Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics (2)

This article focuses on the political and geopolitical consequences of the feedback relationship linking Artificial Intelligence (AI) in its Deep Learning component and computing power – hardware – or rather high performance computing power (HPC). It builds on a first part where we explained and detailed this connection.

Related

Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics (1): the connection between AI and HPC

High Performance Computing Race and Power – Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics (3): The complex framework within which the responses available to actors in terms of HPC, considering its crucial significance need to be located.

Winning the Race to Exascale Computing – Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics (4) : The race to exascale computing, state of play, and impacts on power and the political and geopolitical (dis)order; possible disruptions to the race.

There we underlined notably three typical phases where computation is required: creation of the AI program, training, and inference or production (usage). We showed that a quest for improvement across phases, and the overwhelming and determining importance of architecture design – which takes place during the creation phase – generates a crucial need for ever more powerful computing power. Meanwhile, we identified a feedback spiral between AI-DL and computing power, where more computing power allows for advances in terms of AI and where new AI and the need to optimize it demand more computing power. Building upon these findings we envision here how the feedback spiral between  computing power and AI-DL systems is increasingly likely to impact politics and geopolitics.

Considering thus the crucial and rising importance of computing power, with the next article we shall address how the resulting race for computing power could play out and has already most probably started. There we shall notably consider a supplementary uncertainty we identified previously, the evolution and even mutation of the field of computing power and hardware as it is impacted by AI-DL.

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Here we first imagine the political and geopolitical impacts faced by actors with insufficient computing power. We examine these potential consequences according to the choices the actors have. We focus on the very creation of the AI-systems and speak more briefly of the training phase. Then we look at the distribution of power in the emerging AI-world according to computing power and underline a possible threat to our current modern international order.

Living without high performance computing power in the age of Artificial Intelligence: dependency and loss of sovereignty

Understanding and imagining for the future the political and geopolitical impacts of the feedback relationship between computing power and Artificial Intelligence-Deep Learning may be more easily grasped when looking first at what the absence of computing power or rather high performance computing could entail.

As we started pointing out in the previous article, not having the computing power necessary for the phase of the creation of AI systems (phase 0 in our previous article) will de facto make various actors dependent upon those who have computing power.

What we are facing is a situation comparable to a brain drain of a new age, or rather an initial brain deficiency, which forbids or, to the least, makes very difficult evolution. As shown in the detailed example of Google’s AutoML (see When AI started creating AI), if AI-created Deep Neural Networks are always or most of the time more efficient than those created by humans, then those actors who cannot perform best during this initial phase, when AIs are designed, will have less efficient AIs, no AIs, will depend upon external computing power to create their AIs or, worse, upon others for the very core programme of the AI-DL they will use. If these AI-systems are crucial for their governance or AI-management, then potential negative impacts may ripple throughout the whole system. As a result their AI-power status in the international relative distribution of power will be impacted thrice: once because of potentially sub-efficient AI-governance or AI-management, once because they cannot wield influence thanks to their optimal AI-systems and once because they do not have useful and necessary computing power. Impact on general international influence and international power status will follow and stem from all the areas where AI-governance and AI-management are increasingly used positively, when this will only be fully realised by those who have computing power. We shall look more in detail to each of the choices available to those actors who do not have sufficient computing power.

Here we assume – and this is indeed a very strong assumption – that potential negative effects and unintended consequence of the use of AI-systems for governance and management are mitigated. Note that detailed scenarios would be necessary to move from assumption to a better understanding of the future across the whole range of possibilities.

For example, we may think about a completely opposite possibility, according to which actors using AI-systems abundantly have completely underestimated and mismanaged adverse impacts and where, finally, those actors who had no computer power and decided for not using AI in governance or in management end up faring much better that their AI-friendly counterparts.

Choice 1: No AI-systems and Non-AI actors

Notably if we consider the still emerging and highly changing field of AI, as well as the cost entailed notably in terms of computing power, we may imagine a scenario in terms of international interactions where, out of a conscious political decision or out of sheer necessity and duress, some AI-free actors finally develop strategic, operational, and tactical advantages across governance or management, which allow them to fare better than AI-endowed actors. We should here remember the famous war simulation Millenium Challenge 2002 – a war simulation exercise sponsored by the defunct U.S. Joint Forces Command – where an a-doctrinal Red Team (playing ‘the enemy’) initially won over the Blue Team (the U.S.), including by not using the expected technology (Micah Zenko,  “Millennium Challenge: The Real Story of a Corrupted Military Exercise and Its Legacy“, War On The Rocks, 5 Nov 2015; Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, 2005: pp. 47-68).

If political authorities faced with a large deficit in computing power make the conscious and willed choice to decide to exclude AI, then, on top of the possibility to develop unexpected advantages – which is however, in no way a given – evoked above, they may be able to try capitalising on this strategy. As an analogy, everything being equal, we may think about what Bhutan decided in terms of national policy. The country – true enough, so far, largely “guided” by India in terms of external relations, with a revision of the Indo-Bhutan Friendship Treaty in 2007, and by an international system where peace has rather prevailed as a norm since the end of World War 2, despite a grimmer reality – chose a specific cultural “official stress on Bhutanese distinctiveness” for development, foregoing a mad quest for modernity, and erecting this specificity as national pride, policy and asset (Syed Aziz-al Ahsan and Bhumitra Chakma, “Bhutan’s Foreign Policy: Cautious Self-Assertion?“, Asian Survey, Vol. 33, No. 11 (Nov., 1993), pp. 1043-1054.

Short of this thoughtful and planned approach, which furthermore may neither remain viable in the medium-term and even shorter term future in a changing international order, nor be adaptable to each and every actor, governing without AI may soon become complex. Indeed, if many areas of governance increasingly involve AI-systems in most countries, then, a “non-AI country”, when interacting internationally on a host of issues with others, may rapidly face challenges, ranging from speed of reaction and capability to handle data, to inability to communicate and misunderstanding because of different ways to handle problems (with or without AI). Non-AI companies would most probably face similar difficulties, even more so if they are located in countries where AI is promoted by the political authorities. In that case, these non-AI businesses would most probably have to move towards AI, assuming they can, or disappear.

Choice 2: Suboptimal AI-systems

Similar problems, with even worse hurdles, may arise if the absence or inadequacy of computing power leads to the use of suboptimal AI.

All areas of governance or management where a less efficient AI is used can be impacted.

By less efficient, we cover a very large scope of problems from energy inefficiency to accuracy decrease through speed, i.e. all those elements for which a quest for optimisation and improvement is ongoing, as we saw previously (see “Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics (1)“, part 3).

