https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7539-5615
![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Autonomous systems are often lauded as revolutionary. However, what makes them revolutionary is still up for debate. We identify assumptions about the revolutionary effect of autonomy and draw on historical work to examine how these characteristics have affected past conflicts. Our look at the past suggests where these systems may be most revolutionary is in cost mitigation—both political and economic. Mitigating economic cost helps create mass, firepower, and resiliency while mitigating political cost allows states to control force with escalation risks and domestic support. This balance is key for states that rely on autonomous systems to win competition strategies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 We use the term unmanned because it is the most common way to describe systems without a human physically in the platform. However, uninhabited may also be an appropriate way to think about many of these systems. On how gender informs these technologies, see: Mary Maniikan, ‘Becoming Unmanned: The Gendering of Lethal Autonomous Warfare Technology’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 16/1 (2014), 48–65.
2 Department of Defense, Summary of the National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, 2018. https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf; 116th Congress, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1790.
3 Sydney Freedberg, ‘War Without Fear: DepSecDef Work on How AI Changes Conflict’, Breaking Defense, May 31, 2017. https://breakingdefense.com/2017/05/killer-robots-arent-the-problem-its-unpredictable-ai/.
4 Antonio Calcara, Andrea Gilli, Mauro Gilli, Raffaele Marchetti, and Ivan Zaccagnini. ‘Why Drones Have Not Revolutionized War: The Enduring Hider-Finder Competition in Air Warfare’, International Security 46/4 (2022), 130–171.
5 Christian Brose, ‘The New Revolution in Military Affairs: War’s Sci-Fi Future’, Foreign Affairs. 98 (2019), 122; Ulrike Esther Franke, ‘The Unmanned Revolution: How Drones are Revolutionising Warfare’, PhD diss., Oxford Univ., 2018; Tamir Libel and Emily Boulter, ‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the Israel Defense Forces: A Precursor to a Military Robotic Revolution?’, The RUSI Journal 160/2 (2015), 68–75; Maxim Worcester, ‘Autonomous Warfare: A Revolution in Military Affairs’, ISPSW Strategy Series: Focus on Defence and International Security 340 (2015); Daniel Sukman, ‘Lethal Autonomous Systems and the Future of Warfare’, Canadian Military Journal 16/1 (2015): 44–53; Kai-Fu Lee, ‘The Third Revolution in Warfare’, The Atlantic, September 11, 2021; Peter Warren Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, New York: Penguin, 2009.
6 Peter Singer, ‘A Revolution Once More: Unmanned Systems and the Middle East’, Brookings Institute, October 29, 2009. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-revolution-once-more-unmanned-systems-and-the-middle-east/; Richard Schwing, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles-Revolutionary Tools in War and Peace, (Carlisle Barracks: Army War College), 2007; Adam Stulberg, ‘Managing the Unmanned Revolution in the US Air Force’ Orbis 51/2 (2007), 251–265; Michael Spigelmire and Timothy Baxter, Unmanned Aircraft Systems And the Next War. (Redstone Arsenal: Office of the Project Manager Unmanned Aircraft Systems 2013).
7 Williamson Murray, Thinking About Revolutions in Military Affairs (Washington, DC: Assistant Secretary of Defense Public Affairs 1997), 8.
8 Clifford Rogers, (ed.), The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe (New York: Westview Press 1995); Steven Metz, Strategy and the Revolution in Military Affairs: From Theory to Policy (New York: DIANE Publishing 1995); Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996); David Parrott, The Business of War: Military Enterprise and Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012); Colin S. Gray, Strategy for Chaos: Revolutions in Military Affairs and the Evidence of History (London: Frank Cass 2002); Steven Metz and James Kievit, Strategy and the Revolution in Military Affairs: From Theory to Policy (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute 1995); Wim Smit and John Grin, Military Technological Innovation and Stability in a Changing World: Politically Assessing and Influencing Weapon Innovation and Military Research and Development, Charlotte: Virginia University Press, 1992; Max Boot. War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today, (New York: Penguin 2006); Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, (eds.), Military Effectiveness: Volume 2, The Interwar Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010); Michael O’Hanlon, Technological Change and the Future of Warfare (Washington D.C.: Brookings 2000); Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century (Boston: Little, Brown, 1993); Michael Roberts, The Military Revolution, 1560–1660 (New York: Routledge 2018); Keith Shimko, The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010; Mahinder Kingra,‘The Trace Italienne and the Military Revolution During the Eighty Years War, 1567–1648’, The Journal of Military History 57/3 (1993), 431.
