Fleet design

I would much rather be the commander of a task force (fleet) with a combination of larger traditional ships and uncrewed flying and surface vessels (Fleet A) compared to one with only traditional ships (Fleet B). I think that a force with a combination of larger traditional ships and uncrewed flying and surface vessels allow for a larger freedom of action than a force with only traditional ships. However, measuring fleet capability is not easy and there are many pitfalls. Fleet modelling is one way of creating decision support for questions on fleet composition. Modelling requires simplifications and the question that need to be asked is which simplifications are ok and which make the modelling irrelevant.

More on this topic is analyzed and discussed in the article Analyzing Naval Fleet Modelling with a Tactics Perspective – The Case of Implementation of Autonomous Vessels published in the International Journal of Maritime Engineering (IJME).

Full reference: Liwång, H., Kindgren, J., Granholm, J. & Tärnholm, T. (2023). Analyzing naval fleet modelling with a tactics perspective – the case of implementation of autonomous vessels, 163(A3), A229-A238. 

How can we make infrastructure more robust?

Many decision-makers have spoken about the importance of the infrastructure that exists on seabeds all over Europe. Sweden, with its long coastline and limited land connections, is particularly sensitive.

In preparation for a possible heightened state of alert, it is risky to take your inspiration from today's isolated events. And the now popular expressions Sea bed warfare and protection of critical infrastructure are possibly misleading. Best protection is not war at every cable.

At sea below the surface it is easy to hide. This is due to extremely short sensor ranges and difficulty with communication. The challenges in the Baltic Sea also include the bottom topography and stratification in the water. Therefore, detection, identification and measures to stop ongoing sabotage or accidents are very resource-intensive on land and especially at sea. The society must work with indirect measures that protect the social function, not the cable.

Most of the disruptions at sea and on land are a consequence of accidents and other errors that occur. The industry is already working to reduce such risks. For example, by burying cables in areas with a high probability of damage from fishing gear and anchors. Other important measures are repairability. Taking responsibility for such actions is the responsibility of the operators, but society also needs to support by rewarding reliability.

Burying a cable is also an effective protection against sabotage, but then it has to be buried all the way. Supplementing a buried bottom cable with a cable via a completely different route, creates a very good protection against single attacks and single accidents.

At times of greater tension and heightened alertness, civil shipping and other activities continue both on land and at sea. But examples show that the skills on board and the quality of the ships declines. This means that the probability of accidents increases. So even at high levels of international tension, it is of great importance to work with protection against accidents and errors.

With good passive protection, the state's resources can focus on protection against larger coordinated attacks. But there are some places that need active protection. There are also some occasions when extra protection is needed. For example, when large domestic power producers are down or at the same time as a major cyber-attack.

Today, there are few individual cables that are critical for Sweden, and with each new cable the importance of the respective cable decreases. But we can do better. Electricity and data cables are infrastructure that has a good chance of being protected via redundancy on land and at sea.

Advanced technology interacts more deeply than ever in our lives and organizations. We therefore need to be better at making use of the respective infrastructure's strengths. Today's infrastructure makes society stronger. An expanded infrastructure means that the really critical points are reduced in number and that the occasions when extra protection is needed are also reduced in number. But it becomes more complex to analyze where and when extra protection is needed. Such analytical ability is now increasing in importance.

To better work with these complex analyses, and to be able to attribute sudden interruptions to the right cause, more information is needed from all the remote locations of the infrastructure. The information also needs to be shared between many more parties, governmental and commercial. This is a new challenge.

Society also needs to get better at valuing reserves and a diversity of solutions, both proactive and reactive. And an overly coordinated preparedness risks building weaknesses against something we did not anticipate. The best protection is measures at the system level and organizational measures before high alert well before the war. Preferably with imagination and diversity.

However, a hinder for achieving this is the distance between policy and infrastructure development. Policy makers are many times to ignorant about the characteristics of different types of infrastructure and the systemic aspects. For example the difference between the vulnerability of one specific cable and the vulnerability of the system. And project leaders and engineers knows too little about the defence and security decisions and therefore miss the chance to let small system changes make big difference. However, they do not lack interest.

