because that alone speaks to the importance of this gathering. We have senior government and military officials and leaders from across the intelligence community and the Department of War, colleagues from the joint staff, the services, the interagency, and the combatant commands, to include my good friend, Gen. Randall Reid. I understand Randall's going to be speaking directly after me, so I mentioned to him as we were sitting there that I'll be a good battle buddy and do my best to set the bar low.

We also have industry leaders with us from the largest primes to the most agile startups, alongside representatives from FFRDCs (Federally Funded Research and Development Centers) and academic institutions. And we have our Five Eye allies here as mission partners. The strategic challenges we face today are shared.

The solutions must be shared as well. Now I've listed off folks with equities in the room. A legitimate question some of you may be asking is, why is this STRATCOM commander here?

For those who may not work with us every day, U.S. Strategic Command carries a global responsibility, strategic deterrence. For the military element of national power, that means we provide, together with the Joint Force, the broadest array of options to influence an adversary's decision calculus and shape strategic outcomes. We own the nuclear portfolio, which is intended to serve as the ultimate backstop for our national security.

From my vantage point at STRATCOM, I see the fingerprints of this community every day. Our partnership with DIA, NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency), NSA (National Security Agency), CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) is ironclad. Your networks move our intelligence.

Your architectures support our command and control. Your data and analytic tools help us understand the strategic environment with the clarity our predecessors could only dream about. Whether you're building sensors, writing code, hardening networks, deploying models, or hunting forward, your work underpins our ability to deter strategic attack, and if deterrence fails, to prevail.

This conference is where we turn all that into something greater than the sum of its parts. This is where we move beyond PowerPoint concepts and pilot projects and start turning intelligence and IT (information technology) modernization into operational advantage. This is where the intelligence community and the Department of War work shoulder to shoulder with industry, academia, and FFRDCs to address warfighting challenges.

So, I'm deeply grateful to Gen. Adams and the DIA team, who's been a phenomenal partner, and CIO ( chief information officer) for hosting us, and to all of you for being here. Let me turn to the strategic environment, because everything discussed at this conference must be grounded in that reality. I've said this in other forums, and I'll repeat it here.

This is the most complex strategic environment of my lifetime. We're dealing with multiple nuclear-armed competitors, each pursuing aggressive military modernization programs. These efforts are not in isolation.

Increasingly, they're cooperating, sharing technology, trading operational lessons, and coordinating diplomatic and informational campaigns. Simultaneously, regional actors with advanced capabilities are testing escalation thresholds and leveraging gray zone tactics designed to stay below traditional red lines. From a STRATCOM perspective, I see five key threat vectors that map directly to the work of this community, particularly in the areas of intelligence collection, data transport and processing, and command and control.

First, cyber. Potential adversaries are investing heavily in capabilities designed to exploit, disrupt, or destroy the information infrastructure we depend on, from tactical networks in contested theaters to enterprise services in the homeland to specialized systems that underpin nuclear command, control, and communications. They are probing our defenses every day.

Second, counter-U.S. space capabilities. Potential adversaries are fielding a range of systems and platforms, from reversible interference and jamming to direct-descent anti-satellite weapons that threaten the space-based sensors, communications, and timing signals that enable operations.

Third, an increasingly contested electromagnetic spectrum. The same spectrum that carries our radar, our communications, and many of our data links is now a maneuver space in its own right. Our joint electromagnetic spectrum operations depend on understanding that environment in exquisite detail and being able to maneuver for advantage, to operate through jamming, interference, and deception. We see this in Ukraine.

New lessons pour in from the battlefield every day. If you look at eastern Ukraine, you'll see tanks, trenches, artillery batteries, and burned-out vehicles. What you can't see is the EMS fight behind the scenes, the ongoing 24-hour-a-day battle over the electromagnetic spectrum, remote-controlled kamikaze drones connected by radio waves back to Ukrainian operators, terrestrial jammers blocking their signals, the employment of GPS-guided munitions.

