Defense Community Research Articles

Militarization of artificial intelligence and implications for the global security – A strategic theory perspective

Artificial intelligence is quoted as the revolutionary development that attracted the attention of a diverse range of domains. It is considered as the general-purpose technology that experts integrated with their respective domains. Likewise, militaries attempted to militarize the artificial intelligence in order to score relative gains in contrast to other states. Military application of artificial intelligence evolves warfare; introduces autonomous weapons; optimizes logistics; and enable AI technologies in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and trainings. The implications of militarization of artificial intelligence are multifaceted and highlights risks associated with it. The risks involve arms race, ethical concerns, accidental conflicts, and influence of commercial companies in the defense sector. Strategic theory has been taken as a theoretical framework to comprehensively understand the research problem. Strategic theory is proposed as the comprehensive approach providing holistic thinking to the defense communities regarding the management of state’s resources in the pursuit of achieving policy ends. The militarization of artificial intelligence takes into account the advance technologies of AI and integrate them with the military domain to score advantage in the battlefield. Militaries are investing state resources in such a manner that integrate artificial intelligence with the military domain to score superiority among great powers.

A Shield for Europe: Reviving the European Defence Community

The re-election of Donald Trump as US president poses an unprecedented security challenge for Europe, which has been dependent on NATO for its security. This article proposes that Europe could take ownership of its own defence by reviving the European Defence Community (EDC), an organisation established in 1952 by the six founding member states of the European Union to shield Europe from the Russian threat. The EDC was formalised in a treaty that was ratified by four countries in 1953–54. Therefore, it would be legally possible for the EDC to enter into force today with the ratification of the two missing member states (Italy and France). This method of strengthening defence integration in Europe would be superior to all existing alternatives, not least because it would be easier to pursue.

European defence integration after Trump's re‐election: A proposal to revive the European Defense Community Treaty and its legal feasibility

AbstractDonald Trump's re‐election as President of the United States and Russia's aggression of Ukraine pose unprecedented challenges to transatlantic relations and European security. The EU as it is is unprepared to take care of its defence. This article explores how the law can be activated creatively to achieve defence integration in Europe and proposes to revive the 1952 European Defence Community (EDC) Treaty. Specifically, the article claims that, in strictly legal terms, the EDC can be brought into operation today—simply with the ratification by two states: France and Italy—and provides comprehensive arguments from public international law, comparative law and domestic constitutional law to make the point. Needless to say, legal feasibility does not equate with political feasibility, and the article mentions several of the obstacles and challenges along this path. Yet, shedding light the EDC has two advantages. On the one hand, the article emphasises how the EDC—with a common army, funded by a common budget and governed by supranational institutions—constituted an articulated response to the problem of securing European security. On the other hand, it identifies a differentiated path to achieve greater European defence integration.

Aligning Advances in Biodiesel Technology with the Needs of the Defense Community

The global transportation sector is transitioning towards renewable energy to combat climate change, with biodiesel playing a critical role. Significant research over the past decades has focused on enhancing biodiesel through novel feedstocks and production methods. The defense community, a major diesel consumer, is particularly interested in biodiesel to support national sustainability goals while also leveraging the benefits of the new technology, including the ability to produce biodiesel locally at the point of need. This paper sets out to review recent advances in biodiesel technology and aligning them with the needs of the defense communities. By doing so, this paper provides insight into the challenges, benefits, and technical feasibility for the two primary consumers of military diesel fuel—naval ships and ground vehicles. For naval applications, algae-based biodiesel shows promise due to its potential for local production near ports. Advances in genetic engineering and cultivation are crucial for increasing lipid content and reducing costs. Innovative methods such as microwave-assisted transesterification and artificial neural networks for optimization could further enhance economic viability. In military ground vehicles, locally produced biodiesel could sustain operations by minimizing supply chain dependencies. Efforts are ongoing to develop mobile production facilities and improve feedstock diversity and methanol-independent transesterification processes. Overall, advancements in biodiesel production from various feedstocks and innovative techniques are poised to significantly benefit the military sector, promoting sustainability and operational efficiency.

Schramm, Lucas. 2024. Crises of European Integration: Joining Together or Falling Apart? Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. XVII, 303 pp. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54748-5.

