What will the military of the future look like? Get a glimpse of upcoming technologies and how they might be utilized, including combat wear, future space wars and high-tech military robots. Future battlefields might be unrecognizable with the growth and advancements in technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), quantum, cyber, space, and biotechnology.
AI and Autonomous Weapons
Artificial intelligence will be a crucial development for the U.S.’s drone platforms. Next-generation drones will fly autonomously without interference from end users, but end users can assume or override controls if needed. Drones will fly in any weather condition and track enemy activity while sending back intelligence and video feed to end users. Operators will be able to track and detect personnel through facial recognition and determine whether they are friendly or hostile. Facial recognition will increase our ability to track specific combatants and allow Soldiers to engage targets directly with lethal fires. The technology will also help reduce collateral damage and prevent civilian deaths, which we might have perceived as hostile in past engagements. Laser availability will also enhance next-generation drone capability.
Laser technology provides drones with another level of sophistication, similar to hellfire missiles’ lethality. New laser lethality will have lasting effects on enemy targets. Future drones’ sophisticated and enhanced lethality will use laser-penetrating energy to take out vehicles, aircraft and other weapon systems.
Information Warfare
Misinformation and overloading systems and critical infrastructure will allow the U.S. to deliver decisive blows to its adversaries. Overloading enemy networks and disrupting their communications helps shape narratives and disseminate effective disinformation to adversary populations.
Hypersonic Technology
Imagine missiles or anything flying faster than the speed of sound; it is already a nearly unfathomable speed. By 2040, hypersonic weapons will be equipped with nuclear munitions traveling up to 20 times the speed of sound. These speeds will ensure surprise on enemies. If proven dependable, these hypersonic weapons will help deter threats from any country.
#futuretech #battle #AI
AI and Autonomous Weapons
Artificial intelligence will be a crucial development for the U.S.’s drone platforms. Next-generation drones will fly autonomously without interference from end users, but end users can assume or override controls if needed. Drones will fly in any weather condition and track enemy activity while sending back intelligence and video feed to end users. Operators will be able to track and detect personnel through facial recognition and determine whether they are friendly or hostile. Facial recognition will increase our ability to track specific combatants and allow Soldiers to engage targets directly with lethal fires. The technology will also help reduce collateral damage and prevent civilian deaths, which we might have perceived as hostile in past engagements. Laser availability will also enhance next-generation drone capability.
Laser technology provides drones with another level of sophistication, similar to hellfire missiles’ lethality. New laser lethality will have lasting effects on enemy targets. Future drones’ sophisticated and enhanced lethality will use laser-penetrating energy to take out vehicles, aircraft and other weapon systems.
Information Warfare
Misinformation and overloading systems and critical infrastructure will allow the U.S. to deliver decisive blows to its adversaries. Overloading enemy networks and disrupting their communications helps shape narratives and disseminate effective disinformation to adversary populations.
Hypersonic Technology
Imagine missiles or anything flying faster than the speed of sound; it is already a nearly unfathomable speed. By 2040, hypersonic weapons will be equipped with nuclear munitions traveling up to 20 times the speed of sound. These speeds will ensure surprise on enemies. If proven dependable, these hypersonic weapons will help deter threats from any country.
#futuretech #battle #AI
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TechTranscript
00:00 War is part of our human experience, but the way we fight it is changing.
00:07 Technology is defining the future of warfare.
00:10 It's changing the way we think about making decisions in warfare, providing capabilities
00:14 that were previously unreachable.
00:16 Lessons from the past inform the future.
00:19 At every technological leap, redraws the battle lines we once knew.
00:24 Technology was once a spear.
00:26 Today it is a cyber attack.
00:28 The amount of interconnected technology has fundamentally transformed the operational
00:35 environment.
00:36 Familiar domains grow increasingly complex, and the race to dominate the ultimate high
00:41 ground has begun.
00:43 In the same way we think about sea power, we need to start thinking about a strategy
00:46 for space.
00:47 As machines take the reins, the speed of warfare accelerates ever faster.
00:53 Technology has always shaped war.
00:55 Evolution has always happened in war and in society.
00:59 It will continue to happen.
01:00 War has always shaped humanity.
01:12 Future warfare will be fought in the atmosphere of Earth's orbit.
01:18 Humanity's growing reliance on space ensures militaries maneuver at light speed to conquer
01:23 it.
01:26 To dominate space is to dominate Earth.
01:42 People when they look up in space they imagine this black void where there's nothing really
01:45 between Earth and other planets or other stars.
01:49 And that's far from the truth.
01:53 This is the final frontier.
01:54 We're still really excited about it.
01:55 You put a kid in front of a rocket and how it's impossible not to be excited by it.
02:02 So we tend to think of space as something that's very, very far away.
02:06 It's very empty.
02:07 There's not anything in there.
02:09 It's a big vacuum.
02:12 Space has terrain.
