What is China’s Organizational Form of the Military in the Era of Intelligence?

智能化時代中國軍隊的組織形態是什麼?

中國軍網 國防部網 // 2019年4月18日 星期四

現代英語:

The organizational form of the military in the intelligent era is a military organizational form in which the military organizational system, scale structure, force composition and operation mode have the characteristics of the intelligent era, meet the requirements of intelligent warfare, and have an intelligent external manifestation and internal operation state. Since the 21st century, the armies of some developed countries have set off a new wave of intelligent military revolution in order to maintain their military leadership, and the war form has begun to accelerate from informationization to intelligence. The battlefield space has expanded from the traditional physical domain to the ubiquitous cognitive domain and the broad-spectrum social domain, and the combat style has extended to unmanned combat, distributed combat and multi-domain combat. Close coupling of man and machine and flexible and autonomous combat have become the future trend, and the control of intelligence has evolved into the core control of battlefield competition. The world military competition around intelligence has begun, and it is urgent to adapt the organizational form of the military to it, calling for a new round of changes in the organizational form of the military.

The army will be streamlined. With the development of unmanned weapons and equipment based on artificial intelligence and its derivative technologies, the material basis of war and the face of combat forces will change greatly. Unmanned combat forces such as unmanned armored forces, unmanned fleets, and drone forces will soon enter the historical stage and dominate the battlefield in the future. It can be foreseen that an operator of an unmanned force can control several, dozens, or even hundreds of unmanned combat units to perform tasks that were originally completed by a unit, fleet, or fleet. The number of front-line combat personnel will drop significantly, while the number of personnel in the rear who are concerned about how to develop, use, and ensure intelligent equipment will increase sharply. At the same time, the evolution of intelligent technology will enable weapons and equipment to develop from passive use to active learning and deep learning. Autonomous planning, automatic updating, free action, and even self-repair will become the norm. The demand for personnel at all levels and types of combat command, construction management, and comprehensive support will be significantly reduced, further weakening the overall size of the army. Some traditional large-scale troops are facing “collective unemployment.” The ratio of combat personnel to weapons has undergone a historic reversal, with the proportion of combat personnel dropping significantly and the proportion of intelligent unmanned systems rising significantly. The overall appearance of the military will change to an intelligence-intensive, human-machine integrated type, and the weapons and equipment system will evolve from “firepower + information” to “firepower + intelligence”.

Integration of force structure. In the era of mechanized warfare, the prominent features of the military organization are the separation of services and self-development. The battlefield unfolds in the three domains of land, sea and air, and the boundaries of the services are clear. In the era of information warfare, the performance of weapons and equipment has been greatly improved. Each service has broken the original boundaries and gradually extended to other battlefields, ending the pattern of the three services monopolizing land warfare, sea warfare and air warfare respectively. The characteristics of the services have weakened, requiring unprecedented joint combat force systems. In the era of intelligent warfare, the winning mechanism has evolved from the precise release of information-controlled power to cognitive warfare, will warfare, swarm warfare, wolf pack warfare, etc. controlled by intelligence. “Unmanned, invisible, and silent” combat will become the main mode of war. The combination of people and land, sea and air equipment will give way to the combination of people and intelligent machines. The military structure has developed from the “land, sea and air” field organization to the “unmanned + manned” integrated force model divided by combat subjects. The fundamental change in combat style and the full-domain combat capability of weapons and equipment have brought subversive impacts on the traditional combat force organization structure, shaking the foundation of the existence of the services. The services are more integrated and will eventually achieve “integration”. At the same time, the boundaries of traditional battlefields are becoming increasingly blurred, the effects of war expansion are becoming more obvious, the degree of military-civilian integration is deepening, and more and more “soldiers without uniforms” are performing military tasks, which has a profound impact on the composition of traditional armies. The army’s organizational structure is rapidly developing towards a cross-border, cross-domain, and cross-generational mixed organization model.

