GEN. ROBERT B. BROWN AND GEN. DAVID G. PERKINS
People like to talk about how the future of warfare will be different, but it has already started to arrive. For some years now, the beginnings of major shifts in the character of warfare have been visible in places like eastern Ukraine and the Middle East. Across these battlefields, rival powers made investments and developed doctrine, providing ample evidence that future wars promise extreme lethality not seen since World War II. The hybrid warfare underway in the Middle East and eastern Europe is a small-scale preview. The next fight will be defined by a violent intensity that will test the U.S. military’s might in the cauldron of battle. As leading scholars and policymakers have discussed, revisionist and increasingly belligerent actors are working to erode the pillars of the global political and economic system that evolved since World War II and reached a high point after the Cold War. In attempting to remake the global order, these actors are developing and employing technologies and tactics that offset America’s military dominance on land, at sea, in the air, and in space and cyberspace.
North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States territory are the most immediate threat. Its strategic military advances have refocused Washington on the harsh realities of nuclear proliferation. Over the longer term, peer and near-peer revisionism promise a greater challenge to American power and its security, as well as that of its allies. As peer-level powers rise economically or near-peer adversaries demonstrate disregard for sovereign borders, the risks of a confrontation with the United States grow. These peer-level adversaries further complicate the United States’ position by combining their military buildup and modernization efforts with posturing against international norms.
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