Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) suggest that this emerging technology will have a deterministic and potentially transformative influence on military power, strategic competition, ...and world politics more broadly. After the initial surge of broad speculation in the literature related to AI this article provides some much needed specificity to the debate. It argues that left unchecked the uncertainties and vulnerabilities created by the rapid proliferation and diffusion of AI could become a major potential source of instability and great power strategic rivalry. The article identifies several AI-related innovations and technological developments that will likely have genuine consequences for military applications from a tactical battlefield perspective to the strategic level.
The Revolution in Military Affairs, its concepts, processes, and debates, have evolved in five 'IT-RMA waves' since the 1980s. None of them, however, have fully achieved their intended outcomes as ...their ambitious premises have exceeded available technologies, budgetary resources, and operational capabilities of a given era. This paper argues that a new 'artificial intelligence-driven RMA' wave differs in the political, strategic, technological, and operational diffusion paths and patterns. While the AI-RMA may affect select countries and regions disproportionately, its technological advances coupled with an ongoing strategic competition is sufficiently broad to stipulate significant military changes across geopolitical lines.
The return to strategic competition affects the US military services differently, but all are contending with the challenge of renewing their military advantage against near-peer, technologically ...advanced competitors. Commercially driven innovation trends simultaneously challenge the way that the US military manages technology. This article traces the pursuits to institutionalise open innovation practices inside the services to incorporate emerging technologies into their envisaged competitive advantage. Rather than treating the US military as a monolithic entity, this article assesses how new service-level organisations differ in the ways and means they pursue innovation and seeks to explain why those differences persist.
Objectives
This paper attempts to forecast the future of warfare methods in the forthcoming decades of the 21st century. The predictions reflect on the current trends observed in the development of ...military and civil (dual-use) technologies and changes in thought constructs developed for hostilities.
Methods
Empirical and theoretical research methods were utilised in the study. The research data, obtained from the review of source materials, were subsequently subjected to examination through analysis, synthesis and comparison.
Results
The methods of warfare at the turn of the 21st century are likely to reflect the technological evolution of the modern age. Considering the present-day trends, there is a good probability that our technology-driven lives will transform people into hybrids of biological organisms merged with the technological environment, integrated with the body. Therefore, hostile action against human soldiers could be taken on three major levels: the biological organism, the mass communication technology integrated into the body, and the mental level – both in the conscious and the subconscious sphere. The study into how the soldier’s mental sphere can be influenced to anticipate and shape behaviours may contribute to further research on the third level impact on enemy soldiers.
Conclusions
The conclusions formulated in this analysis may carry significant implications for the works on an innovative methodology of the future warfare, accounting for the technological progress in the next decades of the 21st century, and a methodology for countering future military threats.
Conflicts such as Nagorno-Karabakh, the Donbas, Libya, Syria and Yemen have shown that even in such different scenarios, the diffusion of the key advances that were at the heart of the Revolution in ...Military Affairs is a fact. Moreover, most of these advances are so well established that they are now in daily use not only by many states, but also by their proxies and even by transnational terrorist and criminal groups. This phenomenon is intimately associated with the erosion of US military superiority, a country that is seeing how the People’s Republic of China or the Russian Federation, but also North Korea or Iran, are capable of challenging the former superpower. In this scenario, aware of the need to compensate for the advances made by the other players, the US has launched a series of initiatives, such as the Third Offset Strategy, aimed at achieving new technological and arms developments that could lead to a new Revolution in Military Affairs or, perhaps, a full-fledged Military Revolution. In this complex context, in which conflicts fought with inherited means will converge with new weapons, systems and platforms and with the entry into service of developments that we cannot yet imagine, the Spanish defence industry will have to struggle to survive, knowing that its main customer – the Spanish Ministry of Defence – is in a very delicate situation in terms of facing this new stage.
