Among the key efforts launched under Walker’s tenure at DARPA was development of the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile. Walker also reinvigorated the agency’s hypersonic weapons and space efforts. Also noted by the agency: Under Walker’s leadership, DARPA launched the three-year, $1.5 billion Electronics Resurgence Initiative as well as the five-year, $2 billion AI Next program. Walker also “made pivotal investments in the realm of engineered biology, resulting in several breakthroughs, chief among them a program that has helped reduce Ebola fatality rates by more than 70%,”
"Instead of reducing complexity for intelligence agencies, AI creates new data problems and will add another layer of opacity to already secretive organisations. At the same time, the general hype around AI presents a unique opportunity to learn about and weigh in on intelligence practice in real time. "
"AI is overrated. The role of machines is not to replace but facilitate human reasoning. Augmented intelligence (AuI) can help intelligence agencies navigate the data deluge by enabling human analysts to make data-driven decisions in a more transparent and accountable way."
Network-centric warfareis a military doctrine or theory of war pioneered by the United States Department of Defense in the 1990s. It seeks to translate an information advantage, enabled in part by information technology, into a competitive advantage through the robust computer networking of well informed geographically dispersed forces.
Domains
Network-centric Warfare brings together command and control (Social Domain) with assets on the ground (Physical Domain) and intelligence/recon data (Information Domain) to create a network-inclusive military. (Text Source)
Information Domain - Any intelligence or information that may offer a particular advantage. Information such as the disposition, schedule, and capabilities of the enemy or the specific knowledge of certain weapon systems, their function and their limits.
Physical Domain - Any physical assets in the area of operation. From reconnaissance satellites to ground infantry companies and everything else in-between.
Social Domain - This is a complicated category that encompasses human interaction, social theory, military hierarchy, discipline, and communication skills.
Cognitive Domain - The planning and processing aspect of a large, lethal, and socially-restricted group within a hierarchical command structure. A subset of the Social Domain with emphasis on proper military decision-making skills, procedure, and doctrine.
Precision Force - Precision force is having accurate data on enemy forces (such as that from recon reports or units in contact) as well as having military units within the area to react to the data at hand.
Shared Awareness - If one has the proper intelligence and the correct process of command and control then one may attain a higher level of shared awareness. Merging commands intent (such as objectives or goals) and communication capabilities with the information available at hand to allow units to share awareness of their surrounding, their enemy, and priorities of the mission.
Compressed Operations - The proper organization, deployment, and persistence of an operation in a efficient, supported, streamlined, and well-managed fashion. Good cognitive skills (command skills) with the proper forces can create compressed operation limited in scope and geography to allow for maximum efficiency of assets against enemy forces.
Net-centric warfare is heavily reliant on information technology integrated within military units to help units communicate, locate, and share information to each other in a rapid manner increasing mission effectiveness. Command units would be able to have a real-time assessment of where friendly forces are located while on the ground units are given an increased level of situational awareness through shared combat data such as enemy disposition, status of forces.
It's advantages are clear to see, units can have an increased degree of situational awareness almost down to the individual company, with its most extreme potential fitting small transmitting and receiving input and output capable computers down to the squad or squad member. Commanders from the very top can easily locate and visualize units on their own up-to-date map with a high degree of accuracy and informational support to allow for the best decision.
Network-centric warfare is possible due to a series of technological devices including IFF transponders, global position system, radio communications, RADAR contact, and other similar assets. The final dream of network-centric warfare is to allow units across the spectrum, from space, air, sea and land to share and relay communications, targeting and acquisition data, intelligence, and other related data with each other efficiently, securely, and on-demand. The end goal is to allow commanders throughout the command hierarchy a real-time command and control of units in a streamlined and yet precise manner.
The disadvantage to this however is the heavy reliance on technological convenience (over "warrior skills") and the degree of difficulty in controlling electronic emissions . The scope of a massive network-centric unit makes its communications vulnerable to enemy attacks attempting to destroy key nodes preventing the "self-healing" concept of a shared network. A large net-centric paradigm also demands much of the limited bandwidth physically capable by the EM spectrum especially if every individual unit is to have a emitting device. Encryption, secrecy, and signal interception by the enemy are also major concerns. The emissions of any radio or microwave signal can be detected easily by other enemy signal and electronic warfare units which can give away unit positions. Finally net-centric warfare still has several of the major issues that most, if not all, communication systems have in harsh terrain (such as urban centers, mountains, caves) with intermittent signal strength and sometimes signals blocked out entirely.
Sense-Shoot-Command on the Battlefield After Next. Koblenz Symposium on Information Technology Network Centric Warfare 28 August 2008. COL (ret) Kevin Cogan U.S. Army War College Center for Strategic Leadership Contractor: Booz Allen Hamilton.
Synthetic Telepathy: The Microwave Auditory Effect
The microwave auditory effect, also known as the Frey effect, consists of the human perception of audible clicks, or even speech, induced by pulsed or modulated radio frequencies. The communications are generated directly inside the human head without the need of any receiving electronic device. The effect was first reported by persons working in the vicinity of radar transponders during World War II. In 1961, the American neuroscientist Allan H. Frey studied this phenomenon and was the first to publish information its nature.
