Original subtitles

We went in that morning,

really not knowing what type

of enemy force to expect.

What we met was anywhere between 600 to 1,000

of Saddam's best fighters, his Fedayeen.

We are going to the extended family of Saddam and his sons

on the north side of Baghdad, Iraq.

I was part of a special forces ODA.

I was acting as a sniper, intelligence sergeant,

and also as a human intelligence operative.

Next to me in the truck was Willie Hemingway,

an absolute living legend in special forces.

We had an intel analyst stacked up

in the back of the open truck,

completely exposed the entire time.

There were two military branches,

other government agencies.

We were all on different radio frequencies.

It felt like at no time there was a central command.

Essentially, we were going into blind territory.

Just before daybreak, I looked to my right across the vehicle,

past Willie, into the darkness.

Heavy machine gun fire, RPG fire, and grenades.

A well known gunnery sergeant in that battalion

had just been killed in action.

The communications had gone to crap...

...with all the smoke from the enemy rounds.

In that moment, that's when I realized that we might have

a technology problem, and it is often the technology that can

tip the scales in a fight like that.

We got through a very bad, volatile,

and violent situation.

We didn't accomplish the mission,

but that day has stayed with me...

for a long time.

And you will have every tool you need

to carry out your duty.

New technology is increasingly arriving on the battlefield.

How do you mentally and physically

prepare a soldier for what is to come?

As war and weaponry have evolved, armor and hardware

have raced to keep up.

Preserving soldiers' lives is job number one.

Each war raises equipment challenges

to be met the next war

and battlefield tested by the next generation

of soldiers.

Counter to what many people believe, humanity wasn't born

as a species to be violent to one another.

Modern contemporary archaeologists tell us

that there were societies and communities that were able

to live peaceably together.

Now...

at some stage, and it's well before

a written history of humanity,

we did start to see humanity become violent.

And this is the point at which humanity

becomes more interesting.

Humans are, by nature, problem solvers.

And once the problem of hunting was settled,

the next problem became other humans.

Weapons to aid hunting, to cause damage, and to kill,

have been part of every piece of archaeology.

We know that they've constructed spears,

knives, flint, bone.

They've always been about the neatest, quickest,

most effective, and efficient way to kill

without being injured yourself.

With the creation of the bow and arrow,

both archaeological findings, as well as cave paintings

and bone analysis, show that it became the weapon of choice

in armed confrontations between humans.

We see the sword, which is a weapon

that is not designed for hunting.

It is designed for combat.

There have been many moments of change

in warfare and military technology.

One of the earliest was, in fact,

the invention or discovery of metal and metalworking,

because then humans started to make tools out of metal

and pretty much immediately also weapons out of metal.

And that gave humans new capabilities

to kill and injure each other.

Improvements in metallurgy

meant weapons could be produced in bulk.

And once they were produced in bulk, more and more armies

were able to have the same weapons.

This led to the difference on the battlefield

being made in tactics and training.

That led to the dominance of Alexander the Great

and later, the Great Roman Empire.

And that kind of fighting,

where it became professionalized,

became a very different way

of using technology and weapons.

They became specialized for fighting

with your colleagues,

not just to protect yourself,

to protect your comrades around you.

I think one way to look at it is a lot of these leaps came

from what was the energy source?

If you're just, like, using a big stick to beat

somebody up, you're using your own muscle energy.

At some point, we start domesticating animals,

so we don't just use animals for transportation.

War elephants where you're literally

using the elephant as a weapon.

We could categorize weapons

into four sets of characteristics.

Damage or lethality.

Distance.

The precision with which you can deliver it,

and finally, the sort of repeatability,

the rate of fire that you can achieve out of it.

Let's start with lethality.

The one thing that you wanna be able to do when you're

in a fight is to put your adversary down permanently.

That developed in a evolution, as protection was added

to each combatant.

The second part of it is distance,

how far you can reach.

One of the early game changers

was the invention of the longbow.

The longbow kinda served like artillery

before we ever had explosives.

It enabled an army to employ people at a standoff distance,

where they're not right up on the front line,

but still rain down lethality from the sky.

The third characteristic has always been precision.

The problem with firing bows and arrows

is so many of them miss.

