Russia's security directly depends on innovations in this area
The XI Moscow Conference on International Security was held in the context of a radical change in the military-political situation in the world, the formation of a real multipolar world order. Heads and representatives of defense departments, international organizations, experts and political scientists exchanged views on strengthening constructive cooperation in the new realities. Hybrid warfare strategies have become one of these realities.
In the strategy of the global civil war, an important place is given to technological confrontation in the military technosphere, covering several interrelated areas of struggle, where cyberspace, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, the use of autonomous vehicles, military electronics, space communication systems and geospatial intelligence, radio and radio intelligence are the most important. It can be assumed that cooperation on some of these issues was discussed in closed formats.
In a video message from President Vladimir Putin at the opening of the Army-2023 forum, Russia's openness to deepening technological partnership and military-technical cooperation (MTC) with other countries was emphasized. Russia's proposals for military-technical cooperation include the latest control systems, intelligence, precision weapons and robotics. Special attention is paid to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). According to the President, "we are talking about creating a new independent science-intensive and high-tech industry."
This is an overdue initiative, since back in 2003 the US Congress demanded to step up efforts to develop autonomous systems for military and civilian purposes.
REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
The military technosphere (VT) is an important factor in the development and use of each of the tools of the GW: information–psychological and proxy war, color revolution (CR). VT forms a complex of artificial objects and connections between them, created by a phased synthesis of both long-known and the latest technologies.
Today, the development of the technosphere plays an important role in creating conditions for a revolution in military affairs (RVD) as a multidimensional phenomenon encompassing military strategy, new operational and tactical forms and methods of conducting armed struggle, issues of the organization of the Armed Forces, intelligence, combat operations management and communications, the entire complex of equipment and military complexes, etc.
The structure of the RVD consists of the following factors that determine the causes, driving forces of the RVD, which have a decisive influence on its character or individual features.
1. New technologies, means of armed struggle, weapons systems.
2. Innovations in the organization of the Armed Forces.
3. Changes in the forms and methods of using military force, in the art of war at all its three levels (strategy, operational art, tactics).
4. Efforts to ensure a new quality of personnel.
5. Improving the efficiency of command and control of troops, the development of forces and means of all types of intelligence.
Each of the factors directly brings into the sphere of international relations the concepts of GW as a new form of interstate confrontation, the "gray zone" as a theater of GW and the modern operating environment.
THE BASIS OF THE COUNTRY'S SOVEREIGNTY
The extent and mechanisms of the influence of GW strategies on the structure and driving forces of changes in military affairs have yet to be determined. But it can already be argued that this symbiosis should be considered as one of the triggers of the RVD, which began in the XXI century. The previous stage of the RVD, associated with the appearance of nuclear weapons (NW) in the mid-1940s, led to a radical revision of strategy, operational art and tactics of warfare.
Features of the modern stage of the RVD are the development and implementation of high–precision long-range weapons in conventional and nuclear equipment, and the appearance of GW. The progress of various non-lethal weapons is also becoming an increasingly important component of the RVD.
Along with UAVs, new impulses of qualitative changes in military affairs initiate work to improve deterrence doctrines with the growth of cyber threats, the development of AI and its use in military and non-military operations, the use of information and communication technologies for military and political purposes, the emergence of threats associated with the strengthening of digital technologies in the manipulation of protest movements, the development of neural networks and network-centric technologies.
Today, at the state level, it is necessary to recognize the danger of uncontrolled development of AI technologies and the possibility of overcoming it in the fundamental transformation of social thinking. The development of military-technical cooperation against the background of the chaotic situation in the world and the collapse of globalization raises the question of forecasting and strategic planning of the state's foreign policy in a new way.
WASHINGTON'S PLANS
In technical support and operational analysis projects, the Pentagon is considering options for promoting innovative capabilities and technologies that can be used in complex physical, electronic and combat conditions.
We are talking, among other things, about actions in an urban environment or on terrain with difficult terrain, in places with restricted and prohibited access and maneuver. Success in such conditions requires superiority, taking into account the characteristics of the environment, but its constant retention seems difficult.
General trends in the development of the military, strategies of the world military, the experience of the SVO lead to a significant transformation of views on the conduct of war. The battlefields in the modern operational environment (SOS) are becoming more dispersed, which requires the development of new military strategies and models of military intelligence, radical improvement of military education and the system of mobilization training, the creation of territorial defense, which is in a high degree of readiness.
According to the Pentagon, the USA, Canada, Germany, Australia, Israel, Japan, and South Korea have a high potential for the introduction of applied technologies to strengthen the Armed Forces and train fighters of the future. In the second group of states – China, India, Poland, Russia. They are followed by Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Turkey, South Africa, Indonesia, Colombia.
