The Future of Modern Warfare: World War 3 and Beyond
Editor's note:
The recent outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Iran sadly bears out the prediction made in the previous revision of this blog.
Some might say it was inevitable that this particular conflict would come to a head this year, given Iran's determination to get a nuclear bomb, and the Ayatollah's openly declared intention to use it to destroy the state of Israel. The speed at which it has happened does seem to have taken many by surprise. Arguably the Iranian regime has, by its actions over the last 40 years, brought its own inevitable destruction on itself. Unfortunately it's the Iranian people who will probably bear the brunt of the suffering that arises from its death throes......
The smart money now seems to be on full regime change, which should be fairly swift once Iran succumbs to the temptation to attack US interests in the region. It's unlikely to resist this for long, given the US has represented the 'Great Devil' since the revolution in 1979. Whatever pretext to justify this escalation Iran comes up with, it will draw in a hitherto reluctant Trump, and the bunker-busters will then complete the process of removing the underground enrichment plants and any last vestiges of any nuclear development capability. The end game may well be a painful one, particularly for the Iranian population, with whom one does have a lot of sympathy. The episode will also have lasting effects on the world economy. Fortunately any radiation leaks from the enriched Uranium already accumulated should be localised and containable. Better to get the job done now than risk a wider, and probably nuclear, conflict later. The regime's only slim hope of survival would be to return immediately to the negotiating table and agree to Trump's terms - something even a desperate, and now virtually leaderless, regime would find too humiliating to bear.
The key question, assuming the regime does clooapse, will be - what next for Iran. The resulting power vaccuum must be filled, and quickly, to avoid the same mistakes being made as those seen in Iraq post-Saddam. The recent example of the Syrian coup might be a good model, given there are parallels between the repressive behaviour of Assad's Alloite shia regime before its overthrow, and that of the current Iranian theocracy. Whether a similar internal Iranian force could be found, which was competent and powerful enough to take over the government and prevent a descent into anarchy, is another matter.....
Whatever the outcome, hopefully this unhappy episode will be a lesson to any other 'rogue' state or organisation attempting to acquire nuclear capability for avowed destructive ends, or indeed attempting to carry out its dirty work by proxy.
Read on for some detailed analysis of the recent history of warfare...and what may be to come.
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Introduction
An extra-terrestrial observer looking at the behaviour of Homo Sapiens de novo might reasonably assess our
species as: ‘..a primitive bipedal anthropoid primate having a marked addiction to conflict and self-destruction….’
This tendency towards what we might call 'competitive destructive aggression' is certainly not a new phenomenon – evolution has done a remarkable
job of embedding the need to compete into our psyche – and our genes. Without
it, we would not have become the most successful and numerous species on the planet. It is that very success, however, and
the remarkable advances in technology that has enabled it, that now threatens
our very existence....
War has been our principal way of solving territorial disputes between
tribes and nations for millennia. Until relatively recently, although often brutal for its combatants, warfare caused little real harm from a global perspective. The First
World War (WWI) was the first real ‘mass killing’ event for our species, but
even this debacle, with all its horrors, was confined largely to a small area of Europe. Its
consequences, including the millions killed in the trenches and in the
subsequent H5N1 influenza epidemic, were admittedly much greater than anything seen
previously in terms of numbers. Even in the 'battlefield' areas any structural destruction was limited, however. Since much of the fighting was confined largely to a small area within France and Belgium, it also failed to make much impact
world population statistics as a whole, or on the global environment itself.
Although the destructive effects of the early years of WW2 were more extensive, and included widespread devastation of UK and German cities by aerial bombardment, first during the Blitz and then subsequently the RAF's bombing campaign in Germany, it was only the development and use of the first atomic weapons at the
end of the war that brought us the possibility of self-destruction
on a grand scale. The subsequent headlong arms race between the two superpowers from
the 1960s to the late 1980s cemented this capability in place. It also vastly
increased both the size and sophistication of the nuclear arsenals of both sides as weapons of mass destruction.
This inevitably gave rise to the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD). This realisation arose because the two principal opponents, the Western Alliance in the form of NATO and the Soviet Union, were well-matched in nuclear armaments, with sufficient explosive yield to devastate large areas of population. It was therefore obvious that a full-scale nuclear exchange initiated by one of them would provoke an immediate full-scale strategic response and devastate both their, and the other’s, territory. It was also acknowledged that the accompanying large scale release of long-lived radioisotopes would probably render the rest of the planet uninhabitable for our species, and many others, for thousands of years into the future.
Although we managed to survive this first part of the nuclear age without major incident, the cold war period did generate several tense nuclear 'stand-offs', the Cuban missile crisis of 1963 arguably being the closest we came to a full-scale nuclear conflict.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, which marked the end of the 'cold' war however, we have effectively
been living on ‘borrowed time’.
The chaos that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s was indeed a
dangerous period, given the plethora of nuclear weapons still held across the old soviet republics, and the political turmoil and uncertainties that prevailed. Mercifully we survived that period without incident, and the emergence of the
Russian Federation in the early 2000s under Putin did appear to restore some semblance of
stability to what was left of the old Soviet empire. There followed a brief period of globalisation and apparent mellowing of the East-West relationship. Putin was, however, planning his campaign all along, and with the help of his 'captive' oligarchs, built-up his arsenal and finances from the early teens onwards in preparation for the battle to come. His annexation of Crimea and the start of Trump's first term as US president in 2016 effectively put paid to any chance of East-West integration, and by the onset of the Covid19 pandemic in 2020, things were going downhill fast. Putin's attempted follow-up annexation of the remainder of Ukraine in 2022 and the universal condemnation and sanctions that followed effectively re-engaged the East-West battle lines, if only by proxy.
Putin's now overt obsession with rebuilding the 'Russian empire' and the meteoric economic rise of China and consequent rapid development of its military capabilities have increased the complexity of geopolitics by creating a 3-way power
‘split’. The situation has been complicated further by the emergence of a series of ‘rogue’
state regimes, each prepared to play one superpower off against the others to achieve their
own objectives.