The book analyses the main factors of European integration crises, taking into account eight major cases from the early 1950s to recent times. The author pays special attention to constitutional crises, the euro crisis and the migration crisis, thus showing that crises have been an integral part of the process of European integration from its very beginning. Although the book does not analyse the current confrontation between Russia and the West, the author argues that European integration began with a serious setback, when member states failed to implement plans to create a European army through the European Defence Community. The global scale and radicality of the ongoing changes allow many researchers to suggest the formation of a new system of international relations. In parallel with these processes, many provisions and phenomena characterizing the system of international relations itself are being revised.

Truly Modular and Open System Design is Difficult

AbstractIn the United States, major defense acquisition programs must implement a modular open systems approach (MOSA) as required by U.S. law. (Defense Standardization Program, 2016). Some in the defense community have focused on MOSA as a checklist compliance activity. However, designing economically and operationally competitive system platforms that are truly modular is extremely challenging. Many such modular system platform efforts fail to meet early expectations for convenience, cost, and community uptake. Open standards are challenging as well. If a highly successful, stable, well‐documented, appropriate open standard is available for an interface, then leveraging such a standard can be fairly straightforward. However, often there is no obvious or adequate open standard available and the system platform owners have to organize a community to bring such a standard into existence.This paper will review three concrete examples of such MOSA efforts. The three cases cover both commercial and defense applications as well as covering both hardware and software. The two systems that focused on hardware modularity did eventually go into production but did not completely fulfill early expectations for their programs. The software system used an out‐of‐the‐box approach and achieved a best‐in‐class result in terms of economic effectiveness, time to market, and stakeholder satisfaction. This paper will discuss underlying challenges that seem to be common to all such efforts, review the results of the three cases, and offer some simple guidelines for increasing the probability of success for such a program.

Perroux's 1949 Note sur la Politique Économique du Fédéralisme

L'Europe sans rivages, published in 1954 mostly as a reaction against Monnet's idea of functional Europe, is considered Perroux's most relevant (critical) contribution to European integration. Its final section contains critiques to unionism, functionalism, and federalism. His skepticism towards a functional strategy towards a federal Europe, though, was dependent upon the specific attitude of the most renown (especially French) federalist intellectuals to build a supranational actor that might become, in Perroux's eyes, protectionist and inward-looking, thus jeopardizing the perspectives for a genuine world integration. Perroux's book was allegedly targeting the Coal and Steel Community established in 1951 and the process towards a European Defense Community that, although unanimously agreed upon, would soon be failing the ratification process. An unpublished typewritten Note on the Economic Policy of Federalism dated February 9th, 1949, addressed to Alexander Marc (Secretary General of the Union of European Federalists) challenges this interpretation, and helps understanding that Perroux had been working on these arguments much earlier. Together with a letter that Perroux sent at the end of 1949 to Ambassador Eirik Labonne and Jacques Racine (both reproduced at the end), such archival material further highlights the role that federalism played in Perroux's reflection on the economics of dominance.

Creating the People's War: Civil Defence Communities in Second World War Britain by Jessica Hammett (review)

Creating the People's War: Civil Defence Communities in Second World War Britain by Jessica Hammett (review)

Etiology of Acute Febrile Illnesses in Adults in the Defense Community in French Guiana.

In tropical countries, acute febrile illnesses represent a complex clinical problem for general practitioners. We describe the prevalence of different etiologies of acute febrile illnesses occurring among French service members and their families, excluding children, in general practice in French Guiana. From June 2017 to March 2020, patients with a fever ≥ 37.8°C with a duration of less than 15 days who sought medical care at the army medical centers in Cayenne and Kourou were prospectively enrolled. Based on clinical presentation, blood, urine, nasopharyngeal, and stool samples were collected for diagnostic testing for viruses, bacteria, and parasites (by direct examination, microscopic examination of blood smears, culture, serology, or polymerase chain reaction), and standardized biological tests were systematically performed. Among 175 patients retained for analysis, fever with nonspecific symptoms was predominant (46.9%), with 10 Plasmodium vivax malaria cases, 8 dengue infections, and 6 cases of Q fever. The second most frequent cause of acute febrile illness was upper respiratory tract infections (32.0%) due to influenza virus (n = 18) or human rhinovirus (n = 10). Among the causes of acute febrile illness in French Guiana, clinicians should first consider arboviruses and malaria, as well as Q fever in cases of elevated C-reactive protein with nonspecific symptoms and influenza in cases of signs and symptoms associated with upper respiratory tract infections. Despite an expanded microbiological search, the etiology of 51.4% of acute febrile illnesses remain unknown. Further investigations will be necessary to identify the etiology of acute febrile illnesses, including new pathogens, in French Guiana.

