Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is the first game in the Ghost Recon franchise to have been developed after Tom Clancy's passing. With that in mind, it makes since that Ubisoft would want to respect his memory going forward, whilst pushing Ghost Recon back into the near future. How could they achieve this best? Well, by portraying the near future of military warfare as accurately as possible, of course. Tom Clancy's games and books have always represented military fiction with a distinct touch of authenticity that only a professional or enthusiast could possibly muster. Since the 1984 publishing of 'The hunt for Red October', the Clancy name has stood for gripping stories backed by accurate technicals, so if Ubisoft plan to keep using his name they should at least adhere to the same exacting standards. Breakpoint looks to be taking the Metal Gear approach of speculation based on evidence when it comes to portraying secret military technology, and the result, is a pretty interesting look at the future face of warfare through the eyes of Ubisoft.
One of the key components of Breakpoint's vision, is the rise of unmanned military weaponry and the dangers that such a prospect proposes. Specifically, Breakpoint puts you on the island of Auroa, home to advanced military contractor: Skell Tech, as a rogue faction of Ghosts take over their facilities and reutilise the warbots against Nomad and his/her team, i.e. you. Weapons falling into the wrong hands, a tale as old as time, but it does get me thinking: just how accurate is Breakpoint's view on the future of military warfare and how much it just baseless speculation. Over the past week I've done some light research into the possibilities and promises in tech and their military applications. Indulge me for a bit as I compare what I've found.
First, a little history. As far as I can tell, the concept of an unmanned weaponary was first realised with the 'Leichter Ladungsträger Goliath' or the 'Goliath Light Charge Carrier. The Goliath (for short) was deployed by the Wehrmacht during World War II. Dubbed 'Bettle tanks' by the Allies, they were essentially little remote control mines that were controlled through a little a joystick control box that was connected to the device through a 650 meter cable. The Goliath was loaded with 100 kilogrammes of explosives and would be set off the moment it crawled underneath it's target. They could be used for destroying structures or breaching tanks and disrupting enemy lines, making for a dangerous piece of disposable equipment.
Since then, remote controlled military devices have evolved ten fold in order to meet a vast number of military applications. American military contractors are often hired by the Department of Defence in order to push forward the limits of what is currently possible with war tech. One such subordinate is the company, TARDEC who work one a lot of ground based projects and are very open about the work that they do. TARDEC's projects focus less on the angle of taking lives in combat scenarios and more around the preserving of them. One such project is the "Leader/Follower" system that they showed off for potential deployment in late 2019. This system will allow for rudimentary tech built into unmanned convoy trucks so that they can follow a leader truck. Hopefully limiting casualties at the hands of IED's.
One thing that both these examples here share, despite being almost a century apart, is the requirement of an operator in order to function. The human element of machines like this is yet to have been lost, even with all the advancements that technology has made. This is due to both technical limitations and moral push backs. Many believe that there should never be a point in warfare then weapon platforms undergo no oversight from humans, for fear of creating something with no moral checks and balance behind it's decision making. Something that could result in an unacceptable human cost if it is ever misused. This is a belief very much shared and practised by modern military personnel, eager to prevent the creation of warbots that they don't know how to shut down. The U.S. Army's senior robotics research scientist: Dr. Robert Sadowski, has gone on record multiple times to denounce claims that the they are pursing any technology that isn't manned somewhere down the chain of command. The army has a rule that only humans make the decision of when to kill. At least for now.
In Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, we are presented with a future in which those checks and balances have been overturned. A lot of the drone enemies in Breakpoint operate completely independently from an human; they merely have to be told what to kill and left to go about their task. So far, we have seen everything from small gun drones to large heavy tanks that are all powered by on board AI systems. And we're yet to see the huge robots that will likely make up those series-first raid bosses that Ubisoft have been teasing. Of course, in reality we aren't quite in the same technological shoes as Breakpoint's 'Skell Tech'. We have yet to create a power source capable of sustaining on board AI for unmanned drones, however, that isn't to say that there aren't any weapons that lack direct human oversight already. Britain have their autonomous 'Brimstone' fire-and-forget' missiles; these missiles find their own targets and attack in a staggered formation, self destructing if they can't find anything at all. Israel Aerospace Industries have their HAROP attack drones; those "Suicide drones" can fly in the air for up to 6 hours before finding a radio signal and crashing into it. Destroying its target with on board warheads. So whilst Military tech may not be quite there yet, it certainly appears to be heading towards the warbots of Skell tech, despite moral protests.
One of the biggest leaders in the development of this kind of the tech, is the branch of U.S. defence designated DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was founded in 1958 by President Eisenhower. DARPA was launched with the promise of formulating and executing research towards goal of expanding technological and scientific horizons and achieving immediate military requirements. Back then, that mission statement meant the creation of tech to compete with the 1957 launch of Sputnik 1. In today's world, that means actively attempting to remain at the forefront of defence technology in perpetuity. DARPA now reports directly to the DOD and manage a $3 billion budget. That isn't to say that all DARPA's innovations have strict military applications, some of DARPA's projects have bled off into civilian fields such as the development of computer networking and graphical user interfaces in information technology.
DARPA also have projects that tip toward that automated drone future that Breakpoint predicts. They have released reports admitting to active development in the fields of unmanned weapon platforms. One such project, known as 'Sea Hunter', is an unmanned self piloting craft with the purpose of engaging in anti-submarine maneuvers. Again, it should be stressed that this 2016 prototype was unarmed in it's inception, however, the potential is there for an automated sea bound warship with just a a few retro fittings. More in the spirit of Breakpoint's vision, is the report in which DARPA showed off the capabilities of commercial drones with just a small bit of excess programming installed. They called this creation FOCUS, as it was designed to focus on individual people from afar and be capable of automatically determining which of the individuals are armed and which are not. Just like how Ghost Recon drones have functioned since Wildlands.
These are not the drones typically linked with warfare, however, but the small toys that you can buy off Amazon to annoy your neighbours with. Those military drones, or UAV's, are whole other branch of machine warfare with it's own set of moral implications. The modern unmanned drones of today were the brainchild of one, John Stuart Foster Jr; a nuclear physicist and the former head of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He was a model plane hobbyist and in 1971 he had the idea that his hobby could be used in the conceptualization of a weapon. In 1973, DARPA built two prototypes based on designs he drew up: "Praeire" and "Calere". These two are seen as the grandfather projects to the modern drones we see of today.
In 2015 it has been estimated that up to 6000 people have died in drone strikes since their inception and that number is unlikely to stop growing anytime soon. As technology evolves, the appeal of a weapon that requires putting no soldiers in harms way grows rapidly and some fear that this disconnect between action and consequence will start to trivialize the act of taking a life. Some scholars even claim that drone strikes already cause distrust between the populace and the local government, who are likely to have permitted the strikes; causing more long term damage than the sort term issue that the drone eradicated. Drone pilots suffer too. Many undergo significant psychological harm from undergoing the bombings and suffer from PTSD once they get back home. These are the sorts of moral ramifications that autonomous warfare can give rise to.
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint takes a more action-orientated, gamey approach to the topic but the overall message still rings true. The future of warbot technology in modern warfare will never be without it's human consequence. Some like to theorise about the destructive potential of fully automated robots, but honestly even the semi automatic robots are frightening. Given 5 years or so we could be looking at the bots shown in Breakpoint. So I can commend Ubisoft on their accuracy whilst simultaneously maintaining a healthy concern about the future of war fare.I just hope that I ever end up on the business end of one.
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