Anticipating the Character of War: Looking Out to 2030
A new paper on the future security environment to 2030, a collaboration between Clint Hinote and myself, has just been released by the Special Competitive Studies Project.
Victory smiles upon those who anticipate the change in the character of war, not upon those who wait to adapt themselves after the changes occur. Giuilo Douhet
Recently, I had the opportunity to once again to collaborate with Lieutenant General (retired) Clint Hinote to conduct an exploration of the security environment that military institutions must be prepared to face out to 2030. As with our previous collaboration, Empowering the Edge: Uncrewed Systems and the Transformation of U.S. Warfighting Capacity, it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience as we both challenged and pushed each other to ensure we thought through all the key issues.
Our paper is part of a larger series of papers on future defence challenges that have just been published by the Special Competitive Studies Project in Washington DC. The full list of these papers in this series is as follows:
The Character of Future War to 2030.
Digits Collide. Commanders Decide. Command and Control in a Digitally Transformed Age.
Reimagining Military C2 in the Age of AI: Revolution, Regression or Revolution.
As we wrote our paper, it had been apparent for some time that military forces had to place an even greater emphasis on their capacity to orient, learn, and adapt to change. The U.S. military’s FOE 2035 document noted that “simply procuring superior capability will not be enough – the speed at which Defence can adapt and integrate technologies will be more important.” In response, militaries must continuously scan and reassess the strategic environment and interpret what it means.
This is not a new requirement. The pace of change, however, means that learning and adaptation are more challenging to accomplish and more critical to outcomes than in the past. The margin for error is vanishingly thin.
Several other reports in the past decade have also examined the security environment which is challenging military institutions world wide. These reports include:
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operating Environment 2035: The Joint Force in a Contested and Disordered World.
UK Ministry of Defence, Future Operating Environment 2035.
Special Competitive Studies Project, Offset X: Closing the Deterrence Gap and Building the Future Joint Force.
National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World.
In our collaboration, Clint and I did not attempt to replicate these previous reports' excellent work or challenge their conclusions. Instead, we identify relevant changes over the past three years and explore how they influence war's evolving character. Particular focus is placed on the wars in Ukraine and Israel, the escalation of Chinese confrontation against its neighbors in the Pacific and the United States, and how new technologies are making new military concepts possible.
The key findings in our resulting paper, The Character of Future War to 2030, are described below.
War is an enduring element of human existence, but it continuously evolves with societal, technological, and political developments. The current era is one of technological innovation and societal change, and disruptions impact human competition and conflict. Our paper addresses how recent changes, especially in the past three years, are influencing the character of war.
The accelerated pace of change is the fundamental factor influencing modern conflict. In this period of accelerated change, four additional factors are driving the security environment:
Authoritarians seeking to change the global system through violence, if necessary.
Authoritarians (and others) disrupting regional security.
The development of advanced technologies made widely available, and
The deepening impacts of climate change.
In this fluid security environment, the most relevant trends that will inform military force development in the short and medium terms (through 2030) are as follows:
A state of constant confrontation that takes advantage of rapid transition above and below the violence threshold.
An increasingly transparent understanding of the battlespace that remains imperfect and thus exploitable.
War conducted on a massive scale requiring mass for victory, which drives a need to mobilize society.
Learning and adaptation as prerequisites for victory.
These trends have serious implications for the future force. Our paper makes a total of 21 recommendations related to these trends.
In our paper, Clint and I attempted to anticipate changes in the character of war. No matter how well we have done this, we cannot be fully successful. The world is changing at an accelerating pace, and new and unexpected developments will further induce changes in the character of war.
We agree with Douhet that we cannot wait to adapt, but we also know that we cannot fully predict what will happen.
You can read our full paper at this link.
Been mulling this myself, because the current moment will make future wars harder on personnel, and will adapt even faster. The drones emerging from the Russo-Ukraine war are but one example.