I think it is an informal dialog between policymakers and infrastructure designers that really can make a difference. To inform the policymakers about the infrastructure and to inform designers about the societies challenges outside the direct need of that specific infrastructure component. 

Drones, Nord Stream and international speculation

Since the sabotage on the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26 I have, as a result of my work on under water capability, maritime systems, threat and risk management, defence capability and emerging technology, been heavily contacted by Swedish and international media. The questions often relate to what are likely explanations to what we have seen and to what the different investigations find. At least two large challenges remain: the information is still limited and the approach used for the sabotage may have been one of the unlikely ones.

I have noticed that the knowledge on what is technically possible and what that means in terms of possible sabotage approaches as well as feasible protective measures is low. This creates large challenges especially if we want to act proactively on future threats and not just focus on the things that already has happened.

Therefore I want to promote the Master’s program Innovation, Defence and Security, if you want to contribute to creating solutions for a safer world. Next time to apply is no later than January 16.

Read more here and make the society’s defence and security your business!

The Master’s programme Innovation, Defence and Security provides you with a systems understanding of the systems that contribute to a society’s defence and security. You will study how these systems are developed and used, and how organizations and technical components interact.

The program is interdisciplinary with a sociotechnical perspective and the program focus on problem-solving.

Or are you looking for a journal article, read this one on military organisations and emerging technologies and how unmanned systems find a role in future navies by Therese Tärnholm and Hans Liwång in Journal of Military Studies.

References

Tärnholm, T. & Liwång, H. (2022). Military organisations and emerging technologies – How do unmanned systems find a role in future navies? Journal of Military Studies. https://doi.org/10.2478/jms-2022-0004

Styrishave, N. (18 Nov 2022). Svenske efterforskere finder rester af sprængstof og bekræfter sabotage på Nord Stream. dr.dk.

Mackrael, K. & Hirtenstein, A (18 Nov 2022) Explosives Found in Vicinity of Nord Stream Blasts, Sweden Says. wsj.com.

Need to dig deeper to find out more about drone incidents

The Swedish Chief Prosecutor has now commented on the drone incidents over Swedish nuclear plants in January 2022. This after that the preliminary investigation has been discontinued because they have not been able to tie any person or organization to the incidents. Additionally, the police has not been able to establish if the flights were initiated by another state or not. However, they state that:

- In some of the cases, it has been established that this are professional drones or drones used for industrial use. This is based, among other things, on the speed and size of the drones.

They therefore rule out hobby pilots. I am personally skeptical to this finding, given the limited information the police have nothing can be ruled out. The knowledge and power of hobbies is impressive, the finical power and knowledge needed for the hobby pilot to hack commercial professional drones or to build your own “professional drone” is accessible to enough people. I may also argue that such a hobby is more constructive and less risky than for example illegal street racing (which is something we know is happening).

Drones is an example of technology that blur the lines, not only between civilian and military, but also between prank and military violation, and between the so called military operating domains air, land, cyber, electronic warfare and cognition etc. This is very much proven by the non-professional, but very capable, Aerorozvidka group in Ukraine supporting the Ukraine defense forces with drone operations. This is a fact known by military powers, but our thinking is still too much fixed in a past where it was fruitful to draw lines between military and civilian technology. Without more information gathered at the instance of a drone flight, the possibility to find the person or organization responsible and the intent is down to extreme luck. At least two things are needed:

• Increase the risk involved for the person or organization behind the incidents (so that fewer are prepared to take the risk and the number of possible suspects are reduced).
• During the flight gather more information about the drone, its activity, and the takeoff and landing site(s).

The first bullet point can be supported by the second, but also potentially by taking down the drone (in a way that pose a low risk to others).

For a civilian, but valuable and strategic, and stationary installation such as a nuclear power plant installing systems that automatically can gather more information at the time of a drone incident is possible and feasible. The system should be able to detect small flying objects, but also to record any signals from or to the drone. Only with this extended information, about signals, type of signals or absence of signals, is it possible to classify the drone and to say something about the intent of the flight. It will also increase the possibility to act against the persons launching or retrieving the drone.

