Читать книгу War Time - Группа авторов - Страница 24

The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.

—ROBERT WILSON LYND¹⁶

Today, we find ourselves in familiar intellectual territory, with a growing collection of military scholars and practitioners ushering in an era of “hyperwar.” This influential group—which includes a former US deputy secretary of defense—envisions a future in which robotic swarms infused with artificial intelligence (AI) engage enemy forces at speeds exceeding human decisionmaking capacity. In the words of retired US General John Allen and technologist Amir Husain, emerging technologies will relegate humans to “providing broad, high level inputs while machines do the planning, executing, and adapting to the reality of the mission and take on the burden of thousands of individual decisions with no additional input.”¹⁷ In particular, advocates of hyperwar express concern over advances in Chinese AI as compared with the West. With powerful AI available, the hyperwar camp believes “the speed of battle at the tactical end of the warfare spectrum will accelerate enormously, collapsing the decision-action cycle to fractions of a second, giving the decisive edge to the side with the more autonomous decision-action concurrency.”¹⁸ In essence, they claim, these technologies will shrink the OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop into a single OODA point, and the rapid tactical successes will naturally spill over into both the operational and strategic levels of warfare, allowing military commanders to “see”—with near-perfect clarity—the strategic landscape and make war-winning decisions based upon the near-instantaneous analysis of petabytes of data.¹⁹

Despite my deep professional respect for the hyperwar advocates, I believe they dramatically overstate their case, ignoring past examples of “revolutionary technologies” promising—yet failing—to transform warfare into a more precise, transparent, and short-lived event. Much of the hype surrounding emerging technologies and their role on future battlefields rests in the age-old belief that emerging weapons technology favors an offensive role. With these powerful new weapons at hand, an offensive protagonist can relentlessly attack and degrade the defenses of a slow-thinking, slow-reacting opponent. Unable to orient or defend itself, the attacked country falls prey to a decisive first blow and is forced to capitulate. This argument drives belligerents to the logical conclusion that it is speed and violence of initial action that will predominate in shaping the outcome of the war to come. In the name of national defense and security, a push toward the latest offensive weaponry becomes a requirement, and rapid offensive actions are deemed an existential requirement.

This could be a misguided belief, as recent advances in technology may actually favor the defender. American military strategist T. X. Hammes suggests that these developments work to the advantage of small, smart, lethal, and multiple weapons over the few, exquisite systems upon which existing Western militaries are built.²⁰ Contrary to the views of the “hyperwar” camp, Hammes contends, modern technology is best utilized in denying an opponent the opportunity to seize and hold territory. Even against staggering quantitative odds, smaller countries are better positioned to employ a “porcupine strategy” that can, at best, deter a larger opponent from launching an attack altogether and, at worst, certainly delay and wear down an opposing force during an attack. Hammes argues the technological democratization of precision weaponry has “leveled the playing field between major states, smaller powers, and even non state-actors.”²¹ He suggests the technologies most likely to shape future battlefields are not high-tech hypersonic weaponry, fifth-generation fighter aircraft, or fully integrated AI that provides perfect clarity in the battlespace. Rather, emerging technology such as three-dimensional printing, small warheads placed on lower-tech drone systems (quadcopters), cheap space capabilities, and task-specific AI threaten to prolong wars, as aggressors become bogged down in dealing with defensive challenges that offensive technology cannot solve. Even more problematic for potential aggressors is that these defense-favoring technologies can be mobilized in hours or days, whereas weeks and months are required to mobilize an offensive thrust.²²

Scholar and army lieutenant Brandon Euhus largely agrees with Hammes, but for different reasons. He suggests emerging technologies may actually produce paradoxical effects when employed against an enemy. Euhus deconstructs and opposes the “hyperwar” argument utilizing a Clausewitzian logic and understanding of war. He argues that although the character of war may change according to the technologies of the era, its nature remains constant: it is a contest to impose one’s will on an enemy. Euhus further argues that the introduction of novel technology routinely produces the opposite of the effect intended.²³ In his masterpiece On War, Clausewitz himself was distinctly sceptical about the idea of a single blow determining the outcome of a war.²⁴ He saw war as a clash of wills, and although an initial victory might have an impact on subsequent engagements, it would be unlikely to determine the overall outcome of the contest. We would be wise to remember this theme as we enter an era where defense planners are, yet again, convinced of the possibility of rapid decisive wars and the potential for a bolt-from-the-blue fait accompli. This belief has—once again—convinced Western militaries to emphasize the urgency of first mover’s advantage and the demand for tactical speed.

Recently, the term “fait accompli” has gained prominence throughout the halls of the Pentagon and, in turn, across Western defense institutions.²⁵ The 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea is routinely held up as the model of the fait accompli and the harbinger of future warfare. A second commonly cited fait accompli tactic in the era of near-peer conflict is China’s seizure and occupation of parts of the disputed Spratly Islands (in particular Subi and Mischief Reefs) in the South China Sea, and its buildup of infrastructure there. The lessons Western militaries have gleaned from these examples is that lighting-fast offensive “bolts from the blue” are the defining features of contemporary war. Here again reality and the interpretation of that reality may be at odds. In both cases the seizure of territory did not (or more accurately should not have) come as a complete surprise to those monitoring the situation. Both land grabs were preceded by years of information warfare, legal warfare, and “salami-slicing” tactics designed to slowly wear down the will of defenders and the international community. In both cases the objectives sought (a portion of Crimea, and desolate island features in the South China Sea) simply did not infringe upon the perceived core national interests of powers capable of halting their advance. In both instances it was less a case of “we simply cannot stop them” than of “no one cares to stop them.” Even now, in the context of great power competition, there remains a general lack of interest by Western powers in expelling Russian forces from Crimea. Moreover the completeness of the fait accompli is questionable. Even with the lackluster military support provided by Western nations, Russia finds itself frozen in conflict, taxing an already depleted domestic economy.²⁶ The tactical speed it exhibited in grabbing Crimean territory has now given way to the challenge of maintaining operational pace in the face of flagging domestic support.