Tag Archive for: Drones

FPV drones: transitioning from sport to battle

It’s one thing for military personnel to hone skills with first-person view (FPV) drones in racing competitions. It’s quite another for them to transition to the complexities of the battlefield.

Drone racing has become a valued way for members of armed services, and not just Australia’s, to advance from a beginners’ level in using the little aircraft, which are revolutionising warfare.

But the battlefield is far more complex than the racing environment. Military drone pilots must be ready to fly under pressure, dealing with battlefield stresses and threats.

Australia should take note of evolution of the British armed force’s organisation for training drone operators: it’s now moving to bridge the gap.

FPV drones are attractive because they’re cheap, easy to build and fly and have a huge, supportive online community that shares knowledge. The open-source nature of their design also means they can be quickly adapted and improved, which is great for both racers and soldiers looking for a competitive edge.

In racing, military drone operators learn problem-solving and technical skills by designing, building, operating and maintaining drones and relevant equipment.

But even experienced FPV racing pilots are used to a controlled environment in which safety risks are minimised, letting them concentrate on flying the best possible course. FPV drone racing is a highly structured sport, with rules to manage risks related to the drones, pilots, tracks and environments.

Racing teams have the advantage of managing their own time, resources, training and support, shielding themselves from avoidable outside pressures. Safety measures reduce risks to pilots and ensure fair play.

But knowing how to fly a racing drone is just the first step toward using drones in the military. This is described as the difference between flying and fighting the aircraft.

Military pilots face chaotic situations where their control stations might be unsafe, radio frequencies might be jammed, visibility is limited and the drone might be carrying a lethal payload. On top of all that, the pilot bears the weight of responsibility for mission success or failure.

While racing pilots aim for precision to avoid obstacles on a known track, attack drone pilots need that same precision in unpredictable circumstances, where they may have only one chance to hit their target.

Drone flying, whether for sport or military applications, requires strong decision-making skills and the ability to solve problems quickly. Technically, pilots learn the performance limits of their equipment and how to adapt their drones and flying styles to different conditions.

Understanding the limitations of drone technology is important in both contexts, but especially in a military setting. This understanding is necessary for improving designs, increasing resilience and developing countermeasures against enemy drones. The adaptable nature of FPV drones allows for constant innovation and improvement, which is essential on the ever-changing battlefield.

In 2024, the British armed forces hosted an international drone racing tournament in London, featuring teams such as the championship-winning Australian Defence Force. Britain’s newly established jHub Drone Academy played a key role in organising the tournament and introducing British defence personnel to the sport.

The academy is expanding its training programs, moving beyond racing competitions to military exercises where British combat units compete and refine their drone skills in realistic battlefield scenarios, using both surveillance and attack drones.

The ongoing development of drone technology, coupled with realistic training scenarios such as those fostered by the jHub Drone Academy, is crucial for preparing military personnel to effectively use drones in modern warfare.

Late last year, the Australian Army officer Thomas Gash proposed such a framework for the ADF. The framework’s proposed pathway involved reshaping the ADF’s drone racing community into a military centre of excellence. This recent thought leadership will need to be analysed among the plethora of new capabilities currently being fielded by the ADF with a focus on how they complement the Australian army’s other lethality systems. Bridging the gap between sport and combat drone piloting is a normal process for the army, but it could be enhanced by the current talent pool of drone racing pilots.

The underexploited potential of Ukrainian defence tech

Western companies and entrepreneurs are largely missing a chance to invest in the thriving and innovative Ukrainian defence tech industry and take its experience back to their home markets.

Failure of foreign investors to put even modest sums into the Ukrainian defence industry also means that Western armed forces are missing out on rapid developments, for example in drone technology. Foreign drone programs developed in peacetime conditions don’t have the benefit of insights and innovation from the pressure-cooker of the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s own companies dominate its industry, with 1.5 million first-person-view drones built by Ukrainian firms in 2024. Yet Ukrainian producers would welcome further mutually beneficial cooperation with Western companies.

According to Brave1, a state-run innovation cluster, the number of defence tech startups it encompasses more than doubled in 2024 and now totals 1500. Some of these firms develop multiple products. Products include unjammable drones directed through fibre optic cords instead of radio signals; remotely-controlled machine gun turrets on uncrewed ground vehicles; and anti-drone drones, which intercept uncrewed Russian reconnaissance aircraft.

Although manufacturers must put Ukrainian defence needs first, they’re also looking at export markets and even civil applications for their products.

Take, for instance, the startup Farsight Vision. It combines a software platform with a tiny hardware device that together can quickly create a 3D model of an area from drone-captured footage. Such models allow unit commanders to keep up with the constantly changing terrain in their area of operations—something that satellite imagery fails to provide due to longer production cycles. At the same time, such 3D models have non-defence applications, including monitoring environmental changes in areas that are hard to access, or scouting locations for offshore construction projects.

2025 is likely to become a turning point for Ukrainian defence tech: startups will appear more slowly, and established firms will cooperate more. Smaller teams may be absorbed by bigger companies, leading to concentration and, thus, faster sharing of frontline experience.

Yet foreign investors’ commitment to the industry remains half-hearted.

Kyiv School Economics calculated that in 2024 US$25 million was invested in the Ukrainian defence tech industry by both Ukrainians and foreigners. In other words, all Ukrainian companies were able to attract four times less capital than Helsing, a German defence AI startup, got in its first investment round.

