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Capability Analysis, Current Operations, Drones, Future Tech, Global Analysis

Operating in an Era of Persistent Unmanned Aerial Surveillance

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By William Selby

In the year 2000, the United States military used Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) strictly for surveillance purposes and the global commercial UAS market was nascent. Today, the combination of countries exporting complex UAS technologies and an expanding commercial UAS market advances the spread of UAS technologies outside of U.S. government control. The propagation of this technology from both the commercial and military sectors will increase the risk of sophisticated UASs becoming available to any individual or group, regardless of their intent or financial resources. Current and future adversaries, including non-state actors, are likely to acquire and integrate UASs into their operations against U.S. forces. However, U.S. forces can reduce the advantages of abundant UAS capability by limiting the massing of resources and by conducting distributed operations with smaller maneuver elements.

Leveraging the Growth in the Commercial UAS Market

While armed UAS operations are only associated with the U.S., UK, and Israel, other countries with less restrictive export controls are independently developing their own armed UAS systems. Chinese companies continue to develop reconnaissance and armed UASs for export to emerging foreign markets. Earlier this year, social media reports identified a Chinese CH-3 after it crashed in Nigeria. Reports indicate China sold the system to the Nigerian government for use against Boko Haram. Other countries including Pakistan and Iran organically developed armed UAS capabilities, with claims of varying levels of credibility. In an effort to capitalize on the international UAS market and to build relationships with allies, the U.S. eased UAS export restrictions in early 2015 while announcing the sale of armed UASs to the Netherlands. Military UAS development is expected to be relatively limited, with less than 0.5 percent of expected future global defense spending slated to buying or developing military drones. For now, long range surveillance and attack UASs are likely to remain restricted to the few wealthy and technologically advanced countries that can afford the research costs, training, and logistical support associated with such systems. However, short range military or civilian UASs are likely to be acquired by non-state actors primarily for surveillance purposes.

Still captured from an ISIS documentary with footage shot from a UAS over the Iraqi city of Fallujah(nytimes.com)

Still captured from an ISIS documentary with footage shot from a UAS over the Iraqi city of Fallujah(nytimes.com)

Hamas, Hezbollah, Libyan militants, and ISIS are reportedly using commercial UASs to provide surveillance support for their military operations. Current models contain onboard GPS receivers for autonomous navigation and a video transmission or recording system that allows the operators to collect live video for a few thousand dollars or less. Small UASs, similar in size to the U.S. military’s Group 1 UASs, appeal to non-state actors for several reasons. Namely, they are inexpensive to acquire, can be easily purchased in the civilian market, and are simple to maintain. Some systems can be operated with very little assembly or training, which reduces the need for substantial technical knowledge and enables non-state actors to immediately integrate them into daily operations. These UASs are capable of targeting restricted areas as evidenced by the recent UAS activity near the White House, French nuclear power plants, and the Japanese Prime Minister’s roof. The small size and agility of these UASs allow them to evade traditional air defense systems yet specific counter UAS systems are beginning to show progress beyond the prototype phase.

Economic forecasters may dispute commercial UAS sales predictions, but most agree that this market is likely to see larger growth than the military market. Countries are currently attempting to attract emerging UAS businesses by developing UAS regulations that will integrate commercial UASs into their national airspace. The increase of hobby and commercial UAS use is likely to lead to significant investments in both hardware and software for these systems. Ultimately, this will result in a wider number of platforms with an increased number of capabilities available for purchase at a lower cost. Future systems are expected to come with obstacle avoidance systems, a wider variety of modular payloads, and extensive training support systems provided by a growing user community. Hybrid systems will address the payload, range, and endurance limitations of the current platforms by combining aspects of rotor and fixed wing aerial vehicles. The dual-use nature of these commercial systems will continue to be an issue. Google and Amazon are researching package delivery systems that can potentially be repurposed to carry hazardous materials. Thermal, infrared, and multispectral cameras used for precision agriculture can also provide non-state actors night-time surveillance and the ability to peer through limited camouflage. However, non-state actors will likely primarily use hobby and commercial grade platforms in an aerial surveillance role, since current payload limitations prevent the platforms from carrying a significant amount of hazardous material. 

