Disruption, Ideation and Innovation for Defence and Security

Defence technologies, such as early-warning systems, are subject to exogenous and endogenous threats. The former may issue from jamming or, in a combat situation, anti-radiation missiles. The latter may issue from latent errors (Reason in Human Error. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990) introduced into the system at the initial design stage or during an upgrade, that is, through reactive patching (Weir in Debates in Risk Management. UCL Press, London, pp 114–126, 1996). It is easier to defend against exogenous than endogenous threats. Nevertheless, mindfulness when designing or upgrading a defence system reduces the risk of latent or embedded errors compromising reliability. This chapter will argue that systems that permit manual intervention, that is, manual override, are more reliable than systems that provide little or no opportunity for intervention. Referencing a Cold War near-miss, the chapter posits a negative relationship between coupling and reliability. That is, the more tightly coupled—that is, automated and linear—a system’s architecture, the less reliable it will be (other things remaining equal). It has become fashionable to characterise the human component as a liability—a latent error. The manner in which the Cold War crisis described below was resolved demonstrates the unfairness, indeed, recklessness of this characterisation.

Quantum computing portends to be a disruptive technology but, more disturbing (or exciting), a societal disruptor. Computational processing will reach speeds resulting in autonomous adaptability, outreaching human ability to perceive, understand, identify appropriate questions, let alone reach answers, and act. Quantum computation will enable mathematical calculations impractical and impossible for conventional computing. Conventional cryptographic methods will be rendered useless. New possibilities for combinatorics (permutation analysis) will help enable DNA-tailored pharmaceuticals. Complex system modeling will enable dynamic adaptations at speeds that will redefine military strategy and tactics. This chapter introduces terminology and unravels the hype around the science of quantum computing. All explanations are in narrative form, i.e., an introduction to quantum computing minus the math.

Emerging and disruptive technologies (EDT), such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, Quantum computing, biotechnology, nanotechnology and a broad selections of aerospace technologies, have attracted increasing attention in security and defence in recent years. What lies behind this drive towards harnessing such innovations is the hope that EDTs would solve many of today's most wicked security problems and provide an edge over potential adversaries in conflict. As such, it is often expected that EDTs could revolutionise fields of warfare, or even the concept or warfare as we know it, provide new and novel solutions to countering threats to critical infrastructures and improve cyber security of vital services. The other side of the coin, however, is the deeply felt fear of being overcome by adversaries in possession of superior technological capabilities. Consequently, Russia’s development of supersonic technologies and China’s drive towards dominating AI and drone technologies are of increasing concern. As such the emergence of EDTs are sometimes seen as threats on their own merit. However, and perhaps more importantly, disruptive innovation is often somewhat elusive in terms of what one can expect in practice. There are no guarantees towards what will emerge, if anything. Sometimes the end result is a definite dud and the investment does not return positive results. For every successful disruptive technology there are thousands that fail totally. Even when they work out, the outcome might not be the one broadly expected. This chapter thus seeks to explore how we can recognise EDTs with potential for security and defence, assess that potential with improved certainty, assess and mitigate the uncertainty associated with such technologies and investigate pathways toward a trade-offs strategy in order to achieve a balance between the risks and opportunities.

This chapter describes a paradigm that can systematically help to address disruption, ideation and innovation in defense and security systems: the science, craft and art of human systems exploration (HSE). Starting with an introduction of the topic and an overview of the history of this field, the chapter will sketch the theory behind exploration, the metaphor of exploration, a system model, human systems dialectics and resulting tension fields. Helpful process metaphors like design space, use space and value space will be introduced and prototypical exploration processes with stakeholders sketched. Human imagination is identified as the most powerful tool, mental models as the fundamental representation of the physical world in human or machine cognition, motivation and inspiration as the most valuable fuel for innovative explorations. As nothing shows the value of theory better than practical examples, each block of theory is exemplified with ongoing activities either directly in defense and security systems, or in related e.g. safety critical systems, which can be used as blueprints also for defense and security. As human systems exploration is in 2021 a relatively new field of research and development, also potential future directions are sketched. Related to this, another focus is on the assessment of disruptive potential, chances and risks associated with new innovations found in an exploratory process, which forges a bridge from human systems exploration to the field of technology assessment. This is especially relevant with regard to defense and security technology as their application can affect human lives and integrity. Hence, ethical, legal and societal questions of responsibility and accountability need to be considered from early stages of the innovation process. An outlook into the future sketches the demand for future research, development and implementation of the exploratory paradigm.