Tools like the Greek ballista,

or its smaller version, the crossbow,

allowed you to hit individuals more accurately

and to use less training to hit people was really important.

The fourth aspect of this is your repeatability,

the rate of fire.

Your ability to launch not just one arrow,

but four arrows a minute.

The ability to hone and draw together these characteristics

on the field of battle determined the victor

at the end of the day.

Bows and ballistas were effective, but warfare entered

a new explosive era when weapons no longer depended

on physical power.

Warfare entered a new explosive era

when weapons no longer depended on physical power.

The Chinese alchemists who were able to mix the black powder

and harness gunpowder's explosive energy using

a metal tube gave birth to the first firearms.

All of a sudden, you get a big bang out of some gunpowder.

In the old days, it was as far as you could throw a spear,

shoot an arrow, and that was the natural limit of it.

If all of a sudden you can start shooting something

for longer than you can fire an arrow,

then the scale of things changes.

The first cannons and mortars were not accurate,

but the advantage was they could be used against

hardened targets, and their use caused panic in the ranks

of the enemy.

Their lethality was increased when we started using shells

propelled by explosive charges, and the shells were capable

of producing shrapnel.

It was going to be really in the 19th century where

modern guns, as we'd understand them today, began to develop.

The invention of the cartridge, which reduced the loading time.

The first repeating systems,

like the Winchester and Henry rifles,

alongside revolver handguns in the 1830s,

increased the rate of fire and made distant combat

and accuracy more frequent.

But the biggest invention that we would record today would be

the arrival of machine guns

introduced during the American Civil War.

Later, the machine gun became the backbone

of military defenses.

One machine gun properly placed could produce a river

of lethal fire covering the entire defensive flank.

The machine gun's use enabled infantry units

to repel large attacks from much larger forces.

Then you start taking fossil fuels or wood

and turning them into steam or using them more directly

in internal combustion engines.

And if all of a sudden an army moves faster than it can

on foot or on horseback because of use of energy.

Once warfare gets so big that you're doing things

at a greater distance,

so all of a sudden, you can coordinate

a bigger mass of military force spread out over a bigger area

and affecting a bigger area. So that changes modern warfare.

Research has shown that the most revolutionary changes

came out of new ways of using a new technology.

The most typical example of this is the tank.

The tank entered the battlefield already in 1916,

but it took until the Second World War

and the development of a new doctrine

that really allowed the tank

to be used to its full potential.

The technology changes. The battlefield expands.

But the fundamentals of war stay the same.

It's about how you understand how to fight your adversary.

That interaction between weapons,

between the attacker and the defender,

remains as much a factor today in modern weapons

as it did back for our ancestors 60,000 years ago.

It's not about bravery or courage.

It's not about an equal or a fair fight.

They've always been about the neatest, quickest,

most effective, and efficient way to kill

without being injured yourself.

The digital age is reshaping almost every aspect

of modern warfare--

equipment, weaponry, intelligence gathering,

and even the individual soldier.

New technology is increasingly arriving on the battlefield,

and that has greatly changed changing the way

the average soldier fights.

This new generation of super soldier

will look like something right out of a video game.

So as a smart soldier evolves here in the 21st century,

there's gonna be four areas that are going to come together

to enhance and enact this change.

First is offensive, which is obviously development

of weapon systems and weapon platforms

that the soldier can command and control in the battlefield.

The second thing that we need to think about,

that's the idea of armor, of protection,

but it also includes deception,

it includes movement, it includes maneuver,

it includes camouflage.

The other two areas are going to be understanding

and having situational awareness, having the ability

to synthesize, gather, analyze, and use

vast amounts of data.

And the last part of it is,

before you even get into combat, how to you mentally

and physically prepare a soldier for what is to come.

We're always making and using weapons that people

and agencies say that will be the next best thing.

But the truth is, we're still using firearms that send

projectiles out, that we've been using for hundreds of years.

An important development in warfare over the last decades

is the increase in precision that weapons can achieve,

and also the increase in firepower

that is now possible

thanks to technological advances.

So weapons can hit their targets in a more precise

way, helping to minimize civilian casualties,

and less soldiers are needed in order to achieve

the same level of firepower.

...attributed to the urban warfare...

Built to the latest aerial bombardment.

