Emerging Technologies that Will Enable the Next Digital Transformation Wave for Military Affairs

What are the Emerging Technologies, and Why the Military are Interested?

The military has evolved using emerging digital technologies in three waves (Kale, 2020): 

1. Digitization transferred content from analogue to digital format and improved military administration and office work.
2. Digitalisation introduced enterprise-wide systems, like Enterprise Resource Planning, which enabled human, financial, material, and facilities management or battle-space management systems for faster situational awareness.
3. Digital transformation has enabled revolutions in military affairs, such as Network-Centric Warfare in the US Department of Defense and network-enabled Capability in the UK Ministry of Defence.  

Current waves of transformation enabled by emerging technologies are revolutionising industry (The Fourth Industrial Revolution), commerce (digital biology), facilities (smart homes, cities, and government), and the military (Combat Cloud).

This paper creates an enterprise architecture view of possible digital infrastructure that military affairs may benefit from while planning their second wave of digital transformation for further capabilities. Meanwhile, lethality in battlespace increases, dual-use technology creates tactical advantages, weapon and counter-weapon development takes place in days, arms races raise prizes of armament, and additional defence finances are complicated to gain.

A Systematic Perspective to a Military C5ISTAR Technology Stack Enabled by Emerging Technologies

For a systematic assessment of emerging technologies' impact on Military Affairs, this study divides the technology stack into infrastructure, data, systems, and business models aligned with common enterprise architectures. In this approach, digital modelling or digital twins are the points of interest because they are virtual representations that allow the modelling of the state of a physical entity or system. They are created by digitalising data collected from physical entities through sensors, so various predictions can be made by understanding the behaviour of the physical entity.  Virtualising and digitising the physical world seems a beneficial feature for Military Affairs because it enables the military to :

1. Create digital models of physical phenomena, run accurate simulations, and gain foresight into possible future.
2. Improve the man-machine interface with more immersive ways to interact with machines.
3. Maintain the faster OODA loop at the tactical level with less delayed data transfer, optimised computing, and algorithm-accelerated sense-making.
4. Bring machine interoperability from recognising the data to sharing the understanding.

The following gives a more detailed view of possible military C5ISTAR technology stack changes.

Infrastructure Layer (networking, transfer and processing)

In this case, the infrastructure layer includes networking, data transfer and processing functions, as illustrated in Figure 1. The wireless 5/6G evolution improves the access network from the edge to terminal capacity and connectivity and lowers the latency if cellular base stations are connected via a high-bandwidth terrestrial network. Non-terrestrial, air- and spaceborne base stations are available, improving accessibility and simplifying the integration. The terrestrial and non-terrestrial 5G base stations compose a three-point access network with standard transfer and networking functions.  This multi-domain connectivity will replace legacy tactical data links while improving the availability of access and roaming and extending the range over the horizon, features essential in the Joint All-Domain C2 (JADC2) concept promoted by David Deptula. 

Furthermore, with higher frequencies, the cell sizes are smaller, and the Effective Radiated Power (ERP) is less, which means that transceivers' low probability of detection and identification (LPI/LPD) improves. However, with lower frequencies, higher transceiver density, and smaller radiation patterns, deploying dual-use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), the Internet of Things (IoT), and Operational Technology on the battlefield becomes feasible. 

 With 5/6 G enhanced wireless communications, the access network becomes more versatile than the legacy Local Area Network (LAN) topology. For example, command posts can be distributed across a wider area without losing seamless collaboration connectivity. Platforms become cell base stations, providing access points to Mobile Adhoc Networks (MANET) within and between platoons, squadrons, teams, and higher organisations. Expendable, swarming sensors and effectors can be connected to a larger tactical unit even in an electromagnetically contested environment. 

Furthermore, the new Open Radio Access Network (ORAN)  and all-encompassing Internet Protocol (IP) solve the current technical-level interoperability issues. They allow you to create virtual, sliced, or private military network domains parallel to other network users without creating congestion points or bottlenecks. 

The flexible network and transport layers support data flows that enable hybrid clouds and hybrid computing, which varies between different clouds, edges, and endpoints. Hybrid computing provides optimal data processing for a task, addressing anything between real-time, big data, or algorithm-crunching requirements.  

Data Layer

In Figure 1, the data layer is on top of the infrastructure layer. Enabling technologies may include Data flows with different Quality of Service (QoS), Data warehouses, Data Lakes, Lakehouses, Table formats, Business Intelligence, and Synthetic data.

These technologies may be implemented in three main categories of data architectures: Stove-piped, centralised, or data mesh. Stove-piped data architecture is a direct continuum from system-based data architecture. It enables the legacy of functional data owners who use proprietary data models and do not share data unless forced. Centralised data architecture breaks the stove-pipe boundaries and brings data to data warehouses, lakes or Lakehouses. A centralised approach establishes central data functions and provides development and Data as a Service (DaaS) to functions and Forces. However, the central entity may become an administrative bottleneck, isolating data from Forces. Conversely, data mesh prioritises domain-driven design while enabling the teams closest to big data sets to take control of meeting their data preparation and analytics needs. Data mesh enables the democratisation of data so that it’s available to everyone in an enterprise, regardless of their technical expertise, function, or organisation. Each Command of sense and decision-making becomes a citizen data scientist, an officer who can analyse data but doesn’t take on that task as their primary role.  Gartner recognises this with the estimation that by 2027, organisations faced with AI and data security requirements will standardise on policy-based access controls to unlock the value from more than 70% of their data.

