Defence`s Feeds

Federica Mogherini, in her capacity as Head of the European Defence Agency, and Stepan Poltorak, Minister of Defence of Ukraine signed today an Administrative Arrangement between the EDA and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence.

The conclusion of the Administrative Arrangement follows a mandate provided by the EDA Steering Board on 3 December 2015. The European Council approved the Administrative Arrangement on 30 November 2015.

The Administrative Arrangement formalises the relationship between EDA and the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, enabling Ukraine’s potential participation in EDA’s military-technological projects and programmes. Cooperative areas remain to be further defined but initial identified areas are standardisation, training, logistics and Single European Sky.

Picture credit: The European Union; From left to right: Mr Stepan POLTORAK, Minister of Defence of Ukraine; Ms Federica MOGHERINI, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy; Mr Jorge DOMECQ, Chief Executive of the European Defence Agency.

More information:

• EDA partners page
• Joint Press Release following the Association Council meeting between the European Union and Ukraine

 

American Armalite AR-18 Assault Rifle

The latest Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), published on 23 November 2015, provided a significant boost to Britain’s airborne intelligence, surveillance, target-acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) capabilities with the decision to acquire the P-8A Poseidon multi-m

Is it possible that ISIL is using the whole world as their ‘edge’? Has western civilisation been experiencing sustained attacks utilising net centric warfare concepts without our even being aware this was happening? If we have been unable to conn

The first methamphetamine seizure in Afghanistan was recorded in 2008, a minor capture of four grams in Helmand province. Now, seven years later, some 17 kilograms of methamphetamine, popularly known as ‘crystal meth’, were seized in the first ten months of 2015, in 14 out of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. The Ministry of Counter Narcotics warned about the growing number of methamphetamine users, while the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan called for amendments to the current narcotics control legislation to address the low penalties for trafficking. AAN’s Jelena Bjelica visited the only forensics drugs laboratory in Afghanistan and sought to learn about this new drug phenomenon in the country.

Situated in a northern neighbourhood of Kabul, state-of-the-art forensics drugs laboratory of the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan (CNPA) is an unlikely setting in a war-torn country. Its six high-tech labs are equipped according to the latest international standards, including a sophisticated instrument that can determine the molecular structure of sampled drugs. (1) The head of the lab, Dr Khalid Nabizada, proudly showed AAN the new German-funded building and equipment and explained that, together with his five-man team, he used to work out of a container-turned-lab in the well-guarded CNPA compound before they moved into the new building in May 2014.

The lab also features a prominent display cabinet of drug samples that have been examined by Nabizada’s team. It showed drugs one would expect to find in Afghanistan: opium, hashish, morphine and heroin. But there were also several samples of methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs, like ecstasy and MDMA (methylenedioxyphenethylamine). These synthetic drugs are central nervous system, amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), recreationally used for their euphoria-like (‘rush’ and ‘high’) effects. (2) They have recently entered the Afghan market and seem to be spreading around the country.

According to Dr Nabizada, the number of methamphetamine samples analysed in the CNPA lab had clearly increased, indicating an increasing prevalence of the drug. Where in 2011 the CNPA received only samples of 16 cases, in 2012 samples of 99 cases tested positive for methamphetamine. In 2013, the number remained relatively steady, with 93 cases, in 2014 this increased to 146 cases, to finally reach 206 cases in the first ten months of 2015.

This also tracks with an increase in methamphetamine seizures. Since the 2008 seizure of four grams in Helmand, the amount of seized methamphetamine has significantly increased. Drugs seized by CNPA mobile detection teams are sent to Nabizada’s lab for weighing. In the glass-walled weighing room (which is according to the highest international standards, as it allows the arrested person to witness the procedure while sitting in the room next door), Nabizada and his team carefully weigh each seizure, taking samples from each batch, before they store it in the adjacent well-guarded drugs evidence room. The amounts weighed by Nabizada’s team have been on the increase: from 2.6 kilograms in 2012, 4.9 kilograms in 2013, 4.1 kilograms in 2014, to a record high of 17 kilograms in the first ten months of 2015.

According to the Ministry of Counter Narcotics (MCN) 2012 Afghanistan Drug Report,  the CNPA lab received methamphetamine seizures from six provinces in 2012: Herat, Farah, Faryab, Kandahar, Balkh and Kabul. The largest seizure was from Faryab province, 530 grams of methamphetamine; the second-largest seizure, in Kandahar, was 240 grams.