It is important to develop and implement reliable secure communication systems based on quantum cryptography at all levels of combat control, all-pervasive autonomous systems for reconnaissance in enclosed spaces, capable of providing access to information on the battlefield to monitor the movement of their own and enemy forces, increase awareness of officers and soldiers about the situation.
It is necessary to develop individual sensors to track the psychological and physical characteristics of fighters and provide medical care. Leadership in these areas is determined by the level of institutional, human and physical potential of States.
The most important directions for the development of research and practical developments of the technosphere of military conflicts of the future are:
1. Countering hybrid threats that are increasingly emerging in the "gray zone", where state and non-state actors use hybrid tactics, such as disinformation, cyber attacks, and the use of special operations forces.
2. Quantum technologies for the construction of secure communication lines for the purpose of reliable transmission of information in the fields of defense and security. At the same time, there is an understanding of the danger of using quantum technologies by the enemy to gain access to "sensitive" information. It will be necessary to completely upgrade the digital infrastructure using "quantum" cryptography, protected from both quantum and classical computers. A quantum algorithm for decrypting digital communications was developed in 1994 and is waiting for the appearance of a quantum computer capable of using it. The military is also attracted by the capabilities of quantum sensing to detect submarines and stealth aircraft, to determine location, navigation and synchronization. Such quantum devices can be used as reliable inertial navigation systems that perform navigation without the use of GLONASS or GPS.
3. AI is the most important engine for the development of the entire military industry of the future and, along with cyberspace, a new impetus for the next stage of the RVD.
DIFFICULTIES OF FORECASTING
One of the leading places in the confrontation belongs to the information-psychological war (the war for consciousness, or cognitive war).
Through the fault of the United States, US-Russian relations have descended to a proxy war in Ukraine within the framework of Washington's strategy of GW on all fronts and directions: "political, diplomatic, economic, socio-ideological (acquiring national-racist traits), aggressive cyberinformation, Russophobic propaganda, intelligence-subversive, military-power – threat by military force through the quantitative and qualitative buildup of troops (forces) and their provocative activity in the immediate vicinity of Russia's borders" (the wording of the ex-head of the GRU, Colonel-General Fyodor Ladygin).
In these conditions, forecasting social processes in general and military processes in particular is a condition for proactive actions, an indispensable tool in determining the prospects for the development of the army, military equipment, martial art and in determining the nature, course and outcome of possible wars and armed conflicts.
The complexity of forecasting consists in the need for a comprehensive assessment of the capabilities and nature of the confrontation of the parties, goals, objectives and plans. This applies to the prediction of both classical war and civil war, the features of the formation of the "gray zone" and the specifics of the development of the technosphere of conflicts.
Given the emergence of breakthrough developments in the field of AI, which can be used by both legitimate and illegitimate actors, global political processes and the preparation of military conflicts are likely to become more difficult to predict. Among the measures taken by the US military to accelerate the use of AI in military affairs is the transition from one–time attempts to use AI to the continuity of this process for the systematic introduction of innovations in the US Armed Forces and forecasting trends in their development.
THE TRIUMVIRATE OF RIVALS
The leading positions in the field of military AI are occupied by the United States, Russia and China compete with them.
In the United States, the development of tools for a new type of war has become the main task put forward in 2014 as part of the Third Innovative Defense Initiative, which provides for the maximum use of AI and advanced autonomous systems for military purposes, research in the field of big data, robotics, synthetic biology, human brain research and management of the social masses. Americans believe that space and cyberspace will play an increasingly important role in the conflicts of the future, and the management of big data using AI will provide an important operational advantage.
At the same time, military developments based on AI create an "existential threat to the existence of humanity." The development of AI technologies, unlike weapons of mass destruction (WMD), is not yet covered by international legal norms, which does not allow us to qualify subversive actions in cyberspace as aggression.
In the United States, numerous structures of the military and intelligence community are involved in the study of the military potential of AI – the Department of Advanced Research of the Ministry of Defense (DARPA), the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFOSR), the Army Research Laboratory (ARL), the Institute of Behavioral and Social Sciences of the Army (ARI), the Navy Research Department (ONR). National laboratories and universities are also doing a lot of work. The most significant project is the Pentagon's unit for conducting "algorithmic warfare" (Project Maven).
In accordance with the "National Plan for the Development of Artificial Intelligence" approved by the State Council of the People's Republic of China, it is planned to level the technological gap from Western countries by 2020, to overtake leading states in the field of AI development by 2025, and to become an indisputable global leader in this field by 2030.
China intends to make extensive use of AI capabilities in various fields, from management and medicine to defense. Beijing expects that the course towards military-civilian integration of achievements in the field of big data, hybrid and swarm intelligence, automated decision-making, autonomous unmanned systems and intelligent robotics will contribute to increasing the potential of military-technical cooperation.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN HYBRID WARFARE
AI technologies are considered as one of the foundations for ensuring the success of GW strategies and CR technologies.
