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Can Artificial Intelligence shape the way we conduct war in the future?

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Photo by Hitesh Choudhary on Unsplash

The country that leads in artificial intelligence (AI) development ‘will be the ruler of the world’. Those are the words of Vladimir Putin. His government was indirectly involved in the recent conventional war in 2020 between Armenian and Azeri forces to control the Nagorno-Karabakh region. During this conflict, we have seen the use of drones in an unprecedented way. In addition to weaponized drones, swarm tactics are disrupting conventional warfare, and we are seeing new developments of drones being integrated with fifth and sixth-generation fighter aircraft. The common denominator between all those recent technological developments is the emergence and implementation of artificial intelligence technologies, shaping the way wars will be conducted in the future.

Artificial intelligence, or more precisely machine learning, can provide a tactical advantage on the battlefield. As demonstrated by the recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, weaponized drones can offer a significant advantage. Azerbaijan, supported by the Turkish military, massively deployed a fleet of Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with increasingly autonomous and surveillance capabilities. The deployment of those drones, such as the Turkish TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), had a substantial disruptive impact on the battlefield as the Azeri forces were able to destroy 47% of the Armenian combat vehicles and 93% of its artillery. This is a significant breakthrough in conventional warfare as low-cost drones can offer robust air power while disrupting the enemy’s air defence systems in a successful manner. The implications for the future of warfare are ‘game-changing’, according to U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace.

As an extension of weaponized UAVs, drone swarms have the potential to disrupt conventional warfare as well. An AI-powered fully autonomous drone swarm would combine mass, firepower, and speed, which could overwhelm the enemy’s defensive systems through coordinated and synchronized attacks. The potential use of swarm tactics has generated some anxiety among top western defence officials. General John M. Murray, head of the United States Army Futures Command (AFC), has expressed his concern that humans may not adequately be able to address the challenges posed by emerging drone swarm threats. General Murray posits that, ultimately, an AI engine would better be equipped than a human to counter swarm attacks as a human would not be able to keep up.

Furthermore, AI-enabled unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) swarm systems are also being tested to track and potentially damage submarines, forcing them to lose their stealth characteristics vital for their survival and strategic nuclear deterrence. In addition, Chinese UUV swarms could potentially take out an entire aircraft carrier group in the near future, as argued by Franz-Stefan Gady in a hypothetical scenario published in the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ 2021 Regional Security Assessment.

Machine learning could also revolutionize warfare by integrating military manned and unmanned systems. The most common example of this application is from the Loyal Wingman project, such as the Kratos XQ-58A. Dubbed as Skyborg, the U.S. Air Force is working on an AI application that will allow the autonomous operation of drones. In line with the 2018 United States Air Force (USAF) Artificial Intelligence Strategy, the Skyborg program aims to integrate this system into various unmanned platforms. The program will allow them to operate alongside fourth and fifth-generation fighter aircraft like the Boeing F-15EX or the Lockheed Martin F-35, and to enable them to take on missions too risky for human pilots. The immediate benefit of an AI-enabled system is the increase in speed of decision-making, to improve aerial combat maneuvers and weapons employment by creating a virtual ‘co-pilot.’ The program received a positive boost with the first successful flight in April 2021, moving the USAF one step closer to fielding an uncrewed ‘loyal wingman’ for human pilots.

The U.S. is not the only country working on such an AI-enabled system to enhance its air force capabilities: the Okhotnik-B, the Russian equivalent of wingman, is an upcoming sixth-generation heavy stealth drone that will fly alongside the fifth-generation fighter Su-57. Fully autonomous, the Okhotnik-B would be able to track multiple targets while flying alongside the Su-57.

However, not all those new technological developments are widely adopted yet. Within NATO, there is a reluctance to deploy such AI systems due to a lack of trust. Giving complete control of a weapon system to an AI-enabled machine raises several moral and ethical questions with tremendous political ramifications within NATO countries like France and Germany. For now, the future of AI-enabled systems in NATO countries is likely to be confined to improve logistic systems and perform predictive maintenance operations.

Countries with less ethical constraints are currently increasing their capability in AI driven UAV systems. Lagging in terms of capability in that domain, NATO countries may find themselves at a disadvantage against traditional and emerging threats such as Russia and China. NATO needs to assess what those technological advancements in Artificial Intelligence mean for warfare and develop a realistic and strategic approach to incorporate them into existing military systems.

