CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT HOLDS THEMATIC PLENARY DISCUSSION ON NEW WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
The Conference on Disarmament this morning held a thematic plenary discussion on items 5, 6 and 7 of its agenda, new types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons, radiological weapons ; comprehensive programme of disarmament ; and transparency in armaments.
Ambassador Yury Ambrazevich of Belarus, the President of the Conference, said that the Conference today would discuss its agenda items 5, 6 and 7 and introduced the panellists.
Renata Dwan, Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, said she would focus on some of the characteristics and features of emerging technologies and the implications they may present for how the international community understood weapons and how this regulated and managed their application. Despite their huge variety and differences, emerging technologies shared three distinct characteristics, and these had implications for lethality and for what was understood to be a weapon, much less a weapon of mass destruction. That in turn shaped how new and emerging technologies were regulated and the tools that could be brought to bear. This had implications for the structure, the agenda and the ways of working of the Conference on Disarmament.
Sergei Batsanov, Director of the Geneva Office of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, said the Conference should keep in mind the key parameters that were proposed many years ago, not to follow them blindly, but because they helped to understand what was happening today. The subject of this discussion was new weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons. Today, technologies were evolving. Not all technologies or exotic weapons could be compared to traditional weapons of mass destruction in terms of their impact. However, the question to ask now was what were weapons of mass destruction in the present situation. Was it the number of cities that were destroyed? Or was it the number of people who died? Maybe calling them weapons of mass impact was more correct, especially when talking about chemical and biological weapons.
Jean Marc Rickli, Head of Global Risks and Resilience at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, said drones today were being used in swarms, particularly in the civilian sector. Humans could not control swarming drones, this had to be done by a computer. In the military, there was the principle of mass fire power speed and concentration, and there was already some manifestation of this. As for the impact of all this on weapons of mass destruction, if drones and algorithms of swarming were combined, the scalability was enormous, and more so in the cyber domain. It was impossible to find a system that could defend against the major threat that swarms of drones represented. This could favour the international arms race. Research had shown that the best results were made when humans and machines cooperated together.
Speaking in the discussion were Brazil, France, Italy, Republic of Korea, China, Russian Federation, Japan, Cuba, Belarus, Austria, Indonesia, Iran and Pakistan. Israel spoke in a point of order.
The next plenary of the Conference on Disarmament will be held at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 15 September, when the Conference is expected to adopt its annual report to the General Assembly. The third and last part of its 2020 session of the Conference will end on Friday, 18 September.
Statements by the Panellists
RENATA DWAN, Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, said technology had always been the heartbeat of weapons development and the regulation of weapons. However, the pace and scale of emerging weapons felt different today and much of that was coming from outside State bodies and State actors, the private sector in particular. It was also coming in a time of a globalized world where accessibility to new technology was open to a much broader group of States and non-State actors. The range of technology was also bewildering : information digital technology, life sciences and biotech, space and advance missile technologies, and electromagnetic and material technology. Ms. Dwan said she would focus today on some of the characteristics and features of emerging technologies and the implications they may present for how the international community understand weapons and how this regulated and managed their application. There were three points to make. Despite their huge variety and differences, emerging technologies shared three distinct characteristics, and these had implications for lethality and for what was understood to be a weapon, much less a weapon of mass destruction. That in turn shaped how new and emerging technologies were regulated and the tools that could be brought to bear. This had implications for the structure, the agenda and the ways of working of the Conference on Disarmament.
Ms. Dwan said the first characteristic was the dual use nature of the technology that was available, not exclusively military but the range of civilian usage for some of the technologies. An example was the use of satellites and the dual aspect of blurring the categories of weapons, particularly in the area of missile technology. All of this weaponry implied the range and multiplicity of actors, including non-State actors, involved in the development and use of these technologies. The second characteristic was intangibility as newer technologies were not necessarily physical in nature. Artificial intelligence, electric magnetic forces, cyber and digital technologies were examples. The third characteristic was inter-connectedness or inter-disciplinary. The focus on the new and emerging technology was not the risk that it posed in and of itself, it was the interaction with multiple other technologies and domains that increased some of the destructive risks. For example, where cyber and digital technologies intersected with nuclear domains. These characteristics had an implication for what could be understood to be weapons of mass destruction.
The Conference today was considering the implications of new and emerging technologies for the development and manufacture of new types of mass destruction. Across all technologies, a much more concerted and committed effort to analyse and understand the positive and negative implications of advances in various technologies was needed. A dialogue on the broader implications of technological development on transparency, predictability and stability was also needed. There was also a need to review some of the arms control tools and how to contain the proliferation of certain technologies, the need to review the legal implications of emerging technologies, and the need to focus on behaviours and restraint in the application of technologies. Traditionally the Conference had focused its attention on specific weapons of mass destruction and specific arms control tools and instruments. The new and emerging technologies required a look at how it was possible to sustain a much more ongoing and evolving discussion that allowed all to look at the impact of interconnected technologies across the ranges of weapons in ways that allowed them to look at a whole wider range of arms control instruments to achieve the goal to harness the positive benefits of these technologies and address the risks.
