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| September 1999 Vol. 82, No. 9 |
The Rudman-Hart
Commission, working up to the next Quadrennial
Defense Review, surveys the most probable trends
and dangers.
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In 1998, Congress formed the National
Security Study Group, a panel of defense experts
and laymen now chaired by former Sens. Warren Rudman
and Gary Hart. The panel was enjoined to take a hard
look at political, economic, military, social, and
technical trends in the world and then identify threats
and opportunities the US can expect to encounter
in the next 25 years. The group's conclusions could
well have a major impact on the next Quadrennial
Defense Review, expected in 2001.
Plans call for NSSG's work to unfold
in three phases. Phase 1, conducted over the past
year, ended in August. In this phase, NSSG focused
on describing the security environment that is likely
to exist in the 2000-25 period.
A key to NSSG's overall "environmental" assessment
was its view on future technologies. In a paper entitled "Technology,
Society, and National Security," recently made
public, NSSG laid out its assumptions. Of particular
interest to experts were two sections-- "A Baseline
Technology Prospectus Through 2025" and "Implications
for National Security." Here is the text of
those two sections:
The Rudman-Hart Commission, working
up to the next Quadrennial Defense Review, surveys
the most probable trends and dangers.
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A Baseline Technology
Prospectus Through 2025
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| Technology
consists not only of things, or devices, but
also the way that devices are combined and put
to use. Hence, the following discussion is divided
into a discussion of devices and of likely means
of technological adaptation and integration.
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Technology Devices
Microelectronics, Computer Networks, and Communications
- Cheap, high-density
microelectronics will proliferate in all our tools
and our physical environment. The number of transistors
per chip will continue to double every 18 months until
roughly 2005 or 2010, when we will run up against the
physical limitations imposed by reaching the atomic
scale. This physical limitation, however, need not
signal the end of progress, for while today's chips
carry an essentially two-dimensional architecture,
future ones may be three-dimensional.
- As processing
power continues to expand, it also decreases in cost.
Today $1,000 buys about a billion computations per
second. By the year 2025, $1,000 of computing will
buy about 10 billion billion computations per second.
Like processing power, memory capacity will continue
to double roughly biennially, and prices will drop
accordingly. In 1970 one megabyte of memory cost half
a million dollars; in 1996 it cost $38; today it costs
less than $3. Our ability to pack information into
ever-smaller volume, and ever more inexpensively, will
continue to increase. Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman
dramatized the phenomenon by noting that, theoretically,
one could put the Encyclopedia Britannica on the tip
of a pin. More important, such capacities will provide
a basis for major changes in how business, education,
and government handle information.
- Between now and
2025, fiber-optic capacity will surpass terabaud rates,
which is to say, a thousand billion bits per second.
As with electronics, greater power is matched by declining
unit costs; cost per network node appears to drop by
a factor of 10 every five years. Fiber optics will
thus serve as the backbone of an integrated global
communications network. Whereas optical fiber communications
has until now been limited by the deterioration in
the signal power over long distances, new fiber amplifiers
will allow signal transmission over thousands of miles
of optical fibers. Moreover, the number of signals
traveling through a single fiber will increase greatly
due to the ability to transmit multiple wavelengths
(or colors). Fiber communications will probably be
viable for residential use by 2010, as well.
- Between now and
2025, wireless communication systems (space-based and
land-based) will be highly integrated with the fiber-optic
backbone to provide specialized and niche services.
Constellations of communications satellites will enable
voice, e-mail, paging, and limited Internet service
from any point on the globe to virtually any other
point on the globe. Direct broadcast radio and television
is already lifting the electronic silence of the developing
world. Cellular and wireless local loops are augmenting
telephone capacities worldwide. The implications of
such capacities for the abilities of authoritarian
regimes to cordon off their populations from information
and news are enormous. Compared to the effects of the
transistor radio in Africa and Asia in the 1950s and
1960s, and of the audio cassette in Iran in the 1970s,
the impact of a fast-wired world on the clinging autocracies
of the next century may be even more dramatic.
Microelectromechanical (MEM) Devices, Microfabrication,
and Nano- or Molecular Fabrication
- Between now and
2025, MEMs (microelectromechanical devices) will become
a major commercial industry. MEMs are microscopic devices
in which sensors, transmitters, receivers, or actuators
(switches that activate mechanical devices) have been
miniaturized to the size of a transistor. The tools
that make today's computer chips also make MEMs. MEMs
are already being used to detect movement to activate
air bags, but they can be constructed to detect a variety
of visual, thermal, acoustic, and biochemical phenomena.