Imagine, for example, that drones, enabled with carrying weapons and firing, use AI-systems for object detection (for an example with open source Google-created NASNet, see “When AI Started Creating AI”). If your AI-system for Object Detection is less efficient than the system used by the adversary, then your drone may be destroyed even before it started doing anything. It may also be tricked with a whole range of decoys.

artificial intelligence, smart city, geopolitics, AI, driver, scenarios, strategic warning, deep learning high performance computing power, risk analysis, risk management, strategic foresight, red team analysis society, indicator, drones, LAWS
“To achieve the upper hand on a battlefield that’s expected to be complex and multidimensional”, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, ” ARL is developing interconnected weapons that will incorporate advances in shared sensing, computing and navigating.” Image by Evan Jensen, ARL – from Dr. Frank Fresconi, Dr. Scott Schoenfeld and Dan Rusin, Lt. Col., USA (Ret.), “On Target”, January – March 2018 issue of Army AL&T magazine, Public Domain.

We could even imagine that the enemy’s superior computing power having allowed for creating better and more numerous AI-systems, could have the capability to feed fake or slightly skewed information into the sub-optimal drone, leading the latter to target exclusively its own army’s troops and material. Here, even with the best will in the world, the actor deficient in computing power cannot – it truly does not have the capability – protect itself nor preempt what superior computing power and thus, de facto, AIs can create and do. Furthermore, because AIs create strategies that are AI specific and are not usually imagined by humans, as shown by Google’s series of AI programs devoted to the game of Go (see “Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning – The New AI-World in the Making“), it is likely that, as in the offensive example imagined above, only efficient and optimal AIs will be able to counter AIs.

This is only one example but it may be declined across the whole spectrum of AI-powered objects such as the Internet of Things (IoT).

Choice 3:  Optimal AI but created on external computing power

Let us turn now to an actor with insufficient computing power available, yet having a willingness to develop and optimize its own AI systems – assuming this actor also has the other necessary ingredients to do so, such as scientists for example.

This actor may have no other choice than using others’ computing power. This actor will have to pay for this usage, be it in monetary terms, if it uses commercial facilities, or in terms of independence if, for example, specific cooperation agreements are imagined. This may, or not, involve security liabilities according to the actors, to the providers of computing power, and to the specific goal of the AI-systems being developed.

In terms of national security, for example, can we really imagine a ministry of Defence or a Home ministry developing highly sensitive AI-systems on a commercial computing facility?

Actually, yes, it can be imagined as, already, the U.S. army is moving “to the cloud with the help of industry”, with, for example, the “Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI)”, to be finally awarded in Autumn 2018 (e.g. “Army modernizes, migrates to cloud computing“, Military and Aerospace Electronic, 20 March 2018; Frank Konkel,, “Pentagon’s Commercial Cloud Will Be a Single Award—And Industry Isn’t Happy“, NextGov, 7 March 2018; LTC Steven Howard, U.S. Army (Ret.), “DoD to Award Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud Contract in Fall 2018“, Cyberdefense, 23 May 2018). This cloud should be used for war and “a commercial company” – probably Amazon – will be “in charge of hosting and distributing mission-critical workloads and classified military secrets to warfighters around the globe” (Howard, Ibid; Frank Konkel “How a Pentagon Contract Sparked a Cloud War“, NextGov, 26 April 2018). JEDI could be awarded to Amazon during Autumn 2018 (Ibid.). True enough, we do not know if this cloud will be used as distributed architecture also to create AI-systems, but it may be. Using commercial companies for governance, even more so if the purpose is related to defence, demands that commercial companies assume a security mission that was, until recently, a prerogative of the state. The power thus given to a commercial company makes even more the American political dynamics. Notably, Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex could well be changing (e.g.”Military-Industrial Complex Speech“, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961, Avalon Project, Yale).

Now, this is about American security, privatised to American companies. However, would the Pentagon award such contracts to Chinese companies or European ones?

Similarly, we may wonder if the creation of AI-systems may be done on commercial super computers belonging to foreign companies, and/or localized abroad. This is even more so if the foreign company is already contracted by a foreign Army or Defence ministry, as, in that case, the foreign Army has a larger power of coercion on the commercial companies: it may threaten to withhold the contract, or delay payment if the commercial company does not do its bidding, whatever the bidding.

The possibility to face hacks and other security vulnerabilities rapidly increases.

A similar phenomenon may also occur for elements constituting computing power, such as foreign manufactured chips, as recently shown by two researchers of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of U.S. Clemson University, pointing out computing power supply chain vulnerabilities for machine learning (Joseph Clements and Yingjie Lao, “Hardware Trojan Attacks on Neural Networks“, arXiv:1806.05768v1 [cs.LG] 14 Jun 2018).

The use of distributed architecture, i.e. computing power distributed over various machines, as in the example of JEDI above, which may be envisioned to a point to offset the absence of super computers, not only multiplies the power needed (see Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics (1)), but also opens the door to new dangers, as data travel and as each computer of the network must be secured. It may thus not be such an easy way out of super computing power deficiency.

Outside the field of cybersecurity, using others’ computing power also opens the door to very simple vulnerabilities: a round of sanctions of the type favoured by the U.S., for example, may suddenly forbid any actor, public or private, access to the needed computing power, even if the provider is a commercial entity. The dependent actor may be actually so dependent upon the country host to computing power that it has lost much of its sovereignty and independence.

This is also true for companies, if they hand their fate to other countries and competitors – without an adequate policy of diversification of supply of computing power, assuming this is possible – as shows the example of ZTE and American sanctions, even though the case involves more elements than computing power (e.g. Sijia Jiang, “ZTE’s Hong Kong shares rise after clarification of U.S. bill impact“, Reuters, 20 June 2018; Erik Wasson, Jenny Leonard, and Margaret Talev “Trump to Argue ZTE Fine, Penalties Are Punishment Enough, Official Says“, Bloomberg, 20 June 2018; Li Tao, Celia Chen, Bien Perez, “ZTE may be too big to fail, as it remains the thin end of the wedge in China’s global tech ambition“, SCMP, 21 April 2018; Koh Gui Qing, “Exclusive – U.S. considers tightening grip on China ties to Corporate America“, Reuters, 27 April 2018).

Choice 4: Optimal AIs but created by others

Finally, using AI-systems designed and created by others may also lead to similar vulnerabilities and dependency, which may be acceptable for companies when using mass-market products but not for actors such as countries when national interest and national security is at stake, nor by companies when competitively sensitive areas are at stake (especially when faced with predatory practice, see “Beyond the end of globalisation – from the Brexit to U.S. President Trump“, The Red (Team) Analysis, 27 February 2017).

We already evoked the influence gained by those being able to sell such systems and the risks borne by those buying and using them in the case of China that “export[ed] facial ID technology to Zimbabwe” (Global Times, 12 April 2018), in “Big Data, Driver for Artificial Intelligence… but not in the Future?” (Helene Lavoix, The Red (Team) Analysis, 16 April 2018).

Let us take another example with the future smart cities. We may imagine that a country, not endowed with sufficient computing power, has to rely on either computing power or directly on foreign AI-systems for their cities. The video below, although not focused on AI, gives an idea of the trend towards connected and “smart cities”.

