This paper attempts to forecast the future of methods of warfare 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
Empirical and theoretical research methods were utilised in the study. The research data, obtained from a review of source materials, was subsequently subjected to examination through analysis, synthesis and comparison
The methods of warfare of the 21st century are likely to reflect the technological evolution of the modern age. Considering the present-day trends, it is very likely 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 behaviour may contribute to further research on the third level impact on enemy soldiers
The conclusions formulated in this analysis may carry significant implications for work on an innovative methodology of future warfare, accounting for the technological progress in the next decades of the 21st century, and a methodology for countering future military threats
The war of the future is bound to resemble no previous conflict. In a relatively short time, humanity will have achieved incredible technological progress, which will radically change our approach to the methods of armed warfare. In fact, virtually all its aspects, including the term “armed combat,” should be interpreted in a completely new way. In the future, the self concept of
Considering the future background outlined in the paragraph above, this research seeks to address the following question:
A hypothetical assumption that a technologically advanced army of the present would stand no chance against the army of the 21st century may, at least initially, seem irrational. After all, the most technologically advanced American army failed to defeat the primitive measures of Vietnamese guerrilla warfare, nor was it able to successfully combat Iraqi or Afghan rebels. Be that as it may, those events took place at the end of the 20th and in the first two decades of the 21st century. Nevertheless, the capabilities of the most advanced of future armies will certainly be dramatically different. The military technology of the future is a virtually inexhaustible topic; however, prior to the presentation of the current developments in the field and predictions for the future evolution of the armed forces, let us now consider a vision of hostilities between an army of the early 21st century and an army of the end of the 21st century.
Although the vision to unfold is planned as a light-hearted introduction, an attempt to draw the reader into the necessary mindset, and push in a direction that may seem surprising at first, all its elements are rooted in the current research on military and dual-use technologies, to be presented in the subsequent section of this text.
Imagine an anonymous enemy, boasting a numerous army of mechanised and armoured troops, launching a coordinated attack simultaneously in several directions. Land forces receive support from artillery, air forces and communications forces operating both satellite and traditional infrastructure. The movements of the armed forces follow a carefully crafted plan, based on thorough intelligence and always preceded by the operation of unmanned reconnaissance machines, in air and on land. From the bay, the attack receives naval support, enhanced by their strategic deployment in tactical positions. What surprises the headquarters of the advancing army is that despite the reconnaissance data at their disposal, their troops are confronted by no enemy troops or any form of resistance. The assaulting army occupies subsequent, previously determined points, continually advancing their forward lines with no contact from the enemy party. It is only after a few hours that the malfunctioning of the entire ICT and radar infrastructure comes to light. More surprisingly, the soldiers’ eyesight is found to have been compromised and the reality becomes distorted even further: the soldiers see dirt roads and forests where cities should be expected. Soon the counterattack begins, and yet its source cannot be clearly identified. Meanwhile, the ICT and radar equipment begins to misreport on enemy troops, whereas the senses of the soldiers (sight, hearing) confirm this erroneous information. A fratricidal battle that begins is not stopped until after a few hours and massive numbers of casualties incurred. It is at that moment that the advancing troops are reported to have become divided into smaller units under enemy fire with directed-energy weapons launched from land, air and space. One second, the enemy vehicles appear, and a second later, vanish into thin air. High-efficiency of strikes, surgical precision, destruction of pinpointed targets of stunned aggressor troops ensue. The soldiers are unable to concentrate or take any logical actions as they are constantly bombarded by thousands of contradictory thoughts, memories and sensory impressions. They experience cold and hot alternately. Chills shake their bodies and they sweat profusely, profoundly increasing their water intake. Autonomous systems remain incapacitated. At breaking point, as the enemy troops experience an overwhelming and insistent thought of surrender, they slowly begin to follow the instructions in their heads, ordering them to leave their vehicles and lie on the ground with their hands on their necks. Incapable of concentrating and having lost full control of their bodies, soldiers begin to recognise that further resistance is pointless. Not until much later does it emerge that, in fact, the losses were not that serious and the majority of soldiers, after penetrating kilometres-deep into the attacked territory, gave up without a fight.