Imagine trying to find a bugging device where you need
a microscope to see it. MEMs have demonstrated usable
microwatt transmissions, and miniature motors have
power production capability with an energy density
10 times higher than the best batteries. New "smart" materials
will be constructed with MEMs that have microscale
features; for example, airplane wings with microstructures
will change shape automatically to allow better control
and flight efficiency.
- Other microfabrication
techniques will allow the construction of matrix composites
of great strength, low weight, high heat tolerance,
and low cost. Ceramic composites will enter car and
jet engines. Other microstructures have been exploited
to develop "see-through" metals, substances
that are hard and not brittle, but still transparent.
- Nano- or molecular
fabrication-the taking of microtechnology down to the
atomic scale or dimension-is now in its early stages.
Applications will involve the manufacture of nanoscale
structures that can be embedded on other electronic
devices or on materials. Texas Instruments has already
manufactured an array containing a half-a-million movable
nanomirrors for a tiny high-resolution projector. In
1997 nanotechnology was an estimated $5 billion industry,
and it is optimistically projected to double each year
over the near term. Nanofabrication will be available
commercially only to a limited extent by 2025, however.
Biotechnology
Biotechnologies
may eclipse information technologies after the year
2010 in terms of economic investment and economic impact.
Both the commercial world and governments have sustained
large R&D funding. This funding and the remarkable
developments in genetic engineering, tissue-growth
research, and the human genome project will spur rapid
growth and innovation. Some of the key developments
and indicators are: -The mapping of the human genome offers the prospect
of making significant strides on the link between genes
and disease. Scientists are learning how life works
and fails, to an ever finer level of detail, and they
are learning with it the pathogenic and genetic correlates
of disease. Gene therapies, even in the fetus, are
likely. Cells that can normally replicate 50 times
will be adapted to be able to replicate 200 times or
more. This has started a debate on the possible discovery,
and social implications, of a scientifictechnical "fountain
of youth."
-The mapping of animal and plant genetic makeup offers
the capability to tailor animals to serve human needs.
Agriculture will be transformed with the promise of
higher productivity, nutrition- and vaccine-enhanced
foods, and greater plant resistance to (known) pests. "Farmaceuticals" will
be readily available. Cows, pigs, and sheep with altered
genes will provide proteins with medical value in their
meat and milk. Bacteria are already being used for
environmental remediation-for example, to clean up
oil spills.
-Cloning human organs will be possible by 2025. Animal
and human stem cells are now being grown in the laboratory.
With the appropriate signals, stem cells can be converted
to any specific cell. It is possible to extract one's
own tissue and transfer the DNA to stem cells to generate
transplant tissue that your body will not reject. Mouse
heart cells have been created from stem cells. Overall,
these developments will probably extend the average
human life span to at least 85 years in the developed
world within the next 25 years. At least theoretically,
those born after 2020 may look forward to a life span
considerably longer than that.
Technology Integration
Our use of technology has been revolutionized by the
way we integrate and conceptualize its use and distribution
throughout society. The following discussion highlights
what we may expect from science and technology integration
over the next 25 years.
Communications, Sensors, and Transparency
The Internet,
new sensor capabilities, and global communications
greatly facilitate both commercial and military intelligence
gathering. Mature communications and sensor systems
are allowing images, voices, and data from around the
world to be gathered and shared. Small personal communications
devices will allow point-to-point communications within
a 50- to 100-mile radius; in short, the fabled Dick
Tracy wristwatch of comic book imagination is now reality.
Such a watch could include a GPS receiver to keep track
of position. Portable communications devices will provide
Internet entry throughout the world, allowing near-instantaneous
and independent exchange of commercial and technical
information, exhortations and complaints, political
ideas and manifestos. Small cheap microphones,
electro-optical compact disks, biochemical detectors,
and pocket radars for military, security, biomedical,
or controller applications will advance sharply. At
least one, and perhaps several, commercial surveillance
satellite will be able to image at or slightly below
one-meter resolutions at optical wavelengths. Commercial
all-weather imaging based on synthetic aperture radar
at two-meter resolution may follow. Many satellite
owners may be free of US "shutter control," which
is to say that both collection and dissemination of
such images will be beyond US management. Satellites
are getting cheaper; they cost $50 million today and
perhaps only $20 million within a few decades. A single
commercial global data-relay network would suffice
to take advantage of such systems anywhere. Sensor-equipped
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles the size of small Frisbees
are being tested. UAVs 30 kilometers aloft may supplement
space capability, as soon as people learn to fly them
reliably. Compared to satellites, UAVs offer near-constant
dwell time, a closer look, and smaller power requirements
for send/transmit devices. In benign realms, tethered
balloons could tote near-weightless electronics high
enough for cellular and surveillance applications. Once captured,
data from any source can flow anywhere through the
global information infrastructure. Copious data files
are collected on everyone worldwide-from open sources,
commercial firms, and governments. Technically proficient
states (or anyone with enough money) will be able to
selectively identify and track anyone who ventures
into a public place. Today's devices can match a snapshot
of a face to a person by using an imagery database.