The chair of NATO’s Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, asked whether European investors were ‘stupid’, because they looked away from defence industry altogether.

To be fair, rethinking is underway, as more private money is directed into defence innovation globally. More investors now recognise that security, not other forms of wellbeing, will be the most important commodity in the coming quarter of the century.

Yet very little defence capital makes it to Ukraine, with most investors deterred by various misconceptions and some legitimate concerns. To them the Ukrainian startup ecosystem remains terra incognita. But local actors, including  Brave1 and funds already active in Ukraine, can help foreign private capital make the most of opportunities in Ukraine.

Finally, foreign-built drones have sometimes underperformed in Ukraine. A US producer said it had failed to anticipate the intensity of electronic warfare in the war. That failure prompted the company to scout for Ukrainian talent.

Without battlefield pressure, Western companies cannot innovate and respond to changing technology and techniques as quickly as Ukrainian firms do simply because they must.

On the other hand, those fast-moving, sleep-deprived Ukrainian innovators, constantly incorporating feedback from the frontlines into their tech, have no time for the cumbersome procurement procedures of Western defence ministries.

Thus, win-win partnerships can spring up. Ukrainian startups can bring fresh ideas while well-established foreign defence contractors use their experience with officialdom to export the technology into Western armed forces. Exposed to wartime industry, the foreign firms would themselves build expertise faster.

So far, they are missing the opportunity.

‘Battle-tested in Ukraine’ has become a marketing label in the arms industry. It can be applied more widely with greater cooperation between Ukrainian and Western companies.

How drone racing promotes battlefield FPV capability

The Australian Defence Force is a global leader in first-person view (FPV) drone racing, a sport that has attracted public attention and gone viral on social media. The ADF’s success in the field demonstrates how competitive military sport can be used to advance dual-use technology and nurture technological skills in the next generation.

Military capability and military sport have been linked for millennia, with soldiers competing in events such as the Olympic Pentathlon and the Military World Games to develop their skills in peacetime. Today, militaries use sports to forge international relationships, a key application of soft power.

FPV drone racing, one of the most recent examples of military sports, has emerged as a form of honing skills for a disruptive battlefield technology that can quickly enhance the situational awareness and firepower of individual soldiers and small combat elements. The little aircraft are cheaper and require less training than do more complex military-specification precision-guided weapons and autonomous systems.

Commercial camera drones and FPV drone racing were at first adapted for the battlefield by the Ukrainian military in response to shortage of precision-guided munitions and artillery rounds. The affordability, accessibility and ease of designing, building and flying drones have proliferated their use in conventional battlefield applications. They are effective as tools for disruption and provide opportunities for innovation to maintain combat advantage.

The Australian Army and British Army collaborated to assemble the first military drone racing teams in 2017 and 2018, and the inaugural Military International Drone Racing Tournament was held in Sydney in 2018. Since then, the ADF’s FPV drone racing pilots have remained undefeated, with consecutive wins in 2018, 2023 and 2024. The tournament brings together military FPV drone practitioners from around the world with the highest skills in designing, building and flying FPV racing drones. They compete in drone design, technology, pilot skills and teamwork. Most participating nations now have full-time pilots developing their military tactics, techniques and procedures; some of them are involved in the racing.

The ADF’s commitment to promoting FPV drone racing is enthusiastic, with its hashtag #SendIt! going viral across the movement. Its initiation of the international tournament in 2018 and the establishment of the ADF Drone Racing Association in 2023 are clear demonstrations of this commitment.

These initiatives illustrate how military sports programs can support the evolution of warfighting techniques and technology. They help ensure that ADF personnel remain competitive in drone racing, and have opportunities to learn and practise designing, building, flying, and repairing drones.

Racing tournaments encourage pilots to innovate in the quest for a drone design that delivers a winning performance. In many ways, the technology involved in FPV drone racing is an innovative application of the technology made affordable by commercial smartphones. Smartphone technology includes miniaturised batteries, microprocessors, high-definition cameras, small monitors, network communications and gyro-stabilised gravimeters. FPV racing drones are assembled from micro electric motors, electronic speed controllers, radio receivers, video transmitters, cameras and a flight controller integrated into a carbon fibre quadcopter frame. Thanks to the diversity of available components, racing pilots can hone their preferences for the most effective brands, software and technologies.

Drone racing tournaments also help pilots develop their flying skills. During a race, pilots control their custom-built FPV racing drones around a 3D obstacle racetrack. They wear FPV goggles to see the live video from the drone’s forward-facing camera and remotely manoeuvre the drone using electronic and radiofrequency systems. The video gives pilots an immersive experience so that they can see and understand where the drone needs to go. They decide on the flight control actions required to complete the race, sometimes recovering from unplanned mid-air collisions with other drones, the race gates and the ground.

Through its creation of FPV drone racing associations, the ADF is also highlighting the importance of building drones as a key skill that future generations should learn through science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) outreach programs. The pilots and teams visit schools, demonstrate at science festivals, career expos and airshows, and run drone racing boot camps for the ADF’s cadet and training organisations. Their message is clear: all STEM skills are required across the entire ADF, not just in drone operations.

