Operational form refers to the manifestation and state of combat under certain conditions, and is usually adapted to a certain form of warfare and combat method. With the development and widespread use of intelligent weapon systems, future intelligent warfare will inevitably present a completely different form from mechanized and informationized warfare.
Cloud-based combat system
The combat system is the fundamental basis for the aggregation and release of combat energy. An informationized combat system is based on a network information system, while an intelligent combat system is supported by a combat cloud. The combat cloud can organically reorganize dispersed combat resources into a flexible and dynamic combat resource pool. It features virtualization, connectivity, distribution, easy scalability, and on-demand services, enabling each combat unit to acquire resources on demand. It is a crucial support for achieving cross-domain collaboration and represents a new organizational form for intelligent combat systems.
The cloud-supported combat system utilizes cloud technology to connect information, physical systems, and the ubiquitous Internet of Things. By configuring combat resource clouds at different levels and scales, it highly shares multi-dimensional combat data across land, sea, air, and space, achieving battlefield resource integration across combat domains such as land, sea, air, space, electronic, and cyber domains. This allows various combat elements to converge into the cloud, completing the network interaction of battlefield data.
The cloud-connected combat system enables joint operations to integrate battlefield intelligence information widely distributed across various domains—space, air, ground, sea, and underwater—with the support of big data and cloud computing technologies. This allows for seamless, real-time, and on-demand distribution of information across these domains, achieving cross-domain information fusion and efficient sharing. It also enables command structures at all levels to leverage intelligent command and control systems for multi-dimensional intelligence analysis, battlefield situation assessment, operational optimization, decision-making, operational planning, and troop movement control. Furthermore, it allows combat forces to rapidly and flexibly adjust, optimize configurations, and recombine online based on real-time operational needs, forming adaptive task forces and implementing distributed, focused operations, supported by highly integrated cross-domain information technology. At the same time, through the cross-domain fusion capability of battlefield information in the combat cloud, it is also possible to form an integrated combat force with intelligent combat forces, traditional combat forces, manned combat forces and unmanned combat forces, and intangible space combat forces and tangible space combat forces. In the cloud, different combat units and combat elements in land, sea, air, space, electronic, and cyberspace can be highly integrated, coordinated, and have their strengths maximized. This enables cross-domain and cross-generational collaborative operations, transforming the overall combat effectiveness from the past gradual release and linear superposition of combat effects to non-linear, emergent, adaptive effects fusion and precise energy release.
Decentralized and concentrated battlefield deployment
Concentrating superior forces is an age-old principle of warfare. With the continuous improvement of network information systems and the widespread use of intelligent weapon systems, various combat forces, combat units, and combat elements can dynamically integrate into and rely on joint operations systems, disperse forces, quickly switch tasks, and dynamically aggregate effectiveness to cope with complex and ever-changing battlefield situations. This has become a force organization form that distinguishes intelligent warfare from information warfare.
The battlefield deployment of dispersed and concentrated forces refers to the joint operations system supported by cloud computing, in which various participating forces rely on the high degree of information sharing and rapid flow. Through node-based deployment, networked mobility, and virtual centralization, it can combine various combat elements, weapon platforms, and combat support systems that are dispersed in a multi-dimensional and vast battlefield space in real time, dynamically and flexibly, so as to achieve the distributed deployment of combat forces, the on-demand reorganization of combat modules, and the cross-domain integration of combat effectiveness.
The dispersed and concentrated battlefield deployment enables commanders at all levels to deeply perceive and accurately predict the battlefield situation through big data analysis, battlefield situation collection, and multi-source intelligence verification by intelligent command information systems. This allows for rapid and efficient situation assessment and early warning. Furthermore, the wide-area deployment and flexible configuration of various combat forces and units enable timely responses based on predetermined operational plans or ad-hoc collaborative needs. This allows for flexible and autonomous cross-domain coordination, rapid convergence and dispersal, and dynamic concentration of combat effectiveness. At critical times and in critical spaces, focusing on key nodes of the enemy’s operational system and high-value targets crucial to the overall strategic situation, it rapidly forms a system-wide operational advantage. Through a highly resilient and networked kill chain, it precisely releases combat effectiveness, generating an overall advantage spillover effect, thus forming an overwhelming advantage of multiple domains over one domain and the overall situation over the local situation. Especially during the release of combat effectiveness, each combat group, driven by “intelligence + data”, and based on pre-planned combat plans, can autonomously replan combat missions online around combat objectives, and automatically allocate targets online according to the actual combat functions and strengths of each combat unit within the group. This allows each unit to make the most of its strengths and advantages, and flexibly mobilize the free aggregation and dispersal of “materials + energy” in combat operations. Ultimately, this enables rapid matching and integration in terms of targets, situation, missions, capabilities, and timing, thereby forming a focused energy flow that releases systemic energy against the enemy.
Human-machine integrated command and control
The history of operational command development shows that decision-making and control methods in operational command activities always adapt to the development of the times. With the maturity of artificial intelligence technology and the continuous development of the self-generation, self-organization, and self-evolution of military intelligent systems, various weapon systems will evolve from information-based “low intelligence” to brain-like “high intelligence.” The combat style will evolve from information-based system combat to human-machine collaborative combat supported by the system. The autonomy of the war actors will become stronger, and the intelligence level of command and control systems will become higher. Fully leveraging the comparative advantages of “human and machine” and implementing decision-making and control through the “human-machine integration” model is a brand-new command form for future intelligent warfare.
Human-machine integrated command and control, supported by a reasonable division of functions between humans and machines and efficient decision-making through human-machine interaction, fully leverages the complementary advantages of human brain and machine intelligence to achieve the integration of command art and technology. In the process of intelligent combat decision-making and action, it enables rapid, accurate, scientific, and efficient activities such as situation analysis and judgment, combat concept design, combat decision determination, combat plan formulation, and order issuance. It also adopts a “human-in-the-loop” monitoring mode that combines autonomous action by intelligent combat platforms with timely correction by operators to organize and implement combat operations.
Human-machine integrated command and control, during planning and decision-making, can construct a combat cloud under the commander’s guidance through ubiquitous battlefield networks, intelligent auxiliary decision-making systems, and distributed intelligent combat platforms. Based on a model- and algorithm-driven intelligent “cloud brain,” it performs intelligent auxiliary decision-making, command and control, and evaluation simulations, combining “human strategy” with “machine strategy.” This leverages the respective strengths of both human and machine, achieving a deep integration of command strategy and intelligent support technologies, significantly improving the speed and accuracy of command decisions. During operational control, staff personnel can, based on operational intentions and missions, utilize intelligent battlefield perception systems, mission planning systems, and command and control systems, following a “synchronous perception—” approach. The basic principle of “rapid response and flexible handling” is based on a unified spatiotemporal benchmark and relies on a multi-dimensional networked reconnaissance and surveillance system to perceive changes in the battlefield situation in real time. It comprehensively uses auxiliary analysis tools to compare and analyze the differences between the current situation and the expected objectives and their impact, and makes timely adjustments to actions and adjusts troop movements on the spot to maintain combat advantage at all times. During the execution of operations, the command and control of intelligent combat platforms by operators of various weapon systems at all levels will be timely and precise to intervene according to the development and changes in the battlefield situation. While giving full play to the high speed, high precision and high autonomous combat capabilities of intelligent combat platforms, it ensures that they always operate under human control and always follow the overall combat intent.
Autonomous and coordinated combat operations
Implementing autonomous operations is crucial for commanders at all levels to seize opportunities, adapt to changing circumstances, and act rapidly on the ever-changing battlefield, gaining an advantage and preventing the enemy from making a move. This is a vital operational principle and requirement. Previously, due to constraints such as intelligence gathering, command and control methods, and battlefield coordination capabilities, truly autonomous and coordinated operations were difficult to achieve. However, with the continuous development and widespread application of information technology, collaborative control technology, and especially artificial intelligence in the military field, autonomous and coordinated operations will become the most prevalent form of collaboration in future intelligent warfare.
Autonomous and coordinated combat operations refer to the rapid acquisition, processing, and sharing of battlefield situation information by various combat forces in a cloud environment supported by multi-dimensional coverage, seamless network links, on-demand extraction of information resources, and flexible and rapid organizational support. This is achieved by utilizing “edge response” intelligence processing systems and big data-based battlefield situation intelligent analysis systems. With little or no reliance on the control of higher command organizations, these forces can accurately and comprehensively grasp intelligence information related to their operations and actively and proactively organize combat and coordinated actions based on changes in the enemy situation and unified operational intentions.
Autonomous and coordinated combat operations, while enhancing the autonomy of organizational operations at the local level, are further characterized by various intelligent weapon systems possessing the ability to understand combat intentions and highly adaptive and coordinated. They can automatically complete the “OODA” cycle with minimal or no human intervention, forming a complete closed-loop “adaptive” circuit. This enables them to efficiently execute complex and challenging combat missions. In rapidly changing battlefield environments, they can accurately and continuously conduct autonomous reconnaissance and detection of enemy situations, autonomously process battlefield situational information, autonomously identify friend or foe, autonomously track targets, and autonomously and flexibly select mission payloads, and autonomously launch attacks within the permissions granted by operators. Furthermore, during combat, intelligent weapon systems located in different spaces can, as the battlefield situation evolves and combat needs arise, form a combat power generation chain of “situational sharing—synchronous collaboration—optimal energy release” around a unified combat objective. Following the principle of “whoever is suitable, whoever leads; whoever has the advantage, whoever strikes,” they autonomously coordinate, precisely releasing dispersed firepower, information power, mobility, and protective power to the most appropriate targets at the most appropriate time and in the most appropriate manner, autonomously organizing combat operations. In addition, highly intelligent weapon systems can not only adapt to high-risk and complex combat environments and overcome human limitations in physiology and psychology, but also enter the extreme space of all domains and multiple dimensions to carry out missions. Moreover, they can conduct continuous combat with perception accuracy, computing speed and endurance far exceeding that of humans, autonomously carry out simultaneous cluster attacks and multi-wave continuous attacks, form a continuous high-intensity suppression posture against the enemy, and quickly achieve combat objectives.
The evolution of warfare and combat styles is inextricably linked to profound changes in combat systems. The “intelligence” of intelligent combat systems lies not merely in the accumulation of technologies, but more importantly in the reconstruction of the paths for generating and releasing combat power, enabling leaps in combat effectiveness and serving as a key fulcrum for achieving victory in future wars. A deep understanding and forward-looking construction of the “intelligent” advantages of intelligent combat systems has become an essential requirement for winning intelligent warfare.
Survival advantages of elastic redundancy
The survival of operational elements is fundamental to victory in combat. Intelligent combat systems, through distributed and flexible deployment, modular functional reconfiguration, and autonomous damage recovery, have formed a resilient survival mode to cope with high-intensity confrontation and uncertainty.
Heterogeneous and distributed global deployment. Heterogeneity reflects the degree of aggregation of different capabilities on the same platform, while distribution reflects the degree of distribution of the same capability on different platforms. Intelligent combat systems enhance the diversity of platform capabilities through heterogeneity. For example, new combat aircraft can serve as multi-functional integrated platforms with sensing, command and control, relay, and strike capabilities. By distributing combat functions to different platforms, large-scale, low-cost global deployment can be achieved. For instance, the same combat function can be assigned to multiple platforms and systems such as UAVs and loitering munitions. With the heterogeneous dispersion and matrix cross-linking of intelligent nodes, continuous pressure can be formed everywhere and in all directions in physical space, while rapid aggregation in key directions can be achieved. This unifies global elasticity and dynamic real-time optimization, maximizing functional distribution and effectiveness release to cope with the uncertainties of intelligent combat.
Functional restructuring through modular combination. The intelligent combat system, employing a flexible paradigm of software-defined, task-oriented invocation, and modular reconfiguration, deconstructs functions fixed to specific equipment into standardized, interoperable hardware and software modules. During combat, based on rapidly changing battlefield demands, these modules can be quickly and flexibly loaded and combined online through a unified interface and open architecture, achieving non-linear functional combinations and flexible capability reshaping. This plug-and-play, on-demand generation model unlocks unlimited functional potential within a limited physical scale, realizing a shift from “using whatever weapons are available to fight” to “generating the appropriate capabilities for the specific battle,” fundamentally enhancing the adaptability and mission flexibility of the combat system.
Self-healing resilience. The advantage of an intelligent combat system lies not in its absolute invulnerability, but in its self-healing resilience—the ability to detect damage and reconstruct immediately upon interruption. When some nodes fail due to combat damage or interference, the system autonomously and rapidly diagnoses the damage based on preset functions and path redundancy rules. It then mobilizes nearby healthy nodes to take over the mission or activates backup communication paths to rebuild connections, propelling the system to quickly transition to a new stable state. This inherent elastic redundancy allows the system to maintain core functions and reconstruct the combat network even after enduring continuous attacks, minimizing the impact of combat damage on overall combat effectiveness.
The cognitive advantage of agile penetration
Cognitive advantage is key to gaining the initiative in battlefield information and achieving decisive victory. Its essence lies in breaking through the barriers of “information fog” and the constraints of “decision anxiety” through the deep integration of intelligent algorithms and advanced sensors, and realizing a leap from passive perception to proactive cognition.
Resilient communication capable of adapting to changing circumstances. Resilient communication refers to the ability of communication systems to detect interference in real time and dynamically reconfigure links in highly contested and complex electromagnetic environments to maintain the continuity and stability of command and control. Intelligent combat systems, relying on technologies such as cognitive radio, achieve on-demand allocation of communication resources, intelligent optimization of transmission paths, and autonomous reconfiguration of network topology, enabling them to “penetrate gaps” in complex electromagnetic environments and flexibly acquire communication “windows.” This resilience—able to maintain communication even amidst interference and resume operations even after interruptions—ensures the continuity of command and control relationships in extremely harsh electromagnetic environments, providing a reliable communication line for system cognitive activities.
The organic integration of multi-modal information. Multi-modal integration refers to the process of extracting consistency from diverse and heterogeneous information to form a high-value battlefield situation. The intelligent combat system, based on intelligent algorithms, performs cross-modal alignment of data from different sources such as radar, optoelectronics, reconnaissance, and cyber warfare. It automatically extracts enemy deployment, action patterns, and tactical intentions from massive and fragmented intelligence, achieving heterogeneous complementarity and cross-verification. This drives a qualitative leap from data redundancy to accurate intelligence, thereby providing commanders with a comprehensive and reliable battlefield cognitive map, clearing away the “fog of war,” and reaching the core of the situation.
Human-machine interaction achieves seamless intent. Intent-based intent aims to bridge the semantic gap between human commanders and intelligent combat systems, enabling precise and lossless conversion from natural language commands to machine-executable tasks. Intelligent combat systems utilize technologies such as natural language processing and knowledge graphs to construct an intelligent interaction engine with natural language understanding and logical reasoning capabilities. This engine automatically decomposes the commander’s general operational intent into task lists, constraints, and evaluation criteria, generating machine-understandable and executable tactical instructions and action sequences, which are then precisely distributed to the corresponding combat units, directly driving their execution. This “what is thought is what is directed, what is directed is what is attacked” command model significantly reduces the understanding and communication cycle in the traditional command chain, enabling deep integration of human and machine intelligence at the decision-making level and achieving a leap in command effectiveness.
Synergistic advantages of autonomous adaptation
Synergistic advantages are a multiplier for unleashing the effectiveness of system-of-systems warfare. The synergy of intelligent combat systems transcends programmed pre-setup, manifesting as the self-organizing and adaptive synchronization and cooperation of cross-domain combat units under unified rules and common missions. Its essence is the embodiment of system intelligence at the operational level.
Spatiotemporal coordination constrained by rules. Spatiotemporal coordination refers to setting action boundaries and interaction rules for widely dispersed combat units within a unified spatiotemporal reference framework, ensuring their orderly cooperation in the physical domain. Under a unified operational rule framework, each unit of the intelligent combat system autonomously calculates its relative position and predicts its trajectory through intelligent algorithms, achieving time-domain calibration, spatial-domain integration, and frequency-domain nesting of different platforms. This ensures conflict-free path planning, interference-free spectrum use, and accident-free firepower application. This collaborative mechanism, which combines order and flexibility, avoids mutual interference while maintaining tactical flexibility, providing a spatiotemporal reference for combat operations in complex battlefield environments.
Task-driven logical coordination. Logical coordination refers to using combat missions as the underlying logic, autonomously decomposing tasks, allocating resources, and planning actions to achieve intelligent organization and scheduling. The intelligent combat system, based on task analysis, capability matching, and planning generation algorithms, automatically decomposes combat objectives into specific action sequences and intelligently schedules corresponding combat units to “dispatch orders.” Each intelligent node, based on its understanding of the overall mission, real-time situational awareness, and its own capabilities, autonomously decides on action plans through a multi-agent negotiation mechanism and dynamically negotiates and cooperates with relevant units to “accept orders.” This task-oriented command greatly liberates higher-level commanders, enabling the system to possess agility and flexibility in responding to emergencies and significantly improving its mission adaptability.
Target-aligned awareness collaboration. Awareness collaboration refers to the autonomous decision-making and actions of combat units based on a shared understanding of the target and environment, resulting in synergistic effects. Intelligent combat systems consist of systems or nodes with predictive and reasoning capabilities. Driven by operational objectives, they can anticipate the actions of friendly forces and the course of the battlefield, and through local perception and independent decision-making, conduct self-organized and self-inspired collaborative support. This efficiency-driven, unspoken consensus transcends communication constraints and pre-set procedures, enabling the system to demonstrate exceptional adaptability and creativity when facing powerful adversaries.
The evolutionary advantages of learning iteration
Evolutionary advantage is key to a combat system’s sustained competitiveness and ability to seize the initiative on the battlefield. Intelligent combat systems rely on real-time adversarial data to drive overall optimization, accelerate capability diffusion through cross-domain experience transfer, and foster disruptive tactics through virtual gaming environments, thereby achieving autonomous evolution and generational leaps in combat effectiveness during the adversarial process.
The evolution of a system built upon accumulated experience. Intelligent combat systems will gather perception, decision-making, and action data acquired from complex adversarial environments in real time to a knowledge hub. Leveraging advanced algorithms such as reinforcement learning, they will conduct in-depth analysis and mining, performing closed-loop evaluation and dynamic adjustment of system-level operational logic such as command processes, coordination rules, and resource allocation strategies. This will form reusable and verifiable structured knowledge units, enhancing the combat system’s understanding of its environment and its autonomous adaptability. This will enable the entire system to form a shared “collective memory,” achieving adaptive radiation from single-point intelligence to overall operational effectiveness, and ultimately achieving individual evolution that becomes “more refined with each battle.”
