military technology Archives

In U.S.-China AI contest, the race is on to deploy killer robots

Alongside Sydney Harbour, engineers are working on a submarine that will be powered by artificial intelligence and will have no human crew. The project is being driven by a contest between the U.S., its allies and China to develop AI-controlled weapons that will operate autonomously, including warships and fighter jets. The outcome of this competition could determine the global balance of power.

Anduril’s Shane Arnott wouldn’t say how many Ghost Shark submarines his company planned to manufacture, but it is planning a factory to build “at scale,” he said. Here he is seen in Sydney with Anduril’s Dive-LD, an autonomous submarine that can reach depths of 6,000 meters, according to the company website. Handout via Anduril.

TO meet the challenge of a rising China, the Australian Navy is taking two very different deep dives into advanced submarine technology.

One is pricey and slow: For a new force of up to 13 nuclear-powered attack submarines, the Australian taxpayer will fork out an average of more than AUD$28 billion ($18 billion) apiece. And the last of the subs won’t arrive until well past the middle of the century.

The other is cheap and fast: launching three unmanned subs, powered by artificial intelligence, called Ghost Sharks. The navy will spend just over AUD$23 million each for them – less than a tenth of 1% of the cost of each nuclear sub Australia will get. And the Ghost Sharks will be delivered by mid-2025.

The two vessels differ starkly in complexity, capability and dimension. The uncrewed Ghost Shark is the size of a school bus, while the first of Australia’s nuclear subs will be about the length of a football field with a crew of 132. But the vast gulf in their cost and delivery speed reveal how automation powered by artificial intelligence is poised to revolutionize weapons, warfare and military power – and shape the escalating rivalry between China and the United States. Australia, one of America’s closest allies, could have dozens of lethal autonomous robots patrolling the ocean depths years before its first nuclear submarine goes on patrol.

Without the need to cocoon a crew, the design, manufacture and performance of submarines is radically transformed, says Shane Arnott. He is the senior vice-president of engineering at U.S. defense contractor Anduril, whose Australian subsidiary is building the Ghost Shark subs for the Australian Navy.

“A huge amount of the expense and systems go into supporting the humans,” Arnott said in an interview in the company’s Sydney office.

Take away the people, and submarines become much easier and cheaper to build. For starters, Ghost Shark has no pressure hull – the typically tubular, high-strength steel vessel that protects a submarine’s crew and sensitive components from the immense force that water exerts at depth. Water flows freely through the Ghost Shark structure. That means Anduril can build lots of them, and fast.

Rapid production is the company’s plan. Arnott declined to say, though, how many Ghost Sharks Anduril intends to manufacture if it wins further Australian orders. But it is designing a factory to build “at scale,” he said. Anduril is also aiming to build this type of sub for the United States and its allies, including Britain, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and customers in Europe, the company told Reuters.

A need for speed is driving the project. Arnott points to an Australian government strategic assessment, the Defense Strategic Review, published in April, which found the country was entering a perilous period where “China’s military build-up is now the largest and most ambitious of any country since the end of the Second World War.” A crisis could emerge with little or no warning, the review said.

“We can’t wait five to 10 years, or decades, to get stuff,” said Arnott. “The timeline is running out.”

This report is based on interviews with more than 20 former American and Australian military officers and security officials, reviews of AI research papers and Chinese military publications, as well as information from defense equipment exhibitions.

An intensifying military-technology arms race is heightening the sense of urgency. On one side are the United States and its allies, who want to preserve a world order long shaped by America’s economic and military dominance. On the other is China, which rankles at U.S. ascendancy in the region and is challenging America’s military dominance in the Asia-Pacific. Ukraine’s innovative use of technologies to resist Russia’s invasion is heating up this competition.

In this high-tech contest, seizing the upper hand across fields including AI and autonomous weapons, like Ghost Shark, could determine who comes out on top.

“Winning the software battle in this strategic competition is vital,” said Mick Ryan, a recently retired Australian army major general who studies the role of technology on warfare and has visited Ukraine during the war. “It governs everything from weather prediction, climate change models, and testing new-era nuclear weapons to developing exotic new weapons and materials that can provide a leap-ahead capability on the battlefield and beyond.”

Source: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/us-china-tech-drones/

North Korea unveils first tactical, nuclear-armed submarine

People attend what North Korean state media report was the country’s launching ceremony for a new tactical nuclear attack submarine, in North Korea, in this handout image released September 8, 2023. KCNA via REUTERS

North Korea has launched its first operational “tactical nuclear attack submarine” and assigned it to the fleet that patrols the waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan, state media said on Friday.

Submarine No. 841 – named Hero Kim Kun Ok after a North Korean historical figure – will be one of the main “underwater offensive means of the naval force” of North Korea, leader Kim Jong Un said at the launch ceremony on Wednesday.