While the ADF’s drone racing champions appear to simply relish winning at the sport, the main mission of the team lies in the innovation of drone technology and its application to the battlefield. The pilots’ success demonstrates how competitive military sports can be utilised to advance dual-use technology and promote STEM within the next generation, fostering innovation and disruptive thinking in current and future drone experts. #SendIt!

Editors’ picks for 2024: ‘The beauty of an 80 percent solution: lessons from the RQ-7B program’

Originally published on 26 July 2024.

As so often, the Australian Defence Force wanted the exquisite solution. It wanted uncrewed battlefield reconnaissance aircraft of a design that wasn’t operational anywhere and would achieve performance that other countries didn’t have.

And the acquisition led nowhere—except to prompt a successful replacement effort that gave the ADF a powerful lesson in the merits of toning down requirements to get something that is good enough and can go into service fast enough.

The lesson has been formalised. Defence now defines the two key concepts in its Capability Lifecycle Manual. They boil down to this: identify a ‘minimum viable capability’ (MVC), which is a lowest acceptable military effect that meets the requirement, then get a ‘minimum viable product’ (MVP), something that will deliver that capability on time.

The 2023 Defence Strategic Review told the ADF to go for MVC and MVP.

MVP is widely known in business, but not in Defence. At a 2023 ASPI conference, several senior speakers couldn’t clearly describe it or give an example when asked.

Well, that uncrewed aircraft project offers a fine example.

It was Joint Project 129 Phase 2 (JP129-2), a long and unnecessarily complex process of providing aircraft for intelligence-gathering, reconnaissance and target identification for the Australian Army.

The story of acquiring an uncrewed aerial reconnaissance capability for the army ultimately involved three aircraft types and their associated ground systems: first the overly ambitious original design that Defence had to abandon; then the Boeing Institu MQ-27A ScanEagle that was leased as a gap-filler; and finally RQ-7B Shadow 200 from AAI Corporation of the United States.

The original design was still at the prototype stage in 2005 when Defence chose it and was authorised to proceed to acquisition. So that design had not in fact been finalised and could still have had plenty of problems.

And the ADF wanted the design certified to an airworthiness standard that no uncrewed aircraft anywhere had achieved. Furthermore, the aircraft were to operate at such long ranges that their radio communications would work at the extremes of physics. The communications would also have encryption cyber security not yet in use in any other Australian tactical systems. And all this was to be fully integrated into Australian Army vehicles supplying power, the other end of the radio link and command and control.

Over three years of contract negotiation the aircraft grew 50 percent in weight, the project needed release of contingency funds as costs rose, and there were signs of insurmountable technical difficulties.

Meanwhile, the ADF could not wait. It was on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and in 2006 leased ScanEagles as an interim solution; they remained in use until 2013.

In 2008 the capability management team for JP129-2 recommended a reset to the Chief of the Army. It proposed:

—Terminating the contract for the original design;

—Defining an MVC as an approximately 80 percent solution to the specification;

—Choosing a US design that the US Army was already using and was available through the US Foreign Military Sales process—specifically, the Shadow 200; and

—Doing it all fast.

Toning down the requirement meant dropping nice-to-haves, as distinct from must-haves: the aircraft wouldn’t have to operate from amphibious ships, and the army would do without the unique airworthiness requirements. Ironically, the RQ-7B was an updated version of a design that had been rejected in 2005 for the project because of supposed capability shortfalls.

Over the next two years the equipment was acquired, the US Army trained Australian soldiers to use it at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, it was rapidly proven in tests at Woomera, and the first of the two systems was sent straight from Woomera to Afghanistan. Each system comprised the ground station and five aircraft; eight more aircraft were bought as spares.

Shadow 200s sent to Afghanistan were in a bare-MVP configuration and adapted to operate from shelters instead of US Army HMMWV trucks. What the Australian Army got at first was in fact only a 70 percent solution. But it worked, and it worked well.

Over the next few years it was progressively improved. It was adapted for mounting on the army’s own battlefield trucks, Unimogs, given ADF combat-net radios, tested and certified to Australian weapons targeting and engagement requirements, and made compliant with Australian work-safety standards.

It was also given systems as bolt-ons, meaning they weren’t tightly (and expensively) integrated into it. One was for interpreting and sharing pictures from the aircraft; the others were a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder on the ground operating station, both needed to meet aviation safety requirements.

All this was done in Australia by local businesses. By 2016, when the system was declared to have reached final operating capability, the Shadow 200s had achieved the intended 80 percent MVC configuration—and had been acquired for only half of the budget that Defence had expected to spend before changing horses in 2008.

The lesson is that Defence can greatly improve acquisition efficiency if a capability manager first agrees with operators what the 100 percent solution looks like, then approves going ahead with an MVC of 70 to 90 percent.

As with the Shadow 200s, a program can first deliver an initial operational capability at the 70 percent level then progressively advance to 90 percent. Declaring a final operational capability isn’t necessary, because it’s recognised that 100 percent will never be achieved. This model is particularly suitable for areas in which technology is advancing faster than the pace of Defence acquisition.

It involves a preference for mature, off-the-shelf, in-production equipment and teaming with a supplier that has an industry presence in Australia.

The need for speed must loom over the whole process, and it’s essential to try to come in under budget. With current constraints in the capability acquisition program, every dollar saved on one project is needed for another.