Now, knowing that, in war, urban operations are considered as being a major component of the future (e.g. UK DCDC Strategic Trends Programme: Future Operating Environment 2035: 2-3, 25), it is highly likely that urban operations will increasingly take place in smart and AI-powered cities. To better envision what is likely to happen in the future, we should thus mentally juxtapose the video and the urban combat images below created by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. In other words, instead of a devastated “modern world” traditional background for the Army pictures, we should have a smart, AI-powered city as background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THiQtn9hVB8&rel=0
artificial intelligence, smart city, geopolitics, AI, driver, scenarios, strategic warning, deep learning high performance computing power, risk analysis, risk management, strategic foresight, red team analysis society, indicator, drones, LAWS
Images from the U.S. ARL – Used in the article by Dr. Alexander Kott, “The ARTIFICIAL Becomes REAL”, pp. 90-95, Army-ALT January-March2018.
artificial intelligence, smart city, geopolitics, AI, driver, scenarios, strategic warning, deep learning high performance computing power, risk analysis, risk management, strategic foresight, red team analysis society, indicator, drones, LAWS

Now, if a foreign actor has created the AI-systems that manage the AI-powered city, what stops that actor to potentially include “elements” that would play in its favour should its troops have to carry out offensive operations in the future within this very city?

Or, as another example, if strategically wise political authorities wanted to endow their cities with AI-powered defence, able to counter both traditional and AI-endowed attacks, but if these very political authorities did not have any computing power to develop such systems, would foreign commercial companies be allowed by their own political authorities to develop such systems?

In an AI-powered world, sovereignty and independence become dependent upon computing power.

The absence of computing power for the training phase of the AI-system somehow corresponds to a country that would have no education system and would have to completely rely on external and foreign sources to deliver this education. This is true for supervised learning when training on big data set has to be done and only heightens the hurdles already identified previously in  Big Data, Driver for Artificial Intelligence… This is also true, as we saw previously (part 1), for reinforcement learning as computing power is even more important for this type of deep learning, even though it does not need external big data. Could this also be true with the latest Google Deep Mind’s approach, Transfer Learning? This will need to be examined later, with a deep dive into this latest AI-DL approach.

Distribution of Power in the AI-World, High Performance Computing Power and Threat to the Westphalian System?

As a result, the Top500 list of supercomputers, which is produced biannually, and thus ranks every 6 months supercomputers throughout the world, becomes a precious indication and tool to evaluate present and future AI-power of actors, be they companies or states. It also gives us a quite precise picture of power on the international scene.

For example, according to the November 2017 Top500 list (the next issue was presented on 25 June 2018, and made public after the publication of this article – watch out for a signal on the June 2018 list), and assuming all supercomputers have been submitted to the benchmark of the list, in the whole Middle East, only Saudi Arabia possesses supercomputers among the top 500 most powerful computers of the world. It has four of them, ranked 20, 60, 288 and 386. The last three belong to oil company Aramco. Saudi Arabia’s most powerful supercomputer delivers a performance of 5,5 Petaflops, i.e almost 17 times less than China’s most powerful computer and 36 times less than the U.S. new Summit (see for more details on Summit, When AI started creating AI). If Saudi Arabia wants to be independent in terms of AI, then it will need to construct a strategy allowing it to overcome a possible lack of capacity in terms of computing power. The situation is even more challenging for a country such as the U.A.E, which, despite a willingness to develop A.I., does not have any supercomputer (U.A.E. AI Strategy 2031 – video).

Meanwhile, as another example, NVIDIA put online in 2016 supercomputer DGX Saturn V, which ranked 36 in November 2017 and delivers a performance of 3,3 Petaflops, but is built with DL in mind. Added to its other supercomputer, DGX SaturnV Volta, this means that NVIDIA has a computing power equal to 4,37 Petaflops thus superior to Russia, with its three supercomputers ranked 63, 227, 412 and exhibiting respectively performances of 2,1; 0,9 and 0,7 petaflops. Note that  NVIDIA latest GPU accelerator, NVIDIA DGX-2 and its 2-petaFLOPS may only reinforce the company’s power (see part 1). In terms of international power, of course, Russia benefits from the attributes and capabilities of a state, notably its monopoly of violence, which NVIDIA does not have. Yet, imagining as seems to be the case, that the new emerging AI-world in construction increasingly integrates AI throughout state’s functions and governance, then Russia would face new dependency as well as new security challenges stemming from its relatively lower computing power. For its part, NVIDIA – or other companies – could progressively take over state functions, as shown in the example above of the U.S. defense JEDI. If we recall the British East India Company, that would not be the first time in history that a company behaves as a ruling actor.

Here these are the very principles of our modern Westphalian world that may potentially change.

However, things are even more complex than the picture just described, because the very hardware field is also being impacted by the AI-revolution, as identified in the first part. If we consider these hardware evolutions and changes, where is the necessary computing power, and, more difficult, where will it be? 

Furthermore, if High Performance Computing power is so important, then, what can actors decide to do about it? They can build and reinforce their computing power, deny others’ computing power or find alternative strategies? This is what we shall see next, alongside changes in the hardware field.

Featured image: U.S. Army illustration, “Army research explores individualized, adaptive technologies focused on enhancing teamwork within heterogeneous human-intelligent agent teams.” in U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), “Army researchers advance human-intelligent agent teaming“, Public Domain.

Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics (1)

With this article we shall look more in detail at the relationship between Artificial Intelligence (AI) in its Deep Learning component, and computing power or hardware, a connection we started exploring with our previous article, “When AI Started Creating AI“. The foundations for understanding the link between AI-Deep Leaning and computing power being laid, the next article will focus on political and geopolitical consequences of this relationship, while considering a critical uncertainty uncovered here and according to which the evolution towards co-designing AI-Deep Learning architecture and hardware could alter the whole field.

Related

Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics (2): what could happen to actors with insufficient HPC in an AI-world, a world where the distribution of power now also results from AI, while a threat to the Westphalian order emerges

High Performance Computing Race and Power – Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics (3): The complex framework within which the responses available to actors in terms of HPC, considering its crucial significance need to be located.

Winning the Race to Exascale Computing – Artificial Intelligence, Computing Power and Geopolitics (4): The race to exascale computing, state of play, and impacts on power and the political and geopolitical (dis)order; possible disruptions to the race.

Our aim is to understand better how computing power can be at once driver, stake and force for AI expansion and the related emerging AI-world. Computing power is one of the six drivers we identified that not only act as forces behind the expansion of AI but also, as such, become stakes in the competition among actors in the race for AI-power (Helene Lavoix, “Artificial Intelligence – Forces, Drivers and Stakes” The Red Team Analysis Society, 26 March 2018).

In this article we show that AI-Deep Learning indeed needs large computing power, although varying across the different phases of computation and evolving with improvements. Even though advance of AI systems leads to a decreasing demand for computing power across the process of an AI-system’s creation, the very search for optimisation not only demands more computing power, but also leads to changes in the hardware field (which we shall see more in detail in the next article), and even, potentially, in terms of algorithms. Meanwhile, more computing power also means the capability to go further in terms of Deep Learning and AI, indeed confirming that computing power is a driver of AI expansion. Feedback loops or rather spirals are thus starting to appear between AI and its expansion and at least two of its drivers, computing power and “algorithms”.

