There has been an unmistakable shift in the character of warfare amid the Russia-Ukraine war, with technological advances driving the use of drones and electronic warfare on the battlefield on both sides.
It is no secret that AI can outsmart humans, with Microsoft claiming that its speech recognition software has an error rate of 1% compared to the human error rate of around 6%. Armies are slowly handing algorithms the reins, and while we may not be seeing robots fighting wars just yet, robotics, autonomous delivery systems, smart weapons, and artificial intelligence are playing an ever-increasingly important role on the battlefield.
According to Heligan Group, there has been a fundamental shift towards an age of technological warfare. Precision weapons are being augmented with AI, and high-grade satellite imagery provides a level of transparency that opens up how we see conflict, and importantly, who sees it and when.
Will Ashford-Brown, Strategic Insights Director at Heligan Group, says: “We are seeing ever more transparency in how wars are being fought, and this is driven by the integration of information from satellites, both commercial low-Earth-orbit cubesats and high-end geostationary military satellites and aircraft, the images from which are being beamed onto our television screens on 24hr news channels. Militaries are also having to contend with their digital footprints which are left as military personnel and equipment move through our now highly connected world, coupled with the proliferation of rich user-generated content discoverable on social media.”
China has taken the initiative in the technological race, developing a new capability that has the potential to ground aircraft remotely, disable communications, and disrupt critical infrastructure. The UK Royal Navy has also recently begun testing a new MEWSIC (Maritime Electronic Warfare System Integrated Capability) Electronic Warfare system, which will allow vessels to better understand and exploit the increasingly complex electromagnetic environment.
Ashford-Brown continued: “Digital technologies are transforming conflict, with precision weaponry merging with advances in robotics, autonomy, connectivity, data in the secure cloud, and AI. Pandora's box is well and truly open, and this combination is leading to armies fundamentally changing. They are no longer soldiers operating equipment and driven by a fixed order of battle, but rapidly evolving, multi-skilled teams capable of bringing to bear innovative tools and techniques rapidly.
“The ethical questions surrounding the fusion of technology and warfare need to be re-examined in light of this transformation. Gone are the days of simple definitions like kinetic capability, a euphemistically gentle term to describe big chunks of heavy metal, often painted green, grey, or blue, that fire smaller lumps of metal that kill people.”
This has left many wondering how we define technology that can take human life when that technology might have many uses, most of which are likely to be innocent, and what this means for arms embargoes and sanctions.
“It is difficult for one to come to a conclusion given the dual-use nature of technology, for example, how do we classify a small autonomous drone that loiters, and identifies a target, before releasing a payload without human intervention, when at the same time the drone could be used for pest control in an agricultural setting. That is the heart of the dual-use dilemma and one of the defining characteristics of the next generation of warfare, which will be the ethical debate that surrounds the use of technology.
“Despite the transformations playing out in front of eyes, the nature of war will never really change, but technology will alter its character, providing adaptations to how we fight, not why,” concluded Ashford-Brown