Cross-domain empowerment of knowledge transfer. The intelligent combat system, relying on a unified semantic space and feature alignment framework, can rapidly embed localized experiences extracted and summarized from a specific battlefield or domain into other combat domains or mission scenarios. This breaks down information barriers between combat units, enabling the lossless transformation and cross-domain application of combat experience. Essentially, it promotes the secure flow and synergistic effect of knowledge within the system, completing the sublimation and reconstruction from “concrete experience” to “abstract knowledge,” achieving “gains from one battle benefiting all domains,” and accelerating the synchronous evolution of combat capabilities across various domains. This not only significantly improves the overall learning efficiency of the combat system and avoids repeated trial and error, but also achieves the intensive enhancement and systematic inheritance of combat capabilities.
The disruptive potential of game theory and confrontation is emerging. Systemic intelligent game theory aims to break through the boundaries of human cognition, fostering disruptive combat capabilities that transcend traditional experience. Its essence lies in the proactive creation and self-transcendence of knowledge at the system level. By constructing a high-intensity, long-term, realistic “red-blue” adversarial environment in a digital twin battlefield, and utilizing generative adversarial networks and multi-agent reinforcement learning frameworks, intelligent combat systems can explore the unknown boundaries of the strategy space in continuous game development. Based on game theory and complex systems theory, the system can spontaneously form better strategies during adversarial evolution, leading to combat modes and organizational forms that transcend conventional cognition. This makes the intelligent combat system a “super think tank” capable of continuously producing disruptive tactics.
Original Title: A Look at Intelligent Warfare: Focusing on Counter-AI Operations in Intelligent Warfare
introduction
The widespread application of science and technology in the military field has brought about profound changes in the form of warfare and combat methods. Military competition among major powers is increasingly manifested as technological subversion and counter-subversion, surprise attacks and counter-surprise attacks, and offsetting and counter-offsetting. To win future intelligent warfare, it is necessary not only to continuously promote the deep transformation and application of artificial intelligence technology in the military field, but also to strengthen dialectical thinking, adhere to asymmetric thinking, innovate and develop anti-AI warfare theories and tactics, and proactively plan research on anti-AI technologies and the development of weapons and equipment to achieve victory through “breaking AI” and strive to seize the initiative in future warfare.
Fully recognize the inevitability of anti-artificial intelligence warfare
In his essay “On Contradiction,” Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out that “the law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of unity of opposites, is the most fundamental law of dialectical materialism.” Throughout the history of military technology development and its operational application, there has always been a dialectical relationship between offense and defense. The phenomenon of mutual competition and alternating suppression between the “spear” of technology and the “shield” of corresponding countermeasures is commonplace.
In the era of cold weapons, people not only invented eighteen kinds of weapons such as knives, spears, swords, and halberds, but also corresponding helmets, armor, and shields. In the era of firearms, the use of gunpowder greatly increased attack range and lethality, but it also spurred tactical and technical innovations, exemplified by defensive fortifications such as trenches and bastions. In the mechanized era, tanks shone brightly in World War II, and the development of tank armor and anti-tank weapons continues to this day. In the information age, “electronic attack” and “electronic protection,” centered on information dominance, have sparked a new wave of interest, giving rise to electronic warfare units. Furthermore, numerous opposing concepts in the military field, such as “missiles” versus “anti-missile,” and “unmanned combat” versus “counter-unmanned combat,” abound.
It should be recognized that “anti-AI warfare,” as the opposite concept of “intelligent warfare,” will inevitably emerge gradually with the widespread and in-depth application of intelligent technologies in the military field. Forward-looking research into the concepts, principles, and tactical implementation paths of anti-AI warfare is not only a necessity for a comprehensive and dialectical understanding of intelligent warfare, but also an inevitable step to seize the high ground in future military competition and implement asymmetric warfare.
Scientific Analysis of Counter-AI Combat Methods and Paths
Currently, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is undergoing a leapfrog development, moving from weak to strong and from specialized to general-purpose applications. From its underlying support perspective, data, algorithms, and computing power remain its three key elements. Data is the fundamental raw material for training and optimizing models, algorithms determine the strategies and mechanisms for data processing and problem-solving, and computing power provides the hardware support for complex calculations. Seeking ways to “break through” AI by addressing these three elements—data, algorithms, and computing power—is an important methodological approach for implementing counter-AI warfare.
Counter-data warfare. Data is the raw material for artificial intelligence to learn and reason, and its quality and diversity significantly impact the accuracy and generalization ability of models. Numerous examples in daily life demonstrate how minute changes in data can cause AI models to fail. For instance, facial recognition models on mobile phones may fail to accurately identify individuals due to factors such as wearing glasses, changing hairstyles, or changes in ambient light; autonomous driving models may also misjudge road conditions due to factors like road conditions, road signs, and weather. The basic principle of counter-data warfare is to mislead the training and judgment processes of military intelligent models by creating “contaminated” data or altering its distribution characteristics. This “inferiority” in the data leads to “errors” in the model, thereby reducing its effectiveness. Since AI models can comprehensively analyze and cross-verify multi-source data, counter-data warfare should focus more on multi-dimensional features, packaging false data information to enhance its “authenticity.” In recent years, foreign militaries have conducted relevant experimental verifications in this area. For example, by using special materials for coating and infrared emitter camouflage, the optical and infrared characteristics of real weapon platforms, and even the vibration effects of engines, can be simulated to deceive intelligent intelligence processing models; in cyberspace, traffic data camouflage can be implemented to improve the silent operation capability of network attacks and reduce the effectiveness of network attack detection models.
Anti-algorithm warfare. The essence of an algorithm is a strategy mechanism for solving problems described in computer language. Because the scope of application of such strategy mechanisms is limited, they may fail when faced with a wide variety of real-world problems. A typical example is Lee Sedol’s “divine move” in the 2016 human-machine Go match. Many professional Go players, after reviewing the game, stated that the “divine move” was actually invalid, yet it worked against AlphaGo. AlphaGo developer Silva explained this by saying that Lee Sedol exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in the computer; other analyses suggest that this move might have contradicted AlphaGo’s Go logic or been outside its strategic learning range, making it unable to respond. The basic principle of anti-algorithm warfare is to target the vulnerabilities in the algorithm’s strategy mechanism and weaknesses in its model architecture through logical attacks or deception to reduce the algorithm’s effectiveness. Anti-algorithm warfare should be combined with specific combat actions to achieve “misleading and deceiving” the algorithm. For example, drone swarm reconnaissance operations often use reinforcement learning algorithms to plan reconnaissance paths. In this case, irregular or abnormal actions can be created to reduce or disable the reward mechanism in the reinforcement learning algorithm model, thereby reducing its reconnaissance search efficiency.
Counter-computing power warfare. The strength of computing power represents the speed at which data processing can be converted into information and decision-making advantages. Unlike counter-data warfare and counter-algorithm warfare, which primarily rely on soft confrontation, counter-computing power warfare employs a combination of hard and soft tactics. Hard destruction mainly refers to attacks on enemy computing centers and computing network infrastructure, crippling their AI models by cutting off their computing power. Soft confrontation focuses on increasing the enemy’s computing costs, primarily by creating a “fog of war” and data noise. For example, during operations, large quantities of meaningless data of various types, such as images, audio, video, and electromagnetic data, can be generated to constrain and deplete the enemy’s computing resources, reducing their effective utilization rate. Furthermore, attacks can also be launched against weak points in the defenses of the computing power support environment and infrastructure. Computing centers consume enormous amounts of electricity; attacking and destroying their power support systems can also achieve the effect of counter-computing power warfare.
Forward-looking planning for the development of anti-artificial intelligence combat capabilities
In all warfare, one engages with conventional tactics and wins with unconventional ones. Faced with intelligent warfare, while continuously advancing and improving intelligent combat capabilities, it is also necessary to strengthen preparedness for counter-AI warfare, proactively planning for theoretical innovation, supporting technology development, and equipment platform construction related to counter-AI warfare, ensuring the establishment of an intelligent combat system that integrates offense and defense, and combines defense and counter-attack.
Strengthen theoretical innovation in counter-AI warfare. Scientific military theory is combat effectiveness. Whether it’s military strategic innovation, military technological innovation, or other aspects of military innovation, all are inseparable from theoretical guidance. We must adhere to liberating our minds, broadening our horizons, and strengthening dialectical thinking. We must use theoretical innovation in counter-AI warfare as a supplement and breakthrough to construct an intelligent warfare theoretical system that supports and serves the fight for victory. We must adhere to the principle of “you fight your way, I fight my way,” strengthening asymmetric thinking. Through in-depth research on the concepts, strategies, and tactics of counter-AI warfare, we must provide scientific theoretical support for seizing battlefield intelligence dominance and effectively leverage the leading role of military theory. We must adhere to the integration of theory and technology, enhancing our scientific and technological awareness, innovation, and application capabilities. We must establish a closed loop between counter-AI warfare theory and technology, allowing them to complement and support each other, achieving deep integration and positive interaction between theory and technology.
Emphasis should be placed on accumulating military technologies for countering artificial intelligence. Science and technology are crucial foundations for generating and enhancing combat effectiveness. Breakthroughs in some technologies can have disruptive effects, potentially even fundamentally altering the traditional landscape of warfare. Currently, major world powers view artificial intelligence as a disruptive technology and have elevated the development of military intelligence to a national strategy. Simultaneously, some countries are actively conducting research on technologies related to countering artificial intelligence warfare, exploring methods to counter AI and aiming to reduce the effectiveness of adversaries’ military intelligent systems. Therefore, it is essential to both explore and follow up, strengthening research and tracking of cutting-edge technologies, actively discovering, promoting, and fostering the development of technologies with counter-disruptive capabilities, such as intelligent countermeasures, to seize the technological advantage at the outset of counter-AI warfare and prevent enemy technological surprise attacks; and to carefully select technologies, maintaining sufficient scientific rationality and accurate judgment to dispel the technological “fog” and avoid falling into the adversary’s technological traps.
Developing anti-AI warfare weapons and equipment. Designing weapons and equipment is designing future warfare; we develop weapons and equipment based on the types of warfare we will fight in the future. Anti-AI warfare is an important component of intelligent warfare, and anti-AI weapons and equipment will play a crucial role on the future battlefield. When developing anti-AI warfare weapons and equipment, we must first closely align with battlefield needs. We must closely integrate with the adversary, mission, and environment to strengthen anti-AI warfare research, accurately describe anti-AI warfare scenarios, and ensure that the requirements for anti-AI warfare weapons and equipment are scientifically sound, accurate, and reasonable. Secondly, we must adopt a cost-conscious approach. Recent local wars have shown that cost control is a crucial factor influencing the outcome of future wars. Anti-AI warfare focuses on interfering with and deceiving the enemy’s military intelligent systems. Increasing the development of decoy weapon platforms is an effective way to reduce costs and increase efficiency. By using low-cost simulated decoy targets to deceive the enemy’s intelligent reconnaissance systems, the “de-intelligence” effect can be extended and amplified, aiming to deplete their high-value precision-guided missiles and other high-value strike weapons. Finally, we must emphasize simultaneous development, use, and upgrading. Intelligent technologies are developing rapidly and iterating quickly. It is crucial to closely monitor the application of cutting-edge military intelligent technologies by adversaries, accurately understand their intelligent model algorithm architecture, and continuously promote the upgrading of the latest counter-artificial intelligence technologies in weapon platforms to ensure their high efficiency in battlefield application. (Kang Ruizhi, Li Shengjie)
President Xi Jinping emphasized the need to boldly innovate and explore new models for the construction and application of combat forces, and to fully unleash and develop new-type combat capabilities. This important instruction reminds us that new-type combat capabilities, as a key force for winning future battlefields, are crucial to the course of war, the transformation of development, and the outcome of combat. We must closely follow the evolution of the form of war and the requirements for fully unleashing and developing new-type combat capabilities, explore new avenues for generating new-type combat capabilities, and continuously improve their contribution to war preparedness and combat.
Empowering the development of new-type combat capabilities with science and technology. Technological empowerment is a key characteristic of the development of new-type combat capabilities. Historically, major technological advancements have always led to profound changes in the form and methods of warfare. Currently, the world’s technological and military revolutions are developing rapidly, urgently requiring us to break free from fixed mindsets and reliance on traditional paths, closely monitor the forefront of military technology to innovate tactics and training methods, and continuously explore effective means to accelerate the formation of informationized and intelligent combat capabilities. First, we must seize technological advantages. To enhance technological insight, awareness, and response speed, we must strengthen technological research in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence and big data, boldly innovate the technological mechanisms of system confrontation, the lethality mechanisms of firepower strikes, and the combat mechanisms of information offense and defense, and improve the foresight, relevance, and effectiveness of technological innovation. Secondly, we must be adept at adapting to change. We must deeply understand the inherent mechanisms by which technology affects training, adhere to technology-enabled and technology-strengthened training, effectively utilize advanced technology in combat training, widely promote training methods such as “technology+” and “network+”, and continuously improve the level of combat-oriented training. Thirdly, we must strengthen the transformation and application of these technologies. We must keep a close eye on military combat readiness, innovate and explore new combat force construction and application models, actively expand the combat effectiveness of new domain and new quality equipment, focus on integrating new domain and new quality forces into the combat system, construct typical scenarios, innovate tactics and applications, and strive to create new combat capability growth poles.
Promoting the Development of New-Type Combat Capabilities through Force Integration. Force integration is a crucial aspect of building and developing new-type combat capabilities. Simply adding traditional combat systems will not generate new-type combat capabilities. Only by continuously promoting the integrated coupling of new combat concepts, new combat systems, and new combat platforms, and achieving mutual promotion and complementary advantages among various elements and units, can new-type combat capabilities truly emerge as a whole. First, ensure the integration of old and new. “New-type” is an evolution and upgrade of “old-type,” not a simple replacement. We must adhere to the principle of “establishing before dismantling,” and insist on starting from reality, developing “new-type” capabilities according to local conditions and the actual situation of combat capability construction, preventing and eliminating “favoring the new and discarding the old,” and low-quality and inefficient duplication of construction. Second, promote military-civilian integration. To establish and improve the mechanism for sharing military and civilian science and technology resources, we must break down the barriers between high-quality military and civilian resources, remove obstacles to sharing channels, promote the open sharing of resource elements and the joint creation and utilization of innovative achievements, and form a synergy for generating new combat capabilities. Secondly, we must achieve the integration of software and hardware. Future informationized and intelligent warfare will place greater emphasis on the overall linkage of combat elements. The degree of integration of “software” and “hardware” forces directly determines the effectiveness of combat capability generation and release and the course of the war. We must construct a combat force system that enhances system efficiency and promotes overall linkage, strengthen the layout of combat forces that are autonomously adaptable and interactively empowered, deeply address the contradictions and shortcomings in the mutual coordination of software and hardware, and promote the improvement of the quality and efficiency of the combat system.
Talent cultivation supports the development of new-type combat capabilities. Talent support is a crucial guarantee for the construction and development of new-type combat capabilities. As combat forms evolve towards unmanned, intelligent, and autonomous operations, the command system and organizational structure of the armed forces are becoming more streamlined, urgently requiring a new type of military talent pool. First, proactive training is essential. It is necessary to streamline the channels for cultivating and utilizing new-type military talent, integrating talent cultivation with the construction and development of new-type combat capabilities. Differentiating between different operational fields and professional positions, further precise standardization of talent standards and training paths is needed, along with strengthened training and experience, shortening the training cycle, and closely integrating and resonating with force development. Second, enhanced mission-based training is crucial. We must adhere to the principle of precisely aligning talent cultivation and utilization with the needs of military struggle and the development and application of new-type combat capabilities. We must fully utilize opportunities such as major missions and exercises to strengthen talent identification through rigorous testing, and promote a precise alignment between the supply side of talent cultivation and the demand side of the future battlefield. Thirdly, we must ensure precise management and utilization. We must grasp the laws governing the growth of military talent and the requirements for the development of new-type combat capabilities, innovate management concepts and methods, precisely allocate human resources, strengthen the professional, refined, and scientific management of the talent pool, and place talent in positions where they can best contribute to new-type combat capabilities to hone their skills and create a dynamic situation where people are well-suited for their positions and their talents are fully utilized.
A Perspective on the Evolution of the Winning Mechanism in Intelligent Warfare
Military theorists often say that victory smiles on those who can foresee changes in the nature of war, not on those who wait for changes to occur before adapting. In recent years, disruptive technologies, represented by artificial intelligence, have developed rapidly and are widely applied in the military field, accelerating the evolution of warfare towards intelligence. Correspondingly, our understanding of warfare is also changing. Only by promptly identifying, proactively responding to, and actively adapting to changes can we remain invincible in future wars.
From “using strength to defeat weakness” to “using wisdom to overcome clumsiness”
The principle of “the strong prevailing over the weak” is a relatively universal law of war. Even in cases where the weak defeat the strong, victory often requires establishing a numerical advantage over the enemy in a specific location and at a specific time. In the era of intelligent warfare, intellectual superiority contributes far more to combat effectiveness than any other factor.
In intelligent warfare, human intelligence permeates the operational domain and is integrated into weapon systems. Multi-dimensional, multi-domain intelligent combat platforms of various types can rapidly couple combat forces, construct combat systems according to mission requirements, autonomously conduct coordinated operations, and quickly return to a state of readiness after mission completion, exhibiting a trend towards intelligent autonomy. The side with higher and stronger intelligence can better develop and utilize the mechanism of “using intelligence to overcome clumsiness,” even designing warfare, dominating the course of the war, and achieving ultimate victory. It should also be recognized that the era of intelligent warfare may have multiple development stages from low to high. Positioning oneself at a higher stage while attacking the opponent at a lower stage is also an application of the “intelligence-based victory” mechanism.
From “Destroying Force” to “Destroying Cognition”
As warfare rapidly evolves towards intelligence, the battlespace is gradually expanding from the physical and information domains to the cognitive domain, extending from the tangible battlefield to the intangible battlefield. The cognitive space, constituted by human mental and psychological activities, has become a new battlespace. Unlike traditional warfare, which primarily aims to eliminate the enemy’s manpower, intelligent warfare will place greater emphasis on weakening the enemy’s morale, undermining their will, and destroying their cognition.