In 2015, the spread of seizures also increased: the 17 kilograms of crystal meth was seized in 14 out of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces (Badghis, Baghlan, Balkh, Farah, Faryab, Ghazni, Helmand, Herat, Kabul, Kandahar, Kapisa, Kunduz, Nimroz and Parwan).

Local or regional chemistry skills?

The seizures show that in Afghanistan two types of methamphetamine are in use, crystal (in Dari called shisha, which means “glass pane”) and tablets. The tablets were mainly captured in Kabul and Kunduz and probably originate from Central Asia, which is an emerging ATS market, according to the CNPA lab experts.

By far, most of the meth, or shisha, is seized in the western Afghan provinces. Between March 2009 and March 2013, according to the Afghanistan Drug Report, around 92 per cent of methamphetamine samples analysed by the CNPA forensics laboratory were seized in western Afghanistan, namely in Herat, Farah and Nimroz province, all close to the Iranian border.

It was believed, until recently, that the crystal meth seized in Afghanistan originated mainly from neighbouring Iran. Iran is indeed among the leading producers of crystal meth in the region and the fourth-largest global importer of pseudoephedrine, a precursor chemical used for methamphetamine synthesis. As reported by the Guardian, 375 meth labs were dismantled and 3,500 kilograms of meth seized by Iranian authorities in 2013 (see the Guardian story here). Afghanistan, however, was also listed in the 2011 ATS Global Assessment as among the countries with “unusually high requirements of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine.”

Already in 2010 Pakistan’s authorities had reported the seizure of 12 kilograms of amphetamine that they claimed originated from Afghanistan, but it was only in September 2013 that CNPA’s mobile detection teams actually discovered and dismantled a methamphetamine lab in Nimroz. (3) Additionally, the Global Synthetic Drugs Assessment 2014  cautioned that since some ATS laboratories have been dismantled in Central Asia “there are concerns regarding the spread of manufacture to Afghanistan.”

The lead character of the US crime television series Breaking Bad explained the secret of making crystal meth as “basic chemistry.” According to a CNPA lab expert, seven to eight recipes exist for cooking crystal meth. The easiest, and cheapest, is done with ephedrine (or cough syrup), iodine and red phosphorous. “If you have ephedrine, it costs almost nothing,” he said.

Interestingly, according to Dr Nabizada of the CNPA lab, the meth seized in Afghanistan is “of incredible purity; 90 per cent and over; absolute pure crystal.”

Lagging law enforcement and sentencing

The 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances was the first global attempt to prevent misuse of central nervous system stimulants and to limit their use for medical and scientific purposes.

Despite these attempts to control it, crystal meth emerged as a new and commonly abused drug on the bourgeoning rave scene in the USA, Europe and East Asia in the 1990s, mainly due to its ability to elevate the mood and increase alertness, concentration and energy. Many countries, as a result, sharpened their penalties for crystal meth possession, supply and production, in some cases awarding up to life imprisonment for the latter offence.

However, in Afghanistan penalties for possessing and selling crystal meth are rather light. The current Law against Intoxicating Drinks and Drugs and their Control (see the law in Dari here and an unofficial UNODC English translation here) has penalty provisions for amphetamine type stimulants that are the same as those for cannabis. (4) Additionally, the threshold for considering the trafficking of methamphetamine to be a major crime, and thus to be processed by the Criminal Justice Task Force (CJTF), is the possession of 50 kilograms or more, the same as for cannabis. To date, the CJTF has dealt only with one methamphetamine case. The case concerned a person caught in Kabul in April 2013 with 3.5 kilograms of pure crystal meth, which, strictly speaking, was way below the legal threshold. But it was also the single largest crystal meth seizure ever in Afghanistan and, by international standards, an unusually high amount. The person was sentenced to 15 to 20 years imprisonment, according to the Special Bulletin of the Supreme Court.

The CNPA has been leading an effort to amend the legislation to include much harsher penalties for the trafficking of methamphetamine. The proposal includes a penalty of up to 10 years in prison for the trafficking of more than 100 grams of methamphetamine, and six to nine months, plus a fine, for the trafficking of up to five grams. The Ministry of Counter Narcotics also warned, in its 2012 Afghanistan Drug Report, that the sentencing provisions for methamphetamine trafficking were “inadequate to address the seriousness of the crime” and suggested revising the law in line with international conventions and sentencing guidelines so that it would be “in line with the threat posed by the substance.” However, at this point it is unknown when the parliament will discuss the proposed amendments to the law.

