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190. Weaponized Information: One Possible Vignette

[Editor’s Note:  The Information Environment (IE) is the point of departure for all events across the Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) spectrum. It’s a unique space that demands our understanding, as the Internet of Things (IoT) and hyper-connectivity have democratized accessibility, extended global reach, and amplified the effects of weaponized information. Our strategic competitors and adversaries have been quick to grasp and employ it to challenge our traditional advantages and exploit our weaknesses.

    • Our near-peers confront us globally, converging IE capabilities with hybrid strategies to expand the battlefield across all domains and create hemispheric threats challenging us from home station installations (i.e., the Strategic Support Area) to the Close Area fight.
    • Democratization of weaponized information empowers regional hegemons and non-state actors, enabling them to target the U.S. and our allies and achieve effects at a fraction of the cost of conventional weapons, without risking armed conflict.
    • The IE enables our adversaries to frame the conditions of future competition and/or escalation to armed conflict on their own terms.

Today’s post imagines one such vignette, with Russia exploiting the IE to successfully out-compete us and accomplish their political objectives, without expending a single bullet!]

Ethnic Russian minorities’ agitation against their respective governments in Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia spike. Simultaneously, the Russian Government ratchets up tensions, with inflammatory statements of support for these ethnic Russian minorities in the Baltic States; coordinated movements and exercises by Russian ground, naval, and air forces adjacent to the region; and clandestine support to ethnic Russians in these States. The Russian Government started a covert campaign to shape people’s views about the threats against the Russian diaspora. More than 200,000 twitter accounts send 3.6 million tweets trending #protectRussianseverywhere. This sprawling Russian disinformation campaign is focused on building internal support for the Russian President and a possible military action. The U.S. and NATO respond…

The 2nd Cav Regt is placed on alert; as it prepares to roll out of garrison for Poland, several videos surface across social media, purportedly showing the sexual assault of several underage German nationals by U.S. personnel. These disturbingly graphic deepfakes appear to implicate key Leaders within the Regiment. German political and legal authorities call for an investigation and host nation protests erupt outside the gates of Rose Barracks, Vilseck, disrupting the unit’s deployment.

Simultaneously, in units comprising the initial Force Package earmarked to deploy to Europe, key personnel (and their dependents) are targeted, distracting troops from their deployment preparations and disrupting unit cohesion:

    • Social media accounts are hacked/hijacked, with false threats by dependents to execute mass/school shootings, accusations of sexual abuse, hate speech posts by Leaders about their minority troops, and revelations of adulterous affairs between unit spouses.
    • Bank accounts are hacked: some are credited with excessive amounts of cash followed by faux “See Something, Say Something” hotline accusations being made about criminal and espionage activities; while others are zeroed out, disrupting families’ abilities to pay bills.

Russia’s GRU (Military Intelligence) employs AI Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to create fake persona injects that mimic select U.S. Active Army, ARNG, and USAR commanders making disparaging statements about their confidence in our allies’ forces, the legitimacy of the mission, and their faith in our political leadership. Sowing these injects across unit social media accounts, Russian Information Warfare specialists seed doubt and erode trust in the chain of command amongst a percentage of susceptible Soldiers, creating further friction in deployment preparations.

As these units load at railheads or begin their road march towards their respective ports of embarkation, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) attacks are launched on critical rail, road, port, and airfield infrastructures, snarling rail lines, switching yards, and crossings; creating bottlenecks at key traffic intersections; and spoofing navigation systems to cause sealift asset collisions and groundings at key maritime chokepoints. The fly-by-wire avionics are hacked on a departing C-17, causing a crash with the loss of all 134 Soldiers onboard. All C-17s are grounded, pending an investigation.

Salvos of personalized, “direct inject” psychological warfare attacks are launched against Soldiers via immersive media (Augmented, Virtual, and Mixed Reality; 360o Video/Gaming), targeting them while they await deployment and are in-transit to Theater. Similarly, attacks are vectored at spouses, parents, and dependents, with horrifying imagery of their loved ones’ torn and maimed bodies on Artificial Intelligence-generated battlefields (based on scraped facial imagery from social media accounts).

Multi-Domain Operations has improved Jointness, but exacerbated problems with “the communications requirements that constitute the nation’s warfighting Achilles heel.” As units arrive in Theater, seams within and between these U.S. and NATO Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance; Fires; Sustainment; and Command and Control inter-connected and federated tactical networks that facilitate partner-to-partner data exchanges are exploited with specifically targeted false injects, sowing doubt and distrust across the alliance for the Multi-Domain Common Operating Picture. Spoofing of these systems leads to accidental air defense engagements, resulting in Blue-on-Blue fratricide or the downing of a commercial airliner, with additional civilian deaths on the ground from spent ordnance, providing more opportunities for Russian Information Operations to spread acrimony within the alliance and create dissent in public opinion back home.

With the flow of U.S. forces into the Baltic Nations, real instances of ethnic Russians’ livelihoods being disrupted (e.g., accidental destruction of livestock and crops, the choking off of main routes to market, and damage to essential services [water, electricity, sewerage]) by maneuver units on exercise are captured on video and enhanced digitally to exacerbate their cumulative effects. Proliferated across the net via bots, these instances further stoke anti-Baltic / anti-U.S. opinion amongst Russian-sympathetic and non-aligned populations alike.