The data explosion and the emergence of new AI-powered systems are likely to change how wars are conducted in the 21st century, as illustrated by the Nagorno war and recent technological developments.

Arm the Coast Guard with More Drones in the Caribbean

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A crewmember from the US Coast Guard Cutter Stratton launches a Scan Eagle UAS during testing. Source: Defense Visual Information Distribution Service

This article is a part of our 2021 Series on Caribbean Maritime Security. Read the Series Introduction at this link.

In February, a P-3 ‘Orion’ maritime surveillance aircraft identified and tracked a suspicious vessel suspected of trafficking cocaine and vectored in a US Coast Guard cutter to make the interdiction. The Coast Guard seized the vessel and found more than 3,300 pounds of cocaine aboard. US Customs and Border Protection, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, operates P-3s and other aircraft from Naval Air Stations in Corpus Christi, Texas and Jacksonville, Florida. From these bases they help provide domain awareness over the maritime approaches to the United States in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific. Operations, like the one in February, are often lauded as interagency triumphs – with multiple agencies working together to secure America’s borders. However, they also highlight the lack of maritime surveillance assets within the US Coast Guard itself, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the Caribbean where the Coast Guard is forced to rely on interagency cooperation for aerial maritime surveillance. The Coast Guard urgently needs to invest in its own family of unmanned systems that can provide it with the maritime domain awareness that it relies on other agencies for.

The US Coast Guard is responsible for law enforcement and policing in the territorial waters and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the United States, this encompasses eleven specific missions. The Coast Guard also routinely deploys forces globally in support of the Department of Defense and other national priorities like ‘freedom of navigation’ exercises, including to the Strait of Taiwan or its long-standing patrol force in the Persian Gulf. But within the Western Hemisphere alone, the Coast Guard is responsible for policing over 4.2 million square miles of water and nearly a hundred-thousand miles of coastline. In this vast expanse, by far the most vulnerable points are the Caribbean and East Pacific approaches to the United States. The US government’s Drug Enforcement Agency estimates that as much as 80% of the cocaine leaving the Andean region in South America travels by maritime means, with approximately 90% of it eventually landing in Central America before crossing over the US-Mexico border on its way to US consumers. Illicit narcotics, however, are not the only issue the Coast Guard needs to address, US partners in the region are increasingly concerned about illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing. This has lead the Coast Guard to deploy cutters to support operations across Latin America from Ecuador to Argentina, to deal with the threat. Of all the regions where it operates, the Coast Guard is perhaps most important in the Caribbean where it works with dozens of smaller partners to address trans-national issues like narcotics trafficking, providing the maritime capacity that oftentimes smaller nations lack.

US Law enforcement agencies have long identified the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, often referred to as the “transit zone,” as ideal for interdicting illegal shipments, whether the cargo is drugs, weapons or trafficked humans. Maritime narcotics shipments are almost always made in bulk, and the further they travel from their point of origin, the more valuable they become, making seizure in the transit zone much more costly to traffickers than seizures in South America. Additionally, ocean interception represents a low-risk area for interdiction – that is to say that once assets are detailed for interdiction traffickers are not likely to resist capture. But before shipments can be interdicted in the transit zone they need to be found – and searching for go-fast boats and semi-submersibles with surface vessels is nearly impossible, primarily because the vessels are difficult to see. Radars mounted on law enforcement vessels are limited to the horizon by the curvature of the earth. Also critical is loiter time – manned platforms are limited by fuel constraints and eventually by the limits of human endurance. If you want to monitor large areas of the ocean you need to be up in the sky or using a fleet of networked sensors.

