124. Mad Scientist Science Fiction Writing Contest 2019

[Editor’s Note:  Just a quick reminder that Mad Scientist is seeking your visions of future combat with our Science Fiction Writing Contest 2019.  Our deadline for submission is now one month out     — 1 APRIL 2019 so please review the contest details below, get those creative writing juices flowing, and send us your visions of combat in 2030!]

Background: The U.S. Army finds itself at a historical inflection point, where disparate, yet related elements of an increasingly complex Operational Environment (OE) are converging, creating a situation where fast-moving trends are rapidly transforming the nature of all aspects of society and human life – including the character of warfare. It is important to take a creative approach to projecting and anticipating both transformational and enduring trends that will lend themselves to the depiction of the future. In this vein, the U.S. Army Mad Scientist Initiative is seeking your creativity and unique ideas to describe a battlefield that does not yet exist.

Task: Write about the following scenario – On March 17th, 2030, the country of Donovia, after months of strained relations and covert hostilities, invades neighboring country Otso. Donovia is a wealthy nation that is a near-peer competitor to the United States. Like the United States, Donovia has invested heavily in disruptive technologies such as robotics, AI, autonomy, quantum information sciences, bio enhancements and gene editing, space-based weapons and communications, drones, nanotechnology, and directed energy weapons. The United States is a close ally of Otso and is compelled to intervene due to treaty obligations and historical ties. The United States is about to engage Donovia in its first battle with a near-peer competitor in over 80 years…

Three ways to approach:
1) Forecasting – Description of the timeline and events leading up to the battle.
2) Describing – Account of the battle while it’s happening.
3) Backcasting – Retrospective look after the battle has ended (i.e., After Action Review or lessons learned).

Three questions to consider while writing (U.S., adversaries, and others):
1) What will forces and Soldiers look like in 2030?
2) What technologies will enable them or be prevalent on the battlefield?
3) What do Multi-Domain Operations look like in 2030?

Submission Guidelines:
– No more than 5000 words in length
– Provide your submission in .doc or .docx format
– Please use conventional text formatting (e.g., no columns) and have images “in line” with text
– Submissions from Government and DoD employees must be cleared through their respective PAOs prior to submission
MUST include completed release form (on the back of contest flyer)
CANNOT have been previously published

Selected submissions may be chosen for publication or a possible future speaking opportunity.

Contact: Send your submissions to: usarmy.jble.tradoc.mbx.army-mad-scientist@mail.mil

For additional story telling inspiration, please see the following blog posts:

… and Dr. Lydia Kostopoulos‘ short story entitled The Most Eventful Night in the White House Situation Room: Year 2051, published by our colleagues at Small Wars Journal.

 

123. Decision in the 21st Century

[Editor’s Note: Mad Scientist Laboratory welcomes returning guest blogger Matthew Ader, whose submission builds upon his previous post regarding the demise of strategic and operational deception and surprise.  Given the ascendancy of finders, Mr. Ader argues for the use of profoundly decisive impacts, achieved through information operations and minimal kinetic force, to “generate maximum hysteria” and bend the will of our adversaries’ populations in order to achieve our objectives.]

The future battlespace will be dominated by the finders, not the hiders. Finder capabilities are effective and are only growing more so, leveraging cross-domain surveillance through cheap satellites, unmanned systems, and open source intelligence. This is augmented by the ongoing proliferation of precision long-range fires. In this environment, large unit manoeuvres to achieve decision favoured by the Joint Force will not be possible. Instead, kinetic action should be used to catalyse fear and dissatisfaction among the enemy civilian population, leading to pressure for a negotiated end to conflict.

Why is decisive kinetic manoeuvre no longer possible?

