From: Support 
Subject: SNET: 21st Century Warriors
Date: 21 Apr 2000 04:07:07 -0400
To: snetnews@topica.com

->  SNETNEWS  Mailing List



 From New Dawn No. 59 (March-April),
http://www.newdawnmagazine.com.au



21st Century Warriors



By SUSAN BRYCE




You see things and say =91why=92? But I dream of things that never were and =
I
say: =91why not=92? 

=97 George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah, Part 1, Act 1



Military commanders of the future will have implanted brain
microchips enabling them to access satellite information in the twinkling
of an eye. A New Army Warrior packing a HERF (High Energy Radio
Frequency) gun will watch as two or three Tactical Mobile Robots swarm
through buildings, and round up enemies of the state. Uptown, android
warriors will be on patrol, safe in the knowledge that they are
expendable and replaceable. These visions were once just arrogant
fantasies projected by Hollywood, but now the US military is turning
dreams into reality, creating a brave new vision for global dominance,
vastly augmented by the exponential growth in computing power,
developments in neuroscience and biotechnology. 



The high tech future of the US military is encapsulated in the document,
Joint Vision 2010 (JV2010), which provides the framework for very long
range planning by the defense department. The Vision projects a leading
US role in peacetime engagement activities, humanitarian assistance and
disaster relief, peacekeeping and peace enforcement, as well as large
scale combat operations requiring forcible entry.



JV2010 is concerned with =93full spectrum dominance=94, a concept employing
technological leverage to ensure the US is pervasive in peace and
decisive in war. In a general acknowledgement of US hegemony, the Vision
says: =93The US is the only global superpower=94, and =93must ensure it is
preeminent in any form of conflict.=94 This is a direct affront to the
=93Russian Concept of the World in the 21st Century=94, which emphasises the
need for multipolarity. 



The Joint Vision stresses the need for the military to protect US
economic interests, and identifies various non state groups which could
threaten US interests in the coming decade. They include: multinational
corporations, legal and illegal cartels, alliances, and special interest
groups who compete with the US in specific arenas. =93They may or may not
conform to international conventions and may resort to violence to
achieve their objectives,=94 the Vision says. Accordingly, the United
States military must be prepared to fight or to conduct mobility or
special operations anywhere in the world on short notice. The Vision
forecasts that: =93The military will have to fight at long distances from
the United States. In particular, some operations may be staged directly
from the continental United States. These operations may endure for weeks
or months.=94 



The withering of national sovereignty, the push for global governance via
the UN, and new roles prescribed to organised alliances, such as NATO,
have set precedents for different types of military force and
organisations to apply that force in the future. The need for a United
Nations standing army is on the agenda for the Millennium Assembly to be
held on 6th September 2000. All 188 member states of the UN will attend,
making it the largest Assembly ever. While the Joint Vision does not
specifically mention UN military operations, or a UN standing army, there
is no doubt that it seeks to enhance and reinforce the role of the US as
global policeman.1 JV2010 sets the groundwork for US forces
to play a critical role in the impending world army, thereby protecting
America=92s vested interests and dictating which conflicts are worthy of
support, according to whom the US administration identifies as the enemy
of the day.



The Joint Vision sets the agenda for cutting edge military research such
as the Army=92s =91Army After Next=92 program and the Airforce with its
=91Airforce 2025=92. The Navy and Marine Corps are also undertaking their ow=
n
revolutionary planning processes. The US =91Army After Next=92 project withi=
n
the Army=92s research and academic circles, is designed to determine how
the 21st century army will fight, what weapons and assets it will need
and what current weapons and practices will no longer be useful. New Army
Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki says the =91Army After Next=92 will
work to become lighter and more flexible. The goal is to be able to put a
combat brigade of 5,000 troops on the ground anywhere in the world within
96 hours of receiving orders, a division of 11,000 troops on the ground
within 120 hours and five divisions on the ground within 30 days.
Shinseki illustrates his vision using the example of the Battle of
Gettysburg where 165,000 Union and Confederate soldiers battled in 1863.
Today the Army would need 400 men to win the day. A single squad of 11
=91Army After Next=92 warriors, able to call on airborne cameras and sensors
and smart missiles alongside their own high-tech capabilities, could hold
the same battlefield within the next ten years.



By 2010 two thirds of the world=92s population will be urbanised mostly in
littoral areas. The future for the military therefore lies in urban
combat. The US Marine Corps has already begun a series of exercises known
as =93Urban Warrior=92 (see New Dawn No. 54) designed to prepare
forces to fight future battles in cities and other urban environments.
The ongoing Urban Warrior exercises examine new urban tactics and
experimental technologies, including those developed by the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). One of DARPA=92s most promising
programs involves mobile robotic technologies, which enable land forces
to dominate the battlespace using teams of mobile robots in complex
terrain =96 urban, indoor or rugged areas. 



