How AI And Advanced Tech Are Reshaping The Battlefield
A string of new technologies is promising to change the very character of war and is poised to take the nature of conflicts into uncharted waters.
The world is burning. In September 2024, thousands of pagers exploded in Lebanon in public streets, grocery stores and people’s homes. The next day, walkie-talkies were blown up. At least 37 people died and 2,931 people were injured. The attacks were carried out by Israel to target Hezbollah supporters known to carry pagers and walkie-talkies for communication and planning military operations. Hezbollah, a Shia militant group and movement in Lebanon, against whom Israel has a long-standing armed conflict, has been using old-fashioned pagers and walkie-talkies to avoid interception and hacking by Israeli forces. Israel managed to embed explosives in the pagers, which then exploded in Lebanon and Syria. The dystopian attack was widely condemned, especially since it did not account for harm to civilians, and spotlighted concerns about the rise of new types of cyber warfare. Calling the strikes “a terrifying violation of international law”, a joint statement by UN human rights experts warned that the attacks could constitute war crimes of murder, attacking civilians and launching indiscriminate attacks, in addition to violating the Right to Life.
In the Gaza Strip last year, quadcopters or small drones hovering in the night sky were heard mimicking sounds of crying infants and women. As Palestinians came out into the open to check the sounds, the quadcopters, which are remote-controlled, shot at them. Deploying military technology advances with the additional twist of psychological warfare is far beyond the legal, moral or ethical frameworks that govern the rules of war.
Rise of Technology-Driven Warfare
In the Russia-Ukraine theatre of conflict, Ukraine began using facial recognition to identify Russian targets as well as dead Russian soldiers. The technology was offered to Ukraine by Clearview AI, a facial recognition company, free of cost. The detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies, drones that deceive and kill, and the use of facial recognition to fight wars sound like hellish episodes from the pages of science fiction books or sub-plots of action movies. This isn’t fiction to be consumed vicariously from a distance, but a reality that we live and breathe.
AI in Modern Warfare
Clearly, war is no longer confined to the traditional remits of land, air and sea. The weaponization of information flows and cyberspace, and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) are changing how wars are being conceived and implemented. We are already seeing the rise of technology-driven surveillance, cyber hacking and implanting of spyware, most infamously Israeli-origin Pegasus, on phones. Wars have always provided new testing grounds for militaries to experiment with new technologies. This holds true for AI too, which is being tested out in new theatres of conflict. While AI can be used to minimize harm to civilian populations, the reverse is equally true—it can cause larger-scale devastation much more efficiently.
AI and Drone Warfare
Nowhere was this more evident than in Gaza, where Israel deployed AI-enabled drones and technology to multiply and widen the scale of damage. A joint investigation by +972 magazine and Local Call showed that the Israeli army developed and used a new AI-based program, ‘Lavender’, in the Israel-Hamas war. Lavender played a “central role” in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war with the military relying on its outputs as if it were a human decision. This is not the first time that Israel has used AI in its war on Palestine. After the 11-day war in Gaza in May 2021, officials boasted that Israel had fought its “first AI war” using machine learning. In parallel, AI is being deployed in the Russia-Ukraine war theatre too, with Ukraine building AI-enabled war-drones.
Autonomous Weapons and Nuclear Technology
The use of autonomous weapons, where critical functions of weapon systems are automated, throws up entirely new dimensions to conflict. The war between Russia and Ukraine saw their armies use tanks, bombs, missiles and conventional artillery, but also the use of drones. Advances in nuclear reactors, such as the micro-reactors being built by Oklo, clubbed with the application of AI increases the chances for proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Biological and Chemical Warfare
The use of bioweapons, not new by any means, presents an entire gamut of ethical and moral concerns. Biological weapons disseminate disease-causing organisms or toxins to harm or kill humans, animals or plants. They can be deadly and highly contagious. Diseases caused by such weapons may not be confined to national borders and could spread rapidly.
A giant military industrial complex where arms companies profit from wars through government contracts, a United Nations held hostage by the veto power of a narrow clique of countries, and the unchecked rise of technology for destructive purposes are taking conflict into deadly, uncharted waters.