Constantly shed skin cells contain enough genetic material
for accurate identification (even spectrographically
read sweat or urine may provide clues). As a consequence,
war could become much less anonymous; and it may be
possible literally to link specific military acts with
the actual warfighter.
Combining and Merging Existing with Cutting-Edge
Technologies
We are experiencing
a revolution in the merging of existing and cutting-edge
technologies, particularly micro-technologies, information
and positioning technologies, fabrication, and biotechnologies.
Combined or merged technologies often yield "emergent" capabilities
in the following major developments:
The merging of macroscale technologies with microscale
technologies. Mechatronics will be a major commercial
driver. Computers and communications systems will
have embedded MEM devices and will be network-ready
right out of the box, and perhaps even network-seeking
(i.e., when turned on, they look to link to any network
they can find). Smart materials or material with
special purpose microstructures will be available.
Engines having parts made from, or coated with, micro
heat shields may run hotter and propel objects faster.
The merging of information technologies and positioning
technologies. Witness the explosion in commercial
applications since the introduction of the Global
Positioning System. With that technology, cargo and
its transport can be tracked, leading to better logistical
control. Harbors and airports control traffic using
GPS. Farmers plow and plant crops using precision
GPS. By 2025, monitoring and analysis of much of
human and environmental activity will contribute
toward the transparency described above.
The merging of human-interface technologies with
other tools and with our environment. Speaker-independent
voice recognition will be available. You will be
able to talk to and instruct a wide range of appliances,
your computer, and controls that manage your work
and home environments. Machines will have sensor
devices that will change behavior according to perceived
human biofunction readings; for example, your car
may not let you drive it if you are too intoxicated.
The merging of miniaturized power source technology
with microelectromechanical devices. MEM devices
will have embedded power sources allowing sustained
stand-alone performance. Consider, for example, a
MEM transmitterreceiver and biosensor that operates
in a remote area for a week or more, which today
would require much larger devices requiring more
energy.
The merging of biotechnology with microelectronics.
MEM sensor devices have been fused onto insects. Soon
the direct interface of microelectronics and animal
or even human tissue will be possible. Sensing and
detection of the environment (biotoxins, pollution,
and so forth) will be linked to the automatic transmission
of data. It will no longer be a matter of science fiction
on the one hand, or philosophical abstraction on the
other, to say that humans and machines co-evolve.
Complexity Theory and Interactive Technological
Systems
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Complex systems
theory will significantly alter how we view and interact
with the world. We will arm our computers and information
technologies to use complexity theory to conceptualize
the world in a more global, ecological, and dynamic
perspective. Today we look more toward nature and naturally
occurring complex systems to garner ideas about how
to solve a variety of problems-e.g., ecological problems
and network security problems. We now use the term "biomimicry" for
the process by which ideas are obtained by imitating
nature. Complexity theory is too new to know what its
full implications may be, but it is already having
a major impact on interdisciplinary studies. Some indicators
are as follows:
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-Adaptive agents are being developed. Adaptive agents
are entities that exist in a computer that imitate
human agents in some limited form. Computational genetic
algorithms will be used extensively to explore or to
solve a large variety of problems-from controlling
electric and gas distribution systems to analyzing
the effect of natural disasters on an economy. Computer
programs that use genetic algorithms to create software
that can solve problems better and faster than traditional
programs have already been developed. In the future
we may use software based on genetic algorithms to
fly airplanes. New computer architectures will be developed
based on human brain functions. Computer architectures
that take advantage of the sort of parallelism characteristic
of neurological functions in the brain have already
been developed, and research is likely to lead to more
human-like capabilities.
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-Adaptive agents, or "knowbots," will garner
any unprotected information we need on any network.
