- Pentagon science adviser Joseph Jewell weighs in on Ukraine war and integration of artificial intelligence and biotechnology marks a paradigm shift in how the US military views future conflicts
- Marines recently 3D-printed shaped charges from coconut shells and coffee grounds that beat conventional explosives by 25%
- The Ministry of Defense is also trying to speed up innovation in industry by offering as many as 500 patents for free to private companies
The Russia-Ukraine war has been devastating in its impact on those directly affected by the conflict, which has now entered its fifth year, as both sides clash on trade in what many feel is a prolonged stalemate stemming in part from labor shortages.
However, the conflict, or rather its asymmetric nature, has caused many modern militaries to keep a close eye on the events as they show what the future of combat may look like between two warring nations.
The US Assistant Secretary of War for Science and Technology, Joseph S. Jewell, recently spoke at length during the Defense One tech summit about how information from the conflict and forays into AI and biotechnology continue to shape modern warfare as we know it.
Production entry, AI integration and focus on biotechnology
At the summit, the assistant secretary spoke on a host of topics, including insights into how the Russia-Ukraine conflict is playing out and the lessons the United States needs to learn from the ongoing war.
He addressed the fact that Ukraine essentially wanted its entire drone industry to exist because it was key to its survival, while essentially keeping Russia’s navy at bay for most of the conflict despite not having a similarly equipped combat force at sea.
The line that carries from him, however, might be about Marines recycling coffee grounds and coconut shells to make 3D-printed shaped charges for the battlefield.
This underscores an important change that has already occurred on the modern battlefield, as researchers and military personnel increasingly push the limits of finding the best way to supply and re-equip, while also making advances in lethality in some cases.
Coffee grounds and coconut shells were only the tip of the iceberg; the Marines also tried the same with plastic water bottles and even crushed volcanic rock, noting that the latter worked best.
Jewell said the field-made charge had reduced time-to-point-of-use by 99% because it could be manufactured on site from materials “endemic to the Indo-Pacific”, and even more interestingly, it showed “25% better focusing properties than conventionally manufactured high explosives.”
The underlying story is not only how in-the-field prosecutions save enormous amounts of time and money on future battlefields, but how military doctrine has changed to include ‘patent holidays’ to increase access to technology and promote innovation, for better or worse, at least on the Pentagon’s end, over the past few years.
While his focus was on Ukraine, the US has learned similar lessons in its on-again, off-again conflict with Iran, where the latter has resorted to using cheap but high-volume weapons, including drones and missiles, to effectively force a stalemate over the Strait of Hormuz, indicating that a paradigm shift is in order, where the side that ‘wins’ with the best does not win.
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