Fortunately, so far only one of these, N. Korea, has a significant nuclear capability, which still lacks proven long range delivery capability. Nuclear weapons have
also proliferated beyond the superpowers to a number of other states, notably age-old quarrelsome neighbours India and Pakistan. As we're now seeing, not all of
these states can be regarded as having stable political systems....
Some other regimes are actively seeking to acquire nuclear arsenals, the most worrying of those being Iran. The Western alliance has declared its determination to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons 'at all costs', and a resurgent Trump has gone on the offensive against Iran's developing nuclear programme. His recent attempt at setting up a 'deal' with Teheran reflects this.
Iran’s recent close association with Russia and their active
participation in the supply of arms to Putin’s Ukrainian war has complicated
the issue further, and Iran could yet acquire a limited nuclear capability from Russia 'under the counter' as a reward
for services rendered. If it does, this would provide an additional potential flash point in the middle east, particularly given the sworn objective of Iran's ruling shia islamic theocracy to destroy Israel. The Israelis are so far the only nuclear-armed middle-eastern state, and are determined to remain so. With a far-right government coalition determined to promote its own interests above all others under Netanyahu, and overt continuing support from the US, they are a force to be reckoned with. Trump has already confirmed US support for Israel on Gaza and recently threatened military strikes against Teheran if a deal on restricting their nuclear programme is not forthcoming.
Putin also has other 'rogue state' partnerships in mind, and has already formed a close and productive alliance with Kim Jong Un. The N. Korean leader is a regular visitor to Moscow and has supplied arms, and more recently troops, to Russia, which continue to flow in, along with a steady supply of hardware from Iran, to support the Ukraine war. The main concern is the price Kim will eventually extract from an increasingly desperate Kremlin. A revival of the N. Korean economy through food and oil donations and, in particular, access to key military technology so far unavailable due to sanctions, is on the cards, and this could result in an even more aggressive stance on the part of the N. Koreans on the continued US-S. Korean military buildup. Kim seems recently to have recognised the value of drone warfare, and is busy emulating Russian drone technology gifted to him by Putin recently - Seoul beware.
Recent developments indicate that part of the payback has been in Russian oil - a very recent report states that N. Korea has received more than 1 million barrels of oil in return for its supplies of ordnance, and more recently 10,000 plus troops for direct involvement in the Ukrainian conflict, (mainly as 'cannon-fodder' in the Ukrainan-occupied Kursk region as shown by recent reports of massive attrition rates). This has effectively allowed the N. Korean leadership to evade western sanctions and continue its nuclear development programme.
Proxy Wars vs Global Conflict
The steady dwindling of available resources and the continued rapid and
largely unchecked growth of the world’s population over the past 20 years have
increased the risk of resource-driven conflict, as can be seen from the
numerous ‘proxy wars’ that have been fought over the last two decades. The current Middle East flare-up is but one example of a 'pressure-release' process that holds back large-scale global conflict, while allowing rival powers to maintain their positions and justify their existence with their home populations. The intense rivalry between Israel and the islamic world, most notably Iran, has simmered for decades and shows no sign of any sort of resolution yet. The latest exacerbation in the form of the October 7th attack by HAMAS, the resulting Gaza conflict and more recently the war against Hizbollah in Lebanon, may yet turn into a pan-middle east conflict, despite the recent temporary cease-fire in Gaza. Fomenting conflict in the region is something which Iran has striven for since the 1979 revolution, in order to establish its dominance over the region, although the recent damage to its proxies will henceforth make this more difficult to achieve. It is only its own lack of resources to fight a major war that has confined its efforts so far to proxy-aggression against Israel. The recent (and of course, still ongoing) Covid pandemic, although a temporary unifying force to some extent, hastened this process further by holding back world economic growth, and will continue to do so for some time yet, particularly in China.
Despite this 'safety valve' effect of proxy conflicts, we are now in a situation where world events are becoming increasingly unpredictable. Many feel that we may be on the brink of self-destruction, given the enhanced belligerence of both China and Russia under their increasingly autocratic regimes, and the economic instability we are currently experiencing worldwide. To say nothing of the destabilising effect of a second Trump presidency with Vance as his hawkish 'attack dog' VP....as concerned onlookers, we can only hope that the remaining checks and balances in the US system prevent 'the Donald' and his cronies going completely off the rails. (One advantage of Trump's second term may be resolution of the Ukraine crisis; Ukraine will eventually buckle and give up territory despite Zelensky's protestations, but a resurgent Putin is unlikely to be prepared to settle for the existing effective annexations in the Donbas and Crimea as his 'take home' prize....)
On the face of it, then, the current turmoil we're seeing in world geopolitics suggest a Third World War in the sense that most imagine it is certainly still a possibility – probably more so than at any
time since the end of WW2.
How likely is it that a full-scale nuclear conflict will break out in
the next 5 years ?
The Third World War –
What, When and How ?
The answer to these questions can of course only be speculative, especially at
this precarious stage of our species' development. However, I actually believe that the prospect of a full-scale nuclear conflict is perhaps less likely than it might
appear at first sight. Why ?
Although ‘rogue’ states such as N. Korea have already acquired nuclear capability, and others such as Iran may eventually do so, despite the best efforts of the world community, they do not have the power or resources to start, or indeed wage, a full scale conventional or nuclear war individually without the intervention, and support, of one or more of the superpowers.
Despite their often belligerent posturing, these 'rogue' regimes realise they would quickly be stopped if they tried using any form of nuclear weapon without permission from at least one superpower ally. This would be highly unlikely to be granted for obvious reasons, primarily based on the global acceptance of MAD; devastating consequences would follow the use of a nuclear weapon for any offender, with wholesale destruction of their infrastructure and populations. More to the point, the inevitable extinction of their own ruling regimes would be inevitable following any unsanctioned use. Moreover, their nuclear arsenals are, and are likely to remain, relatively small, and are also likely to remain fission weapon-based for the foreseeable future; any damage they caused before retribution descended on them would therefore be restricted to a relatively small area and therefore unlikely to trigger a full scale nuclear conflict per se.