Data Flow follows uplinks, and downlinks may become bottlenecks if flow management is not prioritised. Since the transfer layer enables Quality of Service prioritisation, military affairs may arrange vertical and horizontal data flows to provide real-time awareness and longitudinal big data for modelling and forecasting.

Data Warehouses are central data repositories integrated from disparate sources, namely operational systems. They enable straightforward business intelligence queries because the data is aligned, cleansed, and structured. 

A Data Lake is a system or repository of data stored in its natural/raw format. The repository may be a single data store but includes raw copies of source system data, sensor data, and social data in structured, semi-structured, or unstructured formats. Data from a data lake may be used for reporting, visualisation, advanced analytics, and teaching machine learning. 

A Data Lakehouse combines the flexibility of data lakes for working with raw and often unstructured or semistructured data with the reliability and performance of traditional data warehouses that store consolidated sets of structured data.  

A Data fabric is a data management design concept for attaining flexible, reusable and augmented data pipelines and services supporting various operational and analytics use cases. Data fabrics support a combination of different data integration styles and utilise active metadata, knowledge graphs, semantics and machine learning to augment data integration design and delivery.  

The Data Table Formats provide cross-platform compatibility, transaction support, and schema evolution. Developing the Data Lakehouse ecosystem requires open table formats like Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, and Apache Hudi. Enabling schema evolution is essential for managing data structures over time while maintaining data integrity and backward compatibility. Data Schema management improves interoperability at the upper layers and facilitates establishing a smart machine system of systems.

Synthetic data is created by taking a database, creating an ML model for it, and generating a second set of data. The generated synthetic data has the same patterns and properties as actual data, but it’s not tied to any actual data identifiers. Synthetic data is generated fast, automatically tagged, and provides high-quality data regarding events that rarely happen in the real world, which is very applicable in military affairs. 

Available data in both arranged and raw formats enable a variety of data analytics:

• Traditional analytics requires a team of IT analysts to comb through data, theorise potential insights, test those insights, and report on their findings.
• ML-based models can continuously monitor data, pick out anomalies, and alert the appropriate teams in real time without human input. 
• Business intelligence tools harness raw data to extract meaningful patterns and actionable insights.

Systems and Services Layer

The next layer enabled by the data layer is the systems and services layer in Figure 1. Emerging technologies opening new options for military affairs include human-machine interface (HMI), immersive technologies, spatial computing, metaverse, algorithms, energy-efficient computing, and classical and quantum computing.

The Human-Machine Interface will evolve using immersive-reality technologies based on the current industrial and office interfaces enabled by multitouch video technologies on tablets and smartphones. Human actors will experience real-time interactions in three-dimensional virtual worlds that eventually incorporate the physical world. The evolution runs from a fully computer-generated space in virtual reality (VR) to mixed reality (MR) and further towards augmented reality (AR), where computer-generated objects are superimposed on the real world.

Spatial computing maps indoor and outdoor physical spaces (including people and furniture). Then, the digital content is anchored within the physical world, enabling users to interact with it realistically. 

Furthermore, the metaverse interconnects digital spaces where users can interact, socialise, and create. Spatial computing ensures users' accurate positioning and synchronises their actions. The human-machine interface allows people to have lifelike personal and business experiences online.

Virtualisation and decentralisation of the processing layer enable the distribution of computing workloads across different sites, such as hyperscale remote data centres, regional centres, on-premises centres, and edge points. This ability to distribute workloads supports optimising latency, data transfer costs, adherence to data sovereignty regulations, autonomy over data, and security considerations.  Gartner recognises the trend as follows:

‘By 2025, Gartner predicts more than 50% of critical data will be created and processed outside the enterprise’s data centre and cloud.’ 

‘By 2027, approximately 5% of large enterprises will deploy a hyperscaler distributed cloud solution for edge computing workloads outside data centres.’

Edge computing involves processor-intensive, often repetitive, mission-critical data analytics within devices on the outer edge of a network. With supporting networking and data layers, edge computing enables more real-time intelligence and faster sense-making from tactical to operational levels. Furthermore, edge processing supports machine-to-machine cooperation within the Intranet of Military Things (IoMT)  sensors and actors.

The decentralising layer hosts a variety of algorithms, including AI, optimised to specific functions in support of the business layer. Gartner forecasts this in the business as follows:

‘By 2028, 50% of enterprise platforms will leverage specialised infrastructures to support AI infusion, a significant increase from less than 10% in 2023.’

Next-generation systems and services are developed with tools and technologies that enable modern code deployment pipelines and automated code generation, testing, refactoring, and translation. These can improve application quality and development processes.  The Gartner sees this emerging trend as follows:

‘By 2027, 80% of AI-generated SaaS applications will be up to 80% composite for efficiency of human-AI digital engineering.’ 