The drug for rich kids

The number of meth drug users appears to be on the rise, as MCN warns in its 2013 national drug report (see also reporting by Reuters in 2013). Data, however, is very patchy. The 2015 Afghanistan National Drug Use Survey estimated that there were between 70,000 and 90,000 amphetamine-type stimulants users, which is a relatively low number (well below 1 per cent of the population). (5)

“There is no accurate data on use and prevalence of crystal meth in Afghanistan, but reports from drug treatment centres and some other sources have recorded a large number of the meth users in the western part of the Afghanistan, specifically in Herat. However, the drug is easily available in most of Afghanistan,” Dr Raza Stanikzai of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) told AAN. He said that although some treatment centres provide counselling treatment sessions to meth users as a part of the regular drug treatment provided to opium or heroin drug users, there are no treatments tailored to crystal meth available in the country. (The most effective treatments for methamphetamine addiction are behavioural therapies, such as cognitive-behavioural therapy, a former UNODC drug demand reduction expert told AAN.)

To date, street use of crystal meth has only been reported from Herat, Dr Stanikzai says. In other urban centres, although available, crystal meth is not used in public. The price of 20 US dollars for a dose, in contrast to 1.5 US dollars for a dose of heroin, suggests that crystal meth use is mainly reserved for the rich strata of the population and, therefore, unlikely to be widely used in public.

An additional problem is that, when asked, users usually say they have a problem with “crystal” – using a Farsi slang word for the drug – rather than “methamphetamine.” However, a type of high purity heroin is also called “crystal” among drug users. “This adds a degree of confusion to the registration, as treatment centres do not have the means to test for the presence of methamphetamine and cannot be certain of the substance the patient used,” noted the 2013 Afghanistan Drug Report.

Looking ahead

The growing number of crystal meth seizures and the indications of an increase in use in Afghanistan are worrying, given the country’s already heavy dependence on the opium economy. Afghanistan continues to be the world’s leading opium producer and cultivator (see AAN reporting on 2015 opium cultivation). With the already high prevalence of opioid use – estimated between 1.3 and 1.6 million Afghans (see 2015 National Drug Use Survey available here) – the country does not need a new drug on the market. Crystal meth prevalence is still dwarfed by Afghanistan’s opiate production and consumption, and it may never find its way into all pores of the society in the way that the opium economy has. Nevertheless, the production and trafficking of meth could add another complicating layer to Afghanistan’s already complex narco-economy.

So far there is no strong evidence to suggest that crystal meth is entirely indigenously manufactured, but this may change. Heroin is currently locally produced, whereas ten years ago it was not. If an increasing number of meth labs were to be detected in Afghanistan, this would be an alarming signal. Afghanistan could for instance follow the example of Myanmar, once a leading opium cultivator and heroin producer, which replaced labour intensive opium cultivation with synthetic drug production. Together with Thailand and China, Myanmar is now a leading producer of synthetic drugs in South East Asia.

Such a scenario for Afghanistan would involve a transformation of the nature of the country’s drug economy, resulting in changes in local drug networks and possibly even a ‘generation shift’ within it (in Myanmar, for instance, the new generation of drug lords only embraced synthetic drug production after opium cultivation was successfully phased out). But it is also quite possible that meth trade and production simply will add to the already considerable list of illicit sources of income. It is yet unclear who is likely to benefit.

 

(1) The laboratory is equipped with the latest analytical instrumentation including Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (GC–MS), High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Raman Spectroscopy, and Fourier Transform–Infra Red Spectrophotometry (FT–IR) – and may be more sophisticated than many forensic drug labs in Europe. Details about the lab can be found on the page 88 of the 2013 Afghanistan Drug Report.

(2) Amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) are a group of substances comprised of synthetic central nervous system stimulants, including amphetamine, methamphetamine, methcathinone, and ecstasy-type substances (eg MDMA and its analogues). Internationally, the production, distribution, sale and possession of methamphetamine is restricted or banned in most countries.

Methamphetamines and amphetamines were discovered in the late nineteenth century and are used for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obesity and narcolepsy. During the Second World War they were used by both the Allied and Axis forces to keep pilots awake during night raids. In the 1950s, amphetamine became known as a weight-loss drug and in the 1970s was widely used as a recreational drug.