As the smoke clears, the casualties appear.

Greater precision has become crucial as warfare has moved

from battlefields to populated, urban areas.

Over the last few decades, urban warfare has become

prevalent in our conflicts.

And urban warfare comes with its own unique challenges.

A key advantage would be the development of weapons

that give you a standoff, where you do not have to expose

yourself to fire in order to engage the enemy.

During the Second World War, the Germans introduced

the Krummlauf, or the curved barrel, that would allow people

to shoot around corners.

This idea was first developed during the First World War

when soldiers wanted periscopes and used periscope attachments

in order to fire from their trenches.

In the early 2000s, this was, in many ways, perfected

by the Israeli Defense Force, who designed the corner shot,

a regular gun and small digital camera mounted on the front end,

while the shooter aimed by a video display.

Now, instead of a soldier having to peek

around the corner to identify a target, they can actually use

a weapon that's meant to bend around a hard object to get

a line of sight on a target or a door or a passageway

without having to actually expose a soldier.

India, China, and others are developing

this kind of technology as well.

The biggest advancement in the next 20 years will be

directed energy weapons.

"PHASR" stands for the Personnel Halting and Stimulation

Response Rifle.

That is a prototype of a non light lethal laser.

Its purpose is to temporarily impair aggressors

by disorienting and blinding them with the laser light

that the rifle emits.

I think an advantage of the PHASR rifle

is that it allows you to incapacitate an enemy

instead of having to kill them.

In the future, with a new class of firearms,

a new class of weapons,

they will be the most technologically advanced

and allow for the smallest signature either attached

or on the soldier.

We will see directed energy weapons

on the battlefield very soon.

They'll initially combat drones and missiles,

and will change warfare,

and perhaps ultimately reduce cost.

More powerful, smarter weapons mean more powerful,

smarter gear to protect soldiers.

But even the best gear is useless if it hinders

readiness, forcing soldiers like JD to make

tough life-and-death choices.

Back on April 10th, 2003, I feel the fundamental issue

could have been lack of good ballistic body armor.

Willie and I didn't wear our helmets and body armor

because it was just too cumbersome getting in and out

of the vehicle, running the radios,

and especially running that gun and reloading that gun.

If you look at pictures of me from Afghanistan, I was

old school and shied away from wearing too much equipment

in favor of more mobility.

Back then, the US Army's improved outer tactical vest

could weigh almost 30 pounds.

And by the time you added weapons, batteries,

supplies, and other gear, you were easily carrying

up to or over 100 pounds.

If you're wearing a lot of heavy and cumbersome equipment,

it becomes almost impossible to maneuver under fire.

And in my view, that can get you killed.

There's always a guy with a spreadsheet

and a PowerPoint slide somewhere.

"Well, a soldier needs this, a soldier needs that."

And it sort of adds up to a huge burden on the soldier.

Here again, technological advances

such as in nanotechnology and new materials

can help to make armor lighter

and more effective, less cumbersome,

and thus improve the ability of a soldier to survive injuries

or survive being attacked.

The most important facet of this body armor is

that it's not only designed to capture the bullet,

but also disperse its kinetic energy, both to avoid damage

and minimize the backwards projection caused

by the impact, which could also have lethal consequences

for the soldier.

In some cases, that armor is modular, which means the soldier

or the operator can layer on the necessary pieces of armor

that he or she needs, depending on the conflict

or the battle they're going into.

We have far more amputations now than we did at one point

because the armor is very good at protecting the core

and keeping a guy alive, but his limbs are mangled.

One thing that probably has saved more soldiers' lives

than any improvement in armor or fortification is medicine,

emergency medicine in particular.

In the past, most soldiers didn't die

on the battlefield itself,

but rather later on,

they died from infection and diseases.

So an injury that in the past might have killed

you eventually, today might keep you from the battlefield

just for a few days or a few weeks.

The goal, of course,

is to avoid getting injured at all.

That demands not just better armor,

but better intelligence- gathering and communication

to evade the enemy.

More powerful, smarter weapons mean more powerful

smarter gear to protect soldiers.

That demands not just better armor but better intelligence

gathering and communication to evaded the enemy

or to gain the upper hand.

Let me go back to 1987 when I joined the Army...

