Military Emerging Disruptive Technologies: Compliance with International Law and Ethical Standards

Abstract

Preamble"I believe in horses" -the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, said in 1905 -"Automobiles are a passing phenomenon". 1 The kaiser has passed, and cars and automation have entered our daily lives. The ability to grasp the importance of changes, of technological evolution, is fundamental to predict the future and adapt.In his book published in 2017, Lawrence Freedman, a world-renowned military thinker, has explored the issue of imagining future war, including cyberattack, and how the boundaries between peace and war, between the military, the civilian and the criminal are becoming increasingly blurred. He concludes that questions about the future of war are a regular feature of political debate, strategic analysis, and popular fiction.Iconic films such as Star Wars (1977) and Starship Troopers (1997) picture conflicts fought in outer space. Tron (1982) and War Games (1983) conceive a scenario with artificial intelligence and self-learning machines. Fail-Safe (1964) tells about a computer error that causes a U.S. nuclear attack on Moscow during the Cold War, and poses the question of the final decisor to the use of lethal force.