SERGEI BATSANOV, Director of the Geneva Office of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs , said the Conference should keep in mind the key parameters that were proposed many years ago, not to follow them blindly, but because they helped to understand what was happening today. The subject of this discussion was new weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons. The first thing that stemmed from this was that originally there was some distinction made between weapons and systems. While weapons remained the same, the systems may change the nature of the impact that those weapons produced. In 1975, the Soviet Union proposed the prohibition of new types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons, the idea was that it should be preventive arms control. The idea at the time was that future weapons of mass destruction would probably be based on physical, chemical and biological principles other than those currently employed by the existing or known weapons of mass destruction. Later on, the Soviet Union listed four categories of new technologies that should be considered : radiological, particle, infra sound and electromagnetic weapons.
Mr. Batsanov said today, technologies were evolving. Not all technologies or exotic weapons could be compared to traditional weapons of mass destruction in terms of their impact. However, the question to ask now was what were weapons of mass destruction in the present situation. Was it the number of cities that were destroyed? Or was it the number of people who died? Maybe calling them weapons of mass impact was more correct, especially when talking about chemical and biological weapons. The world today had the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and the Biological Weapons Convention mechanism, which regularly discussed the impact of new technologies. Immunology was important because humans were surrounded by all sorts of microbes. If a way was found to weaken immune systems, all the friendly or subdued microbes automatically became biological weapons and started to kill. So would this fall under the Biological Weapons Convention mechanism or not? Cyber was also important, because when used as a weapon, cyber could cause massive destruction and disorganization. Much was being said in military circles about the importance of artificial intelligence. Mr. Batsanov said he was not talking about killer robots. With the arrival of hypersonic missiles, there was a need to rush towards artificial intelligence to decide what was happening.
In conclusion, Mr. Batsanov said there was a need to single out and address specific technologies and try to define them ; see whether they were covered by existing regimes and maybe make recommendations to those regimes ; and address more specific situations or risks in a more focused and pragmatic way. Until it was possible to launch a more modern approach at all these issues, the traditional item on new types of weapons and new systems on mass destruction should be kept on the agenda of the Conference on Disarmament. There should be a role for the Conference on Disarmament to address the concept of warfare with new weapons of mass destruction.
JEAN MARC RICKLI, Head of Global Risks and Resilience at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy , said he was speaking in his personal capacity and not on behalf of his institution. The first time he had addressed the Conference, it had been on artificial intelligence and lethal weapon systems and today he would widen this to make the discussion more tangible about this emerging technology. The pace at which this emerging technology was developing was very rapid. Artificial intelligence was the capability for computers to perform tasks that would normally require intelligence. He would look at the process of automation and the growing autonomy that machines were displaying. Computing powers evolved or doubled every 18 months. But in the last decade, with the advance of techniques and machine learning, this doubling period has been reduced to three and a half months. The computing power had evolved by a factor of three, but in terms of algorithmic compute, it had evolved by a factor of more than 100. This had consequences. The development of artificial intelligence in video gaming or the rubik cube had very concrete implications. Algorithms were being developed to assist human beings or to compete with human beings. Developments were going very fast. Speaking about deep fake technology, he said in a matter of two years, there had been a proliferation of such content online, and controllers of such technology could have the seeds of massive manipulation and disinformation.
Mr. Rickli said drones today were being used in swarms, particularly in the civilian sector. Humans could not control swarming drones, this had to be done by a computer. In the military, there was the principle of mass fire power speed and concentration, and there was already some manifestation of this. In 2017, ISIS used a commercial drone that they weaponised with small hand grenades and for the first time, a non-State actor group managed to reach tactical air supremacy against the Iraqi armed forces. There had been other examples of attacks using swarm drones since then. Research was being invested by major powers into swarming. The fastest development would be in the cyber domain, because there were less obstacles. As for the impact of all this on weapons of mass destruction, if drones and algorithms of swarming were combined, the scalability was enormous, and more so in the cyber domain. It was impossible to find a system that could defend against the major threat that swarms of drones represented. This could favour the international arms race. Research had shown that the best results were made when humans and machines cooperated together. In the military, research was being conducted for a pilot to be able, thanks to artificial intelligence, to coordinate a swarm of drones. These concepts were called loyal wingmen, and most powers were investing in this technology.
