Robots as Strategic Influencers (two articles from 2008)
A blast from the past that may still be relevant today
Success in modern conflict depends more on the ability to influence and less on the ability to annihilate. Whether through conventional or unconventional means, influence generated by action is, simply put, more enduring than bullets or bombs themselves. Precision-guided munitions must be subordinated to precision-guided influence that targets the strategic, operational, and tactical information environments.
This was the opening of an article I wrote in 2008 for a print and online magazine that completely disappeared from the Internet many years ago. The “Unintended Consequences of Unmanned Warfare” focused on the informational effects of robots on the battlefield. I explicitly excluded aerial vehicles as materially different from my focus: the communication effect of the ground vehicles that operated within the “sea of the people.” It followed a paper and presentation I did at the US Army War College the prior autumn.
I revisited this paper last week for a call with young scholars in the broader strategic communication, public diplomacy, and information operations space as part of the Hacking for Defense program. The 5400-word paper was a brief look at the potential informational effects of these platforms that did not yet seem to be seriously considered:
This paper examines the unexplored influence robots will exert in three overlapping information domains. The first domain is the psychological struggle for indigenous populations in conflict and post-conflict zones. The second domain is the impact on the global information environment and the broader struggle, and the third is the change in the calculus of foreign engagement as the American public, Congress, and the Executive Branch perceives a reduced human cost of war (on our side).
In August 2007, I posted a short, unscientific survey that ultimately received 232 responses, mostly from the US military community with a secondary audience of some academics in the field. I summarized the answers in the paper above:
In the case of the accidental death of civilians, the respondents felt autonomy would have a significantly negative impact in the U.S. media and, to a slightly lesser extent, in Western European media. Respondents indicated that they believed a fully autonomous robot would result in only slightly greater sympathy than any control of the robot. Overall, respondents made it clear that using robots in lieu of Americans indicated a reduced level of commitment to the mission and a typical American tactic of throwing money at a problem. Overwhelmingly (82%), the respondents felt this handoff would be perceived as a reduced commitment on the part of the Americans.
There are several points, in my opinion, in the paper that remain relevant and still largely ignored today. Incidentally, in a November 2008 post on my blog, I noted that whenever I posted on robots, visits from China, Singapore, Korea, Pakistan, and Indonesia spike.
While I won’t share the paper above, for your entertainment and to assist your procrastination from serious work, I will share below a shorter (1200 words) article of mine on the same topic that appears to have been published a few months earlier, in April 2008. I am not sure where this landed, but “(published)” appears in its title so it went somewhere. I thought it went to the aforementioned defunct and disappeared magazine, but I don’t know, so I’ll gamble and presume I’m fine to republish it here without consequence. It has been minorly edited for grammar.
Robots as Strategic Influencers
April 8, 2008
Robots will figure prominently in the future of warfare, whether you like it or not. They will provide perimeter security, logistics, surveillance, explosive ordnance disposal, and more because they fit strategic, operational, and tactical requirements for both the irregular and “traditional” warfare of the future. While American policymakers from all corners of America finally realize the so-called “War on Terror” is a war of ideas – a war of information – ignored in virtually all reports on unmanned systems is the substantial impact “warbots” will have on strategic communications, from public diplomacy to psychological operations. It is imperative the United States military and civilian leadership discuss, anticipate, and plan for each robot to be a real strategic corporal (or “strategic captain” if you consider their role as a coordinating hub).
As unmanned systems mature, ground systems operating among and interacting with foreign populations will substantially affect perceptions of our mission, both at home and abroad. Robots will exert significant influence in three overlapping information domains. The impact in the first domain is a change in the calculus of an expeditionary foreign policy as the American public, Congress, and future U.S. Administrations perceive a lowered human cost of war (Americans, to be specific). The second domain is the psychological struggle of the local populations in conflict and post-conflict zones, and the third is the overarching global information environment.
The most touted benefit of robots is reducing the exposure and vulnerability of America’s warfighters. The Defense Department’s Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2032, approved in December 2007, leads with this point and repeatedly emphasizes it. Unlike President Clinton’s lobbing cruise missiles against Al-Qaeda in Sudan and Afghanistan, a future president will be able to deploy remote-controlled and autonomous robots to accomplish the same mission with greater precision, but unasked is the true cost of lowering the bar for kinetic action in a world of instant communications. There are parallels here between the outsourcing to machines and outsourcing to private military contractors that circumvent public and Congressional oversight by avoiding the use of uniform soldiers.