We explain first the methodology used to uncover the link between AI-Deep Learning (DL) and computing power in a rapidly evolving ecosystem, and point out two likely new frontiers in the field of Deep Learning, namely Evolutionary Algorithms applied to Deep Learning in general and Reinforcement Learning. We also briefly present the three phases of computation of an AI-DL system. Then, we deep dive into each of the phases: creation, training or development, and inference or production. We explain each of the phase and the needs in terms of computing power for each of them. We then move beyond categorisation and explain the constant quest for improvement across the three phases, pointing out the balance that is sought between key elements. We notably emphasise there the latest evolution towards codesign of Deep Neural Network architecture and hardware.

The life of an AI-DL system and computing power in a rapidly evolving ecosystem – methodology

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Featured image: ORNL Launches Summit Supercomputer on Flickr (Public Domain) 30 May 2018.

The U.S. Navy vs Climate and Ocean Change Insecurity (1)

The U.S. Navy is under higher and growing pressure from climate and ocean change. This situation is emphasized in The Impact of Sea-Level Rise and Climate Change on Department of Defense Installations on Atolls in the Pacific Ocean (Curt D. Storlazzi, Stephen B. Gingerich et al., February 2018, full pdf report), funded among others by the Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP). This research shows that numerous Pacific atolls and islands  are impacted by repeated floods and slat water infiltration, and could be submersed during the next decades because of the rising ocean, and as a result the U.S. Navy could be directly impacted because some of these islands are used as bases between America and the Asia-Pacific region. In other words, climate change-led rising ocean is putting at extreme risks the fulcrum needed by the U.S. Navy to project itself in the Asia-Pacific region (Charles Edel, “Small dots, Large strategic areas: US Interests in the South Pacific”, Real Clear Defense, 03 April 2018).

Meanwhile, climate change is also affecting the U.S. Navy on continental America, because of the ever-faster rise of the ocean, which interacts with the littoral where the U.S. Navy bases are installed (Jim Morrison, “Flooding Hot Spots: Why Seas are Rising Faster on the Eastern Sea Coast”, Yale Environment e360, April 24, 2018). Beside a rising ocean, climate change also means a present and future multiplication File:151123-N-OI810-749 (23058573399) and reinforcement of extreme weather events. Those events are having a disrupting potential on the sea lanes navigated by the six US fleets (Bob Berwyn, “Hurricane Season 2018: Experts Warn of Super Storms, Call For New Category 6”, Inside Climate News, June 2, 2012). In other words, one should wonder if climate change, and the new emerging geophysical conditions that are currently emerging, are not jeopardizing the very infrastructures and missions of the U.S. Navy, thus imposing a perfectly unexpected but growing constraint on its global reach.

In a first part, we shall look at how climate change is literally “besieging” the U.S. Navy. In a second part, we shall look at the way this planetary challenge is imposing an ever-growing amount of “friction” on the infrastructures and missions of the U.S. Navy. Then, we shall wonder about the strategic consequences of the interactions between a changing climate and ocean and the U.S. Navy. Could we see these dynamics as a signal of a planetary assault on U.S. sea power over the coming years?

The US Navy and the climate-ocean Hyper siege

The rising ocean has started besieging the U.S. Navy. The rate of the sea-rise is rapidly accelerating, especially on the U.S. eastern coast: for example, in Florida, since 2006 the rise’s rate went from 3 to 9 millimetres a year (Erika Bolstad, “High ground is becoming hot property as sea level rises”, Scientific American, 1 May 2017). This accelerating rate is accompanied by a multiplication of high tide floods events (Jim Morrison, “Flooding Hot Spots: Why Seas are Rising Faster on the Eastern Sea Coast”, Yale Environment e360, April 24, 2018). For example, the Norfolk station, headquarter of the Atlantic fleet, and part of the gigantic Hampton roads complex, home to the nuclear aircraft carriers fleet, is flooded ten times a year nowadays (Laura Parker, “Who’s Still Fighting Climate Change? The U.S. Military”, National Geographic, February 7, 2017).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psDE4Ccqui8&t=1s

This situation is already exerting a growing pressure on the military readiness of the station and of all those installed around the Chesapeake Bay, because of the cascade of disruptions and costs triggered by the floods, including cleaning up and repairs. According to an estimate by the Union of Concerned Scientist, the sea level in this area has already risen by a staggering 14.5 inch (35,5 cm) since 1914. Given this trend, the region will be flooded more than 280 times a year in 2100 (The US Military on the Front Lines of Rising Seas, 2016, Rising seas will increasingly flood many of our coastal military bases, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2016). It appears extremely dubious that the Norfolk station and the Hamptons Road complex could remain functional in their current form, while being assaulted by hundreds of flooding events every year.

As showed by the 2018 Department of Defense “Climate-Related Risk to DoD Infrastructure Initial Vulnerability Assessment Survey (SLVAS) Report”, the climate change-led ocean rise that besieges the Norfolk station is shared, with variable degrees of intensity, by the other U.S. naval bases of the East and West Coast (including Hawaii), while many of the U.S. bases located abroad will most often meet the same fate. In other terms, the U.S. Navy, as a mammoth and global organization, is under climate-ocean change siege.

U.S. Navy area of responsibility -U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa / U.S. 6th Fleet – map [Public Domain]

Indeed, the very global scale of the U.S. Navy’s deployment reinforces the climate-ocean siege situation. The U.S. Navy is composed of 6 operating fleets, each of them assigned to an area of responsibility (AOR) covering a part of the Atlantic, of the Indian Ocean or of the Pacific ocean and thus, as a whole, able to reach each and every littoral on Earth (US Navy). This extensive capability of force projection confers de facto a global reach to the American sea power. However, these fleets are dependent on the multiple ports of anchorages, bases and other facilities on the American mainland, as well as in other countries such as, among others, Japan, Italy, Spain, Greece, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Djibouti, El Salvador, Egypt, Cuba, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and the Philippines (US Navy Bases, Wikipedia, and Commander Navy Installations Command Map).

