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Asia-Pacific

The US-China Arrangement for Air-to-Air Encounters Weakens International Law

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This article originally featured on Lawfare and is republished with permission. It may be read in its original form here. 

By James Kraska and Raul “Pete” Pedrozo

As part of the September 2015 fanfare visit by Xi Xinping to the United States, the United States and China signed an arrangement on rules of behavior for safety of air-to-air encounters of military aircraft. The deal is supposed to avert aviation incidents in international airspace between military aircraft of the United States and China. In a deadly 2001 incident, for example, a Chinese F-8 fighter jet interceptor collided with a U.S. EP-3 aircraft that was operating more than 75 miles from Hainan Island, causing the loss of the Chinese aircraft and pilot, and an emergency landing in China by the U.S. surveillance aircraft. Similarly, in August 2014, a Chinese fighter jet roared over, under, and in front of a U.S. P-8 maritime patrol aircraft – coming as close as 50 feet to the American aircraft – about 135 miles east of Hainan Island. The Chinese jet climbed vertically with its underbelly showing in front of the U.S. aircraft to display its under wing combat load out.

After China’s establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea in 2013, Beijing appears poised to adopt a similar zone over the South China Sea. Over the past 18 months, China has constructed three airstrips on artificial islands in the Spratlys that are capable of handling the country’s most advanced military aircraft. China has also deployed surface-to-air missiles to Woody Island in the Paracels and has installed high-frequency radar systems on four of the reefs that it occupies in the Spratlys, which significantly enhances the ability of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to monitor surface and air traffic in and over the South China Sea.

The new “Rules of Behavior for Safety of Air-to-Air Encounters” (Air Rules) is not a legally binding instrument, so it does not create any new substantive obligations. The agreement also does not create any new norms, as customary international law already requires military aircraft to fly in accordance with the rules applicable to civilian aircraft “to the extent practicable,” and to exercise due regard during air-to-air encounters. China wanted (and obtained) the deal as a trophy of great power status and strategic equivalence.

The Air Rules are likely to be a fruitless exercise to bring China back into compliance with international norms and its preexisting legal obligations. But if the deal merely restates existing obligations then what is the harm? We view the new Air Rules as more than just a superfluous agreement. The Air Rules reflect orthodox liberal internationalism and the belief among many U.S. international lawyers and policy makers that the international system is made safer and more stable and secure by enmeshing states in a continually expanding web of new commitments. Often, as is the case with the Air Rules, the specific terms of an instrument, the fact that an agreement does not reflect an actual meeting of the minds, or a lack of compliance with its provisions, are deemed less important than the good vibes hopefully generated by signing something. But the Air Rules erode confidence in international law as an effective element of diplomacy and security and diminishes more authoritative sources of law by adding an additional layer of ambiguity and confusion. Moreover, a bilateral deal plays into China’s claim that the issues concerning air-to-air interactions between Chinese fighter jets and the slow and vulnerable American wide body aircraft involve good faith differences over the law between Washington and Beijing, rather than China unilaterally breaking with universal norms to drive U.S. surveillance from the region.

Specific problems with the Air Rules include:

  • The arrangement states that the parties “should” operate consistent with the 1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention) and its Annexes and guidance….” Yet the Chicago Convention is legally binding; the Air Rules fail to state that the United States and China “shall” comply with its terms in accordance with their legal commitments. The Chicago Convention reflects the norm of customary international law that aircraft will fly with “due regard” for the safety of other aircraft, so the United States and China are already bound to observe this norm as a matter of law. The requirement in the Annex that the parties “should” operate consistent with the Chicago Convention dilutes the existing legal duty. This section of Annex III should have stated that the parties “shall operate” consistent with the Chicago Convention; it does not and international law has been weakened.
  • The arrangement says that the two powers are to “encourage” active communications during air-to-air encounters, but then states the opposite by specifically indicating that there is no obligation to communicate during such events.
  • The arrangement requires the two states to maintain safe separation of aerial forces using their own “national rules,” although China’s national rules are incompatible with its own treaty obligations in international law. Referencing China’s unlawful national rules in the Air Rules lends them undeserved credibility that undermines the rule of law in the airspace over the oceans.  
  • Furthermore, while the arrangement states that an intercepting aircraft should maintain a “safe separation” with other aircraft, it also says that the “intercepted” aircraft should “avoid reckless maneuvers.” This language clearly recalls the 2001 EP-3 incident described above, in which the Chinese side accused the slower and larger, multi-engine EP-3 aircraft of intentionally turning into the F-8 interceptor. This incredulous claim and the reference in the Air Rules for intercepted aircraft to avoid reckless maneuvers helps China avoid responsibility for past aggressive interceptions. Future scenarios are likely to raise similar facts – Chinese fighter jets intercepting slower U.S. reconnaissance aircraft. The text that attempts to balance or equate responsibilities for avoiding air-to-air incidents implicitly supports China’s effort to avoid responsibility for such incidents.
  •  The arrangement considers establishment of warning areas or danger areas using the worldwide Notice to Mariners (NOTAM) system. This provision is also an existing legal requirement and therefore superfluous. China currently does not comply with this legally binding requirement, so why would it now comply with a new, nonbinding requirement to do the same thing?
  • The arrangement states both sides should implement “in good faith” the 2014 Code for Unalerted Encounters at Sea (CUES). This “good faith” requirement is notoriously ambiguous in international law, and in practical terms is not an obligation to do anything. Furthermore, China already has signed CUES, so it already has a preexisting duty to implement it in good faith regardless of what is included in the new Air Rules. Rather than focus on getting China to comply with the nonbinding CUES, it would be better to insist that China fulfill its binding and longstanding legal commitments.
  • The arrangement indicates that aircraft are entitled to freedom of navigation and overflight in warning areas, but this provision is already a legally binding obligation that China ignores. Will the new, nonbinding Air Rules encourage compliance? Furthermore, China has long insisted that the right of freedom of navigation and overflight is limited to non-military ships and aircraft, or is subject to coastal state requirements, such as prior notification or consent.
  • Finally, the arrangement states that aircraft “should” avoid certain actions that may be seen as provocative, much like the Incidents at Sea Agreement (INCSEA) between the superpowers during the Cold War. Once again, however, this legally nonbinding provision is already subsumed by the legal requirement to exercise due regard during air-to-air encounters.

China’s dangerous interception of U.S. aircraft in international airspace violates long-standing and legally binding rules and norms of international law, so adding a new layer of nonbinding provisions merely creates unhelpful ambiguity and dilutes China’s preexisting legal obligations. Since lawyers are experts in the craft of statutory interpretation, saying the same thing in a different way can actually weaken rather than strengthen the underlying norm because it adds additional grist to the interpretative mill.

Besides the political significance of the agreement, the Air Rules are a new plank in China’s unremitting campaign of lawfare. The Air Rules either fail to invoke the appropriate legal terms of art or contain counterproductive and unorthodox references designed to place the United States in a worse light and provide China with colorable arguments to justify its unlawful behavior in the aftermath of the next air-to-air encounter.

The superfluous nature of the arrangement is also not helpful to the United States. There is a view among liberal internationalists that mention of preexisting international obligations in new agreements helps to reinforce them, and this approach perpetuates a compliance spiral that brings states closer together. But China already understands its existing legal obligations and chooses not to comply, so repeating them in oblique terms in a non-binding agreement only serves to weaken the very terms the United States seeks to reinforce. 

James Kraska is Howard S. Levie Professor of International Law at the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law, U.S. Naval War College, Distinguished Fellow at the Law of the Sea Institute, University of California at Berkeley School of Law, and Senior Fellow, Center for Oceans Law and Policy, University of Virginia School of Law.

Raul “Pete” Pedrozo is Deputy General Counsel for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA). Previously he was a Professor of International Law in the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College, where he now serves as a Non-Resident Scholar.

