Europe’s Billions for Military Tech, AI Preventing Conflicts, and Risk for War over Metals
The European Commission is rapidly accelerating its investment in weapons and defence technologies. €7.3 billion has been allocated for defence research over the next seven years.
Kenya’s researchers suggest that AI could increase the capacity of an Early Warning and Response System, helping to predict and prevent another recurring conflict from erupting in the country.
But first, Justice Malala warns that the armed clashes between the DRC, Rwanda, Uganda and others could see a repeat of the world’s deadliest conflict since WWII — a conflict closely connected to consumer technology and the green transition:
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Europe’s Billions for New Military Tech
From drones and tanks of the future to battleships and space intelligence - the European Commission is allocating €7.3 billion for defence research over the next seven years.
This is a steep acceleration of investment: from 2017 to 2020, the budget for weapons and defence technologies counted at €590 million. The European Common Defence Project was formalised already in 2015 but accelerated after Russia invaded Ukraine.
This year alone, the European Defence Fund (EDF), is allocating €1.1 billion, divided into 32 calls for military-related research topics. The call is for new drone models, sensors to increase radar capabilities, systems to counter hypersonic missile attacks, enhancements in the analysis of images collected by satellites, smart weapons, advanced communication technologies and much more.
Source: Tobias Schwarz / AFP / Getty Images
A lot of the resources go to strengthening communication and data exchange channels. For example, it should be preventable for someone to take over the controls of a remotely piloted drone and information needed to feed algorithms and automatic analysis tools will have to be transferred through these secure channels.
The EDF allocated €25 million to a 5G network intended for the military sphere, the same amount to prototypes for satellite communications, €24 million to develop dedicated systems for undersea drones and €45 million for an AI software prototype that would make automated means and operations centres operated by live personnel talk to each other.
The EDF is also looking for new weapons. There is €25 million for the next generation of armoured vehicles, €30 million for the creation of smart and increasingly accurate weapons, and €20 million earmarked for identifying at least four potential solutions for navigating a drone in “non-permissive” environments, which means areas of war or those characterised by great instability. Another €50 million concerns the creation of a new ground drone, equipped with “lethal functions.”
AI to Predict and Prevent Conflicts
Kenya has a history of reoccurring and often predictable inter-state conflicts, including electoral violence, ethnic clashes, and resource-based disputes. The latest eruption of conflict in mid-June counts at least 50 people dead, more than 400 hurt, 59 abducted or missing, and 682 arrested.
In a newly published conference paper, Kimaita Solomon and Irungu J. Eric from Zetech University in Kenya, propose to integrate AI into an Early Warning and Response System (EWRS). The idea is that AI could contribute to an effective and responsive conflict prevention tool. This EWRS could anticipate conflicts early and implement timely interventions to prevent escalation.
“The system should be structured to identify and analyse conflict patterns, generate alerts of conflict risks, inform decision-making and initiate timely responses to contain violent conflict,” the authors write.
The authors further explain that AI can “increase the capacity of EWRS to collect and analyse enormous amounts of data” while also systemising and increasing the accuracy and scale of the EWRS. The system can then promote conflict prevention by managing the large-scale data and supplying a “timely dispatch of warning to the relevant stakeholders.”
Mobilisation of violent conflicts in Kenya is gradually shifting from physical to digital platforms, while current measures rely on human resources to collect, analyse and distribute relevant data.
The authors mean that “AI can be useful in collecting voice, video, and data from commercial cables as well as generate predictive analytics based on social media and other types of digital information derived from repetitive human behaviour.”
A protester waves a Kenyan flag as a cloud of tear gas is released during demonstrations in Nairobi on July 16. Source: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images
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