Topic- Role of external state and non-state actors in creating challenges to internal security.
4) The possibility of emerging military technologies prompting inadvertent escalation and conflict cannot be ruled out. Comment.(250 words)
Why this question
Emergence of technological warfare has gained prominence in recent times and conventional warfare has taken a backseat. In this context it is important to analyze how such developments can affect the conflicts between the countries.
Directive word
Comment- here we have to express our knowledge and understanding of the issue and form an overall opinion thereupon.
Key demand of the question.
The question wants us to express our knowledge and understanding of the rise and development of the emerging military technologies and express our opinion as to how they can lead to inadvertent escalation and hostility between nations.
Structure of the answer
Introduction– write a few introductory lines about the emerging military technologies. E.g The current focus in military thinking across the world is increasingly moving away from traditional heavy-duty military hardware to high-tech innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics, satellite jammers, hypersonic strike technology, advanced cyber capabilities and spectrum denial and high-energy lasers.
Body-
Discuss how these technologies can inadvertently lead to escalation of conventional conflicts between the various countries. E.g
- In the light of the unprecedented capabilities that these systems offer, there is also an increased focus on developing suitable command and control as well as doctrinal concepts to accommodate and calibrate them.
- The arrival of these technologies might deeply frustrate strategic stability as we know it given their disruptive nature.
- Strategic stability in the contemporary international system, especially among the nuclear weapon states, depends on several age-old certainties, the most important being the issue of survivability of a state’s nuclear arsenal and its ability to carry out a second strike after a first attack.
- Once accuracies get better, hypersonic glide vehicles replace conventional delivery systems, real time tracking and surveillance make major strides, and AI-enabled systems take over, survivability of nuclear arsenal, which lies at the heart of great power stability, could take a severe beating.
- While on the one hand, it is imperative for states to redesign their systems in the light of these new technologies, especially the digital and cyber components, this also makes the cyber- and digital-enabled systems vulnerable to covert cyberattacks.
- More so, given that such surreptitious attacks might take place in the early stages of a conflict, ensuing confusion and scare might lead to uncontrolled escalation with little time for assessment and judgement.
Conclusion– based on your discussion, form a fair and a balanced conclusion on the given issue.
