Archive for the ‘war’ Category

Kneecapping AI to maintain a bloated military bureaucracy

Posted: August 22, 2020 by ng36b in Uncomfortable Truths, war
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One of two prototypes purchased by the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office for its Ghost Fleet Overlord program, aimed at fielding an autonomous surface ship capable of launching missiles. (U.S. Defense Department)

Military drones are popping up everywhere. In Afghanistan and Iraq, we became used to seeing Predator drones flying around with Hellfire missiles, flown from bases in the United States and providing a near 24/7 watch for opportunities to blow up terrorists. The latest batch of drones are now becoming increasingly autonomous, meaning they can not just think for themselves, but react faster than a human and respond to an ever changing environment. In the news recently was how Artificial Intelligence that beat a top US Air Force F-16 pilot, and previously the Navy discussed how its Sea Hunter would operate as an autonomous missile barge.

But I’m not here to talk about technology, not only because details are classified, but also because any technological issues will solve themselves over time. Human engineers are pretty smart. If some piece of code doesn’t work, we’ll find a solution. Technology isn’t holding us back in the realm of military drones. People are, and unfortunately people are the real weakness, as emphasized in this quote:

“AI matters because using drones as ‘loyal wingmen’ is a key part of future air power developments,” said Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia via email. “It’s less important as a fighter pilot replacement.”

If we build an AI that is smarter, faster and all around better than top notch fighter pilots, why on earth would we not replace pilots? The Army just raised the minimum contract for pilots to 10 years, which in military human resources speak means that they can’t keep these people in. All the military services struggle to retain people with skills like flying, electronic warfare, cyber, and anything else that requires significant technical expertise. Using AI to fill these billets gives the military significantly more flexibility in where it sends its manpower. This manpower can be used to lead squadrons of drone aircraft, or on people who lead armies of online bots in cyberspace. It’ll require more training and expertise, and certainly a culture change in how we view people in the military.

Besides being short sighted about replacing people, the other weakness we are going to find with autonomous systems is that we do a terrible job writing out our intentions. I worked with some highly skills folks on the Navy’s autonomous sea systems, and one of the biggest challenges was turning what we call “Commanders Intent” into code. If a vessel is out looking for an enemy, its easy to say “Kill this type of enemy when you see them.” It’s harder to give instructions like “Taking the current geopolitical events into consideration, make a judgement call on whether to shoot down an adversary aircraft.”

To put it bluntly, what does that even mean? The military throws around the idea of “Commanders Intent” like its some sort of magic that springs forth from someone’s brain. In reality, its a lot of processing happening in the back of your mind that constantly takes in data from the world around you. The military benefits from having extraordinary people that stick around long enough to reach command. These extraordinary people find ways to take an ugly bureaucracy devoted toward mediocrity and somehow make it work. As our military bureaucracy has grown, this has gotten more difficult. Extraordinary people are less likely to stick around to fight a bureaucracy devoted to maintaining status quo, especially when business is happy to snap them up and pay them more. Autonomous systems give us a chance to drop much of the bureaucracy and focus on intent, strategy and “end state,” or what we want the world to look like at the end. If we don’t embrace this change, we’re missing out on the truly revolutionary changes that autonomy gives us.

Future warfare is going to feature autonomous systems, and its going to highlight how weak human beings are in a variety of areas. Rather than fight this, the military should embrace autonomous systems as a chance to recapitalize manpower. It should also begin training its future commanders, flag and general officers, about how to actually write out their intent, and stop relying on chance to give us great commanders. We can’t let a military bureaucracy devoted to maintaining a status quo on manpower stifle the massive innovation that AI offers us.

This post represents the views of the author and not the views of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

AFRICOM headquarters in Africa…why not?

Posted: August 15, 2020 by ng36b in News/opinion, Uncomfortable Truths, war
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AFRICOM HQ building, from https://www.dabangasudan.org

The US military in Europe is in a bit of a shakeup. After years of tolerating Germany’s low military investment, President Trump announced that 12,000 troops would move out of Germany, many of them moving to Poland, which has been investing in its military. Because of the “Orange Man Bad” complex, somehow the fact that this saves us money over the long term, is part of continued investment in a country that will be purchasing more US energy resources, and places troops closer to Russia as a deterrent seems to be lost in the media. It’s a smart move economically and strategically.

The shift of forces includes moving the US European Command headquarters to Belgium and the US Africa Command headquarters to…somewhere. But not Africa, according to a few news sources. When AFRICOM stood up, placing it in Stuttgart initially made sense, since many of the staff members came from the EUCOM staff. But AFRICOM’s lack of presence in Africa isn’t smart long term. The US should be more invested in Africa, and moving AFRICOM to Africa would help that investment.

Where in Africa? The best spots are Nigeria, Morocco, Ethiopia or Liberia. Nigeria is a long-term powerhouse in Africa. Not only will it become one of the world’s most populous nations, but it has a positive view of the US and has a democratic government. Morocco was the first nation in the world to recognize the US and we’ve maintained friendly relations for most of our countries history. Ethiopia is another democratic powerhouse in Africa. Liberia, while not as developed as the other three, is still a good choice given its close history with the US.

