DANIEL PEREIRA
In March 2022, at the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, OODA Loop CTO Bob Gourley posited a working thesis that We Are In The First Open Source Intelligence War. A year and change into the conflict, two recent articles do a great job of expanding on Bob’s initial thesis, capturing the other analogies and framing that have been used to describe this ongoing conflict in Europe.
The First Open Source War. A Technology War. Digital David vs. Analog Goliath. The First Full Scale Drone War. Cyber-Armageddon.
“Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, much debate has centered on whether the conflict represents conventional warfare or some revolutionary type of contest.An article in the New Yorker in March 2022 described the conflict as ‘the first TikTok War.’ Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov has called it a “technology war.” Alex Karp, CEO of data analytics company Palantir, has suggested that the technology being used is changing the competitive advantage of a small country versus a larger adversary. The Washington Post in December ran a front-page article about how Ukraine and Russia are fighting the ‘first full-scale drone war.'” (1) In addition, “for years, we had heard predictions that the next big war would be a kind of cyber-Armageddon.” (2)
The First Open Source War. A technology War. Digital David vs. Analog Goliath. The First Full Scale Drone War. Cyber-Armageddon. Pick your analogy. the fact is Bob’s initial framing was spot on – and now events on the ground have provided hard quant to reinforce that something fundamentally different and heavily digital is afoot in Ukraine.
As we head into the potential for a spring offensive by Putin’s Army and the Wagner Group ancillary forces, recent articles by Westpoint Class of ’86 and retired Army Maj. Gen. Robin Fontes (who most recently served as the deputy commanding general of operations at Army Cyber Command), with co-author Dr. Jorrit Kamminga – framing Ukraine as a Real-time AI incubator – and the cyber defense perspective offered by the Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas provide evidence of what is new about the techno-social conflict in Ukraine.
“…a future scenario that is envisioned partly because of…fears related to…what near-peer competitors might be able to deploy in the near future.”
There is…increasing talk about how this conflict accelerates the arrival of fully autonomous drones and other weapon systems to the battlefield. The role of artificial intelligence in warfare looms directly overhead in such commentaries. A drone war, however, is not immediately an AI war.
To what extent is the Ukraine conflict also characterized by AI?Kai-Fu Lee, CEO of Sinovation Ventures, has called AI weapon systems the “third revolution in warfare,” after gunpowder and nuclear weapons. Is that revolution unfolding before our eyes? Does Ukraine signal a change in the character of warfare? Not yet. While still short of changing the character of war, we believe Ukraine is a laboratory in which the next form of warfare is being created. It is not a laboratory on the margins, but a center-stage, relentless and unprecedented effort to fine-tune, adapt and improve AI-enabled or AI-enhanced systems for immediate deployment. That effort is paving the way for AI warfare in the future.
It is a future that is expected. Over the past few years, visions of AI-enabled warfare have abounded and received different conceptual labels. Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Allen and SparkCognition founder Amir Husain have called it “hyperwar,” a form of AI-controlled warfare with little to no human decision-making involved. Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work and others have termed this “algorithmic warfare,” in which autonomous systems and weapons independently start selecting their course of action based on the situation in which they find themselves.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has come up with the name “mosaic warfare,” which is a more tactical term that combines conventional platforms with uncrewed systems to achieve battlefield advantages.
Most recently, Nand Mulchandani, CIA chief technology officer, and retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan — who was the inaugural director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center — have coined the term “software-defined warfare” as part of a vision in which software will be the crucial part of the defense architecture needed for next-generation warfighting systems.
What all these concepts have in common is the vision of a truly networked battlefield in which data moves at the speed of light to connect not only sensors to shooters but also the totality of deployed forces and platforms.
It is a future scenario that is envisioned partly because of fast-paced technological developments, but also because of fears related to geopolitical competition and what near-peer competitors might be able to deploy in the near future.
“…aerial systems, autonomous ships, undersea drones for mine hunting and uncrewed ground vehicles have been deployed.”
The Russia-Ukraine war falls short of these future scenarios. Yet it clearly brings these futurist visions of warfare closer to reality. The conflict is an unprecedented testing ground for AI:In some areas, its use has been clear. For example, the now-ubiquitous employment of drones and loitering munitions by both sides offers AI-enhanced autonomous capabilities in flight, targeting, and firing.
The use of loitering munitions, also known as kamikaze or suicide drones, or smart missiles, has received much attention in the international media, whether as an asset redefining the future of tactical warfare or as the source of ethical and legal concerns.
The drones used include military-grade UAVs but also commercial drones such as the Chinese-built DJI’s Mavic series, which are much cheaper and easier to obtain.
In addition to aerial systems, autonomous ships, undersea drones for mine hunting and uncrewed ground vehicles have been deployed. The combined use of aerial and sea drones in the October attack on Russia’s Black Sea flagship vessel, the Admiral Makarov, was perceived by some analysts as perhaps a new type of warfare.
