Tag Archives: war at the speed of light

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Laser Weapons Project Devastation At The Speed Of Light

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This is an excerpt from the introduction of my new book, War At The Speed Of Light:

Potential US adversaries, like China and Russia, are developing and deploying supersonic (i.e., faster than the speed of sound) and hypersonic missiles (i.e., five or more times faster than the speed of sound) as a means to destroy US aircraft, drones, missiles, aircraft carriers, and space-based assets, such as GPS and communication satellites. To counter this threat, the United States is developing and deploying laser weapons. However, the development of laser weapons is in its infancy. For example, in December 2014, the United States Navy installed the first-ever laser weapon on the USS Ponce. In field-testing, the United States Navy reported that the laser system worked perfectly against low-end asymmetric threats, such as small unmanned aerial vehicles. Following the field tests, the Navy authorized the commander of the Ponce to use the system as a defensive weapon. However, this is just the beginning. The US Navy’s strategy is to develop higher energy laser systems with the capability to destroy an adversary’s “carrier killer” missiles, as well as other asymmetric threats such as hypersonic missiles. In January 2018, the Navy contracted Lockheed Martin to deliver two HELIOS (High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance) systems by 2021. The Navy intends to deploy one on the USS Preble Arleigh Burke destroyer. The other will be land-based at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico for testing. In the 2020s, the US military plans to usher in the widespread use of laser weapons on land, sea, air, and space. It is reasonable to assume that these new lasers will continue the US military thrust to develop and deploy laser weapon systems capable of destroying an adversary’s supersonic, hypersonic, and intercontinental ballistic missiles, drone swarms, and space assets.

In addition to lasers, the US military is pursuing a full spectrum of directed energy weapons, including microwave, EMP, and cyberspace weapons.

 

Cyberspace

Cyberspace – The New Battlefield

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This is an excerpt from the introduction of my new book, War At The Speed Of Light.

In June 2016, NATO declared cyberspace (computer networks and the Internet) as an “operational domain,” a battlefield as real as air, sea, land, and space. This declaration recognizes cyber warfare and electronic warfare as two crucial new elements of warfare.

To succeed in this new battlespace, the US military must be equipped with capabilities to defend or attack information networks in cyberspace (i.e., cyber warfare) and to control access to the electromagnetic spectrum (i.e., electronic warfare). As a result, the US military is integrating cyber and electronic warfare to achieve an effective defense and offense in this new battlespace.

Cyberwarfare typically involves operations disrupting, exploiting, or crippling adversaries through information systems and the Internet via the use of computer code and computer applications. It often includes launching cyber weapons wirelessly. That means transmitting cyber weapons as electromagnetic radiation, similar to radio waves, traveling at the speed of light.

Until a little over a decade back, cyber warfare was the stuff of theoretical scenarios by security professionals. However, it is now apparent that hackers can cause just as much damage as traditional military attacks. We will discuss this at length in the coming chapters.

Electronic warfare is military action involving the use of directed energy to control the electromagnetic spectrum, such as radar, radio transmissions, and laser beams, to deceive or attack an enemy or to protect friendly systems from similar actions. The goal, according to the Department of Defense (DOD), is to use directed energy weapons to disrupt an electromagnetic field, resulting in jamming and deceiving information managed by computerized systems or electronic platforms, such as surveillance or telecommunication satellites. With high power, these weapons can also burn out the electric circuitry of an adversary’s weapon, resulting in the destruction or interference of its function.

human extinction

Will Humanity Survive The 21st Century?

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Examples of typical events that most people think could cause humanity’s extinction are a large asteroid impact or a volcanic eruption of sufficient magnitude to cause catastrophic climate change. Although possible, these events actually have a relatively low probability of occurring, in the order of one in fifty thousand or less, according to numerous estimates found via a simple Google search.