Book Review

All the Ways We Kill and Die

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Castner, Brian. All The Ways We Kill And Die: An Elegy for a Fallen Comrade, and the Hunt for His Killer. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2016, 356pp. $25.99

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By Commander Jeremy Wheat, USN

In the heart of Florida’s Emerald Coast, on Eglin Air Force Base’s aptly named Range Road, stands a simple memorial that is modest in both form and function. Nicknamed “The Wall” by Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technicians of all services, the  memorial permanently enshrines the names of EOD warriors who gave their life in the performance of their duty. Today there are 314 names on The Wall. This May we will add six more names, bringing the total added since 9/11 to 131.

All The Ways We Kill And Die is the story of one of those names – Technical Sergeant Matthew S. Schwartz, United States Air Force – but in many ways, this is all of their stories.

All The Ways We Kill And Die reads like a good work of fiction with a rich cast of characters and well developed whodunit plot line, all set in a postmodern military genre of special operations forces, robots, and drones. However, it is Brian Castner’s literary style that makes this a welcome addition to any bookshelf. Similar to his first work, The Long Walk, the language is raw, it is real, and it is that of a warrior. The meta-narrative, the structure of the book itself, the pace and tempo of the prose, everything about this book is reflective of an EOD response to an IED strike: tend to the wounded, collect the evidence, and target the bomber. More so, it provides a unique perspective of warfare in the 21st century and for that reason alone, All The Ways We Kill And Die should be cataloged in the annals of modern American military history.

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Maj. Mark Fogle and Chief Master Sgt. Neil Jones salute the Memorial Wall after the names of fallen Air Force explosive ordnance disposal technicians were read during the 45th Annual EOD Memorial Ceremony May 3, 2014 at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Sam King.

Technical Sergeant Matt Schwartz and the other two members of his EOD team died on January 5, 2012 when an IED detonated under their vehicle on a dirt road in Afghanistan while conducting a route clearance patrol deep into Helmand Province. Aside from its deafening roar, most people don’t think about the chaos an explosion creates, but EOD technicians know it well. We are trained to calculate the change in air pressure a detonation creates and how much of that pressure the human body can withstand. We know the raw force that is produced in an explosion and what happens when a body is thrown around inside an armored vehicle as a result. We also understand what happens if that same armored vehicle catches fire and you’re trapped inside.

Matt Schwartz’s official autopsy would later reveal he died four times in that single IED blast. Four distinct ways to die that all occurred near-instantaneously, and he probably didn’t even know it happened. In response to the news of Schwartz’s death, Brian Castner defaults to his training as an EOD officer and immerses himself in the EOD response process to answer one question, “Who killed his friend that January day?” Not how. Not why. Who? What his experience in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan has taught him is there is one person at the center of an IED’s being. Best known in Arabic by his kunya, al-Muhandis, we would come to know him by his nom de guerre, the Engineer, the master designer. “The only thing I knew for sure about the Engineer was how he killed, all of the ways we died at his hand. The war was a chess match, and al-Muhandis always went first.”

To understand the Engineer, one has to understand his life’s work, the IED. How it is built. How it is emplaced. How it functions. How it kills. The evidence of an IED is left with those who come in closest contact with it, namely the EOD technicians who disarm it before it detonates, and those who taste the fumes of its blast and survive when it does. What Castner finds at the intersection of these two groups is an untold story of the Surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and of those who bore the brunt of the deadly interaction between the U.S. and the  jihadists. In 2011, at the height of the Afghanistan Surge, the EOD community suffered a casualty rate ten times greater than the average for all American soldiers. During the Iraq Surge, casualty rates for EOD technicians doubled. Equally horrific, “at the height of the fighting seasons in the [Afghanistan] Surge an amputee was created, on average, every twenty-four hours,” proving there are other ways to die even if you make it off the battlefield.