Analysts often lament how poorly resourced the US Coast Guard is compared to the other military services. Though considered an ‘armed service’ the Coast Guard is not part of the military, instead, since reforms following 9/11 it has resided in the Department of Homeland Security. It has just over 40,000 active-duty guardsman and a fleet of cutters and aircraft. In part because of this small size the Coast Guard relies on surveillance and detection from other agencies like Customs and Border Protection (CBP) aircraft, a barrage of high-altitude balloons or US military assets including high-end weapon systems like B-1 ‘Lancer’ bombers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. While certainly effective, these platforms were designed to fight the Soviet Union and are far more expensive than what is required to track smugglers, the B-1 costs over $60,000 an hour to operate and the destroyers cost nearly a billion dollars per vessel. CBP operates a fleet of maritime patrol aircraft and large unmanned platforms that are much more cost effective. However, these assets are all based in the continental United States and the Coast Guard operates globally. The Coast Guard needs in-house assets that are effective at maritime surveillance and detection, and that can operate wherever the Coast Guard is deployed.

Thankfully, putting unmanned aerial assets on every medium and large cutter is a goal of the current Commandant, Admiral Karl Schultz, and investing in unmanned systems is a part of the service’s strategic plan. Such a move will significantly improve the maritime domain awareness of Coast Guard units at sea and help mitigate their dependence on assets and support loaned from the military and other agencies. But the current Coast Guard program for ship-based UAS is contractor owned and operated while the Coast Guard looks for a permanent solution and experimentation is ongoing. Two new types of UAS look particularly promising for the Coast Guard – vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAS, and unmanned surface vessels (USVs). Both of these technologies were successfully demonstrated last year, VTOL UAS was operated from a cutter during a deployment as were two different unmanned surface vessels, each with a mission endurance as long as 30 days.

Ultimately, what is needed is a family of systems that can provide the Coast Guard with an organic and layered maritime surveillance network. Realizing this for the Coast Guard will free up CBP and military assets for other missions more in line with their respective institutional priorities and further empower the Coast Guard. These platforms are desperately needed in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific where the Coast Guard is the lead agency in intercepting illicit narcotics traffickers but also in the fighting against IUU fishing and maritime crime. In setting acquisition priorities for the Coast Guard it would be wise to remember Roger Barnett’s assertion in his book Navy Strategic Culture that “…the most difficult problem in naval warfare is finding the adversary.” Investments in unmanned systems will help support Coast Guard missions not just in counter narcotics but across their 11 statutory missions around the globe, it all starts with domain awareness.

Turkey and Drone Warfare: A Winning Combination for Azerbaijan?

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by Hannah Papachristidis

Death from above: the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB-2 drone going global? (Image credit: DHA via AP)

Azerbaijan’s victory in the recently concluded war with Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh can be defined by the former’s extensive military capabilities and its close relationship with Turkey. In particular, the use of Turkish-supplied drones to secure aerial dominance distinctly shaped the conflict in Azerbaijan’s favour. With fighting intensifying in late October and early November, it was feared the conflict would extend into the winter, risking significant humanitarian issues. On the evening of 9 November, however, the conflict abruptly ended with the signing of a peace deal, brokered by Russia. The deal cemented Azerbaijan’s territorial gains and, whilst not including Turkey as a co-signatory, provides significant benefits to it, as Azerbaijan’s critical ally.

The dispute surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, where ninety-five per cent of the population is ethnically Armenian, can be traced to the Armenian Genocide in 1914 and the independent Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) region within Azerbaijan that the Soviet Union created in response to the genocide. As the Soviet Union dissolved, the NKAO sought to formally join Armenia and, in 1991, the region declared independence from Azerbaijan. This led to war between Armenia and Azerbaijan and similarly ended with a Russia-brokered cease-fire in 1994. Under this deal, Nagorno-Karabakh and other surrounding regions fell under Armenian control. The cease-fire was designed to be temporary and Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan however, this status quo has remained in place for 26 years, that is until the events of this year.

Russia’s historic support for Armenia on the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh has meant the two countries have remained closely allied since 1994, albeit with Armenia becoming increasingly reliant on its ally - Russia maintains a military base in Armenia and the two countries are part of a multilateral defence agreement. Azerbaijan, on the other hand, sought to balance both Western and Russian influences in the period after 1994 and, only more recently, has the country taken steps to become closer to Moscow. It is not, for example, a party to the same treaty as Armenia. In recent years, however, Baku has come to see Russia as the key player in efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In a signal towards improved relations, Baku has made significant investments in Russian weapons in recent years. In terms of the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, however, Azerbaijan has relied on remaining close to its Turkish ally, with whom it shares ethnic, cultural and historical ties.