‘By 2026, 40% of development organisations will use the AI-based auto-remediation of unsecured code from application security testing (AST) vendors as a default, up from less than 5% in 2023.’

Digital Business Modelling Layer

The last layer enabled by the technology layers is the digital business layer in Figure 1. The next-generation technology layers enable features like digital twin, artificial intelligence-based image recognition, optimisation, expert functions, robotic process automation (RPA), AI agents, autonomic systems, synthetic media, ambient, invisible intelligence, polyfunctional robots, and data-driven military.

A digital twin is a virtual representation of an object or system designed to reflect a physical object accurately. It is built on big data, spans the object's lifecycle, is updated from real-time data, and uses simulation, machine learning, and reasoning to help make decisions. Military Affairs may benefit from digital twin features in the maintenance and repair of platforms, developing system of systems, capability life-cycle management, force generation, and strategic modelling. 

Applied AI technologies use models trained through machine learning to solve classification, prediction, and control problems, automate activities, add or augment capabilities and offerings, and improve decision-making.  These features may benefit military affairs, for example, in financial optimisation, personnel promotion, facilities management, supply chain management, and learning management.

Robotic Process Automation and AI Agents refer to a system or program capable of autonomously performing tasks on behalf of a user or another system by designing its workflow and utilising available tools. Beyond natural language processing, AI agents can encompass various functionalities in military affairs, including decision-making within processes, problem-solving in real-time situations, interacting with external environments, and executing actions. The Gartner foresees emerging features in business as follows:

‘By 2027, GenAI tools will be used to explain legacy business applications and create appropriate replacements, reducing modernisation costs by 70%.’

‘By 2027, more than 40% of digital workplace operational activities will be performed using management tools enhanced by GenAI, dramatically reducing the labour required.’

‘By 2028, 60% of IT services will be powered by the trifecta of GenAI, hyper-automation and metaverse, radically changing the services buyer landscape.’

Data-driven military affairs may witness changes among supporting entities like Intelligence, Military Survey, Logistics, and Operation Centres that provide continuously improved data products to their supported entities. Secondly, the data-driven approach may change military supply chain management as products and support become more cyber-physical, and data outside the military will become more valuable assets with emerging commercial space and cyber operators. Thirdly, the military may be able to execute so-called ‘information-driven operations. The defence organisation should not only be capable of obtaining an authoritative information position (or information dominance), but it must also use information as a ‘weapon’, i.e. as a means or instrument of influence.  Fourthly, the quantitatively thinking commanders may be able to mitigate the analysis paralysis usual with current risk-avoiding sense-making supported with less machine-based analysis. 

Altogether, the digitalisation illustrated in Figure 1 supports the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and provides potential for Military Affairs to benefit from. The second wave of military digital transformation may create strategic advantages for the Operate, Generate, and Support functions. The UK Army’s digital transformation program, THEIA, has three headline outputs: out-compete the adversary, partner better and integrate with partners, and improve efficiency.   The US Army aims to improve and leverage innovative and transformative technologies: modernisation and readiness, optimised digital investments, and a technically savvy, operationally effective digital workforce.  NATO is talking about using these “emerging and disruptive technologies efficiently.” NATO could improve its operations with military, industry, and civilian partners in every warfighting domain, including sea, land, air, space, and cyber operations. 

Figure 1: An illustration of a possible technology stack on top of more efficient communications

An Approach to the Development of Military Capabilities

 "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions [perceptions] without concepts are blind" 

Immanuel Kant

A Story

A fictional discussion in RED and BLUE Ministries of Defence:

• RED Minister of Defence: "Let’s build up the strength of our standing force from 1 000 000 soldiers to 1 200 000, improve the operational transportation speed of our railways from a brigade/100km/2hrs. to a brigade/100 km/1hr., and establish new factories that can manufacture ten main battle tanks per day.”
• BLUE Operational Commander after the Intel brief: “RED is aiming to improve their land component operational capabilities to achieve a mass advantage in any part of the area of operation. I need four mechanised brigades to counter the emerging capability within the next three years.”
• BLUE Land Force Commander: “We do not have tanks, ammunition, mechanised troops, trained tank crews, antitank weapons, air defence, supporting fires, signals, engineers, logistics or facilities to generate four mechanised brigades. Armament acquisition takes at least four years, building training facilities takes five years and generating troops takes minimum two years. Each brigade will need at least 500 million investment and produces 50 million annual operational costs.”
• BLUE Armed Forces Commander: “We do not have the budget nor time to meet the operational demand. Are there other options to address the emerging threat but building symmetric forces?”
• BLUE Minister of Defence: “Now is not a good time to propose an increased defence budget because elections are within 1.5 years, and popular opinion demands health care for increasing elderly population. What is the probability that RED will use this increased military power against us?”

The above pictures a clash of several contents in varied contexts!

Approaches to Military Capability Development

Developing military capabilities is always a balanced decision between different contents and contexts projected against variety of probable threat scenarios. European Armed Forces are restoring their capabilities in competition with Russia's accelerated military industry and force generation. Some countries have selected to build symmetric armament, others apply modern technology to squeeze more lethal power from their existing capabilities, and some  do what they can in current circumstances.