By intelligently analyzing an opponent’s personality preferences, psychological characteristics, and decision-making habits, deterrent information can be tailored to their specific needs. Leveraging cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, this powerful force can be presented to the opponent in a realistic manner, causing anxiety, suspicion, and panic to fester within them, ultimately leading to their defeat. Big data, hailed as “the new oil,” not only enriches intelligence sources but also serves as a crucial weapon in influencing an opponent’s perception. By processing and deliberately “leaking” big data to the opponent, new “fog of war” can be created, plunging them into a state of cognitive confusion. In intelligent warfare, the struggle and game surrounding psychological warfare will be more intense, and the side with cognitive advantage will have an early advantage and be more likely to take the initiative and seize the initiative.
From “human-centered” to “human-machine collaboration”
In traditional warfare, the organization and deployment of military forces are primarily human-based. However, with the widespread application of intelligent technology, the proportion of unmanned equipment is constantly increasing. In intelligent warfare, combat missions will be completed through human-machine collaboration, achieving organic integration and complementary advantages. Foreign militaries’ third “offset strategy” prioritizes human-machine collaboration as a key technology for development, and their previously proposed concepts such as “loyal wingman” aim to explore the realization of manned/unmanned cooperative warfare. It is foreseeable that human-machine collaboration will play a crucial role in future warfare.
Utilizing unmanned reconnaissance capabilities for three-dimensional, multi-dimensional battlefield situational awareness can provide real-time intelligence support to manned combat forces; unmanned platforms carrying relay payloads can provide continuous communication relay support to manned combat forces; unmanned combat forces penetrating deep into the front lines can attract enemy attacks, forcing them to reveal their positions, providing target guidance and fire support for manned combat forces; and unmanned transport equipment can provide logistical support to the front lines, improving logistical efficiency, reducing transportation costs, and minimizing unnecessary casualties. With the assistance of artificial intelligence, manned and unmanned combat forces will achieve a scientific division of labor and rational combination in terms of quantity, scale, and function, thereby maximizing overall effectiveness.
From “the big eat the small” to “the fast eat the slow”
In traditional warfare, it is often necessary to compensate for shortcomings in equipment performance by increasing the number of troops. “The key to military intelligence is speed.” The rapid development of military intelligence has greatly improved the speed of information transmission and the accuracy of weapon strikes, significantly reducing the time for reconnaissance and early warning, intelligence processing, command and decision-making, fire strikes, and damage assessment, accelerating the OODA kill chain cycle, and making “detect and destroy” possible.
Hypersonic missiles, laser weapons, microwave weapons, electromagnetic pulse weapons, and other new rapid-kill weapons are pushing the pace of warfare to the level of “instant kill.” In the Gulf War, the OODA loop loop took three days; in the Iraq War, the loop time was reduced to less than 10 minutes; and in the Syrian War, the loop was almost real-time. In intelligent warfare, using integrated reconnaissance and strike unmanned platforms to rapidly and precisely eliminate high-value targets such as the enemy’s core command posts and high-ranking commanders will severely damage the enemy before they can even react, potentially even paralyzing them. It is evident that victory does not necessarily favor the side with the largest military force; the side that acts swiftly and precisely is more likely to gain the upper hand on the battlefield. Statistics show that artificial intelligence’s reaction time to battlefield changes is more than 400 times faster than that of humans. Faced with the ever-changing battlefield situation, people will increasingly favor leveraging AI technology to achieve adaptive planning and autonomous decision-making in command and control systems, shifting the command and control model from “humans on the loop” to “humans outside the loop,” thereby reducing the burden on commanders while improving operational efficiency and the success rate of mission execution.
From “Winning Through Integration” to “Winning Through Clustering”
Traditional equipment development philosophy involves investing heavily in the research and development of highly integrated, sophisticated weapon platforms, aiming to achieve a decisive victory over the enemy in war through generational and performance advantages. However, developing and deploying multifunctional high-end platforms not only requires significant time and resources, but also presents the risk of incompatibility when integrating multiple hardware and software modules into a single weapon platform. The destruction of such a platform would result in substantial losses. The military application of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence has spurred the rapid development of unmanned swarms. Unmanned swarms possess advantages such as large scale, low overall cost, and decentralization. Unmanned platforms coordinate and cooperate with each other, enabling them to make autonomous decisions and execute combat missions in an organized manner. Even if some unmanned platforms are destroyed, the overall combat effectiveness remains unaffected. Foreign militaries’ operational concepts such as “decision-centric warfare” and “mosaic warfare” focus on utilizing unmanned swarms to accomplish combat missions. In intelligent warfare, by distributing functions such as reconnaissance and surveillance, information communication, command and control, and firepower strikes among a large number of single-function unmanned combat units, a highly robust and flexible “kill net” is constructed. The combination of these units can then be adjusted according to mission requirements, resulting in powerful swarm intelligence that creates significant uncertainty for the adversary, trapping them in the OODA loop’s decision-making process and preventing them from making effective decisions. Furthermore, the sheer number of unmanned swarms allows the adversary’s detection, tracking, and interception capabilities to quickly reach saturation. Unable to destroy all the unmanned platforms in the swarm, the adversary is forced to face the predicament of ineffective defenses.
From “Military Dominance” to “Diverse and Hybrid”
Traditional warfare primarily relies on violence to subjugate the enemy, typically characterized by high intensity and a clear distinction between peacetime and wartime. However, as military conflict expands into new domains such as space, cyberspace, and artificial intelligence, and as the roles of economic, cultural, diplomatic, and legal means in warfare become increasingly prominent, intelligent warfare will unfold in multiple areas, particularly in the “gray zone,” employing a multi-pronged approach. The intensity of warfare may decrease, and the lines between peacetime and wartime will become more blurred. Whether it was the drone attack on Saudi oil fields in 2019 that caused half of its oil production to stop, or the cyberattack on the largest oil pipeline in the United States in 2021 that caused widespread oil shortages, the far-reaching impact of various new attack methods should not be underestimated.
As intelligent technologies develop and mature, attacks using a variety of methods against adversaries’ industrial, transportation, financial, communications, energy, and medical facilities and networks will become more common. The threshold for intelligent warfare will decrease, and participants may launch hybrid wars that integrate economic, diplomatic, cyber, media, psychological, and legal warfare without prior declaration, leaving adversaries exhausted.
From “Live-fire Testing” to “Experimental Exercises”
Under traditional conditions, due to the lack of scientific simulation and evaluation tools, the true capabilities of an army can only be tested in actual combat. Under intelligent conditions, virtual reality technology can be used to create highly realistic and immersive virtual scenarios based on real battlefield environments and mission contexts. These scenarios can not only reproduce objective elements such as weapons and equipment in terms of sound, appearance, and performance, but also simulate various severe weather conditions such as heavy fog, heavy rain, and blizzards, visually displaying battlefield terrain, meteorological, hydrological, electromagnetic, and nuclear/chemical information, closely approximating the true state of the battlefield.
By setting up hypothetical enemies in a virtual environment based on the characteristics of real-world adversaries and conducting intelligent simulations of possible battle scenarios, officers and soldiers can “experience” war multiple times in virtual reality before the official start of combat. This allows them to gain a thorough understanding of equipment performance, the pace of war, and the enemy and friendly forces, making them more adept at performing real-world missions. Before the outbreak of the Iraq War, the US military secretly developed a computer game simulating the combat environment of Baghdad. Among personnel deployed to Iraq, those trained in the game had a survival rate as high as 90%. As the data collected in reality becomes richer and more complete, the construction of virtual battlefields will become more realistic, the prediction of the battlefield situation will become more accurate, and the comprehensive evaluation of exercises will become more credible. Both sides will strive to know the outcome of the war in advance through intelligent simulations, which may lead to situations where the enemy can be subdued without fighting or with only a small battle.
The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee clearly proposed “accelerating the development of advanced combat capabilities.” New-type combat capabilities are representative of advanced combat capabilities, and strengthening the practical exploration of new-type combat capability development is an inevitable requirement for accelerating the development of advanced combat capabilities. As a key force for winning future battlefields, new-type combat capabilities are crucial to the course of war, the transformation of development, and the outcome of battles. Therefore, it is imperative to keep pace with changes in technology, warfare, and adversaries, fully unleash and develop new-type combat capabilities, and continuously enhance their contribution to war preparedness and combat.
Grasp the requirements of the times for strengthening the construction of new-type combat capabilities
The development of combat capabilities bears the profound imprint of the times. Strengthening the development of new-type combat capabilities must adapt to the era’s requirements as the form of warfare rapidly evolves towards intelligence, unmanned operation, and beyond-domain capabilities.
The “New” Elements of Power: Unmanned Intelligence. Recent local wars and military operations worldwide demonstrate a continuous increase in the informatization of warfare. Weapons and equipment are showing a clear trend towards long-range precision, intelligence, stealth, and unmanned operation, fundamentally changing the way humans interact with weaponry. The concepts, elements, and methods of winning wars are undergoing significant transformations. Currently, artificial intelligence and unmanned autonomous technologies are rapidly entering the battlefield. Intelligent military systems have significantly improved the unmanned autonomous combat capabilities of military equipment and platforms. The main participants in warfare are shifting from traditional humans to humanoid intelligent unmanned systems. Combat behavior and decision-making are accelerating their shift from “carbon-based” to “silicon-based,” from “cellular” to “intelligent agents,” and evolving from a “human in the loop” to a “human on the loop” and even “human outside the loop” model.
The “New” Nature of Battlefield Space: Multidimensional Integration. Disruptive technologies, exemplified by artificial intelligence, are rapidly expanding the scope and depth of influence of combat forces. The rapid application of technologies such as bio-interdisciplinary research, neuromorphic science, and human-machine interfaces is driving the deep penetration and integration of intelligent network systems with human social activities. New methods and situations, such as “deepfakes” and “information cocoons,” are emerging in large numbers, and hybrid games involving cognitive competition in the social domain are evolving into new arenas of struggle. The space of military struggle is expanding from traditional geographical space to the deep sea, outer space, electromagnetic, cyber, and cognitive domains, advancing the entire battlefield space to a highly three-dimensional, multi-dimensional, and highly integrated state. These battlefield space domains are interconnected, mutually supportive, and mutually restrictive, jointly propelling combat towards complex intelligence.
The “New” Aspect of Combat Formation: Dynamic Reconfiguration. Combat formation reflects the combination of personnel and weaponry, the relationships between combat units, and between different units, determining the role and effectiveness of new-type combat capabilities. Looking towards the real-time optimization of joint forces and firepower in future operations, new-type combat capabilities will rely on intelligent network information systems, shifting from static configuration to dynamic reconfiguration, from “building blocks” to “solving a Rubik’s Cube.” Each combat element will be functionally decoupled as needed, and then cross-domain integration will connect heterogeneous functional elements and unit modules to construct a resilient distributed “kill network,” enabling wide-area configuration, cross-domain networking, and multi-domain aggregation of combat units and basic modules. This dynamic formation requires the support of network information systems and the coordinated cooperation of new-type combat capabilities, connecting heterogeneous functional elements and unit modules throughout the entire combat system through cross-domain integration.
Focus on key aspects of strengthening new combat capabilities
The key difference between new-type combat capabilities and traditional combat capabilities lies in the new quality of combat capabilities. The construction of new-type combat capabilities should take the new quality as an important starting point, empower combat capability elements and transform combat capability generation models through technological innovation, thereby promoting the leap in combat capabilities.
Intelligent algorithms are key to victory. New combat capabilities, exemplified by intelligent weaponry, place greater emphasis on gaining strategic control in combat. The competition between opposing sides hinges on the level of intelligent cognition and the superiority of their algorithms. Intelligent algorithms can be seamlessly integrated into the decision-making and command chains at every stage of the kill chain—observation, location, tracking, judgment, decision-making, strike, and assessment—achieving “victory before battle.” Data mining algorithms, such as deep learning and self-learning, can rapidly integrate various types of battlefield data, deeply correlate and analyze valuable intelligence, and help combat personnel predict the battlefield situation more quickly and effectively. Intelligent game theory and decision-making algorithms, such as reinforcement learning, can autonomously engage in combat in virtual environments, rapidly and fully explore the war decision-making space, help commanders identify and anchor decision points, and more efficiently create and generate action plans, thus assisting in combat planning. For the command and control of numerous unmanned equipment and platforms, autonomous control algorithms, such as autonomous planning and collaborative algorithms, can dynamically combine combat resources according to mission objectives and capability requirements, forming human-machine hybrid formations to efficiently execute combat missions.
The system is highly interconnected. Combat power generation is a complete system formed by the development and internal movement of the various elements constituting combat power, as well as the interconnections and interactions between different elements and subsystems. The characteristics of system confrontation, hybrid game, and cross-domain competition are more prominent in informationized and intelligent combat operations. The dispersed battlefield sensors, combat forces, and weapon platforms become network information nodes based on various information links. Intelligence information, mission instructions, battle situation, and battle results information can all be interactively shared in the battlefield network that is connected across the entire domain. The entire combat operation, while pursuing individual platform indicators, places greater emphasis on the real-time linkage effect of the entire combat system. Through functional coupling and structural emergence, it achieves the goals of “energy aggregation” and “energy enhancement” to achieve the goal of defeating the enemy with overall strength.
Human-machine interaction is gradually advancing. Unmanned equipment, as a crucial element of new combat capabilities and an important supplement to traditional weaponry, is transforming from a battlefield support role to a primary combat role. Broadly speaking, unmanned equipment will expand the combat capabilities of weaponry and gain information and firepower mobility advantages. First, unmanned combat equipment can enrich and improve manned combat systems. Utilizing the advantages of unmanned equipment—less restricted battlefield environment, stronger penetration capabilities, and more diverse missions—it can enhance the scope, accuracy, and timeliness of reconnaissance and intelligence gathering and assessment, as well as increase the density, intensity, and sustainability of firepower strikes. Second, coordinated operations between manned and unmanned forces can achieve a “1+1>2” combat effectiveness. For example, drones can conduct forward reconnaissance and early warning, becoming an extension of manned aircraft perception, leveraging the mobility and firepower advantages of manned aircraft while utilizing the information advantages of drones. Third, unmanned swarm operations can achieve the goal of rapidly depleting enemy resources. Unmanned swarm forces, including drones, unmanned vehicles, unmanned boats, unmanned underwater vehicles, bionic robots, and smart munitions, will conduct autonomous and coordinated unmanned operations. Their nonlinear and emergent characteristics will highlight their advantages in scale, cost, autonomy, and decision-making. They will strike targets such as heavily fortified air defense missile sites deep within enemy territory, greatly depleting the enemy’s reconnaissance, interception, and firepower resources.
Building a scientific framework for enhancing new combat capabilities
Building new combat capabilities is a systemic and arduous battle that requires overcoming difficulties. We must break away from the path dependence of “technology-oriented” approaches and construct a scientific chain of “theoretical interpretation, system construction, training transformation, and resource adaptation.”
Emphasizing “theory first, system support,” these two aspects are crucial foundations for generating new-type combat capabilities. A hierarchical theoretical framework and resilient system architecture are essential to solidify the foundation for new-type combat capabilities to serve actual combat. From the perspective of hierarchical theoretical framework construction, basic theory must focus on the essential mechanisms of new-type combat elements, analyzing the operational characteristics, boundaries of action, and coupling logic of emerging domain elements with traditional elements, and exploring scientific paths for aligning basic theory with practice. Applied theory must closely adhere to actual combat scenarios, constructing application rules based on the typological classification of future combat missions, and expanding the paths for transforming applied theory into tactical practice. The innovative theoretical layer must anticipate the evolution of warfare, combining technological advancements to predict theoretical development directions, providing guidance for the evolution of new-type elements. From the perspective of resilient system architecture design, “system resilience” should be the goal to break down inter-domain barriers, establishing a potential database through the Internet of Things and big data technologies to achieve rapid reorganization and response of new-type resources and troop needs, ensuring that the system resonates with the demands of “war.”
Adhering to the principle of “you fight your way, I fight my way,” we must boldly innovate and explore new models for the construction and application of combat forces. The essence of this approach lies in building “asymmetric advantages.” From the perspective of cultivating asymmetric advantages, we must rely on “operational domain advantage maps” for assessment and construct differentiated force layouts. We must promote the transformation of advantageous elements into core capabilities, build a “strengths against weaknesses” pattern, and ensure the long-term sustainability of these advantages through the establishment of a dynamic monitoring mechanism. From the perspective of innovatively reconstructing operational paths, we must break through the boundaries of traditional operational domains, open up new dimensions of confrontation in unmanned domains, and design modular solutions based on mission requirements, flexibly combining new qualitative elements with traditional forces to avoid path dependence.
Strengthening “realistic training and adversarial drills” is crucial. Realistic training and adversarial drills serve as the intermediaries for transforming new combat capabilities from theory to actual combat. To establish a closed-loop mechanism of “integrated training and combat,” it is necessary to enhance the combat adaptability of new combat capabilities through high-fidelity construction of training scenarios, high-intensity design of adversarial drills, and quantitative modeling of effectiveness evaluation. Regarding the high-fidelity construction of realistic training scenarios, it is essential to actively organize drone units to conduct training in reconnaissance and rescue, airlift, and other subjects. The concept of “environmental complexity gradient” should be introduced to force officers and soldiers to utilize new equipment under extreme conditions. A quantitative evaluation system should be established to assess training effectiveness. Regarding the high-intensity design of adversarial drills, it is necessary to set up adversarial scenarios closely resembling those of a strong enemy, set adversarial intensity thresholds, and establish a closed-loop improvement mechanism to promote iterative upgrades of combat capabilities.
The principle is “not seeking ownership, but utilizing.” This is a crucial path for generating new combat capabilities. Its core lies in the innovative generation model of the “resource pooling” theory. This requires breaking the binding relationship between “resource possession” and “capability generation” through cross-domain resource integration and dynamic resource allocation. From the perspective of cross-domain resource integration, “resource pooling” is the core, integrating local technology, talent, and equipment resources to build a military-civilian integrated resource support network. From the perspective of dynamic resource allocation, a classified and graded management system is constructed, categorizing new resources according to their operational value into core, support, and auxiliary categories, clarifying the deployment process for new equipment, and ensuring that resource benefits are transformed into actual combat capabilities.
Joint operations, as a fundamental form of modern warfare, have evolved in their winning mechanisms along with advancements in military technology and changes in the nature of warfare. From the coordinated formations of the cold weapon era to the combined arms operations of infantry and artillery in the era of firearms, from joint operations of various services and branches in the era of mechanized warfare to multi-domain joint operations in the era of informationized warfare, each military revolution has brought about fundamental changes in the winning mechanisms of warfare.