Taiwan rushes to build up its nascent drone industry

 

The drone message from the war in Ukraine has not been lost on Taiwan. Uncrewed aircraft and vessels, especially small, cheap ones, can be built and used in far greater numbers than even a much more powerful enemy can cope with—just what Taiwan needs as it eyes China’s massive forces across the strait.

The island has begun working hard on exploiting this transformation in military technology. An emerging theme is cooperation with the United States, which is keen to reduce its reliance on China’s massive drone industry.

Taiwan is painfully aware of China’s edge in mass-producing drones, which can cheaply surveil a battle zone, collect targeting data or even dive into and damage weapon systems that cost far more than they do. The island produces few drones, but Taiwanese officials still hope it can develop a substantial drone industry.

Many Taiwanese companies are already talented makers of tech hardware, such as silicon chips. The government thinks these talents can be redirected so that local firms can make loads of uncrewed air and sea craft that will radically improve Taiwan’s capacity for defence.

If Taiwan had a drone industry, it could make such weapons and sensor-carriers very cheaply. Moreover, it would not have to cajole other countries into supplying them, whereas it always must when seeking to import complex military equipment. In 2022, the government drone program was expanded to include private companies. Some of those companies are in joint ventures with US firms. The island is also buying US loitering munitions, conceptually similar to attack drones.

In mid-2022, Taiwan unveiled a cutting-edge drone research facility combining government and private-sector technologists in the southwest island. Nearby, the government broke ground late last year on a planned industrial park for drones. Taiwan also has hopes of becoming a big player in drone supply chains for the US and its allies. In his inauguration speech in May, President Lai Ching-te pledged to make Taiwan ‘the Asian hub of unmanned aerial vehicle supply chains for global democracies.’

However, Taiwan’s drone manufacturing is plagued with the same problems as its high-tech sector. It tends to be strong in making hardware, but it’s very weak in design and system integration, says Su Tzu-yun of Taiwan’s government-backed Institute for National Defense and Security Research.

Richard Weir, the vice president of global strategy and government relations for IMSAR, a US maker of sophisticated radars, adds that Taiwanese drone makers tend not to clearly identify missions, weapons and sensors for the drones before they’re designed. They must decide in advance whether a drone should have strike capabilities or just be used for signals intelligence, he says.

‘We see a lot of good drones being designed in Taiwan but a lack of clarity of how that drone will be utilised beyond carrying a small camera,’ says Weir. His company is working with several Taiwanese companies to produce drones that will assist with maritime domain awareness.

‘We get the sense that Taiwan’s industry is looking for support in creative approaches in addressing threats,’ Weir adds.

The US under the Biden administration has wanted to reduce its reliance on Chinese-made drones and their components; this indicated there was room for cooperation with Taiwan. In September, the US International Trade Administration organised a visit to Taiwan for a delegation of representatives from two dozen US companies that make drones and anti-drone technologies. They dined with top Taiwanese security officials and were connected with Taiwanese companies looking for partners and customers.

Rupert Hammond-Chambers, the president of the Virginia-based US-Taiwan Business Council, notes that Taiwanese drone design and integration can be greatly enhanced through cooperation with foreign companies. In 2024 alone, his council brought to Taiwan almost 60 drone-industry companies, he says.

This trend of US and Taiwanese companies working together in the drone sphere and supported by the US government will probably continue under the Trump administration, he adds.

‘I don’t see the incoming Trump administration as disruptive to this effort,’ Hammond-Chambers says.

‘Quite the contrary. I believe that a continued focus on supporting co-development of domestic platforms and systems will be a major focus of the incoming US government,’ he says.

He notes that developing Taiwan’s domestic drone industry improves Taiwan’s deterrence capabilities and supports a main Trump priority of creating China-free supply chains. Cutting-edge US drone technologies are unlikely to be integrated into Taiwan’s domestic drone sector and related supply chains, he adds. This means there’s not much chance of US technological secrets getting leaked to China.

‘Most of the support will be mature technologies that are proven and allow Taiwan to stand up new capabilities as quickly as possible,’ Hammond-Chambers concludes.

Australia needs a centre of excellence to counter small drones

The Australian Army must ensure all its soldiers understand the danger posed by small, cheap drones and train them to counter that threat. To best support our forces, a centre of excellence that gathers existing knowledge and provides timely intelligence to Defence is needed.

Such drones, typically based on consumer products or their parts, are called small uncrewed aerial systems (sUASs). They’re widely available, easily operated and well suited to performing surveillance and kinetic attacks on modern battlefields. So they are difficult to sense and defeat, and military forces unprepared for adversarial uses of then have suffered devastating effects in combat.

In October 2023, operators in Ukraine’s Army of Drones project damaged 220 Russian military vehicles and depots in a single week. Referring to the battle for Mosul in 2016, the commander of US Special Operations Command, General Raymond Thomas called small drones operated by Islamic State the ‘most daunting problem’ his forces faced. By the spring of 2017, the Islamic State was conducting 60 to 100 drone strikes a month in Syria and Iraq against US and allied forces.

Traditional air defence capabilities designed to target helicopters and fighter aircraft cannot effectively detect and engage many small drones, and shooting one down costs far more than the drone itself.