9 For a comparative analysis of the rise of the U.S. revolution in military affairs literature and similar waves in Soviet and Israeli defense circles see Dima Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2010).
10 Highlights from this very rich discussion about the revolution in military affairs and defense technology include: Eliot Cohen, ‘A Revolution in Warfare’, Foreign Affairs 75/2 (1996), 37–54; Andrew F. Krepinevich, The Military-Technical Revolution: A Preliminary Assessment (Washington D.C.: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments 1992); Frank Kendall, ‘Exploiting the Military Technical Revolution: A Concept for Joint Warfare’, Strategic Review (Spring 1992), 25; Thomas G. Mahnken and James R. Fitzsimonds, The Limits of Transformation: Officer Attitudes Toward the Revolution in Military Affairs (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press 2003); Elinor Sloan, Revolution in Military Affairs (McGill: McGill-Queen’s Press 2002); William Owens, The American Revolution in Military Affairs (Washington: Joint Chiefs of Staff 1996); David Jablonsky, ‘US Military Doctrine and the Revolution in Military Affairs’, Parameters 24/3 (1994), 18; Stephen Peter Rosen, ‘The Impact of the Office of Net Assessment on the American Military in the Matter of the Revolution in Military Affairs’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 33/4 (2010), 469–482; Emily Goldman and Thomas Mahnken, (eds.), The Information Revolution in Military Affairs in Asia (New York: Springer 2004).
11 Macgregor Knox and Williamson Murray, (eds.), The Dynamics of Military Revolution,1300–2050 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001), 7.
12 On the assumptions about technology and its role in RMA, see (for both critique and support): David Burbach and Brendan Rittenhouse Green, ‘The technology of the revolution in military affairs’, in US Military Innovation since the Cold War (New York, NY: Routledge 2009), 30–58; Peter J. Dunn, ‘Time x technology x tactics= RMA: Why we Need a Revolution in Military Affairs and How to Begin It!’ Australian Defence Force Journal 116 (1996), 11–18; Earl H. Tilford Jr., The Revolution in Military Affairs: Prospects and Cautions (Carlisle Barracks: Army War College Strategic Studies Institute 1995); James R. Fitzsimonds and Jan M. Van Tol. Revolutions in Military Affairs (Washington: Office of the Secretary of Defense 1994).
13 Boot, War made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today, 10.
14 Ibid, 455.
15 Andrew Bacevich, ‘Preserving the Well-Bred Horse’, The National Interest 37 (1994), 43–49. This, as many have pointed out, is perhaps an unfair historical legacy attributed to Haig who spearheaded a series of technological innovations within the British army. See Andrew Wiest, Haig: The Evolution of a Commander (New York: Potomac Books, Inc. 2005).
16 This distinction between military revolutions and revolutions in military affairs helps explain why there is a significant difference in the cases that historians and strategists classify as revolutionary. Knox and Murray, for instance, identify four periods of time as military revolutions, beginning with the 17th century, the French and industrial revolutions, and moving into the first world war and 20th century missiles. Similarly, Max Boot identifies 4 military revolution time periods that roughly correlate with Knox and Murray but differentiates the mechanisms which define the age as revolutionary. Neither of these categorizations include the period before gunpowder – to include the invention of the longbow or the rise of the trace italienne – which many military historians identify as part of early Western state military innovations. These cases are included in Krepinevich’s accounting which, in contrast to these broad categorizations of periods of military revolutions, details ten revolutions in military affairs, which focus more closely on specific technological or political innovations, moving from the 15th century to the information age today.
17 Murray, Thinking About Revolutions in Military Affairs, 3.
18 Ibid, 3.
19 On the relationship between economic cost of warfare and regimes, see Sarah Kreps, Taxing Wars: The American Way of War Finance and the Decline of Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2018); Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European states, AD 990-1992 (New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell 1992); Kenneth Schev and David Stasavage, ‘The Conscription of Wealth: Mass Warfare and the Demand for Progressive Taxation’, International Organization 64/4 (2010), 529–561; Rosella Cappella Zielinski, How States Pay for Wars (Cornell: Cornell University Press 2016).
20 Williamson Murray and Macgregor Knox, ‘Thinking about revolutions in warfare’, The Dynamics of Military Revolution: 1300–2050, 7.
