Source: Radio New Zealand
The NZDF is warning about the costs and ethical difficulties of the latest military technology advancements. Supplied / NZDF
“Human-machine teams” using leading-edge technology to defeat the enemy are part of the NZ Defence Force’s vision for the future.
The defence force’s new briefing to Parliament on the future of fighting technology contains visions of a digital twin for each soldier, laser weapons and drones using satellites to engage with targets before a human pulls the trigger
But it also includes warnings about the costs and ethical difficulties.
“Machines will increasingly operate systems, processes and capabilities independently of humans,” said the 66-page long-term insights briefing, which imagines a world after 2035.
“Machines will play an increasing role in targeting processes.”
The briefing said it was only talking about influences on military capabilities, and was not a shopping list, but some things were inevitable.
This included laser-fast targeting which integrated with other militaries’ systems and “will be a non-negotiable for defence forces to remain combat-capable and inter-operable with partners”.
The rise of machines looms larger than in previous briefings.
“It is not expected that autonomous systems will herald a wholesale replacement of human presence on the front-line,” but it added the more fluid and dangerous a situation was, the more machines would be a factor.
The future briefings are released every three years.
Three years ago, the defence ministry’s $12 billion Defence Capability Plan (DCP) was a long way off and the government was just beginning to ramp up its warnings about the state of world geopolitics.
Aukus was already well established, but while New Zealand has not joined up to it in the past three years, the country has made various arrangements and experiments with Five Eyes partners to develop emerging military technology – which is what Aukus Pillar Two was all about.
Public inclusion
The new briefing said one background shift would be from public engagement to public inclusion.
“Ensuring Defence maintains public trust will remain essential, and possibly more challenging.”
The defence ministry declined a request to be interviewed.
“The briefing itself provides a detailed overview of how technology innovations could influence New Zealand’s defence capabilities beyond 2035. We have nothing further to add at this time,” it said.
‘Who is going to build all of this?’
Defence analyst and former lieutenant colonel Josh Wineera said his main question was: “Who is going to build all of this?”
“Is the government thinking about declaring what are sovereign capabilities and therefore become priority investment areas for firms to be supported or even funded?” he asked.
That would help skirt global supply chain strictures, which Australia was doing. “Will the LTIB then see a similar investment?”
Wineera was speaking from Europe, where the Munich Security Conference is being held.
The US has struck a more conciliatory position towards Europe than at last year’s divisive conference.
But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also stressed in his speech how immigration was a problem and how the US and Europe shared the “deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir”.
‘Profound’ effect
The new future briefing said the new tech’s effect on New Zealand’s strategic context was “profound”, because distance was no longer any protection.
The new technology was opening up more types of fighting aside from actual open warfare, such as cyber attacks.
One issue would be the costs – not just to the country’s pocket but potentially to its values – with questions over how the technical and warfighting benefits weighed against sovereignty, legality and public licence.
“For many defence forces, these trade-offs could be challenging to manage, particularly if partner positions begin to deviate from international norms, or where the cost of capabilities enabled by advanced technology becomes prohibitive.”
Machine speed, precision and autonomy – including “self-mending” drones – were key themes in the briefing.
“The precision, range, and lethality of strike weapons is increasing.
“These advances will also lead to decisions increasingly being made independent of human analysis and inference, where it is lawful, and ethically and operationally sensible to do so.”
Weapons of the future
The briefing’s focus was on four areas – as well as human-machine teams, there was discussion of seamless command-and-control for target weapons shared in a network across partners.
It covered likely weapons of the future as well as some which exist today: “Breakthroughs in biotechnology are gradually delivering brain-machine interfaces that detect brain activity to direct machines with thoughts,” it said.
The NZDF has set out to acquire some of these. The DCP envisaged spending hundreds of millions of dollars on things such as drones and space surveillance over the next four years.
Beyond that, technology advancements could include a large drone that could last ages at sea and launch masses of smaller drones to surveil and deter an adversary; a minituarised sensor/micro-drone so advanced it could track individual soldiers, or be used in search and rescue; a special forces soldier with night vision contact lenses and adaptive camouflage; and an ‘avatar’ that updated in real-time when the person was injured and could measure blood loss and stress – then recommend a treatment.
“Bio- technologies are set to enhance defence force personnel in entirely new ways, while simultaneously introducing novel risks from pathogens and other weapons,” the briefing said ominously.
Human-machine teams
Human-machine teaming (HMT) was the most “uncertain, encompassing, and ethically challenging technology” in the briefing.
“Algorithms detecting, classifying, and prioritising targets, shifting the human role to verification and authorisation” was one of six types of HMT mentioned in the briefing.
The NZDF has already engaged in exercises with the US over what the Pentagon called “human-machine integration”.
Seamless command-and-control, which the briefing said was non-negotiable, has also featured in exercises and experiments between the Five Eyes militaries, in particular since about 2020.
‘C5ISRT’ meant “increasingly, algorithms will detect, classify, and prioritise targets at machine speeds, shifting the human role to verification and authorisation”.
Drones and satellites would feed the system data about “the environment and battlespace”.
“This will be possible without human intervention and with the ability to occur at machine speeds.”
The briefing noted an example of C5ISRT – America’s Project Maven. The system was already several times faster at targeting than human analysts, and the US was now expanding Maven.
“C5ISRT technology innovations will continue to open new opportunities to integrate defence systems with international partners,” said the future-look briefing.
“For New Zealand, this may include new policy infrastructure such as data-sharing arrangements that are consistent with domestic policy and law.”
More autonomy was also in the future.
“Robotic Autonomous Systems (RAS) will share data quickly and securely between themselves and crewed systems.”
Organic networks that self-heal and can build ad hoc networks will also support ‘technical autonomy’ – so a damaged subsea drone could repair itself.
The briefing did not look at future defence doctrine or geostrategic considerations.
It mentioned warfighting and war just a few times.
Its main real-world reference point was Ukraine versus Russia, citing how acoustic sensors have boosted missile spotting.
However, it also said the Pacific stand-off between US and China was key.
“Of particular concern is the rapid and non-transparent growth of China’s military capability.”
‘Stretch future budgets’
None of this would come cheap.
“Growing costs, especially from investing in advanced software and hardware, along with rising military inflation (… significantly higher than regular inflation) will stretch future budgets,” said the briefing.
“Making investment choices that balance the investments needed for future technology while also managing short-term capability gaps will be increasingly difficult.”
One answer to escalating costs was 3D printing drones close by a battlefield.
But partnering would be the big enabler.
“The growing pace and scale of defence innovation will mean that maintaining technological interoperability will become increasingly expected by allies, partners, other government agencies, and industry.
“The increasingly integrated nature of future defence technologies meant the research needed to focus on connectivity and understand the macro-trends that transcend capability sets.”
The other big barrier was ethics – how to deliver an “innovative combat-capable force, with strong adherence to domestic and international law.”
The briefing meets reality most closely in the NZDF’s Surveillance (Air) Project funded in the last Budget.
Defence is looking for drones that can hover for ages over the ocean for maritime spotting.
Last month it invited local and foreign business and researchers to workshops to “increase the overall understanding of platform supply, technology applications, training” among other things.
Because the workshops made no decisions and did not cost much, the MOD refused to identify who attended them, in its OIA response.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
