"Winning Mechanism" in Intelligent Warfare, Importance of Drones, and New Features of Strategic Deterrence
Issue 10, 06 Dec 2021
I. Military and Warfare
Articles in this week's PLA Daily are on similar themes as of the last week. Hence, a lot of concepts mentioned here also have been discussed in my last week's dispatch. For example, last week's article was by Li Guangming of the National Defense University of China who wrote about the need to identify and clarify the "winning mechanism" in modern informatized and intelligent warfare. You can read last week's dispatch here.
Winning Mechanisms in Intelligent Warfare (IW)
We have another article in series on writings on "Intelligent Warfare" (IW) by academics and researchers from PLA-affiliated universities. This article by Yang Yaohui, Zhang Sanhu, and Zhou Zheng from the School of Information and Communication, National University of Defense Technology further elaborates on the idea of winning mechanisms in intelligent warfare. Authors argue that sooner or later the capabilities of participants in firepower, mobility, connectivity, computing power, cognitive power, and information power in war will become similar. Hence, the effectiveness of combat methods will determine the outcome of the war. They suggest three mechanisms to increase the effectiveness of IW as a “winning mechanism.”
Strongest Connection: Authors emphasize the importance of connectivity here. They state that connectivity is what generates intelligence and hence military is currently seeking to extend connectivity to develop intelligent systems. Well-connected networks also contribute towards well-connected and intelligent groups. Authors stress this especially because they believe "swarm" combat systems, fragmented combat force groups, and distributed weapon deployment will dominate combat scenes in intelligent warfare. Lastly, strong connections also promote the construction of a "kill-chain." Unlike traditional "kill-chain" which is sequential and progressive in nature, intelligent warfare generally involves a "kill-web" where execution units on the kill chain are scattered on the miniaturized, unmanned, and connected via a combat platform. A stronger connection among the nodes means one can choose which node to use to enter the combat system. More nodes you can choose on the "kill-chain", stronger the system's resilience, flexibility, and irritability. Moreover, such a combat system will also be more agile and adaptable.
Computing power: In the intelligent warfare age, computational power will play a crucial role in decision making and winning war. The systems deployed to enable intelligent warfare will generate a lot of data. Hence tremendous computational power will be needed to handle such data. In intelligent warfare, every machine has to perform a series of calculations when making decisions. Hence the computing model with the central node acting as only one "brain" has become inadequate. To fill this gap, as per authors, a new model of "Network + Combat Cloud + Digital Twin" (基础网 + 作战云+数字孪生体) is emerging.
Strong Cognition: Having a unified understanding of the battlefield situation is important. Intelligent warfare focuses more on improving quality and efficiency in converting knowledge to wisdom. Confrontation in intelligent warfare is driven by information as a source and unified cognition as key. With better cognition abilities, the combat links have advanced from OODA (observe-orient-decide-act) to OD (orient-decide). Machine calculations have now entered combat command activities in intelligent warfare with the entry of "AI military divisions" (AI军师) and "intelligent staff" (智能参谋) in combat command activities. Authors also note that the cognitive confrontation is shifting from the field of the human brain to a new space of "human brain + robot brain" (人脑 + 机器脑). Human cognition and robotic cognition can complement each other in the tasks required combat since a machine's judgment can never replace a human's wisdom. Hence the authors state that the cognitive power of "human brain + robotic brain" (人脑 + 机器脑) collaboration and integration can be the way to win an intelligent war.
Digital Twin: This means a virtual model which is almost an exact representation of a physical object or model. Think of an exact replica of military weapons system with all its components behaving exactly like they do in real life. This can then be used to study various scenarios where using a physical object is not suitable or not ideal. An ideal Virtual Twin would eliminate the need to use costly systems for testing and training.
Combat Cloud: The US Air Force defines Combat Cloud as “an overarching meshed network for data distribution and information sharing within a battlespace, where each authorized user, platform, or node transparently contributes and receives essential information and is able to utilize it across the full range of military operations.” (Source)
Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) is a military strategy developed by US Air Force Colonel John Boyd. Boyd observed that for the very entity, the decision-making cycle can be represented in a loop of Observe-Orient-Decide-Act. If one can take decisions faster than this loop, they can enter the opponent's decision-making cycle and have an advantage over them. According to this concept, the one who can get inside the opponent's OODA loop fastest can prevail in combat.
(Image by Patrick Edwin Moran - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3904554)
Importance of Drones in Future Wars
This article by Hou Zhongtang and Cao Guangxi of the 69260 Unit elaborated on the various applications of drones other than reconnaissance and strike operations. These are:
Electronic Warfare Decoy: The UAV can cooperate with other electronic reconnaissance equipment to conduct deception reconnaissance and act as a decoy to lure the enemy into exposure.
Airborne Early Warning
Anti-missile perception: With the addition of an intelligent radar system, UAV can overcome the shortcomings of the existing anti-missile missile weapon system, such as long response time, short interception distance, and secondary damage to the residual body after the interception.
Signal Relay
Strategic Deterrence (战略威慑)
Next, we have an article by Xie Kai, Sun Hongwei, and Li Wenqing (affiliation not given) arguing that big data and artificial intelligence (AI) have brought big changes to the concept of traditional strategic deterrence. Key features of this new style of strategic deterrence are as follows:
Flexible and diverse means: New changes brought about by technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and unmanned swarms have enriched traditional strategic systems with flexibility and greater choice to exercise effective deterrence. For example, the decision-makers can target weak links in the opponent's system based on the requirement of operation and strengths of their own system.
Multidimensionality: Unlike traditional strategic deterrence which is limited to land, sir, and sea the new strategic deterrence in an age of intelligence has grown to include "high frontier" of space and the "new frontier" of cyberspace. The complexity and multidimensionality of strategic deterrence in the intelligent era allow it to be simultaneously implemented in multiple areas. The authors also mention a specific type of deterrence that can be included as deterrence.
Biological deterrence: Using gene-editing technology to create "super soldiers."
Cognitive deterrence: Using brain-computer interface technology to create the "most powerful brain."
Psychological deterrence: Using virtual reality technology to create a "realistic battlefield."
Unmanned and autonomous: Authors argue that the traditional styles of deterrence are relatively easy to predict. Development in technology has allowed new unmanned deterrents forces with capabilities like deception, long-endurance, and excellent reconnaissance, surveillance, and strike performance. The unmanned cluster combat system composed of a large number of small unmanned combat platforms has a distinct "decentralization" feature. Such distributed systems continue to perform even if one link is broken and can perform independent tasks. Such systems have great deterrence capability.
Intuitive information transmission: Traditional systems may not be able to achieve the expected effect due to limited information dissemination channels. Modern intelligent systems can collect massive data on an opponent and identify their weak points. Deterrence information can be customized on-demand, and media can be used to subtly push deterrence information to the opponent. For example, using virtual reality to let the opponent know the full consequences of war. Hence causing them to abandon hostilities.
Intelligent Combat Forces
Next, we have another article talking about the development of intelligent combat forces. The key argument of the article is that with the extensive application of artificial intelligence technology in the military field, intelligence is becoming a new driving force to promote the development of combat forces following mechanization and informatization. Key applications described are:
Reconnaissance and early warning
Command and control
Integrated strike and man-machine cooperative assault
Intelligent decision-making support and transportation support