In every case, the decision-making in capability building is not an easy task since every decision or non-decision impacts the Armed Forces over an extended time and may lead to peril when threats against national security unfold differently than assumed in environment illustrated in Figure 1. Furthermore, maintaining a portfolio of Military Capabilities is affected, for example:

• Biased and noisy decision-making in an organisation (Kahneman; Johnson; Heat)
• Path Dependence (Liebowitz & Margolis)
• Political guidance (Gray)
• Society´s resources and culture (Bousquet)

The following process brings some systematic analysis and assessment for the military capability planning to provide longevity, balanced sense-making from different points of interest and continuous evaluation of the situation.

Figure 1: Blue vs. Red military might

Building a Concept for Military Capability Development Decision Support

The analysis and assessment process for capability development uses the SDLC V-model  originally created for developing and testing software artefacts, illustrated in Figure 2. The V-model down-slope analysis follows Kahneman's decision-making strategies  utilizing, for example, the following methods:

• Clustering follows loosely the US DoD DOTMLPFII-programme evaluation model  but with added Budget checkpoint
• The concept of Operation uses a standard military CONOPS creation methodology. 

The V-model up slope assessment uses operational research methodology, e.g.:

• Tactical Assessment utilises Lanchester models, 
• Operational Assessment deploys QJM models, 
• Strategic Assessment uses systems thinking models of consumption of strategic assets, and 
• Political Assessment experiments Threat/Prospering Balancing models. 

Figure 2: Capability analysis and assessment with V-model structure

Detailing the Capability Development Analysis and Assessment Process

The process, as illustrated in Figure 3, main functions work as follows:

• Military capability analysis receives its input from the changes in potential adversaries (RED) via intelligence information, own forces (BLUE) via business intelligence, or environment (Political, Economics, Sociological, Technological, Legal, Environment [PESTLE])
• The change indicator recognises the change (military intelligence) and possibly pre-estimates its impact.
• A detected and identified possible impact is forwarded to problem and/or opportunity analysis. This analysis uses existing national defence and military scenarios to detect whether the change is an opportunity or a problem. During the analysis, the key performance indicators for the solution are defined.

Whether a problem or an opportunity is detected, the top-down analysis is commenced. Suppose the problem has surprised BLUE or evolves faster than BLUE expects. In that case, a fast track forwards a quick fix directly to connecting, where urgent need is fitted into the ongoing force generation process and transformation programme is launched.

• Problem seeks solutions first parallel through DOTMILBIE (B=budget, E=Equipment) phases, and if it is not found, then proceed towards E until there is a solution that meets the given KPIs.
• Opportunity seeks possibilities to gain advantages over the RED through a similar sequence of analysis.

The top-down analysis provides a concept of operations (CONOPS) for bottom-up assessment to define the detailed design with a sequence of different level war games. The assessment includes the sequence of:

1. The technical assessment compares the solution/possibility concept against the current and emerging technical capabilities of an adversary
2. The tactical assessment compares unit-level combat outcomes and varies with strength, lethality, and protection
3. The operational assessment compares force-level battle outcomes and varies with the area of operation, mode of operation, weather, and quality of troops.

If similar conditions exist, the three wargaming results are verified in live exercises or operations. The wargaming models learn from lessons identified in the live world.

1. Strategic assessment compares defence-level assets over time and optimises their sustenance over various operations, environments, resources and crises. The assessment is verified using business intelligence collected from BLUE Force over time.
2. The political assessment reflects the current and future geopolitical, decision making and other PESTLE-related features at the national political level. The assessment is verified using political intelligence collected from international relationships and political decision-making.

Once the top-down concept is assessed through levels of the bottom-up approach, the resulting solution should be considered, optimised and balanced from DOTMLPFII viewpoints and tested successfully at five levels of current and future confrontation. If not, the CONOPS is returned to the analysis process for reconsideration.

The optimised solution continues to the connecting function, where the solution is compared with the existing capability portfolio (composed of three windows: Current, in Generation, and in Planning). Once the suitable timeslot and financing are found, the optimised solution can be introduced to decision-making: Generate new capability or manage the risk other way. If the decision is towards development, a generation programme becomes a part of a 5-10-20-year plan.

During the defence capability portfolio management, the ongoing programmes are continuously compared to national defence and military scenarios and adjusted per emerging needs.

.

Figure 2: A simplified process for military capability development decision support

The above systematic capability analysis and assessment process provides:

• Continuous and faster analysis and assessment cycle (years to months) than one-time efforts in slower frequency,
• Faster learning process with improved connectivity to data sources than with only manual research and assessment,
• Systematic and less biased/noisy process that survives officer rotation than human-centric and dependent process, and
• Accumulating a knowledge base that enables further automation enhanced with business intelligence, modelling and simulation, wargaming and digital twins.