Currently, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things are driving the evolution of warfare towards informatization and intelligence at an unprecedented pace. The connotation and extension of joint operations are constantly expanding, and the mechanisms of victory are also showing a series of new development trends. In-depth research into the development trends of the mechanisms of victory in joint operations, based on a multi-perspective analysis framework, systematically exploring the historical evolution and future development direction of these mechanisms from five dimensions—operation time, operation space, operation force, operation actions, and operation command and control—is of vital importance for accurately grasping the changes in future warfare, scientifically establishing the direction of military force development, and effectively enhancing joint operations capabilities.
From a combat time perspective: the strategy has evolved from step-by-step progression to instantaneous enemy destruction.
Time is one of the fundamental elements of war, and the art of utilizing operational time is key to victory in joint operations. In the era of mechanized warfare, limited by intelligence gathering methods, command and control capabilities, and weapon performance, joint operational operations are typically organized and implemented under strict time constraints, unfolding sequentially in stages: reconnaissance and early warning, fire preparation, forward breakthrough, deep attack, and fortification. Each branch of the armed forces carries out its operational mission according to a predetermined plan at each stage. This operational model results in a relatively slow pace of combat and inefficient use of time, often requiring several days or even months to complete a single operational phase. With the development of information technology and precision-guided weapons, the time-dimensional winning mechanism of modern joint operations is shifting towards “instantaneous enemy destruction.” The pace of combat operations has accelerated significantly, and the division of combat phases has become increasingly blurred. The traditional step-by-step approach is gradually being replaced by “instantaneous” warfare characterized by real-time perception, real-time decision-making, and real-time action. Real-time information sharing and rapid flow have drastically shortened the combat command and decision-making cycle, achieving the “detect and destroy” combat effect. The widespread application of precision-guided weapons has greatly improved the speed and accuracy of firepower strikes, enabling combat forces to carry out devastating strikes against key targets in an instant. In the future, with the development and application of artificial intelligence technology, the speed of combat decision-making and action will be further improved, and the instantaneous nature of joint operations will become more prominent.
From the perspective of operational space: expanding from the tangible battlefield to the intangible space
The operational space is the arena for joint combat forces, and its constantly evolving form and scope directly influence the mechanisms of victory in joint operations. In industrial-era warfare, the operational space was primarily confined to tangible physical spaces such as land, sea, and air. Operations mainly revolved around seizing and controlling key geographical points, transportation lines, and strategic locations, and the deployment of combat forces and the evaluation of operational effectiveness were also primarily based on the tangible spatial scope. Entering the information age, the operational space is undergoing revolutionary changes. In addition to the traditional tangible physical spaces of land, sea, air, and space, intangible spaces such as information space, cyberspace, and psychological space are increasingly becoming important battlefields for joint operations, even determining the outcome of combat to some extent. The struggle for information space has become a primary aspect of joint operations, the battle in cyberspace is intensifying, and the psychological warfare is constantly evolving. The battlefield of modern joint operations is characterized by a fusion of tangible and intangible spaces, and an equal emphasis on the physical and information domains. In the future, with the development of emerging technologies such as quantum technology, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence, the space for joint operations will further expand, potentially giving rise to new operational domains such as quantum space and biological space. The mechanisms for winning in joint operations will also undergo profound changes.
From the perspective of combat power: a shift from human-machine integration to human-machine collaboration.
Combat forces are the material foundation of joint operations, and their composition and deployment directly affect the outcome of such operations. In the era of mechanized warfare, the composition of joint combat forces was primarily a human-equipment integration model, with personnel as the main body and weapons and equipment as the tools. The effectiveness of combat forces depended mainly on the number and quality of personnel, the performance and quantity of weapons and equipment, and the degree of integration between personnel and equipment. Armies around the world emphasize improving the level of personnel-equipment integration through rigorous training to fully leverage the combat effectiveness of weapons and equipment. With the development of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and big data, the composition and deployment of modern joint combat forces are undergoing profound changes, and human-machine collaboration is becoming a new logic for winning joint combat operations. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ships, unmanned combat vehicles, and unmanned underwater vehicles have become an important component of joint combat forces. They are capable of performing reconnaissance, surveillance, strike, and interference missions in high-risk environments, significantly improving the survivability and combat effectiveness of combat forces. The application of artificial intelligence technology has also endowed weaponry with a certain degree of autonomous action, enabling them to autonomously collaborate with humans to complete complex tasks. Machine intelligence has not only changed the composition of combat forces but also their operational methods. In the future, with the continuous advancement of human-machine integration technology, the boundaries between humans and machines will become increasingly blurred, and human-machine collaboration will reach an even higher level.
From a combat operations perspective: The shift from segmented cooperation to cross-domain integration.
Joint operations are the concrete practice of joint warfare, and their organizational form and implementation methods directly affect the overall effectiveness of joint operations. In traditional joint operations, limited by command and control capabilities and coordination mechanisms between various services and branches, forces from each service and branch can only carry out missions within their respective operational domains and conduct limited cooperation through pre-established coordination plans. This domain-specific cooperation model is prone to problems such as coordination failures and operational disconnects. In the information age, with the improvement of all-domain awareness capabilities and the refinement of command and control methods, joint operations are gradually developing towards cross-domain integration. Cross-domain integration emphasizes breaking down the boundaries between different operational domains, achieving seamless connection and deep integration of operational forces across multiple domains such as land, sea, air, space, electromagnetic, and cyberspace, forming a coordinated overall operational effect. Operational forces in each domain can share battlefield information in real time, dynamically adjust operational actions, rapidly transcend geographical and domain boundaries, and conduct operations simultaneously in multiple domains. Through the integration and sharing of multi-domain information, a high degree of coordination and precise cooperation in operational actions across domains is achieved, forming a synergistic and effective overall operational effect. In the future, with the continuous development of information technology, the degree of cross-domain integration in joint operations will further deepen, becoming a key to victory in joint operations.
From the perspective of combat command and control: Evolution from central radiation to flexible periphery
Operational command and control is the “brain” and “nerve center” of joint operations; its mode selection and effectiveness directly determine the success or failure of joint operations. In the era of mechanized warfare, due to limited command and control technology, joint operational command and control typically adopted a centralized, hierarchical, tree-like organizational model. This model, centered on the highest command organization, implements operational command and control by transmitting orders downwards and feeding back information upwards, possessing significant advantages in centralized and unified action. However, it also suffers from drawbacks such as multiple command levels, slow information transmission, and poor responsiveness. With the development of information network technology and artificial intelligence technology, modern joint operational command and control is evolving towards greater flexibility. A modular and reconfigurable command structure enables the entire combat system to flexibly adjust command relationships and processes according to changes in combat missions and battlefield environments. While maintaining a centralized and unified strategic intent, it grants greater autonomy to tactical nodes at the system’s periphery, thereby enhancing the system’s flexibility and responsiveness, and better adapting to the rapidly changing challenges of future battlefields. In the future, with the development of technologies such as brain-computer interfaces and quantum communication, the real-time nature, accuracy, and flexibility of joint operations command and control will reach new heights.
In conclusion, with the development of emerging technologies such as information technology and artificial intelligence and their widespread application in the military field, the form of joint operations is undergoing continuous evolution, and the mechanisms for winning joint operations are also undergoing profound changes. This not only reshapes traditional operational concepts and methods but also poses new and higher requirements for the development of future joint operational capabilities. Therefore, we must maintain strategic clarity and innovative vitality, closely monitor global military development trends, conduct in-depth research on the mechanisms for winning joint operations, and continuously promote innovation in joint operational theory and practice to lay a solid foundation for winning informationized and intelligent warfare.
Functional Orientation of the Modern Combat System with Chinese Characteristics
Key Points
● The coexistence, iterative development, dynamic evolution, and integrated development of multiple generations of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization constitute the historical context of national defense and military construction in the new era, and also represent the historical position of building a modern combat system with Chinese characteristics.
● Traditional and non-traditional security threats are intertwined, and various strategic directions and security fields face diverse real and potential threats of local wars. This requires our military to abandon old models such as linear warfare, traditional ground warfare, and homeland defense warfare, and accelerate the transformation to joint operations and all-domain operations.
The report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed that, standing at a new historical starting point and facing the demands of building a strong country and a strong military, “we should build a modern combat system with Chinese characteristics.” This is a strategic choice to adapt to the rapidly evolving nature of warfare, to thoroughly implement Xi Jinping’s thought on strengthening the military, to comprehensively advance the modernization of national defense and the armed forces, and to aim at building a world-class military. Among these choices, the grasp of the functional orientation of the modern combat system with Chinese characteristics greatly influences the goals, direction, and quality of its construction.
Seize the opportunities of the times and take the integrated development of mechanization, informatization and intelligentization as the historical orientation.
The combat system is the material foundation of war and is closely related to the form of warfare. In today’s world, a new round of technological and industrial revolution is brewing and emerging. Original and disruptive breakthroughs in some major scientific problems are opening up new frontiers and directions, prompting human society to rapidly transform towards intelligence, and accelerating the evolution of warfare towards intelligence. Currently, our military is in a stage of integrated mechanization and informatization development. Mechanization is not yet complete, informatization is being deeply advanced, and we are facing both opportunities and challenges brought about by the intelligent military revolution. The new era provides us with a rare historical opportunity to achieve innovative breakthroughs and rapid development, and also provides a rare historical opportunity for our military’s combat system construction to achieve generational leaps and leapfrog development.
A new era and a new starting point require establishing a new coordinate system. The coexistence, iterative development, dynamic evolution, and integrated development of multiple generations of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization constitute the historical context of national defense and military construction in the new era, and also the historical position of building a modern combat system with Chinese characteristics. We should accurately grasp the historical process of the evolution of warfare, the historical stage of the combined development of mechanization and informatization, and the historical opportunities brought about by intelligent warfare. We must prioritize the development of military intelligence, using intelligence to lead and drive mechanization and informatization, coordinating mechanization and informatization within the overall framework of intelligent construction, and completing the tasks of mechanization and informatization development within the process of intelligentization. We must focus on top-level design for military intelligence development, researching and formulating a strategic outline and roadmap for military intelligence development, clarifying key areas, core technologies, key projects, and steps for intelligent development, and accelerating the construction of a military intelligent combat system. We must achieve significant progress as soon as possible in key technologies such as deep learning, cross-domain integration, human-machine collaboration, autonomous control, and neural networks, improving the ability to materialize advanced scientific and technological forces into advanced weaponry and equipment, and providing material conditions for building a modern combat system.
Emphasizing system-on-system confrontation, with the development of joint operations and all-domain operations capabilities as the core indicators.
Information-based local wars are characterized by integrated joint operations as their basic form, with network support, information dominance, and system-on-system confrontation as their main features. The combat capability generation model is shifting towards a network-based information system. Currently and for some time to come, my country’s geostrategic environment remains complex, with traditional and non-traditional security threats intertwined. Various strategic directions and security domains face diverse real and potential threats of local wars. Simultaneously, with the expansion of national interests, the security of overseas interests is becoming increasingly prominent, requiring the PLA to abandon old models such as linear warfare, traditional ground warfare, and territorial defense warfare, and accelerate its transformation towards joint operations and all-domain operations.
The report of the 19th CPC National Congress pointed out that “enhancing joint operational capabilities and all-domain operational capabilities based on network information systems” is a new summary of the PLA’s operational capabilities in the new era and a core indicator for building a modern operational system with Chinese characteristics. We should actively explore the characteristics, laws, and winning mechanisms of modern warfare, and proactively design future operational models, force application methods, and command and coordination procedures to provide advanced theoretical support for building a modern operational system with Chinese characteristics. Following the new pattern of the Central Military Commission exercising overall command, theater commands focusing on combat operations, and services focusing on force development, we should adapt to the new joint operational command system, the reform of the military’s size, structure, and force composition, highlighting the network information system as the core support, and building an operational system capable of generating powerful joint operational capabilities to fully leverage the overall power of the various services and branches. With a view to properly addressing various strategic directions and traditional and non-traditional security threats, ensuring the PLA can reliably carry out various operational missions, we should build an operational system capable of generating powerful all-domain operational capabilities, achieving overall linkage across multiple battlefields and domains, including land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace.
Focusing on real threats, the strategic objective is to gain an asymmetric advantage over the enemy.
The world today is at a new turning point in the international situation, with strategic competition among major powers taking on new forms and the struggle for dominance in the international and regional order becoming unprecedentedly fierce. The specter of hegemonism and power politics lingers, and some countries are intensifying their efforts to guard against and contain China. my country’s geostrategic environment is becoming increasingly complex, with multiple destabilizing factors, facing multi-directional security pressures, and an increasingly complex maritime security environment. All of these factors contribute to increasing the dangers and challenges to national security.
Effectively responding to real military security threats is a crucial strategic task in our military preparedness and a strategic direction for building a modern combat system with Chinese characteristics. We should focus on keeping up with technological advancements, vigorously developing advanced equipment, and striving to avoid creating new technological gaps with potential adversaries. This will provide solid material support for the construction of our combat system. Simultaneously, we must emphasize leveraging the PLA’s long-standing principles of flexibility, mobility, and independent operation, capitalizing on our strengths and avoiding weaknesses, targeting the enemy’s vulnerabilities and weaknesses. We should not simply compete with the best in high-tech fields, but rather focus on deterring the enemy and preventing war. We must accelerate the development of asymmetric counterbalancing mechanisms, strengthen the construction of conventional strategic means, new concepts and mechanisms, and strategic deterrence in new domains, supporting the formation of a new combat system with new deterrent and combat capabilities. We must not fear direct confrontation, preparing for the most complex and difficult situations, and building a combat system capable of providing multiple means, forces, and methods to address diverse war threats. This will ensure that, in the event of conflict, the comprehensive effectiveness of the combat system is fully utilized, guaranteeing victory in battle and deterring further war through war.
Promoting military-civilian integration and using the national strategic system to support winning the people’s war in the new era is a fundamental requirement.
The deepest roots of the power of war lie within the people. The concept of people’s war is the magic weapon for our army to defeat the enemy. Modern warfare is a comprehensive confrontation of the combined strength of opposing sides, involving political, economic, military, technological, and cultural fronts. Various armed forces are closely integrated, and various forms of struggle are coordinated with each other. The role and status of civilian technology and civilian forces in war are increasingly important, which further requires integrating the national defense system into the national economic and social system and striving to win the people’s war in the new era.
Leveraging the power of military-civilian integration to support the fight against people’s war in the new era with the national strategic system is a fundamental requirement for building a modern combat system with Chinese characteristics. We must deeply implement the national strategy of military-civilian integration, deeply integrate the construction of our military’s combat system into the national strategic system, utilize national resources and overall strength to achieve a continuous leap in combat effectiveness, and maximize the overall power of people’s war. We must focus on strengthening military-civilian integration in emerging strategic fields, actively seize the commanding heights of future military competition, and continuously create new advantages in people’s war. We must incorporate the military innovation system into the national innovation system, strengthen demand alignment and collaborative innovation, enhance independent innovation, original innovation, and integrated innovation capabilities, and proactively discover, cultivate, and utilize strategic, disruptive, and cutting-edge technologies to provide advanced technological support for building a modern combat system. We must also focus on the in-depth exploitation of civilian resources, strengthen the integration of various resources that can serve national defense and military construction, prevent duplication and waste, self-contained systems, and closed operations, and maximize the incubation effect of civilian resources on the construction of a modern combat system.
(Author’s affiliation: Institute of War Studies, Academy of Military Sciences)
The report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that it is necessary to “accelerate the development of military intelligence and improve joint operational capabilities and all-domain operational capabilities based on network information systems.” Today’s *PLA Daily* published an article stating that military intelligence is a new trend and direction in the development of the military field after mechanization and informatization. We must develop intelligence on the basis of existing mechanization and informatization, while using intelligence to drive mechanization and informatization to a higher level and a higher standard. Cyberspace, as a new operational domain, is a new field with high technological content and the greatest innovative vitality. Under the impetus of military intelligence, it is ushering in a period of rapid development opportunities.Illustration: Lei Yu
Military intelligence is driving the accelerated development of cyberspace operations.
■ Respected soldiers Zhou Dewang Huang Anwei
Three key technologies support the intelligentization of cyberspace weapons.
Intelligence is a kind of wisdom and capability; it is the perception, cognition, and application of laws by all systems with life cycles. Intelligentization is the solidification of this wisdom and capability into a state. Cyberspace weapons are weapons used to carry out combat missions in cyberspace. Their form is primarily software and code, essentially a piece of data. The intelligence of cyberspace weapons is mainly reflected in the following three aspects:
First, there’s intelligent vulnerability discovery. Vulnerabilities are the foundation of cyber weapon design. The ransomware that spread globally this May exploited a vulnerability in the Microsoft operating system, causing a huge shock in the cybersecurity community. Vulnerabilities are expensive, with a single zero-day vulnerability costing tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Previously, vulnerability discovery relied mainly on experienced hackers using software tools to inspect and analyze code. However, at the International Cybersecurity Technology Competition finals held during this year’s China Internet Security Conference, participants demonstrated how intelligent robots could discover vulnerabilities on-site, then use these vulnerabilities to write network code, creating cyber weapons to breach target systems and capture the flag. This change signifies that vulnerability discovery has entered the era of intelligent technology.
Second, intelligent signal analysis and cryptography. Signals are the carriers of network data transmission, and cryptography is the last line of defense for network data security. Signal analysis and cryptography are core technologies for cyberspace warfare. Breaking through signals and cryptography is the fundamental path to entering cyberspace and a primary target of cyber weapons attacks. Intelligent signal analysis solves problems such as signal protocol analysis, modulation identification, and individual identification through technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and deep learning. Cryptography is the “crown jewel” of computational science. Intelligent cryptography, through the accumulation of cryptographic data samples, continuously learns and searches for patterns to find the key to decryption, thereby opening the last door of the network data “safe” and solving the critical links of network intrusion and access.
Thirdly, there is the design of intelligent weapon platforms. In 2009, the U.S. military proposed the “Cyber Aircraft” project, providing platforms similar to armored vehicles, ships, and aircraft for cyberspace operations. These platforms can automatically conduct reconnaissance, load cyber weapons, autonomously coordinate, and autonomously attack in cyberspace. When threatened, they can self-destruct and erase traces, exhibiting a certain degree of intelligence. In the future, the weapons loaded onto “Cyber Aircraft” will not be pre-written code by software engineers, but rather intelligent cyber weapons will be designed in real-time based on discovered vulnerabilities, enabling “order-based” development and significantly improving the targeting of cyberspace operations.
The trend of intelligentization in network-controlled weapons is becoming increasingly prominent.