“AI itself has undergone dramatic technical improvements, with…the increased capability of AI systems to integrate and cross-reference data from various sources.”
In general, AI is heavily used in systems that integrate target and object recognition with satellite imagery. In fact, AI’s most widespread use in the Ukraine war is in geospatial intelligence:AI is used to analyze satellite images, but also to geolocate and analyze open-source data such as social media photos in geopolitically sensitive locations.
Neural networks are used, for example, to combine ground-level photos, drone video footage, and satellite imagery to enhance intelligence in unique ways to produce strategic and tactical intelligence advantages.
This represents a broader trend in the recruitment of AI for data analytics on the battlefield. It is increasingly and structurally used in the conflict to analyze vast amounts of data to produce battlefield intelligence regarding the strategy and tactics of parties to the conflict. This trend is enhanced by the convergence of other developments, including the growing availability of low-Earth orbit satellites and the unprecedented availability of big data from open sources.
In addition, AI itself has undergone dramatic technical improvements, with the growing accuracy of machine learning models and systems, as well as the increased capability of AI systems to integrate and cross-reference data from various sources.
The Global Private Sector is in the AI-fueled warfare arena
What makes this conflict unique is the unprecedented willingness of foreign geospatial intelligence companies to assist Ukraine by using AI-enhanced systems to convert satellite imagery into intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance advantages. U.S. companies play a leading role in this.The company Palantir Technologies, for one, has provided its AI software to analyze how the war has been unfolding, to understand troop movements, and conduct battlefield damage assessments.
Other companies such as Planet Labs, BlackSky Technology and Maxar Technologies are also constantly producing satellite imagery about the conflict. Based on requests by Ukraine, some of this data is shared almost instantly with the Ukrainian government and defense forces.
AI-enhanced facial recognition in a conflict zone
The Russia-Ukraine war can also be considered the first conflict where AI-enhanced facial recognition software has been used on a substantial scale:In March 2022, Ukraine’s defense ministry started using facial recognition software produced by the U.S. company Clearview AI. This allows Ukraine to identify dead soldiers and to uncover Russian assailants and combat misinformation.
AI is playing an important role in electronic warfare and encryption
The U.S. company Primer has deployed its AI tools to analyze unencrypted Russian radio communications. This illustrates how AI systems were constantly retrained and adapted, for example, to deal with idiosyncrasies in customized ways, such as colloquial terms for weaponry.
AI-based cyber warfare and cyber defense Early analysis conducted by Microsoft for a June report shows that cyber defenses may have proven relatively successful, in part because of advances in AI-enhanced threat intelligence and the quick distribution of protective software to cloud services and other computer networks.
The flip side to this is the more visible use of AI surrounding the conflict: the spread of misinformation and the use of deep fakes as part of information warfare. AI has, for example, been used to create face images for fake social media accounts used in propaganda campaigns. While the spread of disinformation is not new, AI offers unprecedented opportunities for scaling and targeting such campaigns, especially in combination with the broad range of social media platforms. Again, there are converging trends as the use of recommendation algorithms to target users with direct content is growing and the AI systems that can autonomously create and spread messages are becoming more sophisticated. It is the perfect storm for future cyber warfare, with AI at the center. (1)
The prime minister of Estonia on the need for better preparation against digital warfare
Nearly years ago, I had the opportunity to chair the first official un Security Council meeting on cyber-security. Almost everyone at the meeting stressed what all states have already agreed: international law, including the un Charter in its entirety, applies in cyberspace. Russia did not.
Eight months later, Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and violated every rule in the book. For years, we had heard predictions that the next big war would be a kind of cyber-Armageddon. But instead, Russia brought back large-scale conventional war. Images of destruction from places like Bucha, where the Russian occupiers tortured and killed civilians, shocked the world.
Much of the free world’s response has inevitably focused on conventional war, and rightly so. The aggressor must be defeated on the battlefield, and for that Ukraine needs military support. But Russia is also waging an energy war, an information war, and a cyber war. Democracies need to take steps to defend themselves in all these areas, as well as holding the line to defend a world where rules still apply, and where technology works for, not against, democratic societies. In this regard, there are four things of which we need to take note and four things all free nations must do.
1 – We need to understand that integrating cyber-warfare into regular warfare is now an established practice.
An hour before Russian tanks rolled over Ukraine’s border, Russia disrupted Ukraine’s access to Viasat communication satellites. The aim was to leave the Ukrainian armed forces without one of their communications lines, as well as having a broader spill-over effect on broadband services that, for instance, control the remote monitoring of wind turbines in Germany. Russia has also targeted communications and it infrastructure such as data centers and wireless masts in the same way it has targeted energy infrastructure.
2 – Having a well-protected digital infrastructure is crucial.