Following years of scraping global social media accounts and building profiles across the full political spectrum, artificial influencers are unleashed on-line that effectively target each of these profiles within the U.S. and allied civilian populations. Ostensibly engaging populations via key “knee-jerk” on-line affinities (e.g., pro-gun, pro-choice, etc.), these artificial influencers, ever so subtly, begin to shift public opinion to embrace a sympathetic position on the rights of the Russian diaspora to greater autonomy in the Baltic States.

The release of deepfake videos showing Baltic security forces massacring ethnic Russians creates further division and causes some NATO partners to hesitate, question, and withhold their support, as required under Article 5. The alliance is rent asunder — Checkmate!

Many of the aforementioned capabilities described in this vignette are available now. Threats in the IE space will only increase in verisimilitude with augmented reality and multisensory content interaction. Envisioning what this Bot 2.0 Competition will look like is essential in building whole-of-government countermeasures and instilling resiliency in our population and military formations.

The Mad Scientist Initiative will continue to explore the significance of the IE to Competition and Conflict and information weaponization throughout our FY20 events — stay tuned to the MadSci Laboratory for more information. In anticipation of this, we have published The Information Environment:  Competition and Conflict anthology, a collection of previously published blog posts that serves as a primer on this topic and examines the convergence of technologies that facilitates information weaponization — Enjoy!

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117. Old Human vs. New Human

[Editor’s Note: On 8-9 August 2018, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) co-hosted the Mad Scientist Learning in 2050 Conference with Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies in Washington, DC. Leading scientists, innovators, and scholars from academia, industry, and the government gathered to address future learning techniques and technologies that are critical in preparing for Army operations in the mid-21st century against adversaries in rapidly evolving battlespaces. One finding from this conference is that tomorrow’s Soldiers will learn differently from earlier generations, given the technological innovations that will have surrounded them from birth through their high school graduation.  To effectively engage these “New Humans” and prepare them for combat on future battlefields, the Army must discard old paradigms of learning that no longer resonate (e.g., those desiccated lectures delivered via interminable PowerPoint presentations) and embrace more effective means of instruction.]

The recruit of 2050 will be born in 2032 and will be fundamentally different from the generations born before them. Marc Prensky, educational writer and speaker who coined the term digital native, asserts this “New Human” will stand in stark contrast to the “Old Human” in the ways they assimilate information and approach learning.1 Where humans today are born into a world with ubiquitous internet, hyper-connectivity, and the Internet of Things, each of these elements are generally external to the human. By 2032, these technologies likely will have converged and will be embedded or integrated into the individual with connectivity literally on the tips of their fingers. The challenge for the Army will be to recognize the implications of this momentous shift and alter its learning methodologies, approach to training, and educational paradigm to account for these digital natives.

These New Humans will be accustomed to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to augment and supplement decision-making in their everyday lives. AI will be responsible for keeping them on schedule, suggesting options for what and when to eat, delivering relevant news and information, and serving as an on-demand embedded expert. The Old Human learned to use these technologies and adapted their learning style to accommodate them, while the New Human will be born into them and their learning style will be a result of them. In 2018, 94% of Americans aged 18-29 owned some kind of smartphone.2 Compare that to 73% ownership for ages 50-64 and 46% for age 65 and above and it becomes clear that there is a strong disconnect between the age groups in terms of employing technology. Both of the leading software developers for smartphones include a built-in artificially intelligent digital assistant, and at the end of 2017, nearly half of all U.S. adults used a digital voice assistant in some way.3 Based on these trends, there likely will be in the future an even greater technological wedge between New Humans and Old Humans.

http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/

New Humans will be information assimilators, where Old Humans were information gatherers. The techniques to acquire and gather information have evolved swiftly since the advent of the printing press, from user-intensive methods such as manual research, to a reduction in user involvement through Internet search engines. Now, narrow AI using natural language processing is transitioning to AI-enabled predictive learning. Through these AI-enabled virtual entities, New Humans will carry targeted, predictive, and continuous learning assistants with them. These assistants will observe, listen, and process everything of relevance to the learner and then deliver them information as necessary.

There is an abundance of research on the stark contrast between the three generations currently in the workforce: Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials.4, 5 There will be similar fundamental differences between Old Humans and New Humans and their learning styles. The New Human likely will value experiential learning over traditional classroom learning.6 The convergence of mixed reality and advanced, high fidelity modeling and simulation will provide New Humans with immersive, experiential learning. For example, Soldiers learning military history and battlefield tactics will be able to experience it ubiquitously, observing how each facet of the battlefield affects the whole in real-time as opposed to reading about it sequentially. Soldiers in training could stand next to an avatar of General Patton and experience him explaining his command decisions firsthand.

There is an opportunity for the Army to adapt its education and training to these growing differences. The Army could—and eventually will need—to recruit, train, and develop New Humans by altering its current structure and recruitment programs. It will become imperative to conduct training with new tools, materials, and technologies that will allow Soldiers to become information assimilators. Additionally, the incorporation of experiential learning techniques will entice Soldiers’ learning. There is an opportunity for the Army to pave the way and train its Soldiers with cutting edge technology rather than trying to belatedly catch up to what is publicly available.