The latest available UNODC estimate suggested that the retail value of the global illicit methamphetamine market in 2008 was around 28 billion US dollars.

(3) “The evidence from the dismantled labs suggests there were attempts to make crystal meth in Afghanistan – in particular the traces of red phosphorous found in the labs, which is usually used for cooking the meth. There is also anecdotal evidence that Iranians trained Afghans in meth production, although this has not been confirmed,” a CNPA lab expert told AAN, on the condition of anonymity.

(4) Article 47: Punishment for Trafficking of Substances or any Mixture Containing Substances listed in the Tables of this law, prescribes the following sentences for: More than 250 grams up to 500 grams, imprisonment for more than one month up to three months; More than 500 grams up to 1 kilogram, imprisonment for more than three months up to 1 year; More than 1 kilogram up to 5 kilograms, imprisonment for more than one year up to three years; More than 5 kilograms, in addition to three years imprisonment, for each additional 500 grams imprisonment for three months.

(5) As reported in the 2013 Afghanistan Drug Report, according to the Ministry of Public Health records the highest number of methamphetamine users in 2012 in Nimroz, Kunduz, Jawzjan and Farah provinces. The four provinces together made for 96 percent of all registered methamphetamine users countrywide.

The US Navy has awarded a $200m cost-plus-fixed-fee advance procurement contract to Huntington Ingalls Industries' Ingalls Shipbuilding division for a new San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship.

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has launched two new Cape-class patrol boats (CCPB) to complement the existing Armidale-class patrol vessels.

The US Navy has commissioned its newest Independence-variant littoral combat ship, the USS Jackson (LCS 6), in Gulfport, Mississippi.

The UK Royal Navy's Vanguard-class Trident missile-carrying submarine HMS Vengeance has successfully completed the £350m refit and long overhaul period and refuel (LOP(R)) programme.

Here’s an interesting video showing an ejection from a different point of view…. On Oct. 27, 2015, a Royal Danish Air Force pilot was forced to eject from his F-16A block 20 MLU over the North Sea after jet suffered a landing gear problem that prevented it from safely landing back at Skrydstrup air base. […]

The Dutch and Norwegian navies are set to replace their submarine fleets and joint acquisition could be an option. Yet, as Bjorn-Olav Knutsen argues, cooperation is not without its challenges.

The post Going deep in defence cooperation? Conditions for successful Dutch-Norwegian cooperation on the acquisition of new submarines appeared first on European Geostrategy.

Israeli Machbet Short-Range Air Defense Gun/Missile System

FBI aircraft have been particularly active over San Bernardino, California, during and after the mass shooting. As already highlighted on Twitter, several assets, including FBI planes and media helicopters, could be tracked online on Dec. 2, during the San Bernardino terrorist attack. The airspace over #SanBernadino is a bit crowded according to @flightradar24 pic.twitter.com/iyruJbcyqJ — […]

Interesting footage released by the Russian MoD. According to the Russian MoD, during the last few days the US-led coalition in Syria has deployed three times more drones than before with up to 50 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles often up in the air at the same time. #SYRIA During some periods of time, there are more […]

The first F-35 delivered outside the U.S. was taken on charge by the Italian Air Force. On Dec. 3, Lt. Gen. Pasquale Preziosa, Chief of the Italian Air Force, welcomed the first Italian F-35A at the F-35 Final Assembly and Check Out (FACO) facility at Cameri, in northwestern Italy. Not only is the AL-1 (as the […]

The next generation Il-80 airborne command post is about to enter active service with the Russian Air Force. The Russian Air Force will soon operate an upgraded Il-80 Maxdome airborne command post. In fact, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, a “new” version of the Russian “doomsday plane” has recently successfully completed the testing campaign […]

So, Britain goes to war. Ten hours of Parliamentary debate (including that speech by Hilary Benn) over whether or not to use forces that will be a marginal addition at best resulted in roughly two thirds of MPs voting yes. David Cameron’s strategy, if it is worth the word, appears to be a combination of the Underpants Gnome model (“Step 1: Use force, Step 2: … Step 3: Peace! Victory! Votes!”), and the Goldilocks approach to intervention (Not enough to “win”, not enough to be irrelevant, just enough to make us beholden to events). From my perspective, the pitch of debate regarding what was at stake in the Parliamentary debate appeared to be Sayre’s law in action, albeit with added high explosives. Professor Wallace Sayre’s original formulation, that “Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low” is all the more relevant, since we were already using force against ISIS and committing ISR assets to the region.