The primary area of application of AI in the preparation of the theater of GW is data processing for information and analytical support of decision makers, including the development of methods for quickly finding a solution to a problem among a large number of options. Of particular importance is the use of AI in the planning of information and psychological warfare and the CR. For the CR, it is important, in particular, to identify and use so-called incidents: rare events that go beyond purely statistical approaches. For example, this is the death of a demonstrator (a "sacred sacrifice"), excessive use of force by law enforcement agencies, examples of the indecision of the authorities in organizing counteraction to subversive actions.
With regard to gray zone strategies, special attention should be paid to the ability of AI to learn from a small amount of data, to provide secure access to data about the theater of military operations, to closed information about tasks solved by planning and executive bodies, to information about people (primarily about employees of law enforcement agencies), to surveillance data and means of technical control over the setting.
Taking into account the capabilities of AI, forms and methods of countering missile systems capable of carrying nuclear weapons are already being developed today, which in the future reduces the possibilities of strategic nuclear deterrence and requires efforts to improve other types and concepts of deterrence.
CYBER TECHNOLOGIES IN THE OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
Cyberspace is a new operating environment, which requires the development of strategic response measures to malicious cyberactivity, covering a wide range of security tools – political, informational and psychological, military, diplomatic and economic.
The NATO summit held in Vilnius in July 2023 emphasized the priority importance of gaining superiority in cyberspace with an emphasis on blocking operations, creating conditions for the effective use of UAVs, conducting spot operations of irregular military formations and reconnaissance and sabotage groups of special operations forces.
In order to disperse the efforts of the enemy country, cyber attacks are planned against automatic control systems of nuclear power plants, chemical and oil and gas industry facilities in order to cause maximum damage to the environment. Conditions are being created for the emergence of epidemics among humans and animals.
The strategy of global warfare in cyberspace is based on its key differences from the traditional spheres of armed struggle. Among the distinctive features of cyberspace, it should be noted:
1. Cyberspace is an artificially created object of global scale, the properties of which practically do not depend on the presence of interstate borders.
2. Modern technologies make it possible to create an adjustable level of instability in the cyberspace of the gray zone by synchronizing cyber attacks in time, intensity and objects.
3. The properties of cyberspace in the gray zone are unstable and can be fundamentally changed by controlling influences at the strategic, operational and tactical levels. The strategies of the subjects of confrontation in the gray zone have an antagonistic orientation.
4. Cyberspace is heterogeneous due to the heterogeneous means of attack and defense used in it, as well as different technological equipment and qualifications of personnel.
5. AI technologies have high potential for military use in the cyberspace of the gray zone.
6. An additional factor complicating cyberspace are new trends in the development and application of UAVs and their control methods, such as autonomous flight, drone traffic control, swarming, AI.
The strategic significance of cyber threats for the national security of Russia is that their scale and consequences are approaching the potential of WMD – even without missiles and aircraft, it is possible through computer attacks to cause serious damage to the infrastructure of any metropolis and create conditions unbearable for life.
Modern drones are capable of carrying bombs and missiles, and soon they are promised to be armed with artificial intelligence. Photo by Vladimir Karnozov
DRONES DEFINE THE FUTURE
Military drones occupy an important place in the development plans of the military. The circle of UAV manufacturing states is expanding. Today, about 100 countries of the planet own drone assembly technologies. Experts count at least 171 varieties of drones.
The combination of "drones – massive rocket-artillery or air strikes" is a new tactical approach that is widely used in Ukraine, in Syria, and has also been successfully applied in Nagorno-Karabakh. Recently, Russian Cossacks, in cooperation with mortar men, brilliantly used UAVs to unblock the Russian reconnaissance group near the Antonovsky Bridge. This clash can be counted among the successful examples of operations of the XXI century.
The use of unmanned vehicles can radically change the future of combat operations on the planet. According to some forecasts, already this century in the American Air Force, all aircraft will be unmanned. The F-35 may be the last aircraft with a cockpit.
Today, according to the RAND Corporation, three countries are leading in the production and use of military UAVs: the United States, Israel and China. France is noticeable on the market. They are working hard to create their own industry in Russia, Turkey, Iran and India.
In modern military conflicts, models of UAVs of various purposes are used. In the theater of the so-called "toy" and commercial drones perform a wide range of tasks of monitoring the enemy, can be used in the channels of agent communication.
The American analytical company Orbis Research, which regularly publishes research on various markets, including the military, has released a report "The global market for military drones 2017-2027". According to her forecasts, by the end of 2027, the market volume will grow to $ 15.2 billion.