02:13 Its terrain is not physical terrain like we see here on Earth.
02:17 It's terrain of gravitation, of radiation, of trajectories and of orbits.
02:24 It's a very dynamic environment and society depends upon it.
02:27 It extends everything we do on the ground up into the skies.
02:33 There is this linkage between the void of space and what's happening here on Earth and
02:38 it goes both ways.
02:41 Is this really interesting terrain in space factor that people need to start visualizing
02:46 and understanding and it adds then a new dimension to how we think about space warfare.
02:52 We are dependent on space for a number of elements.
02:55 Things that we might not consider to be connected to space in any way.
02:58 Things like agriculture, road building, mining, all these depend increasingly on the accuracy
03:01 of the GPS signal.
03:04 Networked systems of sensors allow us to navigate.
03:09 They allow us to have precision timing.
03:13 Things like the electricity grid, for instance, depend on this.
03:16 So if that goes down, many functions on which we rely go down and the economy or a number
03:21 of other aspects start to be affected immediately and society could just stop.
03:26 Without space we would have a very different world.
03:29 A lot of the technology and the connectedness of society is driven by our space technology.
03:37 If we lose space, we lose the war and we lose it fast.
03:40 Ancient humanity worshipped the sky above.
03:50 They learned that celestial objects played a part within the universe and daily life.
03:57 Recordings of zodiac constellations were made by both the Chinese and Babylonians some several
04:03 hundred years before the common era.
04:08 Astronomers began to use the stars to navigate.
04:11 And then in the early 1600s, Galileo Galilei tilted his telescope toward the stars and
04:19 saw deeper into space than any human ever had before him.
04:24 There's only a few things that you can do in space or to space.
04:31 You can look at things.
04:32 So you can have optical telescopes and that can either be from space looking at the ground
04:38 or from ground looking at the space.
04:41 You can listen.
04:42 You can broadcast into space, connect the satellite and then broadcast that down to
04:46 the ground or likewise from space you can transmit.
04:51 From the ancient world to the modern era, humanity's fascination with space began when
04:58 we turned our gaze upward.
05:00 It wouldn't be long, however, before humanity began wondering how to conquer it.
05:07 But to conquer it meant we had to venture into it.
05:13 This possibility began only several decades ago when technology allowed us to skirt the
05:18 atmosphere.
05:20 The military have always been interested in space.
05:23 From World War II with the V2 rocket that really marked our first efforts to leave the
05:29 Earth's surface and enter orbit.
05:32 The Karman line is an area between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space.
05:38 Here where the atmosphere is so thin soared the German developed long-range guided ballistic
05:43 missile the V2.
05:46 Designed to target allied cities such as London in World War II, powered by a liquid propelled
05:51 rocket engine, the V2 rose beyond the Earth's atmospheric threshold, making it the first
05:57 human-made object to travel into space.
06:04 The space race began at the end of the Second World War, in particular between that great
06:08 power rivalry between the United States and Soviet Russia.
06:13 Both the Soviet Union and the United States recognized the obvious military advantage
06:19 in exploiting space.
06:22 The first steps of the space race were to recruit or coerce the best minds of the time
06:28 to improve upon existing technology.
06:33 Recruiting and coercion began post-World War II.
06:37 At gunpoint, the Soviets seized about 2,200 German specialists, 6,000 family members in
06:43 total from Soviet occupation zones to work on Operation Osoviakum.
06:49 The US in turn secretly relocated some 1,600 German scientists for their equivalent program,
06:57 Operation Paperclip.
07:01 Among the scientists that America rounded up was Wernher von Braun, who later became
07:05 the so-called founder of the US space race.
07:09 Dr. Wernher von Braun, an aerospace engineer and space architect, was at the vanguard of
07:15 Germany's rocket program.
07:19 With the Cold War looming, the desire to be first in space, to understand and harness
07:24 its potential, to assert military might, to display technological prowess, drove the Soviet
07:31 Union and the United States to push each other fast into uncharted territory, into the outer
07:37 atmosphere of our Earth.
07:40 There was this level of competition between these sort of two enemies in the center of
07:44 the Cold War around rocketry.
07:48 Scientists working on Operation Osoviakum and Operation Paperclip quickly developed
07:53 short and medium-range rockets, ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles.
08:00 And so with ICBMs, they're designed to travel a long distance over Earth's surface, but
08:05 also because of that can go a long distance up.
08:08 So a really good demonstration of ICBMs' power is its ability to reach space.
08:13 You can go into space, you can also hit Moscow or Washington.
08:21 Soon they began to learn more about the Earth's properties and magnetic fields.
08:26 Even after the lengthy Cold War silence, the Soviets, Americans and some 65 other countries
08:32 came together to exchange ideas at the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year.
08:40 Those charged with the United States satellite program determined that small satellite spheres
08:48 would be launched as test vehicles during 1957.
