Emerging Critical Technologies and Security in the Asia-Pacific

R. Bitzinger,Kenneth A. Loparo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137461285
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica militare

The proliferation of advanced militarily relevant technologies in the Asia-Pacific over the past few decades has been a significant, and perhaps even alarming, development. This volume addresses how such technologies may affect military capabilities and military advantage in the region.

1

Emerging Technologies and Military Capability

Andrew D. James

“Emerging technologies” are the subject of considerable interest to academics and practitioners not only in the field of international security but also in the fields of economics and business. Emerging technologies are said to have the potential to change “the rules of the game” whether that “game” is the balance of military power between security actors or the balance of competitive advantage in a market between incumbent companies and new entrants.

By “emerging technologies,” this chapter will mean new technologies that are at an early stage in their development. Their emergent nature means that they are characterized by considerable uncertainty: will their apparent technological promise be fulfilled? How long will it take to develop them to reach a sufficient state of maturity that they have practical application (and how much will that cost?). How might they be most profitably utilized? Examples of the effects of the emergence of new technologies on business are many and varied. Take the dramatic fall of Eastman Kodak. The dominant company in the photo-graphic industry for a century was swept away in a matter of a decade by the emergence of digital imaging technology and the capacity of new entrants to exploit that technology in new products. Emerging technologies have had similar impacts on military power. During the Second World War, the emergence of radar had a dramatic impact not least in the defense of the UK. during the Battle of Britain and the conduct of anti-submarine warfare in the North Atlantic.¹ During the Cold War, emerging computer technologies, electronic component technologies (not least semiconductors), and propulsion technologies—all sponsored at the time by the military—each had significant impacts on the performance of Cold War weapons systems and perceptions of the Cold War balance of military power.²

The aim of this chapter is to examine the nature of emerging technologies and their potential impact upon military capability. This chapter is structured as follows: The next section provides some examples of emerging technologies that have been identified as having potential implications for military capability in the future. This section also discusses why emerging technologies are of concern in the military context and the threats and opportunities that they can pose. The following section defines “emerging technologies” and makes the distinction between weapon systems, technologies, and innovation. The chapter then introduces the notion of the “technology life cycle” to explain the nature of emerging technologies before introducing a key feature of emerging technologies, namely uncertainty. This leads into a discussion of the reasons why it is difficult to make accurate ex ante assessments of the rate and timing of a technology’s development. The chapter goes on to consider the link between emerging technologies and military capabilities and the importance of institutional factors and the acquisition system in determining the speed of adoption of emerging technologies. The final sections of the chapter consider the sources of emerging technologies of military relevance in a global technological environment characterized by “Joy’s Law” (i.e. “No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else”), and some implications for the Asia-Pacific.

Emerging technologies and the military

Visions of the military future almost always have a strong technological element. A review of futures studies conducted by the likes of the UK Ministry of Defence Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC)’s Strategic Trends Programme, the US National Intelligence Council Global Trends Program, the French Ministry of Defence and the European Defence Agency shows that emerging technologies feature prominently.³ Advances in microsystems, nanotechnology, unmanned systems, communications and sensors, digital technology, bio and material sciences, energy and power technologies, and neuro-technologies are all identified as likely to have important applications in the defense sector. Cyber security and cyber warfare will grow ever more significant. The UK MOD DCDC’s analysis is typical:

Trend analysis indicates that the most substantial technological developments are likely to be in the areas of: ICT, sensor/network technology, behavioural and cognitive science, biotechnology, materials, and the production, storage and distribution of energy. Advances in nanotechnologies will underpin many breakthroughs. Developments in individual areas are likely to be evolutionary, but where disciplines interact, such as in the combination of cognitive science and ICT to produce advanced decision-support tools, developments may be revolutionary, resulting in the greatest opportunities for a novel or breakthrough application . . . [S]ome [emerging technologies] may have catastrophic effects or present potential threats, perhaps through perverse applications, such as the use of genetic engineering to produce designer bio-weapons. (pp. 135–136)

Emerging technologies matter to the military because new technologies can present a threat or opportunity and yet they are veiled in uncertainty. The military understands the potential of new technologies but—like its counterparts in civilian business strategy—the uncertainty that characterizes emerging technologies means that they cannot know which emerging technologies are likely to mature to have profound impacts, how long that maturation will take, nor the technological trajectory. Most emerging technologies represent incremental improvements to what went before and enhance the competencies of the military along dimensions that they have traditionally valued. This kind of technological development presents relatively few challenges to the military, although their insertion into existing platforms can be difficult (as we shall see). In contrast, it is new technologies that are radical, competence destroying, and create new sources of military advantage along dimensions not traditionally valued or poorly understood by the military that tend to be the focus of attention and concern.

Fundamentally, these types of new technologies can change the environment in which military forces operate. A radical new technology can change the balance of power or create new forms of insecurity. The most dramatic illustration of the impact of new technology was the Allied development of the atomic and hydrogen bombs during the Second World War and the subsequent development of similar capability by the Soviet Union. In turn, the development of inertial navigation technologies added the prospect of accuracy to devastating lethality.