Operation Desert Storm required enormous logistics support / Source: Wikimedia Commons

Logistics. Specifically, the practicalities of supplying a force in a finder dominated environment. During Operation Desert Storm, the fuel consumption rate per day for the U.S. VII and XVIII ABN Corps was about 4.5 million gallons. Ammunition requirements were about 14,000 tons a day.1 Logistics support at this scale can neither be foraged nor arranged ad-hoc. Modern warfare depends on a robust supply network to deliver the requisite food, fuel, ammunition, and spare parts, when and where they are needed, to sustain the fight. In the First Gulf War, that was achieved by a handful of well provisioned logistics bases close to the line of advance. In the Second Gulf War, logistics ran on a just in time model, with supply dependent on “frequent, reliable distribution rather than on large forward stockpiles.”

Depot explosion at a military base in Kalynivka, west of Kiev, Ukraine / Source: Gleb Garanich, Reuters)

Both of these models are no longer viable in the future operating environment. Large logistics bases will be highly vulnerable to cruise, ballistic, and conventional artillery fire. Drone attacks will also pose a significant challenge, aptly demonstrated in Kalynivka, Ukraine in 2017, where a single Russian quadcopter ignited a Ukrainian depot, destroying over 83,000 tons of ammunition.  Challenges to air supremacy complicate the just in time delivery model. In a situation where units have only a few days of organic fuel and ammunition, a handful of missed convoys due to enemy air interdiction would prove disastrous. The unmanned threat is also present here. Autonomous ‘mobile mines’ could be deployed by air or artillery (à la Family of Scatterable Mines or FASCAM) onto lines of communication to complicate supply efforts.

This is not to say that logistics will be impossible. Promising innovations, particularly in using autonomous vehicles, could help with sustainment operations. Nevertheless, from a volume standpoint, the division-sized forces envisioned to achieve decision in a contested environment may not be viable.

What do we do instead?

War is about compelling our opponent to fulfil our will. Up to this point, the most efficient way to do this in a conventional war has been, bluntly, to kill people and blow things up until the enemy government surrenders. Due to the limitations on logistics imposed by the finder’s world, this is no longer possible. We need to find a new way to compel our opponent to fulfil our will.

On June 9, 2014, 150 ISIS militants routed the 75,000 Iraqi Army forces in Mosul / Source: Andolu photo

Luckily, modern information technology provides the Army with a new way.  51% of people with social media access (about 2.5 billion) use it as a source for news. Both of these numbers are likely to grow as connectivity increases in the developing world. However, news on social media is often accompanied and preceded by a bow wave of hysteria, rumours, and conspiracy. This can have direct real-world impact – #AllEyesOnISIS caused much of the Iraqi force defending Mosul to flee before they saw the enemy. That was a profoundly decisive impact, achieved through minimal kinetic force.

The U.S. Army currently considers information operations to be an important adjunct to kinetic action. However, in a finder dominated environment, this should be flipped on its head. Small kinetic offensives (the smaller, the easier for likely highly degraded logistics networks to support) designed to generate maximum hysteria among the enemy population should be the watchword. The result will be viral fear and significant internal pressure to accede to U.S. demands.

In the digital, connected age, all the world is a stage. The Army must learn to weaponize theatrics.

If you enjoyed this post, please also read the following:

– Mr. Ader‘s previous post War Laid Bare.

– Our review of Mad Scientist P.W. Singer and co-author Emerson T. Brooking’s book LikeWar — The Weaponization of Social Media.

– COL Stefan J. Banach‘s complementary posts on Virtual War – A Revolution in Human Affairs (Parts I and II).

Mr. Matthew Ader is a first-year undergraduate taking War Studies at King’s College London.


1Pagonis, LTG William G., with Cruikshank, Jeffrey L., Moving Mountains: Lessons in Leadership and Logistics from the Gulf War, Harvard Business Review Press,  1 August 1992.

122. The Guy Behind the Guy: AI as the Indispensable Marshal

[Editor’s Note: Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to present today’s guest blog post by Mr. Brady Moore and Mr. Chris Sauceda, addressing how Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems and entities conducting machine speed collection, collation, and analysis of battlefield information will free up warfighters and commanders to do what they do best — fight and make decisions, respectively. This Augmented Intelligence will enable commanders to focus on the battle with coup d’œil, or the “stroke of an eye,” maintaining situational awareness on future fights at machine speed, without losing precious time crunching data.]