Conflictos como los de Nagorno-Karabaj, el Donbás, Libia, Siria o Yemen han demostrado que incluso en escenarios tan diferentes, la difusión de los avances clave que protagonizaron la Revolución en los Asuntos Militares de la Información, es un hecho. Es más, la mayor parte de dichos avances están tan consolidados, que ya son de uso cotidiano no solo por parte de numerosos Estados, sino por sus proxies e, incluso, por parte de grupos terroristas y criminales transnacionales. Este fenómeno está íntimamente asociado a la erosión de la superioridad militar estadounidense, país que ve cómo la República Popular de China o la Federación Rusa, pero también Corea del Norte o Irán son capaces de retar a la otrora superpotencia. En este escenario, conscientes de la necesidad de compensar los avances realizados por el resto de actores, los EE. UU. han lanzado una serie de iniciativas, como la Third Offset Strategy, encaminados a lograr nuevos desarrollos tecnológicos y armamentísticos susceptibles de desembocar en una nueva Revolución en los Asuntos Militares o, quizá, en una Revolución Militar en toda regla. En este complejo contexto, en el que confluirán conflictos librados con medios heredados, con las nuevas armas, sistemas y plataformas y con la entrada en servicio de desarrollos que todavía no imaginamos, la industria española de defensa deberá luchar por sobrevivir, sabiendo que su principal cliente -el Ministerio de Defensa de España-, se encuentra en una situación muy delicada de cara a afrontar esta nueva etapa.
The idea of the manned mission to Mars and Mars colonising is getting more reliable and realistic. However, it is not clear if one country could realize such great economic, societal, and ...technological challenge. Here we show what are possible chances and obstacles for the international collaboration in the future space policy that is focused on launching the manned mission to Mars. We discuss some peculiarities appropriate for peaceful and conflict scenarios of the planned colonisation of Mars.
The most effective way for the Western profession of arms to use history is to disavow the purism and narrow specialisation of today's academia in favour of developing a contemporary approach to the ...subject. The latter aims to foster a range of applied diagnostic skills that transcend the temporal dimensions of past, present, and future. A contemporary approach to history for military professionals emphasises the use of inter-disciplinary war studies to enhance policy relevance. In any defense and security organisation, history must be usable in the sense of providing cognitive and interpretative skills for probing relationships between possibility and actuality, between experience and expectation, and between singularity and repetition. Using history to examine such dialectical interconnections is particularly valuable when military establishments confront their essential task of analyzing emerging trends in the future of war.
This paper focuses on the science fiction (SF) novel Cosmonaut Keep (2000)—first in the trilogy Engines of Light, which also includes Dark Light (2001) and Engines of Light (2002)—by the Scottish ...writer Ken MacLeod, and analyzes from a transmodern perspective some future warfare aspects related to forthcoming technological development, possible reconfigurations of territoriality in an expanding cluster of civilizations travelling and trading across distant solar systems, expanded cultural awareness, and space ecoconsciousness. It is my argument that MacLeod’s novel brings Transmodernism, which is characterized by a “planetary vision” in which human beings sense that we are interdependent, vulnerable, and responsible, into the future. Hereby, MacLeod’s work expands the original conceptualization of the term “Transmodernism” as defined by Rodríguez Magda, and explores possible future outcomes, showing a unique awareness of the fact that technological processes are always linked to political and power-related uses.
With the widespread application of unmanned equipment on the battlefield, research on unmanned autonomous technology has entered a rapid development stage. The application of unmanned combat systems ...is becoming increasingly widespread, and various types of military robots are emerging in large numbers. These military robots with higher intelligence, more flexible movements, and faster reactions are moving from behind the scenes to the front stage of war. This article analyzes the basic situation and development process of military robots, lists typical US military robots and their development situation, and proposes the development prospects of military robots. The current application of robotics technology in military warfare is not very widespread, but with the continuous development of science and technology, robots will play an irreplaceable and significant role in the future battlefield.
The article argues that advances in biotechnology and other transformations of the threat environment will increase the risk for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces of being confronted ...with a biological, particularly a genetically modified, weapon by 2030.
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