Challenges of new generation warfare discussed at OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation

VIENNA, 12 May 2021 — How technological advances contribute to a new generation of warfare and the challenges this presents was discussed at an OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC) meeting held online today under the Armenian FSC Chairmanship.

The meeting was the third Security Dialogue organized by the Armenian FSC Chairmanship and focused on new generation warfare, which is characterized as a non-nuclear, contactless warfare with the use of high-precision weapons. The three invited speakers examined advances in weapons and technologies and their effect on the strategic and tactical dimensions of warfare. They also looked at the challenges these advances pose and how participating States and the OSCE can address them.

“Technology has always driven conventional weapons and their evolution,” said Sarah Marie Grand Clement, Researcher in the Security, Technology and Conventional Arms Programmes at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. “However, what is new is the pace and scale of technological development which has increased and led to a step-change in conventional weapons.”  

She explained how globalization and the addition of new actors working through the private sector are pushing innovation and rapidly expanding the reach of a range of new technologies that can be applied to conventional weapons. These include artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous systems, information and communication technologies, as well as technologies related to space, electromagnetism, materials, and advanced missiles.

Colonel Zhirayr Amirkhanyan from Armenia’s Ministry of Defense, explored the role advanced technologies have played in new generation warfare, amplifying threats and creating new ones. Describing these technologies as “disruptive”, Amirkhanyan said: “The challenges of the new generation warfare can be properly assessed only via discussing the disruptive technology against the backdrop of the prevailing international setting, as well as its repercussions on technological, operational, societal realms, as well as technology management and arms control issues.” The existing and future arms control mechanisms should be aimed at managing the disruptive impact of those weapons on international security, he added.

Some of the challenges are threat perceptions and ensuring internationally controlled management of new weapons and technologies, said Tobias Vestner, Head of the Security and Law Programme at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. Using AI as an example, he highlighted legal, political, and ethical concerns this and other technologies raise and how the OSCE can support participating States in addressing those.

“Compared to other international and regional organizations, the OSCE has the best tools to alleviate problems of uncertainty for its participating states,” Vestner said. He underlined how the Organization provides a forum for exchanging information and building trust that can help to enhance co-operation for regulating new technologies in the field of conventional weapons.