21 Clifford J. Rogers, ‘The Military Revolution in History and Historiography’, in The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Transformation of Early Modern Europe; Christopher Allmand, ‘5. New Weapons, New Tactics’, in (e,d.) Geoffrey Parker, The Cambridge History of Warfare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 85–100; Clifford J. Rogers, ‘“As If a New Sun had Arisen”: England’s 14th Century RMA’, in (eds.), Macgregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 15–34; Donald Featherstone, Bowmen of England (New York, NY: Grub Street Publishers 2011); M.J. Strickland and Robert Hardy, The Great Warbow: From Hastings to the Mary Rose (London: Sutton 2005); Gervase Phillips, ‘Longbow and Hackbutt: Weapons Technology and Technology Transfer in Early modern England’, Technology and Culture 40/3 (1999), 576–593.
22 Rogers, The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe.
23 These raiding tactics also influenced the cost of war for the adversary. As Allmand details about the English raids on French territory, ‘the principal aim was to weaken the enemy’s morale and his ability to pay taxes’. Allmand, ‘New Weapons, New Tactics’, 89.
24 Ibid.
25 Douglas W. Allen and Peter T. Leeson, ‘Institutionally Constrained Technology Adoption: Resolving the Longbow Puzzle’, The Journal of Law and Economics 58/3 (2015), 683–715.
26 Geoffrey Parker, ‘The Gunpowder Revolution’, in (ed.), Geoffrey Parker, The Cambridge History of Warfare, 101–116.
27 Kingra, ‘The Trace Italienne and the Military Revolution during the Eighty Years War, 1567–1648’, 431; Christopher Duffy, Siege Warfare: The Fortress in the Early Modern World 1494–1660 (New York, NY: Routledge 2013); Frank Tallet, War and Society in Early Modern Europe: 1495–1715 (New York, NY: Routledge 2016); Charles Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018).
28 Parker, ‘The Gunpowder Revolution’, 111.
29 Ibid, 111.
30 John Lynn, ‘Food, Funds, and Fortresses: Resource Mobilization and Positional Warfare in the Campaigns of Louis XIV’, in Feeding Mars (New York, NY: Routledge, 2019) 137–159; John A. Lynn, ‘The Trace Italienne and the Growth of Armies: The French Case 1’, in The Military Revolution Debate, 169–200; John Landers, ‘The Destructiveness of Pre-Industrial Warfare: Political and Technological Determinants’, Journal of Peace Research 42/4 (2005), 455–470.
31 Parker, The Military Revolution, 12.
32 Knox and Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution 1300–2050; Parker, The Cambridge History of Warfare; Simon Paul Mackenzie, Revolutionary Armies in the Modern Era: A Revisionist Approach (New York: Routledge 2013).
33 Barry Posen, ‘Nationalism, the Mass Army, and Military Power’, International Security 18/2 (1993), 83–84. For more on the role of economic cost and raising large armies, see Jean Paul Bertaud, The army of the French Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2019); Owen Connelly, The Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, 1792–1815 (New York, NY: Routledge 2012).
34 John A. Lynn, ‘Nation in Arms’, in (ed.), Geoffrey Parker, The Cambridge History of Warfare, 215.
35 Mark Grimsley, ‘Surviving Military Revolution: The U.S. Civil War’, in (eds.), Macgregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution 1300–2050, 84.
36 Dennis E. Showalter, ‘The Prusso-German RMA, 1840–1871’, in (eds.), Macgregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution 1300–2050, 92–113; Geoffrey Warwo, The Austro-Prussian War: Austria’s War with Prussia and Italy in 1866 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997); Geoffrey Herrera, ‘Inventing the Railroad and Rifle Revolution: Information, Military Innovation and the Rise of Germany’, Journal of Strategic Studies 27/2 (2004), 243–271; Dennis E. Showalter, ‘The Retaming of Bellona: Prussia and the Institutionalization of the Napoleonic Legacy, 1815–1876’, The Journal of Military History 44/2 (1980), 57.
37 Showalter, ‘The Prusso-German RMA, 1840–1871’, 105.
38 Murray and Millett, (eds.), Military Innovation in the Interwar Period; John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun (Baltimore: JHU Press 1986).
39 Williamson Murray, ‘The West at War’, in The Cambridge History of Warfare, 305; Barry Dysart (Materialschlacht: The Materiel Battle in the European Theater), The Big L: American Logistics in World War II (1997).
