Disruptive and Game Changing Technologies in Modern Warfare

This book explores and analyzes emerging innovations within today’s most cutting-edge science and technology (S&T) areas, which are cited as carrying the potential to revolutionize governmental structures, economies, and international security. Some have argued that such technologies will yield doomsday scenarios and that military applications of such technologies have even greater potential than nuclear weapons to radically change the balance of power. As the United States looks to the future—whether dominated by extremist groups co-opting advanced weapons in the world of globalized non-state actors or states engaged in persistent regional conflicts in areas of strategic interest—new adversaries and new science and technology will emerge. Choices made today that affect science and technology will impact how ably the US can and will respond. Chapters within the book look at the changing strategic environment in which security operations are planned and conducted; how these impact science and technology policy choices made today; and predictions of how science and technology may play a beneficial or deleterious role in the future. Some game changing technologies have received global attention, while others may be less well known; the new technologies discussed within this proposal, as well as future discoveries, may significantly alter military capabilities and may generate new threats against military and civilian sectors.

This chapter offers an analysis and discussion of disruptive technology and revolutions in military affairs. It explores factors that influence technology adoption and analyzes whether certain legal and diplomatic responses (e.g., treaties, bans, and prohibitions) to weapons innovations are an effective governance tool for limiting proliferation. Examining the outcome of governance tools on the adoption and proliferation of technology can elucidate trends, uncover relationships, and inform better approaches to international security, diplomacy, and policy. Knowing what relationships exist is important to developing a clear picture of viable options and possible leverage points. Investigating the interaction between technology and governance enhances the knowledge base from which national security decisions are made and may contribute to increased effectiveness in governance approaches. Making the best, most inform decisions, is an imperative aspect in maintaining superiority.

This chapter explores the potential for new biotechnologically-enabled weapons to compete with nuclear weapons as far as effect on strategic stability, and assesses whether the assumptions in traditional strategic stability models are still valid when applied to such scenarios, and how changing capabilities and adversaries may shape approaches to arms control, verification, and monitoring. When thinking about biotechnology from a security perspective, anticipating the types of security threats that may emerge as science and technology advance, the potential consequences of those threats, the probability that adversaries will obtain or pursue them, adversarial intent, and potential effect on strategic stability is necessary. The range and spectrum of possible capabilities and actors are expanding. The most recent addition to the genome-editing arsenal is CRISPR, a bacteria-derived system that is among the simplest genome-editing tools. The CRISPR-Cas9 system—and emerging variants on the system—enables unprecedented control and ease when editing the genome. With parallels to remote ‘command and control’ of the genome, this is one aspect that makes the technology different from earlier gene-editing methods. Contemporary analyses of emerging technologies often expose tenuous links or disconnections between technical realities and mainstream scholarship. How, when, where, and in what form the shifting nature of technological progress may bring enhanced or entirely new capabilities, many of which are no longer the exclusive domain of a single nation-state, is contested and requires better analytical tools to enable assessment and inform policy choices. This work is hardly the only one to consider the biosecurity implications of CRISPR, gene-editing, and broader issues of biotechnology. As far as is known, it is the only one to address these emerging life sciences technologies in the context of nuclear strategic stability and implications for balance of power, arms control, and international security.

Additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing technology is a rising industry with applications that traverse all sectors of the economy. A variety of users can use 3D printing commercially or recreationally to make objects in plastic and metal, thus it has caused concern among the nuclear proliferation community in its dual-use capability to help acquisition by non-weapons states or non-state actors. Despite the concern, current AM capabilities give little cause for alarm. What AM possesses in flexibility, it lacks in depth; AM has limitations in size, material strength, and cost of objects compared to traditional manufacturing methods. Spread of sensitive nuclear technologies is not possible with the technology in the near future. Delivery systems are more worrisome yet their actualization probability remains low. The United States and international community should work together to continually examine AM capabilities in the near term and begin to update export control mechanisms, re-examine signatures of proliferation for the intelligence community, and promote collaborative efforts between the AM technical community and the public sector to alert of disruptive ability of the technology.

Conflict between states in the modern era takes place under the threat of nuclear weapons use. Preventing additional states, especially adversarial ones, from acquiring nuclear weapons is the goal of the United States Department of Defense’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (C-WMD) program as defined in Joint Publication 3-40. This chapter analyzes the utility of machine learning in assessing specific indicators of nuclear proliferation based on feasibility and utility criteria. Nuclear proliferation indicators are developed and machine learning evaluation criteria designated and discussed. Implications for chemical and biological weapons are briefly discussed. A speculative look at far-future, true generalized artificial intelligence in the C-WMD fight is made, with a focus on determining new questions that could be answered by an advanced system. The results show that the most promising areas for machine learning in Counter-WMD are power grid analysis, imagery analysis to located hidden and protected sites, and communications metadata analysis to identify key players and their activity in proliferation networks. Far-future artificial intelligence may be able to track proliferator progress, anticipate nuclear decision points, and design new arms reduction frameworks.