Jon Favreau’s Mike character (left) is the “guy behind the guy,” to Vince Vaughn’s Trent character (right) in Swingers, directed by Doug Liman, Miramax;(1996) / Source: Pinterest

In the 1996 film Swingers, the characters Trent (played by Vince Vaughn) and Mike (played by Jon Favreau) star as a couple of young guys trying to make it in Hollywood. On a trip to Las Vegas, Trent introduces Mike as “the guy behind the guy” – implying that Mike’s value is that he has the know-how to get things done, acts quickly, and therefore is indispensable to a leading figure. Yes, I’m talking about Artificial Intelligence for Decision-Making on the future battlefield – and “the guy behind the guy” sums up how AI will provide a decisive advantage in Multi-Domain Operations (MDO).

Some of the problems commanders will have on future battlefields will be the same ones they have today and the same ones they had 200 years ago: the friction and fog of war. The rise of information availability and connectivity brings today’s challenges – of which most of us are aware. Advanced adversary technologies will bring future challenges for intelligence gathering, command, communication, mobility, and dispersion. Future commanders and their staffs must be able to deal with both perennial and novel challenges faster than their adversaries, in disadvantageous circumstances we can’t control. “The guy behind the guy” will need to be conversant in vast amounts of information and quick to act.

Louis-Alexandre Berthier was a French Marshal and Vice-Constable of the Empire, and Chief of Staff under Napoleon / oil portrait by Jacques Augustin Catherine Pajou (1766–1828), Source: Wikimedia Commons

In western warfare, the original “guy behind the guy” wasn’t Mike – it was this stunning figure. Marshal Louis-Alexandre Berthier was Napoleon Bonaparte’s Chief of Staff from the start of his first Italian campaign in 1796 until his first abdication in 1814. Famous for rarely sleeping while on campaign, Paul Thiebault said of Berthier in 1796:

“Quite apart from his specialist training as a topographical engineer, he had knowledge and experience of staff work and furthermore a remarkable grasp of everything to do with war. He had also, above all else, the gift of writing a complete order and transmitting it with the utmost speed and clarity…No one could have better suited General Bonaparte, who wanted a man capable of relieving him of all detailed work, to understand him instantly and to foresee what he would need.”

Bonaparte’s military record, his genius for war, and skill as a leader are undisputed, but Berthier so enhanced his capabilities that even Napoleon himself admitted about his absence at Waterloo, “If Berthier had been there, I would not have met this misfortune.”

Augmented Intelligence, where intelligent systems enhance human capabilities (rather than systems that aspire to replicate the full scope of human intelligence), has the potential to act as a digital Chief of Staff to a battlefield commander. Just like Berthier, AI for decision-making would free up leaders to clearly consider more factors and make better decisions – allowing them to command more, and research and analyze less. AI should allow humans to do what they do best in combat – be imaginative, compel others, and act with an inherent intuition, while the AI tool finds, processes, and presents the needed information in time.

So Augmented Intelligence would filter information to prioritize only the most relevant and timely information to help manage today’s information overload, as well as quickly help communicate intent – but what about yesterday’s friction and fog, and tomorrow’s adversary technology? The future battlefield seems like one where U.S. commanders will be starved for the kind of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and communication we are so used to today, a battlefield with contested Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS) and active cyber effects, whether known or unknown. How can commanders and their staffs begin to overcome challenges we haven’t yet been presented in war?

Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation, by Tyler Cowen / Dutton, The Penguin Group, published in 2013

In his 2013 book Average is Over, economist Tyler Cowen examines the way freestyle chess players (who are free to use computers when playing the game) use AI tools to compete and win, and makes some interesting observations that are absolutely applicable to the future of warfare at every level. He finds competitors have to play against foes who have AI tools themselves, and that AI tools make chess move decisions that can be recognized (by people) and countered. The most successful freestyle chess players use a combination of their own knowledge of the game, but pick and choose times and situations to use different kinds of AI throughout a game. Their opponents not only then have to consider which AI is being used against them, but also their human operator’s overall strategy. This combination of Augmented Intelligence with an AI tool, along with natural inclinations and human intuitions will likely result in a powerful equilibrium of human and AI perception, analysis, and ultimately enhanced complex decision-making.

With a well-trained and versatile “guy behind the guy,” a commander and staff could employ different aspects of Augmented Intelligence at different times, based on need or appropriateness. A company commander in a dense urban fight, equipped with an appropriate AI tool – a “guy behind the guy” that helps him make sense of the battlefield – what could that commander accomplish with his company? He could employ the tool to notice things humans don’t – or at least notice them faster and alert him. Changes in historic traffic patterns or electronic signals in an area could indicate an upcoming attack or a fleeing enemy, or the system could let the commander know that just a little more specific data could help establish a pattern where enemy data was scarce. And if the commander was presented with the very complex and large problems that characterize modern dense urban combat, the system could help shrink and sequence problems to make them more solvable – for instance find a good subset of information to experiment with and help prove a hypothesis before trying out a solution in the real world – risking bandwidth instead of blood.

The U.S. strategy for MDO has already identified the critical need to observe, orient, decide, and act faster than our adversaries – multiple AI tools that have all necessary information, and can present it and act quickly will certainly be indispensable to leaders on the battlefield. An AI “guy behind the guy” continuously sizing up the situation, finding the right information and allowing for better, faster decisions in difficult situations is how Augmented Intelligence will best serve leaders in combat and provide battlefield advantage.

If you enjoyed this post, please also read:

… watch Juliane Gallina‘s Arsenal of the Mind presentation at the Mad Scientist Robotics, AI, & Autonomy Visioning Multi Domain Battle in 2030-2050 Conference at Georgia Tech Research Institute, Atlanta, Georgia, on 7-8 March 2017

… and learn more about potential AI battlefield applications in our Crowdsourcing the Future of the AI Battlefield information paper.

Brady Moore is a Senior Enterprise Client Executive at Neudesic in New York City. A graduate of The Citadel, he is a former U.S. Army Infantry and Special Forces officer with service as a leader, planner, and advisor across Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, and, South Asia. After leaving the Army in 2011, he obtained an MBA at Penn State and worked as an IBM Cognitive Solutions Leader covering analytics, AI, and Machine Learning in National Security. He’s the Junior Vice Commander of VFW Post 2906 in Pompton Lakes, NJ, and Cofounder of the Special Forces Association Chapter 58 in New York City. He also works with Elite Meet as often as he can.

Chris Sauceda is an account manager within the U.S. Army Defense and Intel IBM account, covering Command and Control, Cyber, and Advanced Analytics/ Artificial Intelligence. Chris served on active duty and deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and has been in the Defense contracting business for over 13 years. Focused on driving cutting edge technologies to the warfighter, he also currently serves as a Signal Officer in the Texas Military Department.

121. Emergent Global Trends Impacting on the Future Operational Environment

[Editor’s Note: Regular readers of the Mad Scientist Laboratory are familiar with a number of disruptive trends and their individual and convergent impacts on the Future Operational Environment (OE). In today’s post, we explore three recent publications to expand our understanding of these and additional emergent global trends.  We also solicit your input on any other trends that have the potential to transform the OE and change the character of future warfare.]

The U.S. Army finds itself at a historical inflection point, where disparate, yet related elements of the Operational Environment (OE) are converging, creating a situation where fast-moving trends across the Diplomatic, Information, Military, and Economic (DIME) spheres are rapidly transforming the nature of all aspects of society and human life – including the character of warfare.” — The Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Future Warfare

Last year, the Mad Scientist Initiative published several products that envisioned these fast-moving trends and how they are transforming the Future OE. These products included our:

• Updated Potential Game Changers information sheet, identifying a host of innovative technologies with the potential to disrupt future warfare during The Era of Accelerated Human Progress (now through 2035) and The Era of Contested Equality (2035 through 2050).