For Armenia and Azerbaijan, military capabilities are a significant part of national identity. Over the last ten years, both countries have committed a similar proportion of GDP on military expenditure and, as of 2019, both countries rank in the top 10 most militarised countries in the world. Whilst Russia has extensively supplied weapons to both countries since the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994, there is a clear asymmetry between the two foes. The value of exports from Russia to Azerbaijan in the period 2009-2019 is over 4.5 times greater than Russian exports to Armenia.

Armenia lacks the cash of its oil-rich adversary in Baku and, therefore, has relied almost entirely on Russia for its arms, provided primarily through Russian credit. Azerbaijan, however, has invested both more significantly in Russian weapons, as well as in other suppliers. When the fighting started in September, therefore, Azerbaijan was far better equipped for war than its adversary.

In Azerbaijan’s efforts to diversify its arms procurement, it has looked to the arms industries of key allies, Turkey and Israel, and it is these weapons which ensured Azerbaijan’s military strength over Armenia. In the year leading up to the outbreak of fighting, exports from Turkey rose six-fold, with sales reaching $77 million in September alone and included drones and rocket launchers. Azerbaijan was also the second-highest receiver of Israeli major conventional weapons between 2015-2019, with Israel providing sixty-one per cent of arms to Baku in the last year.

Of these exports, the weapons which shaped the conflict were, without a doubt, drones and loitering munitions systems. Turkey is a growing drone power, and reports in July suggested Azerbaijan acquired a fleet of Turkish-made armed drones, including the Bayraktar TB2. In addition to these, Israel, also a major drone exporter, has supplied Azerbaijan with the SkyStriker and IAI Harop. These loitering munitions systems, known as ‘suicide drones’ are silent aerial vehicles, capable of long-range, precise strikes, which are built to crash and explode on impact. The Harop was used extensively by Azerbaijan alongside the Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles. According to RUSI, the two systems destroyed more than half of Armenian T72 main battle tanks since the fighting began in September.

In response to the use of Turkish drones in the conflict, Canada suspended exports of drone parts to Turkey after reports by Project Ploughshares showed that Turkish drones were using sensor technology produced by a Canadian subsidiary of the US defence contractor L3Harris. Whilst this move angered Ankara, it did not appear to dissuade Azerbaijan from using Turkish-made drones in their campaign.

As the conflict swung in Azerbaijan’s favour, the violence escalated. In early October, Human Rights Watch documented the repeated use of internationally banned cluster munitions (such as the Israeli-made M095 DPCIM) by Azerbaijan in residential areas of Nagorno-Karabakh. On 28 October, Armenia fired retaliatory Smerch rockets, containing 9N235 submunitions into the city of Barda, Azerbaijan. The use of such explosives to indiscriminately target civilian populations not only goes against the UN treaty on cluster munitions but also violates international humanitarian law. Unconfirmed reports in both Armenian and Azeri media made claims that white phosphorus munitions, another internationally banned substance, had been fired by both sides.

Azerbaijan’s upper hand was secured by the taking of Shusha, the second-largest city in Nagorno-Karabakh. Significant emphasis has been placed on the city, as it gives strategic dominance over the enclave, as well as being of great cultural importance. On the same day, Aliyev received the Turkish Foreign Minister and the National Defence Minister, further signs of the countries’ intimate relationship. There is little doubt that Azerbaijan’s battlefield gains had been guaranteed through Turkish support and weaponry.

Despite its bellicose calls throughout the fighting, it seems like that Turkey will have encouraged Azerbaijan to accept the deal, in part to maintain Turkey’s relationship with Russia. Turkey has complicated relations with Russia given that they support opposing sides in Syria, Yemen and Libya however, they appear to have worked together to bring Armenia and Azerbaijan to the table. For Turkey, the deal promises a corridor across Armenia via Nakhchivan and Azerbaijan to the Caspian Sea, linking Turkey to Central Asia and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a suggestion of Erodgan’s desires to spread his influence deeper into the South Caucasus.

