Emerging technologies like AI and cyber weapons impact combat power preparation.
Combat leaders must adapt to 21st-century conflicts by targeting adversary cohesion.
Deep dives
Launch of IWI's New Website
IWI recently launched a new website aimed at serving the irregular warfare community. The site provides access to a wide range of content, including podcasts, articles, and videos. Additionally, the website features four special projects focusing on maritime, cyber, Europe, and the gray zone. This initiative aims to support practitioners, researchers, and policymakers in the irregular warfare community.
Impact of Emerging Technologies on Warfare
The podcast examines the influence of emerging technologies on modern warfare. Guests discuss past technological revolutions to draw insights for current warfare. They explore the implications of new technologies like artificial intelligence and cyber weapons on mass combat power. The episode concludes by addressing the preparation needed by combat leaders and policymakers for future large-scale operations.
Preparing for Future Combat Operations
Lieutenant General Xavier Brunson and Mick Ryan highlight the need for combat leaders to adapt to evolving natural conflicts in the 21st century. They stress the importance of fighting in transparent battlefields and ensuring protection across all domains. Additionally, the advancing pace of technology poses challenges in aligning military programs with technological advancements.
Targeting Adversary's Will in Warfare
At the core of modern warfare is the ability to address the adversary's will to fight. Mick Ryan emphasizes the significance of targeting the enemy's cohesion and disrupting their will. This strategic approach involves utilizing precise influence operations and understanding the impact of conventional and irregular methods on combat outcomes.
Be sure to visit the Irregular Warfare Initiative's new website, www.irregularwarfare.org, to see all of the new articles, podcast episodes, and other content the IWI team is producing!
As the character of warfare changes, emerging technologies are influencing the direction—and the magnitude—of that change. But what can past technological revolutions teach us as we prepare for the new challenges combat leaders will face on the modern battlefield? In what specific ways will new technologies, from artificial intelligence to advanced cyber capabilities, affect militaries’ ability to mass combat power? And at the strategic and policy levels, what must leaders do to prepare forces for future, large-scale combat operations?
Ben Jebb and Adam Darnley-Stuart are joined on this episode by two guests who help explore these important questions. Lieutenant General Xavier T. Brunson is the commanding general of the US Army’s I Corps who has led US soldiers in multiple theaters around the globe. And Mick Ryan is a retired Australian Army major general who commanded soldiers at the platoon, regiment, task force, and brigade levels and is the author of the book War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First Century Great Power Competition and Conflict.