The EMS maneuver space is highly contested, and the Joint Force must sense, understand, and, again, maneuver for warfighting advantage. The fourth threat vector is novel missile systems and delivery platforms. Fractional orbital bombardments, multi-orbital regime bombardments, advanced cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles, maneuvering reentry vehicles and dual-capable systems complicate our ability to detect, characterize, and attribute threats.

That places a premium on integrated indications and warning and on data fusion across domains and classification levels.

Fifth, supply chain and infrastructures potentially compromise the hardware, firmware, and software that make up our information environment. Whether through malicious code, counterfeit components, or insider access, potential adversaries seek to shape, deny, or delay our decision-making at the most critical moments.

Each of these five threat vectors intersects with the others. Cyber enables counter-space effects, space capabilities enable cyber and kinetic operations, and all of it rides on the electromagnetic spectrum and global IT infrastructure. For STRATCOM, whose core mission depends on assured awareness and assured command and control, these interdependencies are central to how we plan, posture, and operate.

The result of this changing strategic landscape is that absolute dominance in every domain can no longer be assumed. The changing character of war. Within this new strategic landscape, the character of war itself is changing.

I'll highlight three trends that I see in particular. The first is that we're operating in a globally highly contested information environment. There is no such thing as a regional conflict anymore.

Every conflict is global in the information domain. The battle over narratives and perceptions begins long before the first shot is fired and continues across social media, state media, cyber operations, and diplomatic channels. Nation-states are experiencing, with synthetic media, deepfakes, and AI-augmented influence campaigns, investing heavily in capabilities designed to influence decision-making and manipulate perceptions, all to constrain political decision space and shape strategic outcomes.

For the intelligence enterprise, for me, this means two things. We must be able to understand the information environment as a battle space in its own right, and we must be able to protect the integrity of the information that underpins our decisions.

The second trend in this changing character of war is the impact of precision strike coupled with autonomy and unmanned capabilities. It is becoming nearly prohibitively costly in a conventional conflict to take and hold terrain. We've all seen in stark detail how drones are reshaping the battlefield. Small unmanned systems, many built from commercial components, have outsized effects. They compress the time between detection and engagement. They turn what used to be safe rear areas into contested space. Drones are responsible for over 70% of the greater than 1 million Russian casualties in Ukraine, and the fatality-to-injury ratio historically for warfare is about 1 to 3.In Ukraine, it's been about 1 to 1.

The average Russian recruit arriving on the front lines is killed or wounded in the first 20 to 30 minutes. The cost of entry to unmanned fight is collapsing, but there is also opportunity.

If we can integrate autonomous and semi-autonomous systems into our own operations, under responsible human control, we can change the geometry of the battlefield in our favor. Doing so will require an intelligence and IT backbone that can support fleets of unmanned systems operating at scale. It will require us to solve challenges in command and control, targeting, deconfliction, and human-machine teaming.

The third trend is the proliferation of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which I would describe as the incorporation of data advantage for decision advantage for warfighting advantage. The nation or coalition that learns how to harness AI responsibly for sensing, analysis, planning, logistics, and command and control will have a profound, possibly existential advantage. President Trump was asked about artificial intelligence a few weeks ago, and he said, quote "whoever wins with AI is going to win" close quotes.

That's how big it is. It's bigger than the Internet ever was. I can assure you that this is not just the position of U.S. senior leaders, but the position of nation states and militaries around the world. At STRATCOM, we're laser-focused and clear-eyed about the nature of the threat. Frontier AI capabilities can be used by potential adversaries to enhance cyber operations, generate convincing disinformation at scale, or support targeting in ways that compress decision timelines and increase escalation risks. So, the question is not whether AI will be present in the future conflict. It already is.

The question is how we as a community shape its development and integration in a way that strengthens deterrence, preserves human judgment, and reduces the risks of miscalculation. The overarching trend underlying these three meta-trends in terms of the changing character of war is of course, technology.