This text draw from the following sources:

• Swedish news reports on the drone flights over Swedish nuclear plants in January 2022, especially Filmer visar dronare över svenska karnkraftverk.
• International news reports on the Aerorozvidka group, their activity and their drones.
• Black, J., Lynch, A., Gustafson, K., Blagden, D., Paille, P., & Quimbre, F. (2022). Multi-Domain Integration in Defence, Conceptual Approaches and Lessons from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea (p. 97). RAND Europe.

Defense development: The role of co-creation in filling the gap between policy-makers and technology development

There is a gap between policy-makers and technology development. This gap leads to risks concerning nontechnical system properties and ineffective interactions between technical and social components.

My study investigates co-creation between government, industry, and academia and how nontechnical system properties and interactions between technical and social components are considered in the early phase design of systems for security and defense. Co-creation is here understood as a specific form of research collaboration facilitating results that would not have been possible without a joint approach between policy-makers and technology development. Throughout the analysis, an example of AI and air defense is used as a case to exemplify the challenges and solutions discussed.

The study analyses how higher education institutions can create an arena for relevance, rigor and design joining the hard perspectives of the industry with the soft perspectives of policy, social and critical sciences. The study identifies that involved parties must acknowledge the need for a pragmatic relationship to traditional scientific traditions to capture the multitude of perspectives present. It is identified that the proposed co-creation can contribute to articulating societal challenges, conflicting values, and alternative design principles into the solution at early concept design phases.

Co-creation could also be an arena for joint development of the more specific design approaches needed for later design steps. However, this contribution depends on an openness to the challenges and knowledge gaps and that higher education institutions maintain their autonomy.

Read more, cite and download the article: Hans Liwång (2022) Defense development: The role of co-creation in filling the gap between policy-makers and technology development. Technology in Society 68, 1-10, 101913, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2022.101913.

(I would translate "research co-creation" into "forskningssamverkan" in Swedish)

Drones over Swedish installations of importance

I’ve, during the beginning of 2022, been involved in the discussions on the implications of that drones, and sometimes big drones, have been sighted above Swedish installations of importance such as such as nuclear plants and the Royal Castle.

About this much can be said and the reasons for these incidents are so far not uncloaked and may remain so. Most often unsuitable drone flights are a result of mistakes and not antagonistic intent. However, it cannot be assumed that is the case also these times.

Compared to traditional threats there are some important aspects that govern drone incidents.

• No borders between civilian and military activity.
• Low entry cost/effort.
• Low risks associated with the operation.

These three aspects lead to that the number of potential persons and organizations that has the capability and possibility to perform an attack are many and varying.

For many installations drones does not pose a particularly potent threat, but the possible high frequency of drone flights and incidents still lead to that the problem needs to be taken seriously.

It is only one of the three aspects above that can be affected by protection and that is to increase the risk associated with antagonistic drone flights. Such protections measures during peace time need to be implemented with low cost and low risk to other activity and third persons. The measures also need to be effective. To be able to early detect, disturb and jam drones can potentially change the number of incidents drastically. For some events and sites such measures are standard.

Difficult, but sorted out – oil on board the wreck of Finnbirch

In my research on intact stability the loss of the ship Finnbirch has been an example of the urgency of balancing operational and design stability measures in order to increase the safety at sea, in Swedish waters, but also internationally. Read more here and here.

The wreck was also high on the Swedish list of wrecks that needed to be drained of oil in order to avoid further environmental damage (see also earlier post on the environmental risk from wrecks off Sweden). However, the work of draining the vessel of oil was not straight forward. This because Finnbirch is located at a depth of almost eighty meters.

Now in the summer of 2020 the wreck is drained of 88 cubic meters of heavy oil (see article in Swedish here). According to the Danish company tasked with the work it has it has been cold - and sometimes too poor visibility. In order to get the thick oil out, they have had to heat it with steam. The divers could only be down at the wreck for about 25 minutes and then it took at least two hours to get them to the surface.