The second critical domain is the psychological struggle for the minds and wills of the men and women in conflict and post-conflict zones. There is a real risk of undoing the lessons learned on the importance of personal contact with local populations that were earned at a high price of blood and treasure in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mapping the human terrain not only becomes, by implication at least, unnecessary in the sterility of robot-human interfaces but impossible.
In 2007, Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno issued guidance emphasizing the importance of engaging the local population and building a “feel” for the street. This guidance instructed Coalition forces to “get out and walk” and noted the up-armored Humvee limits “situational awareness and insulate us from the Iraqi people we intend to secure.”[1] Criticism of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs) preventing local engagement is just as applicable to robots operating in the sea of the people.
Very quickly, the propaganda of our deeds becomes how the U.S. is unwilling to risk lives for the mission or the host population if deployments are not accompanied by intelligent and constant two-way conversations with the people and the media. Their use must not create the question that the mission is not important enough to sacrifice our own men and women lest the local population wonder why they should. The result may be more than replaying improvised explosive device (IED) attacks against robots on YouTube, but an escalation of spectacular attacks to reach humans to influence U.S. public opinion and increase extra-regional sympathy for the insurgents in a modern propaganda contest of mano e mano.
The third domain is the discourse in the global media, both formal and informal, with foes and their base, allies, “swing-voters,” and our own public. This includes not only justifying actions but also containing and managing failures. On the former, work is underway today to formulate rules of engagement for robots designed around Western notions of an ethical practice of war codified in the Laws of War. But the collapse of traditional concepts of time and space by New Media prevents the deliberation of information by consumers and reporters. The noble pursuit of “Lawfare” of knowing the truth through careful reflection and analysis to justify Western-justified ends and means just does not work. Attempting to justify acts on what can be done according to Western laws actually permits an engagement model that is too permissive and ultimately detrimental to a mission where, as Lieutenant General James Mattis put it, “ideas are more important than [artillery] rounds.”[2] In other words, international law may permit firing into a house with women and children, but the blowback will be significant. Further, if you think private military contractors skirt the Laws of War, the application to a robot and its human handler, if one exists, is even more unclear.
Without capable information management from the strategic to the tactical level, accidents and failures of unmanned systems will receive harsh treatment in the global media, amplifying an endemic view in the Middle East and elsewhere that the U.S. commoditizes death. The United States cannot afford technological failures or induced failures (i.e. hacking), that kill civilians. While the U.S. can blame “out of control” human contractors, even if they were operating under the rules of engagement set by their government clients, the principal is absolved from responsibility to a much lesser degree if the agent is a machine. Previous incidents of “technical failure” causing civilian deaths, including the USS Vincennes shootdown of the Iran Air 655 in 1988, are examples of the void of a functioning strategic communications apparatus that cannot handle technical failure. An informal survey I put out on armed robots in a counterinsurgency environment noted there is a greater chance of damaging propaganda when robots are involved than humans.
It is essential that the information effects of what we do are considered from the outset, including the impact of information campaigns. Strategic communicators, public diplomats, and information operators must be involved in the “take-offs” of unmanned warfare, but they are not. Conversations with proponents of unmanned systems in the Defense Department and think tanks make it clear the U.S. has yet to understand that deploying robots to augment the human warfighter is not the same as changing out the M-16 carbine for the M-4. The uniformed warfighter the robot will replace reflects the country’s commitment to the mission, shaping local and global opinions that garner or destroy support for the mission. Robots will also, regardless of real or perceived autonomy, represent, reflect, and shape these opinions. The informational effect of robots is substantial, but little research has been done on the subject. Failure to recognize the information effect of unmanned systems designed to operate within the sea of the people and participating, willingly or not, in the struggle for the minds and wills of men and women will have tragic unintended consequences.
[1] LTG USA Raymond Odierno, “Counterinsurgency Guidance,” Headquarters Multi-National Corps–Iraq, Baghdad, Iraq, June 2007, accessed at http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/mncicoinguide.pdf on August 10, 2007.
[2] Quoted in Major Matt Morgan’s “Planning to Influence: A Commander's Guide to the PA/IO Relationship”, available at http://mountainrunner.us/2008/04/the_paper_about_the_divide_bet.html.
‘While I won’t share the paper above, for your entertainment and to assist your procrastination from serious work…’
Ok, you got me! 😀 But nevertheless, thanks for a thoughtful post, Matt.