Smart Victory in Era of Intelligent Warfare, Unmanned Combat Systems, and AI in missiles
Issue 9, 29 Nov 2021
I. Military and Warfare
Smart Victory in Era of Intelligent Warfare
Li Guangming of the National Defense University of China wrote in last week's PLA Daily about the need to identify and clarify the "winning mechanism" in modern informatized and intelligent warfare. The article talks about the importance of formulating the "winning laws" and "winning mechanisms." The strategies to win regular wars also apply in the case of intelligent wars. However, intelligent warfare has certain distinct characteristics and according to that, the strategy, campaigns, and tactics change. The author explains a few such mechanisms as important for future warfare.
Achieving "smart victory" with "strong" fighting the "weak": Strong here is referred to the military with overall combat effectiveness. In an era of mechanized warfare, overall combat effectiveness depended on the superiority of troops and firepower. In an era of information warfare, it depended on the superiority of information power. Similarly in the era of intelligent warfare, the strong means the one with intellectual superiority - where human intelligence has penetrated into the combat field and transplanted into weapon systems.
The smart victory of "High" against "low": High and low here mean "generation difference" (代差) and "mechanism difference" (维度差) in the combat styles and war forms. Simply put, the one using the higher dimension and more advanced technology will win the war in the era of intelligent warfare. The author argues that one can be in any stage of intelligent warfare development. In such a case, the one at a lower level of development will be defeated by a higher level of development. Hence, it is important to keep oneself in the highest stage and try to downgrade the opponent to the lower stage.
The smart victory of "fast" against "slow": Emphasis here is on, unsurprisingly, the speed of the actions in determining the result of war. The author lists the advantages of quantum computers over supercomputers.
The victory of "smart" over "clumsy": Smart in intelligent systems means relying on the advantages of algorithms. These algorithms emerge from the commander's brain and are implemented in an "intelligent" weapon system. The author believes that after a certain stage of development, the intelligent systems would have greater autonomy and various types of intelligent combat platforms across the domain would connect quickly, build combat systems based on mission requirements, autonomously implement coordinated operations, and quickly return to the default state at the end of the mission. When intelligent warfare expands to polar regions, deep seas, space and other fields, new mechanisms of "smart victory" will be developed.
Given China's progress in the field of quantum technology, this isn’t a surprise. The Chinese scientists have focussed on the development of quantum technology for a long time and have surpassed many in its applications in telecommunications and computing. The emphasis on speed is just one of the aspects highlighted by the author here. Also, makes it evident that the superior quantum technology setup in China will definitely be used for military purposes, either directly or indirectly.
The author compares the arrival of AI as the equivalent of the development of missiles. This shows how important and game-changer the Chinese academics believe AI is for the military. The author also uses terms like "strong", "high", and "fast" to refer to the intelligent warfare systems and combat methods as opposed to the "weak", "low", and "slow" systems and combat methods used in non-intelligent warfare.
Cross-Domain Kill Chain
An article by Jiang Haichao (affiliation not given) advocated establishing a new concept of cross-domain coordinated operations, and exploring the construction of a "cross-domain kill chain" that integrates:
Multi-dimensional and three-dimensional reconnaissance and perception
Multi-level linkage command and control
Multi-domain joint rapid strikes
Kill-chain is an offensive military attack concept which involves a series of activities resulting in the destruction of the target. It usually starts with target identification followed by dispatching forces towards the target, deciding to attack the target, and ends with the destruction of the target. The recent evolution of kill-chain attacks has been adopted into cyber warfare.
Multi-dimensional and three-dimensional reconnaissance and perception: This involves comprehensive use of land-based, sea-based, air-based, space-based, and network-based reconnaissance methods to perform three-dimensional real-time early warning, detection, identification, tracking, and positioning of time-sensitive targets.
Multi-level linkage command and control: This means that command agencies at all levels rely on an integrated command information system to plan and make decisions simultaneously, and coordinate the command and control of the actions of the troops
Multi-domain joint rapid strikes: This means that that multi-domain combat forces are under a unified command, relying on the network information system to share target intelligence, and execute rapid strikes on targets synchronously and in an orderly manner.
DARPA has developed Adapting Cross-domain Kill-webs (ACK) and the System-of-systems Technology Integration Tool Chain for Heterogeneous Electronic Systems (STITCHES) and demonstrated them last year. These technologies will assist commanders in decisions making.
Two DARPA-developed technologies – a novel decision aid for mission commanders and a rapid software integration tool – played a critical role in the recent demonstration of the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS). Read about ACK and STITCHES at darpa.mil/news-events/20…US weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin has also developed a "Cyber kill chain" framework which is a defensive framework to protect critical systems from cyber-attack.
New Features in Unmanned Combat
Next, we have an article by Zhou Qingfeng (affiliation not given) that outlines new features in unmanned combat. These are:
Adaptability to any battlefield environment and combat space: An important development in this area is the use of artificial intelligence technology for autonomous route planning and target recognition. The author states that the use of AI has improved the capabilities of unmanned combat vehicles. Coupled with its powerful firepower, the combat attack power of a single-vehicle can even be comparable to that of a squad.
Real-time battlefield situation awareness: This includes a range of activities like 3D reconnaissance and surveillance, early warning, distributed detection using cluster operations, etc.
Intelligent and flat combat command and control: In the future, the traditional multi-level chain of command may be reduced to a "commander-cluster" two-level chain of command. The command mode will shift towards more autonomy - with the capability of autonomous decision-making with little or no human involvement.
Surprise attacks: UAVs are well suited for sudden attacks.
Coordinated and efficient Omni-directional swarm operations: Unmanned systems are ideal for the "swarm" operations which is a collection of a large number of intelligent unmanned platforms with different functions and a unique application method that a single weapon system does not have.
Joint service support with the precise and intelligent response: With automatic cognitive abilities, endurance to long operations, and high precision calculations, unmanned systems are best suited for joint operations.
The article is introductory, most probably meant as an exploratory article to discuss the possible use of unmanned systems in warfare. Speaking of unmanned systems, Global Times on Nov 28 reported that an unmanned high-speed vessel developed by Yunzhou Tech has achieved a breakthrough in its dynamic cooperative confrontation technology. Global Times hailed this unmanned vessel as a milestone in maritime unmanned equipment which can quickly intercept, besiege and expel invasive targets. The company which developed this vessel also plans to deploy the world's first research ship capable of intelligent remote control and autonomous navigation by 2022.
AI in Missiles
The article describes the use of AI in missiles, with a warning that intelligent missiles are not magic bullets. Intelligent missiles can be used mostly for:
Autonomously carry out accurate target positioning, and quickly perform target recognition, friend or friend recognition, threat recognition, obstacle recognition, and other operations.
Intelligent missiles can have reasoning, judgment, and decision-making capabilities in the attack process, and rely on the missile-borne autonomous decision-making system to fight independently.
Coordinated combat: In a complex combat situation, missiles also need to "group together" to improve their survivability and attack power. AI can assist in mission planning, trajectory planning, and coordinated detection based on information sharing, and jointly complete the adjustment of attack configuration and collaborative search strategy. Missile clusters with intelligent decision-making, intelligent target allocation, and other links can form a new type of intelligent cluster combat capability.
I wonder how this works in hypersonic missiles. In October this year, SCMP has published an article claiming that Chinese military scientists had claimed they can use AI to increase accuracy of hypersonic missiles. Any thoughts?
II. Additional Reading
Creating Cross-Domain Kill Webs in Real-Time, Aerospace and Defence Technology