Robert O. Work.

Robert O. Work served as the 32nd deputy secretary of defense, where he was responsible for overseeing the day-to-day business of the Pentagon. He is widely credited for his work on the "Third Offset Strategy," which aimed to restore U.S. conventional overmatch over its strategic rivals and adversaries. He is now a distinguished senior fellow for defense and national security at the Center for a New American Security and the owner of TeamWork LLC, which specializes in national security affairs and the future of warfare.

I am going to focus on great power war--high-technology warfare between great powers.

Twenty to 25 years from now, great power warfare will be dominated by what I call algorithmic warfare, which some defense analysts refer to as "hyper war." It will be characterized by ubiquitous digitization, ubiquitous machine-to-machine communications, and widespread application of artificial intelligence for more autonomous operations and systems. These applications will come in the form of human-machine collaboration, in which humans use machines to make better decisions; human-machine combat teaming, which will see humans controlling large numbers of unmanned autonomous systems; and machine-to-machine combat teaming, often in the form of swarms.

At some point, the combination of these things will result in what I'll call human-machine collaborative battle networks, which will operate at a much, much higher operational tempo than today's battle networks. These networks will be able to sense quicker, perceive faster, decide more rapidly, and apply effects more discriminately throughout the depth and breadth of the battlespace. The pace of conflict will be extraordinarily high and combat extraordinarily lethal. Cyber attacks will be constant, and the side that enjoys a cyber advantage will likely prevail.

The battlefield will see a mix of today's and future platforms.

The platforms that we have today will be given more autonomous functionalities whenever possible. There will be many more decision-making aids, which will help analysts go through and make sense of large amounts of data, and operators make better, more relevant decisions.

Guided munitions will proliferate widely and will become smaller and smaller as a result of miniaturization and "zero miss accuracy," allowing smaller warheads. I expect to see crew-served weapons firing guided rounds, followed by small arms. Hypersonic weapons will be frequently used. You will also see...