...your combat radio, it was one per platoon,

so there'd be 30 guys, 40 guys, and one radio.

And this radio was 20 pounds.

And you'd talk in a handset.

It was literally the same kind of backpack radio that you saw

in the Vietnam films.

Throughout the Iraq war and the Afghan war,

you saw the introduction of various technology elements

into the hands of the operator.

Night vision goggles allows the operator operators see

at night, but it has some significant downfalls

because it does not work in certain environments

where there's smog, if there's a flash of light.

What you're starting to see now are tools that allow

the operator to see through infrared, which allows it

to function in all types of ambient environments.

On the morning of April 10, 2003,

I feel we had ariel coverage, ariel intelligence,

but back in 2003 we could not tie that information

into the battlefield and then push that information

around the battlefield.

I feel that type of technology

would have been very critical to our mission.

Maybe there would still be some marines alive.

Basically, I'm here to announce that we're building Iron Man.

How about Superman-like X-ray vision

in the form of goggles for soldiers?

Army scientists created a new material

that rejects the sand particles,

saving the blades and keeping future soldiers safe.

Battlefield gear has leapt forward in the last 20 years.

Advances such as integrated communication

and augmented vision systems,

strength-enhancing exoskeleton suits,

and unmanned rifles

are in development or already in place.

In May 2013, the US Army announced "TALOS",

the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit,

was under development.

Some soldiers are already being equipped with small

portable devices that link them back to their headquarters

and commanders, enabling a two-way flow of information.

Not just the soldier's view of the battlefield,

but also the commander's view, enabling the commander

to send instructions and targeting information

back to the soldier on the ground.

One thing being developed is called microclimate clothing.

It's a new type of vest that can keep you warm in the winter

or cool during the hot weather.

Now I feel the uniforms at some point will also have

a medical capability, whether it's sensors

within the uniform or a watch or another piece of technology

that can keep other people in the mission chain updated

on that person's health and efficiency.

Modern soldiers are being deployed with

their own drone, which will provide aerial reconnaissance

and also send feeds either from the drone

or the soldier back to a central command.

I feel it's also important

that the individual soldier protective gear,

it also has the communications integrated in it.

I would like to see those goggles provide a heads up

display, give that soldier every piece of information

they need at that point, standing wherever they are

on the battlefield, and that soldier can push

information out to a central command, pull information

from drones, anything flying in the sky,

Exoskeleton-enabled suits are being tested and used right now

in non-combat situations where operators or soldiers

are using it to lift, transport, and load certain items

that a human body couldn't handle on its own.

TALOS should consist of an advanced exoskeleton

be worn under an impenetrable body armor that could provide

machine-like strength to a soldier, complemented

with a computerized network helmet that could increase

his tactical awareness.

Another remotely operated weapon

is the Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle, "SPUR",

that can not only be used by snipers but also mounted.

It has an encrypted wireless and advanced sensor that make it

able to shoot accurately up to 1200 meters

in any visibility conditions.

This has the potential to turn any ordinary soldier

into a sniper.

Recently, the US Army has started to test the "IVAS",

or Integrated Visual Augmented System.

That, besides superimposing mixed reality data

over the soldier's vision, like 3D terrain maps and vital

information on the battlefield, it also helps understand

and see through issues like fog and smoke.

Soldiers can also update other units, enabling every soldier

to be involved to fulfill their tasks while supporting

each other in the most effective way,

whilst minimizing casualties.

The software then processes the information that allows

the command and control to have a full picture of the situation

on the battlefield.

Despite all these advancements, it's becoming really important

that we continue to focus on the training and preparation

of each individual soldier.

Future soldiers will not just have more powerful

weapons and techniques,

they'll be empowered by real-time battlefield data,

enhanced communications, better strategies,

and specialized training.

Today, we have much smaller teams,

specialized across different disciplines,

which provides that small element

a great advantage.

Even by the time of the Vietnam War,

something like only 10%

of the US Army in Vietnam was an infantryman.

The guy who needs to drive a truck eight to 12 hours a day

to keep the logistics running has to have a different

attention span than the guy who's screwing fuses

onto artillery shells and throwing artillery shells

into the breach of a cannon.