References

https://euro-sd.com/2024/09/articles/40091/polands-future-armed-forces-take-shape/

https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/uk-defence-policy-and-the-role-of-the-armed-forces/

https://www.kaitseministeerium.ee/riigikaitse2026/arengukava/eng/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-model

https://ia.eferrit.com/ea/e22c190431de180e.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OhwAZ47NBYWoy9YPtZ-o2Q4&scisig=AFWwaeZLfyOb_lmWYlAEgljNYIGd&oi=scholarr

https://eda.europa.eu/docs/default-source/eda-publications/enhancing-eu-military-capabilities-beyond-2040.pdf

https://www.dau.edu/acquipedia-article/concept-operations-conops

https://www.jstor.org/journal/milioperresej

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester%27s_laws

https://orion.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/455

Jackson, Michael, C. (2018) Critical systems thinking and the management of complexity, Wiley, 

https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2024-Unclassified-Report.pdf

MULTI-DOMAIN APPROACH FOR ADVANTAGE IN CONFRONTATION AND CONFLICT

 Bottom Line Up First

U.S. DoD and NATO aim to build Multi-Domain Operation capabilities after successfully deploying Joint Operation capabilities during Desert Storm 1991. The chosen approach seems a logical and natural next step from a force and defence industry viewpoint. Unfortunately, from an adversary viewpoint, the best Armed Forces with Multi-Domain Operations capability constrained by the perception of war and peace is vulnerable to flanking manoeuvre through information, cognitive and social realms. A textbook example of Sun Tzu's lesson is "To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."

Striving after Multi-Domain Operations Capabilities

The U.S. DoD has been developing the concept of Joint Operations since the Goldwater-Nichols Act 1986 and used it masterly in Desert Storm 1991 so well that at least the Chinese PLA launched their reform.  

Contemporary militaries are evolving their operational concept from Joint Operations towards Multi-Domain Operations. NATO defines the approach as the "push for NATO to orchestrate military activities across all operating domains and environments. These actions are synchronised with non-military activities and enable the Alliance to create desired outcomes at the right time and place." The Domains NATO names as "Maritime, Land, Air, Space and Cyberspace".  

 Figure 1: A Poster of Multi-Domain Operations Symposium, AUSA 2024 © Greater Los Angeles Chapter Association of the U.S. Army

The U.S. DoD's next step in evolution is called Joint All Domain Operations. "JADO shifts the focus from 'multi-domain', which individual services have been operating in for decades, and places it back on tackling the challenges of joint operations."   The U.S. aims at a combined, connected  arms (without the Service structure) force that senses and effects as one through all domains and can host combined units from other nations. The concept has also been called "Mosaic warfare". It is enabled by the emerging technology experimented on in The Project Convergence exercises . DARPA is promoting mosaic warfare as "combining weapons we already have today in new and surprising ways, introducing manned-unmanned teaming, disaggregating capabilities, and allowing commanders to seamlessly call on effects from sea, land or air depending on the situation and no matter which of the armed services is providing the capability." 

Where did We Come and Where to Go with Multi-Domain

The Multi-Domain concept is not new. Guderian joined close air support from the Luftwaffe with his Pantzer-formations since horse-towed artillery was too slow to support mechanised armies.  The electromagnetic environment has been an established fighting domain since the introduction of radars, navigation and radio during the II WWW.  The U.S. DoD has been coordinating three Services capabilities towards one Joint objective.  With the spreading of the Internet, the cyber environment has become a viable avenue, first for espionage  and later for attacks like the Russian attack against Estonia in 2007  and the U.S.-led coalition Stuxnet attack against Iran in 2010 . Currently, at least the UK MOD and U.S. Army are promoting the doctrine of Cyber and Electromagnetic Activities as combined arms effects.  

Space has been used to support military capabilities since the Gold War. After the development of anti-satellite weapons and their testing since 1958, Space has become a battlefield.  See the evolutionary path illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Evolution of domains in military conflict

Multi-Domain or Joint, All Domain Operational capabilities are in a linear evolutionary path for the Armed Forces to aim. Furthermore, the defence industry is promoting technologies enabling connectivity, plug-and-play integration of platforms, and automation for faster reaction, robust survivability, and combined effects from all domains.  

In the future, the strategic advantage will be based on improved connectivity, faster OODA-loop, and combined effect over the entire adversary system. Does everybody follow the evolutionary rules or play the same game?

How is the Multi-Domain Approach Doing in the Contemporary Continuum of Conflict?

Since the 2010s, the U.S. military planners have recognised the continuum of conflict from low to high intensity  rather than black-and-white peace and wartime in the Westphalian system . Continuum models illustrate a variety of dimensions along the line of cooperation – competition – confrontation – conflict, including non-state, hybrid and state conflicts or narrative, a zero-sum and non-zero-sum in Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning 2018.  Militaries globally have been studying how to engage U.S. Military Power with other means and ways, as stated by Hoffman and Mattis 2005: 

"Our conventional superiority creates a compelling logic for states and non-state actors to move out of the traditional mode of war and seek some niche capability or some unexpected combination of technologies and tactics to gain an advantage."

