In today's headlines with Susie Nordqvist, rowing 'super mums' win gold, and the boss of Presbyterian Support Otago quits. Video / NZ Herald / Getty / Photosport
The Pentagon has been putting a lot more stress on getting allies on board to counter China.
In an exercise in California with six nations in March, an F35 jet fighter with AI-driven sensors instantly passed targeting data along the “kill chain” to an unmanned kamikaze drone.
In another exercise — also attended by New Zealand — the controversial surveillance firm Palantir supplied a so-called “metaconstellation” of submarine-hunting satellites.
US military chiefs said they were getting to the point where the combined forces could join up their technology in a “kill web”.
“We’ve always aspired to get this ‘kill web’-type of capability as a joint and combined force, and we’re starting to get to that point,” said the US commander of the “global information domination” exercises (GIDE) New Zealand has been part of.
The New Zealand Government recently shut down an expert advisory group on killer robots.
The NZDF and the Government have prioritised “interoperability” with our allies’ systems and technology, documents show.
The big Pentagon push on this, alongside sweeping changes under a banner of “reoptimisation for Great Power Competition”, contrasts with the NZDF’s tech struggles.
Its $180 million tech project to network the New Zealand armed forces has been beset by delays and recruitment and retention, funding, and technical implementation problems, its reports show.
AI is supercharging not only the race to develop non-lethal autonomous systems such as in targeting, but potentially lethal ones, at a time when the UN is struggling to find consensus on international limits on killer robots.
The next meeting of global experts on it is to be held this month.
But the New Zealand Government has just shut down its external expert group on lethal autonomous weapons.
The NZDF has publicised its involvement in Project Convergence; less so its more regular participation in the exercises that take place every three months.
The official PR for some of the war games emphasises how they aim to “promote co-operation and safe, secure” operations.
US military chiefs said they were getting to the point where the combined forces could join up their technology in a "kill web". Photo / Getty Images
By contrast, the British army released a YouTube video featuring the AI it deployed for Project Convergence in the Mojave Desert in California.
It shows drones “trying to find targets far out of view”, with a “pretty much instant, almost autonomous” link back to targeters.
The British said the “major war-fighting experiment” with six partner nations, including New Zealand, was with “cutting-edge systems and technologies, designed to help make the British Army more lethal on the battlefield”.
“Joint kill chains were reduced from minutes to seconds,” reported enthusiasts.
Long-standing war games have attracted more attention, such as the month-long mammoth naval exercise Rimpac, which ended on Friday in Hawaii, having antagonised Beijing.
However, much of the analysis within the US defence media suggests it is the smaller GIDE-type exercises that may count for more, by inventing new ways of forming hybrid armies and weapons.
Palantir’s involvement shows how its reach extends into space — its “capabilities were tested” during GIDE, “providing data sharing and real-time situational awareness”, its website says.
Under a half-billion-dollar-plus contract with the Pentagon, Palantir has built what it calls a MetaConstellation, which uses commercial data, including satellite imagery, “to give a near-real-time picture of a given battle space”. It can also track bushfires or floods.
Palantir’s video promoting MetaConstellation simulates satellites passing data among one another while hunting subs in the highly fraught South China Sea.
US Congress documents show how crucial space is to the “kill chain”.
The missile defence command told Congress in the face of growing threats, it was “making every effort to help streamline and accelerate ... integrated kill chain capabilities” by shifting sensors, battle management and communications increasingly to space-based platforms; a leading one is called the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.
One problem for New Zealand is what taking part in this will cost.
For its beleaguered networking Digital Information Programme, it hired about 100 consultants in 2022-23; and for the whole project since 2016, the names of the consultants run to 42 pages long.