08:51 And that the first fully instrumented satellite would be launched in March of 1958.
09:00 The outcome?
09:02 America and the Soviet Union agreed to launch low-orbiting satellites.
09:07 And then…
09:10 The Russians beat the Americans to the punch and on 4th of October launched the first satellite
09:15 called Sputnik.
09:16 It was launched on a Soviet R-7 rocket and reached Earth orbit.
09:21 And that came as quite a shock to the US because first of all the US didn't realize the Russians
09:26 had that capability.
09:28 And also it beat the US into space by about three or four months.
09:33 In fact it was only after a couple of orbits that anyone noticed it was there.
09:37 It was a sudden realization I guess that there was an opponent above them looking down on
09:44 them.
09:46 The average American could walk outside their house in the middle of the night and literally
09:49 see this satellite, a little twinkling star in the Earth's sky.
09:54 It was still the first man-made satellite in orbit and so that created quite a ripple
09:59 in US security communities.
10:02 This is where we see the beginning of the space race, this idea that America, supposedly
10:06 the most powerful nation on Earth, is behind the Soviet Union.
10:10 And they sort of scrambled to catch up.
10:12 That was the very first satellite that was designed to perform a science mission but
10:17 there was obviously a significant amount of strategic and military interest in there as
10:22 well.
10:28 There actually has been quite a large military presence in space right from the very beginning.
10:32 Sputnik was actually a military satellite.
10:35 A lot of the early astronauts and cosmonauts were military members.
10:40 The military are very interested in space for its ability to provide a global coverage.
10:48 Space and security concerns have been intertwined right from the start.
10:52 You can fly your satellites pretty much anywhere over the world and you can use them to look
10:57 at things, you can use them to listen to things.
11:01 Sputnik was very much a strategic shock for the United States because it demonstrated
11:05 the power of Soviet ICBMs and their ability to reach the United States.
11:12 To communicate with troops and facilitate basically every aspect of armed conflict.
11:19 Right from the start, space was seen as the ultimate high ground in a military sense.
11:24 A lot of the early satellites had weapons on them so there was actually a Russian satellite
11:37 that had a cannon on it.
11:41 Soviet 23 or 30mm cannon being attached to one of their early military space stations.
11:47 That was the only example of a weapon being sent into space.
11:49 They tested that and then de-orbited the space station later on.
11:56 Salyut 3, a Soviet space station launched under the highly secretive ALMAZ program.
12:02 Not only did it contain a number of cameras designed to observe Earth, but it was equipped
12:08 with a self-defence gun, the Richter R-23.
12:14 They weren't very useful because the only way to aim them was to actually turn the entire
12:18 satellite.
12:20 On January 24, 1975, just hours before the Soviet space station was decommissioned, the
12:28 R-23 cannon was test fired in space.
12:43 There are already weapons in space.
12:46 There are some very suspect objects in space that a number of us suspect aren't communication
12:52 satellites.
12:54 Weaponising space is different to weapons being used in space.
12:59 Surprisingly, there are perhaps fewer examples of weapons being used in space than people
13:04 might believe.
13:06 The example of where countries have launched weapons into space, the Starfish Prime tests
13:11 are nuclear testing in the early 1960s.
13:15 In the summer of 1962, the United States launched Starfish Prime, one in a series of high-altitude
13:23 nuclear tests in response to Russia ending a three-year testing moratorium.
13:29 A 1.4 megaton thermonuclear warhead was carried into space on a rocket named after the Norse
13:36 god Thor.
13:38 Four hundred kilometres above Earth, it was detonated.
13:43 Starfish Prime became the largest nuclear test to occur in space.
13:50 However, testing nuclear weapons in space creates an electromagnetic pulse.
13:58 It can disable satellites and wreak havoc on terrestrial electrical systems and microwave
14:04 radio transmissions.
14:10 An electromagnetic pulse at the right altitude can have an impact over a huge area of the
14:15 Earth's surface and affect a lot of the electronics that are not properly shielded
14:20 or protected.
14:23 When human beings started exploding nuclear weapons in space, not only did they find that
14:27 trapped high-energy electrons formed radiation belts around the Earth, they soon discovered
14:33 that space debris was now a problem.
14:36 A lot of the debris sort of linger from that particular bomb and those debris is travelling
14:41 very fast, very, very damaging to sort of satellites around them.
14:47 There are various orbits around the Earth, from medium to low, polar to geostationary.
14:54 Satellites use different orbits for particular reasons, from predicting the weather to military
14:59 reconnaissance.
15:01 Orbits cluttered with space debris make for perilous space operations.
15:07 It's important to understand the particular characteristics of space that mark it out
15:10 from other domains.
15:12 In space, if you send anything fast enough, it's a weapon.
15:17 So a little bolt going at 20,000 kilometres an hour is essentially a missile.