Der Plan für einen supranationalen Parlamentarismus. Debatten zum Verfassungsentwurf der Ad Hoc-Versammlung für die Europäische Politische Gemeinschaft 1952/53

The planned European Political Community (EPC) was intended to serve as a political backup for the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and for the European Defence Community (EDC) agreed between the six ECSC countries . The so-called Ad Hoc Assembly, consisting mainly of parliamentarians of the ECSC’s Common Assembly, received from the Council of Ministers of the ECSC the task of drafting the constitution for the EPC . After intense debates from September 1952 to March 1953, the Ad Hoc Assembly, in its Draft Treaty, opted for a supranational parliamentary government for the EPC . As it is well known, the French National Assembly rejected the plans for the EVG and EPG in August 1954 . However, the debates and the Draft Treaty of the Ad Hoc Assembly deserve keen attention as the only proposal until today in favor of a supranational parliamentarism for Europe . I study here this lost opportunity for a double politicization of the European integration in both supranational and parliamentary terms .

Role of Media in Hybrid Warfare in Pakistan: How to Convert Challenges into Opportunities

In the defense community, the use of hybrid warfare has expanded. It is generally labeled as contemporary warfare. The term is usually adopted in strategic documents such as the national government of Pakistan, developing regions, as well as developed nation central such as NATO, and EU, based on which various articles have been presented. However, hybrid warfare has not yet been understood with social media and the opportunities it opens for Pakistan. Primarily, the concern is to assess whether the concept is understood clearly for its strategic implementation, which can help to overcome the risk concerning the defense community. It is suggested that efforts must be improved for enhancing and forming content on the meaning of hybrid warfare. While the social network’s effect includes transparency, individuals mobilizing, and collective decision making negative effect that results from hybrid warfare include manipulation, an unregulated environment, and misinformation proliferation.

European Defense and Security Integration: a Retrospective Review

Although the end of the Second World War brought long-awaited peace to Europe, a new totalitarian threat, the Soviet Union, emerged almost immediately. After the former anti-Hitler coalition allies found themselves on different sides of the “iron curtain”, the countries of the democratic camp faced a difficult task: how to mobilise the efforts of the war-ravaged countries of “free Europe” and enable them to fend off a possible Soviet expansion. Given the fears that the societies of European countries might compel their governments to satisfy any demands of the Soviet Union for the sake of avoiding another war, it was crucial for the West to project unity and demonstrate readiness to resist the Soviet onslaught. hence the inevitability of the United States’ involvement as a guarantor of Western Europe’s security. Thus, the very first projects of European military-political integration – the Treaties of Dunkirk and Brussels – were to become no more than the basis for the gradual involvement of the U.S. It is noteworthy that even after the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the idea of purely European integration was not off the table. The reasons for this, however, are quite pragmatic. While Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, the originators of the idea of unifying Europe, considered the ultimate goal of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Defense Community (ECC) to be the formation of a supranational European federation, the European countries and especially the United States considered the ambitious EDC project exclusively as a way of solving the more pressing problems, such as the rearmament of West Germany and its gradual integration into NATO. This, coupled with the general unpreparedness of European countries for such a close union, led to the failure of the EDC, which would largely determine the course of European integration for decades.

유럽방위공동체(EDC) 창설 실패와 유럽통합의 재도약(relance européenne)

This article aims to examine the relaunching of European integration after the failure to establish the European Defense Community from the perspective of European integration and crisis. The crisis in the early days of European integration in the 1950s, the fiasco to create the European Defense Community and the European Political Community, was a driving force for a new leap forward in integration that led to the creation of the European Economic Community. Case studies from the mid-1950s will present implications for the prospects for the future of the European Union facing crises with new characteristics and the correlation between European integration and the crisis.