Many nations are engaged in a global Total War between two macro-ideals of the liberal world order (freedom, liberty) and authoritarian order. A key vision of each side is to establish and sustain their ideals. A key objective is to establish and sustain the greatest influence in a multipolar global power system. A key tactic is information dominance. A key target is the social contract to engage and bring about an effect on an entire population. A key medium through which to sustain information dominance and attack targets is cyberspace. Cyberspace and cybersecurity interweave into the social fabric, including civil liberties (opting out of the digital world), privacy (the right to be unobserved and the right to be forgotten), automated resolution of moral dilemmas (autonomous vehicle choosing who to hit), financial security (wealth representation being bits on a hard drive), socio-political deception (detecting fake news on which we base life decisions), and physical safety (loss of life and property from adverse cyber-physical events). As we look to the future of cybersecurity, we have hard choices that affect the way we live (Willett in INCOSE Int Symp [25]). This chapter provides Total War as one context to understand the critical nature of cybersecurity and consider a cybersecurity grand strategy and innovation for the defense of global freedom and personal liberty.

This chapter critically analyses the impact of the Internet and associated technology on the rise in terrorist attacks across the US and Europe over the last two decades. To this end, the chapter will be focusing on jihadists’ use of the Internet, yet comparisons will also be made with the radical right. Although there exist certainly differences between the groups, there are also similarities between them, and, in turn, this chapter will address these movements as a collective. The jihadist terrorist organisations that will be analysed in this chapter will include Al-Qaeda and ISIS. The findings reveal that although the Internet has been linked to the preparation and execution of attacks, as this chapter will explore, it is difficult to establish direct cause and effect associations between the Internet and the rise in attacks in Europe and the US.

As described in Saha and Chakrabarti (South Asian Survey 28:111–132, 2021) ‘COVID-19 has firmly established itself as the single largest security disrupter of this century in the non-traditional sense’. This infectious disease has killed millions, cost trillions of dollars, has put at risk national security, has severely challenged geopolitical relations while closing international borders. It has thus ‘necessitated a recalibration of securitization framework…’. Such events are shaping the security calculus across dimensions such as health, economic, food and energy emerging as interrelated concepts that characterize the security landscape as complex. Within a backdrop of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), the COVID-19 pandemic has stress-tested societal systems and has revealed inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks nationally and globally. To confront the complex global challenges presented by COVID-19 and those associated with military hypersonic weapons systems, Artificial Intelligence, Climate Change, to name a few, it cannot be business as usual. Secondary to that, we cannot continue to innovate the same way, or at a speed lower than what triggers shocks and disruptions. Deep transformations are required in how we plan, sense, and respond to such shocks and disruptions. The pandemic and other examples of shocks in Defence and Security have highlighted the importance of three things: science in the development of solutions that informs decision making, secondly, building the right internal innovation culture and finally, developing the right external partners to innovate differently and faster. This chapter examines some shocks and disruptions, such as those associated with Defence, Security, infectious diseases, AI and Climate Change and presents how rapidly-developed innovative solutions are now a necessity. The chapter also describes that innovative solutions are not all created the same way, at the same speed or from the same diverse hub/ecosystem—yet must emerge more rapidly to better manage the current crises and to future-proof ourselves against the promises and the perils of the fast arriving volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of crises of tomorrow.

