February 9, 2014 ·
Will Google Become America’s Number One Defense Company?
Dr. Daniel Goure, of the Lexington Institute had an interesting article on Lexington’s website with the title above — a few days ago. He notes that “futurists and defense analysts alike are increasingly focusing on advances in IT and computing as the central pillars of looming industrial-societal and military transformations.” He adds, “advances in networking, big data, sensors and computing power are changing most aspects of everyday life, many industrial processes, and even the value of human capital.” “When the power of IT and computing are merged with advances in manufacturing, the outcome could shake the world,” he says. 3-D printing, which marries up advances in sensors, computer modeling and controls, networked communications, and industrial robotics, could well rewrite the book on industrial processes, the character of the corporation, patent law, labor relations and global trading patterns, among other areas.”
“At the heart of this transformation,” Dr. Goure argues, “is the rise of the machines — to include all forms of computers and communications devices,” — that are increasingly replacing people in almost all sectors of our economy and our lives. “Will this same set of technological revolutions transform the way military forces are organized and operated?,” he asks. “Improved target location and weapons accuracy allows force to be applied in lower amounts and discretely — for greater effect. Strike operations by a few dozen aircraft in 2003 could achieve more than what the entire 8th Air Force could do in a single raid in 1944.” But, Dr. Goure says, “the mission essentially remains unchanged. The fruits of the IT and computing revolution allow the military to do with finesse what used to require brute force to accomplish.”
“The real change in the ways of warfare will come when, or more accurately if, ” he says, “the military follows the private sector’s lead in replacing people with machines.” “One way this might come about,” he argues, “is if cyber warfare becomes the norm for combat (doubtful) — at least when technologically capable foes are involved. The other avenue is more commonly that of science fiction: when largely autonomous, armed robots, actually take to the battlefield.” “So far,’ he notes, military robots have been complimentary and tangential and not central to the overall military strategy on the battlefield; but, “this could change.”
Which brings Dr. Goure to Google and its potential impact on U.S. military strategy and personnel in future wars. Google is a central part of global communications, networking, cyber security, and most recently — robotic systems, artificial intelligence, and 3D-printing. So he asks, “will Google become the leading U.S. or, perhaps even the world’s leading defense company?”
Will Over-Reliance On Robots And Drones Make Going To War ‘Easier?’
If you have read my previous articles when referring to the use of drones and autonomous systems on the battlefield, you are likely aware of my deep concerns about the potential for overreliance as well as ease of use. Making a decision to use military force should always be hard. The increased use of drones and robots on the “battlefield” has made the decision for military intervention — such as in Libya during Qadaffi’s fall — as well as in the war on terror — easier in my judgment. Autonomous warfare is. to a large degree antiseptic, distant, and provides a false sense of security, as well as disguises the true ” ” (emotional, financial, human, etc.) war imposes. It erodes the warrior ethos; and, makes us strategically lazy. A decision to engage militarily is easier to reach — if the calculation is that the cost in “men” is virtually zero.
As Linda Palermo wrote in First Post, “The Danger of Drones – And A War Without Risk,” as with the concept of moral hazard in financial markets,(i.e., if you know you are going to be bailed-out, your choice of investments will be impaired) knowing that your tactics will have an actual effect on your soldiers will change your military decisions.”
Ms. Palermo asks, “If we remove risk of loss from the decision-makers’ calculations when considering crisis management options,” do we make use military intervention ‘easier,’ and more attractive? Will decision-makers resort to war as a policy option far sooner than in the past? Rick Fisher, a Senior Fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center in London suggests it might. “Perhaps in the future, China might be tempted to shoot down a U.S. Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft flying over the disputes island chain in the South China Sea, because it might calculate that Washington would not escalate a response over a drone.”
Peter Singer, author of “Wired For War,” recently wrote, “when historians look back on this period, they may conclude that we are today at the start of the greatest revolution that warfare has seen since the introduction of the atomic bomb. Our new unmanned systems just don’t just affect how of warfighting is done; but, it also affects the who of the fighting at the most fundamental level. That is, every previous revolution in war was about weapons that could shoot quicker or, had a bigger boom.’ “Humankind,” he says, “is starting to lose its 5,000-year-old monopoly of the fighting war.”
There are now an estimated 5,000 armed/reconnaissance drones in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters of war, says Mr. Singer. Twelve thousand unmanned ground systems populate those same “battlefields. And, we appear to be accelerating the use, and evolution of drones and robots. If Moore’s Law is applied to the current state of “warrior robots,” these machines will be 1B times more powerful twenty-five years from now, argues Mr. Singer.
And, the idea that we will always have the monopoly on having the technological advantage in this area is fatuous. Mr. Singer warns that it was the British and the French who invented the battlefield tank; but, it was the Germans who understood how to employ it more lethally and, strategically. He adds, It was “the Chinese and the Turks who first used gunpowder,” but, it was the Europeans who revolutionized its battlefield (land and sea) use. A Jihadi website now offers instructions on how to detonate an IED in Afghanistan from one’s home computer. As Albert Einstein once said, imagination is more powerful than knowledge. Technical and/or capability surprise are more often than not, — not the most important game-hangers on the battlefield. Rather, we are much more vulnerable to missing clever and creative ways technologies — we understand very well — can be use in ways we don’t understand very well, and/or, failed to anticipate/visualize. Remember the adversary gets a vote.
Robots and autonomous systems certainly have their place in modern warfare. But, we must be wary of fighting from the “comforts” of a military base in Nevada. As Mr. Singer is fond of saying, “we are watching more; but, experiencing less.”
Mr. Singer cites the late, great, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark’s story of “Superiority,’ which is set in the distant future, as an example of how our embracement of robots and technology on the battlefield can end in defeat. In Superiority, a much more, technologically advanced opponent, was defeated by an opponent that was technologically-challenged. As a military officer from the more technologically advanced force sits in a prison cell contemplating his country’s impending defeat, he remarks, “we were defeated by one thing only — by the inferior science of our enemies.” The soldier goes on to explain “our side was seduced by the possibilities of new technology. We planned for how we wanted war to be, rather than how it turned out.” A fatal violation of one of Clausewitz’s key principals of war.
Mr. Singer presciently concludes, “the robotics trend is revolutionary, but it also doesn’t change the underlying fundamentals of war. The fog of war remains. While you may have Moore’s Law, you can’t get rid of Murphy’s Law. Something to think about. V/R, RCP http://www.fortunascorner.wordpress.com
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