15:26 In the late 1970s, NASA scientist David J. Kessler concluded that space debris, from
15:32 tiny objects to large abandoned launch craft or non-functional spacecraft, were extremely
15:38 hazardous to ongoing space operations.
15:43 As space debris collides, an exponentially increasing amount of debris is created.
15:48 This is known as the Kessler syndrome.
15:53 You can see the debris for our continued use of space.
15:56 Bits of old rocket boosters, screws, even a wrench has been lost in space.
15:59 There's a lot of different things that space debris consists of.
16:03 When it hits your satellite, it's going to go straight through it.
16:08 The energy contained in a one centimetre particle hitting a satellite at that velocity roughly
16:14 corresponds to an exploding grenade.
16:16 So the consequences of such a hit mean a satellite failure for larger objects, even a satellite
16:22 destruction and fragment generation, and then has environmental consequences.
16:29 And despite knowing the risks, space debris has continued to accumulate, not least because
16:34 of anti-satellite testing.
16:37 For a very long time, the major player in space is actually the United States and Russia.
16:43 But in more recent times, and especially in the post-Cold War period, and there are some
16:49 other emerging power in the space, and in particular China and India.
16:55 We haven't had space warfare so far, but when we think about how space warfare might emerge
17:01 in the future, what you focus on very much is anti-satellite weapons, the sorts of capabilities
17:07 that China and Russia and India and others have tested to be able to either physically
17:12 destroy a target satellite or to disable it.
17:17 This capability can be divided into the so-called soft kill or hard kill.
17:23 A hard kill, or kinetic kill, is volatile.
17:26 It's about obliterating space assets.
17:29 This usually involves a direct ascent anti-satellite weapon taking out a target.
17:38 In the 1980s, the Russians and the Americans both tested anti-satellite missiles.
17:44 They had a moratorium on that for a while.
17:48 They realised it was in neither of their interests to develop anti-satellite missiles.
17:53 But then in 2007, the Chinese tested an anti-satellite missile.
17:59 The 2007 Chinese anti-sat test drew significant response from the international community.
18:10 It was quite high, so the amount of debris that was created was vast and it causes us
18:15 problems to this day.
18:21 The destruction of the satellite by this test created more than 3,000 trackable pieces of
18:29 debris which caused considerable threat to the other satellites in the space as well.
18:36 The Chinese test is actually a wake-up call for the United States and which makes the
18:44 United States aware that China had made significant progress in the counter-space capability.
18:52 From a strategic perspective, you can see why they would want to do that.
18:57 The United States derives great benefits from its space capabilities.
19:02 It's one of the asymmetric advantages that the US would have over China.
19:08 So how does China balance up the checkbook, so to speak?
19:13 They can do that by developing counter-space capabilities to deny the US its advantages
19:20 that it gets from space capability.
19:24 We've seen the Chinese and the Russians and now the Indians test direct-descent ASATs.
19:32 The Americans did one in 2008 called Operation Bird Frost where they took out a malfunctioning
19:38 satellite in very low Earth orbit.
19:42 The Indian anti-satellite test was likewise not the most responsible activity to do, partly
19:49 because they don't have much in the way of ground-based sensors.
19:52 So they created all this debris and then it was a problem for someone else, mainly the
19:57 US, to keep track of all these pieces of debris and ask everyone to stay out of the way of
20:02 them.
20:03 The good thing about space is it's pretty empty, so the distances between a lot of this
20:07 debris is quite large.
20:09 And often you can move satellites prior to a piece of debris coming close to them because
20:14 of course we can track a lot of this debris using radar down to say a centimetre or lower.
20:19 We can track each individual piece.
20:23 European Space Agency figures released in 2020 estimate close to one million objects
20:29 between one and ten centimetres in length, 34,000 objects greater than ten centimetres
20:35 and 128 million objects one centimetre or less.
20:48 In future warfare, ground-based military operations allow for a variety of defensive space manoeuvres
20:54 to occur, which can lessen the risk of further space debris accumulating.
21:00 As a result of the problems that could derive from a kinetic strike in space, it's more
21:04 likely that we'll see soft-kill capabilities.
21:07 A soft-kill capability is the interference of sensor-based systems or sensor-based weapon
21:14 systems.
21:15 Soft-kill, which are the capability which can temporarily disable or denial the use
21:21 of space capability by one's opponent.
21:26 For example, a cyber attack where you just switch it off.
21:30 You've not hit it and caused it to fragment into thousands of pieces.
21:35 You've just stopped it from working.
21:39 Things like spoofing, jamming or maybe dazzling with a laser or blinding a satellite.
21:44 Illuminating the satellite but with enough power that it would blind the satellite.
21:48 So optical sensors, for instance, could be overloaded and that's why we say dazzled.
21:58 An example would be a ground-based laser shining up at satellites.
22:03 You can use it to dazzle a satellite so that it can't operate.
22:08 Other concepts are things that we call co-orbital anti-satellite weapons.