 

 

 

Black Swans and Pink Flamingos blog post, addressing both Black Swan events (i.e., unknown, unknowns) which, though not likely, might have significant impacts on how we think about warfighting and security; and Pink Flamingos, which are the known, knowns that are often discussed, but ignored by Leaders trapped by organizational cultures and rigid bureaucratic decision-making structures.

With the advent of 2019, three new predictive publications have both confirmed and expanded the Mad Scientist Initiative’s understanding of emergent trends and technologies:

• Government Accounting Office (GAO) Report to Congressional Committees: National Security Long Range Emerging Threats Facing the United States As Identified by Federal Agencies, December 2018

• Deloitte Insights Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Predictions 2019, January 2019

• World Economic Forum (WEF) The Global Risks Report 2019, 14th Edition, January 2019

Commonalities:

These three publications collectively confirmed Mad Scientist’s thoughts regarding the disruptive potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Quantum Computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and Big Data; and individually echoed our concerns regarding Cyber, Additive Manufacturing, Space and Counterspace, Natural Disasters, and the continuing threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction. That said, the real value of these (and other) predictions is in informing us about the trends we might have missed, and expanding our understanding of those that we were already tracking.

New Insights:

From the GAO Report we learned:

Megacorporations as adversaries. Our list of potential adversaries must expand to include “large companies that have the financial resources and a power base to exert influence on par with or exceeding non-state actors.” Think super-empowered individual(s) enhanced further by the wealth, reach, influence, and cover afforded by a transnational corporation.

The rich population is shrinking, the poor population is not. Working-age populations are shrinking in wealthy countries and in China and Russia, and are growing in developing, poorer countries…. [with] the potential to increase economic, employment, urbanization and welfare pressures, and spur migration.”

Climate change, environment, and health issues will demand attention. More extreme weather, water and soil stress, and food insecurity will disrupt societies. Sea-level rise, ocean acidification, glacial melt, and pollution will change living patterns. Tensions over climate change will grow.”

Internal and International Migration. Governments in megacities … may not have the capacity to provide adequate resources and infrastructure…. Mass migration events may occur and threaten regional stability, undermine governments, and strain U.S. military and civilian responses.”

Infectious Diseases. New and evolving diseases from the natural environment—exacerbated by changes in climate, the movement of people into cities, and global trade and travel—may become a
pandemic. Drug-resistant forms of diseases previously considered treatable could become widespread again…. Diminishing permafrost could expand habitats for pathogens that cause disease.”

From Deloitte Insights Predictions we learned:

Intuitive AI development services may not require specialized knowledge. “Baidu recently released an AI training platform called EZDL that requires no coding experience and works even with small data training sets…. Cloud providers have developed pre-built machine learning APIs [application-programming interfaces] for technologies such as natural language processing that customers can access instead of building their own.”

Cryptocurrency growth may have driven Chinese semiconductor innovation. Chinese chipmakers’ Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), initially designed to meet domestic bitmining demands, may also meet China’s growing demand for AI chipsets vice Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). “Not only could these activities spark more domestic innovation… China just might be positioned to have a larger impact on the next generation of cognitive technologies.”

Quantum-safe security was important yesterday. Malicious adversaries could store classically encrypted information today to decrypt in the future using a QC [Quantum Computer], in a gambit known as a ‘harvest-and-decrypt’ attack.”

From the WEF Report we learned:

This is an increasingly anxious, unhappy, and lonely world. Anger is increasing and empathy appears to be in short supply…. Depression and anxiety disorders increased [globally] between 1990 and 2013…. It is not difficult to imagine such emotional and psychological disruptions having serious diplomatic—and perhaps even military—consequences.”

