What will warfare look like in the future

To put it another way, a civilization can be measured by examining the content and disposition of its armies. In the past century, human civilization has changed drastically, and those changes have been reflected in how we go to war.

By the middle of this century, this is likely to change even much, MUCH more! With the rapidly accelerating pace of technology and questions about the fate of human societies, these changes are likely to be drastic.

In fact, it could become revolutionized to the point that our ancestors would not even recognize it as "war. Between and , the geopolitical balance was characterized by two major superpowers and their allies locked in a state of Cold War. In the thirty years that followed, this arrangement changed drastically, because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, shifting alliances, economic change, and technological change.

According to a report by the Department of Homeland Security DHS , the greatest threats to national security are no longer nuclear war or conventional warfare. Instead, cyber warfare, terrorism, foreign influence activities, international cartels, illegal immigration, and natural disasters are the main threats.

By , the growth of distributed systems, quantum computing, 3D printing, cryptocurrencies, biotechnology, and climate change is expected to cause an even more drastic shift. For one, some have argued that the power of nation-states is expected to decline considerably and to give way to autonomous regions, megacities, and private interests.

Simultaneously, technologies like CRISPR gene editing , desktop bioprinters , genetic databases, and AI software will create new opportunities for bioterrorism. With the right training, equipment, and supplies, a larger number of threat actors will be capable of engineering viral bodies or toxins in a lab. As a result, the opportunities for conflict, and the range of protagonists will multiply considerably.

Because of these emerging changes, it is difficult to predict what the battlefields of the future will look like. However, examining emerging technologies and changing dynamics does allow for some tentative conclusions and generalizations to be made. Among them, the future of warfare is likely to come down to a handful of major factors: new technologies, new threats, the obsolescence of heavy armor, and the replacement of humans by drones, robots, and potentially cyborgs.

Ever since the internet emerged, countries worldwide have been looking for ways to use it as a weapon against other nations' financial markets, computer systems, and utilities. Beyond governments and militaries, there's also the threat of independent hackers and hacker collectives. Groups like Anonymous and Wikileaks have shown how hackers and "hacktivists" are capable of causing considerable disruption and damage.

It's understandable why governments today are looking to recruit hackers to protect vital infrastructure or mount cyber-attacks.

This situation will change considerably once quantum computing becomes available. Compared to their "classical" counterparts, quantum computers rely on the superposition and entanglement of particles instead of binary digits ones and zeros. This gives them the ability to compute multiple values simultaneously, which allows them to work incredibly rapidly and with astronomically high numbers. Two important factors in the development of quantum computing are qubit counts the quantum equivalent of computer bits and coherence time — the amount of time a qubit can hold information.

During the s, the most powerful quantum computers had qubit counts of less than and coherence times of nanoseconds to microseconds.

Between the s and s , qubit counts and coherence time will both likely have increased considerably, to the point that they may be able to crack the RSA encryption in as fast as 10 seconds.

Large-scale quantum computers are also predicted to become available beyond laboratories, creating tremendous new opportunities for research, as well as new dangers. While governments, militaries, and major corporations are likely to be prepared for intrusions, any system still running on older, digital platforms will be vulnerable.

For starters, public-key encryption will be useless against quantum-based cyber intrusions, which means people will not be able to trust any data sent or received over the internet. This could make many everyday activities, such as banking or even using debit cards, very uncertain. This is likely to have implications for cyber warfare as well. As it stands, various governments such as the US and China are in a "quantum's arms race," which consists of researching new forms of cryptography while also trying to achieve major advancements before the other.

Unless cryptography keeps pace with computing in this domain, whoever achieves "quantum supremacy" first will have a window of opportunity on their hands. Until their adversaries can erect new encryption protocols to stop them, whoever achieves supremacy will be able to peak into everyone else's databases with impunity.

Since the turn of the century, the use of uncrewed combat aerial vehicles UCAVs has grown considerably. The reasons for this transition include risk reduction, improvements in remote operation and competition between nation-states, and the desire to reduce the risk of casualties and the growth of anti-terrorism operations. A study conducted by the Brookings Institution showed that from to , the number of remote aircraft pilots who graduated training with the US Air Force USAF went from about personnel to from around 3.

