What is currently the most innovative region in Europe? The painful answer is: Ukraine.
The battlefield on Europe’s eastern border has rapidly developed into a laboratory for the arsenal of the future. The turnover rate of new weapons, traditionally many years, is now less than two weeks there. If a new drone is launched on Monday, a Russian countermeasure will already be in place on Wednesday and the engineers will have to immediately start working on the next version.
It is a common saying that on the battlefield generals fight the last war and invent the next. One of today’s painful lessons is that you can disable expensive, complex weapons systems at a fraction of the cost. A tank costing many millions easily falls prey to a drone costing a thousand euros. On the water, the battleships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet are neutralized by Ukraine’s maritime drones. Very expensive fighter jets with equally expensive missiles chase drones from the hobby shop. It is an asymmetrical battle between big and small. And small seems to be winning.
The war in Ukraine provides a glimpse into the battlefield of the future. That will be completely transparent. Everything and everyone can be seen day and night. There is hardly any room for people in this glass battleground. Who will soon be sitting in a tank or a fighter jet? Will it be a battle of machines against machines?
All this is happening at a time when the European NATO partners have decided to radically increase their defense budgets. In the long term, Germany alone will spend an additional 100 billion euros per year. That’s a lot of money, especially new money. The world is watching this sudden shopping spree with interest. What will Europe purchase?
There is a great opportunity here to leapfrog militarily to 21st century technology, similar to how parts of the world never installed landline telephone lines because they switched straight to mobile telephony. Ukraine can be the kick-start of a new European defense industry. Because is it wise to invest tens of billions in gigantic weapon systems such as aircraft carriers and bombers if these are the dinosaurs of our time, waiting for the impact of a digital asteroid. The future seems to belong to small, self-learning autonomous weapons. The long timelines of design, production and deployment are also vulnerable. The first concept of the F-35 dates back to the 1990s and the fighter jet is expected to continue flying until 2070. What will change technologically in the meantime?
Europe must get used to the combination of research and war again. Building a modern defense industry also requires a cultural change within science. In the United States people don’t know any different. In the post-war years, half of US federal research money has always been earmarked for military purposes. Without this intimate entanglement of the military-industrial complex, there would have been no Silicon Valley or the Internet. In Israel, too, the flourishing startup culture cannot be separated from military power.
Within the European Union it is mainly France with its nuclear power force the frappe that has a seamless connection between science and defense. A general heads the prestigious École polytechnique, France’s MIT, and on July 14 students in uniform will march down the Champs-Élysées to, in their words, “affirm the strong bond between defense and the nation.”
At the other end of the spectrum we find Germany. For obvious historical reasons, there is much hesitation in the Federal Republic to use science for military purposes. Some universities even explicitly prohibit this in their constitution. Sun Zivilklausel allows only non-military research. The Zeitenwende After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in addition to letting go of the constitutionally imposed budgetary discipline, it also requires a change in the equally firmly entrenched academic culture. Some universities have recently rewritten their citizen clause.
It is an interesting question where the Netherlands will position itself in this field of tension, also given our strong position in high-tech. A specific question is what percentage of the defense budget will go to research and innovation. No explicit NATO standard has been agreed on this, but the share in Europe is now around a paltry 1 percent, compared to 15 percent in the United States. At $140 billion per year, those American military research funds alone are almost double the total German defense budget. If we follow this example, our country would soon require additional billions for research.
Many key technologies will play a crucial role, not only AI and drones, but also areas such as robotics, cyber, quantum and space. But what is more important is that all scientific areas are involved, especially the social sciences and humanities. The rapid development of the next generation arsenal raises many ethical and moral questions. If battles are carried out by autonomous machines, what is the role of humans? What does it mean when a soldier presses the start button and launches a swarm of AI drones? And what do these forces do to Europe’s values and norms, also given the bloody history of our continent.
Scientists cannot get involved in this debate early enough. The profound questions about war and peace must be answered quickly, because the arms race on Europe’s eastern border will determine the future of our security and the essence of our society.
Remember: in this domain, Ukraine may be number one, but Russia is probably number two.
NEW: Give this item as a gift
As an NRC subscriber you can subscribe every month 10 articles give as a gift to someone without an NRC subscription. The recipient can read the article directly, without a paywall.
The Trust Project |Why you can trust NRC