On the future of warfare (and technology and people)

There are fundamental changes underway in the threats we face as Americans, much of it driven by technology. But it's not the technology that you are thinking about.

I've been pulled into a number of defense and intelligence projects over the last several years, causing me to be exposed to the very hard questions millions of our citizens work on every day. And I bring a different view to these questions, because I work in the commercialization of new technologies, and study how technology affects cognition.

As a result of that different perspective, when I look into the future of warfare, I can't help but see different things. If I'm right, than we need to create parallel strategies with very different tactics: those that fight existing threats, and those that pre-position us for future challenges that are fundamentally different. And that begins with now, and how we conceive the threats.

This isn't just about asymmetric threats, though reading this line from the 9/11 Commission makes me pause: "The existing mechanisms for handling terrorist acts had been trial and punishment for acts by individuals; sanctions, reprisal, deterrence, or war for acts of governments. The actions of Al-Qaeda fit neither category. Its crimes were on a scale approaching acts of war, but they were committed by a loose, far-flung, nebulous conspiracy with no territories or citizens that could be readily threatened, overwhelmed, or destroyed."

Leaving aside the obvious asymmetric warfare and Third Offset implications of this statement, let's focus in on the last few words.

What happens when you have an enemy to whom neither category of punishment is a deterrent? Mass shooters and other emerging threat actors are often individuals with few ties to others, and little or no bonds to life, ideology, or objects in a way that threatening those things would be a deterrent.

We are increasingly moving into a cognitive warfare domain, and this is not just about disinformation swaying elections. What we consume in the 11 hours a day we spend focused on technology shapes us, our psychology, our well-being, our collective will. And the media diets of those who threaten us also shapes those people.

When a lone school shooter is gunned down by police, it's not just that we can't punish him (its usually a male), it's that we continue to punish ourselves by focusing on the act, with millions of us glued to TVs and social media, focused in on that shooter.  The shooter themselves is often informed and/or motivated by their own media diet.

At the exact same time as this one bad act, there are 100s of thousands of people doing great things, while that shooter did his one horrible act. But we don't choose to see those things: teachers working at near poverty wages buying school supplies with their own money for the sake of their students; police officers working in freezing conditions helping citizens stay safe; mothers working 2 and 3 jobs to make a better life for their kids; scientists developing tomorrow's miracles, faster than ever. This is what makes us great, and this is among the many reasons, ironically, why this is the best time ever to be alive. All of these people have amazing technology assets available to them to address the issues that are important to them, as they seek to help others.

But we don't see or focus on this - the accurate signals. They are not interesting. They are common, mundane, taken for granted. We choose to focus on the outliers, the negative events, the inaccurate signals. Because they are interesting. Precisely because they are different. And we wail and demand action about these negative outliers, when often there is little in the "existing mechanisms" that can be effective. We can't readily threaten, overwhelm or destroy our way out of the problems we choose to focus on.

Another thing that cause me to ruminate on this was Lydia Kostopoulos' posting a link to this year's Mad Scientist Initiative science fiction contest. It's a great program: crowd sourcing ideas about the future of warfare through a creative writing exercise. Amazing DoD innovation. But the cover art for the program, pictured above, bothered me.

It is clearly setting a tone for a defense posture that is threat- and destruction- minded. And in my experience the American Defense apparatus is aligned to this deterrent philosophy (as is the IC, but to a lesser extent, imho).

Another 9/11 reference: Adam Mayblum, who escaped from the North Tower, just a few floors below where Flight 11 struck, pointed out that the irony of the attack: "They failed in terrorizing us. We were calm. If you want to kill us, leave us alone because we will do it by ourselves."

A terrorist attack is just another form of disaster. Rebecca Solnit, in A Paradise Built in Hell, does a great job developing a sociological disaster meta-study, including 9/11, that shows that people often respond positively and selflessly in the face of disasters. But she also points out that the media eschews these 'facts on the ground', for the visceral and 'engaging' negative narratives and visuals.

Like Mayblum, she points out that the media stories about disaster survival are very different than the often positive humanity-affirming experiences of those hundreds or thousands directly impacted by some negative event. But, because of the media coverage, and what we choose to attend to individually, the event resonates negatively with millions of us, adding to a negative cascade of stress that our self-imposed lifestyles impose on us.

These are what I think about when I think about the future of warfare. What if the threat is not others - but ourselves, and the decisions we make, cumulatively, about how we engage with our every day technology? What if, in the face of amazing technology and surrounded by millions of acts of positive humanity, we see the world as falling apart, divisive and doomed, and in so doing we create self-fulfilling prophecies? And each new app, device, and media stream we add to our lives only makes this worse, not better?

So, there's a storyline for any of you aspiring sci-fi writers to delve into, if you want to help prepare the American National Security posture. And don't be meek, and take the easy road of painting a dystopian collapse: the facts support the opposite - that we as a people can avoid this fate. David Brin points out that sci-fi writers too often use the cliche of treating people like sheep. Far more accurate, and challenging (and productive) to paint us as a flawed every day hero - one who, when we get ourselves into trouble, are smart enough to recognize that in time, and work together to do the interesting work to fix the problem. 

Don't get me wrong: traditional adversaries exist, are strong, and getting stronger in many ways. They, too, are evolving. Maybe or maybe not, they can be swayed by deterrence. We can and should be ever vigilant in evolving our traditional deterrence oriented efforts: they are and will remain the backbone of our security. I'm not saying we need to abandon that. I'm saying that when I'm asked to provide a different view, of real problem spaces that could occur, I do see some big ones, and I don't see many people thinking or working on them comprehensively. They are too big for most people, who are too busy with their own, hyper-specialized problem sets.

To me, however, what I've described above is the real narrative of the future of American National Security: a new view or front of the cognitive domain, where we use technology and our people not just to protect us from others, but to foster resilience against the damage we present to ourselves.

And we can't, or shouldn't, threaten, overwhelm or destroy our way to victory here, on this battlefield.