Beginning in around , in some years, the USAF trains more remote pilots than fighter and bomber pilots combined. Right now, UCAV developers are looking to make them smaller, stealthier, and capable of taking on more roles. This is being done through the production of technology demonstrators designed to test new systems that will allow UCAVs to conduct a wider array of strike missions, like aerial refueling , carrier-based operations , high-altitude aerial reconnaissance, and transport.

Following this trend, UCAVs by mid-century could very well replace onboard human-piloted vehicles altogether. There is also considerable research into developing supersonic aircraft capable of flying, dogfighting, and landing without human oversight. The Distributed Mission Operations Center at Kirtland Air Force Base provides mock-ups of a number of battle management platforms in a virtual training space and enables complex integrated training scenarios.

Most promisingly, Live, Virtual, Constructive training offers the potential to augment live exercises with virtual and constructive elements, significantly reducing the realism tradeoffs that today define most live training. Paired with AI, there is near-term potential for warfighters to integrate with simulated joint partners, as well as adversaries, in order to enable far more advanced and realistic training without radically increasing the bandwidth of scenario designers and white force players.

Second, difficult choices are needed to enable greater focus on innovation in force employment. Current operations tempos place very heavy burdens on readying warfighters for today rather than tomorrow. One of the costs of not making these choices is that operations tempos today leave little bandwidth for serious dedication to the questions of how we will fight tomorrow. While calls for more training are reasonable, it poses a unique challenge to current warfighters who are caught between formal training requirements and the pull of real-world operations, both of which discourage significant risk taking.

Instead, requirements, acquisitions, and other staff officers are trying to buy the gear of the future for warfighters who have not yet figured out whether they need it, or how they would use it. It is a mistake to focus the creative efforts of talented military members primarily on acquiring new technology at the expense of innovations in force employment, and it is hard to see how that will be possible as long as warfighters are primarily dedicated to the operations of today. As we have seen over the last few years, pivoting away from operations in the Middle East toward anywhere else is easier said than done.

The character of war continues to evolve, and there is no doubt that AI will significantly contribute to elements of that evolution for the foreseeable future. However, there are risks to an overestimation of the rate of technological change and the role of advanced tech in future victory. In spite of many exciting technological developments, history and data suggest that we are probably in an evolutionary rather than revolutionary period. Furthermore, at least since the beginning of the modern age technological overmatch has been neither necessary nor sufficient for victory, and is about as predictive as a coin toss.

In its understandable zeal for technological advantage, the military should remember enduring truths about warfare. The nuance of force employment is key to any battle, and an over-emphasis on technology risks allowing blind spots that our future adversaries will be sure to exploit.

Though we should certainly strive for cutting edge technology, if that pursuit comes at the expense of force employment investments, we may be unknowingly entrusting future success to little more than a coin toss. Peter L. The perspectives presented through War on the Rocks are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense, USAF or any other office or organization. Image: U. Will AI Be Revolutionary? Conclusion The character of war continues to evolve, and there is no doubt that AI will significantly contribute to elements of that evolution for the foreseeable future.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. Read Online.

Research Questions Which countries will the United States fight with and against? Where will these conflicts occur? What might they look like? When and why might the United States go to war in the first place? The list of U. China's growing influence likely will alter the list of U. In Europe, traditional U. Location of U. Future conflicts will probably stem from four basic archetypes, namely counterterrorism, gray-zone conflicts, asymmetric fights, and high-end fights Four overarching trends could shape when and why the United States might go to war U.

The rise of strongmen across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East could decrease checks and balances and create incentives for future conflict. As American adversaries become more assertive and push up against U. External forces could generate conflict, such as accidents and inadvertent escalation, a crisis resulting from climate change, or conflict over scarce resources.

Future conflicts will likely place a premium on being able to operate at range. Staying outside adversaries' missile ranges and basing from afar both could be important factors, and the U.

The United States should invest in increasing military precision to avoid the legal and political backlash that comes with civilian casualties. All branches of the military will need to enhance their information warfare capabilities, especially for gray-zone operations.