It is thus probably only one or more of the superpowers who could effectively 'hit the red button' and launch a nuclear WW3 in the 'traditional' way. We should therefore look out for 'trigger issues', which might induce one or more of them to do this.
As mentioned previously, Iran is probably the most likely ongoing threat to world peace, given the regime's stated objective to erase Israel, itself an established nuclear power, from the face of the earth. It has allied itself with the 'Eastern bloc' and regards the USA as the 'great devil'.
We know that Iran has almost reached the point at which it has enough enriched Uranium to manufacture a limited nuclear device. It could also acquire additional capability from elsewhere, probably supported in its efforts by Russia. If it does so, we should expect things to go downhill rapidly - a pre-emptive strike on the Iranian nuclear development sites by Israel with US support is almost certain if this is confirmed. As discussed, Iran has been unequivocally identified as the primary backer of Hamas, Hizbollah and the Houthis, and proven complicit in recent terrorist and latterly direct tit-for-tat missile attacks against Israel. It is therefore a known direct and ongoing threat to the Israeli regime, and has global 'form' via its responsibility by proxy.
Israel under Netanyahu shows no sign of any restraint against its sworn enemy, and seems intent on picking off its proxies one by one. Its current regime would have no issues at all in 'cutting off the head of the snake itself' to protect itself if it came to that. The prospect of Trump's unequivocal support going forward is only likely to encourage the Israeli regime's belligerence. Once Israel was certain that Iran had, or was close to having a nuclear capability of any sort, it would go to any lengths to eliminate the threat, including using its own nuclear arsenal in a pre-emptive strike. The Eastern bloc would then respond in kind, initially against Israel, but then more widely. This probably presents the greatest risk of a nuclear conflict starting within the next decade.
There is however one additional, and more global, 'fly in the ointment', which could alter the balance of power significantly. This first surfaced in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan's threat to create a 'Star Wars' anti-ICBM defence shield. At the time, the Soviet Union perceived this as a significant threat to the defence implied by MAD in that it removed their ability to strike back in the event of a nuclear attack by the US. It was quickly shelved as part of the treaties limiting nuclear weapons, and was followed by the demise of the Soviet Union, so it never got beyond the planning stage.
Trump in his 'wisdom', however has just announced he intends to set up a space-based 'Golden Shield' missile defence system 'capable of protecting the US (and any state that joins it as a US territory) from attacks by hypersonic ballistic missiles', according the the current hype. The huge cost of this system alone (current estimates of ca $0.5 Trillion) suggests it may never see the light of day. In addition, the virtual impossibility of detecting, catching up with, and then eliminating a ballistic missile travelling at Mach 2 or higher in the few minutes between its launch and hitting its intended target, probably makes it a non-starter. This is to be hoped for, given Putin's sensitivity to anything that might threaten his regime, or his command of 'mother Russia'. A pre-emptive nuclear strike by Russia or indeed China might well be on the cards prior to such a system 'going live' if it did look likely to be effective.
Is a Global Conflict likely to happen, and what form would it take ?
To answer this, we must first try to look into the minds of the
respective leaders of the two principal 'superpower alliances' and assess at what advantage they
might think could be achieved by doing so.
The prime motivation amongst Western leaders will be to maintain the geopolitical status quo as far as possible, while keeping in check any and all territorial or infrastructure-related threats from the Eastern powers, or the various terrorist groups, particularly in the European area.
MAD is universally accepted by NATO and the West as the ultimate deterrent, and a nuclear first strike by NATO would only ever be a last resort in response to an imminent nuclear attack on one or more of its members. NATO has however pledged to defend any of its members who are attacked by a foreign power, so would be obliged to respond militarily to any conventional incursion anywhere within its members' territories. Despite Putin’s hope that the Ukraine conflict would divide Europe, the reverse has happened, with the European arm of NATO arguably much stronger now than at any time since its formation, and more willing to resist any 'demands' from the Eastern bloc. Despite Putin's posturing, I see little evidence that NATO has any designs on appropriating any existing Eastern bloc territory, but it will steadfastly defend NATO members and reserves the right to consider any applications from new ones to join. A notable example is Ukraine, although membership won't, of course, be considered until the current war ends and some form of settlement with Russia is reached.
The principal, and somewhat unpredictable, factor now is of course the effect of a second Trump presidency on NATO. On the face of it, Trump appears to have turned his back on European security and befriended Putin. He has also 'upset the applecart' of the global economy by imposing swingeing trade tariffs on China and threatening them for other nations. However, this, and the precise outcome of the USA's attempted return to pseudo-isolationism, are by no means certain. Trump's hallmark strategy, like Putin's, is to 'keep 'em all guessing', and his apparent volatility reinforces its effect. If nothing else, it has already had the beneficial effect of awakening Europe to the possibility that they could be left 'out in the cold' militarily by a resurgent isolationist Trump administration. Dangerous reductions in conventional capability have indeed been allowed to occur in many western states in recent years on the back of austerity programmes, and it is arguable whether NATO could repel a determined attacked by Russia in eastern Europe if it occurred within the next 2-3 years. This realisation, and Trump's attitude, has encouraged more resilient defence spending of the 27, and appears also to have done so for the UK, which is long overdue, and is to be welcomed in an increasingly turbulent world.
It's unlikely, though, that Trump would withdraw from NATO, or indeed abandon Europe altogether, since this would give the 'green light' to Putin to take back control of the old Soviet republics - Trump's objective is primarily to reduce Europe's dependence on the US for support and thereby reduce costs to his own exchequer, particularly those associated with support to Ukraine, which burgeoned alarmingly during the Biden era. He won't however, want to allow Western Europe to be overrun by the 'Russian hordes', as this would imply weakness on his part, and reduce his global standing. It will certainly be interesting, if a little scary, to watch the power dynamic develop between Trump and Putin once negotiations on 'carving up' Ukraine start in earnest.