“Ask what makes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan unique, and an incorrect superficial analysis might conclude the IED, the greatest casualty-maker of the last fifteen years. But the IED is just an insurgent’s weapon, not a tactic or strategy in and of itself. No, the innovation of this conflict was the method by which the IED was developed, how it was manufactured and emplaced, how quickly it evolved in reaction to our defenses, and, most significantly, the anonymity of the intellect behind the design. The average soldier could not say who they were really fighting.” (pg. 54)

At the juncture of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan gave birth to a niche field of forensic biometrics, allowing us to transform warfare to an individual experience. To see through the IED’s anonymity, Castner turns to a team of professionals: the biometric engineers and intelligence analysts who transform the IED’s evidence into an identity and, by extension, a specific person to be hunted. Analyzing the details of an IED’s construction, for example the gauge of wire used or the type of shrapnel added to enhance an IED’s maiming effects, allows a skilled analyst to discern patterns and identify distinct IED makers. Forensic analysis of the strand of hair from a piece of tape or a fingerprint on an IED component gives them a name. Providing an objective link between bomb and bomb maker, biometrics allow forces  to do more than simply react to al-Muhandis’ pawns. It enables them to get inside of his kill chain and disrupt his chess match. “In modern war, rather than kill any person, we kill that person. That particular person, but not another. War has always been personal, but now it is individual, specific to the associated alias and photo and fingerprint and DNA sample and dossier. The point is this: some people are worth killing more than others.” But who does the killing and at what cost?

Master EOD Badge
The Master EOD Badge

 

All The Ways We Kill And Die gives an insider’s perspective on what could be the most romanticized aspect of America’s post -9/11 wars: the integration of drones, special operations warfare, and battlefield

contractors to hunt and kill the individuals in their dossier. What Castner finds is not a fanaticized Hollywood interpretation. It is a gritty and complex world that challenges the common perceptions of 21st century warfare. “Why demonize the thing [drones] keeping soldiers out of harm’s way? The answer, which nobody wants to admit, is that they think without dead Americans, or at least Americans at risk, there would be far more dead Iraqis and Afghans. They can’t say it, but that’s what they think.” Do Brian Castner’s forensic analysts and special operators find al-Muhandis? Can they bring closure to his investigation and personal loss? In his own words, Castner believes “the Engineer is both a battlefield phenomenon and a very few flesh-and-blood individuals, probably less than a dozen, though I doubt anyone knows for sure. He is the aspirational target for a generation of special ops intel analysts and a specific man responsible for the device that killed Matt.”

Above all else, All The Ways We Kill And Die is a deeply personal memoir, a lamentation for a lost brother. Castner closes the book with a unique insight into the covenant of the EOD community as he takes the reader to the ceremony by which we add names to The Wall. As a brotherhood “we live well and we mourn well. We remember.” I wept four times in the 308 pages of text as I thought about the families I have stood beside when they buried their husbands and fathers. I dare you not to do the same. I spent many hours reflecting about my own time spent downrange; every name on The Wall that I know, each post-blast analysis of a fellow EOD technician that I conducted, every ramp ceremony, and of course my own “Alive Day.” In short, I remembered. For that opportunity alone, I am grateful to Brian Castner for authoring the elegy of Technical Sergeant Matthew Schwartz. A man I never met, but now know, and will never forget.

Commander Jeremy Wheat is a Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Officer and veteran of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Naval War College, and the Navy’s Maritime Advanced Warfighting School. He is currently serving on the staff of Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet in the Plans and Policy Directorate. His opinions do not represent those of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, or Department of the Navy.

Drones, Future Tech

Impacts of the Robotics Age on Naval Force Structure Planning

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The following is adapted from an abstract for presentation at the Naval War College EMC Chair Symposium’s panel on Force Structure.

By Jeffrey E. Kline, CAPT, USN (ret)

This paper’s theme is that our overly platform-focused naval force structure planning and acquisition system is burdened with so many inhibitors to change that we are ill prepared to capitalize on the missile and robotics age of warfare. Refocusing our efforts to emphasize the “right side” of an offensive kill chain to deliver kinetic and non-kinetic effects will aid in overcoming these challenges and prioritize our efforts where cutting edge technology can best be applied in naval warfare. I will address traditional foundations for force structure planning, inhibitors to changing force structure, and how focusing on the packages delivered instead of the delivery platforms will allow us to better leverage new technologies in the 2020 timeframe.