The various involvements of Russia and Turkey in encouraging, fuelling, and ending the conflict reflect the nuances of geopolitical relations in a highly-militarised and volatile region. That the peace deal was drawn-up by Russia, with significant advantages for Turkey, suggests the diminishing influence of the OSCE Minsk Group and the US in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute and the extension of Russia and Turkey throughout the region. Whether the Russian-brokered peace will last, however, seems uncertain. The deal consists only of nine points, with no specific details on humanitarian support nor the status of Nagorno-Karabakh itself. The Armenians remain angry and it seems likely that Prime Minister Pashinyan will not survive the crisis. Regardless of what happens next, Russia and Turkey have now embedded themselves closely in the dispute.

The conflict, moreover, succeeded in showcasing the power of cheap but efficient drones in challenging traditional ground forces. Azerbaijan’s use of these weapons provided clear evidence of how future battlefields will be transformed by unmanned attack drones and loitering munitions.

Hannah Papachristidis is a project officer at Transparency International Defence & Security, where she manages research outputs for the 2020 Government Defence Integrity Index. Hannah holds an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University and is an Emerging Expert at Forum on the Arms Trade.

 

 

The buck passing stops here on European norms for drones

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By Delina Goxho

The nEUROn, an experimental drone currently developed under an international cooperation, led by the French company Dassault Aviation, and involving France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. (Credit Image: Dassault Aviation)

 

The most recent Trump administration changes to the policies regulating drone strikes are still secret, but what we do know sets a dangerous precedent on the use of armed drones and the use of force broadly, with strong implications to the USA as well as Europe. . The current U.S. policy reportedly removes the condition of immediacy of the targeted threat, among other things, challenging the limits of international standards regulating the use of force[1]. Most European states are not willing to regulate their acquisition and the use of armed drones in ways that would preserve compliance with both international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL), blaming lack of consensus internationally and at home. Indeed, the UK has so far admitted one civilian casualty in an air campaign (through both conventional and drones strikes) in Syria that started four years ago and has no end in sight[2]. France is currently acquiring armed drones to be deployed in the G5 Sahel countries, but has no safeguards[3] in place to prevent the use of such weapons contravening international law. In addition, Italy, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands are all aiding the US drone war in the Middle East and Africa both with intelligence and infrastructure.

European states should challenge the US precedent of drone use and establish norms that are accountable, transparent and legal. This article will first clarify why armed drones can be considered to be a controversial weapon, it will then outline what is currently unfolding at the EU level in terms of defence budget and it will delve into the buck passing game that is occurring at the UN, EU and Member state levels and finally recommend that the EU finds a Common Position on the use of armed drones that is respectful of international norms.

A controversial tool

Despite allowing for potentially more precise strikes, presenting a strategic advantage and minimising risk to troops’ lives, armed drones are particularly controversial because they facilitate escalation of a conflict: by making war a less costly resort, armed drones are a powerful means for states to intervene where they would not have the political support, resources on the ground or a legal mandate to do so[4]. The proliferation of armed drones within and outside Europe, including their use to execute targeted killings and complicity in US strikes, as recently pointed out in Amnesty International report[5], presents a challenge to the international legal order. Drones are not only used in battlefield theatres, where IHL applies, but also outside of areas of armed conflict, where IHRL applies, which implies that strikes are paramount to extrajudicial executions[6][7]. In addition, from a more counterterrorism perspective, there has not been enough debate on whether drones may be “creating more terrorists than we’re killing”, as former Defence Secretary Rumsfeld famously put it[8]. Discussions around a Common European Position[9] regarding the acquisition and use of armed drones are of vital importance[10], especially after reports of targeted killings as a counter-terrorism technique[11] have become the norm. New European Union spending in the field of defence risks exacerbating these worrisome developments.

 

New European defence budget and Multilateral buck-passing

On 13 June 2018, the European Commission released its proposals for the Security and Defence heading under the next EU long-term budget. The new “militarised” EU Multi Annual Financial Framework foresees an increase of the Defence Fund by 2200%.[12] Additionally, the EU will allow companies developing the so-called ‘lethal autonomous weapons’ to apply for EU funding. The European Parliament had originally wanted to bar controversial new weapons, such as weapons of mass destruction (WMD), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones), cluster munitions, anti-personnel landmines and fully autonomous weapons from receiving EU subsidies, but without success. The proposed regulation simply stated that projects would not be eligible for funding if their end product was “prohibited by international law”. This is a matter of controversy becuase the UAV platform itself would not be prohibited, but its uses outside international law would be. In exchange, the Council of Ministers of the EU offered the European Parliament a formal rationale for the norm, in which “the eligibility of actions … should also be subject to developments in international law”[13]. In other words, controversial weapons could be banned from the European Defence Industrial Development Programme once agreement is found at the international level.

