Item category 2: POINTER Monthly Essays

According to the author, autonomous technology is increasingly adopted by the various military forces around the world. In fact, there is a wide proliferation of robots which are being used to replace humans for many tasks, even in the battlefield. However, the author feels that the adoption of a...

This essay examines the applications of robots in future wars and analyses the possibility of totally removing humans from war. Robots can enable unmanned warfare to complement areas where human capabilities are limited. The shift from industrial war to Low-Intensity Conflicts (LIC) also favours ...

In this essay, the authors first examined the imperative of maritime sense-making in Singapore’s context. Despite its importance, maritime sense-making is not a topic that has been discussed robustly before. Therefore, the authors sought to elaborate what maritime sense-making entails, and how it...

In this article, the authors first accounted for how Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have developed over time, before describing the current trends in the development of UAVs and the potential for UAVs in the modern context. The authors then discussed the various threats that UAVs pose to Singapo...

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that can benefit the training community by improving not only the competencies of already skilled personnel, but also that of trainees who may lack knowledge and experience. Popularised by Pokémon GO, it is one of the technologies that have been identified t...

This essay sets out to establish lessons learnt from Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) during the Cuban Missile Crisis. One is the significant impact of IMINT on the strategic decisions behind the blockade on Cuba as well as the planning of eventual air strikes. The author also highlights that this im...

Military intelligence has always held an aura of secrecy and mystery. The success or failure of operations, and the nature of campaigns, hinges on commanders’ decisions, which are in turn guided by intelligence. For those who work ‘behind the curtain’, it has always been a tremendous challenge to...

The robotics revolution offers new ways of warfighting through co-operative robotics including swarm and multi-agent systems resulting in swarm warfare. The essence of swarm warfare combines the highly decentralised nature of melee combat with the mobility of manoeuvre warfare. Underlying the abi...