Disruptive Warfare - 6179 - Yogi Shivdev G

Disruptive
warfare
BY
YOGI SHIVDEV G
11171816179
IIIrd YEAR ECE C
What is disruptive technology? And how does it apply to the defence industry?
The term disruptive technology was coined by Harvard Business School
professor Clayton M. Christensen in his 1997 best-selling book, The
Innovator’s Dilemma. Christensen categorised new technology as being of two
MILITARY sorts, either sustaining or disruptive. Sustaining technology is the gradual
development of existing technology. Disruptive technology does the opposite,
ADVANTAG it revolutionises the field, but comes with risks attached because it is new,
untested and initially limited in scope. Hence the innovator’s dilemma.
E AND THE
DILEMMA Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell disrupted the way we communicate when he
invented the telephone; and British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee
OF disrupted it again when he invented the World Wide Web. Now the military and
defence industry are facing their own disruptive technology challenges and
TECHNOL dilemmas.
OGICAL
INNOVATI In a report for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), Ben
FitzGerald and Shawn Brimley defined disruptive technology in the defence
ON sector as “a technology or a set of technologies applied to a relevant problem in
a manner that radically alters the symmetry of military power between
competitors” which then “immediately outdates the policies, doctrines and
organization of all actors.”
Need to Study Disruptive Technologies
•Given India’s declining defence spending, persistently low investment in R&D and a small defence
industrial base; there is a need to examine how these emerging Disruptive Technologies could shape
the security environment and its military modernisation strategy. India faces complex threats and
challenges that range from conventional, nuclear to sub-conventional spectrum. Both China and
Pakistan have reported setting aside significant national effort in developing Disruptive Technologies
such as cyber, information warfare (IW), artificial intelligence (AI) and unmanned autonomous
systems. Commercially accessible technology advancements can be adapted for military use to
advance Disruptive objectives[6]. Off the shelf available drones have been weaponised by ISIS and
used as a potent hybrid threat.
•Trends in Disruptive Technology and Military Strategy. Recent years have witnessed dramatic
changes in the global technology environment due to their rapid advancements and the rate of its
diffusion. Innovation today is increasingly driven by the commercial sector and produces
technologies that must be adapted for defence purposes after production. This evolving interlinkage
has been explained in the figure alongside highlighting three crucial business linkages namely
Monopoly Suppliers, Current Defence Suppliers and Commercial Business (Dual-use technologies)
[7].
•US Army Already Planning the
Disruptive Technology Battlefield
•The US Army Research Lab
(ARL) brought together a group of
military strategists and researchers
to try and anticipate the sorts of
disruption that technological
revolutions of the future will bring,
with a target in mind: tactical-level
land warfare in 2050. Their
conclusions were that emerging
and yet-to-emerge technologies
would require the wholesale
reinvention of current tactics and
doctrine.
BATTLEFIELD
RECONNAISSANCE
•The aim:
• the exploration of the future battlefield;
• receiving the information on the enemy's force
• structure, its location, and potential.
•Means:
• unmanned air vehicles;
• radars;
• sonars;
• space satellites.
MILITARY ROBOTS
•Robots play a constantly increasing role in
warfare – they are unmanned aerial
reconnaissance and combat vehicles, demining
robots, (e.g. “SPIKER”, “RASP”), universal
military robots capable of substituting soldiers
(“Warrior 700”), robots making corridors in
mine fields etc. Nevertheless, the ethical issues
on the applications of robots in warfare and
the problems of the latters’ consistency with
Geneva conventions appear already.
FUTURE ARMAMENT
PROJECTS
• Futuristic armament projects:
• “God rods”;
• “Metal storm”;
• Powerful electromagnetic guns;
• High power chemical laser;
• Cavitation torpedo.
•This was only a few examples of futuristic
projects. Some of them will be implemented
and others probably not, but in general their
ideas are actual not only for warfare. We
would like to believe that such technologies
will never be used according to their direct
destination, but will be applied by mankind for
peaceful purposes.
Bot Swarms and Mixed
Teams
•Robots will be able to act in self-
organising collaborative swarms in the
same way that the soldier of today acts
in teams. Swarms will involve systems
of varying degrees of freedom, from
remote controlled to autonomous, and
act dynamically according to prescribed
rules of engagement. Swarms and
individual robots would deploy to carry
out a variety of tasks from independent
offensive action to defensive shields
and early warning sensing outliers.
However, researchers believe that the
main tactical unit of the future will be a
mixed human-robot team and that this
will require fundamentally changing the
human soldier.
Ubiquitous Robots
With the increasing use of unmanned systems, such

as unattended ground sensors, small unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs), and fire-and-forget missiles, we are
already seeing the trend in this direction and the ARL
only thinks that it will become more pronounced, but
with the important qualification of becoming
more autonomous. Simply called robots, these
autonomous entities would range in size from micro
units the size of insects to self-driving vehicles capable
of troop transport, but also be virtual entities
operating within cyberspace. All these systems would
be networked and collaborative, and integrated with
human systems
The Disruptive Tech Soldier
•The battlefield of 2050 will be a lonely place. Gone are
the massed armies, instead we will see fewer humans
on the battlefield, but more technologically enhanced
ones – “augmented humans”. The ARL sees this as
extending the physical and mental abilities of the
soldier, improving his understanding and interpretation
of the environment, and improving communication
with other super soldiers, “unenhanced humans” and
robotic systems.
•Augmentation could see soldiers with exoskeletons,
multiple implants, even genetic engineering to create
seamless access to sensing and cognitive
enhancements. According to the ARL, “The presence of
super humans on the battlefield in the 2050 timeframe
is highly likely because the various components needed
to enable this development already exist and are
undergoing rapid evolution.”
Automated Decision Making
•At the tactical level the 2050 battlespace will also be
more qualitatively automated. Autonomous
processes will make many of the decisions made by
humans today. These “decision agents” would be
integral to all C2, IPB, ISR and BDA processes, filtering
information, fact checking and disseminating, as well
as deploying sensors and dynamically evolving
communication paths.
Cyber Warfare
•As machines and IT systems come to dominate the
battlefield of the future, so will cyber warfare adapt
and develop to disrupt them. The ARL highlighted
dynamic hacking and spoofing as a prominent feature
of the future tactical environment due to the fact that
the so-called “attack surface” of robot units will be
large, offering a large target to cyber attackers. There
is increasing interest in research into such attacks,
including the automation of reverse engineering and
vulnerability analysis. And as human soldiers become
robotised, they will also become direct targets of
cyber attacks.
Disruptive Technology Weapons
•The defence industry’s
development of disruptive
technologies will not only see more
robots and more enhanced human
on the battlefield, but will also
change the nature of the weapons
used, meaning new forms of attack
and defence, such as directed-
energy weapons (DEWs) and force
fields.
Disruption Will be the
New Norm for Defence
•As envisaged by the US Army,
future warfighting will be
dominated by information
technology and as the speed of
technological development
accelerates it will revolutionise
warfare and competitive edge
will dominate the state-level
arms race. As traditionally the
Conclusion. deliverers of kinetic effects,
Disruptive Technologies are often viewed as a radical rather than technological
challenge to existing technologies and initially fail to innovation, this increased
meet military requirements in short/mid-term horizon. competition will force the
However, most of the Disruptive Technologies have dual- military into greater co-operation
with commercial civilian industry
use and are being driven by commercial entities. An
to seize and maintain the tactical
overarching national mission to identify the needs and advantage.
congruence of these products into military applications
must form part of the Indian Armed Forces
modernisation strategy.
Thank
You

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Disruptive

With the increasing use of unmanned systems, such

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