40 Millett and Murray. ‘Military effectiveness’.
41 Robert Keohane, and Joseph S. Nye Jr., ‘Power and Interdependence in the Information Age’, Foreign Affairs 77 (1998), 81; Jessica Mathews, ‘The Information Revolution’, Foreign Policy 119 (2000), 63–65; Steven Metz, Armed Conflict in the 21st Century: The Information Revolution and Post-Modern Warfare (Carlisle Barracks: Strategic Studies Institute 2000).
42 Paul Scharre, Army of None (New York, NY: W.W. Norton Company 2018).
43 Andrew Cockburn, Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins (London: Picador Books 2015); Thomas Mahnken, Technology and the American Way of War (New York: Columbia University Press 2008).
44 Erhard, Air Force UAVs.
45 Mahnken, Technology and The American Way of War Since 1945, 112; Alice Hunt Friend, ‘Creating Requirements: Emerging Military Capabilities, Civilian Preferences, and Civil-Military Relations’, PhD dissertation, American Univ., 2020.
46 Richard Whittle, Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution (New York: Henry Holt and Company 2014).
47 Ibid.
48 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, S.1790, 116th Congress (2019).
49 Ronald O’ Rourke, Navy Large Unmanned Surface and Undersea Vehicle: Background and Issues for Congress (Washington: U.S. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, RL45757 2020).
50 Krepinevich, Jr., ‘The Military-Technical Revolution: A Preliminary Assessment’, Cohen, ‘A revolution in warfare’, Metz, Armed Conflict in the 21st Century: The Information Revolution and Post-Modern Warfare.; Nye and Owens, ‘America’s Information Edge’; Dave Deptula and Mike Francisco, ‘Air Force ISR operations: Hunting versus Gathering’, Air & Space Power Journal 24/4 (2010), 13–18; David Deptula, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Taking Strategy to Task (Washington, DC: National Defense University 2008); Antoine J. Bosquet, The Scientific Way of Warfare: Order and Chaos on the Battlefields of Modernity (Oxford University Press, 2022).
51 Ibid, 15.
52 Ibid, 15.
53 Christopher G. Pernin et al, Lessons from the Army’s Future Combat Systems Program (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation 2012).
54 Andrew Eversden, ‘Networks as Center of Gravity: Project Convergence Highlights Military’s New Battle with Bandwidth’, Breakingdefense.com, November 23, 2021.
55 Jacquelyn Schneider, ‘The Capability/Vulnerability Paradox and Military Revolutions: Implications for Computing, Cyber, and the Onset of War’, Journal of Strategic Studies 42/6 (2019), 841–863.
56 David Deptula, ‘Long Range Strike More Potent, More Survivable, Cheaper’, Breaking Defense, January 2017. https://breakingdefense.com/2017/01/long-range-strike-more-potent-more-survivable-cheaper/.
57 Erik Lin-Greenberg, ‘Wargame of Drones: Remotely Piloted Aircraft and Crisis Escalation’, Journal of Conflict Resolution (2022).
58 John Andreas Olsen, John Warden and the Renaissance of American Air Power (Washington: Potomac Books 1997); Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey: Weapons, Tactics, and Training and Space Operations (4: Office of the Secretary of the Air Force 1993); John Warden, The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat iUniverse, 1998; David Deptula, ‘Effects-based Operations’, Air and Space Power Journal 20/1 (2006): 4; Patrick B. Johnstone, ‘Does Decapitation Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of Leadership Targeting in Counterinsurgency Campaign’, International Security 36/4 (2012), 47–79.
59 James Igoe Walsh, ‘Precision Weapons, Civilian Casualties, and Support for the Use of Force’, Political Psychology 36/5 (2015), 507–523; Jacquelyn Schneider and Julia Macdonald, ‘US Public Support for Drone Strikes’ (Washington, DC: Center for New American Security 2016).
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Jacquelyn Schneider
Dr. Jacquelyn Schneider is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution and an affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, both at Stanford University. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology and national security and has been published widely in both academic and policy outlets, to include Foreign Affairs, European Journal of International Relations, New York Times, Security Studies, Wall Street Journal, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and others.
Julia Macdonald
Dr Julia Macdonald is a Research Professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, where her research focuses on state threat assessments, use of force decisions, and U.S. military strategy and effectiveness. Her work has appeared in Security Studies, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Strategic Studies, Foreign Policy Analysis, Texas National Security Review and Armed Forces and Society. Her commentary has appeared online at Foreign Affairs, Lawfare, The Washington Post, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, War on the Rocks, and in other policy outlets.