Emerging Technologies And The Future Of Warfare

The author in this book, describes the RMA hypothesis popular in defence circles, and places it in historical perspective by reviewing military revolutions.

Artificial intelligence and the future of warfare sketches a clear and sobering picture of the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the digitized battlefield, broadening our understanding of critical questions facing decisions-makers today.

A monumental, groundbreaking work, now in paperback, that shows how technological and strategic revolutions have transformed the battlefield Combining gripping narrative history with wide-ranging analysis, War Made New focuses on four "revolutions" in military affairs and describes how inventions ranging from gunpowder to GPS-guided air strikes have remade the field of battle—and shaped the rise and fall of empires. War Made New begins with the Gunpowder Revolution and explains warfare's evolution from ritualistic, drawn-out engagements to much deadlier events, precipitating the rise of the modern nation-state. He next explores the triumph of steel and steam during the Industrial Revolution, showing how it powered the spread of European colonial empires. Moving into the twentieth century and the Second Industrial Revolution, Boot examines three critical clashes of World War II to illustrate how new technology such as the tank, radio, and airplane ushered in terrifying new forms of warfare and the rise of centralized, and even totalitarian, world powers. Finally, Boot focuses on the Gulf War, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the Iraq War—arguing that even as cutting-edge technologies have made America the greatest military power in world history, advanced communications systems have allowed decentralized, "irregular" forces to become an increasingly significant threat.

This book offers a multidisciplinary analysis of emerging technologies and their impact on the new international security environment across three levels of analysis. While recent technological developments, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics and automation, have the potential to transform international relations in positive ways, they also pose challenges to peace and security and raise new ethical, legal and political questions about the use of power and the role of humans in war and conflict. This book makes a contribution to these debates by considering emerging technologies across three levels of analysis: (1) the international system (systemic level) including the balance of power; (2) the state and its role in international affairs and how these technologies are redefining and challenging the state’s traditional roles; and (3) the relationship between the state and society, including how these technologies affect individuals and non-state actors. This provides specific insights at each of these levels and generates a better understanding of the connections between the international and the local when it comes to technological advance across time and space The chapters examine the implications of these technologies for the balance of power, examining the strategies of the US, Russia, and China to harness AI, robotics and automation (and how their militaries and private corporations are responding); how smaller and less powerful states and non-state actors are adjusting; the political, ethical and legal implications of AI and automation; what these technologies mean for how war and power is understood and utilized in the 21st century; and how these technologies diffuse power away from the state to society, individuals and non-state actors. This volume will be of much interest to students of international security, science and technology studies, law, philosophy, and international relations.

Technology has always played a central role in international politics; it shapes the ways states fight during wartime and compete during peacetime. Today, rapid advancements have contributed to a widespread sense that the world is again on the precipice of a new technological era. Emerging technologies have inspired much speculative commentary, but academic scholarship can improve the discussion with disciplined theory-building and rigorous empirics. This book aims to contribute to the debate by exploring the role of technology – both military and non-military – in shaping international security. Specifically, the contributors to this edited volume aim to generate new theoretical insights into the relationship between technology and strategic stability, test them with sound empirical methods, and derive their implications for the coming technological age. This book is very novel in its approach. It covers a wide range of technologies, both old and new, rather than emphasizing a single technology. Furthermore, this volume looks at how new technologies might affect the broader dynamics of the international system rather than limiting the focus to a stability. The contributions to this volume walk readers through the likely effects of emerging technologies at each phase of the conflict process. The chapters begin with competition in peacetime, move to deterrence and coercion, and then explore the dynamics of crises, the outbreak of conflict, and war escalation in an environment of emerging technologies. The chapters in this book, except for the Introduction and the Conclusion, were originally published in the Journal of Strategic Studies.

Emerging technologies have always played an important role in armed conflict. From the crossbow to cyber capabilities, technology that could be weaponized to create an advantage over an adversary has inevitably found its way into military arsenals for use in armed conflict. The weaponization of emerging technologies, however, raises challenging legal issues with respect to the law of armed conflict. As States continue to develop and exploit new technologies, how will the law of armed conflict address the use of these technologies on the battlefield? Is existing law sufficient to regulate new technologies, such as cyber capabilities, autonomous weapons systems, and artificial intelligence? Have emerging technologies fundamentally altered the way we should understand concepts such as law-of-war precautions and the principle of distinction? How can we ensure compliance and accountability in light of technological advancement? This volume of the Lieber Studies explores these critical questions while highlighting the legal challenges--and opportunities--presented by the use of emerging technologies on the battlefield.

This book explores and analyzes emerging innovations within today’s most cutting-edge science and technology (S&T) areas, which are cited as carrying the potential to revolutionize governmental structures, economies, and international security. Some have argued that such technologies will yield doomsday scenarios and that military applications of such technologies have even greater potential than nuclear weapons to radically change the balance of power. As the United States looks to the future – whether dominated by extremist groups co-opting advanced weapons in the world of globalized non-state actors or states engaged in persistent regional conflicts in areas of strategic interest – new adversaries and new science and technology will emerge. Choices made today that affect science and technology will impact how ably the US can and will respond. Chapters within the book look at the changing strategic environment in which security operations are planned and conducted; how these impact science and technology policy choices made today; and predictions of how science and technology may play a beneficial or deleterious role in the future. Some game changing technologies have received global attention, while others may be less well known; the new technologies discussed within this proposal, as well as future discoveries, may significantly alter military capabilities and may generate new threats against military and civilian sectors.