Weapons controlled by cyberspace, or cyber-controlled weapons, are weapons that connect to a network, receive commands from cyberspace, execute cross-domain missions, and achieve combat effects in physical space. Most future combat weapon platforms will be networked, making military information networks essentially the Internet of Things (IoT). These networks connect to satellites, radars, drones, and other network entities, enabling control from perception and detection to tracking, positioning, and strike. The intelligence of cyber-controlled weapons is rapidly developing across land, sea, air, space, and cyber domains.
In 2015, Syria used a Russian robotic force to defeat militants. The operation employed six tracked robots, four wheeled robots, an automated artillery corps, several drones, and a command system. Commanders used the command system to direct drones to locate militants, and the robots then charged, supported by artillery and drone fire, inflicting heavy casualties. This small-scale battle marked the beginning of robotic “team” operations.
Network-controlled intelligent weapons for naval and air battlefields are under extensive research and development and verification. In 2014, the U.S. Navy used 13 unmanned surface vessels to demonstrate and verify the interception of enemy ships by unmanned surface vessel swarms, mainly by exchanging sensor data, and achieved good results. When tested again in 2016, functions such as collaborative task allocation and tactical coordination were added, and “swarm awareness” became its prominent feature of intelligence.
The development of swarms of small, micro-sized drones for aerial combat is also rapid. In recent years, the U.S. Department of Defense has conducted multiple tests of the Partridge micro-drone, capable of deploying dozens or even hundreds at a time. By enhancing its coordination capabilities during reconnaissance missions, progress has been made in drone formation, command, control, and intelligent management.
Space-based cyber-control weapons are becoming increasingly “intelligent.” The space-based cyber-control domain primarily comprises two categories of weapons: reconnaissance and strike weapons. Satellites of various functions mainly perform reconnaissance missions and are typical reconnaissance sensors. With the emergence of various microsatellite constellations, satellites are exhibiting new characteristics: small size, rapid launch, large numbers, and greater intelligence. Microsatellite constellations offer greater flexibility and reliability in performing reconnaissance and communication missions, and currently, the world’s leading satellite powers are actively developing microsatellite constellation plans with broader coverage.
Various hypersonic strike weapons are cruising in the air, like a sword of Damocles hanging over people’s heads. The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory stated that the “hypersonic strike weapon” will begin flight testing around 2018, and other countries are also actively developing similar weapons. The most prominent features of these weapons are their high speed, long range, and high level of intelligence.
Intelligent command information systems are changing traditional combat command methods.
Cyber weapons and weapons controlled by cyberspace constitute the “fist” of intelligent warfare, while the command information systems that direct the use of these weapons are the “brain” of intelligent warfare. Cyberspace operational command information systems must keep pace with the process of intelligentization. Currently, almost all global command information systems face the challenge of “intelligent lag.” Future warfare requires rapid and autonomous decision-making, which places higher demands on intelligent support systems.
In 2007, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched the “Deep Green Program,” a research and development program for command and control systems, aiming to enable computer-aided commanders to make rapid decisions and gain a decisive advantage. This is a campaign-level command information system, developed to be embedded into the U.S. Army’s brigade-level C4ISR wartime command information system, enabling intelligent command by commanders. Even today, the U.S. military has not relaxed its development of intelligent command information systems.
In cyberspace warfare, network targets are represented by a single IP address accessing the network. Their sheer number makes efficient manual operation difficult, necessitating the support of intelligent command and information systems. Currently, intelligent command and information systems need to achieve functions such as intelligent intelligence analysis, intelligent sensing, intelligent navigation and positioning, intelligent decision support, intelligent collaboration, intelligent assessment, and intelligent unmanned combat. In particular, they must enable swarm operational control of unmanned network control systems. All of these requirements urgently demand intelligent command and information systems, necessitating accelerated research and development and application of relevant key technologies.
In conclusion, intelligent cyber weapons and network control weapons, coordinated through intelligent information systems, will form enormous combat capabilities, essentially enabling them to carry out all actions in current combat scenarios. Future warfare, from command force organization to target selection, action methods, and tactical applications, will all unfold within an intelligent context. The “gamification” of warfare will become more pronounced, and operational command methods will undergo significant changes.
In future battlefields, combat will require not only courage but also intelligence.
■ Yang Jian, Zhao Lu
Currently, artificial intelligence is entering a new stage of development and is rapidly penetrating various fields. Influenced by this process, military competition among nations surrounding intelligent technologies has begun. Our army has always been a brave and tenacious people’s army, determined to fight and win. On the future battlefield, we should continue to carry forward our glorious traditions while more broadly mastering and utilizing the latest technological achievements to develop more intelligent weapons and equipment, thereby gaining a decisive advantage on the future battlefield.
Intelligentization is a trend in human societal development, and intelligent warfare is rapidly approaching. The development of military intelligence has a solid foundation thanks to successful innovations that transcend existing computational models, the gradual popularization of nanotechnology, and breakthroughs in research on the mechanisms of the human brain. Consequently, intelligent weaponry is increasingly prominent, surpassing and even replacing human capabilities in areas such as intelligence analysis and combat response. Furthermore, intelligent weaponry offers significant advantages in terms of manpower requirements, comprehensive support, and operating costs, and is increasingly becoming the dominant force in warfare.
The development and application of intelligent weaponry have proven to expand the scope of military operations and significantly enhance the combat effectiveness of troops. In the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, drones have undertaken most of the reconnaissance, intelligence, and surveillance support missions, and have been responsible for approximately one-third of the air strike missions. In the past two years, Russia has also repeatedly used highly intelligent unmanned reconnaissance aircraft and combat robots in the Syrian theater. Intelligent weaponry is increasingly demonstrating its significant value, surpassing that of traditional weapons.
In future wars, the contest of intelligent combat systems will be the key to victory in high-level competition and ultimate showdowns. As the development of technology-supported military means becomes increasingly uneven, whoever first acquires the capability to conduct intelligent warfare will be better positioned to seize the initiative on the battlefield. Those with a technological advantage will minimize the costs of war, while the weaker will inevitably suffer enormous losses and pay a heavy price. We must not only accelerate innovation in core technologies and the development of weaponry, but also research and explore organizational structures, command methods, and operational models adapted to the development of intelligent military operations. Furthermore, we must cultivate a talent pool capable of promoting intelligent military development and forging intelligent combat capabilities, fully leveraging the overall effectiveness of our military’s combat system, and winning wars in a more “intelligent” manner against our adversaries.
Since the beginning of the new century, the rapid development of intelligent technologies, with artificial intelligence (AI) at its core, has accelerated the process of a new round of military revolution, and competition in the military field is rapidly moving towards an era of intellectual dominance. Combat elements represented by “AI, cloud, network, cluster, and terminal,” combined in diverse ways, constitute a new battlefield ecosystem, completely altering the mechanisms of victory in warfare. AI systems based on models and algorithms will be the core combat capability, permeating all aspects and stages, playing a multiplicative, transcendent, and proactive role. Platforms are controlled by AI, clusters are guided by AI, and systems are made to decision by AI. Traditional human-centric tactics are being replaced by AI models and algorithms, making intellectual dominance the core control in future warfare. The stronger the intelligent combat capability, the greater the hope of subduing the enemy without fighting.
[Author Biography] Wu Mingxi is the Chief Scientist and Researcher of China Ordnance Industry Group, Deputy Secretary-General of the Science and Technology Committee of China Ordnance Industry Group, and Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Committee of China Ordnance Science Research Institute. His research focuses on national defense science and technology and weaponry development strategies and planning, policies and theories, management and reform research. His major works include “Intelligent Warfare – AI Military Vision,” etc.
Competition in the Age of Intellectual Property
The history of human civilization is a history of understanding and transforming nature, and also a history of understanding and liberating oneself. Through the development of science and technology and the creation and application of tools, humanity has continuously enhanced its capabilities, reduced its burdens, freed itself from constraints, and liberated itself. The control of war has also constantly changed, enriched, and evolved with technological progress, the expansion of human activity space, and the development of the times. Since the 19th century, humanity has successively experienced the control and struggle for land power, sea power, air power, space power, and information power. With the rapid development of intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, cloud computing, bio-interdisciplinary technologies, unmanned systems, and parallel simulation, and their deep integration with traditional technologies, humanity’s ability to understand and transform nature has been transformed in terms of epistemology, methodology, and operational mechanisms. This is accelerating the major technological revolutions in machine intelligence, bionic intelligence, swarm intelligence, human-machine integrated intelligence, and intelligent perception, intelligent decision-making, intelligent action, intelligent support, as well as intelligent design, research and development, testing, and manufacturing, thus accelerating the evolution of warfare towards the control and struggle for intellectual power.
The rapid development of intelligent technology has garnered significant attention from major countries worldwide, becoming a powerful driving force for the leapfrog development of military capabilities. The United States and Russia have placed intelligent technology at the core of maintaining their strategic status as global military powers, and significant changes have occurred in their development concepts, models, organizational methods, and innovative applications. They have also carried out substantive applications and practices of military intelligence (see Figure 1).
In August 2017, the U.S. Department of Defense stated that future AI warfare was inevitable and that the U.S. needed to “take immediate action” to accelerate the development of AI warfare technologies. The U.S. military’s “Third Offset Strategy” posits that a military revolution, characterized by intelligent armies, autonomous equipment, and unmanned warfare, is underway; therefore, they have identified intelligent technologies such as autonomous systems, big data analytics, and automation as key development directions. In June 2018, the U.S. Department of Defense announced the establishment of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, which, guided by the national AI development strategy, coordinates the planning and construction of the U.S. military’s intelligent military system. In February 2019, then-President Trump signed the “American Artificial Intelligence Initiative” executive order, emphasizing that maintaining U.S. leadership in AI is crucial for safeguarding U.S. economic and national security, and requiring the federal government to invest all resources in promoting innovation in the U.S. AI field. In March 2021, the U.S. National Security Council on Artificial Intelligence released a research report stating that, “For the first time since World War II, the technological advantage that has been the backbone of U.S. economic and military power is under threat. If current trends do not change, China possesses the power, talent, and ambition to surpass the United States as the global leader in artificial intelligence within the next decade.” The report argues that the United States must use artificial intelligence swiftly and responsibly to prepare for these threats in order to safeguard national security and enhance defense capabilities. The report concludes that artificial intelligence will transform the world, and the United States must take a leading role.
Russia also attaches great importance to the technological development and military application of artificial intelligence. The Russian military generally believes that artificial intelligence will trigger the third revolution in the military field, following gunpowder and nuclear weapons. In September 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly stated that artificial intelligence is the future of Russia, and whoever becomes the leader in this field will dominate the world. In October 2019, Putin approved the “Russian National Strategy for the Development of Artificial Intelligence until 2030,” aiming to accelerate the development and application of artificial intelligence in Russia and seek a world-leading position in the field.
In July 2017, the State Council of China issued the “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan,” which put forward the guiding ideology, strategic goals, key tasks and safeguard measures for the development of new generation artificial intelligence towards 2030, and deployed efforts to build a first-mover advantage in the development of artificial intelligence and accelerate the construction of an innovative country and a world-class science and technology power.
Other major countries and military powers around the world have also launched their own artificial intelligence development plans, indicating that the global struggle for “intellectual power” has fully unfolded. Land power, sea power, air power, space power, information power, and intellectual power are all results of technological progress and products of their time, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, and some theories are constantly expanding with the changing times. From the development trend of control over warfare since modern times, it can be seen that information power and intellectual power involve the overall situation, carrying greater weight and influence. In the future, with the accelerated pace of intelligent development, intellectual power will become a rapidly growing new type of battlefield control with greater strategic influence on the overall combat situation.
The essence of military intelligence lies in leveraging intelligent technologies to establish diverse identification, decision-making, and control models for the war system. These models constitute artificial intelligence (AI), the core of the new era’s intellectual power struggle. The war system encompasses: equipment systems such as individual units, clusters, manned/unmanned collaborative operations, and multi-domain and cross-domain warfare; combat forces such as individual soldiers, squads, detachments, combined arms units, and theater command; operational links such as networked perception, mission planning and command, force coordination, and comprehensive support; specialized systems such as network attack and defense, electronic warfare, public opinion control, and infrastructure management; and military industrial capabilities such as intelligent design, research and development, production, mobilization, and support. AI, in the form of chips, algorithms, and software, is embedded in every system, level, and link of the war system, forming a systematic brain. Although AI is only a part of the war system, its increasingly powerful “brain-like” functions and capabilities “surpassing human limits” will inevitably dominate the overall situation of future warfare.
Battlefield Ecosystem Reconstruction
Traditional warfare involves relatively independent and separate combat elements, resulting in a relatively simple battlefield ecosystem, primarily consisting of personnel, equipment, and tactics. In the intelligent era, warfare is characterized by significant integration, correlation, and interaction among various combat elements. This will lead to substantial changes in the battlefield ecosystem, forming a combat system, cluster system, and human-machine system comprised of an AI brain, distributed cloud, communication networks, collaborative groups, and various virtual and physical terminals—collectively known as the “AI, Cloud, Network, Cluster, Terminal” intelligent ecosystem (see Figure 2). Among these, AI plays a dominant role.
AI Brain System. The AI brain system of the intelligent battlefield is a networked and distributed system that is inseparable from and interdependent with combat platforms and missions. It can be classified in several ways. Based on function and computing power, it mainly includes cerebellum, swarm brain, midbrain, hybrid brain, and cerebrum; based on combat missions and stages, it mainly includes sensor AI, combat mission planning and decision-making AI, precision strike and controllable destruction AI, network attack and defense AI, electronic warfare AI, intelligent defense AI, and integrated support AI; based on form, it mainly includes embedded AI, cloud AI, and parallel system AI.
The cerebellum mainly refers to the embedded AI in sensor platforms, combat platforms, and support platforms, which mainly performs tasks such as battlefield environment detection, target recognition, rapid maneuver, precision strike, controlled destruction, equipment support, maintenance support, and logistical support.
“Swarm brain” mainly refers to the AI that enables intelligent control of unmanned swarm platforms on the ground, in the air, at sea, in the water, and in space. It mainly performs tasks such as collaborative perception of the battlefield environment, swarm maneuver, swarm attack, and swarm defense. The key components include algorithms for homogeneous swarm systems and algorithms for heterogeneous systems such as manned-unmanned collaboration.
The midbrain mainly refers to the AI system of the command center, data center, and edge computing of the front-line units on the battlefield. It mainly performs dynamic planning, autonomous decision-making, and auxiliary decision-making for tactical unit combat missions under online and offline conditions.
Hybrid brain mainly refers to a hybrid decision-making system in which commanders and machine AI collaborate in combat operations of organized units. Before the battle, it mainly performs human-based combat mission planning; during the battle, it mainly performs adaptive dynamic mission planning and adjustment based on machine AI; and after the battle, it mainly performs hybrid decision-making tasks oriented towards counter-terrorism and defense.
The “brain” primarily refers to the model, algorithm, and tactical libraries of the theater command center and data center, playing a key supporting role in campaign and strategic decision-making. Due to the abundant data, various battlefield AI systems can be trained and modeled here, and then loaded into different mission systems once mature.
In future battlefields, there will be other AIs of different functions, types, and sizes, such as sensor AI, which mainly includes image recognition, electromagnetic spectrum recognition, sound recognition, speech recognition, and human activity behavior recognition. With the rapid development and widespread application of intelligence, AIs of all sizes will exist throughout society, serving the public and society in peacetime, and potentially serving the military in wartime.
Distributed cloud. Military cloud differs from civilian cloud. Generally speaking, a military cloud platform is a distributed resource management system that uses communication networks to search, collect, aggregate, analyze, calculate, store, and distribute operational information and data. By constructing a distributed system and a multi-point fault-tolerant backup mechanism, a military cloud platform possesses powerful intelligence sharing capabilities, data processing capabilities, resilience, and self-healing capabilities. It can provide fixed and mobile, public and private cloud services, achieving “one-point collection, everyone sharing,” greatly reducing information flow links, making command processes flatter and faster, and avoiding redundant and decentralized construction at all levels.
From the perspective of future intelligent warfare needs, military cloud needs to construct at least a four-tiered system: tactical front-end cloud, troop cloud, theater cloud, and strategic cloud. Based on operational elements, it can also be divided into specialized cloud systems such as intelligence cloud, situational awareness cloud, firepower cloud, information warfare cloud, support cloud, and nebula.
1. Front-end cloud primarily refers to computing services provided by units, squads, and platforms, including information perception, target identification, battlefield environment analysis, autonomous and assisted decision-making, and operational process and effect evaluation. The role of front-end cloud is mainly reflected in two aspects. First, it facilitates the sharing and collaboration of computing and storage resources among platforms, and the interactive integration of intelligent combat information. For example, if a platform or terminal is attacked, relevant perception information, damage status, and historical data will be automatically backed up, replaced, and updated through a networked cloud platform, and the relevant information will be uploaded to the higher command post. Second, it provides online information services and intelligent software upgrades for offline terminals.
2. Military cloud primarily refers to the cloud systems built at the battalion and brigade level for operations. Its focus is on providing computing services such as intelligent perception, intelligent decision-making, autonomous action, and intelligent support in response to different threats and environments. The goal of military cloud construction is to establish a networked, automatically backed-up, distributed cloud system connected to multiple links with higher-level units. This system should meet the computing needs of different forces, including reconnaissance and perception, mobile assault, command and control, firepower strikes, and logistical support, as well as the computing needs of various combat missions such as tactical joint operations, manned/unmanned collaboration, and swarm offense and defense.
3. Theater Cloud primarily provides battlefield weather, geographical, electromagnetic, human, and social environmental factors and information data for the entire operational area. It offers comprehensive information on troop deployments, weaponry, movement changes, and combat losses for both sides, as well as relevant information from higher command, friendly forces, and civilian support. Theater Cloud should possess networked, customized, and intelligent information service capabilities. It should interconnect with various operational units through military communication networks (space-based, airborne, ground-based, maritime, and underwater) and civilian communication networks (under secure measures) to ensure efficient, timely, and accurate information services.
4. Strategic cloud is mainly established by a country’s defense system and military command organs. It is primarily based on military information and covers comprehensive information and data related to defense technology, defense industry, mobilization support, economic and social support capabilities, as well as politics, diplomacy, and public opinion. It provides core information, assessments, analyses, and suggestions such as war preparation, operational planning, operational schemes, operational progress, battlefield situation, and battle situation analysis; and provides supporting data such as strategic intelligence, the military strength of adversaries, and war mobilization potential.