Minimizing the Advantages of Non-State Actor’s UAS Surveillance

As these systems proliferate, even the most resource-limited adversaries are expected to have access to an aerial surveillance platform. Therefore, friendly operations must adapt in an environment of perceived ubiquitous surveillance. Despite the limited range and endurance of these small UASs, they are difficult to detect and track reliably. Therefore, one must assume the adversary is operating these systems if reporting indicates they possess them. Force protection measures and tactical level concepts of operations can be modified to limit the advantages of ever-present and multi-dimensional surveillance by the adversary. At the tactical level, utilizing smoke and terrain to mask movement and the use of camouflage nets or vegetation for concealment can be effective countermeasures. The principles of deception, stealth, and ambiguity will take on increasing importance as achieving any element of surprise will become far more difficult. 

The upcoming 3DR Solo UAS will feature autonomous flight and camera control with real time video streaming for $1,000 (3drobotics.com)
The upcoming 3DR Solo UAS will feature autonomous flight and camera control with real time video streaming for $1,000 (3drobotics.com)

At static locations such as forward operating bases or patrol bases, a high frequency of operations, including deception operations, can saturate the adversary’s intelligence collection and processing capabilities and disguise the intent of friendly movements. Additionally, massing strategic resources at static locations will incur increasing risk. In 2007 for example, insurgents used Google Earth imagery of British bases in Basra to improve the accuracy of mortar fire. The adversary will now have near real time geo-referenced video available which can be combined with GPS guided rockets, artillery, mortars and missiles to conduct rapid and accurate attacks. These attacks can be conducted with limited planning and resources, yet produce results similar to the 2012 attack at Camp Bastion which caused over $100 million in damages and resulted in the combat ineffectiveness of the AV-8B squadron.

In environments without the need for an enduring ground presence, distributed operations with smaller maneuver elements will reduce the chance of strategic losses while concurrently making it harder for the adversary to identify and track friendly forces. Interestingly, operational concepts developed by several of the services to assure access in the face of sophisticated anti-access/area denial threats can also minimalize the impact of the UAS surveillance capabilities of non-state actors. The Navy has the Distributed Lethality concept, the Air Force is testing the Rapid Raptor concept, and the Army’s is developing its Pacific Pathways concept. The Marine Corps is implementing its response, Expeditionary Force 21 (EF21), through several Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Forces.

The EF21 concept focuses on using high-speed aerial transport, such as the MV-22, to conduct dispersed operations with Company Landing Teams that are self-sufficient for up to a week.  In December 2013, 160 Marines flew over 3,400 miles in KC-130s and MV-22s from their base in Spain to Uganda in order to support the embassy evacuation in South Sudan, demonstrating the EF21 concept. Utilizing high speed and long-range transport allows friendly forces to stage outside of the adversary’s ground and aerial surveillance range. This prevents the adversary from observing any patterns that could allude to the mission of the friendly force and also limits exposure to UAS surveillance. Advances in digital communications, including VTCs and mesh-networks, can reduce the footprint of the command center making these smaller forces more flexible without reducing capabilities. The small size of these units also reduces their observable signatures and limits the ability of the adversary to target massed forces and resources.

Confronting the Approaching UAS Free-Rider Dilemma

Non-state actors capitalize on the ability to rapidly acquire and implement sophisticated technologies without having to invest directly in their development. These organizations did not pay to develop the Internet or reconnaissance satellites, yet they have Internet access to high-resolution images of the entire globe. It took years for the U.S. to develop the ability to live stream video from the Predator UAS but now anyone can purchase a hobby UAS that comes with the ability to live stream HD video to YouTube for immediate world-wide distribution. As the commercial market expands, so will the capabilities of these small UAS systems, democratizing UAS technology. Systems that cannot easily be imported, such as advanced communications relays, robust training pipelines, and sophisticated logistics infrastructure can now be automated and outsourced. This process will erode the air dominance that the U.S. enjoyed since WWII, now that commercial investments allow near peers to acquire key UAS technologies that approach U.S. UAS capabilities.