The Russian and Chinese leaderships now are well aware of the change in the Western status quo, but are still uncertain as to how far Trump, and a more wary NATO membership, will go to defend its territory and influence. They will therefore continue to probe for information, and will also periodically ‘test the water’ militarily. Symptoms of this continuing covert intelligence war have been clearly visible in recent years with the US Chinese 'weather' balloon incident and periodic incursions of Russian vessels and war planes into NATO territorial waters and airspace. China's threatening posture in the South China Sea and particularly against Taiwan is also of note. The recent occurrences of suspected Russian 'shadow fleet' sabotage on submarine cable and pipeline infrastructure are all part of the same destabilising strategy. This evident need for data and intelligence brings us to a third important question.
How might a future
World War Develop ?
Given the likelihood that the superpowers have all accepted the reality of MAD, none would be likely to initiate a nuclear conflict unless they felt their existence was actively threatened.
Even Putin, with his current
obsessional 'bunker' mentality, was grudgingly forced to admit in 2022 that he would
only resort to nuclear weapons if he felt his (i.e. Russia’s) existence was
directly threatened. The more recent revision of Russia's 'nuclear policy' charter allowing the restricted use of tactical nuclear weapons was largely a sabre-rattling exercise in response to Biden's grant of permission to use US longer-range missiles against Russian targets. Although Putin's pronouncements are not exactly noted for their veracity, the likelihood of his 'going tactical nuclear' in Ukraine is probably low - for now at least. For one thing, his forces are steadily grinding down the Ukrainian side and for another, he will not want to risk adverse reaction from his own population by causing radioactive airborne contamination to spread into western Russia from the battlefield via prevailing westerly winds.
There are, however worrying indications that Putin may be fast losing his grip on reality, living as he does in an information-deprived 'bubble' surrounded by those who dare not give him a true picture of events, and unable to venture much beyond his own territorial boundaries due to his international arrest warrant for war crimes, and the ever present risk of assassination. The unsettling effect of Prighozin's abortive coup attempt and its aftermath will likely have added to his paranoia. The embarrassment generated by Ukraine's stalwart resistance, and latterly their incursion into western Russia with apparently little resistance, certainly won't have helped. Zalensky's latest 'sortie', which destroyed a significant part of his strategic bomber fleet, will have enraged him further, and we may yet see wider consequences of this. We can only hope that the instincts of self-preservation within his military top-brass are sufficient to prevent him actually pressing the red button. Paradoxically, the 'pseudo-rapprochement' with the US resulting from Trump's 2nd term may have helped the cause of peace (temporarily at least) by claming nerves in the Kremlin, but Trump's volatility knows no bounds, and we may be back to 'square one' at any time if 'The Donald' loses patience and realises he is simply being 'played along' by Putin.
Despite all this political instability, and the uncertainty it brings, the principal underlying danger is still that of a trigger event caused by human (or indeed machine!) error. The widespread application of AI can only serve to increase uncertainty by removing some operational decision-making from human hands.
If a simple mis-coded cyber security update can virtually shut down many of the West's principal computer operating systems, how safe from a nuclear holocaust are we really ? And then there's the hackers.....
There are ample precedents to support the assertion that we aren't....
A rather disturbing report emerged after the USSR's demise in the early 1990s of Soviet early warning systems taking their war machine to the equivalent of the US’s ‘DefCon1’ in 1985 before identifying the ‘threat’ as a machine error, probably caused by a malfunctioning satellite. There have even been credible reports in the past of lower level alerts being triggered by large flocks of high-flying geese ! There is potentially an even greater threat of this type of malfunction in early warning systems nowadays, given the opportunities for malicious hackers to overcome internet firewalls and penetrate networked command and control systems – on both sides of the East-West ‘divide’.
The Rise and Rise of Electronic Warfare (EW)
There is another important consideration here which is likely to influence the direction in which modern warfare develops. Conventional warfare
rarely achieves much territorial gain when the opposing forces are equally
matched. There are numerous examples of this, from the static nature of the WWI
trenches to Putin’s singular lack of progress against the Ukrainians in the 'fighting seasons' of 2022 and 2023, and the painfully slow attritional advances he has made in 2024. This is despite Russia’s
overwhelming technical military superiority and available manpower/ordnance. It is therefore no
surprise that military leaders and their civilian counterparts are turning to
electronic means of waging war.
Even as far back as WW2, the earliest developments in code-breaking and
data acquisition in the early 1940s at Bletchley Park showed how essential
intelligence could be in deciding the outcome of conventional modern warfare.
The invention, and now virtually universal availability, of the internet, and
more recently the much acclaimed advent of the ‘internet of things’ has itself provided the ultimate tool for attacking an enemy’s way of life remotely, from its
networked command & control systems to its civilian infrastructure.
It is no coincidence that one of Putin’s earliest military 'sorties', made before actually invading Ukraine in February 2022, was an attempt to take down as much of Ukraine’s infrastructure as possible by electronic sabotage. Fortunately this early intervention, although initially quite promising, proved less successful than he anticipated, and the Ukrainian leadership were able to adapt to the new EW attacks relatively quickly. They also gained valuable insight into their own vulnerabilities, Putin's strategy to exploit them, and how to thwart his efforts.
The important point to appreciate here is the direction of travel – both Russia and China have literally ‘armies’ of state-employed hackers dedicated to seeking out weak points in Western control networks. Russia’s determined ongoing efforts to destroy as much of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure as possible from the air, despite the universal acceptance that this amounts to a war crime, shows how much importance they attach to this ‘off-battlefield’ approach to weakening enemy resolve.
China, meanwhile, in addition to its rapid military buildup, has also adopted another approach by entering the 'space race', ostensibly for peaceful means. However, their use of an anti-satellite device in low-earth orbit to destroy one of their own defunct weather satellites recently showed us that this technology was in fact designed to enhance their ability to knock out orbiting electronic infrastructure during a future conflict.
Their uncharacteristic openness in publicising this test suggest it was intended more as a demonstration to potential adversaries than a bona-fide space junk clearing exercise. Indeed, such events can in no way be described as orbital 'clean-up' processes, but rather acts of space vandalism. Destroying a large object in low-earth orbit merely increases the hazard many-fold by creating many thousands of additional pieces of debris, all of which travel at ca 18,000 mph, and any one of which could destroy another satellite in an intersecting orbit....or indeed take out a whole space station.
