Threat Modeling and Assessment for Low Intensity Conflict

A war, statistically speaking, is a rare event. It is also an exceedingly costly and disruptive form of interaction between people and states. A war indicates that level of bilateral relationship between two states, which exists from the time first mobilization of troops, is called for against the other side till peace is reached. This view of war implying only active armed conflict however is a restrictive definition. Here it is assumed that war/conflict is in operation, from the moment a state decides upon a policy of armed resistance or inclination to counter an external/ internal threat with military ramifications, to the time the solution of the active threat is achieved or it is made dormant.  Modern day wars have been defined at three levels of increasing intensity though not necessarily increasing complexity and duration (See Fig. 1). At the first level is the most prevalent form of warfare, i.e., Low Intensity Conflict (LIC). The LIC is defined as a conflict between irregular forces, mercenaries, revolutionaries, terrorists, etc., and the regular, conventional armed forces of a nation. The biggest challenge facing the conventionally armed forces of a nation, which are trained and equipped for fighting against the conventionally armed forces of the enemy, is to deal with LIC. The Mid Intensity Conflict (MIC) is the conventional warfare that is indoctrinated in the regular armed forces of the world. With the advent of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), the chances of High Intensity Conflict (HIC), which is defined as a conflict involving WMDs, are increasing. As is evident from Fig 1 the probability of occurrence of a LIC is high and also the duration of such conflicts is more. This is due to the fact that LIC is a continuous process, which the armed forces all over the world have found hard to contain. The probability of WMD based HIC is low compared to LIC/MIC. However, a threat which this spectrum misses out is the possibility that, WMDs may fall in the hands of irregulars engaged in an LIC. This will bring the conflict to HIC levels, where the nation fighting the insurgents or irregulars will suffer. Therefore, the armed forces of a modern nation need equipment, force structure and doctrine to deal with threats at all three levels of intensity. Threat assessment is a major pre-requisite in all three conflict levels.

Threat modeling for Low Intensity Conflict Operations from Navneet Bhushan

Indian Air Force in the age of Unmanned, Hypersonic, Inelligent, Stealthy and CPGS world

Indian Air Force celebrates its birthday on 8th October. The following article was written last year on 8th October.

Indian Air Force in the age of Unmanned, Hypersonic, Intelligent, Stealthy, and CPGS world

We would like to wish the Indian Air Force a very happy birthday – the IAF was born in 1932 on 8^th October – a good 15 years before India attained independence. Today, one of the finest air force of the world is in dire need of new equipment – as the Chief of Air Staff has been clearly telling everyone. In 2014 and beyond, however, “the equipment” needed for the Air Force need a hard and soft relook in the light of changes that are visible now or discernable for future.

Should IAF think about increasing the number of its fighter aircraft squadrons as a response to increasingly complex and dangerous set of challenges? Below we try to see what “equipment” will be appropriate and may be needed for IAF as it faces near term and long term challenges.

The key changes in the war in the Air

Recent trends indicates that the warfare in the air and space – aerospace – if one may, is seeing following five characteristic trends

1.       Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) augmenting the nuclear armed Ballistic missiles as a “useable” option as compared to “just threat” but non usable option of nukes

2.       Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles emerging as a step-change from the conventional piloted aircraft

3.       Hypersonic (speed of 5 times and above of speed of sound) Vehicles, Missiles and Munitions

4.       Intelligent munitions, systems and machines

5.       Stealthy systems and platforms

CPGS/CPRS

In August 2014, Amy F. Woolf, Specialist in Nuclear Weapons Policy published a report for US Congressional Research Service (www.crs.gov, report number R41464) titled, “Conventional Prompt Global Strike and Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues”. The summary of the report starts with,

“Conventional prompt global strike (CPGS) weapons would allow the United States to strike targets anywhere on Earth in as little as an hour. This capability may bolster U.S. efforts to deter and defeat adversaries by allowing the United States to attack high-value targets or “fleeting targets” at the start of or during a conflict.” {Emphasis not in the original}

The CPGS is an unprecedented capability. As envisaged and being developed through integration of “extreme” limits of technologies – a vision that will give the sole superpower capability beyond anything any adversary can deploy in near future. The report lists following 8 options for US for CPGS – land based ballistic missiles, submarine launched ballistic missiles, submarine launched intermediate range Ballistic missiles, Long range bombers, Tomahawk Cruise Missiles, Hypersonic cruise missiles, Scramjet technologies, and Forward based Global strike. Except for long range bombers and perhaps forward based global strike all other options are unmanned.

Can IAF consider these and perhaps other options for creating a system for conventional prompt regional strike (CPRS)? Even to contemplate this shift, IAF and DRDO will have to work together – can they work to build a new type of force?