This presents two issues: first, that armed drones, despite their negative impacts on the battlefield, are not even mentioned in the document and secondly that State representatives at various UN fora are only willing to reach an agreement if there is the political desire to do so within their respective governments. The same happens within the EU, where state representatives are not willing to make decisions if there is no lead from their political leaders. European member states on the other hand play rebound, and suggest that consensus should be reached multilaterally before they can come to an agreement internally. This buck passing game is slowing down the decision making process, while drone technology rapidly improves and drones are used by more and more states and non-state armed groups globally, in ways that are often unlawful, as recently explained in a PAX report on new drone producers and users[14].

 

Trump’s Shadow War

All this buck-passing is operated against the backdrop of the new US Principles, Standards and Procedures (PSP), which further loosens policies around the use of armed drones in the US[15]. Fears that Trump would tear up Obama-era regulations governing the use of direct military action were justified[16]: Trump removed the condition that a terrorist target has to pose an imminent threat to U.S. persons to be individually targeted, which lowered the ‘threat standard’[17] applied to people the United States can kill. The Trump administration is yet to provide information on the new threshold for action and whether this threshold is uniform. Additionally, proposed drone strikes and counterterrorism raids no longer undergo the same vetting they did under Obama. Instead, Trump will permit the delegation of decision-making to lower levels of seniority before conducting a strike[18].

 

Towards a European Common position?

Against this backdrop in the US, more UAV investment at the EU level is especially problematic: if the US modus operandi has been the most common policy for the use of armed drones in the West, why should the EU behave differently? It is thoroughly understandable that the EU would want to prioritise European industries and move away from US dependency as far as its own defence is concerned, given the security challenges within the Union and US disengagement. ‘With this agreement, we are building the EU’s strategic autonomy and boosting the competitiveness of the EU defence industry’ said industry Commissioner Bienkowska[19]. This however must be done without sacrificing what the Union is founded upon, i.e. a shared understanding of human rights principles. According to Catalan Research Institute Centre Delas, by 2027, the EU will have spent more on military research than on humanitarian aid[20]. If we look at US policy regarding the use of military drones, it is of vital importance to ask EU member states not to follow that path blindly but instead to distance themselves from a policy which is unlawful - as far as IHRL and IHL principles are concerned - and which sets a dangerous precedent.

 

A similar issue can be identified with regard to European arms exports: different Member states apply different principles when exporting weapons to third countries who violate international law, making the European Common Position on arms exports disharmonic. As stated in the Call to Action of the European Forum on Armed Drones (EFAD)[21] European states should articulate clear policies, prevent complicity, ensure transparency, establish accountability and finally control proliferation.

On armed drones Europe has only achieved a Parliamentary Resolution and does not have a Common Position yet. The EU was built on a set of values that would end up becoming empty words if Europe does not put in place safeguards and choose rules of engagement on the battlefield different from those of its transatlantic ally.

 

Delina is the consultant on armed drones and targeted killing at the Open Society Foundations office in Brussels. Prior to this, Delina worked for the European External Action Service in the Task Force Iran, focusing on Security and Humanitarian issues, the Defence and Security and the Economic and Social Committees at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, focusing on the Syrian civil conflict and CT operations against Daesh and the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, doing research on the humanitarian intervention in Libya.

Delina holds a B.A. in French and English literature from the University of Verona and the University of Cambridge and an M.A. in International Security from the University of Bologna and the University of California, Berkeley. She speaks English, French, Italian, Albanian and is currently learning Arabic.

Notes:

[1]https://www.stimson.org/sites/default/files/file-attachments/Stimson%20Action%20Plan%20on%20US%20Drone%20Policy.pdf

[2] http://appgdrones.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/INH_PG_Drones_AllInOne_v25.pdf

[3] The French government refuse to confirm or put policies in place to clarify that they will not be adopting practices/legal interpretations deployed in the use of drones that have been legally controversial and caused considerable civilian harm.