At a 2017 military symposium, US General David Perkins relayed the story of an unnamed ally’s use of a US$3 million air defence missile. ‘That quadcopter that cost 200 bucks from Amazon.com did not stand a chance against a Patriot,’ he said.

It was clear then that much cheaper methods were needed, and it’s even clearer after two-and-a-half years of fighting in Ukraine.

The centre of excellence that Australia needs would prepare the Australian Defence Force and other national security agencies for the threat of small drones on home soil and during overseas operations. It should either be part of the defence establishment or be an interdepartmental agency with representatives from CASA, intelligence organisations, the Department of Home Affairs and the Australian Federal Police. And it should focus on four specific areas to improve Australia’s capability to counter sUASs:

—Forecasting developments in technology of sUASs and ways to counter them;

—Gathering global lessons learned from nefarious employment of them;

—Maintaining databases of known sUAS capabilities and vulnerabilities; and

—Assessing suspicious or captured sUASs and exploiting their weaknesses.

The centre would be attuned to the quickly evolving threat of such drones, providing Defence and other government agencies with timely intelligence on the latest sUAS capabilities, tactics and vulnerabilities.

In developing methods to counter small drones, Australia should build on existing technology and knowledge. While a variety of counter-sUAS technologies and commercial systems have emerged, each with its own strengths and limitations, none is ideal in all environments against all threats.

For detecting and tracking small drones, a combination of imaging, radar and passive radiofrequency systems is preferable as it can use the strengths of each technology to detect and identify drones. For the engagement of sUASs, the preferred technology depends on the environment, expected target and likely collateral effects. For example, high-powered microwave weapons might be suitable for defending ground forces in a remote environment against sUAS swarms, but a deployment to a civilian airfield might risk collateral damage to aircraft or air traffic control systems.

Building countermeasures against small drones is challenging, because their technology and the ways of using them are evolving rapidly due to their low cost and ease of development. Operating countries or organisations can easily modify their drones to improve survivability and mission success.

So Australia must develop a layered defence system, combined with continuous research and development on emerging sUAS and counter-sUAS technologies. Passive defences must also be used, including concealment, deception, hardening and dispersion. Passive measures are particularly important in the near term while the Department of Defence works to deliver active means.

The challenge of countering the small-drone threat on Australian territory is even more complex than doing so in overseas deployments, due to Australian regulatory obstacles. Australia was once a global pioneer in establishing rules that govern flights of uncrewed aircraft, but now it must review them in light of the wide proliferation of small drones, rapid advances in their technology and the evolving threats they pose.

Globally, small drones continue to cause significant national security concerns. Some were recently detected flying over a US Air Force plant that makes B-21 bombers, and the gunman who tried to kill Donald Trump used one in advance to study the scene.

By establishing a counter-sUAS centre of excellence and providing training to ADF members, Defence can improve its capabilities based on the latest knowledge and technology and prepare the ADF to counter sUAS threats at home and abroad.

Artificial intelligence at war

There’s a global arms race under way to work out how best to use artificial intelligence for military purposes. The Gaza and Ukraine wars are now accelerating this. These conflicts might inform Australia and others in the region as they prepare for a possible AI-fuelled ‘hyperwar’ closer to home, given that China envisages fighting wars using automated decision-making under the rubric of what it calls ‘intelligentization’.

The Gaza war has shown that the use of AI in tactical targeting can drive military strategy by encouraging decision-making bias. At the start of the conflict, an Israeli Defence Force AI system called Lavender apparently identified 37,000 people linked to Hamas. Its function quickly shifted from gathering long-term intelligence to rapidly identifying individual operatives to target. Foot soldiers were easier to swiftly locate and attack than senior commanders, so they dominated the attack schedule.

Lavender created a simplified digital model of the battlefield, allowing dramatically faster targeting and much higher rates of attacks than in earlier conflicts. Human analysts did review Lavender’s recommendations before authorising attacks, but they quickly grew to trust it, considering it more reliable. Humans often spent only 20 seconds considering Lavender’s target recommendations before approving them.

These human analysts displayed automation bias and action bias. Indeed, it could be said that Lavender was encouraging and amplifying these biases. In a way, the humans offloaded their thinking to the machine.

Human-machine teams are considered by many, including the Australian Defence Force, to be central to future warfighting. The way Lavender’s tactical targeting drove military strategy suggests that the AI machine part should be designed to work with humans on the task they are undertaking, not be treated as a part able to be quickly switched between different functions. Otherwise, humans might lose sight of the strategic or operational context and instead focus on the machine-generated answers.

For example, the purpose-designed Ukrainian GIS Arta system takes a bottom-up approach to target selection by giving people a well-fused picture of the battlespace, not a recommendation derived opaquely of what to attack. It’s described as ‘Uber for artillery’. Human users apply the context as they understand it to decide what is to be targeted.

Ukraine offers further insights into the application of AI for knowing what is happening on the battlefield. Advanced digital technology has made the close and deep battlespace almost transparent. Strategy is now formed around finding enemy forces while fooling their surveillance systems to avoid being targeted. The result is that the frontline between the two forces, out to about 40km on either side, is now a very deadly zone through which neither side can break through to win.

