IIPM-India: June 2007

Throughout history, war has been about bravery, courage, superhuman acts of valour & sacrifice. It has also been about cowardice & retreat. Of course, war has also always

been about death & destruction. Thanks to technology, death & destruction will remain essential features of war; their extent might become even more horrifying. But poets in late 21st century might find it difficult to weave awe inspiring tales of heroism of soldiers related to wars.

That’s because human beings might just not be fighting wars during late 21st century. Robots will be flying fighter aircraft & firing precision missiles that will hit the target to an accuracy of a few centimetres. Humanoid robots armed with artificial intelligence will man anti-aircraft & anti-missile sites buried a hundred metres underground. Their super-sensitive sensors could trigger a wave of missiles that will destroy intruding aircraft s & missiles. When the tanks of a victorious army roll down the streets of a captured city or town, the driver would be a robot ‘trained’ to handle gears, clutches, brakes & turrets. Someone like George Bush would not have to worry about body bags of dead soldiers being sent back home from the wastelands of Iraq and destroying his popularity. Who cares about dead & mangled robots?

No wonder, it’s the biggest military power in the history of the world, the US, that is leading the technology race for developing post modern weapons of destruction & defence. America’s Department of Defense is planning to man as much as third of its armed vehicles and weaponry with robots by 2015. The American defence services are already using

robotic aeroplanes known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and for that matter, India has its own unmanned aerial vehicle. Even on ground, two-legged robots which can outperform wheeled robots in uneven terrains with hi-tech sensors are soon going to make their way. Much more such robotic weaponry like machine gun toting robot is already present.

However, at the moment these machines are controlled by a human operator from a remote location, but the next generation robotic warfare will be on their own. The military powers are working towards the goal of providing sufficient autonomy, including critical abilities like when to use lethal force, designing and implementing a complete war strategy on their own and changing it as per the developments. Well, the idea is to empower robots, based on inputs that could come from anything from radar data, satellites, intelligence feeds, their own real-time findings; the machines will work-out all possible actions and finally will apply the optimum strategy. Optimum strategy could range from anything like hiding, warning enemy, firing a gunshot, launching a missile, calling co-robots for help etc. In a nutshell, these robots will think, listen, act, as we human do.

Moreover, the robots are highly useful in case of patrolling, surveillance & gathering data from places where human soldiers are almost unsuccessful. One such undergoing project is creation of micro-aircraft s which can camouflage as birds, insects etc. and locate people, weapons etc. in a particular building site and so on. Moreover, the future battle will also be fought in space. It is for this reasons countries like US & Russia have starting working in the direction of safeguarding their respective space assets. The US have a Falcon programme which is aimed at reaching the orbit quickly. Like other fields, nanotechnology is going to play an integral role in armed forces. With induction of nanotechnology things are becoming smaller & lighter. The radical technology is being used right from soldier uniforms to beastly aircrafts.

Technology will not make any of these human traits go away. Moreover, it will ensure that the intensity of carnage becomes more severe. People during the First World War were horrified by the extent of death triggered by machine guns. They were numbed by death raining down from the skies during the Second World War during air attacks. All that paled into insignificance when Uncle Sam dropped the nukes on Japan.

Who knows what other horrors technology can invent for destructive men?

But does that mean that human beings will no longer play a role when it comes to waging war? And that technology will be the altar at whose feet, weapons of mass destruction will pay obeisance by unleashing carnage of the type that the human mind cannot even comprehend? Will war then become like a football or cricket match where gladiators test their nerves & skills without any deaths, or even collateral damage? In other words, will war become a game played by geeks & gizmos?

If only the answers to the questions were yes. The sad reality is that war is not about the application of modern technology, but the perversion of the human mind. Like before, wars even in late 21st century will be fought because of ego (Saddam Hussein in 1990), greed (Nadir Shah ransacking Delhi in the 18th century), territorial ambitions (Russia for most of 20th century), megalomaniacal dictators (Hitler & the Second World War) and quest for natural resources (George Bush invading Iraq in 2003).

Prof.Arindam Chaudhuri's Initiative

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