The various clouds mentioned above are interconnected, exhibiting both hierarchical and horizontal relationships of collaboration, mutual support, and mutual service. The core tasks of the military cloud platform are twofold: first, to provide data and computing support for building an AI-powered intelligent warfare system; and second, to provide operational information, computing, and data support for various combat personnel and weapon platforms. Furthermore, considering the needs of terminals and group operations, it is necessary to pre-process some cloud computing results, models, and algorithms into intelligent chips and embed them into weapon platforms and group terminals, enabling online upgrades or offline updates.
Communication networks. Military communication and network information constitute a complex super-network system. Since military forces primarily operate in land, sea, air, space, field maneuver, and urban environments, their communication networks encompass strategic and tactical communications, wired and wireless communications, secure communications, and civilian communications. Among these, wireless, mobile, and free-space communication networks are the most crucial components of the military network system, and related integrated electronic information systems are gradually established based on these communication networks.
Military communications in the mechanized era primarily followed the platform, terminal, and user, satisfying specific needs but resulting in numerous silos and extremely poor interconnectivity. In the information age, this situation is beginning to change. Currently, military communication networks are adopting new technological systems and development models, characterized by two main features: first, “network-data separation,” where information transmission does not depend on any specific network transmission method—”network access is all that matters”—any information can be delivered as long as the network link is unobstructed; second, internet-based architecture, utilizing IP addresses, routers, and servers to achieve “all roads lead to Beijing,” i.e., military networking or grid-based systems. Of course, military communication networks differ from civilian networks. Strategic and specialized communication needs exist at all times, such as nuclear button communications for nuclear weapons and command and control of strategic weapons, information transmission for satellite reconnaissance, remote sensing, and strategic early warning, and even specialized communications in individual soldier rooms and special operations conditions. These may still adopt a mission-driven communication model. Even so, standardization and internet connectivity are undoubtedly the future trends in military communication network development. Otherwise, not only will the number of battlefield communication frequency bands, radios, and information exchange methods increase, leading to self-interference, mutual interference, and electromagnetic compatibility difficulties, but radio spectrum management will also become increasingly complex. More importantly, it will be difficult for platform users to achieve automatic communication based on IP addresses and routing structures, unlike email on the internet where a single command can be sent to multiple users. Future combat platforms will certainly be both communication user terminals and also function as routers and servers.
Military communication network systems mainly include space-based communication networks, military mobile communication networks, data links, new communication networks, and civilian communication networks.
1. Space-Based Information Networks. The United States leads in the construction and utilization of space-based information networks. This is because more than half of the thousands of orbiting platforms and payloads in space are American-owned. Following the Gulf War, and especially during the Iraq War, the US military accelerated the application and advancement of space-based information networks through wartime experience. After the Iraq War, through the utilization of space-based information and the establishment of IP-based interconnection, nearly 140 vertical “chimneys” from the Gulf War period were completely interconnected horizontally, significantly shortening the “Out-of-Target-Action” (OODA) loop time. The time from space-based sensors to the shooter has been reduced from tens of hours during the Gulf War to approximately 20 seconds currently using artificial intelligence for identification.
With the rapid development of small satellite technology, low-cost, multi-functional small satellites are becoming increasingly common. As competition intensifies in commercial launches, costs are dropping dramatically, and a single launch can carry several, a dozen, or even dozens of small satellites. If miniaturized electronic reconnaissance, visible light and infrared imaging, and even quantum dot micro-spectroscopy instruments are integrated onto these satellites, achieving integrated reconnaissance, communication, navigation, meteorological, and mapping functions, the future world and battlefield will become much more transparent.
2. Military Mobile Communication Networks. Military mobile communication networks have three main uses. First, command and control between various branches of the armed forces and combat units in joint operations; this type of communication requires a high level of confidentiality, reliability, and security. Second, communication between platforms and clusters, requiring anti-jamming capabilities and high reliability. Third, command and control of weapon systems, mostly handled through data links.
Traditional military mobile communication networks are mostly “centralized, vertically focused, and tree-like structures.” With the acceleration of informatization, the trend towards “decentralized, self-organizing networks, and internet-based” is becoming increasingly apparent. As cognitive radio technology matures and is widely adopted (see Figure 3), future network communication systems will be able to automatically identify electromagnetic interference and communication obstacles on the battlefield, quickly locate available spectrum resources, and conduct real-time communication through frequency hopping and other methods. Simultaneously, software and cognitive radio technology can be compatible with different communication frequency bands and waveforms, facilitating seamless transitions from older to newer systems.
3. Data Links. A data link is a specialized communication technology that uses time division, frequency division, and code division to transmit pre-agreed, periodic, or irregular, regular or irregular critical information between various combat platforms. Unless fully understood or deciphered by the enemy, it is very difficult to interfere with. Data links are mainly divided into two categories: dedicated and general-purpose. Joint operations, formation coordination, and swarm operations primarily utilize general-purpose data links. Satellite data links, UAV data links, missile-borne data links, and weapon fire control data links are currently mostly dedicated. In the future, generalization will be a trend, and specialization will decrease. Furthermore, from the perspective of the relationship between platforms and communication, the information transmission and reception of platform sensors and internal information processing generally follow the mission system, exhibiting strong specialization characteristics, while communication and data transmission between platforms are becoming increasingly general-purpose.
4. New Communication Technologies. Traditional military communication primarily relies on microwave communication. Due to its large divergence angle and numerous application platforms, corresponding electronic jamming and microwave attack methods have developed rapidly, making it easy to carry out long-range interference and damage. Therefore, new communication technologies such as millimeter waves, terahertz waves, laser communication, and free-space optical communication have become important choices that are both anti-jamming and easy to implement high-speed, high-capacity, and high-bandwidth communication. Although high-frequency electromagnetic waves have good anti-jamming performance due to their smaller divergence angle, achieving precise point-to-point aiming and omnidirectional communication still presents certain challenges, especially under conditions of high-speed maneuvering and rapid trajectory changes of combat platforms. How to achieve alignment and omnidirectional communication is still under technological exploration.
5. Civilian Communication Resources. The effective utilization of civilian communication resources is a strategic issue that must be considered and cannot be avoided in the era of intelligentization. In the future, leveraging civilian communication networks, especially 5G/6G mobile communications, for open-source information mining and data correlation analysis to provide battlefield environment, target, and situational information will be crucial for both combat and non-combat military operations. In non-combat military operations, especially overseas peacekeeping, rescue, counter-terrorism, and disaster relief, the military’s dedicated communication networks can only be used within limited areas and regions, raising the question of how to communicate and connect with the outside world. There are two main ways to utilize civilian communication resources: one is to utilize civilian satellite communication resources, especially small satellite communication resources; the other is to utilize civilian mobile communication and internet resources.
The core issue in the interactive utilization of military and civilian communication resources is addressing security and confidentiality. One approach is to employ firewalls and encryption, directly utilizing civilian satellite communications and global mobile communication infrastructure for command and communication; however, the risks of hacking and cyberattacks remain. Another approach is to utilize emerging technologies such as virtualization, intranets, semi-physical isolation, one-way transmission, mimicry defense, and blockchain to address these challenges.
Collaborative swarms. By simulating the behavior of bee colonies, ant colonies, flocks of birds, and schools of fish in nature, this research studies the autonomous collaborative mechanisms of swarm systems such as drones and smart munitions to accomplish combat missions such as attacking or defending against enemy targets. This can achieve strike effects that are difficult to achieve with traditional combat methods and approaches. Collaborative swarms are an inevitable trend in intelligent development and a major direction and key area of intelligent construction. No matter how advanced the combat performance or how powerful the functions of a single combat platform, it cannot form a collective or scalable advantage. Simply accumulating quantity and expanding scale, without autonomous, collaborative, and orderly intelligent elements, is just a disorganized mess.
Collaborative swarms mainly comprise three aspects: first, manned/unmanned collaborative swarms formed by the intelligent transformation of existing platforms, primarily constructed from large and medium-sized combat platforms; second, low-cost, homogeneous, single-function, and diverse combat swarms, primarily constructed from small unmanned combat platforms and munitions; and third, biomimetic swarms integrating human and machine intelligence, possessing both biological and machine intelligence, primarily constructed from highly autonomous humanoid, reptile-like, avian-like, and marine-like organisms. Utilizing collaborative swarm systems for cluster warfare, especially swarm warfare, offers numerous advantages and characteristics.
1. Scale Advantage. A large unmanned system can disperse combat forces, increasing the number of targets the enemy can attack and forcing them to expend more weapons and ammunition. The survivability of a swarm, due to its sheer number, is highly resilient and resilient; the survivability of a single platform becomes less important, while the overall advantage becomes more pronounced. The sheer scale prevents drastic fluctuations in combat effectiveness, because unlike high-value manned combat platforms and complex weapon systems such as the B-2 strategic bomber and advanced F-22 and F-35 fighter jets, the loss of a low-cost unmanned platform, once attacked or destroyed, results in a sharp decline in combat effectiveness. Swarm operations can launch simultaneous attacks, overwhelming enemy defenses. Most defensive systems have limited capabilities, able to handle only a limited number of threats at a time. Even with dense artillery defenses, a single salvo can only hit a limited number of targets, leaving some to escape. Therefore, swarm systems possess extremely strong penetration capabilities.
2. Cost Advantage. Swarm warfare, especially bee warfare, primarily utilizes small and medium-sized UAVs, unmanned platforms, and munitions. These have simple product lines, are produced in large quantities, and have consistent quality and performance requirements, facilitating low-cost mass production. While the pace of upgrades and replacements for modern weapons and combat platforms has accelerated significantly, the cost increases have also been staggering. Since World War II, weapons development and procurement prices have shown that equipment costs and prices have risen much faster than performance improvements. Main battle tanks during the Gulf War cost 40 times more than those during World War II, while combat aircraft and aircraft carriers cost as much as 500 times more. From the Gulf War to 2020, the prices of various main battle weapons and equipment increased several times, tens of times, or even hundreds of times. In comparison, small and medium-sized UAVs, unmanned platforms, and munitions with simple product lines have a clear cost advantage.
3. Autonomous Advantage. Under a unified spatiotemporal reference platform, through networked active and passive communication and intelligent perception of battlefield targets, individual platforms in the group can accurately perceive the distance, speed, and positional relationships between each other. They can also quickly identify the nature, size, priority, and distance of target threats, as well as their own distance from neighboring platforms. With pre-defined operational rules, one or more platforms can conduct simultaneous or wave-based attacks according to the priority of target threats, or they can attack in groups simultaneously or in multiple waves (see Figure 4). Furthermore, the priority order for subsequent platforms to replace a damaged platform can be clearly defined, ultimately achieving autonomous decision-making and action according to pre-agreed operational rules. This intelligent combat operation, depending on the level of human involvement and the difficulty of controlling key nodes, can be either completely autonomous, or semi-autonomous, with human intervention.
4. Decision-making advantage. The future battlefield environment is becoming increasingly complex, with combatants vying for dominance in intense strategic maneuvering and confrontation. Therefore, relying on humans to make decisions in a high-intensity confrontation environment is neither timely nor reliable. Thus, only by entrusting automated environmental adaptation, automatic target and threat identification, autonomous decision-making, and coordinated action to collaborative groups can adversaries be rapidly attacked or effective defenses implemented, thereby gaining battlefield advantage and initiative.
The coordination group brings new challenges to command and control. How to implement command and control of the cluster is a new strategic issue. Control can be implemented in a hierarchical and task-based manner, which can be roughly divided into centralized control mode, hierarchical control mode, consistent coordination mode, and spontaneous coordination mode. [1] Various forms can be adopted to achieve human control and participation. Generally speaking, the smaller the tactical unit, the more autonomous action and unmanned intervention should be adopted; at the level of organized unit operations, since the control of multiple combat groups is involved, centralized planning and hierarchical control are required, and human participation should be limited; at the higher strategic and operational levels, the cluster is only used as a platform weapon and combat style, which requires unified planning and layout, and the degree of human participation will be higher. From the perspective of mission nature, the operation and use of strategic weapons, such as nuclear counterattacks, requires human operation and is not suitable for autonomous handling by weapon systems. When conducting offensive and defensive operations against important or high-value targets, such as decapitation strikes, full human participation and control are necessary, while simultaneously leveraging the autonomous functions of the weapon systems. For offensive operations against tactical targets, if the mission requires lethal strikes and destruction, limited human participation is permissible, or, after human confirmation, the coordinated group can execute the operation automatically. When performing non-strike missions such as reconnaissance, surveillance, target identification, and clearance, or short-duration missions such as air defense and missile defense where human involvement is difficult, the coordinated group should primarily execute these tasks automatically, without human involvement. Furthermore, countermeasures for swarm operations must be carefully studied. Key research should focus on countermeasures against electronic deception, electromagnetic interference, cyberattacks, and high-power microwave weapons, electromagnetic pulse bombs, and artillery-missile systems, as their effects are relatively significant. Simultaneously, research should be conducted on countermeasures such as laser weapons and swarm-to-swarm tactics, gradually establishing a “firewall” that humans can effectively control against coordinated groups.
Virtual and physical terminals. Virtual and physical terminals mainly refer to various terminals linked to the cloud and network, including sensors with pre-embedded intelligent modules, command and control platforms, weapon platforms, support platforms, related equipment and facilities, and combat personnel. Future equipment and platforms will be cyber-physical systems (CPS) and human-computer interaction systems with diverse front-end functions, cloud-based back-end support, virtual-physical interaction, and online-offline integration. Simple environmental perception, path planning, platform maneuverability, and weapon operation will primarily rely on front-end intelligence such as bionic intelligence and machine intelligence. Complex battlefield target identification, combat mission planning, networked collaborative strikes, combat situation analysis, and advanced human-computer interaction will require information, data, and algorithm support from back-end cloud platforms and cloud-based AI. The front-end intelligence and back-end cloud intelligence of each equipment platform should be combined for unified planning and design, forming a comprehensive advantage of integrated front-end and back-end intelligence. Simultaneously, virtual soldiers, virtual staff officers, virtual commanders, and their intelligent and efficient interaction with humans are also key areas and challenges for future research and development.
Qualitative change in the form of warfare
Since modern times, human society has mainly experienced large-scale mechanized warfare and smaller-scale informationized local wars. The two world wars that occurred in the first half of the 20th century were typical examples of mechanized warfare. The Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the Afghanistan War, the Iraq War, and the Syrian War since the 1990s fully demonstrate the form and characteristics of informationized warfare. In the new century and new stage, with the rapid development and widespread application of intelligent technologies, the era of intelligent warfare, characterized by data and computing, models and algorithms, is about to arrive (see Figure 5).
Mechanization is a product of the industrial age, focusing on mechanical power and electrical technology. Its weaponry primarily manifests as tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, aircraft, and ships, corresponding to mechanized warfare. Mechanized warfare is mainly based on classical physics, represented by Newton’s laws, and large-scale socialized production. It is characterized by large-scale, linear, and contact warfare. Tactically, it typically involves on-site reconnaissance, terrain surveys, understanding the opponent’s forward and rear deployments, making decisions based on one’s own capabilities, implementing offensive or defensive maneuvers, and assigning tasks, coordinating operations, and ensuring logistical support. It exhibits clear characteristics such as hierarchical command and control and sequential temporal and spatial operations.
Information technology, a product of the information age, focuses on information technologies such as computers and network communications. Its equipment primarily manifests as radar, radios, satellites, missiles, computers, military software, command and control systems, cyber and electronic warfare systems, and integrated electronic information systems, corresponding to the form of information warfare. Information warfare is mainly based on the three laws of computers and networks (Moore’s Law, Gilder’s Law, and Metcalfe’s Law), emphasizing integrated, precise, and three-dimensional operations. It establishes a seamless and rapid information link from sensor to shooter, seizing information dominance and achieving preemptive detection and strike. Tactically, it requires detailed identification and cataloging of the battlefield and targets, highlighting the role of networked perception and command and control systems, and placing new demands on the interconnectivity and other information functions of platforms. Due to the development of global information systems and diversified network communications, information warfare blurs the lines between front and rear lines, emphasizing horizontal integration of reconnaissance, control, strike, assessment, and support, as well as the integration and flattening of strategy, campaign, and tactics.
Intelligentization is a product of the knowledge economy era. Technologically, it focuses on intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, cognitive communication, the Internet of Things, biological cross-disciplinary, hybrid enhancement, swarm intelligence, autonomous navigation and collaboration. In terms of equipment, it mainly manifests as unmanned platforms, intelligent munitions, swarm systems, intelligent sensing and database systems, adaptive mission planning and decision-making systems, combat simulation and parallel training systems, military cloud platforms and service systems, public opinion early warning and guidance systems, and intelligent wearable systems, which correspond to the form of intelligent warfare.
Intelligent warfare, primarily based on biomimetic, brain-like principles, and AI-driven battlefield ecosystems, is a new combat form characterized by “energy mobility and information interconnection,” supported by “network communication and distributed cloud,” centered on “data computing and model algorithms,” and focused on “cognitive confrontation.” It features multi-domain integration, cross-domain offense and defense, unmanned operation, cluster confrontation, and integrated interaction between virtual and physical spaces.
Intelligent warfare aims to meet the needs of nuclear and conventional deterrence, joint operations, all-domain operations, and non-war military operations. It focuses on multi-domain integrated operations encompassing cognitive, informational, physical, social, and biological domains, exhibiting characteristics such as distributed deployment, networked links, flattened structures, modular combinations, adaptive reconfiguration, parallel interaction, focused energy release, and nonlinear effects. Its winning mechanisms overturn traditions, its organizational forms undergo qualitative changes, its operational efficiency is unprecedentedly improved, and its combat power generation mechanisms are transformed. These substantial changes are mainly reflected in the following ten aspects.
The Winning Mechanism Dominated by AI. Under intelligent conditions, new combat elements represented by “AI, cloud, network, cluster, and terminal” will reshape the battlefield ecosystem, completely changing the winning mechanism of war. Among them, AI systems based on models and algorithms are the core combat capability, permeating all aspects and links, playing a multiplicative, transcendent, and proactive role. Platforms are controlled by AI, clusters are guided by AI, and systems are made by AI. The traditional human-based combat methods are being replaced by AI models and algorithms. Algorithmic warfare will play a decisive role in war, and the combat system and process will ultimately be dominated by AI. The right to intelligence will become the core control in future warfare.