The next generation of advanced fighters may be the sophisticated unmanned vehicles envisioned by Navy Secretary Ray Maybus. However, other countries could choose a different route by sacrificing survivability for cheaper, smaller, and smarter UAS swarms that will directly benefit from commercial UAS investments. Regardless of the strategic direction military UASs take, commercial and hobby systems operating in an aerial surveillance role will remain an inexpensive force multiplier for non-state actors. Fortunately, the strategic concepts developed and implemented by the services to counter the proliferation of advanced anti-air and coastal defense systems can be leveraged to minimalize the impact of unmanned aerial surveillance by the adversary. Distributed operations limit the massing of resources vulnerable to UAS assisted targeting while long-range insertions of small maneuver elements reduces the exposure of friendly forces to UAS surveillance. Nation states and non-state actors will continue to benefit from technological advances without investing resources in their development, pushing U.S. forces to continually update operational concepts to limit the increasing capabilities of the adversary.

William Selby is a Marine officer who completed studies at the US Naval Academy and MIT researching robotics and unmanned systems. He previously served with 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines and is currently stationed in Washington, DC. Follow him @wilselby or www.wilselby.com 

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Asia-Pacific, Book Review, Capability Analysis, Future Tech, Global Analysis

The Future of China’s Military Innovation

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Forging China

Forging China’s Military Might: A New Framework for Assessing Innovation, edited by Tai Ming Cheung. Johns Hopkins Press, 2014. 304pp. $24.95

Review by Dr. Jeffrey Becker

Can China’s defense industry take the next step in supporting the country’s military modernization? Can it progress beyond a few well-known pockets of excellence in space and missiles to the point where the industry writ-large is capable of truly radical innovation? The CCP leadership clearly recognizes the importance of developing the nation’s defense science and technology industry, and defense industry reforms appear to be an integral part of the larger ongoing military reform process initiated at the 3rd Plenum of the 18th Party Congress in 2013. One need only look at recent Chinese writings on adjustment to weapons and equipment procurement and a growing focus on civil-military integration to see that the current leadership understands the importance of this issue to China’s future status as a military great power.

It is this context that we should view Tai Ming Cheung’s recently released edited volume, Forging China’s Military Might (2014, Johns Hopkins University Press). The results of a 2011 conference examining the Chinese defense economy held at Berkeley’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, the book tackles the question of how we should view China’s defense industry within a global comparative perspective. While the relatively long time from conference to publication is lamentable, the volume contains many essays which remain highly relevant and cover a range of topics, including analytical models designed to better understand important drivers of innovation, trends in the direction of China’s defense industry development, and detailed case studies examining important organizations within the Chinese military and defense establishment.

The volume is anchored by the theoretical chapter authored by Tai Ming Cheung, Thomas G.  Mahnken, and Andrew L. Ross. The chapter lays out a general model that allows for comparing innovation in national defense industries across countries. The details of the model are far too complex to do justice in the space here, but are certainly worthy of more in-depth examination.  In sum, the model attempts to place national defense innovation on a spectrum ranging from simplistic and duplicative imitation, to disruptive and radical innovation. Where a country falls on this spectrum depends on a number of factors, including the state’s level of technological development, their security situation, and level of global integration. The authors find that most advances in the Chinese defense industry have been more incremental than disruptive to date, a finding likely true in most countries. While this is non-controversial, the chapter also notes that China’s innovative success has been more a function of technological advancements rather than doctrinal reform or organizational change, a point some may argue given the amount of ink spilled over the past twenty years examining PLA reforms in training, organization, and doctrine. 

Of the remaining chapters, two are likely of greatest interest to CIMSEC readers in that they deal directly with issues of concern to the PLA Navy. 

