23/11/2024
In CSI articles
Between technological revolution and strategic challenges, AI is redefining the rules of modern warfare.
Written by : Chiara GATTI
The article in a nutshell:
Artificial intelligence is gradually establishing itself as a central element in the transformation of contemporary defence strategies. By optimising decision-making and enhancing data analysis capabilities, it promises to redefine the rules of the game on the battlefield. As world powers seek to master this technology to increase their military superiority, how will nations, and France in particular, navigate this new dynamic where data becomes a weapon in its own right? The road to full integration of AI into defence systems raises many strategic and political questions that have yet to be resolved.
What role will artificial intelligence play in future conflicts?
In recent years, we have seen a change in the scale of warfare, reflected both in the return of high-intensity warfare and the return of nuclear rhetoric used by international actors in conflict. The latter are flirting with confrontation with European countries, thereby undermining the European structure. They employ so-called “hybrid” strategies, combining conventional and special force actions, deterrence, etc. Other types of strategy, such as disinformation campaigns, manipulation of the population and information jamming, are also increasingly used. Today’s adversaries have far fewer scruples about breaking international law. The crucial double-edged sword in 21st century conflicts is therefore risk assessment and anticipation, a double-edged sword that can be found in all the major defence sectors today, in particular the three main armed forces – land, air and navy – but also space and the information sphere.
However, assessing the dispositions of your opponents remains a complex task. Decisions are difficult to take, and the rationality of those decisions can sometimes escape you. This is why the ability to adapt and innovate is becoming a key factor in knowing how to guard against threats and acquire a degree of supremacy in the field of defence. So we need to have the tools to understand the world around us better and faster, but also to be able to act in all areas of conflict. This is where artificial intelligence, a major new player in the field of defence, comes into play as a real game-changer in conflicts. It would make it possible to optimise the “OODA loop”(Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), a concept invented by the American fighter pilot John Boyle in the 1960s, which corresponds to a sequence of actions that, according to Boyle, makes it possible to “think and act faster than the adversary” in order to achieve victory. In this context, artificial intelligence becomes a tool for targeting, limiting damage and assessing the effects of actions.
Furthermore, the phenomenon of artificial intelligence, a consequence of the digital revolution, highlights new issues in international conflicts in the 21st century, based on the use of data. Today, virtually every human activity leaves a digital trace, generating phenomenal volumes of data. For example, the mobile phone is a tool that almost everyone has these days. As a result, the risk of data piracy through the billions of mobile phones in the world is becoming ever greater, in parallel with the exponential growth in the number of satellites sent into orbit each year. In the defence sector, armies are therefore confronted with the use of information and are now turning to artificial intelligence as a new defence tool.
At European level, there are already several bodies responsible for data security, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL); there are also written acts, such as the Artificial Intelligence Act, proposed in 2021 and voted on in 2024.
In France more specifically, the positioning vis-à-vis artificial intelligence is gradually being defined. It is seeking to adopt what is known as a “niche” strategy in the face of other major powers such as China and the United States: rather than being sufficiently advanced in all areas, France will seek to be extremely advanced in a specific field. At parliamentary level, the decision to devote €30 million to advances in artificial intelligence is encouraging the development of dedicated research laboratories and specialist start-ups. France is aware of the need for autonomy and sovereignty in the field of artificial intelligence, so it is looking for competition rather than cooperation. Consequently, it is necessary to devise a grammar for strategic competition, with artificial intelligence becoming a real factor in the acceleration and effectiveness of French defence in this area.
When you think of artificial intelligence today, ChatGPT is the first thing that springs to mind. However, in the defence sector, and more specifically within the armed forces, artificial intelligence is purely analytical. In other words, unlike ChatGPT, it does not generate data, but is responsible for receiving and analysing it. In other words, it is an operational artificial intelligence that, when confronted with a stream of satellite data, can produce a detailed and reliable analysis that can then be transmitted to a military image operator. The aim is both to see and to predict. With this type of artificial intelligence, a certain transparency of the battlefield is sought, in order to understand the enemy’s entire terrain and system. Companies such as Preligens, which specialises in artificial intelligence and spatial data for public defence and intelligence, are working on this model of artificial intelligence, the function of which is simply the automated processing of data, whatever its quality, which will not surpass human intelligence but will simply do things that are beyond human reach. To achieve this, these companies need to develop qualified training games for operational artificial intelligence, to ensure efficiency rates in excess of 95% within armies. This is a real challenge.
Finally, artificial intelligence in defence raises a political question, as a complicated subject to grasp, particularly as regards the strategic lines it implies. Armies may fight wars, but it is nations that win them. So there is always a political issue behind war: what is at stake in artificial intelligence, and how can it be determined? To grasp this issue politically, it has to be put on the political agenda, so parliamentarians have to be interested.
It is at this first level that a crucial challenge for artificial intelligence arises: how to explain it to members of parliament. Due to the slow turnover of the National Assembly, the new strategic challenges of artificial intelligence in defence are little or unknown to these parliamentarians. What’s more, France is emerging from a period of peace, which has slowed down the development of defence-related concerns and knowledge.
Today, defence issues occupy only 20% of parliamentarians’ time. As a result, it is becoming vital to work on the explicability of artificial intelligence for defence, so that the subject gradually moves up the political agenda.
There have already been some notable advances, such as a 2019 report by the National Defence Committee promulgating the creation of an ethics committee to set rules on artificial intelligence and its objectives in the defence sector. So the issues surrounding artificial intelligence are gradually gaining momentum, thanks to the French government, which is starting to get to grips with them.
The concern about the importance that politics should attach to this issue is constantly being reiterated, as we move towards an increasingly detailed understanding of the issues involved. So we’re halfway there: beyond awareness, politicians still don’t have the capacity to respond. However, it is no longer possible for man to be absent from decisions on artificial intelligence in this day and age: he is either in the loop, or above it, supervising it.
We still have a long way to go to master artificial intelligence, and we need to learn to work with it as well as without it.
However, understanding the new issues involved, particularly at a strategic level, is crucial if we are to prevail in the new conflicts involving the use of data.