Different eras and different forms of warfare result in different battlefield ecosystems, with entirely different compositions of combat elements and winning mechanisms. Mechanized warfare is platform-centric warfare, with “movement” as its core and firepower and mobility as its dominant forces, pursuing energy delivery and release through equipment. Combat elements mainly include: personnel + mechanized equipment + tactics. The winning mechanism is based on human-led decision-making in the operational use of mechanized equipment, achieving victory with superior numbers, overwhelming smaller forces, and controlling slower forces, with comprehensive, efficient, and sustainable mobilization capabilities playing decisive or important roles. Informationized warfare is network-centric warfare, with “connectivity” as its core and information power as its dominant force, pursuing energy aggregation and release through networks. Combat elements and their interrelationships mainly consist of “personnel + informationized equipment + tactics” based on network information. Information permeates personnel, equipment, and tactics, establishing seamless information connections “from sensor to shooter,” achieving system-wide and networked combat capabilities, using systems against localized forces, networks against discrete forces, and speed against slow forces, becoming a crucial mechanism for achieving victory in war. Information plays a multiplier role in equipment and combat systems, but the platform remains human-centric. Information assists in decision-making, but most decisions are still made by humans. Intelligent warfare is cognitive-centric warfare, with “computation” at its core and intelligence as the dominant force. Intelligence will carry more weight than firepower, mobility, and information power, pursuing the use of intelligence to control and dominate capabilities, using the virtual to overcome the real, and achieving victory through superiority. The side with more AI and whose AI is smarter will have greater initiative on the battlefield. The main combat elements and their interrelationships are: AI × (cloud + network + swarm + human + equipment + tactics), which can be simplified to an interconnected and integrated battlefield ecosystem composed of “AI, cloud, network, swarm, and terminal” elements. In the future, AI’s role in warfare will become increasingly significant and powerful, ultimately playing a decisive and dominant role.
Emphasizing the leading role of AI does not deny the role of humans in warfare. On the one hand, human intelligence has been pre-emptively utilized and endowed into AI; on the other hand, at the pre-war, post-war, and strategic levels, for a considerable period of time and in the foreseeable future, AI cannot replace humans.
Modern warfare is becoming increasingly complex, with combat operations moving at ever faster paces. The ability to quickly identify and process massive amounts of information, respond rapidly to battlefield situations, and formulate decisive strategies is far beyond human capability and exceeds the limits of current technology (see Tables 1 and 2). As AI becomes more widely applied and plays a more significant role in warfare, operational processes will be reshaped, and the military kill chain will be accelerated and made more efficient. Rapid perception, decision-making, action, and support will become crucial factors for victory in future intelligent warfare.
In the future, intelligent recognition and pattern recognition of images, videos, electromagnetic spectrum, and voice will enable rapid and accurate target identification from complex battlefield information gathered by air, land, and sea sensor networks. Utilizing big data technology, through multi-source, multi-dimensional directional search and intelligent correlation analysis, not only can various targets be accurately located, but also human behavior, social activities, military operations, and public opinion trends can be precisely modeled, gradually improving the accuracy of early warning and prediction. Based on precise battlefield information, each theater and battlefield can adaptively implement mission planning, autonomous decision-making, and operational process control through extensive parallel modeling and simulation training in virtual space. AI on various combat platforms and cluster systems can autonomously and collaboratively execute tasks around operational objectives according to mission planning, and proactively adjust to changes that may occur at any time. By establishing a distributed, networked, intelligent, and multi-modal support system and pre-positioned deployment, rapid and precise logistics distribution, material supply, and intelligent maintenance can be implemented. In summary, through the widespread application of intelligent technologies and the proactive and evolving capabilities of various AI systems, the entire operational process—including planning, prediction, perception, decision-making, implementation, control, and support—can be re-engineered to achieve a “simple, fast, efficient, and controllable” operational workflow. This will gradually free humanity from the burdens of arduous combat tasks. Operational workflow re-engineering will accelerate the pace, compress time, and shorten processes on the future battlefield.
The winning mechanism dominated by AI is mainly manifested in combat capabilities, methods, strategies, and measures. It fully integrates human intelligence, approaches human intelligence, surpasses human limits, leverages the advantages of machines, and embodies advancement, disruption, and innovation. This advancement and innovation is not a simple extension or increase in quantity in previous wars, but a qualitative change and leap, a higher-level characteristic. This higher-level characteristic is reflected in intelligent warfare possessing “brain-like” functions and many “capabilities that surpass human limits” that traditional warfare lacks. As AI continues to optimize and iterate, it will one day surpass ordinary soldiers, staff officers, commanders, and even elite and expert groups, becoming a “super brain” and a “super brain group.” This is the core and key of intelligent warfare, a technological revolution in the fields of epistemology and methodology, and a high-level combat capability that humanity can currently foresee, achieve, and evolve.
The role of cyberspace is rising. With the progress of the times and the development of technology, the operational space has gradually expanded from physical space to virtual space. The role and importance of virtual space in the operational system are gradually rising and becoming increasingly important, and it is increasingly deeply integrated with physical space and other fields. Virtual space is an information space based on network electromagnetics constructed by humans. It can reflect human society and the material world from multiple perspectives, and can be utilized by transcending many limitations of the objective world. It is constructed by the information domain, connected by the physical domain, reflected by the social domain, and utilized by the cognitive domain. In a narrow sense, virtual space mainly refers to the civilian Internet; in a broad sense, virtual space mainly refers to cyberspace, including various Internet of Things, military networks, and dedicated networks. Cyberspace is characterized by being easy to attack but difficult to defend, using software to fight hard, integrating peacetime and wartime, and blurring the lines between military and civilian sectors. It has become an important battlefield for conducting military operations, strategic deterrence, and cognitive confrontation.
The importance of cyberspace is mainly reflected in three aspects: First, through network information systems, it connects dispersed combat forces and elements into a whole, forming a systematic and networked combat capability, which becomes the foundation of information warfare; second, it becomes the main battlefield and basic support for cognitive confrontation such as cyberspace, intelligence, public opinion, psychology, and consciousness; and third, it establishes virtual battlefields, conducts combat experiments, realizes virtual-real interaction, and forms the core and key to parallel operations and the ability to use the virtual to defeat the real.
In the future, with the accelerated upgrading of global interconnection and the Internet of Things, and with the establishment, improvement and widespread application of systems such as space-based networked reconnaissance, communication, navigation, mobile internet, Wi-Fi, high-precision global spatiotemporal reference platforms, digital maps, and industry big data, human society and global military activities will become increasingly “transparent,” increasingly networked, perceived, analyzed, correlated, and controlled (see Figure 6). This will have a profound, all-round, and ubiquitous impact on military construction and operations. The combat system in the intelligent era will gradually expand from closed to open, and from military-led to a “source-open and ubiquitous” direction that integrates military and civilian sectors.
In the era of intelligentization, information and data from the physical, informational, cognitive, social, and biological fields will gradually flow freely. Combat elements will achieve deep interconnection and the Internet of Things. Various combat systems will evolve from basic “capability combinations” to advanced “information fusion, data linking, and integrated behavioral interaction,” possessing powerful all-domain perception, multi-domain fusion, and cross-domain combat capabilities, and the ability to effectively control important targets, sensitive groups, and critical infrastructure anytime, anywhere. A report from the U.S. Army Joint Arms Center argues that the world is entering an era of “ubiquitous global surveillance.” Even if the world cannot track all activities, the proliferation of technology will undoubtedly cause the potential sources of information to grow exponentially.
Currently, network-based software attacks have acquired the capability to cause physical damage, and cyberattacks by militarily advanced countries possess operational capabilities such as intrusion, deception, interference, and sabotage. Cyberspace has become another important battlefield for military operations and strategic deterrence. The United States has already used cyberattacks in actual combat. Ben Ali of Tunisia, Gaddafi of Libya, and Saddam Hussein of Iraq were all influenced by US cyberattacks and WikiLeaks, causing shifts in public opinion, psychological breakdowns, and social unrest, leading to the rapid collapse of their regimes and having a disruptive impact on traditional warfare. Through the Snowden revelations, a list of 49 cyber reconnaissance projects across 11 categories used by the United States was gradually exposed. Incidents such as the Stuxnet virus’s sabotage of Iranian nuclear facilities, the Gauss virus’s mass intrusion into Middle Eastern countries, and the Cuban Twitter account’s control of public opinion demonstrate that the United States possesses powerful monitoring capabilities, as well as soft and hard attack and psychological warfare capabilities over the internet, closed networks, and mobile wireless networks.
The war began with virtual space experiments. The US military began exploring combat simulation, operational experiments, and simulation training in the 1980s. Later, the US military pioneered the use of virtual reality, wargaming, and digital twin technologies in virtual battlefields and combat experiments. Analysis shows that the US military conducted combat simulations in military operations such as the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War, striving to find the optimal operational and action plans. It has been reported that before Russia intervened militarily in Syria, it conducted pre-war exercises in its war labs. Based on the experimental simulations, it formulated the “Center-2015” strategic exercise plan, practicing “mobility and accessibility in unfamiliar areas” for combat in Syria. After the exercise, Russian Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov emphasized that the primary means would be political, economic, and psychological warfare, supplemented by long-range precision air strikes and special operations, ultimately achieving political and strategic objectives. Practice shows that the process of Russia’s intervention in Syria was largely consistent with these experiments and exercises.
In the future, with the application and development of virtual simulation, mixed reality, big data, and intelligent software, a parallel military artificial system can be established, allowing physical forces in the physical space to map and iterate with virtual forces in the virtual space. This will enable rapid, high-intensity adversarial training and supercomputing that are difficult to achieve in the physical space. It can also engage in combat and games against highly realistic “blue force systems,” continuously accumulating data, building models and algorithms, and ultimately using the optimal solutions to guide the construction and combat of physical forces, achieving the goal of virtual-real interaction, using the virtual to control the real, and winning with the virtual. On January 25, 2019, DeepMind, Google’s AI team, and Blizzard Entertainment, the developer of StarCraft, announced the results of the December 2018 match between AlphaSTAR and professional players TLO and MANA. In the best-of-five series, AlphaSTAR won both matches 5-0. AlphaSTAR completed the training workload that would take human players 200 years in just two weeks, demonstrating the enormous advantages and bright prospects of simulated adversarial training in virtual space.
The combat style is dominated by unmanned operations. In the era of intelligentization, unmanned warfare will become the basic form, and the integration and development of artificial intelligence and related technologies will gradually push this form to an advanced stage. Unmanned systems represent the full pre-positioning of human intelligence in the combat system and are a concentrated manifestation of the integrated development of intelligence, informatization, and mechanization. Unmanned equipment first appeared in the field of drones. In 1917, Britain built the world’s first drone, but it was not used in actual combat. With the development of technology, drones were gradually used in target drones, reconnaissance, and reconnaissance-strike integrated operations. Since the beginning of the 21st century, unmanned technologies and equipment have achieved tremendous leaps and major breakthroughs in exploration and application due to their advantages such as mission-centric design, no need to consider crew requirements, and high cost-effectiveness. They have shown a rapid and comprehensive development trend, and their application scope has expanded rapidly, covering various fields such as air, surface, underwater, ground, and space.
In recent years, technologies such as artificial intelligence, bionic intelligence, human-machine integrated intelligence, and swarm intelligence have developed rapidly. With the help of satellite communication and navigation, and autonomous navigation, unmanned combat platforms can effectively achieve remote control, formation flight, and swarm collaboration. Currently, unmanned combat aerial vehicles, underwater unmanned platforms, and space-based unmanned autonomous robots have emerged one after another. Bipedal, quadrupedal, multi-legged, and cloud-based intelligent robots are developing rapidly and have entered the fast lane of engineering and practical application, with military applications not far off.
Overall, unmanned warfare in the era of intelligentization will enter three stages of development. The first stage is the initial stage, characterized by manned dominance and unmanned support, where “unmanned warfare under manned leadership” means that combat behavior is completely controlled and dominated by humans before, during, and after the operation. The second stage is the intermediate stage, characterized by manned support and unmanned dominance, where “unmanned warfare under limited control” means that human control is limited, auxiliary, but crucial throughout the entire combat process, and in most cases, the autonomous action capabilities of the platform can be relied upon. The third stage is the advanced stage, characterized by manned rules and unmanned action, where “unmanned warfare with manned design and minimal control” means that humans conduct overall design in advance, clarifying autonomous behavior and rules of the game under various combat environments, and the execution phase is mainly entrusted to unmanned platforms and unmanned forces for autonomous execution.
Autonomous behavior or autonomy is the essence of unmanned warfare and a common and prominent feature of intelligent warfare, manifested in many aspects.
First, the autonomy of combat platforms, mainly including the autonomous capabilities and intelligence level of unmanned aerial vehicles, ground unmanned platforms, precision-guided weapons, underwater and space robots.
Second, the detection system is autonomous, which mainly includes automatic search, tracking, association, aiming, and intelligent recognition of information such as images, voice, video, and electronic signals.
Thirdly, there is autonomous decision-making, the core of which is AI-based autonomous decision-making within the combat system. This mainly includes automatic analysis of the battlefield situation, automatic planning of combat missions, automated command and control, and intelligent human-machine interaction.
Fourthly, autonomous coordination in combat operations, which initially includes autonomous coordination between manned and unmanned systems, and later includes autonomous unmanned swarms, such as various combat formations, bee swarms, ant swarms, fish swarms, and other combat behaviors.
Fifth, autonomous network attack and defense behaviors, including automatic identification, automatic tracing, automatic protection, and autonomous counterattack against various viruses and network attacks.
Sixth, cognitive electronic warfare, which automatically identifies the power, frequency band, and direction of electronic interference, automatically hops frequencies and autonomously forms networks, and engages in active and automatic electronic interference against adversaries.
Seventh, other autonomous behaviors, including intelligent diagnosis, automatic repair, and self-protection.
In the future, with the continuous upgrading of the integration and development of artificial intelligence and related technologies, unmanned operations will rapidly develop towards autonomy, biomimicry, swarming, and distributed collaboration, gradually pushing unmanned warfare to an advanced stage and significantly reducing direct confrontation between human forces on the battlefield. Although manned platforms will continue to exist in the future, biomimetic robots, humanoid robots, swarm weapons, robot armies, and unmanned system warfare will become the norm in the intelligent era. Since unmanned systems can replace human beings in many combat domains and can accomplish tasks autonomously, unmanned combat systems will always be there to protect humans before they suffer physical attacks or injuries. Therefore, unmanned combat systems in the intelligent era are humanity’s main protective barrier, its shield and shield.
All-domain operations and cross-domain offense and defense. In the era of intelligent warfare, all-domain operations and cross-domain offense and defense are also a fundamental style of combat, manifested in many combat scenarios and aspects. From land, sea, air, and space to multiple domains including physical, information, cognitive, social, and biological domains, as well as the integration and interaction of virtual and physical elements, from peacetime strategic deterrence to wartime high-confrontation, high-dynamic, and high-response operations, the time and space span is enormous. It involves not only physical space operations and cyberspace cyber offense and defense, information warfare, public opinion guidance, and psychological warfare, but also tasks such as global security governance, regional security cooperation, counter-terrorism, and rescue, and the control of critical infrastructure such as networks, communications, power, transportation, finance, and logistics.
Since 2010, supported by advancements in information and intelligent technologies, the U.S. military has proposed concepts such as operational cloud, distributed lethality, multi-domain warfare, algorithmic warfare, mosaic warfare, and joint all-domain operations. The aim is to maintain battlefield and military superiority by using system-wide systems against localized ones, multi-functional systems against simpler ones, multi-domain systems against single-domain ones, integrated systems against discrete ones, and intelligent systems against non-intelligent ones. The U.S. military proposed the concept of multi-domain warfare in 2016 and joint all-domain operations in 2020, aiming to develop cross-service and cross-domain joint operational capabilities, ensuring that each service’s operations are supported by all three services, and possessing all-domain capabilities against multi-domain and single-domain ones.
In the future, with breakthroughs in key technologies for the cross-disciplinary integration of artificial intelligence and multidisciplinary collaboration, multi-domain integration and cross-domain offense and defense based on AI and human-machine hybrid intelligence will become a distinctive feature of intelligent warfare. This will be achieved across functional domains such as physics, information, cognition, society, and biology, as well as geographical domains such as land, sea, air, and space.
In the intelligent era, multi-domain and cross-domain operations will expand from mission planning, physical collaboration, and loose coordination to heterogeneous integration, data linking, tactical interoperability, and cross-domain offensive and defensive integration.
First, multi-domain integration. Based on different battlefields and adversaries in a multi-domain environment, different combat styles, combat procedures and missions are planned in accordance with the requirements of joint operations, and unified as much as possible. This achieves the overall planning and integration of information, firepower, defense, support and command and control, and the integration of combat capabilities at the strategic, operational and tactical levels, forming the capability of one-domain operations and multi-domain joint rapid support.
Second, cross-domain offense and defense. Supported by a unified network information system, and through a unified battlefield situation and data information exchange based on unified standards, the information links for cross-domain joint operations reconnaissance, control, strike, and assessment are completely opened up, enabling seamless integration of operational elements and capabilities at the tactical and fire control levels, as well as collaborative actions between services, cross-domain command and interoperability.
Third, the entire process is interconnected. Multi-domain integration and cross-domain offense and defense are treated as a whole, with coordinated design and interconnectedness throughout. Before the war, intelligence gathering and analysis are conducted, along with public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, propaganda warfare, and necessary cyber and electronic warfare attacks. During the war, special operations and cross-domain actions are used to carry out decapitation strikes, key point raids, and precise and controllable strikes (see Figure 7). After the war, defense against cyberattacks on information systems, elimination of negative public opinion’s impact on the public, and prevention of enemy damage to infrastructure are addressed through post-war governance, public opinion control, and the restoration of social order across multiple areas.
Fourth, AI support. Through combat experiments, simulation training, and necessary test verification and real-world testing, we continuously accumulate data, optimize models, and establish AI combat models and algorithms for different combat styles and adversaries, forming an intelligent brain system to better support joint operations, multi-domain operations, and cross-domain offense and defense.
Human-AI hybrid decision-making. The continuous improvement, optimization, upgrading, and perfection of the AI brain system in intelligent battlefields will enable it to surpass humans in many aspects. The human-dominated command, control, and decision-making model of human warfare for thousands of years will be completely transformed. Humans commanding AI, AI commanding humans, and AI commanding AI are all possible scenarios in warfare.
Distributed, networked, flattened, and parallel structures are key characteristics of intelligent combat systems. The centralized, human-centric single-decision-making model is gradually being replaced by decentralized or weakly centralized models based on AI, such as unmanned systems, autonomous swarms, and manned-unmanned collaboration. Hybrid compatibility among these models is becoming a development trend. The lower the operational level and the simpler the mission, the more prominent the role of unmanned and decentralized systems; the higher the level and the more complex the mission, the more important human decision-making and centralized systems become. Pre-war decision-making is primarily human, supplemented by AI; during war, AI is primarily AI, supplemented by human; post-war, both are used, with hybrid decision-making becoming the dominant approach (see Table 3).