[4] Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, The New Press, New York, 2015 [“drones project power without projecting vulnerability”]

[5] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/04/european-assistance-to-deadly-us-drone-strikes/

[6] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/ArmedDrones.aspx

[7] https://www.thenation.com/article/how-the-us-military-came-to-embrace-extrajudicial-killings/

[8] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/killing-more-innocents-we-admit-23266

[9] Document can be found here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2017/578032/EXPO_STU(2017)578032_EN.pdf

[10] The European Forum on Armed Drones (EFAD) represents an interesting tool to monitor and challenge current practices around the use of armed drones: https://www.efadrones.org

[11]Bruno Oliveira Martins, Global Affairs: The European Union and armed drones: framing the debate, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23340460.2015.1080930?scroll=top&needAccess=true

[12] The fund has two strands: Research (€90 million until the end of 2019 and €500 million per year after 2020) and Development & Acquisition (€500 million in total for 2019-20 then €1 billion per year after 2020); EU Observer https://euobserver.com/science/141885

[13] https://euobserver.com/science/141885

[14] https://www.paxforpeace.nl/stay-informed/news/global-military-drone-industry-expands-rapidly

[15] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/us/politics/trump-drone-strikes-commando-raids-rules.html

[16] A group of NGOs (Center for Civilians in Conflict, Airwars, Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Amnesty International, American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, Center for Constitutional Rights, Reprieve amongst others) have warned against the increased use of strikes and the loosening up of norms: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/trump-deadly-drone-policy-ngos-180307204617166.html

[17] https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/03/07/ngo-statement-reported-changes-us-policy-use-armed-drones-and-other-lethal-force

[18] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/us/politics/trump-drone-strikes-commando-raids-rules.html

[19] http://europa.eu/rapid/midday-express-23-05-2018.htm

[20] http://www.centredelas.org/en/press/news/3641-the-european-defence-fund-will-merely-benefit-the-industry-and-trigger-arms-race-in-autonomous-weapons-says-enaat

[21] EFAD is a civil society network of organisations working to promote human rights, respect for the rule of law, disarmament and conflict prevention https://www.efadrones.org/call-to-action/

 

Image Source: https://euobserver.com/news/115283

Strife Series on United Nations Peacekeeping, Part V – The Future of UN Peacekeeping Operations

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By Felix Manig

UN Unmanned/Unarmed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is prepared for take-off (Credit Image: UN Dispatch)

The nature of conflict is changing and so must UN peace operations if they are to remain an indispensable and effective tool in promoting international peace and security. What then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon stated in 2014 echoes even louder today, given the ever more politically complex and high-risk environments UN peacekeepers operate in. While there is no one-size-fits-all peace operation, adopting a number of priorities can help all UN missions to move toward necessary reform. The future peacekeeping architecture should build on strategic and regional partnerships, strengthen conflict prevention capacities and harness emerging technologies to effectively sustain peace in the twenty-first century.

Strategic and Regional Partnerships

A key challenge for UN Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKOs) is to compel states with more advanced military capabilities and technical expertise to contribute more meaningfully to missions in the future. Perhaps the most promising path for this lies in building on the strategic partnership with the European Union (EU), which vowed to cooperate more closely with the UN on peacekeeping and crisis management. The EU is uniquely qualified to aid the UN in capacity building for the maintenance of international peace and security, especially in complex operations for which regular troop contributing countries are ill-equipped. In fact, EU member states collectively represent the largest financial contributor to UNPKOs and UN peace operations also address key EU foreign and security policy priorities in counterterrorism, the rule of law and promoting the role of women in peace and security. The initial results of increased policy coherence, joint training exercises and EU engagement in support of UN peacekeeping over the last years appear promising. In Mali, EU military and civilian support helped MINUSMA to strengthen local internal security forces. In the Central African Republic, the EU’s EUFOR RCA operation set the foundation for the later UN-led MINUSCA mission.