Evolution in Learning Technologies

If you enjoyed this post, please also watch Elliott Masie‘s video presentation on Dynamic Readiness and  Mark Prensky‘s presentation on The Future of Learning from of the Mad Scientist Learning in 2050 Conference …

… see the following related blog posts:

… and read The Mad Scientist Learning in 2050 Final Report.

1 Prensky, Mark, Mad Scientist Conference: Learning in 2050, Georgetown University, 9 August 2018

2 http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/

3 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/12/12/nearly-half-of-americans-use-digital-voice-assistants-mostly-on-their-smartphones/

4 https://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Resources/Clearinghouse/View-Articles/Generational-issues-in-the-workplace.aspx

5 https://blogs.uco.edu/customizededucation/2018/01/16/generational-differences-in-the-workplace/

6 https://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/03/undergraduates.aspx

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70. Star Wars 2050

[Editor’s Note:  Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to present today’s guest post by returning blogger Ms. Marie Murphy, addressing the implication of space drones and swarms on space-based services critical to the U.S. Army.  Ms. Murphy’s previous post addressed Virtual Nations: An Emerging Supranational Cyber Trend.]

Drone technology continues to proliferate in militaries and industries around the world.  In the deep future, drones and drone swarms may extend physical conflict into the space domain.  As space becomes ever more critical to military operations, states will seek technologies to counter their adversaries’ capabilities.   Drones and swarms can blend in with space debris in order to provide a tactical advantage against vulnerable and expensive assets at a lower cost.

Source: AutoEvolution

Space was recently identified as a battlespace domain in recognition of threats increasing at an unexpected rate and, in 2013, the Army Space Training Strategy was released. The functions of the Army almost entirely depend on space systems for daily and specialized operations, particularly C4ISR and GPS capabilities. “Well over 2,500 pieces of equipment… rely on a space-based capability” in any given combat brigade, so an Army contingency plan for the loss of satellite communication is critical.[I]  It is essential for the Army, in conjunction with other branches of the military and government agencies, to best shield military assets in space and continue to develop technologies, such as outer space drones and swarms, to remain competitive and secure throughout this domain in the future.

Source: CCTV China

Drone swarms in particular are an attractive military option due to their relative inexpensiveness, autonomy, and durability as a whole. The U.S., China, and Russia are the trifecta of advanced drone and drone swarm technology and also pose the greatest threats in space. In May 2018, Chinese Company CETC launched 200 autonomous drones,[II] beating China’s own record of 119 from 2017.[III] The U.S. has also branched out into swarm technology with the testing of Perdix drones, although the U.S. is most known for its use of the high-tech Predator drone.[IV]

Source: thedrive.com

Non-state actors also possess rudimentary drone capabilities. In January 2018, Syrian rebels attacked a Russian installation with 13 drones in an attempt to overwhelm Russian defenses. The Russian military was able to neutralize the attack by shooting down seven and bringing the remaining six down with electronic countermeasures.[V] While this attack was quelled, it proves that drones are being used by less powerful or economically resourceful actors, making them capable of rendering many traditional defense systems ineffective. It is not a far leap to incorporate autonomous communication between vehicles, capitalizing on the advantages of a fully interactive and cooperative drone swarm.

NASA Homemade Drone; Source: NASA Swamp Works

The same logic applies when considering drones and drone swarms in space. However, these vehicles will need to be technologically adapted for space conditions. Potentially most similar to future space drones, the company Swarm Technology launched four nanosats called “SpaceBees” with the intention of using them to create a constellation supporting Internet of Things (IoT) networks; however, they did so from India without FCC authorization.[VI] Using nanosats as examples of small, survivable space vehicles, the issues of power and propulsion are the most dominant technological roadblocks. Batteries must be small and are subject to failure in extreme environmental conditions and temperatures.[VII] Standard drone propulsion mechanisms are not viable in space, where drones will have to rely on cold-gas jets to maneuver.[VIII] Drones and drone swarms can idle in orbit (potentially for weeks or months) until activated, but they may still need hours of power to reach their target. The power systems must also have the ability to direct flight in a specific direction, requiring more energy than simply maintaining orbit.

Source: University of Southampton

There is a distinct advantage for drones operating in space: the ability to hide in plain sight among the scattered debris in orbit. Drones can be sent into space on a private or government launch hidden within a larger, benign payload.[IX] Once in space, these drones could be released into orbit, where they would blend in with the hundreds of thousands of other small pieces of material. When activated, they would lock onto a target or targets, and swarms would converge autonomously and communicate to avoid obstacles. Threat detection and avoidance systems may not recognize an approaching threat or swarm pattern until it is too late to move an asset out of their path (it takes a few hours for a shuttle and up to 30 hours for the ISS to conduct object avoidance maneuvers). In the deep future, it is likely that there will be a higher number of larger space assets as well as a greater number of nanosats and CubeSats, creating more objects for the Space Surveillance Network to track, and more places for drones and swarms to hide.[X]

For outer space drones and drone swarms, the issue of space junk is a double-edged sword. While it camouflages the vehicles, drone and swarm attacks also produce more space junk due to their kinetic nature. One directed “kamikaze” or armed drone can severely damage or destroy a satellite, while swarm technology can be harnessed for use against larger, defended assets or in a coordinated attack. However, projecting shrapnel can hit other military or commercial assets, creating a Kessler Syndrome effect of cascading damage.[XI] Once a specific space junk removal program is established by the international community, the resultant debris effects from drone and swarm attacks can be mitigated to preclude collateral damage.  However, this reduction of space junk will also result in less concealment, limiting drones’ and swarms’ ability to loiter in orbit covertly.

