Missing the Window of Opportunity: LAWS and the Disruption of Strategic Stability

Autonomy in weapon systems has been a key feature of military operations for decades, thus the cooperation of men and AI in war is no novelty. In the PATRIOT missile air-defense system, the loop to find, fix, track, target, engage and asses (F2T2EA) incoming missiles is supported by autonomy and as a defensive feature undisputed. Contrary, lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) with offensive, autonomous capabilities aimed at human targets have been focus point of arms control talks in the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) in Geneva since 2014 due to their various risks.

Since then, no substantive progress has been made because of states’ short term desire of military advantages and neglect of long term, preponderant risks. Although reliably operational LAWS are still future prospects, phrasing them as black swans is neglecting the military value of AI and the knowledge about its risks already in existence. Rather, LAWS represent grey rhinos: Their unregulated use with risks of irreproducible warfare at machine speed, lowbarrier arms races and their threat to international strategic stability poses a present and coevally foreshadowing, yet neglected security risk. Still, there are ways the international community can intervene.

First, recognizing that banning LAWS leaves the problems unaffected is key in grasping the range of military applications of AI. Hence, conceptualizing the overall grade of autonomy in weapon systems rather than addressing certain military hardware is a key prerequisite for adaptive arms control. The technique of swarms, system of systems-autonomy and the implied impossibility of estimating capabilities via hardware is changing deterrence MSC 2022 Junior Ambassador Essay Contest and arms control necessities: Instead of traditional, quantitative approaches of regulating units, qualitatively establishing the concept of “meaningful human control” as a norm about how much human needs to be in the loop, is crucial.

Second, the multilateral deliberations in the CCW need to be intensified to that effect. The interests of the 125 CCW-member states range from banning LAWS altogether over finding a compromising, unsealed code of conduct to rejecting their regulation as being premature. The negotiations need to be reinforced to use the current window of opportunity before the deployment of LAWS create reinforcing dynamics. However, because of the consensual modus operandi of the CCW, the barriers for preventing and the chances for achieving an agreement are low. Actors like the EU which aim for the concept of meaningful human control need to continue and if necessary, even in a different forum, to set norms for autonomy in weapon systems and to exert normative pressure on nonparticipant states.

Third, international strategic stability and mechanisms for crisis control are particularly endangered if LAWS are deployed unregulated. Next to the risk of algorithmic flash wars, unintended escalatory spirals and reinforcing dynamics of war at machine speed, an arms race between multiple countries seems likely to develop. In the current, fraught state of international relations these dynamics would create extra tension. Therefore, international rules for crisis control, mutual communication and confidence-building measures (CBMs) need to be implemented preemptively to anticipate the escalatory risks of LAWS and to address the foreshadowing grey rhino.

Noah Heinemann (22) is a bachelor student of Political Science and Economics at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and Uppsala University in Sweden and currently he is interning with the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in the “Security and Defence”- Research Program.