The Ukraine conflict has led to a marked up-tick in the development and application of EW. Development of the Palantir software and the vastly-increased monitoring capacity through battlefield and remote satellite sensors have enabled true 'algorithmic warfare' to be rolled out under operational conditions for the first time. The unexpected success of the Ukrainian fightback against an ill-prepared and trained Russian conscript army has been greatly assisted by this new technology, which enables battlefield commanders to effectively 'penetrate the fog of war'.
By providing continuous updates on the precise battlefield locations of the enemy and predictions of his short term movements, the technology allows a directed 'kill chain' to be established. Elon Musk's Starlink communications satellite constellation, which is effectively 'un-jammable', is widely regarded by military experts as having been key in enabling the Ukrainians to frustrate Russian advances, and withstand nearly 3 years of ruthless onslaught by its powerful neighbour. Its temporary withdrawal by Trump to force Zelensky to the negotiating table as a 'submissive' showed its importance. Of particular note is the increasing role of 'private tech' in the provision of software, hardware and ordnance, and even as active participants in some operational contexts. This trend is likely to continue, given the vast cost to governments and their taxpayers that would otherwise inherit if they attempted to take everything back 'in house' .
As indicated above, the use of critical 'real time' intelligence in this way is certainly not unprecedented in modern warfare - The key role of the Bletchley Park codebreakers in shortening WW2 is well known. One of my own relatives' contribution at Bletchley Park during his Foreign Office secondment from 1941-44 in breaking the Italian Navy's Hagelin P38 cipher, and providing vital decodes of Italian naval high command's messages thereafter, enabled the Royal Navy and Air Force to predict the movements of the Italian battle fleet accurately and inflict heavy damage. What was left of the Italian fleet then promptly withdrew to their naval bases and remained there until the Italians surrendered to the Allies in 1943. This intelligence breakthrough drastically reduced Rommel's ability to resupply his North African troops by sea. As a result the 3rd Reich was forced to commit more forces and much-needed ordnance to the North African campaign that might otherwise have reinforced their European and Russian fronts, possibly changing the duration, and even perhaps the course, of the war as a result. The cracking of Hagelin, and of course the better known Enigma ciphers, is considered to have been highly significant, so much that prime minister Winston Churchill visited Hut 4 on a visit to Bletchley Park to thank the team personally for their key endeavours.
Looking back at the early history of EW, the 'intelligence war' waged so effectively by Bletchley Park and its associated civilian and military intelligence service personnel throughout the WW2 relied heavily on absolute secrecy, and the 'Enigma story' was not revealed until selected records were declassified in the mid-1970s. And the Bletchley story didn't end in 1945 - Hagelin's cipher technology also figured large in Crypto AG's post-war efforts in supplying encoding support to many 'rogue' regimes, and the 'back door' developed from Bletchley's decryption success enabled the UK and US intelligence services to keep tabs on their activities throughout the Cold War era and beyond. Indeed Gordon Welchman's revelatory book "The Hut 6 Story" got him into serious trouble with the US and UK authorities for being a little too revealing. Some of the operational details surrounding Hagelin remain classified to this day, demonstrating how seriously governments still regard encryption as a key weapon of war.
How Great is the Risk to our Western Way of Life posed by Electronic Warfare ?
Although rapidly-evolving battlefield EW of the sort which is being effectively 'field tested' in the Ukraine conflict can be effective on a local level, there is another more far-reaching aspect to EW which is potentially much more dangerous to our way of life. We are now virtually completely dependent on the internet for almost every aspect of our lives. This dependence is not limited to the first world – a large and ever-increasing proportion of the third world population now possess, and rely on, mobile phones. The infrastructure of their countries, such as it is, is becoming equally dependent on internet-connected technology. This renders us all acutely vulnerable to electronic attack.
Not only is
state-sponsored hacking an established ‘industry’ now, but an ever increasing
army of misguided private individuals are trying their hands at penetrating all
manner of supposedly firewall-protected systems. Barely a week goes by nowadays without some form of malicious attack on a major firm's website or IT system. The fact that a UK-based
autistic teenager could, and did, penetrate the Pentagon’s inner 'secure' networks recently,
and is still fighting extradition to the US to face trial, demonstrates just how
vulnerable we are to this type of intervention. The use of NSO's Pegasus software by a large number of states to spy on their populations and those of other nations via their mobile phones is another and even more insidious development in the intelligence war. Although Pegasus has been used largely to track and suppress dissidents, any of the data it accumulates could be significant in wider conflicts. The advent of AI, and in particular its military aspects, has a occasioned much alarm amongst experts in the field, who believe its unfettered use could lead to disaster if not kept in check.
Is there a solution to this unexpectedly adverse by-product of universal connectivity
?
Yes, but it certainly wouldn't be an easy one to implement....
Our only hope of surviving internet-induced systems 'meltdown’ after a major state-sponsored external attack (or indeed an unintentional self-induced one!) is to develop completely separate 'stand-alone' systems which are strictly firewalled, and can be isolated from the open internet whenever required, by removing any form of physical or radio connection to it.
This is of course virtually impossible with our existing communications infrastructure, which is now essential to maintaining our current way of life. Almost everything we do now involves interaction with the worldwide web in some respect, often via short-range wireless (and therefore easily interceptable) connections. GPS technology also figures large in enabling our daily lives, and is wholly dependent on vulnerable satellite and internet links.
And there is no ‘backup system’ to revert to if it all goes wrong - apart from anything else, the complexity and extent of our reliance on instantaneous data transfer, and the size of our population would overwhelm old-style paper-based and stand-alone computer systems.
We can all demonstrate
this vulnerability for ourselves by considering what the effect on our own individual lives
would be if the internet suddenly went down completely (including all the mobile phone networks, satellite links and GPS systems). How quickly would things go awry,
and how on earth would we all cope if it all stayed out of action for a long period, or even permanently ? Recent experiments depriving schoolchildren and adults of their phones for even a day or two haven proven our established dependence - both practical and psychological - on these devices. Thus a complete loss of internet communication would be disastrous and leave us extremely vulnerable to attack.