UAV/UCAV

In a telling article in 2012, the Economist wrote “the future belongs to Drones”. The article published was titled “The last manned fighter” and it gave a detailed account of F-35 fighter plane costs and defines a future direction that clearly seems to be favoring unmanned combat aircraft. It states, “In many roles, unmanned planes are more efficient: they carry neither a bulky pilot nor the kit that keeps him alive, which means they can both turn faster and be stealthier. And if they are shot down, no one dies. Even the F-35’s champions concede that it will probably be the last manned strike fighter aircraft the West will build.” Given the promise and capability of unmanned aircraft, and increasing cost of training pilots to operate complex fighter aircraft, it is but foolhardy to build a future military capability ignoring the new unmanned and remote lethality.

Is there any thinking in IAF, to increase the unmanned component of its force? Many functions can be carried out by unmanned aircraft – increasingly more and more functions can be given to unmanned platforms. 

Hypersonic

India is already on its way to develop BrahMos II – a Mach 7 hypersonic cruise missile. However, due to the MTCR constraint it has to be limited to 290 kms range. IAF should learn and create a future force structure that will utilize more of hypersonic systems – missiles, platforms and munitions.

What are the plans of IAF to incorporate the hypersonic shift that the world is seeing? A roadmap for hypersonic IAF is essential.

Increasing intelligence of combat systems

Law of increasing intelligence of technical systems found that human beings by collectively evolving their technical systems, are trying to make each technical system as close to a human being as possible - or at least a model of human being and its environment based on the current understanding of the world (for example, understanding of laws of physics and chemistry in making an automobile) and the current understanding of the system called the human being. As man understands the world around it as well as its body and its mind, it wants to create an "ideal man" or at least an idealized human of all technical systems it is creating. (One can download the pdf on law of increasing intelligence of technical systems at http://aitriz.org/articles/InsideTRIZ/323031322D31312D6E61766E6565742D627573686D616E.pdf

As per the law, dumb systems become guided systems, then smart systems, brilliant systems and genius systems. Today, we are already in the era of smart munitions. Brilliant munitions are emerging. Genius munitions will the next stage. What are IAF’s plans to move on increasing intelligence of its platforms, munitions and missiles? Perhaps a UCAV with Genius capabilities will fulfill many requirements of a fifth generation fighter aircraft.

Stealth

The fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) being developed with Russia is supposed to have stealthy features. US already have F22 and controversial F35 as the fifth gen fighters. Increasing stealth in combination with the BVR combat is already a visible trend.

It will be important for IAF to define the stealth roadmap it should have and means to create it with organizations existing in the country.

Key Messages

Indian Air Force in its 82 years of existence has not faced such technological and strategic challenges that it is going to face in next two decades and beyond.

We have characterized these as 5 dimensional. The air war that we envisage will be more unmanned, more hypersonic, more intelligent, more stealthy and demanding prompt conventional global strike.

A force structure based on only increasing the number of fighter squadrons to meet the above disruptive or revolutionary challenges is a recipe bound to fail. We propose an integrated roadmap on these five dimensions will be of essence for the IAF.

Wishing IAF a wonderful birthday today.

Intelligent Weapon Power Scores for C5ISR Combat Force

Modeling and Evaluation of Weapons Systems –

Intelligent Weapon Power Scores

One of the most complex problems is to create a mathematical model of combat between two military forces. This is further impacted by the increasing impact of changes in technology and new-age combat systems that are emerging continuously. Traditionally, weapon systems were modeled to include four key capabilities in defining a score or a number to indicate key capability of the weapon system. For example, weapon power scores described in our book Strategic Decision Making – Applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process, Springer UK, 2004. The capabilities that were considered are - lethality, self-protection, operability and integration of combat systems with other systems. However, we have seen a remarkable evolution of technical systems in the last three decades with extreme capabilities in information and information processing i.e., computing, becoming the key in the modern combat systems. We describe this trend as law of increasing intelligence of technical systems. In the light of this law, we propose that weapon systems capability needs to be evaluated and scored by including three new capabilities – that is – information processing, decision-making and system learning. This leads us to propose a new metric and methodology termed intelligent weapon power (iWPS) scores to evaluate any weapon system on a same capability plane. This concept of iWPS can be used for static force comparisons, in war simulations, war games and combat scenario evaluation for the new world.

