Quick Tanks: The Best of Long-Form Defense Analysis, Briefly
A weekly review of the long-form content from the national security policy, defense policy, and related technology analysis community.
Welcome back, hearty readers.
This week, I have two compelling reports to share with you all. The topics are as follows:
How can militaries leverage human-machine collaboration (HMC) and human-machine teaming (HMT) to reshape battlefield dynamics?
A survey of 87 experts regarding China’s capabilities and its approach toward Taiwan in 2024 and beyond
Quick Tanks is a weekly collection and summary of the latest long-form analytic content on the topics of US defense, force structure, innovation, and policy considerations. We strive to aggregate all of the key sources of analysis and present brief, neutral summaries to help keep you informed. Should you feel inclined to learn more about any study, please reference the full report via the links provided.
The sponsor of the newsletter is the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts + Technology.
Tank you for sharing and subscribing, and happy reading.
Leveraging Human–Machine Teaming
Dr. Sidharth Kaushal, Justin Lynch, Juliana Suess, Jung-Ju Lee, Luke Vannurden and Ylber Bajraktari
Royal United Services Institute
Link to PDF; Link to Report Page
Focus: The report aims to explore and guide the integration of human-machine collaboration (HMC) and human-machine teaming (HMT) in defense strategies. It specifically targets the operational and strategic enhancement of the US and UK military forces through the adoption of these technologies.Analysis: The analysis draws on expert input via a series of workshops, a literature review, and consultations. Notable data sources include official defense documents on strategy and capabilities from the US, UK, China, and Russia.Argument: Effective use of HMC and HMT can offer significant operational advantages in warfare. This includes improved decision-making, cost-effective warfare, and better situational awareness in conflict scenarios. Such integration is vital to maintain a competitive edge against adversaries like China and Russia, who are rapidly advancing in similar domains.Insights: HMC/HMT can shift risk to machines, enable dispersed operations, and restore mass through attritable systems. However, HMC/HMT will not provide persistent technological superiority like past offsets. Rather, success through HMC/HMT relies more on effective organizational integration.Recommendations: Defense organizations must implement structural and cultural changes like clarifying risk thresholds, establishing experimental spaces for capability development, and integrating civilian expertise. Political leaders need to define a compelling vision for how HMC and HMT can offset adversary strengths while accentuating enduring asymmetrical advantages rooted in flexible command concepts. Finally, partnerships between the public and private sectors built on incentives and shared priorities are crucial for the rapid development of key enabling technologies and priority capabilities.In a rapidly evolving global security landscape, the integration of HMC and HMT emerges as a crucial factor in maintaining strategic advantage. HMC focuses on optimizing decision-making through cognitive task-sharing between humans and machines, while HMT extends this collaboration to physical tasks in complex environments. Importantly, this RUSI report explores how militaries can leverage HMC and HMT to reshape the contemporary and future battlefield through six objectives:
Absorb and effectively use ever-increasing volumes of data at the operational
and strategic level
“Properly programmed and supervised machines, enabled by a data-sharing regime, are well suited to augment human bandwidth, generating better situational awareness and recommending plans. HMC can enable the exploitation of data already within the joint force – much of which is wasted. There is a second way that HMC and HMT can enhance the situational awareness of human operators: by enabling them to get more out of existing sensors. Many existing sensors have the ability to track elusive targets, but they generate false positives – something that can be overcome with ML, which is already being applied to tasks such as radar signal processing. A third way in which machines could enable the use of increasingly advanced commercial capabilities to transfer data is by providing encryption at speed and at a level that would allow data to pass through a commercial network safely. Finally, human and autonomous asset teaming can enable more aggressive data gathering in peacetime.”
Develop a faster, higher-quality decision-making cycle
Automate routine actions and processes to augment human decision-making
Generate physical and virtual effects at scale in heavily denied environments
Overwhelm adversary defenses with lower risk to friendly forces
“Massed machines, assigned tasks by their human teammates, could overwhelm traditional defenses through a combination of sheer volume and attacking on many vectors simultaneously, often at a lower cost in human casualties compared with more traditional offensive operations. They might also supplement crewed platforms by acting as decoys or stand-in jammers.50 Machines could also serve as the ‘eyes and ears’ of their human teammates, particularly in urban warfare, by helping them gain more information about their environment and taking risks in their place.”
Penetrate multi-layered defense systems through coordinated, multifaceted approaches
As militaries work toward the above objectives, the report outlines several critical areas where HMC and HMT significantly alter warfighting paradigms:
Casualty Rates: By shifting high-risk tasks to machines, HMC and HMT can substantially reduce human casualties in conflict situations.
Operational and Strategic Risk Appetite: Enhanced machine participation enables militaries to undertake more aggressive strategies with minimized human risk.
Restoration of Mass: HMC and HMT facilitate the deployment of large numbers of cost-effective machines, offering a strategic advantage in mass and presence.