전쟁의 위기와 유럽통합

The European Union (EU), which guaranteed peace and prosperity in Europe after the two World Wars, has faced a series of consecutive crises and challenges since the late 2000s. Some analysts have even diagnosed a pessimistic outlook for the future of Europe due to this continuous string of crises. Such a reality has prompted inquiries into the continuity of the EU itself. Is the EU genuinely sustainable? If it endures, can it evolve into a more robust political integration body? Enduring amidst the prevailing ascendancy of nationalism and external pressures, can the EU steadfastly preserve unity within diversity? This study, which discusses the relationship between the crisis of war and the development of European integration, primarily aims to find insights into the current future of the EU and the correlation between crises and the development of European integration.
 Throughout the past 70 years of European integration, Europe has faced numerous crises. In 1954, with the failure of the European Defense Community (EDC) treaty, journalists questioned the uncertain future of integration. Jean Monnet, in response, asserted that Europe would learn about integration through crises. Moreover, the development of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the first institution of European integration, is closely linked to the crises in Europe during the 20th century, including the World Wars and the Cold War. Therefore, Monnet explained that Europe was born out of crises. This study will explore the origins of the ECSC and the significance of supranational European integration methods, examining how crises of war can strongly reinforce the necessity for integration.

Creating a contact binary via spacecraft impact to near-Earth binary asteroid (350751) 2002 AW

Contact binary asteroids are ubiquitous in the solar system: the Kuiper belt, main belt, and near-Earth populations all house these complex aggregates. Although contact binaries account for up to 30% of small bodies in the solar system, the formation of one has yet to be observed. We present a preliminary mission design to create a contact binary asteroid and observe its formation using a binary NEO system, a kinetic impactor, and an observer spacecraft. Not only does this mission address an important gap in planetary science, it also serves the planetary defense community: it will further demonstrate planetary defense technology to provide unique observation opportunities. A binary system offers a convenient natural laboratory for this mission, as the ability to form a contact binary using a kinetic impactor depends greatly on the size of the target and the proximity to its parent body. From among all known binary near-Earth objects, binary asteroid system (350751) 2002 AW was chosen for this case study. A spacecraft can achieve rendezvous with this system from low-Earth orbit with a cheap total ΔV ≈ 4.3 km/s. A pair of spacecraft launch on the same launch vehicle and separate before asteroid impact. The two spacecraft are (1) an impactor that has been adapted from the DART spacecraft and (2) an observer spacecraft that will rendezvous with the binary system and observe the creation of the contact binary. The spacecraft impact must be designed such that it redirects the secondary into a collision course with the primary while not catastrophically disrupting the target asteroid. Impact parameters such as angle of impact, catastrophic disruption limit, and the β factor have been considered. Among other design decisions, we present our target-selection methodology, launch-vehicle considerations, and launch opportunities.

The Seventh Member State: Algeria, France and the European Community

Megan Brown’s The Seventh Member State makes a bold and exciting contribution to our understanding of contemporary France, decolonization and European integration. Tracing the story of Algeria’s relationship with the nascent European Community, Brown recounts in lively prose how and why French officials pushed to have Algeria included in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community (EEC), and how independent Algeria retained this ambiguous status as a ‘seventh member state’ of the EEC until 1976—fourteen years after gaining independence. The book is divided into three sections, with two chapters apiece. The first section deals with the origins of ‘Eurafrican’ ideology and the place of Algeria in the first post-war European initiatives, most notably the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) from which Algeria was specifically excluded. Brown also argues compellingly that the European Defence Community (EDC), an initiative proposed by France in 1950 only to be vetoed by the French National Assembly four years later, failed in part due to French insistence of minimizing external (namely German) influence on its colonial affairs.