The Chinese (PRC) PLA's recognition and understanding of the current form of war is one of "informatisation" and "intelligentization", where battlefield dominance is achieved through information technology and networked forces, increasingly assisted by automation and artificial intelligence.  They see that patterns of warfare have changed from attrition-based warfare (although the fact in Ukraine)  patterns carried out at the front to information firepower strikes and network-electronic integrated confrontations that occur throughout the battlefield or even globally. The PLA concept of operations includes three lines:

1. "Collective operations refers to the need to develop a range of interconnected operational systems that can work cooperatively, coordinate the combination of military and non-military measures outlined above, and achieve the PRC's desired war outcomes."  Possibly, the PLA's definition of the Multi-Domain Operations concept.
2. "Asymmetric strikes are enabled by a thorough understanding of the enemy's operational system and focused on attacking key vulnerabilities, weakening the enemy's operational strength, capabilities, and potential by applying resources as efficiently as possible."  Possibly refers to ways to project power other than through contemporary military domains.
3. "Paralysing the enemy's systems centres the tailored application of force to reduce key areas of an enemy's functionality and gain initiative and control of battlefield developments."   It possibly indicates more innovative avenues of effect and centres of gravity.

These three lines of operation are combined with "war control",  which may refer to controlling the scope, scale, and pace of war.

The PRC also has a more holistic view of the competition over Diplomatic, Information, Military, Economy, Technology, Infrastructure and International relationships through the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, and the Global Security Initiative.  Beijing is pursuing "efforts short of armed conflict by expanding coercion to new fronts, violating principles of sovereignty, exploiting ambiguity, and deliberately blurring the lines between civil and military goals", as described in the U.S. National Defense Strategy of 2018. 

Russia, on the other hand, was relatively successful in launching operations in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and Middle Africa, manoeuvring within the continuum without crossing the red line of war. Only the 2022 intention to launch a coordinated "blitzkrieg" to capture Kyiv and change the government exposed their main incapability at strategic, operational and tactical levels of warfare.  Nevertheless, the Russian ability to wage information operations  supported by cyber-attacks  and salvos of hundreds of missiles and drones are impacting NATO and Ukrainian political decision-making and structures.

Russia has long been preparing the foundation for their influence operation among domestic and European populations. After the first three months of Russian "Special Operation", some Ukrainians still believed in the de-Nazification of Kyiv.   Over 2.5 years of war, the majority of Greece, Bulgaria, and Italy citizens do not want to send more weapons to help Ukraine win.  Most of the citizens of Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria do not perceive Russia as a threat.  Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, and Serbia are torn between Russian influence and willingness to become members of the European Community. 

It appears that all countries and militaries are not capable or willing to follow the Multi-Domain competition but play a different game around the military strong points. While Western militaries are building Joint Multi-Domain capabilities in physical and cyber realms, China and Russia are joining their efforts over cyber and information realms to bypass the Multi-Domain militaries waiting behind the war threshold and target both political and population cognitive and social structures with information and kinetic means for terror. 

Figure 3 illustrates the confrontation between two entities. BLUE is an open society and economy with 4th industrial supporting advanced military force but constrained by Westphalian Peace-War definitions. RED is projecting its power more flexibly through the entire spectrum of realms: Physical, information, Cognitive and Social without breaching the line of  War. RED operates in the information realm, using available channels to plant perceptions, beliefs and memes in the cognitive sphere (human perception).  The planting is harvested at the social level where opposing sides spread xenophobia, media bubbles are enforced, and wildly spreading memes are faster than any truth. Cyber attacks and physical destruction support the main information operation of the critical infrastructure in the physical realm.  The RED Multi-Domain approach differs from BLUE militaries space, air, land, sea and cyber. The Jointness of RED hybrid operations is created by controlling information operations, cyber operations and kinetic actions of criminals and terrorists. The Joint impact is multiplied in BLUE media channels, affecting BLUE political and public opinion. The War Control targets soft spots, triggers a small impact and lets the adversary system multiply its effect. It sounds like Sun Tzu's optimum strategy to win the battle without fighting. 

 

Figure 3: Difference of the game between some countries DIME power projection

It may be wise for the Western Armed Forces to consider more of the Total National Defence (Totalförsvaret  in Sweden and Kokonaismaanpuolustus  in Finland) besides getting finally rid of the legacy boundaries of different Services on the battlefield.

References:

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1560-1.html

https://www.act.nato.int/article/mdo-in-nato-explained/

https://www.japcc.org/flyers/all-domain-operations-in-a-combined-environment/

https://www.defensenews.com/artificial-intelligence/2023/04/28/connectivity-will-make-or-break-us-military-use-of-ai-official-says/

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3692664/project-convergence-capstone-4-works-to-integrate-joint-multinational-defense-s/

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2018/11/16/darpa-pushes-mosaic-warfare-concept

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Guderian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_warfare

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1560-1.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare

https://icds.ee/en/the-bronze-soldier-crisis-of-2007/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354879784 _Cyber_and_Electromagnetic_Activities_and_Their_Relevance_in_Modern_Military_Operations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/definition/mosaic-warfare

https://www.leidos.com/insights/what-mosaic-warfare

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_continuum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_system

https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/ joint_concept_integrated_campaign.pdf? ver=2018-03-28-102833-257

James Mattis and Frank G. Hoffman, “Future Warfare: The Rise of Hybrid Wars,” Proceedings 131/11/1233 (November 2005), <www. usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2005-11/ future-warfare-rise-hybrid-wars>.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1535-1.html

https://interpret.csis.org/chinese-assessments-of-the-war-in-ukraine-2-years-on/

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1535-1.html

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1535-1.html

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1535-1.html

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1535-1.html

https://chinapower.csis.org/20th-party-congress-china-military-pla-cmc/

https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2023/8/28/chinese-political-warfare-a-strategic-tautology

