# The future of warfare What does conflict look like in the future? Will the United States be the most dominant world power? If not, then who? Is there going to be a WW3? What way, shape or form would that take? **These questions I've been pondering and aggressively learning about, and unfortunately the answers are glum.** Yet, they are important, so let's discuss. # Weapons of the future ## Non-human combatants The first massive trend I'm seeing is a movement away from a flesh based fighting force. Autonomous robots are the clear answer here, since they are extremely effective in dealing with dirty, dangerous, and difficult tasks. They are super soldiers for all intents and purposes. Why waste human life, and risk the mission due to human error, frailty, etc. when robots are perfectly capable of filling the role (and outperforming). Delegation to ~~the terminationors~~ machines is a crucial next step in the industry of war. Think drones, subs, stealth crafts, and just about anything else currently piloted by humans. This will get replaced by smaller and more autonomous robots who eventually become cheaper and faster to make. ## Anti non-human combatant weaponry Once drones (etc) become omnipotent, and they will be, the defense against such machines will be critical. There are a few good options already in place, but they will need to be improved and expanded upon. - Emp based defense systems - Ground to air mounted defense - Anti-drone drones (meta af) - Many many more ## Bioweapons If autonomous terminator machines weren't scary enough, imagine aggressive scientists building the most horrendous and easy to spread plagues to rip through immune systems and cripple an entire population. There are few solutions to defend against this, even for science fiction prophets with an infinite canvas. ## Nuclear Still an option on the table, and will only become more deadly. # Dominant world powers Probably the easiest thing to predict. This is going to be the United States and China for the foreseeable future, although China's manufacturing capacity significantly outpaces the United States and therefore will most likely become the dominant power in the coming century. The only chance the United States has, in my opinion, is a mixture of: - First and foremost deal with the infighting and polarization of our leadership; we are simply not effective at making decisions anymore, - Advancing our technology more quickly by working much more closely with the private sector and partnering deeply with silicon valley(esq) entrepreneurs and investors, - Rebuilding the cost-plus model for the major defense primes to incentivize faster, cheaper products through increased profit margins on products delivered...you guessed it...on or under budget and on time or faster, - invest in the technology, infrastructure, manufacturing capacity and entrepreneurial class of our allied nations such as Australia, France, Germany, Korea, Taiwan, etc, - build manufacturing capabilities back within the United States with state of the art robotics (eliminate the need for talent which is extremely difficult to find / train, like a niche microchip fabrication mechanic or process engineer for example), - Build supporting infrastructure to support the manufacturing capabilities of the us, including raw material acquisition (mining), energy production/storage (lithium/hydrogen/etc batteries, nuclear/solar power, etc), - Deregulate to the point where these things can all move much more quickly. But unfortunately for the US, the unwillingness to challenge the status quo, slow burn of bureaucracy, unaligned political incentives, and general incompetence will likely defeat our ability to execute on these initiatives in a timely fashion. China, on the other hand, has an enormous population which they have been and will continue to use to brute force their way into power. They will continue to steal technology. They will also continue to move extremely quickly towards energy independence, advanced manufacturing capabilities, and whatever else they need to become globally dominant. Fortunately for them, they have an extremely competent leader with ultimate dictatorial power, and the desire to build China into the dominant global regime. He moves quickly and ruthlessly, achieving incredible results despite leaving a trail of destruction behind him. In my opinion, the United States has a small and rapidly closing window of opportunity to use the massive resources and global dominance at its disposal to permanently stay in the lead militarily. The main thing we need to do, in my opinion, is support (or even just get out of the way of) the entrepreneurs who are trying to solve this problem. # WW3 Fortunately, I don't think WW3 will evolve into full scale global nuclear conflict, as that would surely spell destruction for humanity. The future therefore will most likely take the shape of a series of ongoing cold wars between world powers jostling for control, including proxy wars between less powerful nations backed by the leaders. This will suck for the puppet nations who are fighting for their survival as pawns of the bigger game. Hopefully it will be enough to prevent nuclear fallout. But if it doesn't...