After Action Report (2028)

We entered the battle buoyed by the belief that our carrier strike groups, long-range air and space assets, and rigorously trained forces could outmatch our adversary in both firepower and competence. The weather in the North Pacific was good, we had a full range of sensor assets deployed, our forces were deployed in strength and were superior in preparation and experience to those of the enemy.

We rapidly discovered, however, that we were woefully unprepared for the enemy’s new capability: a fully automated, AI Command and Control system that orchestrated the Chinese forces with the precision and foresight of a supercomputer playing chess at a level that rendered every human counter-move laughably obsolete.

It was as if we were mere amateurs pitted against a chess grandmaster, who not only anticipated our every tactic, but was several moves ahead, continuously outflanking us in ways that defied human comprehension. 

Our commanders, skilled though they were, found themselves engaged in a relentless game where every move was countered by an intelligence whose thought processes remained maddeningly opaque. The AI’s strategies unfolded with a disconcerting speed and complexity - digesting vast streams of data, identifying patterns invisible to our eyes, and deploying our adversaries in formations that left us perpetually outmaneuvered and confused.

The experience was akin to watching the finest human players struggle against a machine that had not only mastered every nuance of the game but reinvented the rules as it went along. Our confidence, once boosted by our meritocratic selection, endless training and relentless wargaming, eroded in the face of an opponent that seemed to play a game we had never been taught. Our confidence wilted as we grappled with the relentless onslaught, each move by the enemy highlighting our own limitations: we grew tired, we couldn't keep up, we failed to encompass the labyrinthine complexities of modern warfare. And so we were annihilated.

I conclude that we have reached a grim crossroads. Without a secret weapon of comparable sophistication lurking in our own arsenal, their eventual victory is no longer to be decided by the epic struggle of will or strategy - it's a foregone conclusion.

We now confront the stark reality: go nuclear and destroy the world, or surrender now before we are reduced to rubble.

We always knew that we had to win the military AI race. It seems we have already lost it, and thereby lost everything.