The robots, known as Tactical Mobile Robots (TMR), are an offshoot of the
micro-rover technologies from the US space program. The backpackable
TMR=92s are under 40cm long, light weight, manoeuvrable and have real time
perception for navigation and reconn-aissance. They are robots for
tomorrow=92s soldiers, or Warriors, as JV2010 prefers to call its military
personnel (figure 1). In future conflicts, and particularly in urban
terrain, TMRs will serve as military point men, equipped with a variety
of onboard tools for specific situations. For example, special drilling
arms enable TMR=92s to penetrate and smash into buildings, onboard systems
can create topological maps of urban structures with 90% accuracy, others
are equipped with tear gas, and onboard surveillance cameras, enabling
contin-uous monitoring by New Army Warriors, located a safe distance
away. A team of 10 TMR=92s will be able to clear a three story building
with 20 rooms in one hour or less (figure 2). TMR=92s are cheap and easy to
mass produce. Above all, they are expendable, a very important point in
an age where even one battlefield casualty can be a public relations
disaster. 



Tactical Mobile Robots are just one development in a flotilla of new
technologies that will change the way wars are fought. By far the most
forward thinking in this area is the =93Airforce 2025=94 (AF2025) doctrine.
It is about changing the character of war, rather than anticipating
changes and adapting after change occurs. According to AF2025, =93future
conflicts are likely to be supported by a society conditioned to =91quick
wars=92 with high operational tempos, minimal casualties, and low
collateral damage.=94 In terms of conducting these =91quick wars=92, the US
Airforce envisions a =91Cyber Situation=92, to which there are five key
technologies. 



First, all-source information collectors will transmit raw data to an
Information Integration Center (IIC). Second, archival databases, linked
to the IIC, will be used for historical analyses to fill information gaps
if the data is not available for collection. Third, the IIC, an
integrated and interconnected constellation of =93smart=94 satellites, will
analyse, correlate, fuse, and deconflict all relayed data. Fourth,
military commanders who have been implanted with microscopic brain chips
will link users to the IIC creating computer-generated mental
visualisations. The visualisation encompasses the individual and allows
the user to place himself into the selected battlespace. Fifth, lethal
and nonlethal weapons will be linked to the IIC, allowing authorised
users to employ them from the =91Cyber Situation=92 (figure 3).



The US Airforce believes if it can achieve information dominance, it can
control the momentum of war. While its vision is a double leap into 2025,
collection platforms, miniature satellites, Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles
(UAV=92s), communications infrastructure, computer power, intelligent
software and human-computer interaction (HCI) are fast becoming the order
of the day. Creating a seamless flow of information between human and
computer is possible as science improves our understanding of the brain
and how it functions, making it possible to direct equipment to respond
to our thoughts, without any verbal or written command. Already,
preliminary research using a 128-sensor array electroencephalograph (EEG)
pressed against a subject=92s skull can influence information content and
display designs on a computer screen. With the exception of the implanted
brain chip, the technologies required to achieve the Cyber Situation are
well under way.2 Communications architectures are growing
in both commercial and military applications and computer power doubles
every 18 months. Software, too, is becoming more intelligent.



Every day, scientists, engineers and visionaries come one step closer to
perfecting warrior robots, in the shape of George Lucas=92 battledroids.
The 21st century may well see the evolution of cyborgs, creatures that
will have human biological bodies as their legacy core, but will have
biological parts directly replaced or improved with technological
equivalents. One research area that shows a lot of promise and has
attracted the interest of DARPA is the COG project, run by the Artificial
Intelligence Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. COG is the AI
team=92s biped humanoid like robot (figure 4). The COG project is an
ongoing quest to recreate the human body=92s interaction with the
environment as it is modulated by sensory information, and also to
recreate the body=92s inbuilt autopoietic system. DARPA has also expressed
interested in the HAL project, run by the MIT AI team. 



HAL is the next generation intelligent room. HAL has cameras for eyes,
microphones for ears, and uses a variety of computer vision, speech and
gesture recognition systems to allow people to interact naturally with
it. HAL is designed to support the kind of human-computer interaction
that up until now has only been science fiction.



 From a science fiction vision to a military doctrine to an emerging
reality. The technologies to fight wars and fight people are changing as
the interrelationship between people and technology changes. Joint Vision
2010 provides the groundbreaking framework for these warriors on the edge
of time. It provides a context for the full development and integration
of new technologies into warfighting, US style. The consequences of the
Vision are far reaching for us all. Undue haste to get technologically
ready for the next war could make the probability of war more
likely.




Footnotes:



1. Floating around the White House as at 17th January 2000, is a
proposal by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that would have the UN
set up a standby force of several thousand policemen, who would rush into
war-torn areas to keep law and order.



2. A combination of brain processes and visual imaging already has been
developed in the laboratory. The California Institute of Technology has
developed an energy efficient computer chip that emulates the analog
thinking of the human brain. It is specifically modeled on the
construction of the human brain, specifically the cerebral cortex. When
this capability is fully mature, this chip could provide the baseline for
a brain implant hooked to all the sensory segments of the brain, not just
the eye. 




REFERENCES:



Army After Next, a Vision for the Future, Army Acquisition Corps,
May-June 1998, Headquarters, Department of the Army, USA.