Weapon Power Scores

There exist various techniques for force comparison taking into account quality or effectiveness of weapons besides the quantity of weapons held by opposing forces. These were commonly referred to as Fire Power Scores (FPS) methodologies. Basic idea in FPS methodologies is to assign a numerical value to different weapons indicating their war-making capability. The aggregated product of quantity and fire­power scores of various weapons in a force gives the Force Strength (FS) of the force. Various firepower score methodologies have been developed on the basis of expert judgment, historical data analysis and combat simulation. Some of these methodologies are Weapon Effectiveness Index (WEI)/Weapon Unit Value (WUV) which is based on expert   judgment, Potential Anti-Potential (PAP) Method which uses combat simulations, and Operational Lethality Index (OLI) based on historical data analysis, etc.

                Most of the FPS methodologies for so called static analyses give less importance to other factors such as self-protection capability of weapon system, ability to operate in all weather conditions and at night time, etc., We proposed augmentation of FPS with survivability of the weapon system to give a realistic picture of combat potential of a force. The new score was termed Weapon Power Score (WPS). Later in our book Weapon Power Scores were modified and extended to incorporate other factors such as on-board self-protection capability, operability and ability to communicate with other weapon systems through Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (C3I) links.  Expert judgement has been used for the evaluation of WPS.

The evaluation of WPS involves assigning a numerical value to each weapon system of Armed Forces of Adversaries indicating its combat effectiveness. The methodology to evaluate WPS of various weapon systems is given  below. WPS is defined as

WPS = Operational Lethality Index (OLI) ´  (1+Self Protection Index (SPI)) ´

            (1+ Operability Index (OI)) ´ (1+Integration Index (II))                                     (1)          

               

Lethality of a weapon is expressed as Operational Lethality Index (OLI). In this method, empirical formulae are provided for determining these indices. The method divides all weapon systems into two broad categories, namely mobile fighting machines and non-mobile fighting machines.  For non-mobile weapons the OLI is defined as a function of various factors such as Rate of Fire, Number of Potential Targets per Strike, Range Factor, etc. For mobile fighting machines, the OLI is calculated by adding the separately calculated OLIs of all of the weapons on the mobile fighting  machine and  multiplying this result by several performance factors. The methodology  is valid only for land warfare with close air support for army operations.

Besides lethality, it is observed that other factors such as on-board self-protection, operability and capability to get integrated with C3I system also plays important roles in weapon effectiveness. Weapon capability is enhanced if the weapon has characteristics that improve their  ability to survive in the battle. The characteristics may include on-board radars, decoys/chaff, Electronic Counter Measures (ECM), Electronic Support Measures (ESM),  armour protection etc. There are certain on-board systems that enhance the self-protection capability of the weapon system. This is reflected in the Self-Protection Index (SPI). The SPI  takes value in the range (0,1), is added to 1 and the result  is multiplied with OLI. The multiplication indicates that the lethality of the weapon system is considered to be contributing to effectiveness and the extent to which the weapon system has on-board self-protection capabilities improves its effectiveness. The value of SPI for various weapon systems also takes into account the environment in which the weapon system will be operating. Thus, for example, SPI for infantry weapons is considered as 0.85 as it has been observed the infantry casualties in a battle are usually 10% to 15%.  The effectiveness of a weapon system also depends upon its ability to operate in adverse weather/environment conditions and night-time operations. This is reflected in the Operability Index (OI) of the weapon system.  The OI indicates the ability of the weapon system to operate in adverse weather and night-time operations. The value of OI is chosen from the interval (0,1), added to 1 and is multiplied to the product of  OLI and (1+ SPI) indicating the fact that a weapon which can operate only under ideal conditions will have effectiveness as OLI ´ (1+ SPI) (i.e., OI = 0). However, if the weapon can operate in extreme conditions as well then its effectiveness  is enhanced i.e., OI > 0 indicating the flexibility of the weapon system. Another factor enhancing effectiveness of weapon system is their ability to get integrated in the C3I system. This factor depends upon the communication links of the weapon system with various Surveillance systems and Command and Control systems. This is represented as the Integration Index (II) of the weapon system. The value of II is also chosen from the interval   (0,1).

 
For the new network centric combat force - the so called C5ISR force (Command Control Communication Computers Combat Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance) force we propose the Intelligent Weapon Power Score (iWPS) which augments the WPS with three more capability assessment - information processing, decision making and learning and foresight. The new iWPS is a function of 7 capabilities

This is as per the law of increasing intelligence of technical systems (Reference] , the combat systems are embedded with more and more intelligence to become increasingly capable, agile, autonomous and collectively synergistic.  In the new network-centric warfare scenarios, the weapon power will have three more capabilities – information processing, decision-making and learning. The intelligent weapon power score (iwps) needs to model these three new capabilities along with the four key capabilities of the weapon power scores. 

Will post more details once the paper is published ....