In Africa, where the UN currently conducts the majority of its peacekeeping missions, building on partnerships means strengthening collaboration with the African Union (AU) and other regional and sub-regional organisations such as ECOWAS or IGAD. While the UN already cooperates with the AU in conflict prevention, mediation and peacekeeping, simultaneous or complementary deployments by the UN and AU will likely feature more prominently in the future. These hybrid mandates can add important political capital to operations and prove valuable during peace negotiations, such as in the Central African Republic, where local and regional knowledge may be indispensable.

Strengthen Conflict Prevention

In his vision statement, Secretary-General António Guterres stressed his commitment to a “culture of prevention” to bring about peace, political solutions and sustainable development to crisis hotspots. One major strategy to promote stability and prevent conflict is to include more women in UN peacekeeping, both as security sector officials within operations and in critical decision-making bodies for conflict resolution. Passing UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security was a historic and important step. However, the UN must act more decisively to build up women’s participation and turn the resolution’s pledges into a reality. Given that it is the responsibility of UN member states to commit peacekeeping personnel, the organisation should feature its gender mainstreaming strategy more prominently and boost the reach and responsibility of its Gender Advisers to encourage troop contributing countries to increase the share of female staff. Strong evidence shows that women’s participation in peace and security processes improves the safety of peacekeepers, leads to more successful radicalisation prevention programmes, and improves the economic recovery in conflict-affected regions. Perhaps most importantly, peace agreements in which women participated meaningfully are 35% more likely to last at least 15 years than agreements which were concluded by male-only signatories.

Harnessing Emerging Technologies

The reform agenda introduced by the Secretary-General equally calls for scaling up the technological capabilities of UNPKOs to make peacekeepers more flexible and mobile. In 2015, an independent Expert Panel on Technology and Innovation found that many UN field operations were lacking the technological tools considered necessary by militaries and law enforcement agencies to operate effectively. The report also drew a direct connection between these deficiencies and the reluctance of developed countries to meaningfully contribute troops to existing operations.

An improved understanding of operating environments as well as the presence or intent of adversaries are key components for risk reduction in conflict. Harnessing emerging technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is one way to move into this direction. Unarmed UAVs were first used by the UN MONUSCO operation in December 2013, helping peacekeepers to improve their situational awareness, monitor migration movements and track armed groups in the mountainous terrain of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Since then, camera and sensor-equipped UAVs have become increasingly common in other UNPKOs, including in Mali and the Central African Republic, and their use should be expanded to other operations as needed.

The UN should also push for more intelligence gathering and monitoring tools within UNPKOs of the future. From satellite reconnaissance to ground surveillance radars and acoustic or seismic sensors, the cost of such once exclusive technologies has now fallen so dramatically that even the small peacekeeping budget allows investment in them. The collection and analysis of data about movements, crime and conflict can then produce intelligence which in turn can be used to shorten warning and response times for peacekeepers on the ground. Systematic and data-driven monitoring and mapping of crises can also promote patterns and models to make the prevention of human rights abuses or cease-fire violations more efficient and cost-effective.

 

Looking Forward

A meaningful implementation of the above recommendations depends, as always, on the necessary funding and political will of UN member states. Threats by the US administration to cut its share of the already meagre $6.8 billion peacekeeping budget, which is less than half of one per cent of world military expenditures, sends a troubling sign to multilateral efforts at maintaining peace and security. For UNPKOs, gaining the necessary political will largely depends on the strategic interests of P5 members in conflict regions. In this sense, geopolitical competition and the current stalemate at the UN Security Council around humanitarian crises such as in Syria or Yemen represent major challenges to the UN peacekeeping architecture.

However, the UN is not in an existential crisis. Since taking office, the Secretary-General has made reform a priority for the UN and the organisation is responding to the justifiable criticisms. The UN realised the changing nature of conflict and is in the process of adapting its prevention and peacekeeping missions to this new threat landscape. Although the UN may sometimes seem like a relic of the 20th century, it has the ability and necessary vision under its current leadership to evolve and remain irreplaceable for promoting international peace and security.

 

Felix Manig is a postgraduate in International Relations at King’s College London. He focuses on global governance, conflict resolution strategies, and cybersecurity. Outside of academia, he is Series Editor at Strife and writes for the Peacekeeping Project at the United Nations Association of Germany. You can follow him on Twitter @felix_manig

Image Source: https://www.undispatch.com/un-learning-love-drones/