Utilizing drone swarms in space may also present legal challenges.  The original governing document regarding space activities is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. This treaty specifically prohibits WMDs in space and the militarization of the moon and other celestial bodies, but is not explicit regarding other forms of militarization, except to emphasize that space activities are to be carried out for the benefit of all countries. So far, military space activities have been limited to deploying military satellites and combatting cyber-attacks. Launching a kinetic attack in space would carry serious global implications and repercussions.

Such drastic and potentially destructive action would most likely stem from intense conflict on Earth. Norms about the usage of space would have to change. The Army must consider how widely experimented with and implemented drone and swarm technologies can be applied to targeting critical and expensive assets in orbit. Our adversaries do not have the same moral and ethical compunctions regarding space applications that the U.S. has as the world’s leading democracy. Therefore, the U.S. Army must prepare for such an eventuality.  Additionally, the Army must research and develop a more robust alternative to our current space-based GPS capability.  For now, the only war in space is the one conducted electronically, but kinetic operations in outer space are a realistic possibility in the deep future.

Marie Murphy is a rising junior at The College of William and Mary in Virginia, studying International Relations and Arabic. She is currently interning at Headquarters, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) with the Mad Scientist Initiative.

______________________________________________________

[I] Houck, Caroline, “The Army’s Space Force Has Doubled in Six Years, and Demand Is Still Going Up,” Defense One, 23 August 2017.

[II] “China’s Drone Swarms,” OE Watch, Vol. 8.7, July 2018.

[III] “China Launches Drone Swarm of 119 Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” Business Standard, 11 June 2017.

[IV] Atherton, Kelsey D., “The Pentagon’s New Drone Swarm Heralds a Future of Autonomous War Machines,” Popular Science, 17 January 2017.

[V] Hruska, Joel, “Think One Military Drone is Bad? Drone Swarms Are Terrifyingly Difficult to Stop,” Extreme Tech, 8 March 2018.

[VI] Harris, Mark, “Why Did Swarm Launch Its Rogue Satellites?” IEEE Spectrum, 20 March 2018.

[VII] Chow, Eugene K., “America Is No Match for China’s New Space Drones,” The National Interest, 4 November 2017.

[VIII] Murphy, Mike, “NASA Is Working on Drones That Can Fly In Space,” Quartz, 31 July 2015.

[IX] Harris, Mark, “Why Did Swarm Launch Its Rogue Satellites?” IEEE Spectrum, 20 March 2018.

[X] “Space Debris and Human Spacecraft,” NASA, 26 September 2013.

[XI] Scoles, Sarah, “The Space Junk Problem Is About to Get a Whole Lot Gnarlier,” WIRED, July 31, 2017.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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51. Black Swans and Pink Flamingos

The Mad Scientist Initiative recently facilitated a workshop with thought leaders from across the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, other Government agencies, industry, and academia to address the unknown, unknowns (i.e., Black Swans) and the known, knowns (i.e., Pink Flamingos) to synthesize cross-agency thinking about possible disruptions to the Future Operational Environment.

Black Swans: In Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s original context, a black swan (unknown, unknowns) is an event or situation which is unpredictable, but has a major effect. For this conference, we used a looser definition, identifying possibilities that are not likely, but might have significant impacts on how we think about warfighting and security.

Pink Flamingos: Defined by Frank Hoffman, Pink Flamingos are the known, knowns that are often discussed, but ignored by Leaders trapped by organizational cultures and rigid bureaucratic decision-making structures. Peter Schwartz further describes Pink Flamingos as the “inevitable surprise.” Digital photography was a pink flamingo to Kodak.

At the workshop, attendees identified the following Black Swans:

• Naturally Occurring Disaster: These events (i.e., Carrington Event — solar flare frying solid state electronics, super volcano eruptions, earthquake swarms, etc.) would have an enormous impact on the Army and its ability to continue to operate and defend the nation and support national recovery operations. While warning times have increased for many of these events, there are limited measures that can be implemented to mitigate the devastating effects of these events.


• Virtual Nations: While the primacy of Westphalian borders has been challenged and the power of traditional nation-states has been waning over the last decade, some political scientists have assumed that supranational organizations and non-state actors would take their place. One potential black swan is the emergence of virtual nations due to the convergence of blockchain technologies, crypto-currency, and the ability to project power and legitimacy through the virtual world. Virtual nations could be organized based on ideologies, business models, or single interests. Virtual nations could supersede, supplement, or compete with traditional, physical nations. The Army of the future may not be prepared to interact and compete with virtual nations.


• Competition in Venues Other than Warfare (Economic, Technological, Demographic, etc.) Achieving Primacy: In the near future, war in the traditional sense may be less prevalent, while competitions in other areas may be the driving forces behind national oppositions. How does the Army need to prepare for an eventuality where armed conflict is not as important as it once was?