Flexible command system. Intelligent warfare has the characteristics of “human-machine integration, using speed to defeat slowness”. The situation on the intelligent battlefield is more complex, with all-dimensional and all-domain “hard kill” and “soft confrontation” intertwined and iterated. Multi-type and multi-channel battlefield information converges to form massive data, which poses severe challenges and higher requirements for the construction and operation of the command system. In terms of the establishment of the command system, the command chain evolves to the three levels of “strategic command organization-functional command organization-intelligent combat force”; the command organization personnel are more capable, and the staff seats will be replaced by “cloud brain” and “digital staff”. Commanders will mainly rely on intelligent command systems to analyze information, implement communication control, and process various types of intelligence. With the help of intelligent decision-making technologies such as intelligent recognition of graphic image processing, decision-making “optimization” algorithms, and deep neural networks, the quality of command decisions will be improved, and the shortest “decision-response” cycle will be achieved. In terms of the operation mode of the command system, more attention will be paid to following the human-machine interaction mode, and expanding the application and development of independent and autonomous command decisions by machines. We will promote the intelligence of command and control, use artificial intelligence to obtain useful, orderly, timely and accurate battlefield information data, greatly shorten the operational cycle of operational conception, task allocation, target attack, damage assessment, etc., and ensure that commanders can think more rationally about unexpected situations on the battlefield and deal with battlefield situations, so that they can achieve the operational cycle characteristics of “man out of the loop”. In terms of the configuration of command system authority, commanders are required to actively delegate “power” and let machines replace humans to perform some command and decision-making functions. Some decision-making functions are embedded in machines through implanted programs, and machines are allowed to make autonomous decisions, while retaining the final decision-making power of humans on major matters.

Autonomous combat formation. In the era of information warfare, the external characteristics of combat formations are modularization and “plug and play”, and the formation of troops is quite different from combat formations. In the era of intelligent warfare, combat missions, combat targets, combat space, and combat styles are mixed and varied. The combat effectiveness is determined by the degree of integration between man and machine, requiring combat formations to be more flexible, elastic, and have autonomous adaptability. The emergence of intelligent unmanned forces provides the prerequisite for realizing the autonomous adaptability of combat formations. In 2015, the French army conducted a demonstration and verification of the “neuron” UAV, realizing autonomous formation flight. Several “neurons” can accept the command and control of a “Rafale” fighter at the same time, solving the formation control, information fusion, inter-machine data communication, and tactical decision-making technologies. It is not difficult to speculate that in the future, unmanned forces may have hundreds or thousands of unmanned combat units. Different combat units may have multiple functions such as “reconnaissance, control, attack, and evaluation”, and may also have multi-dimensional combat capabilities such as land, sea, air, space, network, and electricity. By differentiating these combat units into “machine-machine formations” and “man-machine formations”, they can perform tasks in different fields. At the same time, through preset rules, these combat units can also be autonomously organized according to changes in tasks, thereby achieving autonomous adaptability and flexible organization of combat units, and generating diversified combat capabilities that traditional forces do not have.

現代國語:

楊 震 蔣 艷

智能化時代軍隊組織形態,是軍隊組織體制、規模結構、力量編成和運行模式具備智能化時代特徵、符合智能化戰爭要求,具有智能化外在表現形式及內在運作狀態的一種軍隊組織形態。自21世紀以來,一些已開發國家軍隊為維持軍事領先優勢,掀起了新一輪智慧化軍事革命浪潮,戰爭形態開始由資訊化加速向智慧轉型。戰場空間從傳統物理域向泛在認知域、廣譜社會域拓展,作戰樣式向無人作戰、分散式作戰和多域作戰延伸,人機緊密耦合、靈活自主作戰成為未來趨勢,制智權演化為戰場爭奪的核心製權。圍繞智慧化的世界軍事競爭已拉開序幕,迫切要求軍隊組織形態與之相適應,呼喚新一輪軍隊組織形態變革。

軍隊規模精乾化。隨著基於人工智慧及其衍生技術的無人化武器裝備發展,戰爭的物質基礎和作戰力量面貌將發生極大變化。無人裝甲部隊、無人艦隊、無人機部隊等無人作戰部隊即將登上歷史舞台,成為未來戰場主宰。可以預見,無人部隊的一名操作手即可控制數個、數十個、甚至成百上千個無人作戰單元,去執行原來由一支部隊、機群或艦隊完成的任務,一線作戰人員規模將大幅下降,而後方圍繞如何發展、如何運用、如何保障智慧裝備的人員將急劇增加。同時,智慧技術的進化將使武器裝備從被動使用向主動學習、深度學習發展,自主規劃、自動更新、自由行動甚至自我修復成為常態,各級各類作戰指揮、建設管理、綜合保障等人員需求明顯減少,進一步削弱了軍隊整體規模,部分傳統規模化部隊面臨「集體失業」。戰鬥人員與武器編配比例出現歷史性逆轉,戰鬥人員比例大幅下降,而智慧化無人系統的比例大幅上升。軍隊整體面貌將向智力密集、人機融合型轉變,武器裝備體係由「火力+資訊」向「火力+智慧」方向演進。

