Former Pentagon officials overestimate the value of next-generation technologies

In a new piece in The Atlantic, Former Pentagon employees Raj Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff join the chorus of tech enthusiasts who believe that unmanned weapons and artificial intelligence systems are the future of warfare.

Shah and Kirchhoff, who led the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit before entering the investment and consulting world, are co-authors of a new book titled “Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Changing the Future of War.” The Atlantic The article is written in that spirit, extolling the value of new technologies in Ukraine’s efforts to fend off the Russian invasion of the country, even going so far as to say that “America’s technological genius is one of the best tools it has for keeping the peace.”

The idea of ​​”peace through technology” has a long and dubious history. From the “electronic battlefield” in Vietnam to Ronald Reagan’s quest for an impenetrable missile shield to the development of precision-guided weapons over the past two decades, new technologies that were supposed to “revolutionize” warfare have either failed completely or been of limited use for the kinds of wars they were used for. Whether the new wave of technology from Silicon Valley will suffer the same fate remains to be seen.

There is already reason to doubt whether a future marked by renewed US dominance, driven by superior development and deployment of unmanned and artificially intelligent weapons, will ever emerge. A recently published Wall Street Journal An investigation into the use of small U.S. drones in Ukraine found that the systems failed miserably. They were too fragile and too expensive, so they were abandoned in favor of cheaper and more reliable Chinese drones.

The disastrous performance of the small drones in Ukraine has undermined the argument of companies and investors involved in developing next-generation military technologies that their systems could play a decisive role in combat. Some of the new weapons work, some don’t. The idea that they are all “combat proven” is premature at best.

One corollary of New Age militarists’ belief that weapons like driverless vehicles and AI-controlled systems will give the United States a decisive military advantage is the notion that they will be key to “beating China” in a potential conflict, or deterring Beijing from authorizing aggressive actions against its neighbors. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks is a firm believer in this idea, according to a speech she gave in August 2023 to the National Defense Industrial Association, the nation’s largest defense industry group.

Proponents pumping money into Silicon Valley to spur development of fast, flexible, cheap, and easily replaceable new weapons systems rarely mention the risks involved in this path. Any defense system built with incredibly complex software is likely to fail at some point. If this happens in an AI-driven system, it could lead to unintentional mass murder. And should AI ever be integrated into the nuclear weapons command and control system—an approach the Pentagon does not currently consider possible—the possibility of a system failure triggering an accidental nuclear weapon launch cannot be ruled out.

There are three possible outcomes for the kind of high-tech future Shah and Kirchhoff are promoting. First, the weapons don’t work as advertised, and we waste tens of billions of dollars while falling behind on modernizing the U.S. military. Second, the weapons work as advertised, improving U.S. battlefield performance while making potential adversaries think twice about attacking the U.S. and its adversaries. Or third, the weapons work, but are used in ways that cause unintended deaths and provoke unnecessary wars. No one knows for sure which of these outcomes will occur, but option two would contradict the experience of the vast majority of conflicts over the past 100 years.

At a minimum, we need a vigorous national debate about whether and how to use new technologies for military purposes, including how to test and monitor new systems for effectiveness and affordability, and what strategy to use for their implementation. This will be challenging, given the enthusiasm for technology displayed by both military leaders and parts of the general public, and the fact that venture capital firms and defense contractors are rushing to capitalize on the development of AI-guided weapons and other new systems. There is a real danger that financial interests will overwhelm public interest in questions about the development and use of new technologies for military purposes. If that happens, it will deal a blow not only to our democracy but also to our security, likely for decades to come.