The vision of hostilities outlined above is, admittedly, somewhat provocative and is deliberately evocative of an excerpt from a novel. The analysis to follow attempts to substantiate this science-fiction imagery employed in the presentation of immense disproportions between two technologically ill-matched armies, representing modern technology and the technology of the near future. Given the central research question is an open one, as an attentive reader might have certainly identified, therefore, the study falls within the scope of proper research. As expressed in the introduction, there is a definite correlation between technological evolution and a gradual change in the methodology of warfare, which results from the modernisation and new combat measures being introduced. Hence, it can be assumed that the hypothesis introduced here substantiates the formulation of the central research question. Technological innovations intended for future implementation constitute the independent variable affecting the dependent variable – the methodology of warfare. The following part of this paper moves on to describe in greater detail the technological novelty as a condition for the warfare evolution forecasts in the next decades of the present century.
Research on directed energy concerns such solutions as (
The use of very precise destruction systems (both by directed energy, change of electromagnetic fields as well as microwave beam) (
At the same time, it is not easy to talk about next-generation wars if both sides in the conflict used modernised or upgraded equipment with a genesis dating back several decades. The introduced elements of reconnaissance and network centricity allowed only more effective management of combat forces and means in real time, but the methodology of warfare itself was and still is strongly rooted in the above-mentioned conflicts in the 20th century. Simply put, any ammunition using a combination of a bullet, a powder charge, an incendiary charge and a shell that connects all these elements is now a relic. Old war technology functions only thanks to successive modernisations. In the industrial era, it was equally possible to create better and better bow and crossbow arches, as well as to refine the arrows and bolts used to fire them. However, this does not change the fact that the gap between the bow and the rifle was and still is enormous. Since nowadays, all armies of the world base their functioning on firearms, it is obvious that this weapon will not be withdrawn suddenly. At the same time, however, research should be carried out into the development of alternative means of destruction based on innovative technologies, such as directed energy. Otherwise, over the next few decades, armies based only on increasingly better firearms will be able to buy from those countries which, in the meantime, will be able to develop modern means of destruction. Now is the time to develop and test these weapons. Such an approach will make it possible to find oneself in an exclusive club of countries with their own solutions within the next few decades. Then, in relations with other disposers of such means of destruction, it will be possible to conduct talks on equal terms. Countries which have only gunpowder and ballistic technology will then be able to act as petitioners asking for less advanced solutions in relation to those used in the most modern armies at that time.
Considering the aspect foreshadowed in the conclusion of the previous section, it should be noted that the autonomisation of land, air, sea and submersible weapons is progressing (
The largest armaments companies such as Rheinmetall, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and BAE Systems have started to develop the new applications of autonomous systems.
Lockheed Martin, for example, has presented an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) for carrying equipment, weapons, medical supplies, as well as rations. Northrop Grumman’s autonomous vehicle was projected to improve airbase operations and BAE Systems is still developing a project dedicated to the medevac vehicle for transporting wounded soldiers back to base. Similar kinds of military services based on UGV technologyare also being developed by the Rheinmetall company. Much research is also being carried out in this field by Northrop Grumman in collaboration with DARPA (an autonomous vehicle for use on airbases to aid in airfield related tasks, such as towing and equipment transportation) and Uber (project ACUGOTA).
In practice, today, almost all available technology allows soldiers to command teams of autonomous machines in the form of land, water and air platforms. These vehicles can independently map the area and choose the most convenient route to reach the destination (Osario and Pinto 2019). Today, armaments companies are working on a range of vehicles that autonomously follow the lead vehicle, which in turn follows the soldier. The vehicles in their modern versions are used mainly for transport purposes, but, in the future, they will be able to serve as a combat team performing the instructions of a human commander, deploying themselves on the battlefield and performing the tasks entrusted to them. Machines equipped with artificial intelligence modules will be able to independently assess the situation on the battlefield and make optimal decisions. Such vehicles will be able to operate in an environment that is extremely unfriendly to human beings, which may be affected by numerous factors of a climatic, environmental, and even biological and chemical nature. In the future, the fighting environment may also become the ocean deep and space (
Finally, bearing in mind the potential exhibited by modern exoskeleton designs and sophisticated biotechnological microchip implantation in humans, the physical and intellectual capabilities of future soldiers may vastly exceed the present-day idea of the future combat effectiveness of human soldiers (Mudie