The first is an examination of China’s Military Representative Offices (MROs) by Susan M. Puska et. al. China’s MRO system is the PLA’s attempt to ensure quality at all stages of weapons and equipment production. Like previous studies of this system, the authors find it to be redundant, fragmented, and largely ineffectual. However, the chapter provides useful information on relatively recent (2010-2011) attempts to experiment with changes to the PLAN’s MRO system, with the goal of incorporating them into other MRO systems once they have been deemed successful. 

Like many experiments within the Chinese military and government, reforms to the MRO system appear to have gone nowhere. However, given that the PLA now appears to be undertaking some of the widest ranging and most serious reforms in decades, it will be extremely interesting to see whether they provide an impetus to finally bring the MRO system more in line with the PLA’s current needs and requirements. Added incentive to change how the PLA manages weapons development and procurement has also come from the ongoing anti-corruption campaign, which has already taken down a number of military officials – including those involved in weapons logistics and procurement. 

The second chapter likely to be of greatest interest to CIMSEC readers is the examination of China’s place in the global defense industry by Richard A. Bitzinger et. al. The authors compare and contrast the accomplishments of China’s defense industries in the field of shipbuilding, aviation, and space launch vehicles.  The examination of China’s shipbuilding industry provides some useful detail regarding the sectors’ accomplishments and challenges. Despite the dramatic achievements made over the past two decades, the authors find the continued reliance on foreign technology to be problematic, especially should China need to ramp up production during conflict, when access to needed foreign material and components may be in short supply. The authors conclude that China’s naval shipbuilding has been “remarkable, yet short of impressive,” a more somber assessment which contrasts with some of the more optimistic predictions regarding China’s naval shipbuilding capacity over the near term.   

So what are we to expect from China’s defense industry in the near future? The assessment here is that results are likely to be mixed. Pockets of excellence in areas such as missiles, space and cyber are likely to expand and will continue to improve. Other areas such as aviation – particularly the aero-engine sector – will continue to face challenges. Key for China analysts and those who focus specifically on China’s defense industry will be to identify well in advance those early warning indicators that will allow us to determine the extent to which real change in the industry is occurring, and how to determine how much of an impact it is having on China’s ability to close the defense technology gap. This book helps to advance that conversation by providing a number of ways to look at China defense industry in comparative perspective, which will be of value to anyone seeking to answer these questions for some time to come.

Jeffrey Becker is an analyst in the CNA China Studies Division. Dr. Becker’s published books and monographs include From Peasants to Protesters: Social Ties, Resources, and Migrant Labor Contention in Contemporary China (Lexington Books, 2014), and Behind the Periscope: Leadership in China’s Navy (CNA, 2013). His current research interests include Chinese maritime issues and Chinese foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific. Dr. Becker holds a Ph.D. in political science from the George Washington University, an M.A. in political science from Columbia University, and a B.A. in international relations and Asian studies from Colgate University.

Readers interested in reviewing books for CIMSEC can contact the book review editor at books@cimsec.org.

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Drones, Future Tech

Inspector Gadgets: Drones in the Hangar

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Checking an aircraft for damage can be arduous and meticulous work,  but last week’s issue of The Economist highlights an experimental commercial approach. In simple terms, the Remote Intelligent Survey Equipment for Radiation (RISER) drone is a quadcopter with LIDAR and forms the basis for a system to use lasers to automatically detect damage to airliners.

The obvious naval application for inspector drones would be for ground-, carrier, and surface vessel-based fixed-wing and helicopter units, although the configurations for each aircraft type and location might make some more practical than others. For example it probably makes more sense to consolidate expertise in inspector drones at regional maintenance and readiness centers than to try to outfit a unit in the small helicopter hangar of every destroyer. But there’s always something to be said for an operational capability.

While The Economist notes that the drones are allowed at Luton airport, UK, to “operate only inside hangars, and only when the doors are shut,” similar systems could be used during periods of extended surface ship and submarine maintenance, particularly while in dry dock to check for damage and wear and tear to those vessels’ hulls and systems.