“…But isn’t this just pure alarmism…it'll never be allowed to happen”,
I hear you say….
There may be a grain of truth there, in that it might never happen.
However, for safety's sake we should anticipate a full scale EW attack of some sort in future, and ensure our systems are as robust as possible against it.
There are also natural events that could cause similar disruption. One of them has occurred in the relatively recent past, and could well have a similar effect when it recurs - which it will eventually.
Our local neighbourhood star, the sun, is a remarkably stable and well-behaved 'beast' as far as stars go; without its remarkable consistency of output, and the accident of an effective planetary magnetic field to shield us from its more harmful radiation, we would simply never have existed. Like all of us, however, it does have occasional bouts of indigestion, which can, and do, give rise to what are called 'coronal mass ejections'.
These are perfectly normal periodic solar events for any mid-spectrum star, and result in an abnormally high volume of solar material being thrown out in to space, some of which heads in our direction and hits our atmosphere some 24 hours later. When the remnants of one of these ejections hits the ionosphere, it produces large amounts of ionised material, which has the potential to induce very high voltages in metallic conductors. This can in turn damage the sensitive electronics within our satellites and even burn out our terrestrial power grids. Although the ‘solar wind’ is ever-present, it is normally deflected effectively by our magnetic field, just giving us no more than an occasional spectacular display of the Aurora Borealis in the Northern Hemisphere. A severe solar storm would overcome the protective effects of our magnetic field and generate damaging 'ion-showers' with widespread effects on our infrastructure and communications.
The problem for us is that the timing of these major solar eruptions is not easily predictable. Although they are relatively rare (fortunately for us, given our current reliance on all things electronic !), historical records show that this type of event appears to happen roughly once a century - and we haven’t had a major occurrence since the mid-1800s. I'll leave the statisticians among you to work out the probability of such an event occurring within the next decade...
What can we do to reduce our vulnerability ?
All this highlights the need for a more robust electronic infrastructure, and a more enlightened and less 'head in the sand' attitude to internet connectivity and its vulnerabilities. There’s not much we can do about the sun’s behaviour, given the static nature of our terrestrial power grids and satellite systems, but we can reduce our exposure to some of the more self-induced earthbound threats.
The problem is that this will cost.....notwithstanding these additional costs and the readjustment to our way of
life, we would be much better off addressing the problem now, while our systems are still intact. This would be far more effective, and a whole lot cheaper, than trying to 'pick up the pieces' after the inevitable ‘crisis’ hits. Millions of lives will have been lost, and we have to
rebuild everything from scratch after a war which we might well have lost outright in the first few days of cyber-hostilities. Winning WW3, when it comes, and thereby retaining our much cherished personal freedoms, will be
dependent on having more robust control systems which are effectively protected from the unwelcome attentions of our
adversaries.
It was interesting to note recently that our own intelligence services
in UK showed themselves to be more than a little concerned about our vulnerabilities in this
respect. A spate of articles released as recently as 2022
highlighted the need for vigilance, particularly against pervasive Chinese
influence, and there is now an unusual degree of openness (for a state security service, that is!) in the measures
being taken to tackle the threats. This marked change in emphasis actually does make sense for the security services, since it not only exposes what a potential enemy is already up
to, but also serves to advertise the need for all of us to take whatever precautions we can in
our daily lives.
If there is a moral to this story, perhaps in the form of a belated New Year message for 2026, it would probably be:
“…The internet is a remarkable and life-changing invention,
but we need to redouble our efforts to protect ourselves against online threats from those who
might wish to do us harm…”
Not wanting to belittle the importance of our current efforts to reduce global warming, of course, it is arguable as to whether we in Europe have our priorities right here - the complete loss of our Western freedoms through inaction on cyberwarfare would be a very high price to pay for obsessive efforts slowing the pace of our climate's warming trend...particularly since we don't yet know how far we can actually stop the warming process, or indeed whether reducing our own UK emissions 'to the bone' would make any sugnificant impression on the warming trend.
The Advent of the Unmanned Drone as a weapon of war
Unmanned aircraft have been used on the battlefield for many years, perhaps the earliest, if not the most notable, being the V1 bomb, which was employed as a terror weapon against London by the Nazis in WWII. Its most fearsome aspect was its randomness - it was completely unguided, and fell whenever the fuel ran out, thus no one was immune, and its immediately recognisable buzz, followed by sudden silence, struck fear into the hearts of many a Londoner in the early 1940s.
Modern drones really came into their own during the battle against islamic jihad in the early 2000s after 9/11, when they were used to target known terrorist 'kingpins'. It was not until the Ukraine conflict, though, that they really came into their own as battlefield weapons, being used mercilessly (and in contravention of international law) by the Russians against Ukraine's civilian population, and more recently by Ukraine to cause disproportionate damage to Russian military targets.
Similar tactics have also been used by the IDF in Gaza, although here drones are used more as reconaissance tools to assist in targeting manned airstrikes. Their real potential as strategic weapons was demonstrated very recently (1.6.25) by the daring Ukrainian drone attack against several widely separated Russian airbases, where they managed to inflict heavy damage against the Russian strategic bomber fleet. The fact that it was possible to import and secretly launch these weapons close to their targets showed that despite its undoubted military superiority in terms of numbers, the Russian military is not invincible....it remains to be seen what an enraged Putin's response will be.....
The inherent portability of drones allows them to be easily concealed and transported behind enemy lines where they can then be launched by infiltrated enemy agents much nearer their targets - a technique used to good effect in the ongoing Iranian conflict.
We should thus expect drones to figure large in future conflicts. We should also beware of their potential for enabling mass terror attacks here in Europe...in my view it is merely a matter of time before an optically guided (i.e.unjammable) drone is used against a civilian target by a terrorist cell somewhere in Europe or the US. Events involving large gatherings of spectators (e.g sports stadia) would be particularly attractive targets for this type of group.
Is there a Perceived Need for
a Third World War ?