22:12 Those would be a satellite that would orbit along with or alongside, say, your target
22:17 satellite.
22:18 Those might be in orbit for many years.
22:19 You might not know it's a weaponised satellite.
22:22 They could be sort of a sleeper satellite in some respects and all they need to do is
22:25 bump into it.
22:28 It's very hard to know if you've been deliberately attacked or whether another satellite has
22:33 just gone out of control and bumped into you.
22:37 Then we get into things such as active debris removals.
22:40 Harpoons, nets, electromagnetic tethers to try and grab dangerous pieces of space junk
22:45 that threaten our orbital environment.
22:49 Those could also be used as a weapon to grab an active satellite.
22:52 Sounds a bit James Bond but they could actually collect that satellite and take it down to
22:56 Earth.
22:57 There's a number of things that you could do with a co-orbital satellite depending on
23:00 the design, etc.
23:03 We are seeing space as now contested in every sense.
23:06 We are seeing adversaries like China and Russia starting to develop very sophisticated counter
23:11 space capabilities that are threatening our traditional advantage in terms of a knowledge
23:17 edge.
23:20 A soft kill may have its advantages in reducing space carnage but it also opens the doors
23:29 to a new series of potential vulnerabilities.
23:33 The more states are dependent on space the less likely it is that they will be starting
23:36 to throw around kinetic capabilities in space and be looking for some of these jamming or
23:40 dazzling or those kind of capabilities.
23:43 And then you can perhaps deliver to the enemies a great deal of disinformation via their own
23:47 satellites if you're able to hack into them.
23:50 Basically it's designed to disable rather than physically destroy.
23:54 That has real advantages because it allows a degree of deniability.
23:59 There are a lot of challenges around attribution particularly around countries, particularly
24:05 America now who's saying that any attack on a satellite would be an attack of war on them
24:10 and that has a compound effect.
24:14 We need to have a factual basis to determine that we have been interfered with in an intentional
24:21 way and an evidentiary basis.
24:24 How can they be sure who their adversary is?
24:27 Do they just randomly pick a country?
24:30 What warfare looks like in space is really hard to predict.
24:33 We can see the kinetic effects of some of these kind of weapons but there might be a
24:36 number of other methods that we just aren't really aware of or if it happens we're not
24:39 sure is it space weather or is it perhaps a malicious actor, we're not quite sure exactly
24:44 who's doing what.
24:53 Our imagination helped launch us from Earth, devised ways to harness an orbit, land us
24:59 on the moon and now venture beyond.
25:04 The race to dominate this newly contested environment means adversaries will engage
25:08 in war in ways that have never been seen before.
25:13 We expect foreign governments to expand their use of space-based reconnaissance, communications
25:18 and navigation systems and China and Russia will continue training and equipping their
25:23 military space forces and fielding new anti-satellite weapons to hold US and allied space services
25:29 at risk.
25:31 Space has become the new global frontier with competition from numerous nations.
25:38 Space for a long time has just been taken for granted as a region, as an enabler for
25:44 terrestrial military operations.
25:46 We always assumed that air, naval and ground forces would have access to space systems
25:51 to function.
25:53 That assumption now is directly open to challenge and I think probably its time has passed.
25:59 Our adversaries have been working to bring new weapons of war into space itself.
26:04 From anti-satellite weapons and airborne lasers to highly threatening on-orbit activities
26:09 and evasive hypersonic missiles, both China and Russia have been aggressively developing
26:15 and deploying technologies that have transformed space into a warfighting domain.
26:21 In the space domain, the rules of engagement are being laid down and one of the most important
26:26 factors is speed.
26:28 The emerging field of hypersonic weapons has challenged the idea of what weapons in space
26:33 may look like as well as what methods of defense may be required against them.
26:39 Railguns launch projectiles up to 100 miles at a hypersonic speed of Mach 7.
26:47 Using electromagnetic force, highly charged electrical particles generate magnetic fields.
26:53 These magnetic fields propel sliding metal conductors which launch the missiles toward
26:57 their target.
27:01 Destruction comes not by explosive detonation but by the projectiles smashing into the target
27:07 at unimaginable speed, at hyperspeed.
27:16 Hypersonic weapons are weapons that travel through the air at speeds in excess of Mach
27:22 5, that's 5 times the speed of sound.
27:26 And most of the hypersonic weapons developments are looking at velocities ranging from about
27:30 Mach 6 through to about Mach 10.
27:37 Russia's Avangard is one such weapon.
27:40 In 2018, Russia alleged that in tests, this missile reached speeds of up to 27 times the
27:46 speed of sound.
27:50 This hypersonic missile has an intercontinental range, a maneuverability capability that makes
27:56 it near impossible to intercept and the ability to carry a 2 megaton nuclear weapon.
28:04 It is a weapon of future warfare.