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2022/03/five-reasons-why-russia-struggling-ukraine/362636/

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/04/dont-sleep-russian-information-war-capabilities/364050/

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/european-us-regulators-tell-banks-prepare-russian-cyberattack-threat-2022-02-09/

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/04/dont-sleep-russian-information-war-capabilities/364050/

https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-meaning-of-sovereignty-ukrainian-and-european-views-of-russias-war-on-ukraine/

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/2/6/why-some-eu-countries-still-harbour-pro-russian-sentiments

https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/05/bosnia-moldova-armenia-between-russia-eu

https://insightnews.media/how-russian-disinformation-works-in-europe-babakovs-hacked-emails/

https://insightnews.media/russias-military-unit-54777-disinformation-and-psychological-operations-abroad/

https://barrystrauss.com/fighting-smart-a-lesson-from-sun-tzu/

https://www.forsvarsmakten.se/sv/om-forsvarsmakten/totalforsvaret/

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokonaismaanpuolustus

A Temptation of AI in Military Affairs

Will the European Military miss the window of opportunity for the 4th generation industrial-based force generation?

Keywords: National Defence, Artificial Intelligence, Weaponization, Security Strategy

Introduction

The human ability to collect information, make sense of a situation, optimise action, and learn while executing has been challenged recently in games, simulators, diagnoses, and real-time analysis. How may this development reflect future tactical combat-level decision-making? Is the machine going to win the man in combat?

Based on recent AI progress, artificial cognitive abilities and skills are emergently dominant compared to human competencies. In theory, the military may access Artificial Intelligence, which could:

• Gain knowledge from a zero-knowledge starting point through gaming against itself and, within months, master a given battle scenario’s technical, tactical, and possibly operational level features for victory.
• Anticipate adversary moves ahead, create a picture of potential scenarios, and predict adversary manoeuvring in 3-D space within seconds in a fully digitalised battlefield.
• Make short-term decisions within 80 milliseconds and optimise decisions simultaneously at technical and tactical levels.
• Identify lessons from the events and gain 150 years of theoretical combat experience teaching itself overnight.

At the same time, the price has decreased, and the availability of components increased to build lethal autonomous weapons from commercial products. A “slaughterbot” that nearly killed the president of Venezuela in 2018 could be built by an experienced hobbyist for less than $1,000. States are not able to control the manufacturing of lethal weapons as it becomes easier to weaponize commercial cyber-physical products of the 4th generation of industrial manufacturing.

During the ongoing War against Ukraine, the Russian military is massing troops and firing where their operational art finds the best course of action. However, even in Russia, the live mass is consumed too fast concerning available expendable and willing human resources.

China’s People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) aims to counter U.S. dominance asymmetrically in all five battle domains through intelligentised ”combat capabilities for joint operations based on the network information system and the ability to fight under multi-dimensional conditions.”

U.S. DoD all-volunteer force recruiting has been declining for the past 15 years, and no silver bullet has yet been found to mitigate the gradual loss of human potential and competency. Furthermore, the 2$ trillion annual budget is struggling to maintain the required fleets of armament.

With the emerging Russian threat, European militaries are struggling to build up their military capabilities while the cost of defence material is rising, recruiting cannot address the need for enlisted, and deadlines to achieve national defence goals are closing fast.

Will the temptation of AI overcome the ethical concerns and generals fill their order of battle from the cyber-physical actors and sensors of the fourth industrial revolution?

How the Use of Artificial Intelligence May Impact Military Confrontation?

Digitalization changes human endeavours from physical to social level, including military affairs:

• Information operations and cognitive warfare are ongoing and taking place mainly outside of the military attention
• The physical battlefield is more transparent due to the density of sensors deployed
• Asymmetrically used, remote-controlled weapon systems challenge 2/3 generation industrial platforms on the battlefield
• Cyber electromagnetic effects have proven effective against current generations of military system of systems
• The ability of defence industrial production becomes a key strategic asset in prolonged conflicts like in Ukraine
• 4th Industrial Revolution-based (4IR) information, data, and algorithm-driven military affairs promise major advantages for commanders.

The traditional near-peer analyses of a number of arms and men with Lancaster I and II laws of attrition between BLUE and RED Forces are not sufficient when the battlefield and opposing societies change in different ways, culture becomes either an enabler or obstacle for the military to adopt new capabilities and the national and coalition defence industry either can or not produce and maintain 4th industrial cyber-physical armament. The main components of a model assessing the impact of AI in the military system of systems are illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: A Model for assessing the impact of Artificial Intelligence technologies in military confrontation

Strategic Pressure Builds Up Between the European Union and Russian Federation Confrontation

Strategic analyses between the European Union and the Russian Federation bring up differences in resources and opportunities. Table 1 compares the larger but diversified European society against the smaller but more coherent society of Russia. Both populations are growing older and smaller over time. European society is producing more and dependent on exported energy whereas Russian society is smaller and dependent on energy exports. Both sides have about the same number of active troops, but European troops are more digitized than Russian. Furthermore, Russia has a wider base to recruit reservists than Europe and, with higher resilience against casualties, can play longer confrontation games. Both societies are exporting arms. EU exports advanced 3rd industrial generation armament whereas Russia produces surplus in 2nd and lower 3rd generation armament.

