Ellen Pawlikowski.

Ellen Pawlikowski is a retired Air Force four-star general, who last served as commander of Air Force Materiel Command. Prior to that assignment, she led Air Force Space and Missile Command. She is currently on the Raytheon board of directors and teaches at the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering.

In 20 years, we will be further along to a truly global world. It will be difficult to have a regional conflict which won't have global impact. This will impact war strategy. The 20th century way of war, which involves overwhelming force resulting in violent destruction, will be more difficult to conduct. The desire for low casualties will grow.

Technologies that show promise today will play a significant role. We will see the integration of autonomous systems in support of humans. In the air, manned combat and transport aircraft will still be in most of the fleets, but they will operate alongside autonomous planes.

AI will enable the integration of multiple data sources from multiple physical phenomena. The data will go directly from collection to integration to the final user without a human in the loop, but they will monitor and interact with the process.

Hypersonic weapons will almost eliminate the protection of distance. There won't be large numbers, but they will be part of the war plan. Counter-hypersonics will be in its infancy as missile defense was 20 years ago. Hypersonic transport will not be available, but there will be prototypes.

Directed energy will be a niche weapon. Low-power lasers will perform well against soft targets like small drones and they will be prominent for force protection.

Augmented reality and AI will play a significant role in training, as the ability to conduct live exercises will be costly and difficult to do without being observed by adversaries.

We will see sensors that are based on biology and nature versus physics. While in its infancy, they will provide a whole new way of measuring and sensing the environment.

In 50 years, the world will be so integrated that the real danger will be that large wars will spread quickly and become all encompassing. Nation-states will seek alternatives to resolve differences. What are now known as "soft powers" will be extremely important. However, ideological differences will still drive conflict.

Autonomy and AI will dominate. The number of manned aircraft will dramatically decline as unmanned systems replace them. There will still be humans...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT