What barrier can withstand bullets, rockets, shells, or bombs? The language barrier.
Among government institutions, few engage with foreign-language environments as extensively as the military. Armed forces from various nations conduct joint exercises, observe foreign manoeuvres, participate in international peacekeeping missions under the UN, and attend or host military training abroad. They also work to gather critical intelligence from both open and classified foreign sources.
Machine translation has a long-standing history in the military, and with recent technological advancements from companies like Lingvanex, Google, DeepL, and others, its use is set to expand even further.
This article examines how machine translation (MT) is revolutionizing the military, facilitating communication and improving the efficiency of both peacekeeping and combat operations around the world.
Machine Translators in the Hands of Ordinary Soldiers
The U.S. pioneered the use of machine translation among regular troops. As early as 2001, they began equipping soldiers with small, rugged devices called the Phraselator, roughly the size of a large smartphone.
This device enabled soldiers to play pre-recorded foreign language phrases selected from an on-screen list. Alternatively, soldiers could speak in English into the microphone, and the device would recognize the speech, convert it to text, find the corresponding phrase in the foreign language, and vocalize it. While much information was often lost in translation, the Phraselator provided a basic means of communication when no human translator was available.
In 2017, the U.S. military introduced the Machine Foreign Language Translation System (MFLTS), capable of real-time translation using speech recognition and text-to-speech technology.
According to the U.S. Army’s website, ‘Why is this important for the U.S. Army? The open-system architecture of MFLTS allows for continuous integration of additional language components to meet the increasing translation demands in the field. It enables soldiers to engage and operate effectively worldwide, even among non-English-speaking populations.’
Naturally, issuing translation devices is far easier than training soldiers in foreign languages, where courses in the U.S. Army can last anywhere from 6 to 16 months. Additionally, finding and deploying sufficient numbers of language specialists is both costly and logistically challenging.
While other militaries have yet to provide similar devices to their soldiers or junior officers, machine translation is widely used in staff work and intelligence operations. For now, the U.S. Army remains the only military to employ machine translation at the level of ordinary soldiers, but how else could this technology be applied by higher-ranking personnel?
Military Education
Various countries frequently send their officers for training or professional development at military institutions in friendly nations.
For example, since 1947, the British Royal Military Academy Sandhurst has trained 5,400 foreign cadets from 129 countries. Around 200 cadets graduate from France’s Saint-Cyr Military Academy each year, with about 10 percent of them being foreigners.
Additionally, armies often use foreign military instructors to train their personnel in areas ranging from basic marksmanship to technical skills, such as operating foreign military equipment.
Machine translation could be used by both instructors and trainees here — for everyday communication, lecture translation, study materials, or translating written work by cadets.
Collaboration with Allies
Understanding foreign speech and text is crucial during international military exercises.
For example, on June 3, 2024, the Steadfast Defender 24 exercises concluded across several European countries, involving 90,000 soldiers from 31 nations. During one stage, Brilliant Jump 24, held in Poland, troops from the UK, Spain, Albania, Turkey, and Poland participated.
When soldiers from multiple countries operate together seamless cooperation is vital — whether at the level of high command or among troops on the ground. In these scenarios, machine translation is invaluable, especially when integrated with NATO’s standardized information-sharing protocols, which can be easily adapted into language models. You also frequently need to interact with the government and population of the host country.
Of course, cooperation with allies extends beyond exercises. Information exchange, operational planning, and other collaborations are ongoing.
Peacekeeping Operations
UN peacekeeping operations almost always involve multinational military contingents. A notable example is the 1950 Korean War, when North Korea invaded South Korea. In response, the UN Security Council authorized the deployment of international forces, including units from the U.S., UK, Canada, Turkey, Australia, the Philippines, New Zealand, Thailand, Ethiopia, Greece, France, Colombia, Belgium, South Africa, and the Netherlands.
Similarly, in 1991, a UN-backed multinational coalition successfully repelled Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, restoring Kuwait’s independence.
Currently, 11 UN peacekeeping operations are active worldwide, while other international organizations and alliances conduct their own peacekeeping missions.
Even the most peaceful UN humanitarian missions, when supported by military forces, require swift and often multilingual communication — both among UN personnel and in building rapport with local communities. Machine translation is a highly effective tool in facilitating this communication.
Intelligence and Psychological Operations
The armed forces of modern nations employ a wide array of intelligence-gathering methods, most of which involve collecting and processing text or audio in foreign languages. The sheer volume of information from both open and classified sources is so vast that it is nearly impossible to process it all—or even a substantial portion—using only human translators.
This is where machine translation, speech recognition, and artificial intelligence come into play. Together, these technologies empower intelligence analysts with unprecedented capabilities to gather and analyze information efficiently.
An ideal solution would be localized software capable of translating millions of texts, audio files, documents, and websites at a fixed cost, while ensuring complete confidentiality.
Moreover, military intelligence data can become outdated quickly. For instance, if an intercepted, recognized, and translated phone conversation reveals the location of enemy tanks, those tanks could relocate within half an hour. In such scenarios, the speed of machine translation is critical.
Additionally, the combination of machine translation with AI, speech generation, and technologies for swiftly disseminating information via social networks, messaging apps, and phone communications could also be leveraged for psychological operations against enemy forces.
Arms Procurement
In today’s world, no country possesses a fully self-sufficient military-industrial complex capable of producing everything from assault rifles to tanks, missiles, warships, and aircrafts. Each nation relies on multiple foreign partners for arms procurement. For instance, the U.S. acquires licenses for Swedish rocket launchers and German rifles, Spain arms itself with German tanks, and Finland purchases American fighter jets.
Military technical exhibitions, negotiations, document translations, and the organisation of tenders for new or upgraded equipment all require multinational collaboration. In this context, machine translation proves highly effective in managing the complexities involved.
Furthermore, even video guides in foreign languages can be made accessible through machine translation, especially when combined with speech recognition and generation technologies.
An Indispensable Tool
The armed forces represent a state structure that is both highly secretive and, paradoxically, most frequently engaged with foreign entities. While security interests necessitate a degree of confidentiality, the military’s role as an extension of foreign policy demands constant international interaction. Additionally, the globalization of the economy has transformed military technology and equipment into global commodities.
As a result, modern militaries collaborate with numerous countries across various domains, and the demand for skilled translators often exceeds the capacity of even the wealthiest armed forces, such as those of the U.S.
In this context, machine translation emerges as an ideal solution—not only to reduce costs but also to significantly enhance the speed of information gathering and processing. And and for the military, the ability to quickly obtain and analyze information is crucial to achieving victory.
