Vanguard Magazine

14 JUNE/JULY 2020 www.vanguardcanada.com ArMY The battlefield of 2050 will see "indi- viduals, teams, and software agents, . . . self-organize, dynamically creating, and modifying collaborative processes." To- day, all users of smartphones experience small-scale self-organization where appli- cations self-synchronize, collaborate with other applications, and even dynamically adapt to the user's habits. The battle- field of 2050 will see self-organized and autonomous entities dramatically evolv- ing their behaviours in response to the changing environment. This truly rede- fines the network-enabled C2 concept and sets new limits to agility in the bat- tlefield. Large-scale self-organization will be made possible with the help of Deep Learning (a branch of AI) where agents will be able to learn algorithms and sets of architecture enabling them to automate the extraction of "complex representa- tions without human intervention." To- day, several commercially available agents already demonstrate deep learning capa- bility. Google's AlphaGo machine had a historic victory over a human in the ancient board game Go, which demon- strates that a machine can have approxi- mated human intuition and can outsmart the best human competitor in the game. With the help of deep learning, AI agents will continuously learn, adapt, and over- come their adversaries in a networked fashion to win battles. the impact on Fundamentals of Army Operations In Waypoint 2018 – The Canadian Army Advancing Toward Land Operations 2021, LGen Hainse states that "…in the digital age, network-enabled forces that can see, understand, and act more effectively in their operating environment will have a significant advantage over their adversar- ies." This document will help the "Army leadership in making decisions for the modernization of the Canadian Army" as part of its transformation to realize the force employment concept articulated in Land Operations 2021: Adaptive Dispersed Operations: A Force Employment Concept for Canada's Army of Tomorrow. The fun- damentals of army operations listed in Land Operations 2021 and Waypoint 2018 were written purposefully with the broad language to "meet an unpredictable fu- ture". The following section will highlight the details given the predictable future ex- plained previously. Adaptive Dispersed Operations The future battlefield will continue to be based on the conceptual designs of Adap- tive Dispersed Operations (ADO) requir- ing Land Force intervention in the full spectrum of threats. Nevertheless, the bal- ance of that spectrum will shift from the physical plane of today to the moral and informational plane. This will be primarily due to a significant shift in the battlespace. Although battles will continue in air, land, and sea spaces, it will be expected that, due to Industry 4.0, the battlespace bal- ance will lean more towards the electro- magnetic spectrum and the information environment. With the help of micro-tar- geting and large-scale self-organization, AI agents will be able to set favourable conditions before even contact with the enemy. The fundamentals of dispersed opera- tions of the find, fix, and the strike will be much easier to achieve in the battlefield of the future. AI sensors of all sizes and shapes with the ability to comprehend the mission's intent will be able to task target- ed sensors allowing for a precise and ex- pedient find. Once again, the battlespace will not necessarily be limited to land, air, and sea, but also the cyber domain. For example, an AI agent may place a digital sensor on e-mail traffic, continuously seek- ing key information that may potentially making it difficult for both humans and AI to confirm the quality of the information - information correctness, authenticity, and security – which will be dependent on the reliability of the source. Similarly, misinfor- mation can be used as a weapon. In an en- vironment of information overload, it will be trivial to deceive the adversary by incor- porating believable material that would be misleading and thereby undermining legit- imate trust, causing confusion and delaying decisions. Micro-targeting and Weapons Miniaturization The concept of micro-targeting is the "identification and surgical engagement of specific individuals employing either kinetic or non-kinetic means." In today's world, it is the equivalent of tailored news feeds or ads on a user's browser-based on their historical browsing metadata. In the battlefield of the future, micro-targeting will evolve to include the ability to hack the enemy in cyber environments and mine information relating to their pre- cise location. This, coupled with weapons miniaturization, will enable for precise en- gagement of the enemy resulting in less collateral damage. Large-scale Self-organization Large-scale self-organization will occur as a new means of command and control.

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