This tactical crisis appears likely to deepen as present semi-autonomous air, land and sea systems are progressively updated by Ukraine and Russia with AI. This will make these robots much less vulnerable to electronic warfare jamming and allow them to autonomously recognise a hostile target and attack. Sensing the significant battlefield advantages, the US has launched the large-scale Replicator program aiming to field ‘autonomous systems at scale of multiple thousands, in multiple domains, within the next 18 to 24 months’.

Given AI’s use in Gaza and Ukraine, it appears likely that in a potential war with China the principal utility of AI similarly will be find-and-fool. Consider clashes over the first island chain, which runs from Indonesia to Taiwan and through Okinawa to mainland Japan. With China to the west and the United States to the east, military forces would use AI’s ability to quickly find items within a background full of clutter while attempting to fool the enemy’s AI systems.

Helped by AI, US-led coalition kill webs and Chinese kill webs will readily find and target hostile air and naval forces on their respective sides of the island chain. The first island chain might then become a stabilised but very dangerous land, sea and air battlespace, with US and allied forces dominating on the eastern side and Chinese forces dominating on the western side. The island chain would become a no man’s land that neither side could pass through without suffering prohibitive losses.

How to win in a war so driven and influenced by AI may be the major question facing defence forces today. The Ukraine war suggests some strategies: wearing the other side down in a protracted attrition battle; using mass frontal attacks to overwhelm the adversary in a weakly defended area; infiltrating using small assault groups with heavy firepower support; or quickly exploiting some fleeting technological advantage to break through. Such options may become practicable as more and more AI-enabled weapon systems enter service.

The operational balance seems to have swung to favour defence over offence, to the advantage of status quo powers, such as India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Australia. But this may prompt a revisionist power like China to seize territory before others can respond, making it difficult to push back. As Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida  warned, ‘Ukraine of today may be East Asia of tomorrow.’

To integrate uncrewed surface vehicles into the navy, start with a concept of operations

There’s a growing trend for naval forces to acquire uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) because of the potential advantages they offer, such as reduced risk and the ability to provide a persistent presence. In a medium-sized navy facing significant strategic challenges such as the Royal Australian Navy, it will be tempting for the upcoming surface combatant fleet review to promote the rapid acquisition of USVs to achieve the required national security effects at a lower cost per unit than their crewed counterparts and with shorter delivery times.

This direction is being pursued by navies globally and represents, to some degree, an important trend in planning for future maritime operations. However, before large-scale acquisition, naval forces must consider the unique operational challenges associated with USVs, such as their legal status, speed, vulnerability to interference by potential adversaries, sustainment and maintenance.

A comprehensive understanding of their intended concept of operations (CONOPS) that accounts for protection, maintenance, sustainment and ideal design criteria is necessary to exploit the benefits of USVs and avoid costly acquisition decisions based on a lack of understanding of how they can be employed effectively. The CONOPS would also allow for a detailed understanding of what the different classes of USVs offer and how they should be employed.

History has shown that being at the forefront of integrating new capabilities can provide a key military edge. In the past 18 months there have been significant developments in this area, such as the US Navy’s establishment of Task Force 59, which is focused on the delivery of an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capability, and its recent attainment of full operational capability. The US Navy’s Ghost Fleet Overlord program also deployed a fleet of USVs from San Diego to Hawaii to participate in RIMPAC 2022.

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy demonstrated a missile firing during NATO wargames in mid-2021 using its MADFOX (Maritime Demonstrator for Operational eXperimentation) vessel. In 2022, it acquired and began testing an mine countermeasures USV. Closer to home, the RAN will acquire five Bluebottle USVs and is working with Austal on the patrol boat autonomy trial. The former HMAS Maitland will be renamed Sentinel and refurbished to allow for autonomous and remote operations. The RAN has also acquired and tested a maritime tactical systems catamaran, demonstrating a clear desire to expand its USV capabilities.

The successful integration of uncrewed aerial vehicles into almost all modern militaries indicates the potential benefits of fully integrating USVs. However, unique factors associated with surface capabilities present operational challenges that need to be fully considered through the development CONOPS before any large-scale acquisition.

USV capabilities span a vast array of sizes and functions, ranging from small ISR or oceanographic capabilities to large corvette-sized vessels for defensive and offensive operations. The reduction or elimination of crewing, the likely cost savings, and the ability to transit vast distances and provide a persistent presence while reducing the need to expose crewed capabilities to major threats are important benefits. However, the development of an effective CONOPS before any large-scale acquisition will highlight the challenges that must be worked through to provide an asymmetric advantage.

The legal status of USVs is a grey area and is subject to debate, and so that must be a consideration in developing a CONOPS that covers where USVs will be deployed, how potential adversaries may react to their deployment, and the spectrum of options open to the operational commander once an adversary does react. Clarity in the international standing of USV capabilities would provide commanders with an indication of how adversarial actors might interact with those capabilities. In contrast, uncertainty or a lack of clarity creates potential flashpoints for escalation. In introducing any new capability, an operational commander must consider whether its introduction would fundamentally change the calculus for escalation.

This raises the question of a threshold test when introducing emerging disruptive technologies into a theatre of operations. What is the threshold for interference with the vehicle by adversary forces that would generate a reaction? What reaction would it generate? In the 2022 example of Iranian interference with US sail drones, the interference didn’t appear to provoke a kinetic reaction, nor did the 2016 Chinese interference with a US wave glider; however, they could arguably be viewed as propaganda victories for both countries. Does this mean that militaries are unlikely to seek kinetic resolution with respect to interference with USV capabilities? If so, does this encourage adversaries to interfere knowing that it’s likely to be below the threshold at which a costly response is initiated? This may in turn make USVs more likely to be targeted than crewed capabilities, which may become costly and may well shape how they are operationally employed.