That idea of someone being physically and mentally

prepared to fight doesn't just include the physical training,

the combined arms training.

but also his mental preparedness to fight,

his readiness and willingness to defend,

his understanding of what he's fighting for,

not just the people to the left and the right of him,

that traditional thing that holds

a warrior formation together,

but the values that he's fighting for.

One part I think we missed in my career,

I feel it could have made some differences in Iraq,

is the psychology of mind,

or the performance psychology.

I can see huge amounts of improvement in the behavioral

and psychological sciences.

There's programs now, comprehensive soldier fitness

program, and a THOR program within special forces,

Tactical Human Optimization and Repair.

It can help with missions

on the battlefield, resiliency, and adjustment

after you come back and redeploy.

It could have helped with the transition

out of the military.

We are also rethinking the role of a soldier

within the armed forces,

at least in Western or and liberal democracies.

Ever since the Second World War, at least, there is now

an idea that soldiers should be able to think for themselves

and also to be able to question unlawful, immoral commands

that they may be given.

In the drive to create enhancements for soldiers

and even to enhance soldiers into super soldiers,

where do we draw the line?

Every military across time has sought to increase

the performance of individual soldiers.

The idea that some states would conduct potentially

gene-editing or biological enhancements

is not beyond belief.

According to a 2019 report, the Chinese military was

actively exploring genetic editing in order to create

a generation of super soldiers

that could resist harsh weather conditions,

be immune to pain,

and able to fight without the need to rest.

Some claim that Russia

could also be conducting similar stuff.

This, on top of these technologically advanced

weapons, is leading to a Darwinian type

natural selection in that new super soldier.

With the development of human integrated technology,

many have raised the possibility of one day

having cyborg soldiers that could artificially be

better soldiers and endure adverse situations.

No matter what advancements we make, war really comes down

to killing as many of the enemy as you can and losing as few

of your own people as possible.

With the advancement of some of the new technology,

we may not even have to employ our guys in the actual battle.

Future army robots will be among the strongest

in the world if visionary researchers have their way.

And a robot is making a big splash in Afghanistan.

Soldiers who can operate them are in demand

because they're saving lives on the battlefield.

With features such as 180-degree tilt cameras

and flippers that enable them to maneuver

over the toughest terrains.

Having a robotic friend ready to keep him safe from harm.

What you're starting to see is units and squads that could

have a couple of dozen to a couple of hundred members

reduce in size-- instead of exposing an operator,

a human being,

you now have a robot that's your eyes and ears on the tip

of the spear or going down a dark hole.

Actually, the idea of replacing humans on a battlefield

is not as recent as we may imagine.

During the First World War, the French introduced

what they called "land torpedoes."

And in World War II, the Germans had the Goliath,

and the Soviets the teletank.

In 1972, during the troubles in Northern Ireland,

the British army introduced the wheelbarrow as the first

remote controlled bomb disposal system.

Since then, many bomb and mine disposal squads have used

similar robots to dispose of explosive devices at a safe

distance, including the TALON system and its armless version,

the SOTALON, that would be deployed

in the war against terror.

In 2007, the armed TALON and Special Weapons Observation

Reconnaissance Detection System, SWORDS, was born.

They would become the very first robots

to be deployed in a war zone.

The first robots were equipped

with the M249 light machine gun,

but were used for surveillance

and peacekeeping operations.

The fact that a new semi-autonomous successor

for the SWORDS, named "MAARS,"

or the Modular Advanced Armed Robotics Systems,

was already on the way,

only takes lethal action when it receives coded instructions

and utilizes its AI.

The PITBULL from General Robotics that can detect

and track and predict positions of threats and friendlies.

The same manufacturer is also developing the DOGO.

Weighing only ten kilograms,

it can fit in the soldier's backpack

and help access places a soldier can't.

Armed with a comm system

and a .9mm Glock pistol,

it can engage as required without exposing the operator.

We also have the development of legged robots.

The dog-like Vision 60 can run

at up to 10 kilometers an hour

for three hours in difficult terrains

and under hard climatic conditions,

carrying heavy equipment.

It can provide logistic support

or be armed with a remote weapon system.

The British "MUTT", or Multiple Utility Tactical Transport,

with full assault weapons and automatic grenade launcher

mounts may evolve into an out-of-the-loop system

at some stage in the future.

