The United States and its allies face one of the most dangerous international security environments in recent history. Russia and Ukraine are locked in Europe’s largest land war since World War II, war has periodically engulfed the Middle East between Israel and Iran, and significant tensions persist in the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, East China Sea, and Korean Peninsula. An axis of adversaries that includes China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea may be headed toward deepening bilateral relations.
As the chapters in this volume conclude, some aspects of warfare have changed preciously little. The nature of warfare is still, as Clausewitz writes, “an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.” Several facets of warfare that were central to the Cold War—such as nuclear weapons, irregular warfare, artillery and missiles, national resilience, and the mobilization of society—have returned to the forefront.
But there are new dimensions in warfare. There will likely be a proliferation of cheaper and more lethal unmanned systems—air, undersea, surface, and ground. There will also likely be an explosion of open-source intelligence and growing transparency on the battlefield. AI, quantum sensing and computing, biotechnology, space-based sensors, and other technologies may be increasingly important and create a ravenous need for data storage and cloud computing. There is a growing democratization of space thanks to evolving commercial technology. Finally, countries dealing with incoming missile and drone threats are examining new technologies, such as directed energy systems, to defeat and deter air and missile swarms and salvos.
Yet the United States is not fully prepared for the rapidly changing character of warfare, its defense industrial base is not ready for a protracted conflict, and its defense budget is significantly lower than at any point during the Cold War as a percentage of gross domestic product. The following chapters explore the evolving character of warfare in such areas as strategy, operations, tactics, and the defense industry. The report closes with an examination of a new offset to deter a rising China.
