Don’t Look Them in the Eye, Just Kill Them
Robots may indeed be fighting our wars for us sometime in the future. Yet in all likelihood, UAVs, artillery and fortifications of the early 20th century will be key to any upcoming war in our region
Generals are fond of saying that one has to prepare for the next war rather than the last one. One would be hard-pressed to disagree. Once we take a closer look at the history of armed conflict, one trend stands out: the distance at which humans are capable of mutual slaughter has been growing for thousands of years. At one time, it was necessary to look the enemy in the eye in close sword combat, and a successful strike could spray the attacker in the enemy’s blood. During the war in Afghanistan, on the other hand, American forces used MQ-Reaper UAVs to strike targets hundreds or even thousands of kilometres from their base. The tactic even earned its own abbreviation moniker: OTH, Over The Horizon. While Reaper operators would later often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, they were exposed to no threat during the mission itself.
“The more modern and technologically advanced the army, the fewer troops armed with proverbial bayonets are out there on the frontlines. Many more are in the rear – the absolute majority of troops will never see the enemy. They are the logisticians, pilots, artillerists and communication specialists”, historian and military analyst Norbert Bączyk told DGP Magazine. “Backed by powerful reconnaissance and steamroller attacks, you don’t need a huge frontline army to win. Truth be told, infantry troops don’t have any fighting to do – their only job is to seize their enemy’s destroyed positions. Having spotted the enemy before, their fellow soldiers have handled all the destruction for them. This is how modern armies work, how the US operates”, the expert explained.
Wars of the Future
What, therefore, will future conflicts look like? Should the United States join a major war (such as the invasion of Iraq in the 1990s) in the not-too-distant future, the extent of remote warfare, troops using exoskeletons, and assorted autonomous land vehicles will in all probability be huge. The world’s most powerful army is already commonly employing precision missiles capable of hitting targets with several-metre accuracy, their range spanning hundreds of kilometres. All of this will obviously be packaged in battlefield management systems well backed with Artificial Intelligence, affording every unit the widest possible view of the situation. Simplifying and letting the imagination run somewhat wild, one could well imagine the whole thing as a single giant system absorbing data from thousands of aircraft-, vehicle-, and/or body cam-fitted sensors, using that data to create an image of the situation at hand – and suggesting optimum solutions befitting current conditions. All the human operator has to do is push the “approve” button. In a nutshell, Artificial Intelligence will offer the most effective killing prompts.
Work on the Harpy Claw (Harpi Szpon) programme is a perfect example, involving UAVs compatible with F-35 aircraft (Harpy programme) to serve in the Polish Armed Forces. According to design, the pilot will control a swarm of smaller UAVs that are compatible and collaborating with his airplane. During an aerospace industry trade fair in Spain in early November 2023, General Cezary Wiśniewski, Deputy General Commander of the Polish Armed Forces, confirmed that while the Polish Armed Forces have begun reviewing the market, “the industry is not ready to provide us with such capabilities today”.
Should the Russian Federation be the aggressor during an upcoming conflict again, their technology or modern weaponry would not be as advanced – or as common – as in the US Army. A glance at images from Ukraine allows us to conclude that technology would be advanced in selected areas only. Yet the NATO-targeting information warfare and disinformation Moscow continuously engages in would most certainly be improved. Apart from the St. Petersburg troll farms we have already been exposed to, data breaches – including email message theft (of the sort observed during the 2016 US election campaign, a phenomenon minister Michał Dworczyk might have been a potential victim of as well) – and microtargeting designed to exacerbate social divides and fake news would abound. Already in 2017, the Polish information space featured an interview with a leading military commander quoted as saying that, for example, “the Polish taxpayer will pay through the nose for an illusionary American presence in Poland, a phenomenon hindering the financing of our own armed forces, weakening them and making them dependent on others. The presence of US troops in Poland is proof of our vassalism and weakness rather than partnership”. Though nobody had ever given such an interview, the quote itself in all likelihood planted by Russians, it began living its own life, wreaking havoc. Successive skirmishes will certainly yield attacks even more innovative in nature. They may involve so-called deep fakes, for example: film footage of politicians giving speeches that never took place.
Hybrid warfare will become a prelude to actual war. How will the third great nuclear power prepare for the latter? “China’s military modernisation efforts are aimed at achieving decisive dominance through a three-pronged approach: doctrinal transformation and ideological rigor, exploitation of advanced technology to shape the character of modern conflicts, and innovation of its training methods to compensate for the lack of wartime fighting”, writes Matthew McInnis of the Institute for the Study of War in the report Russia and China Look at the Future of War. McInnis’ arguments thus point to a combination of US and Russian warfare strategies: excellent technology and battlefield management systems involving hybrid and information war methods, all steeped in in-house propaganda. Such, at least, are the basic assumptions. Yet as experiences in recent months have shown with respect to an “undefeated Israel” or “Ukraine, due to fall in three days”, warfare theory can differ greatly from practice.
