The question of swarms control : [electronic resource] : challenges to ensuring human control over military swarms / Maaike Verbruggen

"September 2019".

SIP1923

The European Union (EU) and EU member states are increasingly investing in military swarm research, despite the significant challenges that exist in establishing human control over swarms. These challenges include the high cognitive demands on human operators; interface and control design choices; disrupted communications between operator and swarm, whether from in-built technological limitations or environmental factors; and the inherent unpredictability of certain kinds of swarms. These challenges create tactical risks and increase the chances of undesired outcomes, such as conflict escalation and violations of international humanitarian law and ethical principles. EU-funded swarm research programmes should take steps to address these issues.

The EU Non-Proliferation Consortium is a network of foreign policy institutions and research centres from across the EU engaged in political and security-related dialogue and discussion of measures to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their delivery systems. The Consortium is managed jointly by SIPRI and three other institutes, in close cooperation with the representative of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The three institutes are the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique in Paris, the Peace Research Institute in Frankfurt (HSFK/PRIF), and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.

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