So what changed? Or rather, what now? The problem, as I see it, is that we are now ultimately responsible for a civil war that doesn’t appear to have an acceptable end for anyone. Ending the Syrian civil war appears to be the top priority. Writing in The New York Times, Anatol Lieven argues that this will require working with Russia, and carving up both Syria and Iraq to a greater or lesser extent. I think he’s probably right, but it won’t end there, because, from my perspective, this option ends with complete and utter impunity for war crimes. Much is made of the need to put political pressure on Assad to make way, as this is a symbolic move that might allow the civil war to end. But what about the war crimes? Are we going to have a re-run of the ICTY in the Levant? If yes, please explain to me how we’re meant to make Assad give way, and convince his security forces and military to stop fighting. If no, I’m somewhat bemused that Parliament has managed to debate its way into a crusade for the common good and justice that is predicated impunity.

(Editor’s note: Adam Elkus is a PhD student at George Mason University working on computation and strategy)

Recently, KCL’s Kenneth Payne published an article on the potential meaning of artificial intelligence for future strategy. Some of the complexities of tackling this science fiction-esque topic lie in the duality of AI itself as a scientific discipline. While many believe that AI is a discipline oriented around the engineering of synthetic intelligence, one should also note that it has also alternatively claimed that doing so will help us understand human (and other forms of) intelligence. For example, Herbert Simon and Alan Newell’s General Problem Solver was an endeavor with relevance for both AI and cognitive science. Simon and Newell derived the idea of means-end reasoning from a view of human problem solving and implemented it programmatically in a way that could be mechanized by a machine. The same holds true for artificial neural networks as well, which are based somewhat on ideas from computational neuroscience and much more so on engineering utility for problems in machine learning.

Payne and his co-author Kareem Ayoub focus in particular on the use of games and microworlds to develop AI systems:

More complex scenarios than Atari games are possible. Microworlds are abstract representations used by the military to assist in strategic decision-making. They have been used to conceptualise the terrain, force deployment, enemy responses and movements. The use of modular AI in this example domain allows users to create their own microworld simulation with its own rules of play and run limitless iterations of possible events. Jason Scholz and his colleagues found that a reinforcement-learning based AI outperformed human counterparts in these microworld wargames. Their ability to do this rested on two factors: (1) the machine could go through rounds much faster than a human counterpart, and (2) the machine could process every possible move simultaneously, providing previously unseen recommendations.  Allowing that many military campaigns can be dimensionally reduced to microworlds – indeed many tabletop staff college exercises do precisely that – such an approach with modular AI proves valuable for rapid iteration of potential options.

A worthy addition to this observation, however, is that microworlds such as strategy games presume a certain view of human problem-solving behavior that is relatively new to strategic theory. [0] Consider the machine representation of chess, the most famous strategic game played by humans and computers. Like game theory, chess is can be visualized via extended-form representation, as seen in images like this:

The minimax algorithm visualizes strategy in terms of how both “min” and “max” players connect the initial moves to the payoff values in the terminal nodes at the bottom of the tree. The goal of min is to force the max player to the lowest payoff. Conversely, max would like to receive the highest payoff value. For a full explanation of minimax, readers are advised to consult the nearest friendly neighborhood game theorist, such as political scientist Phil Arena.  [1] Yet despite the fact that zero-sum games in game theory and chess share the same basic representation and solution concept, they diverge in one peculiar way.

The following image does not build the full game tree; notice that it only partially encompasses it:

This is due to the problem of how chess is represented on a machine; building the full game tree would be intractable due to the sheer size of the game. Moreover, a chess program would not be able to reason about other games that lack chess’ peculiar characteristics. [2] Two methods that have been commonly used to explain how humans and machines deal with chess’ sheer complexity are knowledge representation and search:

Given the relatively slow rate at which moderately skilled players can generate analysis moves, estimated in Charness (1981b) to be about four moves per minute, it is obvious that much of the time that human players spend is not in generating all possible moves (perhaps taking a move per second) but in generating moves selectively and using complex evaluation functions to assess their value. Computer chess programs can achieve high-level play by searching many moves using fast, frugal evaluation processes that involve minimal chess knowledge to evaluate the terminal positions in search. Deep Blue, the chess program that defeated World Champion Garry Kasparov in a short match in 1997, searched hundreds of millions of positions per second. Today’s leading microcomputer chess programs, which have drawn matches with the best human players, have sophisticated search algorithms and attempt to use more chess knowledge but still generate hundreds of thousands or millions of chess moves per second. Generally,   chess programs rely on search more heavily than knowledge; for humans it is the reverse. Yet, each can achieve very high performance levels because knowledge and search can trade off (Berliner & Ebeling, 1989).