However, there are other events with higher probabilities that may cause human extinction. In 2008, experts surveyed at the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference at the University of Oxford suggested a 19 percent chance of human extinction over this century, citing the top five most probable to cause human extinction by 2100 as:

  1. Molecular nanotechnology weapons (i.e., nanoweapons): 5 percent probability
  2. Superintelligent AI: 5 percent probability
  3. Wars: 4 percent probability
  4. Engineered pandemic: 2 percent probability
  5. Nuclear war: 1 percent probability

All other existential events were below 1 percent. There is a subtle point the survey does not explicitly express, namely, the risk of human extinction increases with time. You may wonder, Why? To answer this question, consider these examples:

  • Nanoweapons and superintelligence become more capable with the development of each successive generation. In the 2008 Global Catastrophic Risk Conference survey, superintelligent AI equates with molecular nanotechnology weapons as the number one potential cause of human extinction. In my view, molecular nanotechnology weapons and superintelligent AI are two sides of the same coin. In fact, I judge that superintelligent AI will be instrumental in developing molecular nanotechnology weapons.
  • In my new book, War At The Speed Of Light, I devoted a chapter on autonomous directed energy weapons. These are weapons that act on their own to take hostile action, resulting in unintended conflicts. Unfortunately, current autonomous weapons don’t embody human judgment. This being the case, wars, including nuclear wars, become more probable as more autonomous weapons are deployed.
  • Lastly, the world is currently facing a coronavirus pandemic. Although most researchers believe this is a naturally occurring pandemic, it still infected 121,382,067 people and caused 2,683,209 deaths to date on a worldwide basis. This suggests the death rate is a little over 2 percent. However, if the virus was more infectious and more deadly, it could render the Earth a barren wasteland. Unfortunately, that is what an engineered pandemic might do.

To my eye, the top five potential causes surfaced by the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference at the University of Oxford in 2008 are all possible, and the probabilities associated with them appear realistic. This means that humanity has a 19 percent chance of not surviving the 21st century on our current course.

In the next post, I will suggest measures humanity can take to increase the probability they will survive into the 22nd century.

Laser Weapon

US Military Intends To Use Lasers To Defend Against Hypersonic Glide Missiles

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In my new book, War At The Speed Of Light, I discuss why the US military is eager to deploy directed energy weapons, such as lasers. One important reason has to do with hypersonic (i.e., five or more times faster than the speed of sound) glide missiles, which no country currently can defend against. Potential US adversaries, like China and Russia, are developing and deploying hypersonic missiles as a means to destroy US aircraft, drones, missiles, aircraft carriers, and space-based assets, such as GPS and communication satellites. To counter this threat, the United States is developing and deploying laser weapons. However, the development of laser weapons is in its infancy. For example, in December 2014, the United States Navy installed the first-ever 30-kilowatt laser weapon on the USS Ponce. In field-testing, the United States Navy reported that the laser system worked perfectly against low-end asymmetric threats, such as small unmanned aerial vehicles. Following the field tests, the Navy authorized the commander of the Ponce to use the system as a defensive weapon. However, this is just the beginning. The US Navy’s strategy is to develop higher energy laser systems with the capability to destroy an adversary’s “carrier killer” missiles, as well as other asymmetric threats such as hypersonic missiles.

In January 2018, the Navy contracted Lockheed Martin for two HELIOS (High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance), which Lockheed delivered in 2021. These new lasers are capable of a 60-kilowatt laser beam, which is double the energy punch of the laser weapons deployed on the USS Ponce. The Navy intends to deploy one on the USS Dewey Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. The other will be land-based at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico for testing. This is an excerpt from Lockheed Martin’s press release:

MOORESTOWN, N.J., JANUARY 11, 2021 – This year, the U.S. Navy will field the first acquisition program to deploy the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance, or HELIOS, a laser weapon system with high-energy fiber lasers for permanent fielding by the U.S. Department of Defense. This will be the only deployed laser system integrated into an operational Flight IIA DDG. This follows the Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Navy’s recent demonstration of full laser power in excess of the 60 kW requirement. The scalable laser design architecture spectrally combines multiple kilowatt fiber lasers to attain high beam quality at various power levels.