力量結構一體化。機械化戰爭時代,軍隊組織形態的顯著特徵是軍種分立、自我發展,戰場在陸、海、空三域展開,軍種界限分明;資訊化戰爭時代,武器裝備性能極大提升,各軍種打破原有界限,逐漸向其他戰場延伸拓展,結束了三軍分別壟斷陸戰、海戰和空戰的格局,軍種特性弱化,要求作戰力量體系空前聯合化;智能化戰爭時代,制勝機理由信息控制的力量精確釋放演進到由智慧控制的認知戰、意志戰、蜂群戰、狼戰等,「無人、無形、無聲」作戰將成為戰爭主要模式,人與陸海空裝備組合將讓位給人與智慧機器組合,軍隊結構由「陸、海、空」領域編成向按作戰主體劃分的「無人+有人」一體化力量模式發展。作戰樣式的根本改變和武器裝備的全域作戰能力,對傳統作戰力量編成結構帶來顛覆性影響,動搖了軍種存在的根基,軍種更加一體化,終將實現「合而為一」。同時,傳統戰場邊界日益模糊,戰爭外擴效益明顯,軍民一體化程度加深,越來越多「不穿軍裝的戰士」執行軍事任務,對傳統軍隊構成帶來深刻影響,軍隊編成結構向著跨界、跨域、跨世代混合編組模式快速發展。

指揮體制靈活化。智慧化戰爭具有「人機融合,以快製慢」特點,智慧化戰場態勢更加複雜,全維全局「硬殺傷」「軟對抗」交織迭代,多類型多通路戰場資訊交匯形成海量數據,對指揮體制的建構及運作提出了嚴峻挑戰和更高要求。在指揮體制編制上,指揮鏈向「戰略指揮機構─職能指揮機構─智慧作戰力量」三級演進;指揮機構人員更加精幹,參謀席位將被「雲端大腦」「數位參謀」取代。指揮人員將主要依托智能化指揮系統進行資訊分析、實施通訊控制、處理各類情報,借助圖形影像處理智慧識別、決策「尋優」演算法以及深度神經網路等智慧決策技術提升指揮決策質量,實現最短“決策—反應”週期。在指揮體制運作模式上,更重視遵循人機互動模式,拓展機器獨立自主指揮決策的應用與開發。推進指揮控制智能化,利用人工智慧手段取得有用、有序、及時、準確的戰場資訊數據,大幅壓縮作戰構想、任務分配、目標打擊、毀傷評估等作戰週期,確保指揮官更理性地思考戰場上出現的意外情況,處置戰場態勢,使其實現「人在迴路外」的作戰循環特性。在指揮體制權限配置上,要求指揮官主動放“權”,讓機器代替人類進行一部分指揮決策職能,將部分決策職能通過植入程序嵌入機器,交由機器進行自主決策,保留重大事項的人類最終決策權。

作戰編組自主化。在資訊化戰爭時代,作戰編組的外部特徵是模組化、“即插即用”,部隊編成與作戰編組差異較大。智慧化戰爭時代,作戰任務、作戰對象、作戰空間、作戰樣式混合多變,作戰效能由人與機器的融合程度所決定,要求作戰編組更加靈活、富於彈性、具備自主適應能力。智慧化無人部隊的產生,為實現作戰編組的自主適應提供了前提。 2015年,法軍進行了「神經元」無人機展示驗證,實現了自主編隊飛行,數架「神經元」可同時接受1架「陣風」戰鬥機的指揮控制,解決了編隊控制、資訊融合、機間數據通訊以及戰術決策等技術。不難推測,未來無人部隊可擁有數百上千個無人作戰單元,不同的作戰單元可具備「偵、控、打、評」等多種功能,還可具備陸、海、空、天、網、電等多維作戰能力,將這些作戰單元進行差異化“機機編組”“人機編組”,就能執行不同領域任務。同時,透過預設規則,這些作戰單元還可根據任務變化臨機自主編組,從而實現作戰單元自主適應、彈性編組,產生傳統部隊所不具備的多樣化作戰能力。

中國軍事資源:http://www.81.cn/jfjbmap/content/2019-04/18/content_231980.htm

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