There is some concern about “militarizing” Africa, but I contend that’s a poor argument. Did we militarize Europe by stationing troops there, or did we stop a continued trend of larger and larger wars that seemed to erupt between European powers? We’ve had a longer peace since the US stationed troops in Europe. Other nations are directly moving into Africa, and while some seem altruistic (like France), others are not aligned with the US (Russia and China). We can’t counter these large investments with minimal footprints.

There are plenty of good options for AFRICOM to be in Africa. Africa is only going to get more important in coming years. We’re either all in on Africa, or we cede that ground to China.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Hope or Hezbollah?

Posted: August 11, 2020 by chrisharper in war
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By Christopher Harper

For nearly a decade, I lived and traveled into Beirut—a time that molded me into a journalist.

In Beirut, you worked hard and played hard. Almost every day, journalists went into a dangerous city, where many thousands of people died, and almost every night, they retired to the bar at the Commodore Hotel.

My wife Elizabeth and I arrived in Beirut in 1979, where we lived for two years. After that, we spent many days back in Lebanon during a variety of news stories, including the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. We returned in 2011 during the Arab uprising to see Beirut had risen from the ashes, with restaurants and businesses booming from an economic resurgence.

Although we both loved the city and made friends with whom we remained close for many years, recent events did not surprise us.

Lebanon has existed for decades without a government. When it had a good leader like Rafic Harari, a businessman and prime minister, he ended up dead in 2005 as the victim of assassination. Ironically, last week’s explosion occurred just as a United Nations tribunal was set to determine the guilt or innocence of those suspected of killing Harari. See https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-tribunal-hariri-idUSKCN2512IC

For the past year, Lebanese have been protesting the current government for its corruption and inability to deal with day-to-day issues, such as garbage collection. As an example, my former colleague can only received $500 a month from his ABC News and government pensions because the government has placed severe restrictions on the country’s banking system.

Although the Lebanese president, Michel Aoun, is a Christian—as delineated in the country’s constitution–he is beholden to Hezbollah, the Shia militia, for his power. He remains in power despite the resignation of the prime minister and the cabinet.

Hezbollah has links to Iran and Hamas and is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Hezbollah was behind the 1983 attack against the U.S. Marines that left more than 200 dead and the hijacking of TWA 847 in 1985 that left a U.S. sailor dead. The group has a vast militia, which rivals the country’s army, and has engaged in a variety of battles with Israel.

More important for Lebanon, Hezbollah helped create a corrupt and negligent political system that created the lack of enforcement at the port and allowed the storage of 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate.

Moreover, a new report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies asserts that Hezbollah siphons off billions of dollars from around the world. Money is laundered through Lebanon, allowing Hezbollah to function as a kind of parallel state, one with its financial and social services. See https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2020/08/04/crisis-in-lebanon/

When my wife and I lived in Lebanon, the country embraced the song “I’ll Will Survive” as it national anthem. The resignation of the government may be a step toward survival, but Hezbollah still has a choke hold on the country. No survival will occur until the organization no longer holds significant power in Lebanon.

Was I right on Russia?

Posted: August 1, 2020 by ng36b in Uncomfortable Truths, war
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Russian consulate in Svalbard, which looks like my kid built it out of Legos. From The Barents Observer.

Russia continues to make big news that stays under the wave tops of COVID-19 news. I’ve written about Russia many times in the past, and made a few predictions:

I’ve also said that Russia would never give up footholds in Ukraine and Georgia. So, how is that playing out? Sadly, I’m not far off.

Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan is facing a spread of COVID-19 in its country. Who has lined up to help? Russia, of course. They’ve done this while trying to find ways to boost Turkmenistan’s economy, all while Turkmenistan gets closer to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which is Russia’s stand-in for the USSR.

Belarus

Belarus recently arrested a number of Russians that it accuses of inciting riots ahead of its 8 August election. Not surprisingly, Russia asked those people be released. There was in fact a large rise in the democratic movement that seeks to unseat the 5-term Belarussian President Lukashenko. With a soon-to-be contested election and shared border with Russia, what could go wrong?

Svalbard

Russia has started the messaging train once again for Svalbard, this time demanding that Norway comply with Russian demands on Svalbard. Which they still call Spitsbergen, just to make the Norwegians angry.

Georgia

Russia continues to manufacture a “border crisis” in Georgia. It’s slowly stopping any aid from reaching the breakaway sections while not removing troops in accordance with the cease fire.

Russia isn’t pulling any “crazy Ivan” moves. It knows that the US and Europe just don’t care enough (with the exception of Norway in Svalbard) about Georgia, Belarus and Turkmenistan. If Americans can barely find these places on a map, they certainly won’t care enough to risk their sons and daughters in the military to save them. In truth, if we want to stop this, we have to ask ourselves if we’re willing to go to war with Russia to save some territory in Georgia. And because the Russians think we won’t, they aren’t likely to stop taking that territory.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

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