Click to access interactive map of the website of Commander, Navy Installations Command (CNIC)

The littoral of these countries are also affected by the rising ocean and by the multiplication of climate change-related extreme weather events, as is tragically shown, for example, by the growing series of giant hurricanes battering the Philippines (Andrea Thompson, “Land Falling Typhoons have Become More Intense”, Climate Central, September 5, 2016). In Japan, the Yokosuka naval base in Tokyo is severely assaulted by storm surges and ever-more powerful tempests, which accompany the warming and rising ocean (Forrest L. Reinhardt and Michael W. Toffel, “Managing Climate change: Lessons From the US Navy”, Harvard Business review, July-August 2017 issue). In Alaska, the thawing permafrost necessitates the relocation and rebuilding of existing bases (Reinhardt and Toffel ibid). Similarly, the home of the Pacific fleet in Hawaii must face a growing number of mudslides and flash floods (Reinhardt and Toffel, ibid).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0Jzb8dfcC4&rel=0

The same can be said of the bases located in the Pacific such as Guam and the Marshall Islands, which are under growing pressure from the rising ocean, to the point that some of their composing atolls could be submersed within 12 years (Curt D. Storlazzi, et al., Ibid.). In the meantime, there is a high and growing risk of a multiplication of floods on these islands, already battered by the ocean. Consequently, the salt water of the sea is infiltrating the water sources of the atolls. This situation could soon trigger a potable water crisis for the islands and the Navy bases (John Conger, “Study: Atolls Hosting Critical Military Sites May Be Uninhabitable in 12 Years”, The Centre for Climate and Security, April 27, 2018). As shown by these examples, the planetary change currently occurring is imposing a global pressure on the network of Navy bases. In other words, the very worldwide fulcrum of the U.S. sea power meets what we call here “planetary friction”.

“Planetary friction” and U.S. sea power

Beyond the immediately catastrophic impact of the extreme weather events and their human, social and economic toll, these events and the rising of the ocean are signals of a new planetary and geopolitical reality (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Climate Blowback and US National Security”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, March 31, 2014). As a matter of fact, the rise of the ocean is due to the convergence of the warming and dilatation of the surface waters, and of the ever-increasing warming and melting of the terrestrial ice caps of Greenland, Antarctica and of the continental mountain ranges.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn3_hviRfdU&rel=0

This convergence of the warming ocean and melting ice sheets leads to a global process of accelerated and heightening rise of the ocean at a planetary scale, while the warming atmosphere-ocean interface is becoming the emergence system of a growing number of extreme weather events (Chris Mooney, “Greenland and Antarctica isn’t just raising seas- it’s changing the Earth’s rotation”, The Washington Post, April 8, 2016). In other terms, the warming and rising of the ocean will be more and more important and powerful. According to the most conservative studies, the ocean will rise by almost one meter between today and 2100 (IPCC Report, 2018). However, numerous studies point out the risk of a much higher rise: between 2 and 5 meters (Robert de Conto and Robert Pollard, “Contribution of Antarctica to past and future sea level rise“, Nature, 31 March 2016, Eric Holtaus, “James Hansen Bombshell’s climate warning is now part of the Scientific canon”, Slate.com, March 22, 2016 and Chris Mooney, “One of the most Worrysome Prediction About Climate Change Maybe Coming True”, The Washington Post, April 23, 2018). That would be a civilization-changing event.

The massive strategic problem linked to this new epoch is that the planetary present and future are now dominated by complex dynamics of global change, also qualified as being the signals of the new and current geological epoch named the “Anthropocene”, i.e the geological epoch defined by the consequences of human development, which creates its own stratigraphic signal (Jean-Michel Valantin, “The Planetary Crisis Rules, Part. 1 and Part. 2”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, January 25, 2016 and February 15, 2016). In this regard, the planetary crisis has become a major generator of friction, i.e., according to Clausewitz, a system of pressure and constraint. This “planetary friction” exerts itself upon the American sea power, i.e. upon the way the U.S. extends its military power onto the sea, and through the sea, towards other nations, because the U.S. sea power is the Naval form of the U.S. (geo)political will (David Gompert, US Sea Power and American Interests in the western Pacific, 2013).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59CyXAUEa2M&rel=0

As such, the U.S. sea power is a major and essential component of the U.S. global power. The U.S. Navy is crucial to project forces and to, potentially or actually, exert coercion on a global scale, on the sea, as well as from the sea to littoral and hinterlands, through the use of planes, drones, missiles and cyber capabilities. Its global network of bases ensures a global refuelling capability. Being composed of complex and technologically updated platforms, the U.S. Navy is also a core part of the U.S. land, air, space, nuclear and cyber power, notably through the complex networks of interactions with satellite constellations, and its 11 nuclear aircraft carriers groups (e.g. Chief of Naval Operations, Future Navy, May 2017; Technology for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, 2000-2035 Becoming a 21st-Century Force: Volume 6: Platforms (1997), Chapter: 2 Surface Platform Technology). The U.S. navy is also a major actor for troops transportations.

Taken together, those different capabilities are essential components of the global U.S. military power, which thus appears as profoundly dependent on its maritime dimension. However, nowadays, it has started meeting the growing resistance of the “living and reactive force” (Clausewitz, On War, 1832), in our case the warming ocean. As Edward Luttwak (Strategy, the Logic of War and Peace, 2002), following Carl von Clausewitz (On War, 1832), points out about friction, there is strategy when will is applied against a resisting and reacting object, for example during a war, or, in our case, when ocean change imposes resistance and constraint to the political will embedded into and dependent upon naval infrastructures and fleets.

A signal of the things to come: friction in an age of planetary crisis?

As a result, the different U.S. Navy operations are meeting a growing level of friction, and thus of potential disruption. For example, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force are collaborating in order to manage the Air Force station of the Kwajalein Island, part of the Marshall Islands. The mission of this base is to monitor the “space fence”, i.e. the planetary wide debris belt around the Earth, in order to optimize the trajectory of U.S. civil and military space missions. The multiplication of flood events and of salt-water infiltration, as well as the coming submersion of the Island are exerting a complex “friction” upon the base, and thus upon the space mission, which will no longer be viable when the Island will be submersed (Conger, ibid). This example shows how the interactions between the U.S. Navy and the ocean, i.e. the medium that defines and determines the Navy very existence, are becoming factors of growing and immense friction with cascading effects: in this case, the pressure exerted by the rising ocean upon sea power is transferred to an infrastructure of space power (Timothy Mc Geehan, “A War Plan Orange for Climate Change”, Proceedings Magazine, U.S. Naval Institute, October 2017).

It means that the very environmental medium of the U.S. sea power is becoming a planetary-wide system of constraints on this very power, while the constraints will only become stronger. This implies that, in a very unexpected, strange and disturbing way, the Anthropocene epoch is thus emerging as a new kind of strategically disruptive force that, in the U.S. Navy case, exerts itself on the very capabilities upon which the US military might is built.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPXmekq3bTM&rel=0

Knowing the importance of the U.S. sea power for the global U.S. force projection capabilities, this raises the question of the future of the U.S. sea power in a time of rapidly worsening planetary crisis. As a result, the U.S. Navy now navigates an ocean of strategic uncertainty, as well as other historic and new maritime powers, such as Russia and China.

About the author: Jean-Michel Valantin (PhD Paris) leads the Environment and Geopolitics Department of The Red (Team) Analysis Society. He is specialised in strategic studies and defence sociology with a focus on environmental geostrategy.

Featured Image: Defense Department facilities are visible in this satellite photo of Roi-Namur Island. Credit: DigitalGlobe. Public Domain, from USGS “Pacific Missile Tracking Site Could Be Unusable in 20 Years Due to Climate Change“.

