BY AUGUST COLE, AMIR HUSAINFOUNDER, SPARKCOGNITION
Russia’s side yesteryear side generation of strategic weaponry may last a fleck to a greater extent than distant too a fleck less fearsome than Vladimir Putin of late claimed. But his March 1 spoken language nigh titanic ballistic missiles too nuclear-powered undersea drones should spur American defence forcefulness too engineering communities to motion faster — indeed, uncomfortably hence — to covert similarly disruptive ideas such equally artificial intelligence too robotics. America’s adversaries are betting that a novel moving ridge of weapons volition negate technologies too tactics at the midpoint of U.S. armed services might, with them aircraft carriers too high-altitude missile defense. Russia’s newest weapons, Putin claimed, are “invincible against all existing too prospective missile defence too counter-air defence systems.” China’s defence forcefulness investments follow a similar path, with an aggressive testing tempo for hypersonic weapons, unmanned aircraft, too advanced submarine detection, with other capabilities. Even if Putin’s coming arsenal doesn’t quite alive upward to its hype, the U.S. should nonetheless empathize that America’s adversaries volition presently champaign weapons similar the ones he described — mayhap fifty-fifty earlier the Pentagon does.
There are, of course, conventional ways to response to such threats, rooted inwards over seventy years of Western defence forcefulness applied scientific discipline too domestic too alliance politics. Yet these novel Russian weapons are intended less to pulverize than to provoke. They are meant to pull a response that volition farther reinforce Putin’s narrative of an encircled acre threatened yesteryear NATO too U.S.missile defence forcefulness systems.
To avoid this trap, then, the U.S. ought to seek unconventional responses. Some promising concepts are made possible yesteryear recent advances at the intersection of artificial intelligence too robotics.
One especially dramatic minute during Putin’s spoken language featured an animation of a 200-ton Russian Sarmat ballistic missile releasing multiple warheads toward targets inwards Florida, purportedly plenty to obliterate a share the size of France. The traditional approach to stopping such a country-killer is with a sea- or ground-based ballistic-missile defence forcefulness system, the sort that are beingness deployed inside the U.S. too inwards allied nations similar Nihon too Poland. But these defenses demand feats of technical marvel to run correctly. Moreover, deploying them to allied bases tin acquaint domestic challenges, equally inwards South Korea, too provoke Moscow or Beijing.
But right away imagine that the apocalyptic Russian video of reentry vehicles streaming toward Miami, Orlando, Tampa, too Palm Beach takes a dissimilar turn. The photographic boob tube camera zooms to an unmanned submarine surfacing 10 miles to the due east of Miami. Within moments of breaching the lite bluish Atlantic waters, the vessel’s clamshell deck doors boundary open. Another dozen submarines positioned off the southern Florida coast emerge inwards similar fashion, too together they launch hundreds of quadcopter UAVs.
The electric-powered drones dash skyward, initially cued to the incoming Sarmat yesteryear thousands of U.S. Air Force wafersats. Within moments, each grouping has created an encrypted local network that replaces easy-to-jam GPS navigation signals with optical too self-referential inputs. H5N1 few moments more, too the swarms refine their programme of attack. One grouping over Tampa splits to bring together upward with the swarm forming over Orlando, guided yesteryear a information package from an F-35 out of Eglin Air Force Base.
This insight is crucial: The F-35 reports that the reentry vehicles are hypersonic Avangard models, right away streaking earthward at Mach 20. The swarms speedily array themselves inwards aerial layers, deepening the defense. Drones carrying fragmentation explosives switch places with the thermobaric-armed UAVs, which sprint to an fifty-fifty higher height to run into the incoming warheads. Tens of thousands of feet below, the unmanned submarines are dorsum underwater, their onboard neural networks reconfiguring the weapons payloads too shape factors of the side yesteryear side moving ridge of UAVs to amend response to to a greater extent than Sarmat missiles or about other aerial threat.
This sort of land- or sea-based defensive mothership-swarm operational concept could last used against other aerial threats, such equally the long-endurance nuclear-powered cruise missile Putin revealed, or underwater against the Status-6, a roving nuclear-armed torpedo-like drone designed to evade traditional anti-submarine defenses.
There are technical challenges, to last sure, such equally ability administration or deploying a cheap-and-resilient global sensing network. But they are non insurmountable, nor is this sort of countermeasure hypothetical. In fact, SparkCognition began working on this really swarm-mothership concept a few years agone too has filed U.S. patents roofing the blueprint of such systems. Moreover, the same advances inwards machine-learning algorithms that brand drone-launching robot submarines a reality tin too practise global data-gathering networks based on sensors that toll less than terminal year’s mobile phone.
AI too robotics — the really forces that are ushering inwards the era of “hyperwar,” equally i of the authors too retired full general John R. Allen telephone telephone it — already allow U.S. asymmetric responses that are inexpensive, resilient too globally scalable. Ultimately, though, the biggest challenges with autonomy too robotics volition non last technological. It volition last our willingness to suspension with convention.
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