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Recommended Innovation Articles (and Commentary) 6: “Quantum Warfare: Definitions, Overview and Challenges (Michal Krelina)
by : Ben ZweibelsonOriginal post can be found here: https://benzweibelson.medium.com/recommended-innovation-articles-and-commentary-6-quantum-warfare-definitions-overview-and-6c3824d3547b
Today’s series topic is that of Quantum Warfare. something we tend to see as alien and requiring us to really stretch our brains to grasp since warfare for all of human existence has exclusively existed in a Newtonian Styled context. Quantum is very new- but the first Quantum Revolution in warfare actually occurred in the 1920s-1940s with the development of radar, the atomic bomb, the arrival of computers and in the 1950s, the development of lasers. These things (and their wartime applications therein) all are operating within quantum contexts, wrapped neatly in Newtonian bomb casings and such. Quantum today is still largely misunderstood or ignored in the U.S. Department of Defense except in very specialized, specific areas. When in doubt, ask yourself (or someone rejecting this statement) to name five quantum security applications used today or in development. Before I read this wonderful article by Krelina, I certainly could not. Speaking of- his article is available here and there is NO paywall!
If you have read this far, consider yourself in the minority. Most military professionals act like wacky-waving arm inflatables at your local car dealership when the term ‘quantum warfare’ is raised in serious military discussions and they promptly flee in any direction away from you. This is because of the following:
1. We are not equipped in language, doctrine, methods or metaphors to deal with quantum. Our entire war paradigm rests upon Newtonian physics- think ‘Center of Gravity’, ‘Line of Effort’, ‘Desired End State’, ‘problem statement’ — where a problem is singular, able to be realized and isolated; whereas quantum introduces whacky things like quantum entanglement, the uncertainty at the quantum level, and the notion of two paradoxical real-world options existing at the same time. None of our mental models, methods or military theories (including Clausewitz, Jomini, Mahan, Douhet, Liddell Hart, Svechin, or Boyd) account for war outside of the natural science inspired (Newtonian, cough…. Napoleonic, cough… Westphalian, harumph!) framework or paradigm. While recently there are some tortured attempts to reimagine Jomini or Clausewitz into quantum principles, these efforts are almost entirely merely attempts to extend the modern military war paradigm (our doctrine, theory, methods) by replacing the Newtonian models with quantum inspired ones, but not also replacing the theories or adjusting the methodologies (or terminology, doctrine for that matter). Worst still, revisionist efforts to claim military theorists from earlier centuries might have anticipated quantum (or complexity theory, for that matter) just prolongs the modern military institutional attempt to resist change and introspection. We blunder through new fields like quantum theory and cherry pick terms and metaphors to assimilate into new buzz words while neutering the concepts by divorcing them from the actual theoretical content. This is what largely is happening to quantum and modern warfare beyond the technological and tactical applications (read strategy, operational art, planning, doctrine).
2. We exercise warfare through the still dominant physical domains of land, sea and air. Even space is still not entirely defined or understood- in part because quantum is a necessary aspect of understanding what war in space (and cyberspace) will unfold as. Yet we continue to attempt to force a non-quantum total perspective upon such things. Quantum warfare is not some reinterpretation where an infantry unit will be entangled with another, just as the tragic efforts to introduce swarm theory into military thinking since the mid-1990s has also made serious inter-disciplinary misunderstandings… those same infantry squads do not operate or make decisions like a bee hive or ant colony. Quantum theory could be used in some applications to re-conceptualize how we consider complex warfare and security, perhaps in all-domain, dynamic applications beyond existing methods and popular war theory, but this would be a profound and controversial hypothesis to explore.
3. Quantum warfare will not be a domain, nor will it be a distinct and independent mode or process of warfare. Nor does it neatly relate to a characteristic or even a “nature of war.” Quantum by its uniquely quantum mechanical attributes makes for unwrapping and unraveling most all of these constructs we have so carefully constructed over centuries, but also appreciating that reality exists and exercises on different levels that have profound meaning and context. Quantum will instead be perhaps more like a virus, pervading nearly all aspects of what we currently understand defense, security and warfare to be. It could even be more akin to a dimension of complex warfare that underpins everything else, but the connections are not able to be conceptualized unless one is willing to generate two levels of war theory (one for tangible, human direct experienced domains, the other for this confusing “second skin” coating all of reality but offering a deeper rabbit hole to dive into). This is troubling for most, and terrifying for those seeking to extend the institutional certainty of yesterday’s warfare frame into tomorrow’s war ‘not yet fought or imagined properly.’ Imagine a parallel war with “Alice in Wonderland” aspects of quantum, and traditional war constructs layered atop.
The attached article is long- it is a 43 page read. And it is challenging. I recommend you print this off and carry it around; it may come in handy at meetings that go on too long! ; ) But it will require your concentration because as you read this, the military institution will be exercising within your mind every possible trick in the book to pull you away from this and back into a proper, institutionalized and doctrinally sacred form of framing what war is- in a non-quantum sense. Math also troubles people, and quantum mechanics troubles even those good at math. The modern military paradigm is not ready to integrate quantum, but it is always ready to assimilate it. The problem is quantum cannot be twisted into Newtonian mechanics… these things fold in one another infinitely. Or- imagine the incompatibility of “flat world” and “round world” historically, but then wrap that into how space war theory now suggests a “flat space” construct where commercial, civilian, governmental, and military activities across the space domain might be understood metaphorically as a new flat celestial plane… despite astrophysics realizing that space itself is relative, warping with gravity wells and lagrange points and other fascinating things that appear neither in flat or round Earth constructs.
That said, this is a remarkably interesting article. There are few authors that have discussed quantum and military affairs in this manner, and I applaud Michal Krelina’s efforts here. Enjoy, and check out other article suggestions and commentary from this series: