Network-Based and Joint Warfare in the Turkish Armed Forces
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Military Doctrines in the Turkish Armed Forces
- Thread starter Bogeyman
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Network-Based and Joint Warfare in the Turkish Armed Forces
Beware the Hype What Military Conflicts in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh (Don’t) Tell Us About the Future of War
Examining current conflicts in order to elicit what may inform future force development is an important task for analysts and force planners. However, it carries an inherent risk of overhyping single elements. We contend that this risk is clearly at play in the coverage of the most recent conflicts in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, as well as between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Our comparative assessment of the commonalities and differences of these four conflicts prompts us to express strong words of caution. While these conflicts offer insights into certain aspects of future warfighting, they are not game changing. With a particular focus on the interplay between Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), air defense, and electronic warfare we find that the lines of continuity in deploying these assets are much more distinct than the elements of adaptation and change. Thus, we offer five key findings in two groups.
First, we argue that a disproportional focus on UAVs led to a distorted perception of the actual warfighting reality. While we acknowledge specific refinements in the way warring parties have actually deployed UAVs, tried and tested tactics have prevailed. By contrast, the use of electronic warfare assets as seen in all four conflicts and the particular vulnerabilities of air defense systems should receive much more attention.
Second, the value of every single military asset very much depends on its overall degree of integration into the C4/5ISTAR1 value chain that constitutes the military backbone. Those actors that have successfully managed this complex military ecosystem prevailed across all four conflicts whereas patchy plug-and-play approaches without proper integration performed badly. Conceptual and organizational changes that might pertain to the operation of the C4/5ISTAR value chain thus need more attention as they go hand in hand with overall aspect of military decision-making.
Third, in line with the ecosystem argument, humans still play a decisive role in every aspect of warfighting. If and to what extent the human role changes in the future very much depends on the readiness of planners, operators, and engineers to break new ground. This however depends on a complex interplay of different factors, which tend to favor the status quo over radical change.
In addition to these status quo-related findings two additional aspects are worth mentioning as they offer windows into future developments that can cause change because they provide new incentives to adapt behavioral patters and offer novel ways for force development. First, the military world is increasingly dominated by warstreaming, i.e., the ability of warring parties to provide live feeds from the battlefield. Warstreaming affects perceptions and has led to an overemphasis on the role of UAVs at the expense of other aspects like C4/5ISTAR integration or electronic warfare that are hard to see. We speculate that in the long run the aesthetics of warstreaming could incentivize changes in operational behavior in order to satisfy the hunger for pictures not yet seen before.
Finally, a distinct feature not yet properly addressed is War as a Service (WaaS), a new politico-strategic “business model” that enables and facilitates (temporary) military power transfer on a government-to-government basis. WaaS should be interpreted as the provision of a “white label” turn-key solution including not only technology assets but also planning and operational assistance as well as embedded force elements and training. We consider WaaS as an important alternative route to force development that could offer options to leapfrog over adversarial peers depending on the readiness of the recipient to insource military power from a strategic ally as well as the ally’s conceptual, organizational, and technological maturity and willingness to take risks on behalf of the recipient.
Examining current conflicts in order to elicit what may inform future force development is an important task for analysts and force planners. However, it carries an inherent risk of overhyping single elements. We contend that this risk is clearly at play in the coverage of the most recent conflicts in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, as well as between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Our comparative assessment of the commonalities and differences of these four conflicts prompts us to express strong words of caution. While these conflicts offer insights into certain aspects of future warfighting, they are not game changing. With a particular focus on the interplay between Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), air defense, and electronic warfare we find that the lines of continuity in deploying these assets are much more distinct than the elements of adaptation and change. Thus, we offer five key findings in two groups.
First, we argue that a disproportional focus on UAVs led to a distorted perception of the actual warfighting reality. While we acknowledge specific refinements in the way warring parties have actually deployed UAVs, tried and tested tactics have prevailed. By contrast, the use of electronic warfare assets as seen in all four conflicts and the particular vulnerabilities of air defense systems should receive much more attention.
