Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century

Joint Force Quarterly, July, 2009 by Shawn Brimley

Wired for War: The Robotics

Revolution and Conflict in the

21st Century

by P.W. Singer

New York: Penguin Press,

2009

499 pp. $29.95

ISBN: 978-1-59420-198-1

We are building the bridge to the future while standing on it," says an Army colonel quoted at the beginning of Wired for War, a book destined to become a touchstone in the evolving debate over how America's military can best prepare for the wars of today and tomorrow. Penetrating in analysis and convincing in argumentation, Wired for War is already a classic--if only because it is the first of its kind, offering a tantalizing but terrifying glimpse of a future where increasingly autonomous machines become decisive weapons of war.

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The metaphor of bridge-building is apt because, as P.W. Singer describes, the robotics revolution has been a long time coming, and the technologies we are using (and how we are using them) in today's wars are shaping the contours of how we think about, develop, and field tomorrow's technologies. Singer provocatively declares that "man's monopoly of warfare is being broken. We are entering the era of robots at war" (p. 22).

While visions of robotic warfare once were confined to the imagination, today's wars are driving rapid and dramatic growth in the use of systems that flirt with what heretofore was considered fantasy. In Iraq, for example, thousands of ground robotic systems are deployed--from tiny remote-controlled reconnaissance vehicles to larger systems that detect and disarm improvised explosive devices. And thousands of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) roam the skies above Iraq and Afghanistan, enabling ground commanders to survey huge areas and improve operational planning and precise targeting.

While UAVs and the various ground-based remote vehicles being used today seem futuristic, they are only harbingers of what is to come. The Navy and Air Force are developing unmanned combat aerial vehicles that will dramatically increase the range and persistence of U.S. airpower. These systems are likely to employ some form of artificial intelligence that may eventually render entire formations of U.S. strike aircraft largely autonomous.

Singer describes numerous efforts under way in the United States, many funded through the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, to push the limits of human-machine interfaces of the type featured in William Gibson's book Neuromancer or the blockbuster film The Matrix. Singer also describes several projects designed to create and field micro-UAVs small enough to enter buildings and microscopic nanobots so cutting edge that possible military applications remain unclear. Other projects are closer to fruition, including various unmanned ground and maritime systems, and several versions of autonomous combat and medical robots.

Given all that Wired for War describes, it is probably not an overstatement to suggest that we may be on the cusp of another revolution in military affairs. That term is not very popular anymore, tied as it is to the legacy of Donald Rumsfeld and shock and awe, effects-based operations, transformation, and other buzzwords that obscured more than they revealed about warfare and military innovation. But the scale and scope of what is happening with robotics and artificial intelligence justify Singer's use of the term robotics revolution. If he is right, robotics will have as much or more impact on warfare as the longbow, horse cavalry, railroads, radio, or precision weapons did during earlier periods.

Talk of transformation or network-centric warfare has declined in part because of an emerging and overdue consensus that the zeal to advance the information revolution led some advocates to embrace the illusion that technology could "lift the fog of war" and provide a "God's-eye view" of the battlespace. The notion that a commander could gain total "information dominance" cut against the entire history of warfare, and many military officers and civilian policymakers ignored Clausewitz in favor of dubious and untested concepts. Singer does not believe the robotics revolution will lift the fog of war; rather, he argues that the problems of uncertainty and friction are likely to play large roles in how these technologies evolve: "The dark irony is that the more advanced robots get, the more complex they become, and the more potential they have for failure" (p. 157).

Singer's book is particularly timely, given that the Obama administration is preparing its National Security Strategy and the Pentagon is drafting the Quadrennial Defense Review, which will--perhaps more than any before--influence the size and shape of America's military forces. For example, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been outspoken in his insistence that greater resources be devoted to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and UAV capabilities.

Wired for War is also relevant to the important debate about how best to optimize and balance resources for ongoing wars and future threats. Complicating this debate is the participants' tendency to articulate their views as dramatically as possible so as to make the most impact. Too often, those advocating for radical restructuring to prepare for future counterinsurgency or stability operations will frown upon technology or the possibility of scenarios where high technology plays a decisive role. Those who resist the need for substantial reform tend to downplay both the requirement for and ability of U.S. forces to prepare for what General Rupert Smith in The Utility of Force calls "wars amongst the people." But for this so-called robotics revolution to be unfolding amid three so-called irregular conflicts--Iraq, Afghanistan, and the global campaign against al Qaeda--makes Wired for War that much more relevant. It is hard to tell what combination of battlefield necessity, industrial pressure, simple technological advancement, and a quintessentially American "high-tech" strategic culture is driving these military innovations. That they are occurring despite the decidedly unconventional nature of current conflicts speaks volumes.