Ideally, naval force structure grows from national strategy, national treasure, technological advancement, and potential adversary capabilities. National strategy provides the rationale, purpose, and priority of choices to be made in creating a fleet. National treasure provides both the resources, and constrains that force strategic choices. New technologies provide opportunities for increasing fleet effectiveness, and may also potentially expose vulnerabilities for fleet survival when adversary capabilities are considered. This is a complex problem with only these four factors. However, U.S. force structure acquisition is also challenged by other influences. These other pressures inhibit capitalization of new technologies and slow reaction in the face of new challenges.

The most powerful of these is the inertia caused by an existing fleet being a large national capital investment with long build and life times. Ships and aircraft cost billions to design, build, and maintain. They require a capital-intensive industry requiring heavy equipment, infrastructure, and a skilled workforce, all generations in the making. The consequence is annual programming and budgeting decisions marginal in nature. It is the nature of a large fleet to evolve slowly, in lieu of revolutionary changes to its composition. This is a reality each Chief of Naval Operation faces when considering change to naval forces. Their relatively short tenure restricts their ability to execute a maritime strategy which has a real effect on ship and aircraft procurement.

Since our first six frigates were authorized in 1794, internal political and economic factors have been another major influence on fleet composition. Illustrated well by Ian Toll in his Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy, the potential windfalls on local economies when selected to provide force structure generate powerful political pressures on force generation decisions and create the desire for stabilization once those selections are made. The senators and congressman representing districts which build ships and aircraft rightfully defend existing programs for the benefit of their constituents.

This image provided by the US navy shows sailors moving an X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator onto an aircraft elevator aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush Tuesday, May 14, 2013. The drone was launched off the George H.W. Bush to be the first aircraft carrier to catapult launch an unmanned aircraft from its flight deck. (AP Phioto/U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Timothy Walter)
US navy sailors moving an X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator onto an aircraft elevator aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush Tuesday, May 14, 2013. The drone was launched off the George H.W. Bush to be the first aircraft carrier to catapult launch an unmanned aircraft from its flight deck. (AP Phioto/U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Timothy Walter)

Next, the overly compartmentalized nature of fleet planning, budgeting, building, and maintenance due to large and resource-competing bureaucracies create a lethargic and inefficient environment for change. Multiple oversight agencies, including Congress, make any decision made by one program manager susceptible to overly zealous scrutiny which disincentivizes innovation. Our ability to implement rapid change is lost when stakeholders exceed the point where responsibility and authority can be clearly defined. This is not to argue that Congress should abandon their Constitutional authority to maintain a Navy, but the real change is needed inside the programming, acquisition, and maintenance system to return to a more efficient hierarchy of command to control fleet composition.  Many of these changes will require Congressional action to amend regulatory burden.

Finally, the very nature of a fleet’s strategic value engenders conservatism in senior naval leadership when faced with the options for change. This is not necessarily an unhealthy view as the loss of the fleet can mean the loss of sea lines of communication and therefore a war.  Nonetheless, overvaluing what worked in the last major maritime war at the expense of not recognizing technology that changes the conveyance of maritime power can mean a fleet unprepared to combat an enemy that is not so inhibited.   

None of these influences on force structure planning can be lightly dismissed. The danger is that collectively they result in a harmful escalation of commitment toward obsolete platforms and only marginal changes in force structure in the face of major technological changes. The result today is a brittle U.S. Fleet that is susceptible to capability surprise and slow to react to adversary’s threats.

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DARPAs Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV).

The United States is not unique in facing these challenges. Historically, major changes to naval force structure have resulted from war and/or great technology leaps. Ramming, row, and boarding vessels gave way to the naval cannon and sail; sail to steam; rifled gun and armor to aircraft; aircraft to missiles; and now we are on the dawn of a robotics age. Missiles, robots, miniaturization, hypersonic technologies, and artificial intelligence give the advantage to smaller, many, faster, and more lethal offensive capabilities. Our challenge is to not allow the restraints on the current force structure planning process to cede these advantages to potential adversaries.

