A research program

Strategy Engines

Chess has chess engines. Hard real-world strategy doesn't — yet. Strategy Engines are computational tools that help leaders make moves that hold up — both inside the contest, against adversaries, and outside it, under scrutiny from regulators, boards, and the public. Principled, well-grounded, auditable. The goal isn't to replace judgment; it's to give judgment something rigorous to lean on.

What's actually inside one?

Operations research. Simulation. Game theory. Machine learning. Strategic foresight. Mixed in the right proportions for the problem at hand. The starting point is the decision, not the technology.

Three threads

The research program is three connected questions:

  1. How to build them. The methods, the failure modes, the engineering.
  2. Who's really in charge. Once AI holds deep personal and institutional memory, power starts moving. Worth tracking.
  3. What stays out of reach. Some things AI cannot decide for us — ever. Knowing where those limits are matters as much as knowing what AI can do.

Cognitive Sovereignty

Whose thoughts are these, really? When AI systems hold the memory of a person, an institution, or a nation, the line between tool and handler blurs. Cognitive sovereignty is the capacity to keep that line drawn — to think autonomously and stay yourself. The term was coined in The Memory Wars (arXiv:2508.05867, 2025), which also names a new kind of network effect: value that scales with how deeply a system knows you, not just how many users it has.

Shadow Sovereignty

Power doesn't always announce itself. Shadow sovereignty is the quiet kind: when AI ends up making the calls that shape institutions and populations, without the formal accountability that human authority carries. Explored in The Power Gambit.

The trilogy

Three essays. The substantive output of this program so far.

More

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If your team is sitting on a high-stakes decision and wants to see what a Strategy Engine actually does, that's a conversation.

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