Being Serious about Europe’s Place in the World? The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly –
7 June 2018

Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals…

Editorial

Although the G7 summit is drawing near (starting 8 June 2018), it does not generate an overwhelming interest in terms of crowdsourced signals. Yet, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for Europe to “Step Up in `World Being Reorganized’“, while the “EU College of Commissioners decided on Wednesday to adopt a tit-for-tat duties strategy” to answer the U.S. tariffs imposed on steel and aluminium, as some wonder if we could not be heading towards a G6 (see Economic diplomacy brief).

Could these, including the lack of interest, be indeed strong signals that the world is obviously being reorganised and that older institutions such as the G7 are increasingly becoming obsolete? In such an emerging new world, the place of Europe and the EU remains a critical uncertainty.

As for the “tit for tat” answer to American tariffs, the 6 June 2018 official EU press release states that

“The EU will therefore exercise its rights immediately on US products valued at up to €2.8 billion of trade. The remaining rebalancing on trade valued at €3.6 billion will take place at a later stage – in three years’ time or after a positive finding in WTO dispute settlement if that should come sooner.”

Thus, the EU – and consequently Europe – answers on 43,75% of the blow it received from the U.S…. well, not sure this is a very strong answer that may be taken as retaliation, not sure it can be preemptive of another blow.

Meanwhile, so far, it would seem that Chancellor Merkel “called for joint action on security and migration”. Considering deep divisions on migration, while NATO and willingness to pay for security and defence may continue standing in the way of a true European defence, the road ahead could be long.

Thus, behind the uncertainty regarding the place of Europe in the world and thus its power, we could have two fundamental questions that Europeans need to ponder – and solve – sooner rather than later:  is there the will power and is there the capabilities to rise to the challenge? At the end of the day, could Europe be also fighting not to be forgotten or being made obsolete ?

For other weak (and strong) signals, read below our latest complimentary Weekly horizon scanning…

Each section of the scan focuses on signals related to a specific theme: world (international politics and geopolitics); economy; science; analysis, strategy and futures; AI, technology and weapons; energy and environment. However, in a complex world, categories are merely a convenient way to present information, when facts and events interact across boundaries.

Read the 7 June 2018 scan→

As polarisation rises, not only internationally but also domestically within many countries, weak signals are not only “direct”, describing facts, but also, increasingly, “indirect”, i.e. perspectives on reality providing more indications about the positioning of actors, the rising tension(s) and uncertainty, than about facts. The Weekly also aims at monitoring this rising tension to evaluate the possibility for future overt crises, and the underlying corresponding dynamics.

The Weekly is the complimentary scan of The Red (Team) Analysis Society. It focuses on political and geopolitical uncertainty, on national and international security issues.

The information collected (crowdsourced) does not mean endorsement but points to new, emerging, escalating or stabilising problems and issues.

If you wish to consult the scan after the end of the week period, use the “archives” directly on The Weekly.

Featured image: Antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), on the Chajnantor Plateau in the Chilean Andes. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two companion galaxies to our own Milky Way galaxy, can be seen as bright smudges in the night sky, in the centre of the photograph. This photograph was produced by European Southern Observatory (ESO), ESO/C. Malin [CC BY 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Signal: The Pentagon Researches Artificial Intelligence Systems for Nuclear Missile Launch Anticipation

Impact on Issues and Uncertainties

➚➚ Escalating AI-power race notably between the U.S. on the one hand, China and in a lesser way Russia on the other.

➚➚ Redrawing of the power map of the world along AI-power status lines

➚➚ Rising uncertainty regarding the emerging AI-world

➚ Possible widening of the range of response, including non lethal one to nuclear threat
➚ Need to revise and rethink nuclear deterrence, nuclear preemptive strikes

➚ Rebalance of nuclear power according to presence or not of efficient nuclear missile launch detection AI-systems

➚ U.S.  influence and capability in terms of A.I.
➚➚ U.S. influence becoming possibly unchecked
➚ U.S. capability to stem a possible decline and as a result
➘ U.S. feeling threatened, which is possibly a factor of global stabilisation

➚ Potential for escalating tension U.S. – China

Facts and Analysis

According to Phil Stewart for Reuters, the U.S. Pentagon would be carrying out an array of research in various artificial intelligence  (AI) systems aiming at anticipating nuclear missile launches and thus better protecting the U.S.

The aim would be to allow for very early detection, for example through tracking very weak signals, to permit developing appropriate response across government, including diplomatically.

Related

Our ongoing series: The Future Artificial Intelligence – Powered World

“Some officials believe elements of the AI missile program could become viable in the early 2020s”.

Only one such research effort – among the host of those endeavoured – could be identified in next year budget as reaching $83 million, i.e. tripled compared with previous budgets.

Considering lingering or heightening fears to see the use of AI entering the nuclear weapons field, and precipitating nuclear havoc, final decision about action would remain vested in humans.

As a result, and as foreseen, the AI-power race takes shape and spreads. Furthermore, this is an example of how this AI-power race is increasingly likely to be played out, including in the conventional security field, indeed in terms of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Once these AI systems are operational, strategy and doctrine will have to be revised. AI-capabilities in terms of nuclear missile launch detection may deeply alter the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction, while revisiting preemptive strikes: those benefiting from AI-systems may have such a superior advantage in terms of preemption, that the very possibility of retaliation could be denied or greatly reduce. Balance of Power would then be fundamentally altered.

Source and Signal

Original article on Reuters: The Pentagon has a secret AI program to find hidden nuclear missiles

Deep in the Pentagon, a secret AI program to find hidden nuclear…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. military is increasing spending on a secret research effort to use artificial intelligence to help anticipate the launch of a nuclear-capable missile, as well as track and target mobile launchers in North Korea and elsewhere.

 

Selected Related Bibliography

Edward Geist, Andrew J. Lohn, How Might Artificial Intelligence Affect the Risk of Nuclear War?, Rand, April 2018.

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Featured image: Pentagon satellite image, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The Future of Iran’s Regional Role – The Islamic Revolution and Iran’s Political System

Trump’s decision to pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, better known as the Iran Nuclear Deal) is a highly destabilizing element in an already unstable regional scenario characterized by wars in Syria and Yemen, the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian question, the rift between Qatar and the other Gulf countries (chiefly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), political uncertainty in Lebanon and socio-political tensions continuously threatening to tear Iraq apart. Iran is the perceived common denominator to all these issues, at least to a certain degree.

The crucial geopolitical role Teheran plays, together with the domestic problems it faces, lead us to wonder about the future of the Islamic Republic’s regional stance in the medium-term future (e.g. 3 to 5 years). This question is of crucial importance to foresee the future of such a pivotal region as the Middle East. In order to think about the future, however, we have to consider the past carefully, notably to identify crucial and acting factors and dynamics.

