The Torch
Illuminating Security and Defence Issues
Emerging Technologies
Unmanned Systems Are Not Revolutionary (But Could Be)
8 May 2025
Rather than revolutionizing warfare, unmanned systems have emerged as evolutions within the larger information revolution; advancements to be sure, but failing to render conventional militaries obsolete or dramatically reshaping force structures.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
The beauty of an 80 percent solution: lessons from the RQ-7B program
26 March 2025
As so often, the Australian Defence Force wanted the exquisite solution. It wanted uncrewed battlefield reconnaissance aircraft of a design that wasn’t operational anywhere and would achieve performance that other countries didn’t have.And the acquisition led nowhere—except to prompt a successful replacement effort that gave the ADF a powerful lesson in the merits of toning down requirements to get something that is good enough and can go into service fast enough.
Drone Wars: Developments in Drone Swarm Technology
26 March 2025
“Drone swarms”, as defined by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), consist of coordinated systems of at least three and potentially thousands of drones that can perform missions autonomously with minimal human oversight. These swarms leverage swarm intelligence, mirroring biological patterns seen in groups of ants, bees, or birds, where decentralized rules create complex collective behavior.
The International Race To Lead In Quantum Technology
26 March 2025
Over the last decade, as Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has increasingly developed, got public attention and critical scrutiny, another important technology has been developing without public attention. Now, Quantum Computing aims to use operations based on quantum mechanics to crack computational problems that were thought to be impossible to solve.