Ukraine’s digital backbone has enabled the state to keep delivering services online during the war. Many Russian cyber-attacks have failed because Ukraine had spent years building up cyber resilience, with help from Estonia and others, and has now had extensive wartime assistance. And now it has lessons to teach us. Using apps such as Diia, the Ukrainian government has shown how technology can help taxes to be paid, public services to remain available and data to be kept secure even during a war. Such technology also allows Ukraine to continue providing services for millions of refugees spread across Europe or trapped under Russian occupation. Estonia is already working with Ukrainian partners to adapt Diia for our own citizens.
3 – There is still a sense that bad actors can do what they want in cyberspace.
While there have been significant examples in recent years of major cyber-attacks being attributed to foreign governments, it has not necessarily led to a change in behavior. The complexity of ascertaining who is behind attacks and following up with real consequences still makes some actors see cyber-warfare as an attractive tool. Russia continues to use so-called “DDoS diplomacy”—bombarding websites with traffic to send political signals and to try to disrupt services beyond Ukraine. Nearly every week, Estonia experiences cyber-attacks on government and private services. The effects have been minimal because we are well prepared and the attackers are not sophisticated. But a bigger threat lies elsewhere: malicious state-sponsored cyber groups are becoming more active across the world and sometimes gang up with ransomware groups.
4 – The private sector has transformed its role during this war, and taken public-private partnership up a level in defense of digital infrastructure.
Though social media platforms are not doing enough to prevent the spread of disinformation, companies like Palo Alto Networks and Amazon Web Services have provided much-needed services and security measures for Ukrainians to defend their critical infrastructure and government services. Co-operation with companies like Microsoft, cyber-security specialists Mandiant and others has also been crucial.
What Next?: In light of all this, what should democratic nations do?
The Future of Cyber Defense CapabilitiesWe must all be prepared for cyber-warfare to continue even after the conventional war ends, and to invest appropriately. The security environment has changed, and we must all adapt. As highly digitized societies, we need to make sure that public services remain available and data are kept safe. To that end, last year Estonia nearly doubled its annual cyber-security budget. There is also a need for swift information exchange between like-minded countries and service providers to help prevent attacks in the future.
We must step up our efforts in cyber capacity-building. Closing the digital divide must go hand in hand with building up cyber resilience. Estonia has long shared its know-how. A recent example is helping to set up a new cyber competence centre for Latin America and the Caribbean in the Dominican Republic, called LAC4, which acts as a regional hub for cyber-security education and training. We have also been helping countries in Africa, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe build more robust cyber defenses.
We must ensure accountability, including in cyberspace. Russia’s strategic goals are much bigger than Ukraine. It wants to recast the world in its own image, where might makes right. The digital sphere is not a sideshow but the front line. In March, Russia put forward a draft for a new cyber treaty at the un. It aims to undermine states’ obligations under existing international law and to justify domestic censorship. But existing international law applies fully in cyberspace. The international community risks sleepwalking into negotiating new, legally binding international rules with a war criminal.
We must build connections beyond current institutional limitations. It is clear that security for liberal democracies can no longer happen in silos. We must set standards with those we can trust, especially as new technologies like artificial intelligence, 5G and quantum computing become realities. Governments must better link with counterparts in other countries, as well as building partnerships with businesses and civil society.
Kallas concludes: “Tyrannies like Russia will keep trying to turn technology into a tool of oppression and a means to destabilize free societies. Our job is to prevent that, to help Ukraine win the war, and to build solid alliances. We must ensure impunity does not prevail in any sphere, and cyberspace is no exception.” (2)
The Future of AI-fueled WarfareWhile modern AI-enhanced systems are being tested, countries are still reluctant to offer Ukraine access to their latest and most advanced systems, in part because of fears that these might end up in the wrong hands.
As an AI laboratory, the Ukraine conflict is unique: unprecedented funding, international engagement, and technological support from across the public and private sectors in a setting that may continue for several more years.
The longevity of the conflict allows companies to fine-tune, adapt and improve their AI systems on the go. This is where AI-enhanced weapons and systems are markedly different from conventional ones: the longer they are deployed, the more data can be collected to improve them directly.
This conflict is a major stepping stone toward the networked battlefield and the AI wars of the future.
Most AI is and will be deployed in systems far removed from the battlefield, in cloud computing and data analysis systems related to areas such as planning, logistics, and preventive maintenance. It is an often-hidden side of the AI-driven revolution in warfare that has now been set in motion and will not stop.
While the character of the war may not yet be determined by AI, the Russia-Ukraine war is akin to a laboratory setting in which many companies and governments are able to constantly train and test AI systems for a wide range of capabilities, functionalities, and applications.
Fontes and Kamminga conclude: This is the tragic paradox. Each day that the conflict continues, and human beings are losing their lives in horrible ways, AI systems are being trained with real data from a real battleground — not to stop the suffering and end the war, but to become more effective in fighting the next one: the AI war.
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