POSITION PAPER

Disarmament and International

Committee:
Security (DISEC) committee Country: United States
Topic: Emerging Weapons Race of America
Delegate: Prabhoda C S
The issue of new and emerging weapon technologies and the challenge of non-proliferation.

1.1 Synopsis
During 2017 the world woke up to a new kind of terrorism – cyber terrorism - one of the most destructive
‘worms’ - ‘WannaCry’ was launched - across 150 countries. Cyber risk modelling firm Cyence estimates
the losses from hacks of this nature to be of 4 Billion $!

Prominent figures in their open letter “Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence”
warned about the potential pitfalls (that is it “… might threaten humanity”) of Emerging Technology.

These provide warning signs of the threat that can be unleashed by the emerging technologies. The
winner of the next war – if it happens – is the one who has technological might, not necessarily one who
has the largest army! In this paper, I am going to bring out our country’s position on Emerging Weapons
and strategies for controlling the same.

1.2 What are Emerging Weapons

Let us first see what are Emerging Weapons – a few major categories are given below:

a. Cyber Attacks on utilities: New threat to a nation is by attacks on Power Grid (two attacks in 2017
- Ireland & USA). This destabilizes not only normal life but also cripple defence systems.
b. Biological / Chemical Weapons: Though not new, today, ever more potent forms of biological
organisms which can proliferate in any environments are being developed. One accidental release
of Anthrax virus from Russian facility in 1979 killed 66 people.
c. Autonomous Weapons: Also called Killer Robots, they are weapons that do not need human
intervention to work except to start. The best examples for this is the Harop a fully autonomous
drone developed by Israel. These are also called Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAW).

These are only a few types of weapons, but have already demonstrated their deadly potency.

1.3 The Potential Impact of these Emerging Weapons

One of the major terrorist attacks in the world (9/11) needed terrorists to hijack flights physically to cause
destruction. Today, you may cause such damage remotely just hacking into infrastructure like Power Grid
or a Dam.

Today, most businesses and public infrastructure are managed by computers, a simple hack is enough to
throw life out of order. A cyber-attack that can hack into banks, ATMs or other resources would cause
internal strife within a country, incapacitating it, leaving it open for other countries to attack.

Autonomous weapons run by operators, lift the burden of the operator of being responsible for the deaths
caused by the LAW.

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This scenario might be a reality in coming years.

1.4 The USA Policy on Emerging Weapons

Persons who authorize the direct use of these weapons will be held responsible for its actions. They must
operate in accordance to international law and guiding principles laid down by the US government.

Two treaties - Chemical Weapons Convention, Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention – have banned
usage of chemical and biological weapons respectively.

The U.S firmly believes that “we reserve the right to use all necessary means—diplomatic, informational,
military, and economic—to defend our Nation, our Allies, our partners, and our interests.”.

1.5 The Way forward

The World is more and more connected – shrinking distance & time. Just as people prefer to work remote
than waste time commuting, criminals & terrorists are working remote to do their heinous jobs.
Considering the damage to infrastructure, reputation & economy, it is better to invest upfront in
controlling these from attacking us. A few solutions that are feasible:

a. Securing Public Infrastructure: Any public infrastructure - components of Smart Cities, Power
Grid, Telecom Infrastructure etc., - has to have multiple levels of security.
b. Redundancy of infrastructure: Develop redundancies of public infrastructure so the recovery is
faster.
c. Securing Public Data: There should be adequate controls to safeguard unauthorized access to
public data (Social Security etc). Multiple back-ups of public data & keep it in secure environment.
d. Make stringent laws on use of autonomous weapons: Pin the actions of the LAW on the operator
who authorised it.

1.6 The Summary

The United States of America believes that

 The United States official stance can be stated using the Just War Theory. That is, it is legitimate
to use force when basic guiding moral principles and ethics are not upheld and when the United
States’ allies are in need of help or when basic livelihood of people are at stake.
 Countries opposing these principles should be reprimanded with force
 Countries with stronger military power should use their power to help maintain peace
 Any attack be it cyber or by LAWs on the United States of America strategically organised by
another country will be considered as an act of war

1.7 Bibliography
a. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.01048.pdf
b. http://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodd/300009p.pdf
c. http://www.esd.whs.mil/Directives/issuances/dodd/

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d. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-defense-cybersecurity/u-s-reserves-right-to-meet-cyber-attack-
with-force-idUSTRE7AF02Y20111116
e. https://futureoflife.org/ai-open-letter/?cn-reloaded=1

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