The universal access to information, particularly tailored
information, will create the need to maintain a robust
monitoring of world developments. Complex Adaptive
Systems theory, a subset of complexity theory, is being
used to model social interactive systems. We are already
developing land warfare models that simulate the interaction
of enemies with specific characteristics. By 2015 we
might have the prototype of a reconfigurable networked
multisensor weapon system that adapts to enemy tactics
automatically based on use of adaptive agents.
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Implications
for National Security
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Technology
manifests itself in society less through its
absolute capabilities than through its interaction
with the complex human systems. So complex is
this relationship that we do not even know the
specific course on which our own technological
innovations have launched us. However, we can
point out the issues and debate the environment
that we will likely face within the next 25 years.
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Anonymous intimacy will deepen because of globalized
information.
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Technology will
allow the typical Internet user to connect to the Web
by "mouth and ear" in addition to "touch
and sight." Any question in any major language
may be met by an answer. Through artificial intelligence
and adaptive agents the context of any question (and
thus how to frame the answer) will be known automatically.
This capability allows anyone anywhere to gain access
to knowledge that can be used to the benefit or detriment
of anyone, any group, any country, or to humanity as
a whole. Global interconnectedness will give more people
access to more information than ever before, aided
by knowbots and high-accuracy universal translators;
faster processors will give them new ways to work with
it, as well. Among other things, this suggests a growing
gap between those few individuals who can afford and
use the technology and the mass of the world's population
with limited access to it.
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The real world
is becoming more intimate via the virtual world. Individuals
will be linked to cyberspace through eyeglass attachments.
Further linkages directly into their eyes, with contact
lenses for example, are theoretically possible. By
such means, direct sensor information (e.g., infrared,
ultraviolet, light polarization) may be fused directly
onto the visual sense, of which aviation head-up displays
are but a simple precursor. At the same time, machines
will become more sensitive to peoples' faces, the timbre
of their speech, and their gestures. Some people will
not like the results, but others may see in them a
means of limiting still further interactions with other
human beings, thus reifying class structures as well
as educational and linguistic boundaries among social
groups. For those who like human contact, the ability
of computers to render others beyond arm's reach increasingly
more vivid (e.g., as with very high-quality videophones
with pheromones) may heighten the impact of virtual
communities formed by those of similar social or ethnic
background (e.g., the Kurdish or Armenian diasporas)
or of similar interests (from animal rights activists
to coin collectors). Obviously, some virtual communities
will have more political content and salience than
others.
The uses to which
we put information are difficult to foresee. On the
one hand, the most commercially successful enterprise
on the World Wide Web right now is pornography. On
the other hand, there are indications that people are
using the Internet to process information and solve
problems in new ways. The global information network
suggests many implications for improved intelligence,
C4ISR, knowledge management, training, and education
of both the populace and the military.
Trustworthiness cannot be assumed in cyberspace.
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Technology could
facilitate the spread of false images and information,
while culture and governance will probably try to restrict
access to personal data. There will continue to be
competition between transparency and privacy, with
technology serving both sides. Global interconnectedness,
sensor technology, and improved information technology
will increase the amount of information available on
each of us, inevitably facilitating the misuse of it
by some. Information networks will continue to be targets.
So far, the attackers of such networks have yet to
cripple a major system, but the battle is intensifying
and the ability to hack into networks has been democratized.
In 1999, over 10,000 Web sites offered information
to novice hackers. Many of these had downloadable programs
that automatically probed for weaknesses in networks
and common operating systems such as Windows NT, Windows
95/98, IBM's OS2, and UNIX. The ability to write computer
code is no longer a prerequisite to perform mischief.
The complexity of the systems involved makes accurate
prediction impossible. The most exploitable element
in networks and firewalls remains the procedures associated
with user access codes. Biometrics will improve the
security of user access codes in the future through
user specific biological data.
Total information
security is not possible and global use of encryption
will be limited by standardization protocols and government
regulations. While encrypted communications may become
the norm, it is unlikely because the impact of high
encryption on overhead cost in money and efficiency,
and the ability of high-end computers to crack low-end
encryption, makes regularized encryption cost more
than it is worth. Theoretically, the advantage lies
with encryption; practically speaking, it may not.
In a transparent world, attempts to dominate neighbors
through heavy metal face long odds.
The winning edge
of a modern conventional military may have shifted
from the ability to mobilize forces, through the ability
to mobilize fires, and on to the ability to mobilize
information. The US military is on a course to being
able to detect and defeat armored invasions within
days using standoff fires. Better standoff weapons
are in the cards. Even short-range missiles will improve
range, accuracy, and guidance, which will increase
the probability of target kill. Increased reliance
on space systems is likely to create both new vulnerabilities
and opportunities. Space offers an arena of international
cooperation, but it also risks proliferation of technology.