• Alternate Internet — “Alternet”: A distinct entity, separate from the general commercial internet, only accessible with specific corresponding hardware. This technology would allow for unregulated and unmonitored communication and commerce, potentially granting safe haven to criminal and terrorist activities.

At the workshop, attendees identified the following Pink Flamingos:

• Safe at Home: Army installations are no longer the sanctuaries they once were, as adversaries will be able to attack Soldiers and families through social media and other cyberspace means. Additionally, installations no longer merely house, train, and deploy Soldiers — unmanned combat systems are controlled from home installations -— a trend in virtual power that will increase in the future. The Army needs a plan to harden our installations and train Soldiers and families to be resilient for this eventuality.


• Hypersonics: High speed (Mach 5 or higher) and highly maneuverable missiles or glide vehicles that can defeat our air defense systems. The speed of these weapons is unmatched and their maneuverability allows them to keep their targets unknown until only seconds before impact, negating current countermeasures.


• Generalized, Operationalized Artificial Intelligence (AI): Artificial intelligence is one of the most prominent pink flamingos throughout global media and governments. Narrow artificial intelligence is being addressed as rapidly as possible through ventures such as Project MAVEN. However, generalized and operationalized artificial intelligence – that can think, contextualize, and operate like a human – has the potential to disrupt not only operations, but also the military at its very core and foundation.


• Space/Counterspace: Space is becoming increasingly congested, commercialized, and democratized. Disruption, degradation, and denial in space threatens to cripple multi-domain warfare operations. States and non-state actors alike are exploring options to counter one another, compete, and potentially even fight in space.


• Quantum Sciences: Quantum science – communication, computing, and sensing – has the potential to solve some intractable but very specific problem sets. Quantum technology remains in its infancy. However, as the growth of qubits in quantum computing continues to expand, so does the potentiality of traditional encryption being utterly broken. Quantum sensing can allow for much more precise atomic clocks surpassing the precision timing of GPS, as well as quantum imaging that provides better results than classical imaging in a variety of wavelengths.


• Bioweapons/Biohacking: The democratization of bio technology will mean that super-empowered individuals as well as nation states will have the ability to engineer weapons and hacks that can augment friendly human forces or target and degrade enemy human forces (e.g., targeted disease or genetic modifications).


• Personalized Warfare: Warfare is now waged on a personal level, where adversaries can attack the bank accounts of Soldiers’ families, infiltrate their social media, or even target them specifically by their genetics. The Army needs to understand that the individual Soldier can be exploited in many different ways, often through information publicly provided or stolen.

Source: ommbeu / Fotolia
• Deep Fakes/Information Warfare: Information warfare and “fake news” have played a prominent role in global politics over the last several years and could dominate the relationship between societies, governments, politicians, and militaries in the future operational environment. Information operations, thanks to big data and humanity’s ever-growing digital presence, are targeted at an extremely personal and specific level. One of the more concerning aspects of this is an artificial intelligence-based human image/voice synthesis technique known as deep fakes. Deep fakes can essentially put words in the mouths of prominent or trusted politicians and celebrities.


• Multi-Domain Swarming: Swarming is often thought about in terms of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), but one significant pink flamingo is swarming taking place across multiple domains with self-organizing, autonomous aerial, ground, maritime (sub and surface), and even subterranean unmanned systems. U.S. defense systems on a linear modernization and development model will not be capable of dealing with the saturation and complexity issues arising from these multi-domain swarms.


• Lethal Autonomy: An autonomous system with the ability to track, target, and fire without the supervision or authority of a human in/on the loop. The U.S. Army will have to examine its own policy regarding these issues as well as our adversaries, who may be less deterred by ethical/policy issues.


• Tactical Nuclear Exchange: While strategic nuclear war and mutually assured destruction have been discussed and addressed ad nauseam, not enough attention has been given to the potential of a tactical nuclear exchange between state actors. One tactical nuclear attack, while not guaranteeing a nuclear holocaust, would bring about a myriad of problems for U.S. forces worldwide (e.g., the potential for escalation, fallout, contamination of water and air, and disaster response). Additionally, a high altitude nuclear burst’s electromagnetic pulse has the potential to fry solid state electronics across a wide-area, with devastating results to the affected nation’s electrical grid, essential government services, and food distribution networks.

Leaders must anticipate these future possibilities in determining the character of future conflicts and in force design and equipping decisions. Using a mental model of black swans and pink flamingos provides a helpful framework for assessing the risks associated with these decisions.

For additional information on projected black swans for the next 20+ years, see the RAND Corporation’s Discontinuities and Distractions — Rethinking Security for the Year 2040.

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50. Four Elements for Future Innovation

(Editor’s Note: Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to present a new post by returning guest blogger Dr. Richard Nabors addressing the four key practices of innovation. Dr. Nabors’ previous guest posts discussed how integrated sensor systems will provide Future Soldiers with the requisite situational awareness to fight and win in increasingly complex and advanced battlespaces, and how Augmented and Mixed Reality are the critical elements required for these integrated sensor systems to become truly operational and support Soldiers’ needs in complex environments.)


For the U.S. military to maintain its overmatch capabilities, innovation is an absolute necessity. As noted in The Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Future Warfare, our adversaries will continue to aggressively pursue rapid innovation in key technologies in order to challenge U.S. forces across multiple domains. Because of its vital necessity, U.S. innovation cannot be left solely to the development of serendipitous discoveries.