We’ve speculated previously at CIMSEC on the utility of LIDAR-equipped shipboard robots and autonomous systems to engage in damage control, but external hull and airframe inspection drones add a wrinkle and join an ever-growing list of potential (and actualized) uses for drones.

Scott Cheney-Peters is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and founder and Chairman of the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC). He is a graduate of Georgetown University and the U.S. Naval War College, a member of the Truman National Security Project, and a CNAS Next-Generation National Security Fellow.

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Future Tech, Future War, Tactical Concepts

The Role of Swarm Intelligence for Distributed Lethality C2

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This article was submitted by guest author Marjorie Greene for CIMSEC’s Distributed Lethality week.  Ms. Greene is a Research Analyst with CNA.  Views expressed are her own.

What will distributed lethality command and control look like?   This article introduces a self-organizing approach that addresses this question.   The increasing vulnerability of centralized command and control systems in network warfare suggests it may be time to take an entirely new approach that builds on the human capacity to interact locally and collectively with one another. Building on the concept of swarm intelligence, the approach suggests that information could be “shared” in a decentralized control system, much as insect colonies share information by constructing paths that represent the evolution of their collective knowledge.

This article builds on a self-organizing system that was developed for military analyses aimed at finding out “who talks to whom, about what, and how effectively” in a wide range of operational situations featuring the involvement of naval forces and commands. In an effort to describe the content of message traffic throughout the chain of command during a crisis, a technique was used to associate messages with each other through their formal references. “Reference-connected sets” were constructed that required no interpretation of the subject matter of the messages and, when further analyzed, were found to uniquely identify events during the crisis. For example, one set that was constructed from crisis-related message traffic found in files at three command headquarters contained 105 messages that dealt with preparation for landing airborne troops. Other sets of messages represented communications related to other events such as providing medical supplies and preparing evacuation lists. The technique therefore provided a “filter” of all messages during the crisis into events that could be analyzed – by computers or humans – without predetermined subject categories. It simply provided a way of quickly locating a message that had the information (as it was expressed in natural language) that was necessary to make a decision [1].

As the leaders of the Surface Navy continue to lay the intellectual groundwork for Distributed Lethality, this may be a good time to re-introduce the concept of creating “paths” to represent the “collective behavior” of decentralized self-organized systems” for control of hunter-killer surface action groups. Technologies could still be developed to centralize the control of multiple SAGs designed to counter adversaries in an A2/AD environment. But swarm intelligence techniques could also be used in which small surface combatants would each act locally on local information, with global control “emerging” from their collective dynamics. Such intelligence has been used in animal cultures to detect and respond to unanticipated environmental changes, including predator presence, resource challenges, and other adverse conditions without a centralized communication and control system. Perhaps a similar approach could be used for decentralized control of Distributed Lethality.

Swarm intelligence builds on behavioral models of animal cultures. For example, the ant routing algorithm tells us that when an ant forages for food, it lays pheromones on a trail from source to destination. When it arrives at its destination, it returns to its source following the same path it came from. If other ants have travelled along the same path, pheromone level is higher. Similarly, if other ants have not travelled along the path, the pheromone level is lower. If every ant tries to choose a trail that has higher pheromone concentration, eventually the pheromones accumulate when multiple ants use the same path and evaporate when no ant passes.

Just as an ant leaves a chemical trace of its movement along a path, an individual surface combatant could send messages to other surface ships that include traces of previous messages by means of “digital pheromones.” One way to do this would be through a simple rule that ensures that all surface ships are kept informed of all previous communications related to the same subject. This is a way to proactively create a reference-connected message set that relates to an event across all surface ships during an offense operation.

In his book, Cybernetics, Norbert Wiener discusses the ant routing algorithm and the concept of self-organizing systems. He does not explicitly define “self-organization” except to suggest it is a process which machines – and, by analogy, humans – learn by adapting to their environment. Now considered to be a fundamental characteristic of complex systems, self-organization refers to the emergence of higher-level properties and behaviors of a system that originate from the collective dynamics of that system’s components but are not found in nor are directly deducible from the lower-level properties of the system. Emergent properties are properties of the whole that are not possessed by any of the individual parts making up that whole. The parts act locally on local information and global order emerges without any need for external control.

