Policy Challenges of Accelerating Technological Change: Security Policy and Strategy Implications of Parallel Scientific Revolutions
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Policy Challenges of Accelerating Technological Change: Security Policy and Strategy Implications of Parallel Scientific Revolutions James Kadtke and Linton Wells II Center for Technology and National Security Policy (CTNSP) National Defense University (NDU) September 2014 Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. All information and sources in this paper were drawn from unclassified materials. Dr. James Kadtke is currently the Special Advisor on Converging Technologies at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy, National Defense University; he is also a consultant in the Washington, DC area focusing on emerging technologies, national security, organizational foresight, and innovation. Previously, he served as a Fellow in the Science and Technology Policy Institute under the White House OSTP, and as policy analyst on the Science Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. He then served over three years on the staff of Senator John Warner of Virginia and as staff designee on the Senate Armed Services Committee. More recently, he has served as Executive Director of the Accelerating Innovation Foundation, and a research fellow at the National Defense University and George Mason University. From 2010 to 2012, he was the Industry and State Liaison at the National Nanotechnology Coordinating Office under the White House. Dr. Linton Wells II is a Visiting Distinguished Research Fellow in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University. Previously he was the Director of the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at NDU. Dr. Wells completed more than 51 years of service with the Department of Defense in June 2014, including duty as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information (NII) as well as for Command, Control, Communications & Intelligence (C3I). He also served as Assistant Secretary (acting) and DoD Chief Information Officer. In 26 years of naval service he commanded a destroyer squadron and a guided missile destroyer. Contents Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................ 1 1. Overview ................................................................................................................................ 3 1.1 Policy Context ............................................................................................................... 3 1.2 Accelerating Technological Change and the Globalization of ST&E ........................... 4 1.3 GeoInnovation ............................................................................................................... 6 1.4 Synergistic Technology Revolutions............................................................................. 7 1.5 Disruptive Convergent Technologies .......................................................................... 10 2. Policy, Legal, Ethical, and Other National Security-Related Recommendations ................ 11 2.1 Cross-Cutting Areas .................................................................................................... 12 2.1.1 Foresight as an Integral Component of DoD Planning Processes ................ 12 2.1.2 ST&E Capacity as a Strategic Variable (GeoInnovation) ............................ 16 2.1.3 International Technology Governance and Standards Bodies ...................... 17 2.1.4 Framework for Enhanced Collaboration With the Private Sector ................ 18 2.1.5 Expanding Privacy Issues ............................................................................ 19 2.1.6 Impacts of Emerging Technologies on the Present and Future DoD Workforce .................................................................................................... 20 2.1.7 Future Defense Industrial and Technology Base.......................................... 21 2.2 Technology-Specific Areas ......................................................................................... 23 2.2.1 ICT and Cyberspace ..................................................................................... 23 2.2.2 Energy .......................................................................................................... 25 2.2.3 Unmanned and Autonomous Military Systems ............................................ 26 2.2.4 Directed-Energy Weapons ........................................................................... 27 2.2.5 Biotechnology .............................................................................................. 27 3.1 Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 30 Appendix A: Summary of Reports Identifying Key Emerging Technologies ............................... 31 Appendix B: The Revolution in Biology, Biotechnology, and Medicine ..................................... 38 Appendix C: The Revolution in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Augmentation... 43 Appendix D: Revolution in ICT and Cognitive Science ............................................................... 49 Appendix E: The Revolution in Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials ................................ 55 Appendix F: Revolution in Energy ............................................................................................... 61 3 Table of Figures FIGURE 1: COST TO SEQUENCE A HUMAN-SIZED GENOME .......................................... 39 FIGURE 2: MOLECULAR CAR ................................................................................................. 60 FIGURE 3: WORLD ENERGY CONSUMPTION BY FUEL, 1990–2035 BY QUADRILLION BTU ....................................................................................................................................... 61 4 Executive Summary This paper examines policy, legal, ethical, and strategy implications for national security of the accelerating science, technology, and engineering (ST&E) revolutions underway in five broad areas: biology, robotics, information, nanotechnology, and energy (BRINE), with a particular emphasis on how they are interacting. The paper considers the timeframe between now and 2030 but emphasizes policy and related choices that need to be made in the next few years to shape the future competitive space favorably, and focuses on those decisions that are within U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) purview. The pace and complexity of technological change mean that linear predictions of current trends cannot be the basis for effective guidance or management for the future. These are issues for policymakers and commanders, not just technical specialists. The summaries below highlight a few of the developments and implications in each area. The body of the paper includes significantly more detail. Transformational advances in biology, biotechnology, and medicine include personalized and regenerative medicine, neuroscience, brain mapping, biomanufacturing, and synthetic biology. Progress in robotics, artificial intelligence, and human augmentation is enabling advanced unmanned and autonomous vehicles for battlefield and hazardous operations, low-cost autonomous manufacturing, and automated systems for health and logistics. Advances in information and communications technologies (ICT) and cognitive science are being driven by trends such as speed, mobility, commoditization/open source, big data, the cloud, and the Internet of (Every)Thing. They are complemented by advanced decision-support tools and exotic computing architectures such as quantum computers. Advances in nanotechnology and advanced materials include high-performance materials, multi-functional smart materials, highly energetic explosives, and nanomaterials as components of advanced electronics, and in medicine and biotechnology. Energy initiatives need to begin with demand reduction, whether through policy, process, or design. Other new technologies include improved renewable generation, exotic storage technologies, smart power grid management, and better power sources for directed-energy weapons (DEW). Accessible partner nation biofuel initiatives could enhance operational flexibility. Many of these areas, and especially their convergence, will result in disruptive new capabilities for DoD which can improve warfighter performance, reduce health-care and readiness costs, increase efficiency, enhance decisionmaking, reduce human risk, improve biochemical defense, enable pervasive sensing and distributed command and control, and support expeditionary energy and base resilience. However, U.S. planning must expect that many of these also will be available to adversaries who may use them under very different ethical and legal constraints than 1 we would. 1 The need to consider advanced capabilities in adversary hands is stressed in: Robert O. Work and Shawn Brimley, 20YY: Preparing for War in the Robotic Age, Center for New American Studies, 2014, http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNAS_20YY_WorkBrimley.pdf 1 This study focuses on a few broad policy, strategy, legal, ethical, organizational, and related areas that can help shape the national security consequences of these technological changes and their interactions. Recommendations include the following: Foresight: Expand and institutionalize DoD capabilities for strategic foresight, adaptive management,