The Future of Warfare

Catalog description

Warfare is constantly evolving. Throughout history, technological developments have hastened the evolution in the character, nature, and types of wars being fought. In the contemporary conflict environment, the prospect of large-scale conflict between near-peer states is converging and shifting rapidly, with proxy conflicts and threats typically posed by nonstate and/or irregular actors and tactics interacting with great power competition and significant strategic realignments between the United States, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and other states. In such an environment, hybrid actors and proxy groups continue to wage war in an asymmetric and irregular manner that relies on ambiguity, strategic surprise, innovative uses of technology, and deception, against the ever-present backdrop of the threat of full-scale global war. This course will examine and historically contextualize various "new" trends in warfare, including the weaponization of AI technologies, increasingly sophisticated cyber and information warfare operations, the effects of social media in "democratizing" the information space relevant to conflict, the development of violent non-state actors with conventional military capabilities, and state support of mercenary forces to achieve strategic gains without attribution.