28:09 How do you detect hypersonic weapons that are moving maybe as fast as Mach 10, early
28:14 enough to be able to defend against them?
28:18 If you're traveling at say Mach 8, the temperature a small distance away from the surface of
28:24 your airplane or your missile can get to around the same temperature as the surface of the
28:28 sun, so it can get to around 3000, 4000 Kelvin.
28:33 The speed that things happen become very challenging.
28:38 If you imagine, for example, a naval task force at sea, by the time the hypersonic weapon
28:43 is detected, you've got maybe 14 seconds to be able to defend against that threat, which
28:50 is not enough time.
28:56 If future warfare happens at hypersonic speed, one measure of hope against a missile traveling
29:02 at such incredible velocity is for a space-based series of sensors and defensive systems to
29:07 recognize a threat and respond rapidly.
29:12 Having something like AI on board that's able to monitor the system and predict when something's
29:19 going to happen before it happens and take mitigating issues would be very beneficial.
29:25 As we start to then get, say, major opponents trying to take down space capabilities, that
29:29 could be catastrophic again for all these ground-based services that we depend on now
29:34 increasingly.
29:35 And that's a really debilitating scenario.
29:39 And you see the potential then for what people call a space Pearl Harbor, whereby an adversary
29:45 can maneuver anti-satellite weapons close to their targets and then unleash a decisive
29:51 strike prior to or at the outset of a military conflict to disable critical capabilities
29:56 and leaving us, in effect, deaf, dumb, and blind.
30:06 As the contested environment of space becomes ever more congested, superpowers vie to position
30:14 themselves by using technology that sets them apart, establishing dominance amongst an ever-cluttered
30:20 field of private industry and military interests.
30:26 There is a concern now about the militarization of space, but it's actually been happening
30:31 for quite a long time.
30:33 What has happened recently is we're actually talking more about it, whereas previously
30:38 it was quite hidden in secrecy.
30:42 China actually realized that the United States has a far stronger and superior military space
30:49 program and capability.
30:52 So it developed its counter-space capability largely to give itself a kind of deterrence.
31:03 We are moving into a period where space warfare is probably going to happen in the next big
31:10 war.
31:13 Space now is perceived as a very important part for China's national interest and both
31:20 for military and civilian purpose.
31:24 It's highly likely the Chinese and the Russians will move against our space capabilities from
31:29 the outset.
31:30 So we're scrambling to respond to that challenge.
31:32 Superpowers are invested heavily in space.
31:50 In 2017, China's space and military budget was close to $9 billion.
31:58 Russia's was about $3 billion.
32:00 In 2020, the U.S. Department of Defense requested just over $14 billion for space programs.
32:10 The money is spent not only on space exploration.
32:13 Much of it is dedicated to developing military capabilities, which gives superpowers an edge.
32:19 The key to success in future warfare is really gaining and maintaining an information edge
32:24 over an adversary.
32:25 And critical to that is, of course, space-based capabilities for command and control communications
32:31 and computers, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, the so-called C4ISR factor.
32:36 At the moment, the focus is on quantum cryptography and quantum communications.
32:41 The Chinese have deployed a satellite called MISEUS, which is designed to test quantum
32:46 communications by sending quantum entangled photons along long distances.
32:52 In late 2016, China launched the quantum-enabled satellite MISEUS.
32:59 They sent two quantum entangled photons at a distance of about 1,200 kilometers in 2016,
33:04 which was the longest that anyone's ever done.
33:07 And it forms the basis, potentially, of a ultra-secure satellite communications system
33:13 and quantum internet in the sky that would give the Chinese military a far more sophisticated
33:18 C4ISR capability than what we would have if we don't develop this.
33:25 MISEUS delivered encrypted, unhackable communication through the transference of minute subatomic
33:31 particles of light.
33:33 These light particles then travel by laser across space toward precise targets on Earth.
33:40 Certainly the military implications are that they would have a command and control communications
33:44 system based on quantum communications and cryptography that we couldn't break, that
33:49 we couldn't eavesdrop on.
33:51 So therefore, we couldn't understand what it is they're doing in terms of their command
33:55 and control.
33:56 And that's pretty significant.
34:05 China is a fast-growing space power.
34:08 And it currently has a very ambitious space program.
34:13 And even if China is a later comer in the space, but its capability is growing very
34:18 quickly.
34:21 You're going to see probably the Chinese push ahead with a second-generation quantum communications
34:26 system, with new satellites to test even more sophisticated application of this physics.
34:32 And they might have beat us to it in terms of quantum communications and quantum internet.
34:40 But over time, China and the China space program has been driven by more concrete commercial,
34:48 economic, and also military interest.
34:55 You really want to see what the future of warfare looks like.
34:57 You look at Google and Facebook and Microsoft and SpaceX and so forth.
35:03 And you look at these civilian technologies and how they can be applied to military purposes.
35:08 Quantum computing is one area.