In particular, the exponential growth in computing power, connectivity, and data availability. A couple of examples to put that in perspective. First, consider the evolution of microelectronics.

Back in 1947, when Shockley was given credit for inventing the transistor, right? How many transistors on a microchip back in 1947 at the first advent of a transistor? Four.

How many today? More than 300 billion. So that's quite a change.

Another example would be Google DeepMind Gemini, which is a model that's used by the Crick Institute, which is a world-class research institute in London focused on protein research. Protein molecules are strains of 100-plus composed of about 20 different types of molecules, and the shape matters in terms of its function. So, every biological organism, the way it functions is through protein function, right?

So, we've mapped, of course, the human genome, and Google DeepMind has a data set when you do the math associated with the potential combinations. Those numbers come out to a data set of 10 to the 180th power. So that's a 10 with 180 zeros behind it, right?

That's a number that's greater than the estimated number of atoms in the known universe. Massive data sets and compute - coupled with compute, are going to give us insights that we never dreamed of. What matters most is how we translate that raw computational power into data advantage, then into decision advantage, and ultimately into warfighting advantage.

For me, data advantage means we can collect, curate, and access the right data streams from sensors, from open sources, from partners, from our own operations in a way that is timely, trustworthy, and secure.

Decision advantage. That means we can turn that data into insight faster and more accurately than our competitors, using analytic tradecraft empowered by AI and machine learning.

Warfighting advantage means we can tie those insights directly to plans, options, and actions, from the president's decision-making to a combatant commander's integrated campaign to operational and tactical employment of capabilities. And that speaks to the theme of this conference, using intelligence technologies for battlespace lethality. If there is one message I would leave you with, it is this.

Innovation is meaningless if it does not translate into operational outcomes. We're very good at piloting new tools, standing up prototypes, running experiments, and publishing strategies. All absolutely necessary steps.

But at a critical point, we must cross the bridge from interesting to indispensable from promising to proven, from a demonstration on the expo floor to a capability a commander refuses to deploy without. For the intelligence community and for STRATCOM, that transition hinges on our ability to deliver timely, actionable, AI-enriched intelligence that contributes to the lethality of the warfighter. To do that, we need an integrated digital enterprise where data from multiple domains and classification levels can be fused quickly and securely, where AI and machine learning tools help surface patterns that human analysts might miss or might not have time to find under crisis timelines.

At STRATCOM, we're already seeing the benefits when we get this right. When we can fuse space-based sensors, cyber indicators, human reporting, and open-source information into a coherent picture, we can spot subtle shifts in a potential adversary's posture. We can distinguish routine activity from preparations for coercion or for escalation.

We can give policymakers more time and better tailored options. But we are not where we need to be yet. Too often, promising technologies remain trapped in a pilot program or a single enclave.

Too often, data remains locked in stovepipes, owned, guarded, and formatted in ways that make sharing difficult or cumbersome. We have to begin treating data as a strategic weapon, not a byproduct. We must insist that our architectures and acquisitions bake in interoperability and scalability from day one.

And we must align incentives across government and industry to reward capabilities that demonstrably improve operational performance. A central element of turning technology into operational advantage is how we employ artificial intelligence. Let me be clear.

AI will not replace the human responsibility for decisions of consequence, especially decisions related to the use of force and, above all, nuclear weapons. What AI can and must do is enable better, faster, more informed decision-making. We should think in terms of human-led, AI-enabled decision support, what I would call guided autonomy.

Guided autonomy is the practical application of autonomous systems and AI models that operate within clearly defined commander's intent under robust governing frameworks with meaningful human control. On the battlefield, that might look like unmanned systems that can navigate, sense, and coordinate with one another but still remain under the supervision of human operators who set objectives, apply judgment, and retain the authority to employ lethal force. In the intelligence enterprise, it might look like analytic pipelines where AI models ingest vast data streams, flag anomalies, generate hypotheses, and visualize complex relationships.

