Page 53 - The Economist Asia January 2018

SPECIAL REPORT
THE FUTURE OF WAR

gine, or a boost-glide vehicle that would be launched from a bal-
listicmissile and then flytowardsitstargetlike a paper dart. Glide
vehicles pull up after re-entering the atmosphere, using the cur-
vature of the Earth to delay detection by ballistic-missile de-
fences. Both types would be manoeuvrable, and would be accu-
rate to within a few metres of their target. However, they, too,
could carry nuclear warheads, again leaving the target uncertain
whatkind ofattackitwasunder. America firsttested a glide vehi-
cle in 2010, but seems in no rush to deploy them. Russia and Chi-
na have more recently tested hypersonic glide missiles.
Current American missile-defence systems, such as Patriot,
THAAD (terminal high-altitude area defence) and Aegis, provide
quite effective regional defence butare notdesigned to cope with
a salvo ofICBMs. The Ground-based Midcourse Defence system
in Alaska and California is supposed to provide some defence of
the homeland against a few missiles launched by a North Korea
A missile-test triumph for North Korea or an Iran, but it was never designed to defeat a massive salvo at-
tackby a majoradversary.
However, substantial improvements are on their way. Mr
2 which America depends for its nuclear command and control, Elleman describes the SM-3 IIA interceptors, which could be de-
including missile early warning, is also used for conventional ployed as soon as next year on Aegis-class destroyers, as a “big
warfare. Thatmeansa conventional attackmightbe mistaken for deal”. They are much faster than their predecessors, and Mr
a pre-emptive nuclear strike, which could lead to rapid escala- Miller thinks that ifhundreds ofthem were put on ships close to
tion. Anotherdifficultyisthatan aggressormaybe tempted to go America, they might support a late midcourse defence against
aftercyberand space assetsin the hope ofcausingmajor damage Russian ICBMs.
to a target’s defences without actually killing anybody. That More exotic missile defences are not far behind. Mr Elle-
would raise doubts over whether nuclear retaliation could be man says that in about five years’ time it may be possible to put
justified. Athird worryisthatbecause ofthe potential speed and solid-state lasers on large numbers of unmanned aerial vehicles
surprise of such attacks, some responses might be delegated to (UAVs) orbitingatveryhigh altitude. Small missilescould also be
autonomous systems that can react in milliseconds. Lastly, there put on UAVs as boost-phase interceptors, firing a minute or so
isthe possibilityof“false flag” cyberoperation bya rogue state or after launch. Interception at that stage is technically much easier
non-state hackergroup. than later on because the target is much larger when all its stages
are still intact, and movingmore slowly.
Don’t worry just yet Mr Elleman believes that for now the advantage is likely to
For now, the prospects of a successful disarming strike re- remain with the attacker rather than the defender, but like Mr
main sufficiently remote to leave the strategic balance intact. Mr Millerhe fearsthatemergingtechnologiescould “undermine cri-
Miller argues that it would require a “fundamental transforma- sis stability very rapidly”. Yet if arms-control agreements could
tion in the military-technological balance…enabled by the de- be reached at the height of the cold war, it should surely be pos-
velopment and integration of novel military capabilities” to up- sible for America, Russia and China to talk to each other now to
set the balance. avoid persistent instability. 7
Ominously, he thinks that such a fundamental transforma-
tion may now be on the horizon, in the shape of conventional
prompt global strike (CPGS) and new missile-defence systems. Military robotics
Both China and Russia fear that new American long-range non-
nuclear strike capabilities could be used to deliver a disarming War at hyperspeed
attack on a substantial part of their strategic forces or decapitate
their nuclear command and control. Although they would still
launch their surviving nuclear missiles, improved missile-de-
fence systems would mop up most ofthe remainderbefore their
warheads could do any damage. Autonomous robots and swarms will change the
Still, Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the International
Institute for Strategic Studies, reckons that for now those con- nature of warfare
cerns are overblown. As much as anything, he says, they are PETER SINGER, AN expert on future warfare at the New
talked up to restrain investment in the enabling technologies: America think-tank, is in no doubt. “What we have is a se-
“They [the Russians and the Chinese] are saying to the US, the riesoftechnologiesthatchange the game. They’re notscience fic-
trouble with you guys is thatyou neverknow when to stop.” tion. They raise new questions. What’s possible? What’s
CPGS would involve a hypersonicmissile atleastfive times proper?” Mr Singer is talking about artificial intelligence, mach-
faster than the speed of sound and a range of more than 1,000 ine learning, robotics and big-data analytics. Together they will
miles. This could be achieved in several ways. One would be to produce systems and weapons with varying degrees of autono-
stick a conventional warhead on an ICBM or a submarine- my, from beingable to workunderhuman supervision to “think-
launched ballisticmissile—a cheap solution buta dangerous one, ing” forthemselves. The mostdecisive factoron the battlefield of
because defenders would not know whether they were under the future may be the quality of each side’s algorithms. Combat
conventional ornuclearattack, so they might overreact. may speed up so much that humans can no longerkeep up.
The alternatives would be a cruise missile powered by a Frank Hoffman, a fellow of the National Defence Universi-
rocket-boosted scramjet (a supersonic combusting ramjet) en- ty who coined the term “hybrid warfare”, believes that these 1

The Economist January 27th 2018 13