C11 - The Politics of Military Technology
Date: Jun 4 | Time: 10:15am to 11:45am | Location:
Chair/Président/Présidente : TBD ()
Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : John Shola (Osun State University)
Patrick Sauriol, McMaster University Stop Making Sense: Autonomous Weapons, Artificial Intelligence, and War in the Abstract Unmanned Moral Forces: Drones & Information Warfare Omer Ozkan, University of Cincinnati Going Nuclear: Toys for an Insistent Military? Rizwan Asghar, Trinity College Dublin
Unmanned Moral Forces: Drones & Information Warfare: Omer Ozkan (University of Cincinnati)
Abstract: Drones have become ubiquitous in modern conflicts, but their impact is not confined to the battlefield. The high-quality cameras that make Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) functional, also make them ideal platforms for information warfare. The images captured by drones can be paired with social media and broadcast to general populations. Recordings of enemy tanks being destroyed can be a boon to a country's war effort while sapping an opponent's morale. Drawing on Carl von Clausewitz's "theory of moral forces," we hold that such information operations can help shape the political conditions of a conflict. To illustrate this process, we investigate the use of drone-based information operations during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. During the conflict, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense used official social media accounts to broadcast drone-captured footage of the conflict in a dedicated efforts to leverage UAVs for moral advantage. This information campaign influenced the narrative of the conflict and underscored a decisive Azerbaijani victory after decades of stalemate.
Stop Making Sense: Autonomous Weapons, Artificial Intelligence, and War in the Abstract: Patrick Sauriol (McMaster University), Marshall Beier (McMaster University)
Abstract: Lethal autonomous weapons systems, or LAWS, have come into increasing prominence as state armed forces seek to maintain lethality while reducing their own human cost of warfare. The idea of a clean and virtual war was seen as a revolution for major powers to win wars from a distance, behind the screen of a drone camera or missile launcher. Drones dominate modern warfare in a continuation of the techno-fetishism of warfare that began during the Gulf War. The revolution of military affairs that supposedly began during this conflict has continued to today as technology continues to be the major focus of global conflicts. Building upon the work of Baudrillard and drawing upon theories and practice on artificial intelligence, I argue that autonomous weapons have and will continue to make war an abstraction of itself for both militaries and civilian populations. This paper argues that unless governments regulate the use of artificial intelligence in warfare, we may reach a situation where warfare and violence is so disconnected from those who carry it out, that warfare cannot be accountable to anyone making it easier to go to war. Artificial intelligence cannot and should not be trusted to decide who lives or dies; it cannot be held accountable when it makes a mistake. Autonomous weapons have and will continue to change warfare. Without pertinent and proactive policy, these weapons likely will only change war for the worst rather than advancing common sense strategy.
Going Nuclear: Toys for an Insistent Military?: Rizwan Asghar (Trinity College Dublin)
Abstract: Why do some states pursue a path toward nuclear weapons while others do not? Using a new ordinal scale of the steps toward weaponization, I examine country-years of advanced industrial states to test three main hypotheses. From the supply-side literature, I test whether countries receiving sensitive nuclear assistance are likely to be further along the nuclear path (H1) and whether countries with nuclear energy production are likely to be further along the nuclear path (H2). In line with the demand-side literature, I test whether countries with a strong militarist influence are likely to be further along the nuclear path (H3). Military influence is examined via military personnel per capita, military expenditures per capita, and autocratic regime type. I find robust support for H1 and H3 and inconsistent support for H2. With respect to H3, military expenditures per capita and militarist autocracies are both robust predictors of higher levels of nuclear weaponization.
The Deployment of Nuclear Weapons Abroad and Military Spending: Nicola Nones (University of Toronto)
Abstract: Three decades after the end of the Cold War, five countries – Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey – still host US nuclear weapons. How does hosting nuclear weapons affect the behavior of the host country? The literature on the foreign deployment of nuclear weapons has focused mostly on the determinants of the deployer’s decision or on the effectiveness of extended deterrence via nuclear weapons. By contrast, this article puts forward and tests a theory of moral hazard linking the deployment of nuclear weapons on foreign soil to the host country military spending policy. In particular, the argument suggests that such deployment increases policymakers’ incentives to favor civilian expenditures over military expenditures in the host country, thus decreasing military expenditures overall. Some ancillary conditional hypotheses follow. Broadly speaking, I hypothesize that the effect should be weaker for those countries that are already close to the patrons and stronger for those that are further away from the patrons. I operationalize “distance” in different ways: diplomatic/strategic; ideological; economic; and geographic. I test the theory on a time-series-cross-sectional dataset covering more than 120 countries between 1945 and 2014. The results by and large confirm the hypothesized relationship. The paper has considerable policy implications as it shows that moral hazard and free riding dynamics can take place even in the absence of a formal defense organization and emphasizes a fundamental tension between Washington’s demands for increases in military spending among NATO countries and its decision to keep nuclear weapons in some member states.
Participants: Rizwan Asghar (Trinity College Dublin)Patrick Sauriol (McMaster University)Omer Ozkan (University of Cincinnati)