But human analysts test those hypotheses, apply context and experience, and ultimately own the assessments. AI-enabled change detection is a tangible way we can turn that vision of guided autonomy into strategic warning at scale. By continuously comparing collections against historical baselines, whether it's space-based imagery, patterns in electromagnetic emissions, logistics movements, or changes in leadership messaging, AI can flag signals of change long before they would rise above the noise for a human analyst, allowing us to adjudicate the most significant anomalies, giving DIA, NGA, and the IC (intelligence community), along with STRATCOM, the ability to warn sooner, posture forces more efficiently, and present military options from our joint force to our nation's senior leaders. At the strategic level, it might look like decision support tools that can surface courses of action, estimate risks, and run war game outcomes faster than any human staff could, but national leaders decide which options to pursue and what risks they're willing to accept. We must think in terms of enterprise integration, not isolated programs.

For STRATCOM, enterprise integration is central to how we achieve Combined Joint All- [Domain] Command and Control, or CJADC2, ensuring that every sensor, shooter, and decision maker and partner can access the information they need at the classification they are cleared for at speed. As I said earlier, no potential adversary wants to give us the luxury of operating in a clean, uncontested environment. They will attempt to fracture the joint force view of the battle space, delay or distort our decision making, and isolate elements of the joint force from one another and from our allies.

The answer to that challenge is not simply more data, more AI, or more bandwidth. It is coherent, integrated enterprise that can survive first contact, adapt, and continue to deliver intelligence advantage and command and control when it matters most. Having painted a picture of a complex environment and demanding set of requirements, let me close with a clear statement of confidence.

I have full faith and confidence in our joint force and in our deterrent today and into the future. My confidence rests on three pillars.

First, our people. The soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, guardians, and civilians of U.S. Strategic Command and our joint force represent the finest warfighting talent. They maintain the watch 24-7, 365. They operate and sustain our forces and capabilities.

They manage our intelligence networks and defend our infrastructure in cyberspace. They are trained, ready, and committed to executing the mission with precision and professionalism. They are the reason our deterrence is credible.

As we bring AI and automation into the enterprise, their role becomes more important, not less.

Second, our capabilities. STRATCOM's intercontinental ballistic missiles have provided the longest continuous generation of combat power in world history. Dispersed, resilient, and non-alert. Our ballistic missile submarines provide an assured second-strike capability unmatched in survivability and lethality. Our bombers, coupled with the tankers that support them, enabled by our allies and partners, can penetrate contested airspace and deliver effects anywhere in the world with precision and flexibility, conventional or strategic.

All of these capabilities are underpinned by assured command and control under all conditions.

Third, our allies and partners. Our alliance network, especially our Five Eyes partners and our treaty allies provide an asymmetric advantage that no competitor or potential adversary can match.

Together, our collective deterrent posture is more credible, more resilient, and more adaptable than any nation could achieve alone. That is why it is so important that we pursue interoperability and enterprise integration, not just within the U.S. systems, but across allied and coalition systems as well. Combined, joint, all domain command and control must be combined and joint.

During the remainder of this conference, I ask you to keep the warfighter and the strategic mission at the center of everything you discuss. I encourage everyone to participate in the panels and share your expertise, ask questions, network, innovate, recommend solutions. The capabilities you build here, conceptually and technically, will shape the realities faced by young men and women who may one day stand on the front lines or sit in command centers making decisions under extreme pressure. We owe them systems that are reliable, understandable, and trustworthy. We owe them intelligence that is timely, accurate, and actionable. We owe them a deterrent posture that is so credible that potential adversaries decide again and again that today is not the day to test us. That is the standard we must continue to hold ourselves to. Thank you for the work you have already done to get us to this point. Throughout my career, every operation I've been a part of has relied on the service of dedicated intelligence professionals. Know that what you do matters tremendously, more than you may ever see, and in ways that will shape the security of our nation for decades to come. Thank you.

[End]