New technologies can redefine the way that warfare is conducted or create new types of warfare. Technology and military doctrine are closely coupled and interdependent.⁴ Blitzkrieg, the AirLand Battle and Carrier Strike are but three examples of how new technologies combined with organizational change led to new ways of warfare.⁵ The Internet and its widespread application have created the possibility of a new form of warfare—cyber warfare—that was hardly imaginable 20 years ago.

Equally, the significance of an emerging technology also depends in part on whether it is competence enhancing or competence destroying. An emerging technology that undermines existing training, equipment, doctrine and so forth will have a more dramatic impact on the military than one that complements or enhances existing military competencies. New technologies can render existing defense systems obsolete. Cavalry on the Western Front is but one example (although it was only the carnage of battle that brought this home to military planners).

At the same time, a new technology can provide new and more effective military capability. Precision munitions, not least the use of GPS technology, is a good example. Increased accuracy has led to a reduction in the number of aircraft required to attack targets and the substitution of lighter fighter-bombers for heavy bombers.⁶

By and large, attention has tended to focus on radical new-to-the-world technologies yet novel combinations of existing and mature technologies can also have profound military implications. Schumpeterian thinking emphasizes that innovation can be new combinations of existing technologies and stresses the potential significance of combining existing technologies in a new use. The DCDC Strategic Trends study identifies the rapid asymmetric insertion and exploitation of commercial technologies as a significant concern. Indeed, the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan provides graphic illustrations of how such tactics can have devastating effects. The contrast between the rates of combina-torial innovation of this kind has posed challenges to the traditional defense acquisition process. In the future, such developments may present ever-greater challenges to the traditional, long-term requirement and acquisition cycles.⁷

Defining emerging technologies

Before going any further, it is important to define what is—and what is not—meant by “emerging technologies.” The UK’s Defence Technology Plan defines emerging technologies as follows: “Emerging technologies can be characterized as: immature technologies in the early proof-of-principle stages; more mature technologies but where a novel defense application has been identified.” While this definition appears clear and straightforward (and this chapter will use it), it is the case that a feature of much of the discussion of emerging technologies is a lack of clarity as to the subject of analysis.

“Emerging” is used variously to examine technologies that analysts regard as potentially emerging in the far future (e.g., the latest UK MOD DCDC programme report looks out to 2040 and consciously examines what technological developments may occur). In contrast, “emerging” is sometimes used to describe technologies that have reached a stage that we know that they will find application in a weapon system in the near future (e.g., many of the “emerging” IT technologies discussed by Bruce Berkowitz in his 2003 book are now in military service, at least with the US military⁸). Sometimes analysts conflate the far future and the soon-to-be fielded as “emerging technologies” giving the impression to the unwary that (true) emerging technologies on the technological far horizon are as certain to be fielded as those in late stage development. This raises important questions about timing that are critical to discussions about emerging technologies. It also raises issues about uncertainty. Both issues will be discussed later in this chapter.

A further source of ambiguity in discussions about emerging technologies is what is meant by “technologies.” Technologies can be defined as “The ensemble of theoretical and practical knowledge, know-how, skills and artefacts that are used . . . to develop, produce and deliver . . . products and services.”⁹ This definition is concerned with technology and business but it holds equally for military technology. Military technology combines “theoretical and practical knowledge”— some may be science based but much will be engineering knowledge, including “know-how and skills”—individual and collective knowledge that arises within defense through “learning by doing,” team working, culture and so forth and “artefacts”—tangible assets such as capital equipment, manufacturing facilities and so forth. It is worth noting that following this definition much of the core “technology” that underpins defense is intangible and human.

There is an important distinction here that is sometimes missed by military analysts of emerging technologies (business analysts miss this too). The distinction is between technologies and products/services (in the case of the military, we mean weapons, their delivery systems and the infrastructure that supports military capability). Technologies underpin weapon systems but are distinct from them. Militaries want “capability,” not technologies per se. Consequently, how emerging technologies and other factors are combined into military capability should be the critical consideration not the emerging technologies themselves (this is an important point that we shall return to later).

The decision to invest in an emerging technology in the hope of military capability advantage depends on very many factors, not least the perception of the threat environment. The Cold War was different to today. The military needs of forces in Iraq and now Afghanistan have brought home the fact that emerging technologies are only of military significance if they can be matured and fielded quickly enough to make a difference to current combat operations. Investments in emerging technologies that may only have application in 30 years’ time and are characterized by uncertainty have always had lower priority. Constrained defense budgets in the UK, Europe and the United States mean that this is likely to be even more the case in the future. Indeed, this speaks to the need for greater agility in the defense acquisition process. The military technological innovation timescale that emerged during the Cold War means that development times of 20 years for major weapon systems became the norm. New designs of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) appeared in Afghanistan on a monthly basis. Changes in cyber threats can occur just as quickly. This requires reform of the defense innovation process to promote greater agility and reduce time-to-fielding of new equipment.

Another important point needs to be made and that is the danger of analysis of emerging technologies degenerating into some form of technological determinism. The idea that emergence of a new technology leads inevitably to change and that technology is necessary and sufficient to drive innovation in military capability has been widely discredited by those who study innovation. The study of military innovation emphasizes the critical r...