Artificial Intelligence: A

Threat to Strategic Stability?

• DR JAMES JOHNSON

• P O S T D O C T O R A L F E L L O W AT T H E J A M E S M A R T I N C E N T E R F O R
N O N P R O L I F E R AT I O N S T U D I E S , M O N T E R E Y ( U S A)
• @JAMES_SJOHNSON
• WWW.JAMESJOHNSONPHD.COM
Outline:

 What is military-AI and how is it different?

 Demystifying AI and popular culture

 Central research themes

 Case studies (AI-cyber nexus, hunting for nukes,&

drone swarming)
 Future research

 Q&A
What is military-AI? How is it different?
 No universally accepted definition of ‘artificial
intelligence,’ causing confusion when the term is applied
generically to make grandiose claims
 Explosion of interest and investment a decade ago due to
the convergence of 4 key developments
 Military context - potential enabler and force multiplier
of advanced weapon systems
 Akin to electricity, radio, radar not a weapon per se

 AI applications categorized into operational, tactical,

and strategic level of warfare
AI-related terminology & concepts…
A Hollywood image problem…

 Developments will be far more prosaic than the

common representation of AI in popular culture
 Racing blindly down the path towards autonomous
weapons, could have dire consequences for stability
 Risks posed by AI in the nuclear domain today, are
not necessarily new
Central thesis & themes
 AI does not exist a vacuum

 AI only needs to be perceived as capable to have a

destabilizing impact
 Nuclear multipolar world order compounds AI’s
destabilizing effect
 Strategic advantages of AI-infused weapons may prove
irresistible to states to gain the technological
upper hand vs. rivals
Research theme (1)
Co-mingled military technology & inadvertent escalation risk

 Multi-faceted possible intersections of AI with nuclear

weapons
 Conventional weapons enhanced by AI might pose one of the
greatest risks to nuclear escalation in future warfare
 Challenging long-held assumptions about deterrence, arms
control, and crisis stability
Research theme (2)
Hyper warfare & compressing the decision-making timeframe

 Operate, and respond, at gigahertz speed in the use of

military force
 Combination of autonomy and speed will likely have
outsized strategic effects
 Human error and machine error will likely compound one-
another, with uncertain and unexpected outcomes
Research theme (3)
Stability-enhancing vs. stability-detracting debate

 The confluence of several trends weighs heavily on the

stability-detracting side of the ledger
 Manipulation of the information landscape adds a new
twist to existing risks
 Real gaming-changing scenario for nuclear security?
Case study (1) Hunting for nuclear weapons in digital
age
How might AI-augmented systems impact the survivability & credibility of states
nuclear-deterrent forces?
 Double-edged sword - detect, track, and target nuclear
forces, but without the need to use nuclear weapons
 Incentives to strike first (or preemptively) against
technologically superior military rivals
 Creates a escalation framework for nuclear deterrence.

 In aggregate, AI-enabled and enhanced capabilities will

likely have a more significant impact on strategic stability,
than the sum of its parts
 Potential game-changer in underwater nuclear deterrence
Case study (2) Autonomy, swarming, & escalation risks
In what ways could AI-augmented drones swarming increase the risk of escalation?

 Powerful interplay of increased range, accuracy, mass,

coordination, intelligence, and speed in a future conflict
 Immature deployments of incipient autonomous systems in a
nuclear context could have severe consequences
 Autonomous weapons operating in dynamic and complex, and
possibly a priori unknown environments, is underappreciated
 Drones swarms are conceptually well suited for preemptive
attacks and ISR operations against nuclear forces
Case study (3) The AI-Cyber nexus

How could AI-infused cyber capabilities be used do subvert, or otherwise compromise, the
reliability, & control of states’ nuclear forces?

 Force multipliers for both defensive and offensive cyber weapons

– line between cyber offense/defense blurred
 AI-enhanced cyber can enhance deterrence, and simultaneously
incentivize others to attack
 Paradox of enhanced capabilities and increased vulnerabilities
in the digitized domain
 Advances in AI and autonomy will amplify the speed, power, and
scale of future attacks in cyberspace
Illustration (1) Spoofing
State A: launches a malicious cyber attack to spoof State B’s
AI-enabled autonomous sensor platforms and automated target
recognition systems; fooling the human operator who mistakes a
civilian target for a military one

State B: Subverted information + inability to detect spoofed

imagery that fooled the weapons’ automated target recognition
systems in time to take corrective action

= Accidentally (and unintentionally) escalates a situation

Illustration (2) Deepfake
State A: Hires proxy hackers to use a machine learning enabled
generative adversarial networks (GANs) to launch a deepfake
video, depicting a senior military commanders of State B
conspiring to launch a preemptive strike on State C

State C: Deepfake footage is then deliberately leaked into C’s

AI-augmented intelligence gathering and analysis systems,
prompting C to escalate the situation

State B: Responds in kind - inadvertent escalation ensues

Future research puzzles…
 How might AI affect cross-domain deterrence?

 How likely is an AI arms race between AI Superpowers?

 How could incentives be altered to enhance nuclear

stability between great military powers?
 Will AI in the strategic decision-making be stabilizing or
destabilizing
 What are the risks & trade-offs of pre-delegating military
force (or automating escalation) to machines?
 How might the linkages between AI-related subsets
technologies affect nuclear stability?
 In what ways might AI increase the potential for
asymmetrical conflict between great powers?
 Thank You

Q&A

Book project: Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Warfare: USA, China, and Strategic Stability –
Oxford/Manchester University Press (Forthcoming)

@JAMES_SJOHNSON
WWW.JAMESJOHNSONPHD.COM