Thus, in summary, human combat commanders of tactical combat teams composed mainly of machines will be able to operate in different environments with the support of network-centric technologies, including battlefield imaging provided by tiny scaling and image processing devices scattered over the theatre of operations in real time. Nowadays, this role is played by small drones, which the American army has introduced into th its soldiers’ equipment. This is only the beginning of the revolution, which will culminate in the so-called “battle dust” composed of tiny drones (the size of an insect) and the ability to record all changes in the area of warfare (
It is also worth mentioning the camouflaging systems, which are currently under development, such as one of the latest inventions of BAE. Scientists have developed a method of camouflaging combat vehicles, which allows the infrared traces left by these vehicles to be hidden, which means that even night vision devices will not be able to detect a trace of such a camouflaged machine. This technology is known as Adaptive, which very quickly changes the temperature emitted by the vehicle, which also eliminates the light trail seen by night vision devices. Another type of camouflage is the so-called e-camouflage, which in turn uses sensors placed on the vehicle’s armour, emitting an image behind the vehicle, which has a similar effect to the one known from Predator’s pop culture. These sensors placed on the machine work in a similar way to the chameleon skin. Scientists at the University of Dallas, on the other hand, used the refractive effect of the light waves in contact with the water surface by artificially inducing temperature differences. When exposed to high temperatures, the light wave bypasses the masked object and makes it invisible to the human eye. Physicist Baile Zhang has developed a material that refracts light so perfectly that the vehicle hidden underneath it becomes almost completely invisible to humans. Research and development work are constantly being carried out on more and more advanced camouflaging technologies that allow a given object to be hidden from human sight, as well as thermovision, infrared and radiolocation (
The elements above, combined to form one coherent system, will form an army, whose priority will be to perform highly advanced disinformation focused on both the biological and technical components of enemy troops. To this end, it is likely to utilise directed energy technology (magnetic/electric field strength modulation), reinforced by the deployment of chemical and biological agents (
Therefore, the question that follows is what contemporary technological developments in robotics and AI could eventually replace the deployment of human soldiers on the battlefield. This issue was addressed by Prof. T. Szczurek in his book on the possibilities of using automata and artificial intelligence programmes in battlefield action (
It can be safely assumed, based on the presented literary review and analysis, that the armed forces of the future will certainly follow new methods of warfare. The first and the most instantly visible factor will be the composition of armies, which are forecast to constitute 90% of robotic systems, of different levels of autonomy (or fully-controlled biological organisms), and 10% of people in command. Considering human soldiers, their biological capabilities (physical, intellectual and emotional) will be significantly reinforced and enhanced, initially by technological solutions, and in the long term, with biotechnology. The parallel activities performed, on an unimaginable scale, by soldiers will fall into three domains:
The psychological influence (forecasting decisions, the methodology of influencing the decision-making process: perception and decision-making); The influence by directed energy and force field intensity (influencing an enemy infrastructure with IT methods coupled with directed energy, magnetic/electric field energy and biotechnological means, designed to destroy, incapacitate, damage or seize enemy communications); Conventional and special influence (as part of hybrid and asymmetric operations: mass armies incapacitated by pinpoint strikes, and technologically advanced armies by exploitation of vulnerabilities at the command level, connectivity and autonomous software).
Modern armies also conduct such activities; however, as for now, the psychological and cybernetic activities constitute auxiliary measures supporting conventional and special activities (
Conventional operations will be performed by unmanned air, ground, underground and naval units. Special operations, however, will necessitate the involvement of the human factor – a commander having direct operational command over a team of various specialised machines (or bio-machines) executing the mission on the battlefield. Autonomous bio-mechanical operational teams will receive constant support of controlled mental and energetic influence on the enemy. Among the considered scenarios, there is a possibility that direct human presence/participation in the hostilities will be unnecessary, as control over the team may be virtual and operators could switch from automatic/autonomous to manual control mode and between machines. The direct involvement of people at the tactical level will depend on the degree of complexity of the task performed, and whether it is categorised as a special operation. Conventional activities requiring the involvement of an army of robots will by no means indicate a clash of two robotised armies, executing previously planned pinpointed strikes. Ultimately, this is a human commander that will be in charge of the operations; therefore, psychological warfare units will perform their tasks not only in the conscious and the subconscious domains but also in the sphere of enemy sensual perception. In parallel with the developments in AI, knowledge about the mechanisms of human brain activity will be increasing, and thus sensory and subconscious influence will be capable of projecting false visual, auditory, tactile, taste and olfac-tory sensations. The moment the phone in the pocket is abandoned and people switch to various microchip implants integrated into selected areas of the body or directly in the brain, the merger between psychological and cybernetic activities will enter a completely new realm of interaction. Psychological warfare teams will also employ chemical and biological agents, which in the case of the latter are likely to take the form of biotechnological interactions (