Mr. Rickli said brain computer interfaces, or implants that were able to read, scan and monitor brain activity, was a topic that was being much researched. This could have positive and negative implications. The world was not yet there, but if it got there, this would open up a Pandora’s box never before seen. In the military, automatizing responses opened the room for escalation and control escalation. Some people were urging today that swarms of drones be considered as weapons of mass destruction because of the scalability of mass destruction. Technologies were converging and this meant that technologies were becoming increasingly autonomous. When faced with exponential growth, they were facing a major challenge. That was why discussion of these matters were very much needed concerning weapons of mass destruction.
Summary of the Discussion
Some speakers said the strategic situation today was increasingly uncertain and unstable, with new challenges made possible by the rapid evolution of technologies, and their implications were not yet clear. Behind any technological progress were political and economic aspects, which could be good or bad, depending on the way they were used and the goals behind them. Emerging challenges included cyberspace, small lethal autonomous weapon systems, and radioactive material. The current security environment put the world in front of new and emerging issues, alongside traditional ones.
Speakers supported holding thematic plenary discussions on substantive items on the agenda of the Conference, including items 5, 6 and 7, as a way to further explore how the Conference on Disarmament could contribute to address the impact of today’s sweeping and rapid technological change on disarmament, as well as international peace and security. This was the first and only thematic discussion for this year. The contribution of the scientific community in the work of the Conference was evident, and this was particularly important when they referred to biological and chemical weapons, as well as in the framework of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the Biological Weapons Convention work.
The issue of new weapons of mass destruction required close attention from the international community. New technologies were growing at an unbridled pace and gave non-State actors the possibility to develop such weapons, which could create further imbalances and lead to another spiral of the arms race with unpredictable consequences. Speakers suggested the creation of a special subsidiary body as created in 2018, to discuss this issue in 2021, but conforming to the agenda of the Conference, noting that artificial intelligence and cybersecurity were being actively discussed in other fora.
The impact of new technologies on the prevention of an arms race in outer space was important, and all States bore the responsibility to ensure a proper framework to technological developments in outer space, which should never become an area of conflict. Cyber security should be assured as incidents were on the rise and could affect international peace and security. The international community must consider developing laws on emerging technologies in the area of lethal autonomous weapon systems. It was undeniable that the Conference had focused its efforts on its core issues, without being able to reach significant progress, but the importance of the remaining agenda items could not be underestimated, especially agenda item 5 on newer types of weapons of mass destruction and systems of such weapons. The group of governmental experts on lethal autonomous weapon systems had achieved significant progress in a relatively short period of time by adopting 11 Guiding Principles under the framework of the Convention of Certain Conventional Weapons. The Conference on Disarmament should compliment but not duplicate the work of other fora.
Speakers said emerging science and technologies, such as cyberspace, outer space and bioscience had a dual nature. To seek military supremacy, seven countries had applied these technologies in the military field on a large scale and even weaponized them, which caused new challenges to international security. Cyber and outer space should be the public domain of all humankind. The international community should develop an authoritative review mechanism for scientific development. Today, science and technology and their application for military purposes were evolving at breakneck speed. Three issues that could merit consideration in the Conference were : the applicability of the existing international laws and norms to emerging technologies ; the dual use nature of the emerging technologies ; and the multiplicity of stakeholders as was evident in artificial intelligence and cyber domains, and the need for their participation, including the private sector or civil society.
The challenge was not developing science and artificial intelligence but rather to have a framework that could protect from war. The international community had to work on ensuring a framework for the arms race in outer space, lethal autonomous weapon systems, and complete nuclear disarmament. Developing science and technologies were cross-sectoral and affected all aspects of disarmament and transparency because of their dual use. Speakers said it was important to separate the agenda items of the Conference into key issues and other issues, and new weapons should be discussed on an equal footing with nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, negative security assurances, and prevention of an arms race in outer space.
The weaponization of artificial intelligence, including the development of autonomous weapon systems, lowered the threshold of the use of force. All forms of autonomous weapon systems must be in compliance with international laws and principles. The Conference on Disarmament and the General Assembly had discussed many times the necessity of a universal, legally binding treaty to prohibit the development, production, stockpile and use of new types of weapons of mass destruction, including radiological weapons. There was an urgent need to elaborate and adopt some preventive measures to deal with new weapons of mass destruction, and the Conference on Disarmament was the most appropriate forum for the negotiation of such a legally binding instrument. Even as new technologies developed, it was essential to elaborate commensurate norms, laws and rules to regulate them in all their dimensions, and that was why agenda items 5, 6 and 7 were developing into a fifth core issue in the Conference on Disarmament. Some speakers supported the commencement of substantive work in the Conference on elaborating an international convention on the suppression of acts of chemical and biological terrorism.
Speaking in the discussion were Brazil, France, Italy, Republic of Korea, China, Russian Federation, Japan, Cuba, Belarus, Austria, Indonesia, Iran and Pakistan. Israel spoke in a point of order.
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