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Trilaterals test ties
President Joe Biden hosts Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. and Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House for the historic trilateral summit of leaders, which focused on “deepening relations” that will lead to a “peaceful, stable, and prosperous Indo-Pacific.” Biden said the Philippines is set to receive fresh investments in critical sectors as it becomes the beneficiary of a new “economic corridor” under the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment Initiative (PGIII) of the Group of 7 (G-7). Meanwhile, America’s defense commitment to Pacific allies was “ironclad,” said Biden. Related stories on pages A2 and A3 News, and A11 World. ALL PHOTOS BY TROI SANTOS/BUSINESSMIRROR
US-China competition to field military drone swarms could fuel global arms race
UP NEXT: THE ‘SWARMS’ RACE By Frank Bajak
A
might have an edge. It’s not clear how many drones a single person would control. A spokesman for the defense secretary declined to say, but a recently published Pentagon-backed study offers a clue: A single operator supervised a swarm of more than 100
AP Technology Writer
S their rivalry intensifies, US and Chinese military planners are gearing up for a new kind of warfare in which squadrons of air and sea drones equipped with artificial intelligence work together like a swarm of bees to overwhelm an enemy. The planners envision a scenario in which hundreds, even thousands of the machines engage in coordinated battle. A single controller might oversee dozens of drones. Some would scout, others attack. Some would be able to pivot to new objectives in the middle of a mission based on prior programming rather than a direct order. The world’s only AI superpowers are engaged in an arms race for swarming drones that is reminiscent of the Cold War, except drone technology will be far more difficult to contain than nuclear weapons. Because software drives the drones’ swarming abilities, it could be relatively easy and cheap
for rogue nations and militants to acquire their own fleets of killer robots. The Pentagon is pushing urgent development of inexpensive, expendable drones as a deterrent against China acting on its territorial claim on Taiwan. Washington says it has no choice but to keep pace with Beijing. Chinese officials say AI-enabled weapons are inevitable so they, too, must have them. The unchecked spread of swarm technology “could lead to more instability and conflict around the world,” said Margarita Konaev, an analyst with Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
cheap air and land drones in late 2021 in an urban warfare exercise at an Army training site at Fort Campbell, Tennessee. Not to be outdone, China’s military claimed last year that Continued on A2
IN this photo from the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, British soldiers launch a drone during Project Convergence exercises at Fort Irwin, California, on November 4, 2022. With tensions high over Taiwan, US and Chinese military planners are readying themselves for a new kind of war where battleships, fighter jets and amphibious landings cede prevalence to squadrons of AI-enabled air and sea drones. DVIDS VIA AP
As the undisputed leaders in the field, Washington and Beijing are best equipped to set an example by putting limits on military uses of drone swarms. But their intense competition, China’s military aggression in the South China Sea and persistent tensions over Taiwan make the prospect of cooperation look dim. The idea is not new. The Unit-
ed Nations has tried for more than a decade to advance drone nonproliferation efforts that could include limits such as forbidding the targeting of civilians or banning the use of swarms for ethnic cleansing. Drones have been a priority for both powers for years, and each side has kept its advances secret, so it’s unclear which country
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 56.5030 n JAPAN 0.3688 n UK 70.9508 n HK 7.2097 n CHINA 7.8080 n SINGAPORE 41.7736 n AUSTRALIA 36.9360 n EU 60.6221 n KOREA 0.0414 n SAUDI ARABIA 15.0643 Source: BSP (April 12, 2024)