stability could be the human factor, however. Good decisions require more than good people. We have al-ready discussed the importance of relevant, accurate, and timely information. We have noted the value of options. Technology is vital to providing both. But what of the decisionmaking process and implemen-tation? Here too technology can help, but its role is subservient.
In science, theorists and experimentalists chal-lenge each other and try to reconcile their differences.
Similarly, in examining strategic stability we tend to look at how policy and forces are harmonized. Be-cause of vast advances in electronics, data processing, and graphic interfaces, simulations are becoming an essential tool to elaborate theory and focus research more effectively in science. Likewise, advanced simu-lations and gaming are being used for both training of military forces and analysis of military options.
Some of the most useful tactical innovations and analytical insights develop when training and analysis combine. Technology permits more options to be ex-plored more realistically, quickly, at less expense and permits more free play. Strategies, forces, players, and scenarios can be altered and explored not only by the
to understand how strategies, systems, organizations, and individuals function under stress.
Much of the literature on strategic stability is based upon game theory and related fields such as economics. Like Newtonian physics, these classics re-main valuable, but are insufficient for some purposes.
These fields have advanced along with other social, behavioral, and cognitive sciences in parallel with a geostrategic world that looks more like quantum me-chanics, with its uncertainty principles, entanglement, and action at a distance. The largely bipolar Cold War was crudely analogous to the “Two-Body problem” in physics, easier to calculate especially when any other bodies are satellites. Multiple independent players may be more analogous to the “n-Body problem” in physics with its links to complexity theory and chaotic behavior wherein small changes translate into radi-cally different outcomes. In other words, multipolar-ity might pose substantially more severe complexmultipolar-ity problems than did bipolarity.
Moreover, human beings operate in given cultures.
A common logic and language of strategic stability may eventually emerge across cultures, but we can-not yet make that assumption. Even within a single culture, individual differences in risk assessments and cost-benefit analysis can differ greatly and change in unexpected ways. If small numbers of nuclear weap-ons make the “unthinkable” more thinkable, under-standing how people think under pressure becomes vital. Although smaller nuclear arsenals may make the incalculable more calculable, the greatest uncertainty remains understanding human behavior, which will be complex with more and different players.
Simulations of battlefield outcomes or weapons effects have become more sophisticated. As
compu-tations and networking enhance virtual reality and connectivity, extensive cross-cultural simulations and gaming may help us understand possible adversaries –and ourselves—better. It may also help us refine our strategies and programs. Nevertheless, gaming and simulations about WMD can be very controversial, and extensive excursions, no matter how heuristic or analytical, are likely to be more so. Ironically, concerns about terrorism, first responders, and consequence management are encouraging diverse professionals to work together to understand the interaction of tech-nology and cultures in a more realistically simulated homeland security environment. Whether conducted together or separately, training, evaluation of policies and programs, and analysis of the human factor will advance with greater use of more realistic simulations.
More rigorous analysis and greater realism undoubt-edly would make clearer the horrors of war even as we learn better how to prevent war in the first place.
Technology is intimately linked to a related hu-man issue, “the hu-man in the loop.” Tailoring a military response to meet rational objectives requires sound human judgment. Decisionmakers need time to evalu-ate a crisis and select the best option. Technology is exploited to provide more time, accurate information, meaningful visualization, relevant options, better de-cisions, and appropriate responses. Timely implemen-tation is necessary so that changing circumstances do not make a good decision bad. On the tactical battle-field, Pilots and Soldiers employ direct fire weapons and forward observers guide indirect fire weapons based on immediate information. Strategic mis-sions, whether nuclear or conventional, have similar concepts, but may have longer timelines.
The time between the authorization to respond and the arrival of the weapon on the target can vary greatly depending on communications and on the transit times of the platforms and weapons. Keeping
“the man in the loop” is a fundamental part of U.S.
policy and, in fact, plays a key role in the laws of war-fare. Nevertheless, differences exist as to how long it is responsible to have a human out of the decision implementation sequence. This was a controversial is-sue, for instance, in the negotiation of the treaty ban-ning anti-personnel landmines.
Where do we locate the “man in the loop?” The technology associated with UAVs and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) has advanced rapidly around the world to include use by nonstate actors. Interest is also growing in civilian applications.28 The unmanned aircraft or drone evolved from an unguided vehicle to a remotely piloted vehicle. Now the drone is often a semi-autonomous vehicle that flies itself where it is told to go. A number of drones can carry out missions such as surveillance with little human intervention.
Unmanned aircraft vary in size from those of a hum-mingbird29 to those of real airplanes. A Congressional Research Service study, examining resupply, search and rescue, refueling and air combat, concluded: “In short, UAS are expected to take on every type of mis-sion currently flown by manned aircraft.”30 The goal is to remove the operators from harm’s way and sim-plify the workload to permit concentration on quality decisions and mission performance.
The percentage of attack or surveillance missions flown by unmanned aircraft is growing. Some believe that unmanned vehicles will inevitably become the dominant means of weapons delivery by air, land, and sea, not simply as an extension of the manned
aircraft, vehicles, ships, or submarines, but as replace-ments. Manned platforms are unlikely to go away completely. From the bottom of the ocean to the Moon or Mars, humans are looking for transportation. Nev-ertheless, manned vehicles are no longer the dominant workhorses deep in the ocean or in outer space, and as warhorses, manned systems are given unmanned ex-tensions like cruise missiles and long-range torpedoes and are augmented by unmanned ballistic missiles and armed drones. How far will this trend toward control from a distance evolve?
Unarmed unmanned platforms have some public acceptability problems. Because unmanned systems need not be as reliable as their manned counterparts, they may not be engineered to be as reliable. But they could be. We trust millions of cars with drivers on our freeways, but would we let robotic automobiles into our traffic jams and mixing bowls? DARPA has had Grand Challenges in which driverless vehicles com-pete in traffic,31 and the States of Nevada and California have passed laws that would permit driverless auto-mobiles.32 We already accept driverless people movers on rails,33 and, of course, the U.S. military de-conflicts aircraft and drones over Afghanistan routinely.
In time, driven by policy, technology, and budgets, unmanned weapons delivery systems may expand their contributions to a wider range of strategic and tactical military missions involving reconnaissance, conventional strike, electronic warfare, and nuclear deterrence. A key consideration will be the relation-ship between human decisionmaking and execution of the military mission. Technology will undoubtedly be examined for its contributions to advanced command and control, safety and security of on-board weapons,
and improved means to deny weapons, electronics, or information to an enemy if the vehicle is shot down or crashes. Interest in improved capabilities like these will be valuable no matter what the payload, but these capabilities would be greatest for highly classified missions and weapons.
TECHNOLOGY, SURPRISE, AND OPTIONS TO