In the minds of Western Alliance leaders, almost certainly not – the domestic problems already demanding their immediate attention are legion, and are unlikely to be fully soluble any time soon. A prolonged mobilisation of NATO armies would tax our collective militaries severely, and be economically ruinous to its member countries as a whole. A look at the vast ongoing annual costs of NATO's arms supply to Ukraine should convince anyone of that, and its effects in reducing conventional weapon stockpiles have already taken their toll on our combat-readiness.
There is, however, an underlying
need to prevent the spread of Russian and Chinese dominance, particularly in
Europe, and prevent loss of control of the supplies of some scarce resources; the loss of access to key SE Asian manufacturing capacity and raw materials, for example, would be far more costly to the West than a limited conventional European war. Trump's 2nd presidency has already woken the EU and UK from their collective slumbers on the need for an effective home defence independent of the US 'umbrella' of old. The only questions now are: How much will it cost ? and How long will it take ?
What about the Eastern Alliance ?
Here things are less clear cut. Russia is probably the easiest of the two major players to predict in the short term at least, given that Putin has set his store by reconstituting as much of the original Soviet empire as possible (without, of course, the 'inconvenience' of the old Soviet communist Politburo element itself to challenge his personal dominance!). Putin also knows full well that the success of his regime also depends on taking control of the Ukraine’s mineral wealth, particularly its rare earth deposits, most of which lie in the disputed Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine. This is a less well-publicised, but nevertheless important factor in the rationale for his Ukraine 'special operation', and will figure large in any negotitiations he enters into with Trump.
Putin is therefore committed to continuing the Ukraine conflict to its end, or until his own regime is ousted by an exasperated Russian populace, or perhaps more likely by his own military - 'Ukraine or bust', in fact. Trump's re-election may lead to some form of 'deal', as he would call it, particularly if it gives him access to the Donbas region's resources, but it's more likely to result in a stand-off and more sanctions if Putin continues to refuse to 'play ball', as he will undoubtedly do for as long as Trump lets him.
The future for Russia itself ‘post-Putin’ appears grim at present, and we can probably predict that it would
be in no position to wage a full scale World War, given its much weakened
economic position and its self-induced legacy as a pariah state, even it does
manage to avoid a descent into a fractious and uneasy alliance of 'tribal' factions when Putin finally departs. Trump's attempts to bring Putin 'back into the fold' will quickly lose momentum after his presidency ends (assuming he doesn't manage to amend the constitution and elect himself president for life!).
The Chinese Question
China is an entirely different ‘kettle of fish’ and thus may pose more of an active threat to our way of life. Despite its own valiant
efforts in the 1990s and 2000s to stem population growth under the ‘one child’
policy, its already vast and still increasing population, with their much increased expectation of
prosperity, virtually demands that the leadership adopt an aggressively
expansionist policy – both economically and territorially.
The Chinese leadership recognised this from the start of the post-Mao era of economic development, and clearly set their sights on first winning the economic war, recognising that an outright military ‘victory’ would never be on the cards in the modern economically inter-dependent world.
To a large
extent the Chinese have succeeded in their quest for regional economic domination, now
that Putin’s Russia has virtually eclipsed itself as a major rival economy. India, although still a player, remains mired in uncontrollable population growth and rural poverty, and to add to its woes, has now also surpassed even China as the most populous nation on the planet. Given its demographic problems and the religious divide becoming accentuated by the hard-line Modi government, it is therefore unlikely to surpass China's economic or military superiority any time soon. It may inherit a short-lived boost as a result of Trump's trade war as an alternative to China, but this will not last. There is now also the possibility of a major eruption of its simmering conflict with its neighbour Pakistan over Kashmir.
On the global front, despite its current slowdown, it is likely that China will soon overtake the US as the world’s largest economy. China also realises that its dominance in the supply of rare earths and other essential components of modern electronics needs to be maintained as a bargaining chip – its ‘courting’ of African republics such as DRC who have substantial mineral deposits is directed towards this aim.
It also has its sights set on reclaiming Taiwan; this is partly ideological, but also stems from the fact that it currently has a dominant role in producing much of the world's microprocessor chip supplies. Although Beijing continues to justify its claim on Taiwan purely on territorial and ideological grounds, we should not ignore the fact that the real strategic importance of Taiwan's microprocessor industry will be a major driver in any decision on an invasion. A monopoly on semiconductor manufacture would be even more valuable to China than the economic boost Hong Kong provided for it in after the hand-over in the 1990s.
It is no coincidence that the US in particular is actively looking at ramping up its own chip production, and sourcing these vital elements of our electronic revolution from outside SE Asia. Trump and Silicon Valley Tech bosses anticipate more restricted availability of high-spec chips from SE Asia generally and Taiwan in particular. The importance of Taiwanese chip production may in fact represent a 'silver lining' of sorts for the island, in that the Chinese will want to leave the manufacturing infrastructure intact in any military campaign, so won't be able to 'flatten the island into submission' as Putin is clearly aiming to do in Ukraine. See below for more discussion on the likely fate of Taiwan.
China has also recognised in the mid 2010s that economic downturns in the West presented it with an golden opportunity to snap-up assets in these countries and offer financial support to infrastructure projects. Many western governments have now rather belatedly woken up to the danger and are now attempting to block acquisitions deemed to present significant strategic risk. They are already finding, sadly though, that much of the 'damage' is already done, with many western companies being 'riddled' with Chinese ownership, and/or debt commitments to the CCP.
However, the predicted 'rise and rise' in Chinese economic dominance is by no means a done deal and there are serious problems ahead for China. Although the Chinese economy has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past 20 years, it has become a victim of its own success in raising expectations of continual expansion, both internally and worldwide. The Chinese experience with Covid in 2022 has severely challenged this assumption, and the uncontrolled abandonment of all Covid restrictions without establishing adequate population immunity, compounded the problems by inducing a large increase in sickness and mortality. Although getting real data on the Covid epidemic out of China is like trying to get ‘blood out of a stone’, and official PRC figures are obviously gross underestimates, best estimates based on our Western experience with SARS-CoV-2 suggests that deaths in the millions are likely to have occurred from the first post-lockdown wave alone.