Meeting each of the 2015 maritime strategic capabilities like all domain access, deterrence, sea control, power projection, and maritime security while constrained by the budget and procurement process and contested by potential adversaries’ growing capabilities will require new thinking in platforms, weapons, and command and control. Advancement into the robotic age allows us to emphasize options to achieve a desired tactical end state which enables our operational and strategic goals. This is somewhat a reversal in the traditional hierarchy of the levels of war. Yet, it is historically accurate. Technology empowers a tactical edge in maritime warfare, providing new operational and strategic choices. For example, investing in a very “smart” long range autonomous offensive missile that can out-range those of our adversary may permit us to build less expensive, less well defended ships from which to launch them thereby making sea control more affordable.

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A Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) integrated on F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. US Navy photo.

Consider a new frigate equipped with unmanned aerial vehicles to hunt, and long range missile to kill, against today’s DDG Flight III without a long range surface missile. Granted, better to have a DDG Flight III armed with the same long range missile, so long as we can afford sufficient DDGs with these capabilities to meet all the other requirements around the world, the most capacity-demanding being maritime security, but our budget constrains us. The message here is not necessarily to favor a frigate over a DDG, but to refocus our investments on less expensive “payloads” delivered, kinetic or cyber, not the more expensive delivery platforms. A stark example is a weapon that has huge maritime influence but no maritime platform, the DF-21. Focusing on offensive payloads also lessens many of the political, economic, and bureaucratic challenges associated with large capital investments associated with platform programs. 

This “package focus” first is particularly applicable in the electromagnetic and cyber realm. Inexpensive, disposable UAVs employing radar reflectors or chirp jamming may be better delivery platforms for EM “packages” than a F-18 Growler. In the defense, developing “Left of kill chain” effects against an adversary need not be expensive, but does require synchronization with the movement of actual forces. The desired effects may rely as much on adversary perception as on physical outcomes. The solutions here may be more organizational, training, and in the area of concept of employment than force structure additions. However, it again allows us new options in force structure alternatives.

When building a fleet for contested environments with real financial constraints, our investments should be focused on the right side of our offensive kill chain, and on the left side of an adversary’s kill chain. In addition to putting the focus of warfare close to the enemy and further from us, this enables us to capitalize on technologies provided by the missile and robotics age and constrains the inhibitors to change from a platform focused acquisition system. Seeing missiles and unmanned systems as entities themselves, and not just extensions of manned platforms, is a concept needing early adoption. Creating an unmanned system resource sponsor in OPNAV N99 is a good first step. Empowering them with sufficient resources will be the next.

We are not there yet.  In the FY17 DoD President’s budget, a bit over 40% is allocated for aircraft procurement and shipbuilding, only 9% for munitions. Real change will be required, involving Congress and the Department of the Navy.

A retired naval officer with 26 years of service, Jeff is currently a Professor of Practice in the Operations Research department and holds the Chair of Systems Engineering Analysis. He teaches Joint Campaign Analysis, executive risk assessment and coordinates maritime security education programs offered at NPS. Jeff supports applied analytical research in maritime operations and security, theater ballistic missile defense, and future force composition studies. He has served on several Naval Study Board Committees. His NPS faculty awards include the Superior Civilian Service Medal, 2011 Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) Award for Teaching of OR Practice, 2009 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Homeland Security Award, 2007 Hamming Award for interdisciplinary research, 2007 Wayne E. Meyers Award for Excellence in Systems Engineering Research, and the 2005 Northrop Grumman Award for Excellence in Systems Engineering. He is a member of the Military Operations Research Society and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science.  

Capability Analysis, Drones

Could Robot Submarines Replace Australia’s Ageing Collins Class Submarines?

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This article originally featured on The Conversation. It can be read in its original form here.

By Sean Welsh

The decision to replace Australia’s submarines has been stalled for too long by politicians afraid of the bad media about “dud subs” the Collins class got last century.

Collins class subs deserved criticism in the 1990s. They did not meet Royal Australian Navy (RAN) specifications. But in this century, after much effort, they came good. Though they are expensive, Collins class boats have “sunk” US Navy attack submarines, destroyers and aircraft carriers in exercises.