Second, the value of every single military asset very much depends on its overall degree of integration into the C4/5ISTAR1 value chain that constitutes the military backbone. Those actors that have successfully managed this complex military ecosystem prevailed across all four conflicts whereas patchy plug-and-play approaches without proper integration performed badly. Conceptual and organizational changes that might pertain to the operation of the C4/5ISTAR value chain thus need more attention as they go hand in hand with overall aspect of military decision-making.
Third, in line with the ecosystem argument, humans still play a decisive role in every aspect of warfighting. If and to what extent the human role changes in the future very much depends on the readiness of planners, operators, and engineers to break new ground. This however depends on a complex interplay of different factors, which tend to favor the status quo over radical change.
In addition to these status quo-related findings two additional aspects are worth mentioning as they offer windows into future developments that can cause change because they provide new incentives to adapt behavioral patters and offer novel ways for force development. First, the military world is increasingly dominated by warstreaming, i.e., the ability of warring parties to provide live feeds from the battlefield. Warstreaming affects perceptions and has led to an overemphasis on the role of UAVs at the expense of other aspects like C4/5ISTAR integration or electronic warfare that are hard to see. We speculate that in the long run the aesthetics of warstreaming could incentivize changes in operational behavior in order to satisfy the hunger for pictures not yet seen before.
Finally, a distinct feature not yet properly addressed is War as a Service (WaaS), a new politico-strategic “business model” that enables and facilitates (temporary) military power transfer on a government-to-government basis. WaaS should be interpreted as the provision of a “white label” turn-key solution including not only technology assets but also planning and operational assistance as well as embedded force elements and training. We consider WaaS as an important alternative route to force development that could offer options to leapfrog over adversarial peers depending on the readiness of the recipient to insource military power from a strategic ally as well as the ally’s conceptual, organizational, and technological maturity and willingness to take risks on behalf of the recipient.
General evaluation-page 9
- Remote monitoring of the operation site and situational awareness with Artificial Intelligence-page 40
- Joint operations capability of digital troops with autonomous systems-pages 50 and 56
- Augmented reality technologies and their use in residential areas pages 66-68
- Digital troops at sea concept page 61
Exoskeletons and wearable electronics occupy an important place in HAVELSAN's digital army concept. The joint work of institutes and related defense industry companies for the concept of joint operation of autonomous systems (sea,land and air) will raise the situational awareness of the Turkish Armed Forces to a new level.
TÜBITAK Bilgem Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Laboratory is developing the HumanE-AI-Net project to facilitate human artificial intelligence interaction. It was announced that one of the outputs of the project was the development of a brain computer interface.
In this context, Dr. Mehmet HAKLIDIR implied it that Aselsan's cenker project was involved. As part of the project, it also seems that the exoskeleton project is associated with the topic. Here, brain computer interface technology can provide us with incredible possibilities for sensor fusion and machine learning. As in the United States, it takes a person's mind to see such horizon-opening projects in Turkey.
HumanE Al Net
The development of robust and trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) systems has fundamental challenges, such as understanding humans, adapting to complex real-world environments, and interacting appropriately in complex social environments. At this point, the general vision is to facilitate AI systems that improve human abilities, while also empowering individuals and society as a whole by taking into account human autonomy and self-determination. For the development of such systems, breakthroughs in the interfaces of various fields such as human-computer interaction, cognitive science, social sciences, complex systems are required instead of only traditional AI systems. The HumanE-AI-Net project brings together a community of expertise in all these areas and interfaces between them.
The project vision is built on ethical values and trust (Responsible AI). These are closely intertwined with AI's impact on society, including issues with complex dynamic interactions between networked AI systems, the environment and people. Therefore, the basic gaps in knowledge and technology are addressed in three closely related areas in relation to the main AI issues in the project content:
• Learning, reasoning and planning
• Multimodal perception of dynamic real world and social environments
• Human-friendly collaboration and co-creation in mixed human-artificial intelligence environments
The Turkish Armed Forces is establishing a unit consisting only of unmanned ground vehicles.