Concept for Future Operations, Expanding Joint Vision 2010, US Department
of Defense Joint Chiefs of Staff, May 1997.



=93Concept of the world in the 21st century=94, The Russian Federation,
available at
<www.un.org>




Information Operations: A New War-Fighting Capability, A research paper
presented to Air Force 2025 by LTC William B. Osborne (USA), Maj Scott A.
Bethel, Maj Nolen R. Chew, Maj Philip M. Nostrand, Maj YuLin G.
Whitehead. August 1996.



Figures/diagrams for this article are only available in the
physical version of the magazine.



Side-Piece:


A Future World 


The following section depicts the Cyber Situation in action in a
hypothetical scenario from the US Airforce 2025 document. 



(12 March, 2025 =97 1435 EST/2045Z) The persistent flashing blue
light at the corner of his vision alerted the CJCS that the NMCC was
initiating a category II ALERT, the blue code for International,
Domestic. As the chairman made himself comfortable, he double-blinked
rapidly to set in motion his Cyber Situation. As his computer-generated
mental display command centre whirled into being before his eyes, his
mental display-mail =97 the message that started the ALERT =97 became
operational. CINCSOUTH=92s image appeared and began briefing. 



The government of Argentina was asking for help in conducting a hit on a
narcoterrorist group hidden within a room in the centre of the Zircon
building, a 50-story skyscraper building in downtown Buenos Aires. The
Argentina government is worried because the building also contains
thousands of civilians unaware of the terrorists=92 presence. A moment=92s
thought and the topographical detail map of Buenos Aires floats into
view. As the CJCS studied the map from all angles, zeroing in on the
Zircon building, the other major players =93stepped=94 one by one into the
=93Cyber conference.=94



The NCA, along with the unified CINCs, service chiefs, and State
Department representatives all studied the unfolding three-dimensional
schematics of the Zircon building within their own personal =93cyberspace.=
=94
Weather reports began to come in, indicating a storm raging off the coast
in Tierra Del Fuego with winds NNE at 35 miles per hour. Light rain was
falling in and around Buenos Aires. Now the CJCS moved into the =93Cyber
Situation=94 of the intelligence analyst that had been monitoring the
situation. DNA and heat-sensing probes of the Zircon building were built
into a three-dimensional map that pin-pointed the location of the
terrorists on the 23rd floor in the offices of the Argentina Spaceways
Co. Two floors above, a local telecommunications company was hosting an
AT&T International conference. Local police already had sealed off
the outer sectors of the building. 



After studying the situation, the CINCSOUTH then ordered the execution of
Operation Red Ball One =97 Option 2, with the CJCS approval. At this point
the CSAF took over the =93Cyber Situation=94 and entered the =93Cyber-space=
=94 of
the ACC commander. Together, they reviewed the life-like images that
appeared before them marking US Aerospace bases. Beside each image were
the unit=92s designator, manning level, and current activity. For the
execution of Red Ball One =97 Option 2, after consulting his crisis action
staff, the ACC commander decided to precision drop three squads of Space
Marines from a TC-4 Globemaster on to the roof of the Zircon building.




The Cyber Situation now included the colonel in charge of the 3D Special
Operations Group, the squadron commander of the Space Marines at Hurlburt
Field, Florida, and the Globemaster wing commander at Eglin AFB, Florida.
Together, they reviewed the prevailing weather conditions, where the wind
and rain could affect operations. Next, they reviewed the
computer-generated mental display schematics of the Zircon building,
deciding where best to precision drop the squads, mapping out the ins and
outs of the stairways and speed lifts of the building. 



Each of the three squad leaders of the Space Marines entered the =93Cyber
Situation=94 for a detailed briefing of the Zircon building=92s many exits
and entries. They discussed the placement of portable force-field shields
to isolate the floor and at what point the various nonlethal weapons
would be used. One of the Marines suggested using an ultra-high frequency
wave burst as the best method to subdue the terrorists with the fewest
losses. The TAV-4 pilot and crew, already part of the Cyber Situation,
once more reviewed the weather, adjusted for winds, and with the
squadrons aboard, launched. 



The CINC and others watched the outcome of the operation in their =93Cyber
Situations,=94 noting the success of the precision drop and the excellent
execution of the Space Marines in avoiding detection by the terrorists,
while keeping the civilians calm. The success of the frequency wave burst
earned the suggesting Space Marine a merit promotion and the entire
operation the Argentine government=92s heartfelt thanks.



Susan Bryce is an investigative journalist and researcher. Her
interests include democracy and freedom, the technologies of political
control, environmental health and global politics. She can be contacted
at PO Box 66 Kenilworth Qld Australia 4574, or on +61 0754 723060. email:
sbryce@squirrel.com.au 



____________________________________________________________
New Dawn
Magazine,           &=
nbsp;         

GPO Box
3126FF,         =
            &nbs=
p;   

Melbourne, VIC
3001            =
         

AUSTRALIA
http://www.newdawnmagazine.com.au



-> To unsubscribe send email to snetnews-unsubscribe@topica.com
________________________________________________________________________
Start an Email List For Free at Topica.  http://www.topica.com/register