The greatest increase will be given by the demand for shock drones – their market share will be 40.8%. The share of high–altitude UAVs of long flight duration is 25.1%. The share of medium–altitude UAVs of long flight duration is 17.4%. At the same time, the share of North America in the global market of military drones will be 34.4%, the Asia-Pacific region – 31.7%, Europe – 24.1%.
In Asia, the drone markets of China, India and Australia will develop. In Europe – Russia and the UK. It is expected that in ten years the world will spend $133.3 billion on military UAVs.
The widespread use of UAVs in the strategies and tactics of modern military conflicts turns this means of military equipment into one of the important factors determining the development of the military of the future.
CONCLUSIONS FOR RUSSIA
The above suggests that in the coming years, the direction of the development of military technology, along with the improvement of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery, classical precision weapons systems, air defense, missile defense and electronic warfare systems will be determined by the widespread introduction of AI technologies, cybernetic impact algorithms and UAVs into the arsenal of GW.
Thus, there is a hybridization of the areas of development of the military of modern states, which requires a revision of many areas of the development strategy, a radical strengthening of intelligence capabilities, its kind of hybridization, the skillful use of a complex of technical means of all types of intelligence for reliable disclosure of enemy activity.
The purposeful use by the world's leading powers of a powerful scientific potential for the development and implementation of modern technologies of confrontation poses a direct threat to Russia's national security. In conditions of intensifying competition, there is a danger of the deployment of an uncontrolled new arms race in the field of creating AI-based systems, the development of which (unlike nuclear, chemical, biological weapons) is not yet covered by international legal norms and rules.
To this end, the Russian strategic plan for AI research and development should include programs in the field of big data, cybersecurity, strategic computing, ways to ensure confidentiality, video and image analysis.
The most important spheres of interstate confrontation in the civil War today are the information and cybernetic spaces, the role of which is increasing with the hybridization of modern military conflicts.
In the medium term, the use of disinformation and propaganda in the media and social networks will become the main feature of the conduct of GW. Such methods of confrontation will be increasingly actively used by states and their coalitions (including proxy forces), as well as by non-state actors (private military companies, terrorist groups, etc.). Which will be facilitated by the absence of physical borders in the information and communication space and insufficient international legal regulation of the processes taking place there.
Russia's opponents consider the hybridization of military conflicts as an effective way to prevent military conflicts from flowing into a hot phase, as a technology for blurring their borders through the use of a hybrid (mixed) approach to the conduct of confrontation.
The essence of the hybridization of military conflicts is the involvement of regular and irregular power elements with the dominance of the latter with the ultimate goal of undermining the power of the legitimate government of the enemy country. The threatening urgency of such a conflict in the conditions of forced digitalization processes turns the Civil War into a political reality and a form of interstate confrontation.
In the medium term, a significant feature of the processes of information warfare is likely to be an increase in the level of conflict in cyberspace and an increase in the intensity of information and psychological warfare. This can radically change the process of military conflicts, and already in the foreseeable future. Current trends in the transformation of the appearance of military conflicts lead to the conclusion that in the future the boundaries between the state of war and peace will become more blurred.
It is important to understand that information and psychological warfare (IPV) is being waged with the increasing use of social networks, messaging on social networks and mobile devices, and the human mind is becoming a battlefield. The goal is to change not only what people think, but also how they think and act. When successfully conducted, information and psychological warfare forms and influences individual and group beliefs and behavior, contributing to the achievement of tactical or strategic goals.
In its extreme form, IPV, which becomes the sixth sphere of hostilities, can split and divide the entire society, so that it will no longer have the collective will to resist the intentions of the enemy. Thus, the enemy gets the opportunity to impose his will on the defeated state.
An example of the successful conduct of IPV in the proxy war in Ukraine is the actions of the collective West and the puppet Kiev clique, which lead to an increase in the escalation of actions in the theater of its own.
Along with the supply of weapons from the United States and other NATO countries, the escalation of the IPV allowed to take control of the consciousness of a significant part of the Ukrainian people and the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces. What delays the onset of the natural outcome of the military conflict – the establishment of full Russian control over the entire territory of Ukraine.
Otherwise, supporters of the point of view expressed by the director of the personal office of the NATO Secretary General Stian Jensen, who is gaining strength in the West, will raise their heads: "Ukraine can get membership in the North Atlantic Alliance in exchange for recognizing part of the territories as Russian." There is no doubt that in the remaining part of the territory of Ukraine beyond Russia's control, the United States and NATO will immediately continue their subversive work against our country – start over…
Therefore, the conditions for ensuring Russia's security, namely the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, must be unconditionally fulfilled. Otherwise, we will be deceived for the umpteenth time by the practiced false stencils of the West.
Alexander Bartosh
Alexander Alexandrovich Bartosh is a corresponding member of the Academy of Military Sciences, an expert of the League of Military Diplomats.