As we reviewed Iran’s pre-1979 history previously, this article will be therefore centred on the Islamic Republic of Iran founded by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 and its main aspects. Continue reading “The Future of Iran’s Regional Role – The Islamic Revolution and Iran’s Political System”

Signals: China Planetary 3D Strategy, Deep Sea Resources in the South China Sea

Impact on Issues and Uncertainties

➚➚ Uncertainty in the security and resource sectors for all actors, states and companies alike, involving a complete redrawing of the influence map, of the capabilities needed and relatedly of the strategies and policies to develop and implement.

➚ China’s influence
➚ China’s rise to top major power status
➘ Resource insecurity of China

➘ Tensions in the South-China Sea with the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam

➚ Escalating Tension U.S. – China on the South China Sea
➚ Escalating Tension U.S. – China

Facts and analysis

(see sources and references below in the third part)

Related

Extreme Environment Security

The Deep-Sea Resources Sigils Brief

The Deep-Sea Resources Sigils

China and the New Silk Road: From Oil Wells to the Moon… and Beyond

In April and May 2018, China has carried out successful deep-sea missions which indicate China’s willingness to develop its influence and use also to this extreme environment, among the four we monitor: the extremely cold in the North – the Arctic – and in the South – Antarctica, space, and the deep-sea. As a result, China shows a resolve to implement a truly planetary strategy not only located at the surface of the planet, somehow conceptualising the world in two dimensions, as with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but also considering height and depth, thus in 3 dimensions, with space on the one hand, the deep-sea on the other.

Between 4 April and 16 May 2018, China endeavoured a month-long deep-sea exploration in the South China Sea, using a Canadian unmanned submarine, more precisely a Remotely Operated Platform for Ocean Science (ROPOS). Not only could the expedition transfer data in real-time and allow scientists and students to discover in real-time the new world of the deep-sea, but also it identified the location and nature of precious future resources. The exploration thus found: “the biggest ferromanganese nodules”,  which notably “contain nickel, chromium and manganese, minerals that are indispensable for military equipment, such as submarines, tanks and aerospace facilities,” as pointed out by a Chinese advisor to the Hainan Provincial Maritime Environment Protection Association. It also found “two ancient hydrothermal vents on the seafloor”, which fluids “provide[s] clues to the form of metals”.

Meanwhile, China is also developing its own manned and unmanned submersibles for the deep-sea, while developing and testing interoperability and communication.

For example, from 28 to 30 April 2018, “The manned deep-sea submersible Shenhai Yongshi, or Deep Sea Warrior, and unmanned submersible Haima, or Sea Horse, completed three joint deep-sea operations in the Haima cold springs in the South China Sea”. Here the resources targeted were natural gas hydrate, which could contribute to replace in the future oil and gas.  Estimates give 2020 as target date for first small-scale output and 2030 for large-scale commercial exploitation (The Independent).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgH83BxFPeI

Real exploitation of this deep-sea resource has already started in China, as, in 2017 the country is reported to have “extracted more than 300,000 cubic meters of combustible ice, a type of natural gas hydrate (People’s Daily)”.

Considering the location of the so-far identified main sources of natural gas hydrate, China, in the meantime, also calls for cooperation with the countries in the disputed region, namely the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam. We may estimate that China will probably develop here a strategy and related policies akin to the BRI.

As another example, on 23 April, “China’s self-developed 4,500-meter-level unmanned submersible Qianglong 3” (diving dragon) “conducted its first dive in the South China Sea”. The Qianglong series is “developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shenyang Institute of Automation”. Among a host of improvements compared with previous versions, it is also meant to be much more silent, which could have direct consequences in terms of military espionage and submarine warfare.

Finally, China is reported to plan a new base located in Sanya for deploying manned and unmanned submersible vehicles in the South China Sea, which should be completed by 2019.

If China is seen as having to catch up in terms of submarine warfare according to Jane’s Defence/IHS Markit (Sputnik), it is making much effort in this direction. Meanwhile, to evaluate China’s efforts in terms of manned and unmanned submarines only according to warfare could be a dangerous approach, as all silo-based understanding. It could indeed neglect diplomatic impacts and  influence’s impacts, consequences in terms of resources security and, ironically, capability to develop next generation  of weapon systems, if necessary components are seabed resources dependent.

Signals and Sources

Scientists find materials in S.China Sea needed in military, aerospace equipment – Global Times

The month-long deep-sea exploration of the South China Sea ended Wednesday with the discovery of polymetallic nodules and ancient hydrotherm which will help in exploiting metal resources and will provide the materials needed to manufacture military and aerospace equipment, observers said.

Chinese researchers to live-stream in S.China Sea – Global Times

About 22 Chinese scientists began one month of live-streaming deep-sea exploration of the South China Sea on Tuesday.

China’s submersibles complete first joint deep-sea research in South China Sea – Global Times

China’s two deep-sea submersibles have completed their first joint scientific research in the South China Sea, paving the way for future natural gas hydrate explorations in the region, an analyst said Wednesday.

China just extracted a new type of fossil fuel for the first time, and the effects could be devastating

Commercial development of the globe’s huge reserves of a frozen fossil fuel known as “combustible ice” has moved closer to reality after Japan and China successfully extracted the material from the seafloor off their coastlines. But experts said Friday that large-scale production remains many years away – and if not done properly could flood the atmosphere with climate-changing greenhouse gases.

China’s Unmanned Submersible Qianlong 3 to Conduct First Dive—Chinese Academy of Sciences

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China Plans Base in South China Sea to Launch Deep-Diving Drones

Just after the likely next head of US Pacific Command told Congress China’s undersea warfare capability is one of the most pressing threats to the US, a new report says Beijing is establishing another base in the South China Sea for deploying manned and unmanned submersible vehicles.

Migrating RTAS Website to New Host

Dear Users,

Update 28 May 2018: The migration has taken place without any major problem. We are still in the process of testing all features, and optimising the website to deliver best user experience. Thank you for your understanding as we proceed.

We are in the process of migrating the Red (Team) Analysis Society website to a brand new more powerful machine and to a new host FastComet.

Although with the team at FastComet we are doing our utmost to make sure the migration is seamless for you, you may nonetheless experience downtimes or erratic behaviour of the website.

Until the migration is fully completed, it would be helpful if, you, as users could as much as possible not enter new data on the website. We shall do our best to retrieve them, but notably as the new internet address propagates, data may be lost.

At worst the overall process should be over within 24 hours.

How will you know the migration is completed? We shall post a notice on the website on the left hand side of each post, article and page. Meanwhile the website wide notice warning about the migration in process will have disappeared.

We initiated this migration to improve how we protect your data and make sure we comply with the new regulation imposed by the EU, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into effect on 25 May 2018.

You can find out our new privacy policy here.

Our new server will be located in London in the UK and FastComet is GDPR compliant.

We hope that the new configuration will further improve your experience with our website. Continue reading “Migrating RTAS Website to New Host”

Militarizing Artificial Intelligence – China (2)

In this article, we shall focus on the strategic meaning of the rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) by the Chinese military, at the level of command and management of warfare operations.

