Army Prepares for Complex, Lethal Battlefields of the Future.

AuthorTadjdeh, Yasmin
PositionArmy Modernization

Tomorrow's battlefields will be wrought with new adversaries, challenges and technologies, military leaders and experts have said.

In a recently released report, "The Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Future Warfare," U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command officials outlined what warfare over the next few decades may look like.

Between now and 2035, TRADOC expects that there will be an era of accelerated innovation. It will be a time where "adversaries can take advantage of new technologies, new doctrine and revised strategic concepts to effectively challenge U.S. military forces across multiple domains," the report said.

Between 2030 and 2050, TRADOC anticipates significant breakthroughs in technology, which will alter the character of warfare.

"During this period, traditional aspects of warfare undergo dramatic, almost revolutionary changes which at the end of this timeframe may even challenge the very nature of warfare itself," the report said.

TRADOC is watching trends in 12 areas as it looks toward the future including: big data; power generation and storage; cyber and space; collective intelligence; technology, engineering and manufacturing; climate change and resource competition; artificial intelligence; human computer interaction; demographics and urbanization; increased levels of human performance; economic rebalancing; and robotics.

Crises and conflicts will likely be in regions the U.S. military is accustomed to, but there may be some unfamiliar areas, the report said. Potential locations include the Baltics, the Arctic, the Balkans, the greater Middle East, the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula, the Horn of Africa, Mexico and Venezuela-Colombia, it noted.

Through 2035, Russia is expected to be the United States' "pacing threat" and will likely be the most sophisticated adversary for some time, the report said.

The nation has "been investing for more than a decade in new capabilities to 'overmatch' U.S. airpower, precision targeting and the U.S. ability to deploy into a decisive theater," the report said. "In addition to a whole array of new weapons systems it has developed, Moscow has been studying and investing [in] technologies such as robotics, advanced computing, hypersonics, space systems and biological enhancements to human performance."

Eventually, however, China could overtake Russia as the United States' greatest rival as it continues to modernize its armed forces and develops new ways to...

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