Placing weapons in space will be increasingly likely.
If a gram can be put into orbit for one dollar rather
than 10, then space-to-ground munition rounds may become
cost-effective. Oft-touted ground-targeting lasers,
high-power microwaves, and neutral particle beams are
also possible. They offer near zero time between spotting
and hitting a fleeting target, but they must be fielded
in constellations to be in position when fleeting targets
show up and atmospherics impede their use. Space weapons
can also be provocative; it does not take much imagination
to get the sense of foreboding that would come with
looking up and constantly seeing enemy spacecraft that
could kill you with absolutely no warning. ven without space
weapons, supporting investments (e.g., sensor-to-weapon
linkages) should take the US ability to halt "heavy
metal" incursions from the calculus of warfighting
toward the realm of conventional deterrence. Like nuclear
war, conventional war as we have known it may be planned
in total seriousness but without real expectation of
being used. Unfortunately, the same logic puts the
large ceramic, steel, or titanium boxes that US forces
now field in similar peril. Precision guided munitions
are proliferating. Commerce supplies most of the information
technology behind observing, orienting, deciding, and
coordinating actions, which are therefore available
to anyone and for less money with every passing year.
Stealth helps but it is expensive and therefore likely
to be used for only a few platforms. Moreover, because
anything that moves must disturb its environment, current
stealth technology must ultimately fail before continual
and exponential increases in the ability to collect
and correlate data. Future technologies may not prevent natural disasters.
The impact of
environmental degradation on international security
depends on how people react to that degradation. The
prospect of water shortages in India or China--both
expected to be armed with nuclear-tipped ICBMs--may
impel each to seize water-rich areas to their north.
Just as likely, however, it may induce them to institute
long-range planning to lower water usage and ease peasants
from agriculture to urban occupations. Or it may provide
the impetus for lacing Asia with water pipelines, thereby
increasing mutual interdependence and inhibiting conflict.
Even with mediating technology, resource depletion
and environmental degradation may increase the frequency
and intensity of conflict. Purely natural disasters
(e.g., Hurricane Mitch) could, in and of themselves,
touch off a large exodus from affected areas that,
in turn, destabilizes the broader region. A city used
to absorbing 100,000 migrants a year may cope; one
that sees little movement in a decade and then suddenly
a million migrants after a drought may not. State failure
brought on or exacerbated by disaster may complicate
US efforts to combat organized crime or terrorism.
For instance, disasters that force victims up against
or across borders may increase international tension.
Further pressure to migrate to the United States (or
to its allies) would be a national security issue on
its own. Environmental
consciousness is already affecting the US military,
which is not only responsible for remediating the effects
of its own facilities but also using environment-friendly
ammunition (e.g., replacing depleted uranium rounds).
Meanwhile, potential opponents have shown a willingness
to use environmental pollution as an offensive weapon-as
when Saddam Hussein used oil fires to pollute the land
and sea environment in Kuwait in February 1991.
To find the next apocalypse, think bugs, not bombs.
Biotechnology
holds great promise but also great risk. While there
is no classic military use for biological weapons,
they could be used by terrorists. A biological pathogen
could also be released inadvertently. Biotechnology
and the specter of cheap Weapons of Mass Destruction
bring an increasing imperative to a search for new
means of prevention or, lacking that, an appropriate
defense. In the event of failure to prevent their use,
a robust consequence management system is necessary. Weapons of Mass
Destruction will become more easily available. Current
biological weapons pose a special limited threat because
they can be produced cheaply and without the level
of expertise required for nuclear devices. They are
also more difficult to keep outside our borders. The
good news is that biotechnology may offer some antidotes
and shields, and MEM technology is being directed toward
defensive measures. One danger of which we must be
aware is that the successful use of WMDs against a
population center will likely create effects, such
as panic and shock, disproportionate to the casualties
it causes. Such an event could trigger changes beyond
our ability to control. Consequence management needs
to be carefully considered. More apocalyptic
is the problem of a genetically engineered product-weaponized
or not. Highly virulent, infectious, and "contagious" germs
with long-latency and multiple drugresistant characteristics
could be developed. More sophisticated genetic weapons
could also be constructed that selectively target plants
or animals, including humans, with specific genetic
traits. Whether such "bugs" were released
on purpose or by accident may, in the end, be irrelevant.
Copyright Air Force Association. All rightsreserved.
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