The Army has successfully generated innovative programs and transitioned them from the research community into military use. In the process, it has identified four key practices that can be used in the future development of innovative programs. These practices – identifying the need, the vision, the expertise, and the resources – are essential in preparing for warfare in the Future Operational Environment. The recently completed Third Generation Forward Looking Infrared (3rd Gen FLIR) program provides us with a contemporary use case regarding how each of these practices are key to the success of future innovations.


1. Identifying the NEED:
To increase speed, precision, and accuracy of a platform lethality, while at the same time increasing mission effectiveness and warfighter safety and survivability.

As the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) noted in its Advanced Engagement Battlespace assessment, future Advanced Engagements will be…
… compressed in time, as the speed of weapon delivery and their associated effects accelerate enormously;
… extended in space, in many cases to a global extent, via precision long-range strike and interconnectedness, particularly in the information environment;
… far more lethal, by virtue of ubiquitous sensors, proliferated precision, high kinetic energy weapons and advanced area munitions;
… routinely interconnected – and contested — across the multiple domains of air, land, sea, space and cyber; and
… interactive across the multiple dimensions of conflict, not only across every domain in the physical dimension, but also the cognitive dimension of information operations, and even the moral dimension of belief and values.

Identifying the NEED within the context of these future Advanced Engagement characteristics is critical to the success of future innovations.

The first-generation FLIR systems gave a limited ability to detect objects on the battlefield at night. They were large, slow, and provided low-resolution, short-range images. The need was for greater speed, precision, and range in the targeting process to unlock the full potential of infrared imaging. Third generation FLIR uses multiband infrared imaging sensors combined with multiple fields of view which are integrated with computer software to automatically enhance images in real-time. Sensors can be used across multiple platforms and missions, allowing optimization of equipment for battlefield conditions, greatly enhancing mission effectiveness and survivability, and providing significant cost savings.


Source: John-Stone-Art
2. Identifying the VISION:
To look beyond the need and what is possible to what could be possible.

As we look forward into the Future Operational Environment, we must address those revolutionary technologies that, when developed and fielded, will provide a decisive edge over adversaries not similarly equipped. These potential Game Changers include:
• Laser and Radio Frequency Weapons – Scalable lethal and non-Lethal directed energy weapons can counter Aircraft, UAS, Missiles, Projectiles, Sensors, and Swarms.
• Swarms – Leverage autonomy, robotics, and artificial intelligence to generate “global behavior with local rules” for multiple entities – either homogeneous or heterogeneous teams.
• Rail Guns and Enhanced Directed Kinetic Energy Weapons (EDKEW) – Non explosive electromagnetic projectile launchers provide high velocity/high energy weapons.
• Energetics – Provides increased accuracy and muzzle energy.
• Synthetic Biology – Engineering and modification of biological entities has potential weaponization.
• Internet of Things – Linked internet “things” create opportunity and vulnerability. Great potential benefits already found in developing U.S. systems also create a vulnerability.
• Power – Future effectiveness depends on renewable sources and reduced consumption. Small nuclear reactors are potentially a cost-effective source of stable power.

Understanding these Future Operational Environment Game Changers is central to identifying the VISION and looking beyond the need to what could be possible.

The 3rd Gen FLIR program struggled early in its development to identify requirements necessary to sustain a successful program. Without the user community’s understanding of a vision of what could be possible, requirements were based around the perceived limitations of what technology could provide. To overcome this, the research community developed a comprehensive strategy for educational outreach to the Army’s requirement developers, military officers, and industry on the full potential of what 3rd Gen FLIR could achieve. This campaign highlighted not only the recognized need, but also a vision for what was possible, and served as the catalyst to bring the entire community together.


3. Identifying the EXPERTISE:
To gather expertise from all possible sources into a comprehensive solution.

Human creativity is the most transformative force in the world; people compound the rate of innovation and technology development. This expertise is fueling the convergence of technologies that is already leading to revolutionary achievements with respect to sensing, data acquisition and retrieval, and computer processing hardware.

Identifying the EXPERTISE leads to the exponential convergence and innovation that will afford strategic advantage to those who recognize and leverage them.

The expertise required to achieve 3rd Gen FLIR success was from the integration of more than 16 significant research and development projects from multiple organizations: Small Business Innovation Research programs; applied research funding, partnering in-house expertise with external communities; Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) initiatives, working with manufacturers to develop the technology and long-term manufacturing capabilities; and advanced technology development funding with traditional large defense contractors. The talented workforce of the Army research community strategically aligned these individual activities and worked with them to provide a comprehensive, interconnected final solution.


4. Identifying the RESOURCES:
To consistently invest in innovative technology by partnering with others to create multiple funding sources.

The 2017 National Security Strategy introduced the National Security Innovation Base as a critical component of its vision of American security. In order to meet the challenges of the Future Operational Environment, the Department of Defense and other agencies must establish strategic partnerships with U.S. companies to help align private sector Research and Development (R&D) resources to priority national security applications in order to nurture innovation.

