AInception scenario and storylines

Modern military operations across the entire spectrum of war are highly dependent on Information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructures and services. This dependency is also a target for adversary state and non-state actors who are developing advanced offensive cyber capabilities. These capabilities pose a serious and constant threat to friendly military operations and place a great demand on the defending side to hinder, stop or mitigate advanced adversarial activities.

Techniques for incident management, detection and response using Artificial Intelligence (AI) are particularly promising for enhancing defensive capabilities, with sophisticated detection and response that can learn and adapt to dynamic changes in the cyber environment.

The EDF project AInception seeks to exploit such approaches, conducting research and development of novel AI-based tools and techniques for cyber defence of military operations. The project covers three fundamental areas: establishment of a military context to ensure sufficient realism and relevance; development of novel AI-based tools and techniques; and simulation and collection of data required to develop and evaluate the tools and techniques.

This report documents the core work in AInception related to the scenario-based aspects of the military context. Its purpose is to provide an unclassified, publicly available source for this material to support future work. The content has been extracted from AInception deliverables without significant modifications. The material includes:

• A scenario consisting of the geopolitical strategic situation of multiple countries on a synthetic (artificial) continent. One set of countries are designated Blue (friendly) and others Red (adversary or opposing).
• A story focusing on two specific countries and their partners, with a main timeline split into different phases ranging from peacetime to crisis and armed conflict.
• Six storylines covering the use of military forces in one or more tactical situations, with their own internal logic and dynamic, set along the main timeline.

The storylines have military operations or activities taking place across the air, land and maritime domains. The storylines cover the strategic intent and military objectives of Red and Blue forces, the Blue order of battle, the Blue IT/OT/IoT infrastructure in use and Red cyber operations. Discussions of possible cyber incidents and simulation aspects are also included.

Taken together, this material can serve multiple purposes in research and development. For instance, it can function as a tool for engaging with military experts and eliciting information and assessments; provide operational settings for the development of tools and techniques; and in general inform a recognizable, realistic and relevant context for military users and experts.