"The Task Force investigated the lessons learned from the Patriot system performance in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and assessed if these lessons could be incorporated into the continuing development of Patriot and its follow-on system, the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS)"--Introduction.

The essays in this volume illustrate the difficult real world ethical questions and issues arising from accelerating technological change in the military and security domains, and place those challenges in the context of rapidly shifting geopolitical and strategic frameworks. Specific technologies such as autonomous robotic systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, cybersecurity and cyberconflict, and biotechnology are highlighted, but the essays are chosen so that the broader implications of fundamental systemic change are identified and addressed. Additionally, an important consideration with many of these technologies is that even if they are initially designed and intended for military or security applications, they inevitably spread to civil society, where their application may raise very different ethical questions around such core values as privacy, security from criminal behaviour, and state police power. Accordingly, this volume is of interest to students of military or security domains, as well as to those interested in technology and society, and the philosophy of technology.

America’s second war against Iraq differed notably from its first. Operation Desert Storm was a limited effort by coalition forces to drive out those Iraqi troops who had seized Kuwait six months before. In contrast, the major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 was a more ambitious undertaking aimed at decisively ending Saddam Hussein’s rule. After several days of intense air strikes against fixed enemy targets, allied air operations began concentrating on Iraqi ground troops. The intended effect was to destroy Iraqi resistance and allow coalition land forces to maneuver without pausing in response to enemy actions. Iraqi tank concentrations were struck with consistently lethal effect, paving the way for an allied entrance into Baghdad that was largely unopposed. Hussein’s regime finally collapsed on April 9. Viewed in hindsight, it was the combination of allied air power as an indispensable enabler and the unexpected rapidity of the allied ground advance that allowed coalition forces to overrun Baghdad before Iraq could mount a coherent defense. In achieving this unprecedented level of performance, allied air power was indispensable in setting the conditions for the campaign’s end. Freedom from attack and freedom to attack prevailed for allied ground forces. The intended effect of allied air operations was to facilitate the quickest capture of Baghdad without the occurrence of any major head-to-head battles on the ground. This impressive short-term achievement, however, was soon overshadowed by the ensuing insurgency that continued for four years thereafter in Iraq. The mounting costs of that turmoil tended, for a time, to render the campaign’s initial successes all but forgotten. Only more recently did the war begin showing signs of reaching an agreeable end when the coalition’s commander put into effect a new counterinsurgency strategy in 2007 aimed at providing genuine security for Iraqi citizens. The toppling of Hussein’s regime ended the iron rule of an odious dictator who had brutalized his people for more than 30 years. Yet the inadequate resourcing with which that goal was pursued showed that any effective plan for a regime takedown must include due hedging against the campaign’s likely aftermath in addition to simply seeing to the needs of major combat. That said, despite the failure of the campaign’s planners to underwrite the first need adequately, those who conducted the three-week offensive in pursuit of regime change performed all but flawlessly, thanks in considerable part to the mostly unobserved but crucial enabling contributions of allied air power.

This examination of the implications and regulation of autonomous weapons systems combines contributions from law, robotics and philosophy.

This collection examines the subject of friendly fire through the eyes of international experts in the field.

Despite the rising salience of missile threats, current air and missile defense forces are far too susceptible to suppression. Today’s U.S. air and missile defense (AMD) force lacks the depth, capacity, and operational flexibility to simultaneously perform both missions. Discussions about improving AMD usually revolve around improvements to the capability and capacity of interceptors or sensors. Rather than simply doing more of the same, the joint integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) efforts might be well served by new or reinvigorated operational concepts, here discussed collectively as “Distributed Defense.” By leveraging networked integration, Distributed Defense envisions a more flexible and more dispersible air and missile defense force capable of imposing costs and dilemmas on an adversary, complicating the suppression of U.S. air and missile defenses. Although capability and capacity improvements remain essential to the high-end threats, the Distributed Defense concept focuses on creating a new architecture for today’s fielded or soon-to-be fielded IAMD force to boost flexibility and resilience.

Autonomous weapons systems seem to be on the path to becoming accepted technologies of warfare. The weaponization of artificial intelligence raises questions about whether human beings will maintain control of the use of force. The notion of meaningful human control has become a focus of international debate on lethal autonomous weapons systems among members of the United Nations: many states have diverging ideas about various complex forms of human-machine interaction and the point at which human control stops being meaningful. In Autonomous Weapons Systems and International Norms Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss present an innovative study of how testing, developing, and using weapons systems with autonomous features shapes ethical and legal norms, and how standards manifest and change in practice. Autonomous weapons systems are not a matter for the distant future – some autonomous features, such as in air defence systems, have been in use for decades. They have already incrementally changed use-of-force norms by setting emerging standards for what counts as meaningful human control. As UN discussions drag on with minimal progress, the trend towards autonomizing weapons systems continues. A thought-provoking and urgent book, Autonomous Weapons Systems and International Norms provides an in-depth analysis of the normative repercussions of weaponizing artificial intelligence.

This report documents the exceptional cross-service harmony that the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy have steadily developed in their conduct of integrated strike operations since the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. That close harmony contrasts sharply with the situation that prevailed throughout most of the Cold War, when the two services maintained separate and unique operating mindsets and lacked any significant interoperability features.