What, therefore, will the next war look like? Everything depends on where it breaks out. Until recently, The Economist weekly claimed that Taiwan was the most dangerous place on earth, a potential site of conflict – whether direct or indirect – between China and the United States. Yet no escalation had been noted in the region over recent months. On the contrary, de-escalation seems to be happening, as evidenced by the meeting between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping. In the meantime, Russia attacked Ukraine, the border-based conflict in Ethiopia intensified and was then officially halted, civil wars (such as the one in Myanmar) have remained intense, and we are all watching the Hamas-Israel war unfold in terror. Each of these conflicts is different in nature, due to i.a. weapons available to each of the respective parties, and local terrain. Guerrillas in tropical forests engage in a different kind of warfare than an adversary hidden in tunnels beneath cities.
It stands to reason that to us, the characteristics of the next war will gain the greatest importance if Poland is forced to fight it. Yet let us point out right at the start: nothing is written in stone. It is highly likely that Poland will succeed in avoiding warfare on its territory for decades to come.
That, however, does not change the fact that while fifteen years ago the Polish Armed Forces were chiefly planning for so-called expeditionary missions, such as fighting in faraway Afghanistan, Russia has been considered the main threat for more or less ten years, ever since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. Should Moscow suffer a strategic defeat in Ukraine and be forced to withdraw from even a part of the territories it occupies, any attack on any NATO member state will be highly unlikely in the immediate future. Regrettably, such a turn of events seems unrealistic today. Nonetheless, predictions that Russia will definitely attack us in a few years are rather unconvincing, to say the least.
Window with a View
What could an armed conflict in the Central European region look like in a decade or so? Warfare beyond our eastern border seems to be offering an optimum window with a view. What is that view, exactly? First and foremost, reconnaissance measures have evolved on an unprecedented scale. The point is not that observation satellites are capable of identifying individual terrestrial objects with a resolution of up to 50 cm, weather permitting, but rather that airspace is crammed with hundreds and thousands of cheap observation drones. The conflict in Ukraine resembles a slightly improved version of snapshots from World War I. Trenches have been dug on both sides, and the separation line is several dozen to several hundred metres long. While both armies are making efforts to attack these fortifications, reconnaissance measure density is so high (on both sides) that larger columns can only march effectively at night. “Any Ukrainian attacks on Russian positions take place before dawn, when drone presence is more sparse”, military analyst Konrad Muzyka of Rochan Consulting explained on the www.forsal.pl website. “They attack before sunrise and seize the trench, carrying sufficient supplies – water, food, ammunition – in order to survive over twelve hours entrenched, until sunset. This is when anyone can approach them, whether on foot or by car, to bring fresh provisions. Any attempt to approach the trench in daytime will be met with Russian artillery fire, anti-tank missiles, or drones”, the expert added. UAVs are commonly available and inexpensive – this means that a revolution, also during upcoming conflicts, is at hand.
Yet contrary to all appearances, no major change should be expected. We will obviously still be looking at tanks and armoured vehicles being destroyed by anti-tank missiles or UAVs. Artillery will remain important – whether 155 mm barrelled guns with a 40-kilometre range (typical for the West), or missiles, their range considerably greater, yet with considerably higher ammunition costs. The latter demonstrably means 155 mm guns will outnumber missiles. Consequently, long-term war skirmishes may still end with “regular” artillery fire exchanges, a phenomenon already observable today. However indirectly, this evolution of the art of war along aforesaid lines has been confirmed by the BAE Systems arms corporation, which announce to www.defensenews.com the renewed manufacturing of their M777 lightweight towed howitzers. The M777s are also NATO-standard 155 mm guns. In Poland, we are also struggling to increase the production capacity of our Krab tracked-gun howitzers. The European Union, in turn, has announced it will take steps to increase the manufacturing of this type of missiles. While things are going uphill at the moment, we will certainly see results in a few years’ time.
Another premise suggesting that any upcoming war will be completely ordinary – in the sense that we will be using well-known weapons – arises from a report by the German think tank DGAP with a focus on how Germans ought to be arming themselves in the years to come. “When it comes to equipment, the Bundeswehr should rely on tried and tested systems that can be produced quickly in large quantities. Generally, the technical quality of existing weapons systems will be sufficient to perform adequately against Russia. Nevertheless, their further development can – and must – continue, but incrementally”, authors of the report claim. Their arguments regarding training are rather “down-to-earth” as well: “Building on the experience gained from training the Ukrainian army, military training should be adapted to the reality of the modern battlefield. Training should include supposedly trivial activities that are currently overregulated or even prohibited, such as flying tactical drones over practicing personnel or digging trenches”.
Which brings us to the next area: developing fortifications. Aside from First Person View drones (the operator using the point of view of a UAV in flight) and mass artillery use, the Russian-Ukrainian war has proven that trenches, anti-tank ditches, minefields and armed resistance positions will also be essential. Thanks to the initially ridiculed Surovikin Line developed in the Zaporizhzhia region, the Russians were able to defend themselves against the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The innovative factor may involve such fortifications being erected by machines. Yet it is equally certain that the upcoming war will involve more frequent use of shovels than robots worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Back to basics we go. ©Ⓟ
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