In developing a CONOPS for USVs, it’s challenging to group them, given the vast array of military capabilities available. However, when compared to the operation of uncrewed aerial vehicles, speed is a key factor. Most USVs operate at a speed that makes them an easy target for interference by adversarial actors, unless they are afforded protection. This vulnerability has been evident in several cases, including the attempted Iranian seizure of the US sail drones and the 2016 Chinese seizure of a US oceanographic wave glider in the South China Sea. An effective CONOPS would account for this vulnerability and provide protection through their intended employment or help articulate a key design specification of a required minimum speed or, if they’re considered attritable, a specification for acquisition at a necessary scale.

In the current era of competition, USV capabilities will remain an attractive target for physical or kinetic interference as their use proliferates. When developing a CONOPS, two key factors must be considered. If the capabilities are attritable, they need to be acquired and employed at low cost and at scale to avoid tying up additional assets to protect them. Employing crewed capabilities to provide protection or overwatch nullifies any benefits of the reduction in crew and cost.

And if the USVs are not considered attritable, and if it isn’t prudent to provide a crewed capability to protect them, they must either have the ability to protect themselves (which, at present, is a legal and technological quagmire) or be employed in areas where friendly forces have air and sea control. That would likely make them more effective for fleet logistics and sustainment roles rather than ISR and offensive operations during conflict. Such issues clearly need to be considered through the development of an effective CONOPS prior to acquisition.

Although one of the great advantages of USVs is their ability to loiter, this poses a question of how to sustain them in position, and whether they need to be maintained in position or brought home. If maintenance is done in position, how do you sustain and protect the maintainers? Do they stay on the vessels, or does this change the design? Is a ‘mothership’ capability needed, and how do you protect that vessel? How do you refuel USVs and how many do you need to employ them effectively?

The development of a comprehensive and effective CONOPS for USVs must take into account these and other factors unique to surface capabilities. By addressing these challenges up front, military leaders can ensure the successful integration of USVs into their operations, providing a valuable asset in modern naval warfare.

Could unmanned underwater vehicles undermine nuclear deterrence?

Nuclear deterrence rests on the ability of strategic assets to survive an enemy’s first strike and to retaliate, ensuring mutually assured destruction.

Nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs) are considered to be the most survivable of all nuclear platforms due to their stealth capabilities, mobility and discretion. Placing nuclear assets underwater puts them at a safer distance from a crippling first strike. But as technology improves and the ocean battlefield becomes more complex, these advances could undermine the survivability of strategic forces around the world and make them far more vulnerable.

Emerging technologies like unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) add to the complexity of the battle space and disrupt the status quo. Swarms of autonomous underwater drones could be deployed to hunt ballistic-missile submarines, targeting a cornerstone of nuclear deterrence.

In their 2017 article ‘The new era of counterforce’, Keir A. Lieber and Daryl Press argue that for most of the nuclear age, the survivability of retaliatory forces seemed straightforward. However, improvements in counterforce technology have eroded this cornerstone of nuclear deterrence. As new technology continues to raise the potential for major shifts in the military realm, the rapid advent of these drones may reduce the credibility and effectiveness of SSBNs.

UUVs can function without the direction of a human operator and have wide dual-use (that is, civilian and military) applications. Some are used for commercial purposes, hydrography and oceanographic research. Lockheed Martin’s yellow Marlin drone submarine inspects offshore rigs and underwater pipelines, a task that’s worth around a billion dollars a year in the Gulf of Mexico.

But UUV technologies have been evolving from defensive to more offensive roles. UUVs increasingly play a critical role in antisubmarine warfare (ASW) and perform missions such as placing and monitoring sensors on the sea floor to track enemy submarines. They can gather intelligence on opponents, detect and neutralise mines, hunt submarines and chart the ocean floor. They could, potentially, detonate warheads. And they could take part in a coordinated attack on an enemy submarine in conjunction with ‘friendly’ submarines and surface vessels.

The United States, Russia and China are investing in this technology to bolster their ASW capability and it’s evident that UUVs will be deployed in the near future in combat operations.

The US Navy released a UUV masterplan in 2004 that set out nine priority areas for future UUV capabilities. In 2015, Brigadier General Frank Kelly became the first deputy assistant secretary of the US Navy for unmanned systems. In 2016, the Department of Defense reportedly spent US$232.9 million on procuring UUVs (US$86.7 million more than in 2015). In 2018, the US Office of Naval Research awarded Raytheon a US$29.7 million contract for developing a naval prototype of a ‘low-cost UAV swarming technology’, or LOCUST, system that can overwhelm an adversary.

Russia and China aren’t far behind. Several reports indicate that Russia has been working on a ‘killer underwater drone’ since 2015. The ‘Cephalopod’ is designed for the underwater battlefield. Undersea warfare expert H.I. Sutton says that it can target shipping but its torpedoes are intended to destroy submarines. In a March 2018 speech to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, President Vladimir Putin highlighted Russian military development of an underwater drone aimed at transforming underwater warfare. A RAND Corporation report, Emerging trends in China’s development of unmanned systems, said Beijing had been funding 15 different universities for research programs for UUVs. Reports indicate that China is also developing low-cost unmanned UUVs for a variety of military applications, including ‘suicide’ attacks on enemy vessels.