35:10 Artificial intelligence is another area where the Chinese have a huge lead.
35:20 Any nation's military that can harvest information and analyze vast amounts of data at speed
35:26 has the upper hand.
35:29 During the first Gulf War, the United States used information technology to dominate the
35:34 battle space.
35:38 Money from space gives an adversary a profound advantage.
35:43 So if we say information is power, we can see this perhaps shifting to what we call
35:47 new space players or commercial entities.
35:49 We're looking at the prospect of constant, 24/7 global surveillance and high definition
35:55 at any point on the globe.
35:58 What China wants to achieve is the so-called information dominance.
36:04 Space is an important domain of informationized warfare.
36:10 And space dominance is a fundamental objective for China's strategic and military planning.
36:19 And certainly Chinese and Russian military thinkers understand the great information
36:23 advantage that American space power gives them.
36:25 And they'd be very keen to limit that or attack that in any kind of conflict.
36:33 Processing, controlling, manipulating information.
36:38 Future warfare relies on a steady stream of quickly absorbed data.
36:44 Every state recognizes the importance of the space environment for providing space support
36:50 to terrestrial forces.
36:52 So satellites for communications, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, precision navigation
36:57 and timing.
36:59 The push is on for the military sector and private companies to use space as a way of
37:05 harvesting information.
37:07 Not only on enemies, but on private citizens.
37:11 In terms of how different countries are developing space, there's a much more vibrant commercial
37:16 sector in the U.S. than there is in China and Russia.
37:19 And given those kinds of governments, those authoritarian governments, they're quite reluctant
37:22 to relinquish control, to really allow the commercial sector to set it free, if you like,
37:27 in that respect.
37:29 And if you want to speculate out to, say, the next 30 to 40 years, you could see human
37:34 activity, both state and non-state actor, expanding out to the moon and beyond.
37:41 And competition between major powers occurring in that vaster astro-strategic terrain.
37:52 Space is contested by superpowers, private companies, even individuals.
37:58 Dominating it is a way to dominate Earth.
38:03 But as in every skirmish across all domains, military engagement seeks to follow an established
38:09 set of guidelines, ethics, rules.
38:13 As we've thought about ethics over thousands of years, we've recognized that the environment
38:18 does matter.
38:20 So we've got different rules, for example, for shipwrecked sailors than we do for soldiers
38:25 who are separated from their units.
38:29 Does the same framework apply to conflicts, terrestrially as they do interspace?
38:35 The law of armed conflict doesn't identify space as a special domain in which special
38:41 rules would apply.
38:43 The same general rules of the law of armed conflict would also have to be applied to
38:48 any military operations undertaken in space.
38:51 There are five space-specific treaties, the Outer Space Treaty, the Liability Convention,
38:56 the Rescue and Return Agreement, the Registration Convention, and the Moon Agreement.
39:01 The Outer Space Treaty in particular is sometimes regarded as the constitutional Magna Carta
39:07 for outer space.
39:08 It has very broad aspirational principles in the Outer Space Treaty.
39:13 We have never succeeded in freeing our planet from the implements of war.
39:19 But if we cannot yet achieve this goal here on Earth, we can at least keep the virus from
39:26 spreading.
39:27 We can keep the ugly and wasteful weapons of mass destruction from contaminating space.
39:34 And that is just exactly what this treaty does.
39:44 And one of the really tricky questions is how those specialised space treaties interact
39:50 with the general rule of the law of armed conflict.
39:54 The way that legal boundaries work terrestrially work very differently to space, which creates
40:01 a whole range of ethical issues.
40:05 Space is seen as common heritage of mankind that states should have equal access to.
40:13 We have over time become quite reliant on satellites and reliant on our use of space.
40:21 The ethical problems posed by space is only going to grow.
40:25 But there certainly are going to have to be new distinctions as we think about ethics
40:29 in space.
40:30 In space, battle lines are blurred.
40:46 The dark side of the moon is exploited.
40:50 Within this void, military capabilities mesh with the interests of private stakeholders.
40:57 Sources of information from spacecraft to satellites are mobilised for war, business,
41:04 pleasure.
41:07 Private sector is now entering and Elon Musk has got plans for passengers and all sorts
41:12 of private enterprise activities in space.
41:17 I'd like to introduce the first paying customer of BFR, Usaku Meizawa.
41:24 Please come forward.
41:26 Yeah, sit over here.
41:28 Thank you, Elon.
41:32 Opening up the commercial launch segment has really changed the whole face of what we do
41:38 in space and what you can use it for.
41:40 We're in a new space race with a lot more actors.
41:45 With Earth's natural resources being depleted, space represents an unmined opportunity.
41:50 There are three reasons that countries might expand their empires.
41:55 God, we want to spread our particular religion.
41:57 Gold, is there money there?
41:59 Can we make money?
42:00 Spice trade, those sorts of things, finding new resources.
42:04 And glory, does this reflect our national prestige?