In his experiments, the subjects were discovered to be able to hear appropriately pulsed microwave radiation, from a distance of a few inches to hundreds of feet from the transmitter. In Frey's tests, a repetition rate of 50 Hz was used, with pulse width between 10–70 microseconds. According to Frey, the induced sounds were described as "a buzz, clicking, hiss, or knocking, depending on several transmitter parameters, i.e., pulse width and pulse-repetition rate.
"In 1975, an article by neuropsychologist Don Justesen discussing radiation effects on human perceptions referred to an experiment by Joseph C. Sharp and Mark Grove at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research during which Sharp and Grove reportedly were able to recognize nine out of ten words transmitted by "voice modulated microwaves". Since the radiation levels approached the (then current) 10 mW/cm² limit of safe exposure, critics have observed that under such conditions brain damage from thermal effects of high power microwave radiation would occur, and there was 'no conclusive evidence for MAE at lower energy densities'".
"The purpose of the book is to bring a body of research literature, scattered in a large number of journals and reports, into some compact form for the convenience of students and researchers. It will deal with selected experimental and theoretical topics in an interdisciplinary field which is 'undergoing explosive growth." - James C.Lin (1978)
Project Goal: "Microwave auditory effect refers to the phenomenon that pulse-modulated microwave induces auditory perception. The head acts as an acoustic transducer to convert the microwave into a theremoelastic wave, thereby invoking bone conduction. I am exploring the application of the microwave auditory effect onto a novel telecommunication system as well as a conspiracy theory that the novel telecommunication induces psychosis with symptoms of hallucination and delusion."
These patents by the U.S. Air Force, suggest that wireless, receiver-less communication (based on the Microwave Auditory Effect) could be used in military communication today:
"The $1.4 trillion spending bills that Congress passed this week included a little-noticed provision setting aside at least $4 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to conduct stratospheric monitoring and research efforts. The program includes assessments of “solar climate interventions,” including “proposals to inject material [into the stratosphere] to affect climate.”
Cybersectarianism is the phenomenon of new religious movements and other groups using the Internet for text distribution, recruitment, and information sharing.
Themission: “to ‘free the mind from the limitations of even healthy bodies.’ What the agency learns from healing makes way for enhancement. The mission is to make human beings something other than what we are, with powers beyond the ones we’re born with and beyond the ones we can organically attain.” “How can I liberate mankind from the limitations of the body?” one researcher asked. One aspiration: "the ability, via computer, to transfer knowledge and thoughts from one person’s mind to another’s."
Situation Awarenessis the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status.
Interesting read about Donald O. Hebb (1904 - 1985) - famous Canadian psychologist known for his theory of Hebbian learning, the father of neuropsychology and neural networks - and his involvement with CIA interrogation techniques, including sensory deprivation:
"In classified experiments, Donald Hebb found that he could induce a state akin to drug-induced hallucinations and psychosis in just 48 hours – without drugs, hypnosis, or electric shock. Instead, for two days student volunteers at McGill University simply sat in a comfortable cubicle deprived of sensory stimulation by goggles, gloves, and earmuffs. “It scared the hell out of us,” Hebb said later, “to see how completely dependent the mind is on a close connection with the ordinary sensory environment, and how disorganizing to be cut off from that support.”"
"Most of the best minds of the American scientific community have devoted themselves, for 50 years, to the single project of delivering more and more explosive power over longer and longer distances in shorter and shorter time to kill more and more people." - Buckminster Fuller
"It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a higher standard of living than any have ever known. It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary. War is obsolete. It is a matter of converting our high technology from WEAPONRY to LIVINGRY." - Buckminster Fuller #Military#Science#Ethics
"The technology is on the engineering benches today. But most Americans and most members of Congress have not had time to really look deeply at what is going on here. But I’ve had the benefit of 33 years of studying and becoming friends with these scientists. This technology can be built today with technology that is not developmental to deliver any human being from any place on planet Earth to any other place in less than an hour." - Retired US Airforce Lt. Gen. Steven L. Kwast
"Secretary of the U.S. Air Force Barbara Barrett says that declassifying intelligence is key to combating the growing threat to the the nation's space capabilities, and the sooner the better.
"Lawmakers involved in annual defense authorization negotiations finalized a sweeping deal late Monday that creates a new Space Force among other policies, but it dropped contentious border wall restrictions and several other provisions favored by progressives."
"A scientist working for the U.S. Navy has filed for a patent on a room-temperature superconductor, representing a potential paradigm shift in energy transmission and computer systems."
Illustration of Amazon's cloud operations -from an Interview with Stephen E Arnold of DarkCyber by Robert David Steele(13min video). #Comment: As usual, too little resolution on the most interesting question: What is the philosophy and agenda, once all data is collected?
Argument Map - visual representation of the structure of an argument.
Argument maps are box-and-line diagrams that lay out visually reasoning and evidence for and against a statement or claim. A good map clarifies and organizes thinking by showing the logical relationships between thoughts that are expressed simply and precisely. Argument maps are driven by asking, ‘Should I believe that? Why, or why not?’.
AGORA-Net - a Computer-Supported Collaborative Argument Visualization (CSCAV) tool. An argument is defined here as a set of statements—a claim and one or more reasons—where the reasons jointly provide support for the claim, or are at least meant to support the claim.
#Comment: If you have advanced "sensemaking" infrastructure, but in praxis predominately use it to advance the narrow interests of the military industrial complex ("kill, surveil, control"), shouldn't it be called "nonsensemaking" instead?