Force Composition: These technologies promote a shift towards more specialized human roles and a greater reliance on automated systems.
Increased Battlefield Awareness: Advanced sensing and data processing capabilities of machines augment human situational awareness.
Changes to Command and Control: HMC and HMT lead to more decentralized and agile decision-making processes, empowering lower echelons with greater autonomy and responsiveness.
The report also notes that the effective deployment of HMT and HMC necessitates a focus on several key areas. These include the development of efficient and user-friendly interfaces for seamless human-machine interaction and the creation of innovative operating concepts that leverage the combined strengths of both. Additionally, the authors call for a specialized workforce trained for new roles, empirical fielded experimentation in structured environments, and crucially, the reform of acquisition processes to integrate emerging technologies swiftly and effectively.
To more holistically understand the role of HMC and HMT in contemporary and future battlefields, I highly recommend reading the full report.
Surveying the Experts
U.S. and Taiwan Views on China's Approach to Taiwan
By Bonny Lin, Brian Hart, Chen Ming-Chi, Shen Ming-Shih, Samantha LuTruly Tinsley, and Yu-Jie (Grace) Liao
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Link to PDF; Link to Report Page
Focus: The report surveys US and Taiwan experts on their views of China's capabilities and approach toward Taiwan in 2024 and beyond.Analysis: The authors surveyed 52 US experts and 35 Taiwanese experts with substantial experience in government, academia, or think tanks. As cross-strait and US-China tensions reach historic highs, an expert survey from the CSIS provides timely insights into potential Chinese actions against Taiwan. The main takeaways are outlined below:
China’s Capabilities
A quarantine or blockade is more likely than an invasion in the next five years.
A blockade alone is not sufficient to force unification.
Most participants in the survey believed that merely implementing a blockade would be inadequate to compel Taiwan's unification. A significant proportion, about one-third of the experts from Taiwan, expressed concerns that such a blockade might escalate into an invasion.
Key Factors Shaping China’s Use of Force
If Beijing seeks to punish and coerce Taiwan, a law enforcement-led quarantine is the PRC’s likeliest action.
“Both US and Taiwan experts agreed that a quarantine would be the likeliest action if Beijing’s goal is to punish and coerce, but there are important differences in their views. US experts tended to think a quarantine of Taiwan’s outlying islands (such as Kinmen and Matsu) would be the likeliest scenario, with 65 percent saying so. About 66 percent of Taiwan experts also said that a quarantine of outlying islands would be likely; however, 71 percent believed a quarantine of the main island of Taiwan would be likely. In other words, Taiwan respondents thought a quarantine of the main island of Taiwan would be likelier, whereas US respondents believed a quarantine of outlying islands would be slightly more likely. In fact, a slim majority of US experts did not think a quarantine of the main island of Taiwan would be likely under these conditions.”
If Beijing seeks to immediately force unification, a highly kinetic joint blockade is the PRC’s likeliest action.
Taiwan’s and China’s Ability and Willingness to Fight
Taiwan is unlikely to resist Beijing in the long term without US military intervention.
US and Taiwan experts largely agreed that Taiwan could hold out for between one and three months. Only 27% and 29% of US and Taiwan experts believed Taiwan could hold out for longer than three months.
US experts believe China can sustain a high-intensity conflict for longer.
72% of US respondents believed China could continue large-scale, kinetic operations for more than a year, while only 52% of Taiwan respondents shared the same sentiment
US and Allied Approaches
There is high confidence in a US Military intervention against a blockade or invasion.
There is limited confidence in US allies and partners to defend Taiwan.
“US and Taiwan experts did not share the same level of confidence in US allies and partners to intervene militarily to defend Taiwan—even if they are led by the US military. Of the seven scenarios surveyed, there were only two of these in which a majority of both US and Taiwan experts were completely or moderately confident in military intervention from allies and partners. These were an invasion and a post-failed invasion blockade.”
Deterring China requires more threats than assurances.
Likelihood of a 2024 Taiwan Strait Crisis
A majority of respondents believe a Taiwan Strait crisis is likely in 2024.
Efforts to stabilize US-China ties will not stave off a Taiwan Strait crisis.
“Despite notable efforts by Washington and Beijing to stabilize relations, the bilateral relationship remains fundamentally focused on competition. The November 2023 summit between President Biden and President Xi did not change this. About 75 percent of US experts and 66 percent of Taiwan experts said that the Biden-Xi meeting did not stabilize relations such that it significantly reduced the potential of a Taiwan Strait crisis.”
China’s economic downturn will not push Beijing to use force against Taiwan.
“Less than a third of Taiwan experts and only 21 percent of US experts thought a [economic] slowdown would increase the likelihood of any use of force, including a quarantine, blockade, and invasion.”
I highly encourage you to look into the full report to better gauge experts’ opinions on this important issue.