Thoughts on CNAS “Preparing for War in the Robotic Age”
[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen“]
My reading at CNAS, which had once been frequent, declined with the waning of the Abu Muqawama blog. While formerly I usually scanned through CNAS reports on a regular basis after reading what Exum and his commenters had to say, toward the end I only visited when Adam and Dan had new posts up.
At the gentle nudging of Frank Hoffman, I decided to read the latest CNAS product; I’m pleased to say with the release of ” 20YY:Preparing for War in the Robotic Age“ by Robert Work ( CNAS CEO and former Undersecretary of the Navy) and Shawn Brimley (CNAS Executive V.P. and former NSC Strategic Planning Director) CNAS has rolled out an intellectually provocative analysis on an important emerging aspect of modern warfare.
Work and Brimley have done a number of things well and did them concisely (only 36 pages) in “20YY”:
- A readable summary of the technological evolution of modern warfare in the past half century while distinguishing between military revolutions, military-technical revolution and the the 80’s-90’s American “revolution in military affairs“.
- .
- A more specific drill-down on the history of guided munitions and their game-changing importance on the relationship between offense and defense that flourished after the Gulf War.
- .
- An argument that the proliferation of technology and information power into the hands unfriendly states and non-state actors is altering the strategic environment for the United States, writing:
- .
- “Meanwhile in the 13 years since the last 20XX game, foreign nation-state C41, surveillance and reconaissance systems, and guided munitions-battle network capabilities have become increasingly capable. Indeed, these systems now form the very robust and advanced “anti-access and area denial” (A2/AD) capabilities envisioned in the 20XX game series. The effect has been that the dominance enjoyed by the United States in the late 1990’s/2000’s in the area of high end sensors, guided weaponry, space and cyberspace systems and stealth technology has started to erode. Moreover the erosion is now occurring at an accelerated rate.”
- .
- Positing the near-future global proliferation of unmanned, autonomous, networked and swarmed robotic systems replacing( and leveraged by diminishing numbers of) expensive manpower and piloted platforms on the battlefield and altering the age-old relationship between a nation’s population base and the traditional calculation of its potential military power.
- .
- An argument that “warfare in the robotic age” will mean substantial to fundamental shifts in strategic calculation of deterrence, coercion, the use of force, operational doctrines and the evolution of military technology and that the United States must prepare for this eventuality.
This report is well worth reading. In my view there are some areas that require further exploration and debate than can be found in “20YY”. For example:
Page 1 of 2 | Next page