42:07 America and Russia fighting for that sense of national prestige, that sense of national
42:10 power.
42:12 Very importantly, I'm hereby directing the Department of Defence and Pentagon to immediately
42:20 begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed
42:29 forces.
42:32 All trying to find that sweet spot between how they can find their advantage, both in
42:37 the commercial and the national and probably the military side of things.
42:46 In future warfare, a space asset is a nexus point where state, civil and military interests
42:53 combine, an intermeshing of space operations with the private sector.
42:59 Suppose Elon Musk succeeds in getting one of his ships to some neighbouring planet where
43:04 there are very worthwhile and valuable materials.
43:08 Where we are right now is considering the exploitation of space for private gain by
43:13 corporations.
43:16 Should this just be left to the free market or should states have some say in what happens
43:22 up there?
43:23 And if you say states should have some say, then the question is, which states?
43:30 There might be some considerable disputes by other states at a single private individual.
43:46 A commercial satellite, depending on how that satellite is being used, could constitute
43:51 a target, a legitimate, valid target.
43:55 But what happens if a neutral state is one of the parties that are engaged in or involved
44:01 in that satellite?
44:03 Out of space, space treaty requires that there's a launching state.
44:10 So even if you're a commercial actor, a state's name is on the ticket, basically.
44:17 So much of space co-exists between this military space and the civilian use.
44:23 And so those two have pretty much comfortably, or with a little bit of tension, co-existed
44:28 since the start of the space race.
44:32 The importance of space and in future warfare cannot be overestimated because given the
44:41 tremendous consequences of war in space for the humankind and also for the socio-economic
44:50 activity.
44:51 So you've got the International Space Station, which is a sort of a shining example of the
44:55 way that countries can interact peacefully in space and indeed is used as a diplomatic
45:00 tool to bring two former enemies, Russia and America, together.
45:06 There's an increasing understanding that space is absolutely critical for both military functions
45:11 as well as a lot of civilian functions.
45:15 We will see a rise in the importance of space.
45:17 Alongside that, there's always a desire to protect economic interests in any domain,
45:22 and space is one of those.
45:23 And it has a massive impact on the balance of power, why we might go to war and some
45:28 of the outcomes of those wars and what we do terrestrially as a result.
45:32 The bad news is that we're going into that as a contested space environment where warfare
45:38 in space is a real likelihood that the major powers are developing the sorts of capabilities
45:42 for space warfare.
45:48 There have always been outlier countries, rogue actors, chagrined adversaries contesting to
45:54 dominate.
45:55 In space, in future warfare, the race continues.
46:01 The common misperception about space warfare is easy to conduct and also it's quite effective.
46:09 But in reality and actually space warfare is like the nuclear warfare and people tend
46:19 to undermine the significant consequences of space warfare.
46:26 Future space warfare will come in ways that have only been hinted at, and it may change
46:31 humanity in the blink of an eye.
46:35 If it happens, it will be fundamentally new and different compared to what's happened
46:39 in the past.
46:40 It will be just as important in terms of shaping future warfare as, for example, nuclear weapons
46:45 were in 1945.
46:49 And so we are facing the future where in war, not only will be fighting in the air and on
46:55 sea and on land as well as in cyberspace and across the electromagnetic spectrum, but we'll
47:00 also be fighting in space.
47:06 With hypersonic weapons, quantum communication systems, hard and soft kills, humanity pushes
47:14 into the abyss, finding new ways to explore, to challenge, to dominate and determine our
47:20 future.
47:23 It's beyond doubt that the importance of space in future warfare will grow and with the technology
47:30 development.
47:32 You'll see probably in the next 50 years, Trump's space force, if it happens, will evolve
47:39 so that you will see an American military space capability around the moon, a Chinese
47:44 military space capability around the moon and the potential for competition and conflict
47:50 to occur at that location.
47:53 And in fact, one of the things that we're dealing with when we look at the space environment,
47:56 it's not actually separate national programs.
48:00 It's an integrated supply chain with components that come from multiple countries all working
48:05 together.
48:09 That may be a comfort because we may think it's unlikely we'd fight someone that we're
48:14 so economically intertwined with.
48:16 History suggests we'll probably fight them anyway, but it'll be pretty messy when it
48:20 happens.
48:21 We're entering a new golden age of space exploration where we're going to be achieving so much
48:25 more than what we've achieved over the last 50 years in terms of going back to the moon,
48:30 going on to Mars, having commercial space operators, having a great deal more human
48:35 presence up in space, including beyond Earth orbit, compared to where we've been stuck
48:40 for the last 50 years.
48:46 Human beings have long contested the domains of air, land and sea.
48:52 Now we are racing toward a new domain.
48:57 How we use space will decide our earthly fate.
49:01 A future determined not by any previous war, but by looking to the sky above, past the
49:07 stars and beyond.
49:31 [Music]