Non-Lethal Weapons (NLW) are not themselves a new or game-changing technology. However, new forms of NLW enable a standoff capability previously only available from traditional or lethal systems. These system architectures rely on directed acoustic or electromagnetic energy to achieve a desired effect in their targets, whether personnel or materiel. As with many emerging and game-changing technologies, political and ethical concerns, alongside technical ones, affect the development of Non-Lethal Weapons. The end result is a debate between NLW advocates who favor utility-based arguments and NLW opponents who point to less quantifiable issues with the use of such systems. This chapter aims to bridge the divide between the two sides of the debate and to illustrate that NLW are not only useful systems but also to explore inherent problems in the three primary arguments against their deployment. NLW are a greater ethical good than either lethal (or permanently-harming) force or the lack of action that results in further losses. Politically, the treaties that would govern NLW deployment and use either do not address these systems directly or indirectly encourage their use by advocating for minimizing collateral damage. Lastly, concerns about the “slippery slope” of NLW technology development is a logical fallacy based upon the erroneous concept of “cerebralcentrism” and the assumption that NLW provide an oppression capability not currently possible with traditional lethal force.

Energy is a critical input in military functions. As more advanced technology and weapons are deployed, the demand for energy is also expected to rise. However, it is pertinent to examine the possibility and extent of any fundamental changes in the way energy technology is deployed by the US military and the implications on national security. While large research projects are currently underway to support moves toward enhancing energy efficiency in operational energy usage, it is unclear to what extent these would create major tactical or strategic disruptions. To identify the possibility of major energy technology related disruptions, an exploratory framework that analyzes different options along the different stages of the energy value chain—generation, storage, transfer, and usage—is developed, and different technologies that fit within it are identified. These technologies are then assessed in the context of the Lethality-Survivability-Mobility triad framework to understand where and how strategic disruptions could be generated. Finally, this chapter provides recommendations on key areas where research could be pursued to gain maximum returns and the organizational aspects of energy technology acquisitions of the US military.

This chapter investigates the disruptive potential of metamaterials, synthetic nano-structured materials, which possess special physical properties that enable the user to be invisible and to evade detection. The security applications of metamaterials are to camouflage personnel, vehicles, ships, or planes from some portion of the infrared spectrum. Metamaterials have a high refractive index meaning that light ‘flows around’ the material rather than reflecting off. Successful implementation of metamaterial adaptive camouflage (MMAC) would be a paradigm shift in camouflage and anti-detection technology that could cause significant disruptions to conflict dynamics. This chapter investigates the role of metamaterials by placing it in the broader historical context of detection and anti-detection technology. By tracing the co-development of both sides of the detection arms race, a theoretical framework can be constructed. This analysis pays special attention to radar and stealth aircraft in the post WWII era. It explores concepts like deterrence, the offense defense balance, and the security dilemma. The conclusion is that anti-detection, or camouflage, technologies are generally detrimental to the international peace and detection technologies are beneficial. Metamaterials are a threat to the global status quo and are therefore a threat to the power of global and regional hegemons. Revisionist actors, primarily non-state actors, likely will benefit disproportionately from acquiring a MMAC capability but will struggle to do so due to the technical challenge of advanced R&D, particularly in the near and mid-term. The implication is that status quo powers—whom are likely to be the first to develop a viable capability—must emphasize parallel development of countermeasures and limit the negative potential of the technology’s proliferation.

State and non-state actors are challenging the US Army’s asymmetric strategic advantage and global military dominance. Countries such as Russia and China are incorporating technological advances to limit and challenge the US Army’s capabilities and freedom of maneuver. Non-state actors are acquiring advanced weaponry creating a hostile environment for Army aviation operations in the Middle East, and these revisionist elements challenge the US’s hegemony making the world more violent and unstable. To thwart the projected actions of state and non-state entities, the US Army needs to undergo another disruptive innovation in military power. The Persian Gulf War was a demonstration of the US military’s last disruptive innovation resulting in global military dominance, and the US Army is currently planning for the next leap in military capability. This paper proposes that the path to the next disruptive innovation is through investments in the foundational technologies of nanotechnology, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence. Applying these innovations to Army Aviation Advanced Protection Systems creates an asymmetric strategic advantage ensuring global freedom of maneuver for the US Army’s land forces.

This chapter builds on the Revolution in Military Logistics (RML) concept, as defined by the U.S. Army in 1999, by conceiving of logistics transformation as a prerequisite for any Revolution in Military Affairs or broader force transformation at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. Looking past the tip of the spear, this chapter analyses how emerging critical technologies may facilitate a paradigmatic shift in land-based combat service support emphasizing greater agility, modularity, seamlessness, control, and sustainability. The chapter considers technological enablers—including artificial intelligence, alternative energy technologies, augmented reality, additive manufacturing, robotics, blockchain and the Internet of Things—which may make logistics more efficient and effective, yet which have only been developed or fielded in an ad hoc way. With a view toward integrating the technologies into operational concepts and organisational constructs, the chapter assesses the merits, as well as vulnerabilities and cultural difficulties, of transforming future military logistics.