The Office of Naval Research has recently demonstrated a new era in autonomy and unmanned systems for naval operations that has great promise for Distributed Lethality. The LOCUST (Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology) program utilizes information-sharing

The Coyote UAV, developed by BAE, used by the LOCUST program
The Coyote UAV, developed by BAE, used by the LOCUST program

between UAVs to enable autonomous collaborative behavior in either defensive or offensive scenarios. In the opinion of this author, this program should be analyzed for its potential application to Distributed Lethality.

Professor Vannevar Bush at MIT was perhaps the first person to come up with a new way of thinking about constructing paths for information-sharing. He suggested that an individual’s personal information storage and selection system could be based on direct connections between documents instead of the usual connections between index terms and documents. These direct connections were to be stored in the form of trails through the literature. Then at any future time the individual himself or one of his friends could retrieve this trail from document to document without the necessity of describing each document with a set of descriptors or tracing it down through a classification tree [2].

The current response to the dilemmas associated with command and control in any distributed operation has led this author to embrace the concept of swarm intelligence. Rather than attempting to interpret the subject matter of information exchanged by entities in confronting an adversary, why not build control systems that simply track information “flows”? Such flows would define the subject matter contained in a naval message without having to classify the information at all.

Any discussion of command and control would be incomplete without including the concept of fuzzy sets, introduced by Professor Lotfi Zadeh at the University of California, Berkeley in 1965. The concept addresses the vagueness that is inherent in most natural language and provides a basis for a qualitative approach to the analysis of command and control in Distributed Lethality. It is currently used in a wide range of domains in which information is incomplete or imprecise and has been extended into many, largely mathematical, constructions and theorems treating inexactness, ambiguity, and uncertainty. This approach to the study of information systems has gained a significant following and now includes major research areas such as pattern recognition, data mining, machine learning algorithms, and visualization, which all build on the theoretical foundations established in information systems theory [3].

Ultimately, the information paths constructed for the control of Distributed Lethality will be a function of organizational relationships and the distribution of information between them. Since a message in a path cannot reference a previous message unless its originator is cognizant of the previous message, the paths in a “reference-connected set” of messages will often reflect the information flows within a Surface Action Group. When paths are joined with other paths, the resulting path often reflects communications across Surface Action Groups. It remains to be determined whether the Surface Navy can use these concepts as it continues to explore the intellectual groundwork for Distributed Lethality. Nevertheless, it is very tempting to speculate that swarm intelligence will play an important role in the future. The most important consideration is that this approach concentrates on the evolution of an event, rather than upon a description of the event. Even if a satisfactory classification scheme could be found for control of hunter-killer Surface Action Groups, the dynamic nature of their operations suggests that predetermined categories would not suffice to describe the complex developments inherent in evolving and potentially changing situations.

Many organizations have supported research and development designed to explore the full benefits of shared information in an environment in which users will be linked through interconnected communications networks. However, in the view of this author, the model of “trails of messages” should be explored again. “Network warfare” will force an increased emphasis on human collaborative networks. Dynamic command and control will be based on communications paths and direct connections between human commanders of distributed surface ships rather than upon technologies that mechanically or electronically select information from a central store. Such an approach would not only prepare for Distributed Lethality, but may improve command and control altogether.

Ms. Greene is a Research Analyst with CNA. Views expressed are her own. 

REFERENCES:

  1. Greene, , “A Reference-Connecting Technique for Automatic Information Classification and Retrieval”, OEG Research Contribution No. 77, Center for Naval Analyses, 1967
  2. Bush, V., “As We May Think”, Atlantic Monthly 176 (1):101-108, 1945
  3. Zadeh, L.,” Fuzzy sets”, Information Control 8, 338-353, 1965
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