Analysts said the vessel appears to be a modified Soviet-era Romeo-class submarine, which North Korea acquired from China in the 1970s and began producing domestically. Its design, with 10 launch tube hatches, showed it was most likely armed with ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, analysts said.

But such weapons won’t add much value to the North’s more robust land-based nuclear forces, because its submarines may not survive as long during a war, said Vann Van Diepen, a former U.S. government weapons expert who works with the 38 North project in Washington.

“When this thing is field deployed, it’s going to be quite vulnerable to allied anti-submarine warfare,” he said. “So I think from a sort of hard-headed military standpoint this doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

South Korea’s military said that the submarine didn’t appear ready for normal operations, and that there were signs North Korea was attempting to exaggerate its capabilities.

At the launch ceremony, Kim said arming the navy with nuclear weapons was an urgent task and promised more underwater and surface vessels equipped with tactical nuclear weapons for the naval forces, news agency KCNA reported.

“The submarine-launching ceremony heralded the beginning of a new chapter for bolstering up the naval force of the DPRK,” KCNA said, using the initials of the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

North Korea plans to turn other existing submarines into nuclear armed vessels, and accelerate its push to eventually build nuclear-powered submarines, Kim said.

“Achieving a rapid development of our naval forces … is a priority that cannot be delayed given … the enemies’ recent aggressive moves and military acts,” the North Korean leader said in a speech, apparently referring to the United States and South Korea.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs are banned by United Nations Security Council resolutions, and the submarine launch drew condemnation from South Korea and Japan.

“North Korea’s military activity is posing graver and more imminent threat to our country’s security than before,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a briefing.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-launches-new-tactical-nuclear-attack-submarine-kcna-2023-09-07/

A look at the uranium-based ammo the US is sending to Ukraine

The U.S. on Wednesday announced it was sending depleted uranium anti-tank rounds to Ukraine, following Britain’s lead in sending the controversial munitions to help Kyiv push through Russian lines in its grueling counteroffensive.

The 120 mm rounds will be used to arm the 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks the U.S. plans to deliver to Ukraine in the fall.

Such armor-piercing rounds were developed by the U.S. during the Cold War to destroy Soviet tanks, including the same T-72 tanks that Ukraine now faces in its counteroffensive.

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process needed to create nuclear weapons. The rounds retain some radioactive properties, but they can’t generate a nuclear reaction like a nuclear weapon would, RAND nuclear expert and policy researcher Edward Geist said.

When Britain announced in March it was sending Ukraine the depleted uranium rounds, Russia falsely claimed they have nuclear components and warned that their use would open the door to further escalation. In the past, Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested the war could escalate to nuclear weapons use.

A look at depleted uranium ammunition:

WHAT IS DEPLETED URANIUM?
Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the process to create the rarer, enriched uranium used in nuclear fuel and weapons. Although far less powerful than enriched uranium and incapable of generating a nuclear reaction, depleted uranium is extremely dense — more dense than lead — a quality that makes it highly attractive as a projectile.

“It’s so dense and it’s got so much momentum that it just keeps going through the armor — and it heats it up so much that it catches on fire,” Geist said.

When fired, a depleted uranium munition becomes “essentially an exotic metal dart fired at an extraordinarily high speed,” RAND senior defense analyst Scott Boston said.

In the 1970s, the U.S. Army began making armor-piercing rounds with depleted uranium and has since added it to composite tank armor to strengthen it. It also has added depleted uranium to the munitions fired by the Air Force’s A-10 close air support attack plane, known as the tank killer. The U.S. military is still developing depleted uranium munitions, notably the M829A4 armor-piercing round for the M1A2 Abrams main battle tank, Boston said.

WHAT HAS RUSSIA SAID?
In March, Putin warned that Moscow would “respond accordingly, given that the collective West is starting to use weapons with a ‘nuclear component.’” And Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the munitions were “a step toward accelerating escalation.”

Putin followed up several days later by saying Russia would respond to Britain’s move by stationing tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus. Putin and the Belarusian president said in July that Russia had already shipped some of the weapons.

There was no immediate reaction from the Kremlin to the U.S. announcement, which came late Wednesday during a visit to Kyiv by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The Pentagon has defended the use of the munitions. The U.S. military “has procured, stored, and used depleted uranium rounds for several decades, since these are a longstanding element of some conventional munitions,” Pentagon spokesman Marine Corps Lt. Col. Garron Garn said in a statement in March in response to a query from The Associated Press.

The rounds have “saved the lives of many service members in combat,” Garn said, adding that “other countries have long possessed depleted uranium rounds as well, including Russia.”

Garn would not discuss whether the M1A1 tanks being readied for Ukraine would contain depleted uranium armor modifications, citing operational security.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-blinken-depleted-uranium-566352a33ea9035ae706345eaa4cfa95