The risk from biological pathogens is increasing. “Outbreaks since 2000 have been described as a ‘rollcall of near-miss catastrophes’” and they are on the rise. “Biological weapons still have attractions for malicious non-state actors…. it [is] difficult to reliably attribute a biological attack… the direct effects—fatalities and injuries—would be compounded by potentially grave societal and political disruption.”

Use of weather manipulation tools stokes geopolitical tensions. Could be used to disrupt … agriculture or military planning… if states decided unilaterally to use more radical geo-engineering technologies, it could trigger dramatic climatic disruptions.”

Food supply disruption emerges as a tool as geo-economic tensions intensify. Worsening trade wars might spill over into high-stakes threats to disrupt food or agricultural supplies…. Could lead to disruptions of domestic and cross-border flows of food. At the extreme, state or non-state actors could target the crops of an adversary state… with a clandestine biological attack.”

Taps run dry on Water Day Zero. “Population growth, migration, industrialization, climate change, drought, groundwater depletion, weak infrastructure, and poor urban planning” all stress megacities’ ability to meet burgeoning demands, further exacerbating existing urban / rural divides, and could potentially lead to conflicts over remaining supply sources.

What Are We Missing?

The aforementioned trends are by no means comprehensive. Mad Scientist invites our readers to assist us in identifying any other additional emergent global trends that will potentially transform the OE and change the character of future warfare. Please share them with us and our readers by scrolling down to the bottom of this post to the “Leave a Reply” section, entering them in the Comment Box with an accompanying rationale, and then selecting the “Post Comment” button. Thank you in advance for all of your submissions!

If you enjoyed reading these assessments about future trends, please also see the Statement for the Record:  Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, 29 January 2019, from the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

120. Autonomous Robotic Systems in the Russian Ground Forces

[Editor’s Note: Mad Scientist Laboratory welcomes back returning guest blogger and proclaimed Mad Scientist Mr. Samuel Bendett with today’s post, addressing Russia’s commitment to mass produce independent ground combat robotic systems. Simon Briggs, professor of interdisciplinary arts at the University of Edinburgh, predicts that “in 2030 AI will be in routine use to fight wars and kill people, far more effectively than humans can currently kill.”  Mr. Bendett’s post below addresses the status of current operationally tested and fielded Russian Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) capabilities, and their pivot to acquire systems able to “independently recognize targets, use weapons, and interact in groups and swarms.” (Note:  Some of the embedded links in this post are best accessed using non-DoD networks.)]

Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu / Source: Wikimedia Commons

Over the past several years, the Russian military has invested heavily in the design, production, and testing of unmanned combat systems. In March 2018, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that mass production of combat robots for the Russian army could begin as early as that year. Now, the Ministry of Defense (MOD) is moving ahead with creating plans for such systems to act independently on the battlefield.

According to the Russian state media (TASS), Russian military robotic complexes (RBCs) will be able to independently recognize targets, use weapons, and interact in groups and swarms. Such plans were stated in the article by the staff of the 3rd Central Scientific Research Institute of the Russian Federation’s MOD.

Uran-6 Airborne Countermine System with flail / Source: Russian Federation MOD

Russia has already tested several Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) in combat. Its Uran-6, Scarab, and Sphera demining UGVs were rated well by the Russian engineering forces, and there are plans to start acquisition of such vehicles. However, these systems were designed to have their operators close by. When it came to a UGV that was originally built for operator remoteness in potential combat, things got more complicated.

Uran-9 engaging targets with its 30mm 2A72 autocannon on a test range.  Operational tests in Syria proved less successful.  / Source:  YouTube

Russia’s Uran-9 combat UGV experienced a large number of failures when tested in Syria, among them transportation, communication, firing, and situational awareness. The lessons from Uran-9 tests supposedly prompted the Russian military to consider placing more emphasis on using such UGVs as one-off attack vehicles against adversary hard points and stationary targets.