In the first article of this series, we saw how the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is working to integrate AI to numerous weapons systems thus developing its “AI (fire) power”. This process is part of the Chinese national effort to become the world leader in the AI field before 2030, through the civil military fusion process (Jean-Michel Valantin, “Militarizing Artificial Intelligence – China (1)“, The Red Team Analysis Society, April 23, 2018). The Government and the Central military Commission of the PLA see AI as a massive force, rapidity and precision enhancer and multiplier of its military apparatus (“Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission: Chinese Advances in Unmanned Systems and the Military Applications of Artificial Intelligence—the PLA’s Trajectory towards Unmanned, “Intelligentized” Warfare”, The Long Term Strategy Group, February 23, 2017.

In this article, we shall focus on the “intelligentization” process carried out by the PLA, which aims also at reinforcing the cognitive and decision-making capabilities of the command levels through the extremely strong and rapid capability for information treatment of AI (Lt Col Ashutosh Verma, “How China is moving towards intelligentized warfare“, Geospatial World, April 26, 2018). These new capabilities could have massive consequences for the way the PLA conceives warfare operations, especially through the strategic use of AI in order to greatly reduce the uncertainty factor in warfare operation, and thus attain military dominance. As a matter of fact, this militarization of AI may lead to “AI military dominance”, that is to say the military component of what Hélène Lavoix qualifies as “AI power” (“When Artificial Intelligence will Power Geopolitics – Presenting AI” and in “Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning – The New AI-World in the Making”, The Red (Team) Analysis Society, March 26, 2018).

From there it comes that the PLA is experimenting in the way AI could help command levels to lift what Clausewitz calls the “great uncertainty”, i.e. the difficulty to understand the immensely complex object that are warfare operations and thus to take the right decisions at the right moment (On War, Chapter 3, “The Genius For War).

First, we shall look at the way the militarization of AI leads from “AI (fire) power) to “AI command decision-making”. Then, we shall see how this AI military trend aims at reducing uncertainty in war. Then, we shall propose a possible outcome for this trend, i.e an “AI dominance” of the future in order to reach military dominance during ongoing warfare operations.

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Full article 1623 words – approx. 5 PAGES

Today, contemporary military operations led by great powers take also place in the cyberspace, and may develop at such speed that human operators must now rely on new capabilities to pierce the “clouds of uncertainty”. In this process, it appears that through the intelligentization process of the PLA, the militarization of AI is rapidly becoming of strategic importance in the 21st century, (Helene Lavoix, “Artificial Intelligence – Forces, Drivers and Stakes” The Red (Team) Analysis Society, 26 March 2018).

Featured image: 2015 China WWII Parade (screenshot) – 3 September 2015 – From VOA – Public Domain.

Warning – Ebola Outbreak in the DRC Spreading – to Put under Watch

Risk level and Uncertainties

➚ Risk level
➃ very high at the national level (WHO assess.)
➂ high at the regional level (WHO assess.)
➀ weak at the global level (WHO assess.)

➚ ➀  Risk for actors without activities within the DRC – Put the risk under watch

Main concerned actors: travel and tourism, NGOs, Mining companies (notably Cobalt, Copper) – risk to evaluate according to specific location and activities.

Facts and analysis

WHO Figures – From 4 April through 17 May 2018:

  • 45 suspected, probable and confirmed (14) cases of Ebola reported
  • 25 deaths (+2 / 15 May)
  • 527 contacts have been identified and are being followed-up and monitored

A new outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) is taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

On 8 May 2018, the DRC notified the WHO “two confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease occurring in Bikoro health zone, Equateur province”. Since then, we have been following closely the evolution of the disease.

WHO Map – Disease outbreak news 17 May 2018

On 17 May 2018, the WHO raised the level of risk as a new “laboratory-confirmed case from the city of Mbandaka”, was “notified by the country’s Ministry of Health”. Mbandaka counts 1,2 million habitants. By 18 May 2018, 3 cases would thus be confirmed in Mbandaka. The city is a port that “lies on the eastern bank of the Congo River, Africa’s 2nd longest after the Nile. Tens of millions of people live along the river, and the capitals of Congo, the Central African Republic and Congo Republic lie along it and its tributaries. This creates a much more precarious situation for spread of EV than Bikoro, the epicenter of the outbreak (ProMed, 17 April)”.

As a result, on 18 May 2018, the WHO convened  an emergency committee to assess the latest Ebola outbreak. It decided that to this date, this outbreak should not be considered a public health emergency of international concern — a PHEIC. The committee will reconvene if the outbreak spreads and reassess the situation then. Besides measures of “vigorous response”, and of strengthening preparedness and surveillance for neighbouring countries, the main advice is as follows:

“Exit screening, including at airports and ports on the Congo river, is considered to be of great importance; however entry screening, particularly in distant airports, is not considered to be of any public health or cost-benefit value”.

According to the WHO situation report of 17 May 2018, The level of public health risk assessed by the WHO has been changed to

  • very high at the national level
  • high at the regional level.
  • weak at the global level

Considering the three main drivers identified during the West African Ebola outbreak  (2014-2015), the existence of available Ebola vaccine rVSVDG-ZEBOV-GP which have been shown as highly effective, and are already being sent to the DRC is a favourable factor to see the outbreak controlled. “WHO is sending 7540 doses of the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine, which is enough for 50 rings of 150 people. 4300 doses of vaccine have already arrived in Kinshasa. Logistics and vaccination teams are being put in place to start vaccination as soon as possible”(WHO).

The difficulty to store and then move the vaccine to the affected areas is however a concern, as the state of health care in the region. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is already taking measures to “step up its response in the affected area”.

For worldwide actors without any direct activity in the DRC, the issue is thus to put under watch but still of relatively low concern.

Signals and Sources

Ebola: two more cases confirmed in Mbandaka in DRC – The Guardian

Two more cases of Ebola have been confirmed in the north-western city of Mbandaka in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, health officials have said. The report brings to three the number of confirmed cases in the city of 1 million people, raising the prospect of a wider outbreak than feared.

Statement on the 1st meeting of the IHR Emergency Committee regarding the Ebola outbreak in 2018  – WHO

The 1st meeting of the Emergency Committee convened by the WHO Director-General under the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) regarding the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo took place on Friday 18 May 2018, from 11:00 to 14:00 Geneva time (CET).

Ebola virus disease – Democratic Republic of the Congo – Disease outbreak news – WHO  -17 May 2018

Ebola virus disease – Democratic Republic of the Congo

Disease outbreak news for Ebola in DRC.

DRC: Ninth Ebola outbreak in 40 years hits urban area – MSF –  17 May 2018

DRC: Ninth Ebola outbreak in 40 years hits urban area

An outbreak of Ebola has been declared in Equateur province, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The outbreak, in the northeast of the country, has affected 44 people who have presented symptoms of haemorrhagic fever in the region; 3 confirmed as Ebola, and 23 deaths have been notified by the national health authorities.

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