2022 Key Trends in Defense

Blog: Capgemini CTO Blog

When NATO launched its first Artificial Intelligence Strategy in October 2021, it emphasized the need for the responsible development and use of AI in the achievement of collective defense, crisis management and cooperative security. It published six Principles of Responsible Use for AI in Defense, rooted in national and international law, transparency, and accountability, which we explored in a recent article, NATO’s outlook on a responsible military adoption of AI.

AI is one of seven technological priorities for NATO, and like AI, each will have its own strategy and ethical framework. National governments in the UK, France and Germany have their own digital strategies too. While there is no doubting the legal and democratic foundations underpinning the NATO approach, the rapidly shifting sands of the defense landscape in which it operates call for unprecedented levels of flexibility and innovation.

And as rising tensions on the Ukrainian border in the first weeks of 2022 have also shown, traditional forms of conflict have certainly not gone away. On the other hand hybrid forms of conflict remain, and are becoming increasingly complex, involving both competition between key players (cyber-attacks, soft kill technologies, investments in disruptive technologies) and contestation when red lines are crossed (the fight against terrorism and guerrilla warfare). Military superiority is now directly correlated to digital superiority on the battlefield. Here we look at some of the key developments in 2022 that will assist armed forces in their day-to-day operations and help promote peace and security.

1. The need for speed, agility and flexibility will drive defense decision making

“Network-centric warfare” (the concept originated by Admiral William Owens in 1996) has intensified. In 2022 the challenge remains that of responding with speed and agility to constantly evolving threats, shapeshifting enemies, and freelance opponents, where battle lines are blurred, and unpredictability is entirely predictable. In this context, both the military and the industrial worlds can meet and create unprecedented synergies, by combining technological, commercial, international and strategic assets.

It will become even more essential for military forces to be able to cope with both competition and confrontation in diverse scenarios – for example in space, on the seabed and online. They will increasingly operate on expanding, congested and heterogeneous battlefields while under constant surveillance, requiring fast-paced decision making, through effective situational awareness, intelligence gathering, and targeted action. Threats are becoming more and more intertwined and simultaneous, with the rise of terrorism, instability on the southern borders of NATO, technological change and the rise of non-state threats. Climate change, pandemic risks and political interference are increasingly challenging the resilience of our infrastructures, networks and societies.

And while NATO, the move for a European Defense Force, and interoperability between joint forces within NATO and Europe are widely regarded as vital for our security, there will be a growing recognition of the need to maintain core complementary competencies, capabilities, and equipment at local and regional level, to enable rapid responses, especially as defense risks and threats become more disparate and difficult to predict.

2. Harnessing connected technologies will maximize use of resources

Defense forces are constantly leveraging technology – AI, robotics, and the Internet of Things – the so called “intelligentized” approach to warfare, to strengthen their capabilities. Indeed, our armies are facing both increasingly hybrid threats and the need to scale their armed forces – in terms of manpower and capacity – to prepare for a potential return of “high intensity” conflicts.

The technological development and use of drones and mobile robots in the defense arena will continue to boom in 2022, enabling reconnaissance of large geographical areas at speed, providing connected, real-time situational awareness for informed decision making.

When combined with the use of GPS, sensors and AI, drones can increasingly operate independently too, with interventions by remote operators by necessity only. The use of cloud, quantum, and edge computing – where data is processed onboard sensors or their platforms – will also continue to grow in 2022: Gartner estimates that global cloud revenues will total $474bn up from $408bn in 2021[1]. We will also see a continued move away from the widespread customization of technology, in favor of out-of-the-box solutions, to enable the integration of front and back-office technologies.

Cloud and edge computing technologies will act as a force multiplier for our armies. Indeed, they can be connected to drones, aircraft, and on-board equipment to enable armed forces to share data in real time. For extremely mobile devices, such as US F-35 aircraft, multiaccess edge computing technologies will be a key asset to develop together with the public sector. These technologies will accelerate command speed and enable new use cases fostering unprecedented synergies between humans and machines.

3. Data-driven, real-time situational awareness will help enable preemptive action

Defense forces are striving to become truly data driven, to unlock the huge benefits of real-time situational awareness, enabling them to act on what is happening now – and crucially, enabling preemptive action to prevent escalation, rather than relying on retrospective analysis, and after-the-event responses.

However, in NATO countries, forces often have to wait for instructions and permissions from democratically accountable governments and parliaments, which is often incompatible with the evolving threat profile. On the field, the large amount of data generated and connected on different networks, such as wireless and satellites, highlights the need to build common computing architectures running in a distributed manner.

An ongoing debate in 2022 is how nations can maintain appropriate levels of scrutiny and control, while increasingly devolving decision-making authority and empowering security forces to act independently and dynamically in the national interest. Technology can be part of the solution to this challenge and enable forces to achieve cooperation across the sector through secure information sharing – or sometimes without revealing data at all.

Within our Applied Innovation Exchange (AIE) we have developed a solution in which provable interactions between parties are carried out based on data, without any sensitive data being shared and/or replicated. This is based on Zero-Knowledge Proof cryptography, a form of cryptography that is maturing due to the rise of blockchain. It can be used as a means to ensure privacy, while the correctness of the transaction can still be verified. The “zero trust” paradigm brings protection at the source of the data.

4. Countering cyber threats will require increasingly sophisticated analysis

Cyber warfare is a clear and present danger and will inevitably increase in volume and sophistication in 2022, as the capabilities and will to launch coordinated attacks against nation states grow, impacting government machinery and critical infrastructure such as banks, utilities, transportation, and hospitals. Today, three main cyber threats are clearly identified.

Firstly, the rise of ransomware in terms of volume and impact, especially for critical infrastructures such as hospitals. Secondly the rising risk of industrial espionage, as exemplified by the SolarWinds attack, and thirdly, the increase of sabotage and reconnaissance operations in governmental and parapublic infrastructures, such as regular intrusions and pre-positioning of installations in critical computing infrastructures.

So-called gray zone activities, that fall short of outright conflict, are not new. But the growing potential for a mass Distributed Denial of Service attack to wreak havoc is such that governments and armed forces must constantly reassess the thresholds – acceptability, antagonism, retaliation – to guide their responses.

There is strong political will to intensify cooperation at the European level. One example of this is the creation of a European “stress test” with general directors of local network and information security agencies, such as ANSSI in France, creating a common response against cyber threats. Another is the implementation of cooperation networks between Member States, led by national Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs).

Together with the redefinition at European level of the cloud and cyber certification schemes, these initiatives will drive the consolidation of a network of industrials and public officials working together to improve cybersecurity and digital frameworks.

5. Investment in technology skills development and training will empower defense forces

As the use of increasingly sophisticated technologies grows, so do the skills requirements of armed forces personnel, if the value of those technologies is to be maximized. And as well as the highly specialized skills required by elite fighter pilots, for example, the overall capability level among all support personnel must grow too, to understand, maintain and exploit those technologies fully.

Data is now coming from so many sources, in such volumes, that those charged with maintaining our security must be able to distinguish between real and fake, to draw the correct conclusions and instigate appropriate action, often within seconds.

The consequence of this reality is a huge skills training requirement, at a time of unprecedented stress on national budgets caused by the global pandemic and the essential requirement to tackle the impacts of climate change. But it is a challenge that we must meet head on.

For example, the French Defense Procurement Agency (DGA) is supporting the “Red Team” project, involving science-fiction novel writers to produce creative threat scenarios for 2030-2060. One of them involves the multiplication of “cerebral deepfakes” to install alternative realities in the minds of populations, underlying the need to enrich the training of defense forces with cyber awareness skills.