The downside of that is more and more power is falling

into the hands of few.

So it's gonna be important to make sure

that the right governance is in place to regulate

the actions of the few.

Robots have proven extremely useful in battle,

alongside or ahead of soldiers that control them.

Their supporting role is only going to grow

as tech gets more sophisticated.

The more we rely on technology,

the more we become dependent on it.

I feel I could be classified as an old school

special forces guy.

I grew up in 5th Special Forces group in the '90s.

But here's the thing, the Vietnam era guys taught us,

when the tech fails, how do I continue and move forward

and continue to engage the enemy?

A warrior is a warrior, with or without his weapons.

How are they when it comes down

to their primal instinct to survive...

and fight for each other?

Humans are more important than hardware.

I definitely feel today, and even in the future,

the human will be the most important part

of that battlefield equation.

The idea that somehow

technology and technological advances

can remove the human from the battlefield

and take them out of harm's way,

I think, is largely an illusion.

In the end, it is important to remember

that, in all likelihood, there will be 18-year-old recruits

dying somewhere in muddy fields.

Machines have been killing...

people on their own for a while.

We just haven't talked about it.

A landmine is basically an analog computer.

It's got a physical sensor with a little bit of a circuit,

and you step on the landmine, it blows somebody up.

So what we're doing is we're just adding interesting

electronics on top of that model.

Fortunately and unfortunately, as we grow

towards those autonomous robots on the battlefield,

I am a little concerned there could be

communication and control deficiencies between the human

and that autonomous device.

As military intelligence meets artificial intelligence,

it raises ethical questions regarding how much autonomy

robots should have,

or whether robots will replace soldiers entirely.

In 2012, Human Rights Watch categorized lethal autonomous

weapon systems as falling into three categories.

A human is in the loop, it's on the loop,

or out of the loop.

In essence, what that means is when an AI system

or an autonomous device that has lethal capabilities

makes the decision to kill,

is a human being making that final go/no-go decision

on taking lethal action?

Human out-of-the-loop systems

are mostly defensive in category.

Naval systems have always been pushing the boundaries

of autonomous weapon deployment.

The ability to detect, track, and engage multiple

missiles before they hit you is the only way you can defeat

threats coming into a ship without being sunk.

If other countries go down the path of creating

autonomous weapon systems driven by AI,

are we at a significant disadvantage?

It's basically a situation

that we may not want to build a Terminator,

but if the other side does so, and we need one

to defend ourselves, we will follow suit.

And that's exactly this escalatory dynamic

of an arms race

that is very dangerous and very destabilizing.

Most of the current combat robots all have

humans in or on the loop.

The South Korean SGRA-1,

a robot sentry designed and deployed

in the demilitarized zone with North Korea--

its uncooled infrared thermographic can detect

and identify humans through voice recognition.

If the trespasser fails, the system alone can choose

whether deploying and sounding an alarm...

...firing rubber bullets,

or deploying more lethal weapons.

Another South Korean system is the Super Eagle Aegis II.

It has a warning system and is then programmed

to shoot automatically.

When you're in that kind of circumstance, who's to say

that those safeguards can't be removed?

You can't hack a gun, you can't hack a sword

or a shield or an arrow, but you can hack a drone.

We should carefully consider before we take out

that final human check.

Sometimes, it's just that raw human emotion and instinct

that causes you to hesitate when you're ready

to pull the trigger on a suspected terrorist.

And sometimes that instinct proves right.

I myself have entered a building,

and I was prepared to kill the people I encountered.

But as I saw people running inside, something made me stop.

Would a machine be able to do that?

That's something that we have to consider as we go forward.

One of the challenges is what is called a responsibility gap.

If an autonomous or AI-enabled system does something

it wasn't so-called "told to do,"

who would take responsibility?

In the end, things that are technologically possible

tend to be developed,

and they tend to be then used in extreme cases.

And war, by definition, is an extreme case.

As all of our weapon systems become more interrelated,

interconnected, we need a good system of morality,

laws, and ethics to guide the systems

that we create and deploy.

We're just a few bad decisions from being there.

And although this sounds like Sci-Fi, that long term future

could be in our immediate future if we're not careful.