Table 1: Strategic comparison between EU and Russia concerning resources

European Union	Russian Federation
Democratic decision-making between 27 nation-states	One autocratic state with 193 ethnic groups
Over 448 M people, speak 24 official languages and believe in a god 52 %	Over 147 M people, speak one official language and believe 60% of orthodox
With a median age of 44.5 and a fertility rate of 1.46 live births per woman, society is in a negative population change	With a median age of 40.3 and a fertility rate of 1.42 live births per woman, society is in a negative population change
Produces 16.6 % of the world GDP Consumes 59 billion GJ energy of which 3/5 is imported	9th largest economy with 54% coming from oil and gas exports
Military expenditure 1.6% of GDP	Military expenditure 5.9% of GDP
Active-duty troops 1.34 million	Active-duty troops of around 1 million
Not tested but probably more fragile concerning casualties	Tolerates over 1200 casualties/day and is resistant even over 500 000 casualties over 2 years
Nuclear capable (FRA) with high digitalization level of Forces	Nuclear capable but low digitalization level of Forces
Exports over 20% (FRA, GER, ITA) of arms in the world	Exports 11% of arms in the world
Produces more 3rd and 4th generation advanced armament	Produces more 2/3rd generation bulk armament

Based on the analysis, it seems that Putin’s regime has a window of opportunity in using the smaller but coherent population to support less advanced but higher volume armed forces to achieve his political goals after he failed to use information operations and the European energy dependency to manipulate democratic decision-making. 

Military Capabilities Comparison Reveals the Gap for AI Opportunities

After the strategic level analysis, the following Table 2 takes the research one step down to the military operational analysis of systems performance and capabilities. Table 2 illuminates the fact that the EU military forces are somewhat minor to the Russian operational performance as the Russians can use wider avenues of attack (physical, information, cognitive and social) for their joint operations and gain dominance in social and physical realms. Military scenarios wargame with Russian 2nd and 3rd generation troops storming over the European side borders using the “shock and awe” or the “blitzkrieg” art of manoeuvring, bypassing the few defending forces and speeding towards the capitals, seizing them, and freezing the conflict as experienced in the 2014 invasion of Ukraine. 

Table 2: Operational-level systems analysis of the EU and Russian military capabilities

European Union	Russian Federation
Reactive rather than proactive political decision-making with slower implementation	Faster decision-making and implementation top-down through the regime
Open media and social media for foreign manipulation	Ability to wage information operations and cognitive warfare while protecting society from foreign manipulation
Advanced digitalization, data, and information but lacking knowledge creation	Ability to disable or suppress advanced technology on the battlefield (by jamming GPS, radars, sensors, and targeting emitters)
Few advanced 3rd generation industrial weapon systems lacking interoperability	Ability to manufacture higher volumes of 2/3 generation armament
Incohesive and non-interoperative forces with little or no combat experience	Ability to train simple, repetitive skills for technical military performance
	More advanced operational art with 3rd generation forces
Fragile societies in hardship and casualties	Ability to tolerate more casualties and societal hardships
Defence industry is not able to sustain or reproduce 2/3rd generation armament in masses	Ability to transfer society to support 2nd and 3rd generation Armed Forces power projection for a longer time

Because of the real or perceived underminer status of the EU military decision-makers, there is a temptation to invest in:

• more automated force (decreasing the probability of human casualties) against conventional fighters, 
• precision targeting payloads (preventing collateral losses when fighting in densely populated areas) versus area bombardment 
• faster identifying and recognising adversary manoeuvring on the battlefield (to use sparse blue forces more optimally)
• countering the dominant operational art of the red force (faster analyses of the available lines of operation and selecting effective courses of action)
• sustain advanced 3rd generation armament in taxing environment to improve capability availability (digital twins to pre-emptive maintenance)
• manufacture 4th industrial dual-use cyber-physical products in sensor and effector platforms (meeting the red 2nd and 3rd manufacturing advantage with 4th generation additive manufacturing).

Is the Digital Leap Possible for the EU Military Forces?

Digital leap or transformation is always challenging, particularly for the military, because of the nature of military culture to sustain command and control structure even in chaotic situation. Figure 2 provides some simple checkpoints to improve the transformation towards more digital, data-driven and artificial intelligence-enhanced force:

1. Define your strategic posture against your potential adversary to adjust goals and resources in balance
2. Define your process development opportunities and limitations for each core function, i.e., Force utilisation, generation, deployment/projection, sustainment, and support
3. Consider your Forces' ability to take steps on the digital transformation road
4. Define why you need to change. Is it to improve cost-efficiency in times of diminishing budgets, potential threats from adversaries, or just implement a transformation dictated by politicians
5. Consider the width of your leap towards the future, particularly, how wide transformation your current culture supports
6. Divide your transformation portfolio into three folders: unfreeze, move, and refreeze. 

Figure 2: A simple tool to improve success in military digital transformations