New age wars: a revolution in warfare or not?: Voice of Russia

New age wars: the question is ? do we have some sort of revolution in warfare right now or not? And are those conflicts, which we have now, something completely different from previous. My opinion is that of course the recent conflicts have some new features and some technological improvements. But it is not enough to say that we did come to the new nature of conflict or warfare.

What I mean ? for example, the war with terror. Many countries faced this terror or sabotage attacks throughout history, like the resistance of native Americans against the European colonists and many other examples. The conflicts of Arab Spring, but the history has also many examples of revolutions supported from abroad. The revolution in Russia in 1917 is an arguable example, but still.

Some new technologies, but local conflicts throughout the whole 20th century were a shooting range for new weapons. And for example many experts say that unmanned aerial vehicles or drones are kind of revolutionary, but first of all drones are not something completely new on the battlefield. The first attempts of using of remote controlled airplanes were during the World War I. The UAV were intensely used for reconnaissance missions during many conflicts of the Cold War, like the War in Vietnam.

Of course drones are used much more often but not well enough to say that they completely changed the nature of nowadays warfare because today drones do pretty the same job on the battlefields as manned aircraft. And pretty the same situation is with all other kinds of new weapons.

So, do we have a revolution in warfare right now? I?d say that we have evolution of warfare rather than revolution of it, because if we look wider at the topic we should answer the question when was the previous revolution in warfare. All previous revolutions in warfare happened when there were two conditions. The first one is a strong demand for military superiority over major powers. And secondly, there was a revolution in the field of technologies, especially in industrial production.

For example, industrial revolution of the end of the 19th century and demands of major powers of the time for redistribution of the controlled territories, of colonies, led to the military revolution of the World War I ? the admission of main conscript armies and new technologies like war plain tanks, submarines, chemical weapons and so on, and a few decades later development of mass production industry and mass media like radio. And ideological ambitions of main powers led to the warfare revolution of the World War II with Blitzkrieg, carpet bombing, electronic warfare, jet aircraft, rockets and finally development of nuclear weapons.

Do we have a revolution in warfare right now? We should now answer two questions. Do we have any technological breakthroughs which revolutionize warfare or battlefield? And do we have the will of most powerful countries to introduce it in the armed forces, not as sort of prototypes but on a large scale? Of course we have some pretty new technologies, like drones I?ve mentioned before, and malfunction software, like viruses and worms. There are also some very promising developments.

I think the most promising development is command control and reconnaissance systems (C4ISR). It is a term of the US military ? Command, Control, Communication, Computers Intelligence and Reconnaissance. It is a tactical control system which controls the armed forces in the real time process and gives some significant advantages against an enemy who lacks such technology. There are also some promising technologies like electromagnetic weapons, hypersonic unmanned aircraft, different nanotechnology projects but all these technologies are a bit far from major deployment.

What about a political will of development and introducing all the stuff ? here we have some obstacles. Countries of the world, at least the most powerful and advanced, with few exceptions now enjoy the benefits of confident society. They just don?t want to fight each other, fortunately. Almost all modern wars are the so called intensity conflicts which more resemble colonial wars of the 19th century. A modern war between advanced countries, the so called high intensity conflicts, is a very expensive thing. And waging such war is something that only rich countries can afford without losing competition among the world economies. That is the first thing which effects military technology development in contrast to civil technology development.

The second reason is the absence of expressed military threat for the most advanced countries. The best example of a country with most advanced armed forces is the US. After the collapse of the Soviet system and dissolution of the Soviet Union the US lost their main contender in military technology development. As result, now the US has comfortable advantages in the most areas of military technology. They are far ahead the others in many technologies. It allows them to reduce many of their most advanced and most sophisticated programs, like the future generation F-22 raptor fighter or Seawolf submarine, or even cancel such programs at all. And they are still far ahead.

This is a factor which reduces the speed of military technological progress, it is something that prevents new global military revolution altogether. In my opinion it would be better to say that now we have not the revolution of warfare but rather evolution of warfare, and this is a continuation of the trend which started during the Cold War.

Of course there are some new, I would say, dimensions of conflict, like for example the use of malfunction software like viruses and worms which do not affect living things, personnel on the battlefield. There are some examples of using malware during the conflicts but not so many to say that using malware revolutionize the modern battlefield. Viruses and worms could provide conflicts with new dimensions, as I said, but I doubt that using malware can affect conflicts too much.

The armed forces of developed countries could provide their equipment and electronics with enough protection from all kinds of malware. It is just a matter of time and of will to deal with the threat. To my mind more common ways of electronic warfare, like GEMINI radar equipment could create much more problems for enemies on the battlefield, at least so far.

Sir, and if we look at the strategies that are being developed. Do I get it right that nowadays noncontact strategies are being looked at?

Well, noncontact battle is a long term trend because if you have no contacts with your enemy, you are likely not to have casualties. And therefore it is a long term trend and there is nothing too much new in this trend. Technological advance could provide military with some new options, like not to be engaged in direct combat. But this is long term trend and there is nothing new?

Yes, I understand. But what developments are taking place there, in that trend?

There are multiple developments. For example, as I said before, using drones, using new kinds of ammunition, new kinds of missiles, using command control and reconnaissance systems and there are also some promising technologies like hypersonic unmanned aircraft?

Which does not necessarily imply killing people, right?

Yes. For example, there is a very promising technology of electromagnetic weapons which does not affect living things but affects electronic equipment. Wars throughout the history were a competition of technology.

Back to the story of revolution or evolution of warfare, of course such situation is not eternal, I mean a quite slow technical progress. There are two reasons why the situation could change in the near future. The first one is China. China has just reached the military technology level of the late Soviet Union. And right now the Chinese are well enough behind the US, I mean technologically. But their advance is quite rapid and in the nearest future the Chinese can challenge the US in many areas of military technology. The States will receive a strong contender in military technology, like it was the Soviet Union in the military technology development. And again, they are doomed to accept this challenge, to pick up this glove.

The second reason is resources because the benefits of confident society need a lot of resources. But Earth resources are not endless and assume humankind face resource problems in a much greater degree than today, then the competition for these last resources may not be too much peaceful, especially for the resources of disputable territories like Arctic region or Antarctic region. That could lead to real 100% revolution of military technology and warfare.

What will it be ? satellites with laser or electromagnetic cannons like we saw in science fiction films, or something totally unpredictable on the current level of technology, like new types of weapons based on nanotechnology ? right now we can only guess, to be honest.

Sir, thank you so much. And just to remind you our guest speaker was Sergey Denisentsev ? expert at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies here in Moscow.

Source: http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_12_30/New-age-wars-a-revolution-in-warfare-or-not/

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