Now that the Collins class is up for replacement, we have an opportunity to reevaluate our requirements and see what technology might meet them. And just as drones are replacing crewed aircraft in many roles, some military thinkers assume the future of naval war will be increasingly autonomous.

The advantages of autonomy in submarines are similar to those of autonomy in aircraft. Taking the pilot out of the plane means you don’t have to provide oxygen, worry about g-forces or provide bathrooms and meals for long trips.

Taking 40 sailors and 20 torpedoes out of a submarine will do wonders for its range and stealth. Autonomous submarines could be a far cheaper option to meet the RAN’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) requirements than crewed submarines.

Submarines do more than sink ships. Naval war is rare but ISR never stops. Before sinking the enemy you must find them and know what they look like. ISR was the original role of drones and remains their primary role today.

Last month, Boeing unveiled a prototype autonomous submarine with long range and high endurance. It has a modular design and could perhaps be adapted to meet RAN ISR requirements.

Boeing is developing a long range autonomous submarine that could have military applications.

Thus, rather than buy 12 crewed submarines to replace the Collins class, perhaps the project could be split into meeting the ISR requirement with autonomous submarines that can interoperate with a smaller number of crewed submarines that sink the enemy.

Future submarines might even be “carriers” for autonomous and semi-autonomous UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and UUVs (unmanned undersea vehicles).

Keeping People on Deck

However, while there may be a role for autonomous submarines in the future of naval warfare, there are some significant limitations to what they can achieve today and in the foreseeable future.

Most of today’s autonomous submarines have short ranges and are designed for very specific missions, such as mine sweeping. They are not designed to sail from Perth to Singapore or Hong Kong, sneak up on enemy ships and submarines, and sink them with torpedoes.

Also, while drone aircraft can be controlled from a remote location, telepiloting is not an option for a long range sub at depth.

The very low frequency radio transceivers in Western Australia used by the Pentagon to signal “boomers” (nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarines) in the Indian Ocean have very low transmission rates: only a few hundred bytes per second.

You cannot telepilot a submarine lying below a thermocline in Asian waters from Canberra like you can telepilot a drone flying in Afghanistan with high-bandwidth satellite links from Nevada.

Contemporary telepiloted semi-autonomous submarines are controlled by physical tethers, basically waterproof network cables, when they dive. This limits range to a few kilometers.

Who’s the Captain?

To consider autonomy in the role of sinking the enemy, the RAN would likely want an “ethical governor” to skipper the submarines. This involves a machine making life and death decisions: a “Terminator” as captain so to speak.

This would present a policy challenge for government and a trust issue for the RAN. It would certainly attract protest and raise accountability questions.

On the other hand, at periscope depth, you can telepilot a submarine. To help solve the chronic recruitment problems of the Collins class, the RAN connected them to the internet. If you have a satellite “dongle on the periscope” so the crew can email their loved ones, then theoretically you can telepilot the submarine as well.

That said, if you are sneaking up on an enemy sub and are deep below the waves, you can’t.

Even if you can telepilot, radio emissions directing the sub’s actions above the waves might give away its position to the enemy. Telepiloting is just not as stealthy as radio silence. And stealth is critical to a submarine in war.

Telepiloting also exposes the sub to the operational risks of cyberwarfare and jamming.

There is great technological and political risk in the Future Submarine Project. I don’t think robot submarines can replace crewed submarines but they can augment them and, for some missions, shift risk from vital human crews to more expendable machines.

Ordering nothing but crewed submarines in 2016 might be a bad naval investment.

Sean Welsh is a Doctoral Candidate in Robot Ethics at the University of Canterbury. The working title of his dissertation is Moral Code: Programming the Ethical Robot. He spent 17 years working in software engineering for organisations such as British Telecom, Telstra Australia, Fitch Ratings, James Cook University and Lumata. He has given several conference papers on programming ethics into robots, two of which are appearing in a forthcoming book, A World of Robots, to be published by Springer later in the year.

Sean Welsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Featured Image: HMAS Rankin at periscope depth. United States Navy, Photographer’s Mate 1st Class David A. Levy