The development of 3rd Gen FLIR took many years of appropriate, consistent investments into innovations and technology breakthroughs. Obtaining the support of industry and leveraging their internal R&D investments required the Army to build trust in the overall program. By creating partnerships with others, such as the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) and ManTech, 3rd Gen FLIR was able to integrate multiple funding sources to ensure a secure resource foundation.




CONCLUSION
The successful 3rd Gen FLIR program is a prototype of the implementation of an innovative program, which transitions good ideas into actual capabilities. It exemplifies how identifying the need, the vision, the expertise and the resources can create an environment where innovation thrives, equipping warriors with the best technology in the world. As the Army looks to increase its exploration of innovative technology development for the future, these examples of past successes can serve as models to build on moving forward.

See our Prototype Warfare post to learn more about other contemporary innovation successes that are helping the U.S. maintain its competitive advantage and win in an increasingly contested Operational Environment.

Dr. Richard Nabors is Associate Director for Strategic Planning and Deputy Director, Operations Division, U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC), Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate.

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47. Quanta of Competition

(Editor’s Note: Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to present the following post by repeat guest blogger Mr. Victor R. Morris. Strap in and prepare yourselves for a mind-expanding discussion on the competition field’s application of quantum field theory to political warfare and the extended battlefield!
Mr. Morris’ previous post addressing the cross-domain effects of human-machine networks may be read here.)

The competition field is a field of fields. It is the unification of physical, information, electromagnetic and cyber, political warfare, and extended military battle fields manifested through cross-field synergy and information feedback loop.

The competition field interacts with the physical, information, and cyber and electromagnetic fields. Political warfare and extended military battle are field quanta and reach excitable states due to cross-field synergy and information exchange. These excitable states are unpredictable, yet measurable via probability in the competition continuum. The measurements correlate to the information feedback loop of relative and finite information. The feedback loop results from system interactions, decision-making, effects, and learning. Learning drives interactions, ensuring information exchange in the competition continuum.

The competition field concept was developed from quantum mechanics, multi-domain battle operational frameworks, and geostrategic competition fundamentals to address grand strategy design, long-term, strategic inter-state competition, and non-state actor considerations in macro scale and spacetime.

The concept applies quantum field theory to political warfare and the “extended battlefield,” where Joint and multinational systems are the quanta of these fields, prone to excitable states like field quanta. In quantum mechanics, “quanta” refers to the minimum amount of physical entity involved in an interaction, like a photon or bit. The concept also unites the “Gray Zone” with the political warfare field interacting with the extended military battlefield.

Multi-domain battle and gray zone phenomena result from interactions in the extended military battle and political warfare fields. In quantum field theory, “interactions” refer to particles and corresponding underlying quantum fields. The competition field is the fundamental starting point for strategy design and system of systems thinking.

War/conflict, “Gray Zone,” and peace manifest based on uncertain, yet probability-determined interactions that drive decision-making, effects, and learning to continue the feedback loop of finite information. In the competition field, competition is relative or relational to information. Information does not measure what is known, but the probabilities of something. The competition field correlates the scientific and granular notions of information with the Operational Environment’s fields (also called domains) and physical systems during interactions. Systems are quantized like subatomic particles in the form of Centers of Gravity (COG), subsystems, critical factors, flows, nodes, and entities.

System and particle interactions are uncertain and not deterministic predictions described in exporting security as preventive war strategy and Newtonian physics. Measures short of war and war itself (i.e., violent or armed competition) are interactions in the competition field based on convergence, acceleration, force, distance, time, and other variables. Systems or things do not enter into relations; relations ground the notion of the system.

The information environment is also a field of fields. It exists with the physical, electromagnetic, cyberspace, and space-time fields in the competition field. In Joint doctrine, this is the holistic operational environment. Quantum mechanic’s granularity, relationality, and uncertainty of this field are described in the cognitive, informational, and physical dimensions.

These dimensions or fields include the quanta of human beings, Internet of Things (IoT), data, and individual or group decision-making. The cognitive dimension encompasses the minds of those who transmit, receive, and respond to or act on information.

The cognitive dimension is the most important component of the information environment and influences decision-making in the competition field. The scientific notion of information and probability of occurrence measurement are the largest contributors to understanding quantum physics and the concept of competition.

Colonel John Boyd, a military strategist, was a student of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz and studied military history to see where concepts overlapped and diverged. He knowingly or unknowingly described quantum mechanic’s postulates when he critiqued Clausewitz’s center of gravity concept. He suggested finding the thing that allows the organic whole to stay connected and breaking down those connections.

In theories of quantum gravity, that “thing” is the quanta of gravity, hypothetically called a graviton. In this assessment, it is the quanta of competition. The quanta of competition are not in competition; they are themselves competition and are described by links and the relation they express. The quanta of competition are also suited for quantum biology, since they involve both biological and environmental objects and problem sets.

Additionally, what Clausewitz described as polarity, intelligence, and friction are information at the quantum state. Position, momentum, spin, and the polarization of entangled particles are measured and correlated. The constant exchange of relevant and irrelevant information occurs as competition field quanta interact in the competition continuum.

In this vision, Joint and multinational systems are their own fields, oscillating in the political and extended military battle fields. Interactions manifest forces to exploit windows of superiority, seize the initiative, and attain positions of relative advantage in the competition continuum. Interagency and intergovernmental systems are also manifested in granular and relational manners to enable these objectives. This is only possible through combination, cooperation, and information.