Russian ground combat forces conducting urban operations in Syria / Source: Wikimedia

Nonetheless, the aforementioned TASS article analyzes the general requirements for unmanned military systems employed by Russian ground forces. Among them is the ability to solve tasks in different combat conditions during day and night, under enemy fire, electronic and informational counteraction, in conditions of radiation, chemical contamination, and electromagnetic attack – as well as requirements such as modularity and multifunctionality. The article also points out “the [systems’] ability to independently perform tasks in conditions of ambiguity” – implying the use of Artificial Intelligence.

To achieve these requirements, the creation of an “intelligent decision-making system” is proposed, which will also supervise the use of weapons. “The way out of this situation is the intensification of research on increasing the autonomy of the RBCs and the introduction of intelligent decision-making systems at the control stages, including group, autonomous movement and use of equipment for its intended purpose, including weapons, into military robotics,” the article says.

An example of the complex, ambiguous environments that will challenge future Russian RBCs:  Russian troops in Aleppo, Syria / Source: Wikimedia Commons via article in the University of Melboune’s Pursuit, “Why is Russia Still Supporting Syria?”

The TASS article states that in the near future, the MOD is planning to initiate work aimed at providing technical support for solving this problem set. This research will include domestic laser scanning devices for geographical positioning, the development of methods and equipment for determining the permeability of the soil on which the UGV operates, the development of methods for controlling the military robot in “unstable communications,” and the development of methods for analyzing combat environments such as recognizing scenes, images, and targets.

Successfully employing UGVs in combat requires complicated systems, something that the aforementioned initiatives will seek to address. This work will probably rely on Russia’s Syrian experience, as well as on the current projects and upgrades to Moscow’s growing fleet of combat UGVs. On 24 January 2018, the Kalashnikov Design Bureau that oversees the completion of Uran-9 work admitted that this UGV has been accepted into military service. Although few details were given, the statement did include the fact that this vehicle will be further “refined” based on lessons learned during its Syria deployment, and that the Uran-9 presents “good scientific and technical groundwork for further products.” The extent of upgrades to that vehicle was not given – however, numerous failures in Syrian trials imply that there is lots of work ahead for this project. The statement also indicates that the Uran-9 may be a test-bed for further UGV development, an interesting fact considering the country’s already diverse collection of combat UGVs

As reported in DefenseOne, Russian Colonel Col. Oleg Pomazuev stated that the Nerekhta UGV “outperformed” manned systems in recent exercises / Source: DefenseOne and Sergey Ptichkin / RG

Today, the Russian military is testing and evaluating several systems, such as Nerekhta and Soratnik. The latter was also supposedly tested in “near-combat” conditions, presumably in Syria or elsewhere. The MOD has been testing smaller Platforma-M and large Vikhr combat UGVs, along with other unmanned vehicles. Yet the defining characteristic for these machines so far has been the fact that they were all remote-operated by soldiers, often in near proximity to the machine itself. Endowing these UGVs with more independent decision–making in the “fog of war” via an intelligent command and control system may exponentially increase their combat effectiveness — assuming that such systems can function as planned.

If you enjoyed this post, please also:

Read Mr. Bendett’s previous post, Russian Ground Battlefield Robots: A Candid Evaluation and Ways Forward

… and watch Zvezda Broadcasting‘s video, showing a Vikhr unmanned, tele-operated BMP-3 maneuvering and shooting its 7.62mm MG, 30mm cannon, and automatic grenade launcher on a test range.

Automated lethality is but one of the many Future Operational Environment trends that the U.S. Army’s Mad Scientist Initiative is tracking. Mad Scientist seeks to crowdsource your visions of future combat with our Science Fiction Writing Contest 2019. Our deadline for submission is 1 APRIL 2019, so please review the contest details and associated release form here, get those creative writing juices flowing, and send us your visions of combat in 2030!  Selected submissions may be chosen for publication or a possible future speaking opportunity.

Samuel Bendett is a Researcher at CNA and a Fellow in Russia Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council. He is also a proud Mad Scientist.