Malaria continues to be a burden to the healthcare system in Uganda and represents a regional and global health security issue. According to a 2019 WHO report, there are an estimated 18 million reported cases and over 15,000 estimated deaths in Uganda. This is an estimate as the real numbers of cases and deaths that have not been reported are likely to be much higher. 90% of the current >43 million inhabitants remain at risk of malaria, and it remains the leading cause of death, particularly among children, according to a Target Malaria Report (Kayondo in Target Malaria, Uganda Report, 2021). With an already strained healthcare system, malaria cases continue to comprise between 30 and 50% of all outpatient services and between 15 and 20% of hospitalizations. An intelligence–location based, AI machine learning, UAV classifier in an interactive, iOS, intelligent, cell phone, application (app) platform was employed to provide precise georeferenced, ArcGIS classified, real time, imaged, land use land cover (LULC) data of seasonal, georeferenced, sentinel site, malaria mosquito, Anopheles, [gambiae s.l., arabiensis s.s. and funestus s.l.]. breeding sites in an intervention agro-pastureland village site in the Gulu district of Uganda. Thereafter we continued to signature drone map all treated sub-county, entomological, district-level, capture point, intervention sites every 7–14 days to establish if new foci have occurred and treated those habitats. In so doing, we were able to ascertain valuable seasonal, entomological information [e.g., abiotic constraints such as temperature and habitat drying temporal sample frames for swamps/lagoons, transient pools and man-made holes] for optimally real time treating [Macro Seek and Destroy (S&D) i.e., real time, targeted, drone larviciding] sentinel site, productive, sub-county, district-level, seasonal, aquatic, Anopheline foci [e.g., a sewage pond in a turbid swamp during the rainy season, a puddle less than one meter that contains An. gambiae s.l. larvae along a commercial, pre-flooded, rural farmland road, An. arabiensis s.s. post-harvested tillers etc. We tested the hypothesis that a real time, environmentally friendly, larval habitat alteration [i.e., Macro S&D] could reduce aquatic, vector, larval, habitat density and blood parasite levels in treated and not suspected malaria patients at an agro-pastureland, malarious, intervention site. Another hypothesis we tested was timely malaria diagnosis and treatment [Micro S&D] is associated with low population parasitemia and lower malaria incidences. In 31 days, post-Macro S&D intervention, there was zero vector density, indoor, adult, female, Anopheles count as ascertained by pyrethrum spray catch at the intervention site. After a mean average of 62 days, blood parasite levels revealed a mean 0 count in timely diagnosed suspected and treated malaria patients. Implementing a real time Macro and Micro S&D intervention tool along with other existing tools [insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs) indoor residual spraying of insecticides (Lin et al. in IEEE Int Conf Comput Vis (ICCV) 2017:2999–3007, 2017)] and proper policy measures [i.e., control and the strategies recommended by WHO such as bed-net distribution behavior change interventions including information, education, communication campaigns] in an entomological district-level intervention site can lower seasonal malaria prevalence either through timely modification of aquatic, Anopheles, larval habitats or through precisely targeted larvicide interventions. to achieve them. This chapter presents an innovative approach to managing and eradicating malaria thereby supporting solutions to a major global health security issue.

The nature of scientific (and other) progress is generally one of dividing some field into two specialities that then diverge, such as the divergence of chemistry from physics or the separation of astrology from astronomy. Less often will two fields converge but when they do an acceleration of knowledge creation may then ensue, and its hybrid vigor can be surprising. Such a convergence seems now to have begun, that of the convergence between biology and cybersecurity. We will explore some possibilities, and their implications.

This chapter will address the law and policy considerations raised by technological innovations in public safety and policing. Across the United States, law enforcement officials have been deploying a range of disruptive technologies designed to assist policing, such as (1) city surveillance networks; (2) body cameras; (3) facial recognition technology, and (4) automatic license plate readers. Drawing on human rights law set forth by the United Nations and U.S. jurisprudence, this chapter will describe the range of legal considerations related to the collection, utilization, and access of emerging technology. Disruptive technologies raise critical questions related to the concepts of privacy, appropriate use parameters, and the balance of power in a democratic society. This chapter will provide recommendations of points to consider when assessing the impact of disruptive technologies prior to adoption.

Criminal organisations pose a direct threat and disruption to society as they have a destructive impact on daily life and weaken the social fabric and legitimacy of society and economy. The complexity and inherent resilience of this type of subversive crime cause counter measures to appear reasonably effective when analysed in isolation. However, when implemented, they may produce unanticipated effects, counteract effects of other interventions, or harm security altogether. There is a pressing need for anticipating illicit behaviour resilience and innovative approaches to deal with this challenge. Anticipatory intelligence supports the exploration of near-future criminal organisation evolution and the identification of opportunities for sustainable and effective counter measures. This entails an understanding of criminal organisation mechanisms and in particular the analysis of criminal behavioural resilience to counter measures. Understanding this inherent complexity embedded in the cat-and-mouse game between criminals and law enforcement enables the analysis of the impact of crime prevention and law enforcement strategies. This chapter approaches the resilience of criminal organisations from a complex systems perspective and shows how different types of anticipatory intelligence approaches (from qualitative to quantitative) can be used in practice. It also proposes a novel complexity-based hybrid methodology approach to provide law enforcement the capability to be two steps ahead of criminal organisations.

Violent transnational social movements (VTSMs) have profoundly impacted social harmony and generated contemporary conflict scenarios which have presented challenges to the existing state security apparatus. Is it possible that a new form of warfare is emerging which we have not been able to distinguish clearly?