Statistical Significance of Mission Parameters on the Deflection Efficiency of Kinetic Impacts: Applications for the Next-generation Kinetic Impactor

Understanding how to deflect an incoming asteroid is of great importance and a focus of research undertaken internationally by the planetary defense community. Deflection of an asteroid by a kinetic impactor is one such mitigation method that has a high degree of technological maturity. In 2022, NASA’s planetary defense mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), will provide the first full-scale technology demonstration of a kinetic impactor. However, the DART mission is just a single test of one kinetic impactor design, prompting the question: Is it possible to optimize the design of a kinetic impactor to make it the most efficient deflector that it can be? In this paper, we use high-fidelity hydrodynamic simulations to examine the effect of five mission parameters (impactor mass, impact velocity, impactor composition, impactor geometry, and target strength) on three observables related to deflection efficiency (crater morphology, ejecta distribution, and momentum transfer) resulting from kinetic impacts. We find that the most significant mission parameters for determining postimpact factors are the impact velocity, impactor mass, and target strength. The impactor geometry and impactor composition emerge as statistically nonsignificant. Overall, we find that the ogive impactor geometry results in the highest variance in predicting the momentum enhancement factor (β), and that generally, impactors with smaller volumes and flat leading edges (plates and rings) produce smaller craters and less ejecta mass compared to impactors with larger volumes and sharper leading edges (spheres, ogives, and cones).

Apophis Planetary Defense Campaign

We describe results of a planetary defense exercise conducted during the close approach to Earth by the near-Earth asteroid (99942) Apophis during 2020 December–2021 March. The planetary defense community has been conducting observational campaigns since 2017 to test the operational readiness of the global planetary defense capabilities. These community-led global exercises were carried out with the support of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office and the International Asteroid Warning Network. The Apophis campaign is the third in our series of planetary defense exercises. The goal of this campaign was to recover, track, and characterize Apophis as a potential impactor to exercise the planetary defense system including observations, hypothetical risk assessment and risk prediction, and hazard communication. Based on the campaign results, we present lessons learned about our ability to observe and model a potential impactor. Data products derived from astrometric observations were available for inclusion in our risk assessment model almost immediately, allowing real-time updates to the impact probability calculation and possible impact locations. An early NEOWISE diameter measurement provided a significant improvement in the uncertainty on the range of hypothetical impact outcomes. The availability of different characterization methods such as photometry, spectroscopy, and radar provided robustness to our ability to assess the potential impact risk.

Military Dataset Processing Approaches or Trauma Risk Mitigation in Machine Learning Practitioners

To develop new computer vision capabilities leveraging artificial intelligence, we will increasingly need to use operationally realistic training and validation datasets. Although operational full motion video and imagery datasets present information regarding their provenance and classification level, these designations are often not indicative of the presence of potentially offensive or traumatizing content. As machine learning and data scientists increasingly need to work with operational unsanitized operational video and imagery data, they will have a higher risk of being exposed to sensitive and traumatic content. In this paper, we first raise awareness about this risk within the Defense community. Then, we propose several approaches for mitigating machine learning practitioner's exposure to offensive and traumatizing media, including dataset preprocessing procedures and viewing tool design considerations.

Russia’s War against Ukraine and Its Impact on Regional and Global Processes

The article analyses the impact of the russian-Ukrainian war on regional and global processes. The emphasis is placed on Ukraine’s ongoing national liberation war as an opportunity for the final liberation of national consciousness from the vestiges of the Stalinist administrative-political system of the ex-Soviet empire, and the eradication of anti-state (primarily pro-russian) political forces. There is a chance for self-affirmation of Ukrainian identity in the international arena as a politically monolithic state entity with Euro-Atlantic values based on science-intensive and high-tech potential. The study reveals that the russian-Ukrainian war demonstrated the flaws of the European security system, the miscalculations of the leaders of NATO countries, leading European politicians, and the weakening of the security situation on the continent. The author states that the creators of the European security system recognised the mistakes they had made and quickly started working on eliminating previous miscalculations. The foundation of the new international coalition in support of Ukraine was laid by the meeting in Ramstein on 26 April 2022, which showed the determination of allies to invest in the result – the victory of Ukraine. The author highlights the new quality of relations between Ukraine and NATO, which emerged in March–April 2022 as a basic component of the newly created system of European and global security. Moreover, the article demonstrates the fundamental impact of the russian-Ukrainian war on the system of international relations, its security, economic, and trade components, as well as the reformatting of world Orthodoxy amid the discrediting of the russian orthodox church. In general, the security architecture in Europe has radically changed since 24 February 2022. The russian invasion of Ukraine has caused a serious impact on the new perception and new understanding of the Northern European defence community by its members. The post-war, remodelled European security system can no longer be imagined without Ukraine’s multilateral participation in it as a basic element of this system. Keywords: national liberation war, identity, NATO, the architecture of European security