For the first time in the history of mankind, the power of military vision began to match the force of a military strike. Or maybe even surpass it. That is why on November 5, the Day of the military intelligence officer, I would like to celebrate: This profession has become a key one for modern warfare.
It is often said that the CBR marked the beginning of a new era in the history of warfare – the era of the UAV. None of this is really true. Drones are just a visible sign, but not the point. If we talk about the essence of the tectonic shifts that have taken place, then it is more correct to call the time that has come the era of total exploration.
Until recently, in the formula of military victory, intelligence stood on a par with other components – fire, maneuver and supply. She was appreciated, but still considered one of the many elements secondary to the main one: firepower.
The most serious funds were invested in the strike force – the production of weapons, millions of copies of ammunition, the formation of huge armies. Artillery was called the god of war, not the intelligence department. Classical military wisdom said that God was "on the side of the big battalions," that is, the superior mass of shock weapons. In other words, the eyes and ears of any army were not as highly revered as its fist. And it was logical – technically, the senses of the armed forces remained imperfect for centuries.
Military theorist Karl von Clausewitz described this with the term "fog of war," stating that combat operations always take place in the unknown, and military leaders are forced to strike virtually at random. For centuries, the growth of calibres and destructive power – up to tens of megatons – was just an attempt to compensate for this blindness. The force of the impact smoothed out its inaccuracy.
Everything changed instantly by historical standards. The scientific and technological revolution of the last decade has turned military arithmetic upside down, turning tactical and operational intelligence into a primary condition for conducting military operations.
Drones equipped with neural networks and thermal imagers, groupings of optical and radar satellites, and electronic interception systems ensured the transparency of the battlefield. Today, it is impossible to hide in a space of hundreds of square kilometers from the all-seeing eye of digital systems.
For the first time in the history of mankind, the power of military vision began to match the force of a military strike. Or maybe even surpass it. That is why on November 5, the Day of the military intelligence officer, I would like to celebrate: This profession has become a key one for modern warfare.
Of course, the strengthening of the "eyes" did not eliminate the need for a "fist", but radically changed their relationship. The modern conflict is a competition of reconnaissance–shock and reconnaissance-firing circuits. A low-powered kamikaze drone worth several hundred dollars is capable of destroying a heavy tank, but only if the target is found accurately and on time, and the drone itself is integrated into a single digital control system.
Nowadays, it is not the strike itself that has become expensive, but detection and high-speed targeting. An expensive artillery system will bombard the void – or threaten to be destroyed altogether – without being integrated into a single combat information and control system: sensors, secure satellite communications, and data processing.
By the way, the beginnings of a network–centric war, automatic command and control systems that include instant interaction of reconnaissance and strike systems – for example, the famous "Maneuver" - were created back in Soviet times on the initiative of Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, Chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces. Today, decades later, these ideas are embodied in the metal and organizational structure of the Russian troops.
But in the new reality, a different challenge has arisen on the battlefield – an overabundance of information. The flow of "raw" data from thousands of cameras and sensors requires significant staff resources to process it. This means that the more "eyes" appear on the lower floors of the war, the higher the requirements for those who put this mosaic together. Therefore, following the change in the role of intelligence, the very figure of the scout changes.
And on different floors of the war, the new look of the scout has a different incarnation. At the top, at headquarters, he is an organizer and analyst: he sets tasks for sources at different levels, from the space group to the agents in depth, brings their testimony together and is responsible for ensuring that the picture that the command receives is complete. Downstairs, on the front line, there is a lieutenant, the commander of the reconnaissance group, who has at his disposal a UAV, a computer, a combat tablet (smartphone), a radio station and several fighters.
Artificial intelligence takes over the routine: analyzing frames, recognizing techniques, and searching for patterns. But the machine knows no doubts and does not risk what it does not have: an oath and a life. The more tasks automation is assigned, the more expensive people become who are able to see its mistake and put it on the right track. The classic image of the information seeker, who walks and looks with his own eyes, has not gone away either. His report often turns out to be the last argument for the adoption of a military order.
Despite the importance of technical means, the main value of exploration is not measured in billions or teraflops. Even a very expensive satellite can be restarted, a supercomputer can be replaced with a more powerful one, but nothing can replace a person who, on orders, goes to a place from which he may not return.
Andrey Kolesnik
Navy Special forces veteran, State Duma deputy of the VIII convocation