In the future battlefield, combat situations will be highly complex, rapidly changing, and exceptionally intense. The convergence of various information sources will generate massive amounts of data, which cannot be processed quickly and accurately by the human brain alone. Only by achieving a collaborative operation mode of “human brain + AI,” based on technologies such as combat cloud, databases, network communication, and the Internet of Things, can “commanders” cope with the ever-changing battlefield and complete command and control tasks. With the increasing autonomy of unmanned systems and the enhancement of swarm and system-wide AI functions, autonomous decision-making is gradually emerging. Once command and control achieve different levels of intelligence, the Out-of-Loop (OODA) loop time will be significantly reduced, and efficiency will be significantly improved. In particular, pattern recognition for network sensor image processing, “optimization” algorithms for combat decision-making, and particle swarm optimization and bee swarm optimization algorithms for autonomous swarms will endow command and control systems with more advanced and comprehensive decision-making capabilities, gradually realizing a combat cycle where “humans are outside the loop.”
Nonlinear amplification and rapid convergence. Future intelligent warfare will no longer be a gradual release of energy and a linear superposition of combat effects, but rather a rapid amplification of multiple effects such as nonlinearity, emergence, self-growth, and self-focusing, and a rapid convergence of results.
Emergence primarily refers to the process by which each individual within a complex system, following local rules and continuously interacting, generates a qualitative change in the overall system through self-organization. In the future, while battlefield information will be complex and ever-changing, intelligent recognition of images, voice, and video, along with processing by military cloud systems, will enable “one-point collection, multi-user sharing.” Through big data technology, it will be rapidly linked with relevant information and integrated with various weapon fire control systems to implement distributed strikes, swarm strikes, and cyber psychological warfare. This will allow for “detection and destruction,” “aggressive attacks at the first sign of trouble,” and “numerical superiority generating psychological panic”—these phenomena constitute the emergence effect.
The emergent effects of intelligent warfare are mainly reflected in three aspects: first, the acceleration of the kill chain caused by the speed of AI decision-making chain; second, the combat effect caused by the numerical advantage of manned and unmanned collaborative systems, especially swarm systems; and third, the rapid swarm emergence behavior based on network interconnection.
As military intelligence develops to a certain stage, the combined effects of advanced AI, quantum computing, IPv6, and hypersonic technologies will result in combat systems exhibiting nonlinear, asymmetric, self-growing, rapid-response, and uncontrollable amplification and operational effects. This is particularly evident in unmanned, swarm, cyber warfare, and cognitive confrontation. The emergence of intelligence from collective ignorance, increased efficiency through sheer numbers, nonlinear amplification, and other emergent effects will become increasingly prominent. AI-driven cognitive, informational, and energy confrontations will intertwine and rapidly converge around a target, with time becoming increasingly compressed and the speed of confrontation accelerating. This will manifest as a dramatic amplification of multiple effects and a rapid convergence of outcomes. Energy shockwaves, rapid-fire combat, AI terminators, public opinion reversals, social unrest, psychological breakdowns, and the chain reaction of the Internet of Things will become prominent characteristics of intelligent warfare.
In unmanned swarm attacks, assuming roughly the same platform performance, the Lanchester equation applies: combat effectiveness is proportional to the square of the number of units; quantity advantage translates to quality advantage. Network attack and defense, and psychological and public opinion effects, follow Metcalfe’s Law, being proportional to the square of the number of interconnected users, with nonlinear and emergent effects becoming more pronounced. The quantity and intelligence of battlefield AI determine the overall level of intelligence in the combat system, impacting battlefield intelligence control and influencing the outcome of war. In the era of intelligent warfare, how to manage the interrelationships between energy, information, cognition, quantity, quality, virtuality, and physicality, and how to skillfully design, control, utilize, and evaluate nonlinear effects, are major new challenges and requirements for future warfare.
In the future, whether it is a reversal of public opinion, psychological panic, swarm attacks, mass operations, or autonomous combat by humans outside the ring, their emergence effects and strike effects will become relatively common phenomena and easy-to-implement actions, forming a capability that is compatible with deterrence and actual combat. It is also a form of warfare that human society must strictly manage and control.
An organically symbiotic relationship between humans and equipment. In the era of intelligence, the relationship between humans and weapons will undergo fundamental changes, becoming increasingly distant physically but increasingly closer in thought. The form of equipment and its development and management models will be completely transformed. Human thought and wisdom will be deeply integrated with weaponry through AI, fully integrated in the early stages of equipment development, optimized and iterated during the use and training phase, and further upgraded and improved after combat verification, in a continuous cycle of progress.
First, with the rapid development of technologies such as network communication, mobile internet, cloud computing, big data, machine learning, and bionics, and their widespread application in the military field, the structure and form of traditional weapons and equipment will be completely changed, exhibiting diverse functions such as front-end and back-end division of labor and cooperation, efficient interaction, and adaptive adjustment. They will be complex entities integrating mechanics, information, networks, data, and cognition.
Secondly, while humans and weapons are gradually becoming physically detached, they are also becoming increasingly integrated into an organic symbiotic entity in terms of mindset. The gradual maturation of drones and robots is shifting their focus from assisting humans in combat to replacing them, with humans taking a more backseat. The integration of humans and weapons will take on entirely new forms. Human thought and wisdom will participate in the entire lifecycle of design, research and development, production, training, use, and support. Unmanned combat systems will perfectly combine human creativity and intellect with the precision, speed, reliability, and fatigue resistance of machines.
Third, profound changes are taking place in equipment development and management models. Mechanized equipment becomes increasingly outdated with use, while information technology software becomes increasingly new, and intelligent algorithms become increasingly sophisticated with use. Traditional mechanized equipment is delivered to the troops using a “pre-research—development—finalization” model, resulting in a decline in combat performance over time and vehicle hours. Information technology equipment is a product of the combined development of mechanization and informatization; the platform remains the same, but the information system is constantly iterated and updated with the development of computer CPUs and storage devices, exhibiting a step-by-step development characteristic of “information-led, software-driven hardware, rapid replacement, and spiral ascent.” Intelligent equipment, based on mechanization and informatization, continuously optimizes and improves training models and algorithms with the accumulation of data and experience, showing an upward curve of becoming stronger and better with use over time and frequency. Therefore, the development, construction, use, training, and support models for intelligent equipment will undergo fundamental changes.
Evolving through learning and confrontation. Evolution will undoubtedly be a defining characteristic of future intelligent warfare and combat systems, and a commanding height in future strategic competition. Combat systems in the intelligent era will gradually acquire adaptive, self-learning, self-confrontational, self-repairing, and self-evolving capabilities, becoming an evolvable ecosystem and game-theoretic system.
The most distinctive and unique feature of intelligent combat systems lies in the combination of human-like and human-like intelligence with the advantages of machines, achieving “superhuman” combat capabilities. The core of this capability is that numerous models and algorithms improve and refine with use, possessing an evolutionary function. If future combat systems resemble the human body, with the brain as the command and control center, the nervous system as the network, and the limbs as weapons and equipment controlled by the brain, like a living organism, possessing self-adaptive, self-learning, self-defense, self-repair, and self-evolutionary capabilities, then we believe it possesses the ability and function of evolution. Because intelligent combat systems are not entirely the same as living organisms, while a single intelligent system is similar to a living organism, a multi-system combat system is more like an “ecosystem + adversarial game system,” more complex than a single living organism, and more adversarial, social, collective, and emergent.
Preliminary analysis suggests that with the development and application of technologies such as combat simulation, virtual reality, digital twins, parallel training, intelligent software, brain-inspired chips, brain-like systems, bionic systems, natural energy harvesting, and novel machine learning, future combat systems can gradually evolve from single-function, partial-system evolution to multi-functional, multi-element, multi-domain, and multi-system evolution. Each system will be able to rapidly formulate response strategies and take action based on changes in the battlefield environment, different threats, different adversaries, and its own strengths and capabilities, drawing upon accumulated experience, extensive simulated adversarial training, and models and algorithms built through reinforcement learning. These strategies will then be continuously revised, optimized, and self-improved through practical warfare. Single-mission systems will possess characteristics and functions similar to living organisms, while multi-mission systems, like species in a forest, will have a cyclical function and evolutionary mechanism of mutual restraint and survival of the fittest, possessing the ability to engage in game-theoretic confrontation and competition under complex environmental conditions, forming an evolvable ecological and game-theoretic system.
The evolution of combat systems mainly manifests in four aspects: First, the evolution of AI. With the accumulation of data and experience, it will inevitably be continuously optimized, upgraded, and improved. This is relatively easy to understand. Second, the evolution of combat platforms and cluster systems, mainly moving from manned control to semi-autonomous and autonomous control. Because it involves not only the evolution of platform and cluster control AI, but also the optimization and improvement of related mechanical and information systems, it is relatively more complex. Third, the evolution of mission systems, such as detection systems, strike systems, defense systems, and support systems. Because it involves multiple platforms and multiple missions, the factors and elements involved in the evolution are much more complex, and some may evolve quickly, while others may evolve slowly. Fourth, the evolution of the combat system itself. Because it involves all elements, multiple missions, cross-domain operations, and confrontations at various levels, its evolutionary process is extremely complex. Whether a combat system can evolve cannot rely entirely on its own growth; it requires the proactive design of certain environments and conditions, and must follow the principles of biomimicry, survival of the fittest, mutual restraint, and full-system lifecycle management to possess the function and capability for continuous evolution.
Intelligent design and manufacturing. In the era of intelligentization, the defense industry will shift from a relatively closed, physical-based, and time-consuming research and manufacturing model to an open-source, intelligent design and manufacturing model that can rapidly meet military needs.
The defense industry is a strategic industry of the nation, a powerful pillar of national security and defense construction. In peacetime, it primarily provides the military with advanced, high-quality, and reasonably priced weaponry and equipment. In wartime, it is a crucial force for operational support and a core pillar for ensuring victory. The defense industry is a high-tech intensive sector. The research and development and manufacturing of modern weaponry and equipment are technology-intensive, knowledge-intensive, systemically complex, and highly integrated. The development of weapons and equipment such as large aircraft carriers, fighter jets, ballistic missiles, satellite systems, and main battle tanks typically takes ten, twenty, or even more years before finalization and delivery to the armed forces, involving large investments, long cycles, and high costs. From the post-World War II period to the end of the last century, the defense industrial system and capability structure were products of the mechanized era and warfare. Its research, testing, manufacturing, and support were primarily geared towards the needs of the military branches and industry systems, mainly including weaponry, shipbuilding, aviation, aerospace, nuclear, and electronics industries, as well as civilian supporting and basic industries. After the Cold War, the US defense industry underwent strategic adjustments and mergers and reorganizations, generally forming a defense industrial structure and layout adapted to the requirements of informationized warfare. The top six defense contractors in the United States can provide specialized combat platforms and systems for relevant branches of the armed forces, as well as overall solutions for joint operations, making them cross-service and cross-domain system integrators. Since the beginning of the 21st century, with the changing demands of system-of-systems and information-based warfare and the development of digital, networked, and intelligent manufacturing technologies, the traditional development model and research and production capabilities of weapons and equipment have begun to gradually change, urgently requiring reshaping and adjustment in accordance with the requirements of informationized warfare, especially intelligent warfare.
In the future, the defense science and technology industry will, in accordance with the requirements of joint operations, all-domain operations, and the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligence, shift from the traditional focus on service branches and platform construction to cross-service and cross-domain system integration. It will also shift from relatively closed, self-contained, independent, fragmented, physical-based, and long-cycle research, design, and manufacturing to open-source, democratic crowdsourcing, virtual design and integration verification, adaptive manufacturing, and rapid fulfillment of military needs (see Figure 8). This will gradually form a new innovation system and intelligent manufacturing system that combines hardware and software, virtual and real interaction, intelligent human-machine-object-environment interaction, effective vertical industrial chain connection, horizontal distributed collaboration, and military-civilian integration. Joint design and demonstration by multiple military and civilian parties, joint research and development by supply and demand sides for construction and use, iterative optimization based on parallel military systems in both virtual and real environments, and improvement through combat training and real-world verification—a model of simultaneous research, testing, use, and construction—is the basic mode for the development and construction of intelligent combat systems and the generation of combat power.
Wu Mingxi 8
The risk of spiraling out of control. Since intelligent warfare systems theoretically possess the ability to self-evolve and reach “superhuman” levels, if humans do not pre-design control programs, control nodes, and a “stop button,” the result could very well be destruction and disaster. A critical concern is that numerous hackers and malicious warmongers may exploit intelligent technology to design uncontrollable warfare programs and combat methods, allowing numerous machine brains (AIs) and swarms of robots to fight adaptively and self-evolving according to pre-set combat rules, becoming invincible and relentlessly advancing, ultimately leading to an uncontrollable situation and irreparable damage. This is a major challenge facing humanity in the process of intelligent warfare and a crucial issue requiring research and resolution. This problem needs to be recognized and prioritized from the perspective of a shared future for all humanity and the sustainable development of human civilization. It requires designing rules of war, formulating international conventions, and regulating these systems technically, procedurally, ethically, and legally, implementing mandatory constraints, checks, and management.
The above ten transformations and leaps constitute the main content of the new form of intelligent warfare. Of course, the development and maturity of intelligent warfare is not a castle in the air or a tree without roots, but is built upon mechanization and informatization. Without mechanization and informatization, there is no intelligence. Mechanization, informatization, and intelligence form an organic whole, interconnected and mutually reinforcing, iteratively optimizing and leapfrog developing. Currently, mechanization is the foundation, informatization is the guiding principle, and intelligence is the direction. Looking to the future, mechanization will remain the foundation, informatization will provide support, and intelligence will be the guiding principle.
A Bright Future
In the time tunnel of the new century, we see the train of intelligent warfare speeding along. Will humanity’s greed and technological might lead us into a more brutal darkness, or will it propel us towards a more civilized and enlightened future? This is a major philosophical question that humanity needs to ponder. Intelligentization is the future, but it is not everything. Intelligentization can handle diverse military tasks, but it is not omnipotent. Faced with sharp contradictions between civilizations, religions, nations, and social classes, and with extreme events such as thugs wielding knives, suicide bombings, and mass riots, the role of intelligentization remains limited. Without resolving global political imbalances, unequal rights, unfair trade, and social contradictions, war and conflict will be inevitable. Ultimately, the world is determined by strength, and technological, economic, and military strength are extremely important. While military strength cannot determine politics, it can influence it; it cannot determine the economy, but it can bring security for economic development. The stronger the intelligent warfare capabilities, the stronger its deterrent and war-preventing function, and the greater the hope for peace. Like nuclear deterrence, it plays a crucial role in preventing large-scale wars to avoid terrible consequences and uncontrolled disasters.
The level of intelligence in warfare, in a sense, reflects the progress of civilization in warfare. The history of human warfare, initially a struggle between groups for food and habitation, has evolved into land occupation, resource plunder, expansion of political power, and domination of the spiritual world—all fraught with bloodshed, violence, and repression. As the ultimate solution to irreconcilable contradictions in human society, war’s ideal goal is civilization: subjugation without fighting, minimal resource input, minimal casualties, and minimal damage to society… However, past wars have often failed to achieve this due to political struggles, ethnic conflicts, competition for economic interests, and the brutality of technological destructive methods, frequently resulting in the utter destruction of nations, cities, and homes. Past wars have failed to achieve these ideals, but future intelligent warfare, due to technological breakthroughs, increased transparency, and deeper mutual sharing of economic benefits, especially as the confrontation of human forces gradually gives way to confrontation between robots and AI, will see decreasing casualties, material consumption, and collateral damage. This presents a significant possibility of achieving civilization, offering humanity hope. We envision future warfare gradually transitioning from the mutual slaughter of human societies and the immense destruction of the material world to wars between unmanned systems and robots. This will evolve into deterrence and checks and balances limited to combat capabilities and overall strength, AI confrontations in the virtual world, and highly realistic war games… The energy expenditure of human warfare will be limited to a certain scale of unmanned systems, simulated confrontations and experiments, or even merely the energy needed to wage a war game. Humanity will transform from the planners, designers, participants, leaders, and victims of war into rational thinkers, organizers, controllers, observers, and adjudicators. Human bodies will no longer suffer trauma, minds will no longer be frightened, wealth will no longer be destroyed, and homes will no longer be devastated. Although this beautiful ideal and aspiration may always fall short of harsh reality, we sincerely hope that this day will arrive, and arrive as soon as possible. This is the highest stage of intelligent warfare development, the author’s greatest wish, and humanity’s beautiful vision!
(Thanks to my colleague, Researcher Zhou Xumang, for his support and assistance in writing this paper. He has unique thoughts and insights into the development and construction of intelligent systems.)
Notes
[1] Robert O. Walker et al., 20YY: War in the Age of Robots, translated by Zou Hui et al., Beijing: National Defense Industry Press, 2016, p. 148.
The Era of Intelligent War Is Coming Rapidly
Wu Mingxi
Abstract: Since the entry into the new century, the rapid development of intelligent technology with artificial intelligence (AI) at the core has accelerated the process of a new round of military revolution. The competition in the military field is going rapidly to the era of intelligent power. The operational elements represented by “AI, cloud, network, group and end” and their diverse combinations constitute a new battlefield ecosystem, and the winning mechanism of war has changed completely. multiplier, transcendence and active role. The platform has AI control, the cluster has AI guidance, and the system has AI decision-making. The traditional human-based combat method is replaced by AI models and algorithms, and intelligent dominance becomes the core of future war. The stronger the intelligent combat capability, the more hopeful the soldiers may win the war without firing a shot.
Abstract: Since the entry into the new century, the rapid development of intelligent technology with artificial intelligence (AI) at the core has accelerated the process of a new round of military revolution. The competition in the military field is going rapidly to the era of intelligent power. The operational elements represented by “AI, cloud, network, group and end” and their diverse combinations constitute a new battlefield ecosystem, and the winning mechanism of war has changed completely. The AI system based on models and algorithms will be the core combat capability, running through all aspects and links and playing a multiplier, transcendence and active role. The platform has AI control, the cluster has AI guidance, and the system has AI decision-making. The traditional human-based combat method is replaced by AI models and algorithms, and intelligent dominance becomes the core of future war. The stronger the intelligent combat capability, the more hopeful the soldiers may win the war without firing a shot.