The competition field attempts to explain the relationship between the holistic operational environment and physical systems bridging quantum mechanics and geostrategic competition constructs.

Clausewitz said, “War is merely a continuation of policy by other means.” Policy is a continuation of processes and events between interactions. Lethal or non-lethal effects are based on the measurement of possible alternatives enumerated by reciprocal information and the ability to make decisions in the competition field.

Victor R. Morris is a civilian irregular warfare and threat mitigation instructor at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JMRC) in Germany.

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28. My City is Smarter than Yours!

(Editor’s Note: The Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to present the following post by returning guest blogger Mr. Pat Filbert)

Megacities will cause far more issues with conflict resolution than is currently understood and should be approached from a more holistic understanding when it comes to planning for urban fighting.

The “collateral damage” aspect of leveling city blocks adds to the burden of rebuilding a smart megacity to provide a measure of security and resumption of the “way of life” to which its citizens have grown accustomed. The assumption of instant information at one’s fingertips specifies, and implies, that there is something feeding that information flow to whatever the user is accessing; specifically, embedded fiber optic networks moving information drawn from a variety of sensors built into the city structure that provide not just citizens, but also local and city leaders, the statuses they “can’t do without.”

Friendly forces will have to ensure their operations in megacities consider advanced city infrastructure attributes in their Intelligence Preparation of the Urban Battlespace.

• Preservation of fiber optic networks and repair requirements after kinetic or non-kinetic attacks, including use by attacking and defending forces and insurgents

• Active broadband infrastructure to support information flow to friendly forces from locals; also when to interrupt it while supporting open source teams to combat “fake news” while locals tweet information and requests for help

• Defeating enemy hackers infiltrating friendly networks via megacity infrastructure

The decision point to take down a megacity’s information network must consider what is there that friendly forces can use to support their efforts and how the health and welfare of the citizens will be affected. Cities are now experimenting with smart community technology that enables law enforcement to pinpoint and identify where gunshots are coming from using audio technology, similar to what is being used in the military, along with wireless power broadcasting providing citizens with ever-increasing levels of comfort and necessity that a conflict will interrupt (no food storage or refrigeration or fast medical response equals how will friendly forces fix this?).

Other attributes for consideration are the use by the adversary, as well as insurgent forces, of existing unmanned ground systems in a megacity that were being used to support mass transit. Is that automated shuttle coming at you full of explosives or citizens fleeing the fight? How do you get it to stop if there isn’t a driver on board, only scared families who can’t stop the vehicle? Current procedures have troops demanding the vehicle stop or they will open fire—without a driver, then what?

When ground troops move forward, they must understand it’s not just Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) that could be transmitting data and information to an adversary.

• Smart crosswalk sensors that used to provide data to traffic centers to decrease accidents and now provide the adversary with in-place, unattended ground sensors

• GPS systems that once reported real-time accidents co-opted to integrate adversary tracking of friendly force heavy vehicles

• Data systems providing predictions of situations where traffic jams and accidents might occur being used to predict where friendly forces can be ambushed

• Adversaries turning on the lights (i.e., illuminating not just with streetlights but in-place multi-spectral systems) to put friendly forces “on the spot” has to be considered and countered

Being able to compromise those systems, like the “loop a security camera” trick spies do in the movies, without the adversary noticing is counter-detection technology friendly forces must have; preferably without such technology being known before conflict.

Once the battle is won, how will our forces get things back on-line? Future generations will demand a return to their “way of life before we showed up” — fast and incessantly.

• Lack of support to keep what wasn’t destroyed safe for use while not enabling enemy propaganda

• Repair of power supply technology from solar, wind, nuclear production and supporting power lines to the wireless power broadcasting infrastructure

• Civilians not hearing “that’s not my job” for conflict caused damages and military not being under-resourced due to a lack of planning and upper echelon military/political leadership failure to resource pre- and post-conflict requirements before initiating a conflict

See Smart city technology aims to make communities more secure, but does it encroach on privacy? for background information on smart community technology integration in Las Vegas. For additional information on wireless power transmission, see Wireless Power.


Mad Scientist co-sponsored the Megacities and Dense Urban Areas in 2025 and Beyond Conference with Arizona State University on 21-22 April 2016. For more information on the ramifications of Future Warfare in Megacities see:

Mad Scientist: Megacities and Dense Urban Areas in 2025 and Beyond Final Report

YouTube Playlist — Mad Scientist: Megacities and Dense Urban Areas in 2025 and Beyond

The Future Urban Battlefield with Dr. Russell Glenn podcast, hosted by the Modern War Institute

If you were intrigued by this post, please note that Mad Scientist is currently sponsoring a Call for Ideas writing contest. Contributors are asked to consider how future Army installations will operate and project force in the Operational Environment (OE) of 2050, and submit either a Research Topic or A Soldier’s Letter Home from Garrison. Suspense for submissions is 15 March 2018.

Pat Filbert is retired Army (24 years, Armor/MI); now a contractor with the Digital Integration for Combat Engagement (DICE) effort developing training for USAF DCGS personnel. He has experience with UAS/ISR, Joint Testing, Intelligence analysis/planning, and JCIDS. He has previously posted on robotics at the Mad Scientist Laboratory.