These trends indicate that the proliferation of UUVs will have an impact on the stability of the undersea warfighting domain. Emerging capabilities suggest that the sea-based leg of the triad of missile submarines, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and crewed bombers will increasingly become vulnerable.

However, some experts argue that underwater drone technology is still in a nascent stage of development and faces challenges in autonomous operations and communication. The density of seawater makes it difficult for UUVs to complete complex tasks that require real-time decision-making. Former Chief of US Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert noted that one of the biggest obstacles for underwater drones is that they run on batteries that last only a few hours and communication is difficult because data passes very slowly through water.

It will take time for underwater drone technology to mature and pose a serious threat to well-hidden SSBNs, but when drones swarm in packs, it will become harder for submarines to escape detection. Advances in UUV technology will undermine the stability of deterrence and usher in a new underwater arms race that will increase the risks of escalation in a crisis.

As countries expand their underwater drone inventories, managing and controlling them could become challenging. It’s vital that operating nations develop a global code of conduct for their use.

Trump administration’s move away from transparency may undermine US military operations

In early March, President Donald Trump caused a furore when he revoked a requirement for the US intelligence community to report on civilian casualties in airstrikes outside war zones. The decision is the latest in a larger trend of the Trump administration’s undermining the mechanisms of oversight for the use of force abroad. While these developments have received much attention for depriving defence reporters of access to their usual Pentagon contacts, they also limit the public’s and the legislative branch’s access to information, which could have negative effects on US military operations more broadly.

When you examine the drivers of the current military engagements of the US and its allies, the lack of transparency may seem like a natural development. In the aftermath of the large-scale interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which attempts at nation-building were largely judged to have failed, Western governments have struggled to find new ways to deal with threats abroad without risking public and legislative outrage.

What has emerged is an approach that the Oxford Research Group refers to as ‘remote warfare’, in which local forces do the bulk of the frontline fighting, backed by special forces operations and by air support, training and equipment from Western militaries. It’s perhaps a predictable consequence of 21st century operations that transparency would suffer. And it has. But for no good reason.

The probable fallouts of Trump’s new policies could severely impair the US’s ability to achieve its national objectives abroad.

Deniability and diminished transparency may be perceived to bring flexibility and allow the government to avoid public scrutiny. But our research suggests that it’s not a simple relationship. More secrecy does not automatically translate into greater strategic advantages. In fact, in an age in which both enemy forces and civilian witnesses have cameras and Wi-Fi, building policies on the assumption of complete secrecy is increasingly untenable—and government control of the narrative will be the first to suffer.

While control of information and disinformation has always played a role in warfare, in modern operations there’s a widespread notion that the battles over control of the narrative are as important as those on the battlefield. This sentiment is perhaps best captured in the arguments of US Army General David Petraeus and others about winning ‘hearts and minds’; for example, Petraeus once said that the US must ‘[r]ealize that we are in a struggle for legitimacy that will be won or lost in the perception of the Iraqi people’.

In repealing the requirement to report on casualties—civilian, but also militants—of the intelligence agencies’ drone strikes in non-combat zones, Trump has willingly allowed others to take over the narrative. Which of course they will, as they have so many times before. Ned Price, a CIA National Security Council spokesman under Barack Obama, made the same point recently: ‘This requirement was about more than transparency. It allowed, for the first time, the US to counter disinformation from terrorist groups with facts about the effectiveness and precision of our operations. It was an important tool that we’re again without.’

Decreasing transparency over the use of remote warfare also has the detrimental effect of preventing the legislative branch of government from playing the important role of ensuring that methods of engagement—be they drones or special operations forces—are chosen on the basis of their strategic advantage rather than the immediate short-term results. This is particularly significant in remote warfare, where the ability to deploy drones, which are often seen as ‘clean’ and ‘cheap’ tools, without significant oversight creates a risk that they’ll be used because they’re the most politically expedient option, rather than because they’re the best possible response to insecurity. Oversight mechanisms help to ensure that the right questions are asked about strategy and the objectives of such deployments before the damage gets done.

Such mechanisms could potentially help prevent the kind of neck-breaking strategic changes that we saw on the African continent following the deaths of four US Special Operations soldiers in Niger in late 2017. Arguably, it was the shock expressed by the American people (and government) at the US presence in this relatively unknown battle in the wider war on terror that caused the US to suddenly abandon its strategy of deploying troops and focus instead on operating an increasing number of drones in the area—a choice that is likely to create more discontent and to be used as recruitment material for the Islamists that the US is there to fight.

This is not to say that there should be full transparency over American engagement in current wars. It’s simply that many of the transparency and oversight mechanisms that Trump is undermining or even abolishing have been in place for years—in some cases decades—and have never been directly linked with national security crises. Removing them seems counterproductive. Not only does it undermine democratic institutions, it also risks undermining US foreign policy more broadly, by handing the reins of the narrative over to the adversary and bypassing the mechanisms that could stop short-term decisions from trumping strategic considerations.