The world has long been regaled with predictions of a Technological Singularity when scientific advances converge at such speed and volume to defy, and ultimately escape, human control. This much-feared post-human era is arriving now in military affairs. Drones, robots, and AI are rendering the modern battlespace too dangerous for troops, making them increasingly irrelevant in warfare – along with their human-centric platforms (ships, aircraft, tanks).
The evidence for this Military Singularity abounds in today’s ongoing conflicts:
- Drones wiping out infantry as they muster for duty because their smartphones reveal their exact coordinates.
- Drones blowing up troops in their tents because they dared surf social media – the “new cigarette in the foxhole.”
- Hummingbird-like drones that approach individual soldiers and then blow themselves up – in effect, a mine that finds you!
- Naval drones costing hundreds of thousands of dollars sinking capital ships costing hundreds of millions.
- “Turtle tanks” so overburdened with extra armor to survive drone attacks that their reduced maneuverability makes them sitting ducks.
All these attacks make great video for terrorizing families back home with a steady stream of snuff films. Their meta-message: ground troops now serve primarily as casualties-in-waiting. They can’t take ground and they can’t hold ground. At best, they can hide in trenches or underground, waiting – in the vernacular of the Military Singularity – to be attrited by attritable opponents.
It’s no longer a human-centric battlespace when it’s you versus an unkillable opponent. Then it’s just a shooting gallery for robots.
How do humans regain the upper hand? They don’t and they never will.
At best, humans can send in their own drones and robots to fight the other side’s drones and robots, rendering the contested battlefield no better than a no-man’s land.
Sound pointless? It should also sound familiar to students of history.
Look at how Russia-v-Ukraine has devolved into a re-run of World War I trench warfare where the primary role of ground troops was to die en masse. It’s also a re-dux of World War II artillery warfare – sans the blitzkrieg.
What invariably results from these back-to-the-future outcomes is best described as the apogee of area-denial operations: You may want this land, but I can deny it to you by turning it into a moonscape ruled over by killer drones and robots. In strategic terms, this is a pyrrhic stalemate for everyone save arms dealers: your drones battling my drones for as long as we can keep fielding them.
In many ways, the Military Singularity will do to small wars what the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine did to great power wars: namely, render them unwinnable so long as both sides can 3D print their unmanned forces – an oxymoron without par.
Remember, it’s not a suicide mission if no humans are involved.
Already, America’s Pentagon is embracing this future with its “pacing threat” of China, racing ahead with the Replicator Initiative designed to out-drone Beijing’s advantage in conventional forces. In this updating of World War II, every raid is a Doolittle Raid – just without any Doolittles.
Since the West has spent decades fretting over the Taiwan scenario to no useful end, it is unlikely to ever match Russia-v-Ukraine as an innovation accelerator.
Instead of either of those unfair fights, the best possible proving ground for the Military Singularity would be a border long and hotly contested by two nuclear superpowers with a history of mutual antagonism. Ideally, both would be “risers,” so national pride and global standing are at risk. The contested area should present great value to each power and yet be lightly populated and underdeveloped – off the beaten road.
Finally, and most importantly, the dispute needs to remain compartmentalized within the overall bilateral relationship – lest it pointlessly ignite a wider conflict neither side desires.
Thus, for Ground Zero of the Military Singularity, I give you the Line of Actual Control (LAC) separating China and India across their fiercely disputed Himalayan borderlands – most specifically India’s state of Arunachal Pradesh, where the Modi government recently opened a massive roadway tunnel through the mountains.
This situation poses far too much strategic risk, which is why both sides are too smart to leave the generals in charge, and yet the LAC has long been a theater of performative warfare – right down to soldiers fighting with fists, sticks, and bricks.
As such, the LAC is ideal for intermittent-but-persistent drone-on-drone combat between two powers eager to display their technological might. Think of Ender’s Game without the actual bloodshed, or maybe just a robot Olympics.
China has long deployed all manner of drones along the LAC, and India recently matched that bet by fielding its own anti-drone drone systems. The Modi government is likewise upping the ante by purchasing $3 billion worth of US military drones.
So, what should the world expect from this theater of drone operations? Plenty of drama, lots of exciting – and sometimes gruesome – video, and no meaningful military victories.
Have no doubt, the learning curve here will be steep and unevenly fruitful. When it comes to classic defense, the utility of small wars will be progressively diminished and ultimately erased. But when it comes to a nation’s internal policing and border security, we are looking at an Orwellian revolution in the making.
Thomas P.M. Barnett is principal business strategist at Throughline Inc. and author of America’s New Map (americasnewmap.com).
Follow his latest daily posts at thomaspmbarnett.substack.com