Both knowledge and search, however, stem from the same fundamental way that old-school cognitive scientists and computer scientists define the problem of strategy, which is very different how the strategic studies profession views it. First, let us note therepresentation of game states as a hierarchal tree that proceeds from most abstract to most primitive; it takes us the entire time to move from the top of the tree to the end of the game and the actual payoffs. Another example can be found in the way in which hierarchal task network planning algorithm in AI begins with composite tasks and breaks them down until the algorithm reaches simple actions, which vaguely corresponds to distinctions of strategy and tactics known to Kings of War readers:

Computer-literate readers will also notice the similarity to this tree structure and the directory structure on a computer filesystem. [3]

Why does it make sense to view the world as a tree that moves from most general to most specific? This is an interesting topic about which a good deal of intellectual history was been written. Broadly speaking, it is not surprising that Cold War-era efforts to optimize hierarchally organized systems such as military bureaucracies produced a view of the world as a hierarchally decomposed tree. But that in and of itself does not fully explain the choice of representation. Ontologies, taxonomies, and other forms of hierarchal knowledge representation are common in science and philosophy. What computing did was make them dynamic processes. The interaction or composition of components produced behavior.

George Miller, the famous cognitive scientist, produced a book titled Plans and the Structure of Behavior. In contrast to behaviorist conceptions that did not envision much of an intermediary structure between stimulus and behavior, Miller and his counterparts in AI argued that the internal organization of cognition could tell us much about the outward manifestations of complex behaviors. Hence, it makes sense to study chess players in terms of how they organize their knowledge and search processes, as such internal representation could tell us much about how they are capable of producing complex strategies.

While deep neural networks are often viewed as oppositional to this broadly cognitivist view, this is not necessarily the case. [4] After all, one sees hierarchal representations (albeit defined highly differently) frequently in deep learning research. Hierarchal representations are key to recent research in reinforcement learning as well. And hierarchies also appear quite frequently in both AI work on evolving neural networks and neuroscience research on computation in the brain. Finally, one should also note that hierarchy (differing levels of abstraction) and modularity (different functions) appear to be one of the more interesting explanations for what ideas about animal behavior have in common with computing.

The consequences of this view are that the principal problems of strategy, seen computationally, lie in computational limitations.

The main problem for action selection is combinatorial complexity. Since all computation takes both time and space (in memory), agents cannot possibly consider every option available to them at every instant in time. Consequently, they must be biased, and constrain their search in some way. For AI, the question of action selection is: what is the best way to constrain this search? For biology and ethology, the question is: how do various types of animals constrain their search? Do all animals use the same approaches? Why do they use the ones they do?  …. Ideally, action selection itself should also be able to learn and adapt, but there are many problems of combinatorial complexity and computational tractability that may require restricting the search space for learning.

The core problem with a computational view of strategic behavior is that it views strategy in terms of the interface between an “outer environment” and an “inner environment.” If the inner environment of an artifact is well adapted to the outer environment that surrounds it, it will serve its purpose. In other words, if, say, the Department of Defense is able to configure its force structure and military operational concepts to meet the threat of X or Y adversary, its “inner environment” is well-adapted to realize the intended purpose of war and defense. This sort of view of strategy and defense underlies both systems analysis and net assessment, though net assessment is far more qualitative and eclectic. It also underlies the idea of ends, ways, and means held by many strategists – we must find the correct configuration of ways (actions) and means (resources) to meet the desired end. [5]

Let us contrast this to a more classical view of strategy, which would see strategy as the way in which a political community finds a way of fulfilling a desired purpose through the instrumental usage of violence. Here, the problem is not really the combinatorial complexity of searching for a path to the goal or optimizing a utility function, but in the difficult process of using social action to achieve a desired end. First, the end might be contested or ambiguously defined. As KCL PhD candidate Nick Prime and I noted, many strategic ends are essentially compromises and products of fractious politics. Second, what it means to fulfill it is always fairly uncertain during the actual process of strategy formulation.