In the 2020s, the US military plans to usher in the widespread use of laser weapons on land, sea, air, and space. It is reasonable to assume that these new lasers will continue the US military thrust to develop and deploy laser weapon systems capable of destroying an adversary’s hypersonic, intercontinental ballistic missiles, drone swarms, and space assets.

artificial intelligence

Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Our Lives And The Way We Make War

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Artificial intelligence (AI) surrounds us. However, much the same way we seldom read billboards as we drive, we seldom recognize AI. Even though we use technology, like our car GPS to get directions, we do not recognize that at its core is AI. Our phones use AI to remind us of appointments or engage us in a game of chess. However, we seldom, if ever, use the phrase “artificial intelligence.” Instead, we use the term “smart.” This is not the result of some master plans by the technology manufacturers. It is more of a statement regarding the status of the technology.

By the late 1990s through the early part of the twenty-first century, AI research began its resurgence. Smart agents found new applications in logistics, data mining, medical diagnosis, and numerous areas throughout the technology industry. Several factors led to this success:

  • Computer hardware computational power was now getting closer to that of a human brain (i.e., in the best case about 10 to 20 percent of a human brain).
  • Engineers placed emphasis on solving specific problems that did not require AI to be as flexible as a human brain.

New ties between AI and other fields working on similar problems were forged. AI was definitely on the upswing. AI itself, however, was not in the spotlight. It lay cloaked within the application, and a new phrase found its way into our vocabulary: the “smart (fill in the blank)”—for example, we say the “smartphone.”

AI is now all around us, in our phones, computers, cars, microwave ovens, and almost any commercial or military system labeled “smart.” According to Nick Bostrom, a University of Oxford philosopher known for his work on superintelligence risks, “A lot of cutting edge AI has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI because once something becomes useful enough and common enough it’s not labeled AI anymore” (“AI Set to Exceed Human Brainpower,” CNN.com, July 26, 2006). Ray Kurzweil agrees. He said, “Many thousands of AI applications are deeply embedded in the infrastructure of every industry” (Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology Funding [2005]). The above makes two important points:

  1. AI is now part of every aspect of human endeavor, from consumer goods to weapons of war, but the applications are seldom credited to AI.
  2. Both government and commercial applications now broadly underpin AI funding.

AI startups raised $73.4 billion in total funding in 2020 according to data gathered by StockApps.com. Well-established companies like Google are spending tens of billions on AI infrastructure. Google has also spent hundreds of millions on secondary AI business pursuits, such as driverless cars, wearable technology (Google Glass), humanlike robotics, high-altitude Internet broadcasting balloons, contact lenses that monitor glucose in tears, and even an effort to solve death.

In essence, the fundamental trend in both consumer and military AI systems is toward complete autonomy. Today, for example, one in every three US fighter aircraft is a drone. Today’s drones are under human control, but the next generation of fighter drones will be almost completely autonomous. Driverless cars, now a novelty, will become common. You may find this difficult or even impossible to believe. However, look at today’s AI applications. The US Navy plans to deploy unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) to not only protect navy ships but also, for the first time, to autonomously “swarm” offensively on hostile vessels. In my latest book, War At The Speed Of Light, I devoted a chapter to autonomous directed energy weapons. Here is an excerpt:

The reason for building autonomous directed energy weapons is identical to those regarding other autonomous weapons. According to Military Review, the professional journal of the US Army, “First, autonomous weapons systems act as a force multiplier. That is, fewer warfighters are needed for a given mission, and the efficacy of each warfighter is greater. Next, advocates credit autonomous weapons systems with expanding the battlefield, allowing combat to reach into areas that were previously inaccessible. Finally, autonomous weapons systems can reduce casualties by removing human warfighters from dangerous missions.

What is making this all possible? It is the relentless exponential growth in computer performance. According to Moore’s law, computer-processing power doubles every eighteen months. Using Moore’s law and simple mathematics suggests that in ten years, the processing power of our personal computers will be more than a hundred times greater than the computers we currently are using. Military and consumer products using top-of-the-line computers running state-of-the-art AI software will likely exceed our desktop computer performance by factors of ten. In effect, artificial intelligence in top-of-the-line computers running state-of-the-art AI software may be equivalent to human intelligence. However, will it be equivalent to human judgment? I fear not, and autonomous weapons may lead to unintended conflicts, conceivably even World War III.

I recognize this last paragraph represents dark speculations on my part. Therefore, let me ask you, What do you think?