"The key role is assigned to the creation of robotic systems." With these words, the Ministry of Defense describes the ways in which Russian military science will develop in the coming years. However, this is not the only element of today's understanding of what the war will look like in the not too distant future.
The Minister of Defense approved the concept of improving the military-scientific complex for the period up to 2025.
Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Chairman of the Military Scientific Committee, Lieutenant General Igor Makushev, said that the document provides for a set of measures aimed at building up the personnel potential of institutes, expanding their capabilities for conducting scientific research and clarifying the topics of these studies. He noted that the implementation of the concept is divided into three main stages.
“At the first of them in 2016 it is planned to form the basis for further development. During the year, it is planned to adjust the directions of the institutes' activities and improve the existing mechanisms for training personnel, especially civilian specialists, in order to begin their implementation at the second stage, - explained the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, RIA Novosti reports.
In the period from 2017 to 2020, it is planned to carry out the main activities of the concept - building up scientific potential, modernizing the experimental and testing base, as well as expanding the interaction of military institutions with scientific organizations of other ministries and departments, Makushev noted.
“Only at the third stage, in the period from 2021 to 2025, the possibility of restructuring the military scientific complex is envisaged, aimed at creating new scientific organizations and structural divisions of the existing ones,” said the chairman of the VNK.
Science will answer the challenges
The main goal of the development of the military-scientific complex in the long term is the creation and implementation of an advanced scientific and technical reserve, guaranteed to ensure the military security and defense capability of the state, as well as high combat readiness of the Armed Forces,”he said.
“In other words, military science today should not only identify the main threats and challenges to the security of our country, but also provide answers to how to counter these threats,” explained the Deputy Chief of the General Staff.
He stressed that based on these tasks, the topics of research carried out by military institutes are being formed. “So, today, among the priority scientific areas is the study of issues of non-military methods of achieving military goals and asymmetric responses to hostile military actions. When developing weapons, the key role is assigned to the creation of robotic systems,”said the lieutenant general.
“We are talking primarily about the emergence of such new types of wars as hybrid wars, and on the other hand, there is also such a new type of wars as innovation wars,” Alexander Perendzhiev, an expert of the Association of Military Political Scientists, told the VZGLYAD newspaper. - And today we are preparing for them, and maybe we are leading in some way. Moreover, now the generals in the West are also thinking about how to respond more effectively to Russia in the field of hybrid and innovation wars."
According to him, the concept of innovation wars involves the creation of so-called smart weapons that can disable the enemy's equipment, and moreover, turn it against him. “This is being developed as part of the American lightning strike concept. In this situation, we are working out questions on how to respond to this blow and, moreover, to act proactively. We can talk about psychological technologies, systems of influence on consciousness. In fact, we are now developing weapons using such thin materials that were previously considered something of a fantasy: psychotronic, climatic, tectonic weapons - all of this is from the field of innovative wars,”the expert noted.
The concept of lightning strike, which is being implemented by the US leadership, assumes that high-precision weapons should be capable of hitting objects anywhere in the world within an hour, and within the framework of this concept, it pays much attention to the development of hypersonic missiles. Traditional intercontinental ballistic missiles are not very suitable for such an application, since trackers of other countries, when determining a launch, cannot classify whether a missile is equipped with a nuclear warhead or not. Hypersonic devices are a way out in this situation.
“For the Americans, nuclear weapons are already yesterday’s weapons, since they have a huge superiority in conventional precision weapons,” Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine, told the VZGLYAD newspaper. - Therefore, they are interested in reducing the arsenal of all nuclear states, first of all, of course, Russia. Russia has a different concept: we are building an aerospace defense system based on the S-500 in order to neutralize the US superiority in this area. The S-500 will also be designed to intercept the hypersonic attack aircraft that the Americans are testing today."
By non-military means
“We see that they often try to achieve military goals by non-military means,” Viktor Murakhovsky, editor of the “Arsenal of the Fatherland” magazine, told the VZGLYAD newspaper. "By the way, the US national military doctrine pays attention to such methods, in particular, work in cyberspace, in the information space, work with elites, leaders."
At the end of 2014, American generals published a new concept, "Win in a Complex World", which analyzes in detail the actions of the Russian army and the Russian state during the Crimean events and concludes that there is a lot to learn here.
“Russia has deployed and focused diplomatic, informational, military and economic efforts to carry out what some experts call“non-linear operations,”the document says. It notes that Russia carried out the operation without crossing the line that would require a response from NATO. “In addition, Russia used the power of cyberspace and social networks to influence the perception of events in the country and abroad and provide cover for large-scale military operations,” the authors of the concept write.
One of the cornerstones of the proposed concept is the proposal to integrate the efforts of the military with diplomats, UN officials, activists of international organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières, foreign partners, that is, the point is that the military should not act separately from politicians, diplomats., international organizations, special services, etc. - as experts noted, the absence of this just led to the fact that the military successes of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan were nullified.
Combining robots
As for the robotic systems, which the Russian military decided to stake on, Murakhovsky noted that they are already playing a big role in hostilities.“If we look at unmanned aerial vehicles - a typical example of robotic systems - many of them operate autonomously,” he said. - Now we are talking about the creation of systems of complexes of this kind. This is called a "swarm" or "flock", which, under the guidance of artificial intelligence, assumes certain battle formations, solves a certain range of tasks. Ground, surface and underwater robotic systems are now vigorously developing. And it is clear that this will be one of the main trends in the development of military equipment in the near and medium term."
“In addition, elements of artificial intelligence are starting to make their way in the form of a decision support system in automated command and control systems,” he added.