Mathematically measured criteria are useful for measuring the distance between intention and goal, but metrics of progress depend on highly subjective definitions of not only the goal but also what it means to realize it. Defining the problem in Vietnam, for example, in terms of eradicating enemy infrastructure in South Vietnam presumes that the most important problem lies in Vietcong “shadow governments” that erode power and authority. This is a highly contestable view of the problem, because a combination of targeted killings and the toll of the failed Tet Offensive wiped out enemy infrastructure inside South Vietnam and we still failed to achieve our strategic goals.

Computation is likely a very useful model for thinking about strategy, especially (as Ayoub and Payne do) from a machine’s point of view. But it should also be observed just how alien this view is from the perspective of classical strategy, and recognized that no model is the territory. As a computer modeler, I never assume that any abstractions I build for coursework are anything but reductions of the “real” thing. [6] As computers become more and more present in strategy and command, we should keep these thoughts and the distinctions they suggest in mind. But is there any middle ground?

One meeting ground between the “system” view of strategy and the more humanistic view can be found potentially in the idea of “control” expressed by J.C. Wylie and others.

Control denotes the utility of strategy being found in the way in which an agent is able to manipulate the key features of the environment in a way that advantages the strategist and disadvantages the opponent. The classical view of computation and behavior in AI and cognitive science has been opposed by another set of views that de-emphasizes elaborate internal representation and emphasizes the way in which interaction with the environment produces intelligent behavior. [7]

The environment defines a relation between environmental object and an organism that affords the organism with the capability to perform a certain action. Control of the sea, for example, affords certain strategic capabilities that airpower and landpower does not, and vice versa. The simplest way of designing a mobile robot around its environment, for example, would start with basic behaviors (if X stimulus, perform Y action) and then utilize more complex control structures to inhibit or favor certain behaviors based on the situation. One behavior might be privileged over another even if they both correspond to the same environmental input. Hence, by changing the nature and pattern of the environment to your advantage, you in term exert control over your opponent. If I am playing hide-and-seek with a TurtleBot, for example, I can thwart my Dalek-like adversary if I re-arrange the topology of my apartment as to frustrate it in numerous ways. [8]

Food for thought, certainly. Meanwhile I will continue to dump Golang code into my ParrotAR in the vain hope that I can engineer a taco copter to deliver me tacos while I do research. I at least know that robots can deliver coffee, which is a good start. I can live without tacos but its hard to see how a PhD student can be “intelligent” without any coffee.

 

Adam Elkus is a PhD student in Computational Social Science at George Mason University and a 2015-2016 New America Foundation fellow in NAF’s Cybersecurity Initiative. He writes on strategy, technology, and other subjects while finding time to ponder how a drone can deliver tacos to his domicile.

[0] It is rather old in the social and behavioral sciences as well as other fields. See Margaret Boden’s Mind as Machine for a good history of the cognitive science view. Lawrence Freedman and Nils Gilman have aptly covered the social science literature.

[1] You can use Manhattan distance or some other metric to compute what is “near” in this statement.

[2] Chess and machines have a very old and interesting history. For more, see this handy overview of computer chess.

[3] This is a representation of the UNIX filesystem structure. See this article for an overview of the distinction between Linux and Windows filesystems. Linux and Mac OSX also differ in their interpretations of the basic UNIX structure. For more, see this and this.

[4] Connectionism (known as the Parallel Distributed Processing research program) in artificial intelligence and cognitive science is a different level of analysis. To see how the classical conception of AI and cogsci perceives mind, consult the physical symbol systems hypothesis.

[5] Indeed, Ends-Ways-Means can be viewed as a kind of organizational programming, as implied by Antulio Echevarria here and stated more bluntly by Christopher Paparone here.

[6] For a dense look at the philosophy of simulation, I recommend Manuel De Landa’s book on “synthetic reason.”

[7] It’s worth noting that the answer to understanding rationality probably lies in a combination of both. See this recent overview of new work in neuroscience and AI.

[8] There are two design strategies in AI, broadly. Make a simple organism that can be effective in a range of environments or build a highly brittle and complicated system for a well-defined environment. See Poole and Mackworth for more.

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has commissioned HMAS Adelaide, the second of two landing helicopter docks (LHDs), in Garden Island, Sydney.

The US Navy has accepted Lockheed Martin's fourth Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite after the recent completion of on-orbit testing.