China is indeed fortunate that SARS-CoV-2 had such a low kill rate (ca 0.5%) - its predecessor, SARS-CoV which started in China in 2003, had an estimated fatality rate of 10-20%. They may not be so lucky with the next one....
Paradoxically, the pandemic and its aftermath might actually prove to have helped the Chinese economy in the medium term by removing a significant proportion of the elderly who are
economically inactive and heavily dependent on state support. Both the SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 (Covid19) epidemics actually originated in China, and statistically there is a good chance that the next pandemic will also start there, so the Chinese economy is unlikely to have a clear run of expansion from now on and may remain 'stop-start' for the foreseeable future. Its growth rate is already looking decidedly lack-lustre as compared with pre-Covid era and may never reach such remarkable heights again. Its economy is also mired in debt, largely as a result of the housing market 'bubble' which has now spectacularly burst, leaving a vast excess of unoccupied housing and a population that can't afford it.
All this suggests that Xi Jinping will be reluctant to become actively
involved in all-out military conflict with the West, at least until the after-effects of the Covid crisis in China has been overcome, and its demographic 'time bomb' and debt problems have both been dealt with.
That said, chairman Xi has personally committed himself to re-uniting Taiwan with the mainland. As discussed, this objective is not just based on personal pride or a desire for territorial integrity – Taiwan has the most advanced semiconductor industry in the world and much of our Western technology depends on free access to their marketplace. Taking back control of Taiwan would therefore represent a formidable economic weapon, in the short term at least, and may present a sufficient incentive for Xi to risk open conflict with the US over an invasion of the island. Despite the ongoing military posturing, however, it is more likely that a settlement will be sought with the West over Taiwan’s sovereignty. Given Hong Kong’s recent experience, however, the Taiwanese themselves may be difficult to convince.
My guess is that Xi will first try to infiltrate Taiwanese political circles and achieve a 'takeover at the top' rather than attempting a destructive, and politically risky, invasion. With a Beijing-sympathetic 'puppet' regime in place, a bloodless takeover would be much easier to defend, and any dissent could then be dealt with, as per Hong Kong. The CIA's recent warning that an attack on Taiwan may be imminent indicates US concern that this could become a potential flashpoint in the near future.
There are thus plenty of incentives for the Eastern Alliance to wage
war, although the form this might take is uncertain, and is likely to be delayed
until the medium term. China has been actively ‘currying favour’ economically with
non-aligned nations in Africa and the Third World generally for the past 20
years, and will continue to extend its reach wherever possible in pursuit of
its economic and diplomatic objectives. It will also expect a return on its
‘investments’ in the form of raw materials and support in any world conflict, military or
otherwise. China's emphasis will be on winning the economic war by whatever means necessary.
We in the West should therefore not rule out a global conflict in the
next 5 years, given that the stakes are increasing year by year. What's more in question is the nature of that conflict.
How might the Third World War be Fought ?
Contrary to popular belief, WW3 is unlikely to start (and therefore probably quickly end) with an all-out nuclear exchange. As we have seen, the risks of MAD following a full scale nuclear exchange are simply too great - for everyone.
In a sense, it is perhaps
fortunate that we have already experienced the disruptive effects of limited nuclear
release events, both from the WWII Japanese atomic aftermath and the more recent
nuclear accidents at 3-Mile Island, Fukoshima and Chernobyl. These have shown beyond doubt how easily we could render life as we know it impossible on our
planet, both locally and globally through long-range and persistent radioactive fallout.
Provided we can continue to avoid accidental triggering of a nuclear holocaust, it is much more likely that a ‘global’ conflict would start with a limited conventional war involving one of the superpowers, pulling in one or both of the opposing superpowers due to the effects of that conflict on the rest of the world.
Sounding familiar, perhaps ?
We may in fact have already witnessed the early stages of a 'proxy' WW3 in 2023, given
the effects of the Ukraine war on world food supplies and general economic
prosperity, and the increased polarisation between NATO and the ‘Eastern
Alliance’ formed recently between Russia and China. The instability the 2nd Trump presidency has already created in the 'world order' is likely to result in will only serve to encourage realignment.
The start of hostilities may, in the history books of the future, be seen as the second ‘official’ invasion of Ukrainian territory by Russian troops in February 2022. It could even be taken as an event further back in time. This would probably be be the initial covert participation of Russian troops in the Donbas region of Ukraine in support of 'the rebels' in 2014, although the exact date is more difficult to verify precisely. The subsequent annexation of Crimea later that year would be another obvious starting point. However we delineate it in future, a formal declaration of war may not be necessary to take us into the next stage of WW3, and a declaration might even be seen by the players in the conflict as restricting their options.
Assuming for a moment that we're not actually there yet, a full-scale global war would be more likely to develop in future from a regional
one, such as Ukraine, or via one of the periodic flare-ups of the ever-simmering Middle East standoff. The
majority of the subsequent ‘battle’ would probably not involve conventional
physical troop movements with 'set piece' battlefield interactions.
As already discussed, a much more effective way of bringing a modern state to its knees is to destroy its infrastructure, particularly its computer systems – and thereby to deny it access to its command and control systems. Although much devastation can be achieved by directed missile strikes, and more recently well-planned drone attacks, these are by their nature localised, and usually involve retaliative damage to the aggressor. As we have seen recently in the Ukrainian conflict, their effect on the civilian population also forfeits the ‘moral high ground’ with the world community, and condemns the perpetrator state to prolonged pariah status, and a painful and costly rehabilitation thereafter. It will be many years before Russia is accepted back into the international fold, and Israel will also find it difficult to recover from the Gaza conflict.
Such actions, particularly against civilians, also risks
rallying support for the cause both within the affected territories and outside
them. The ‘battle for hearts and minds’ should not be discounted as an
important part of any non-nuclear conflict, especially a global one.
As electronic warfare becomes more sophisticated and effective, it’s likely that much of the ‘battlefield’ will transfer to the ether. This is because even a limited nuclear exchange would be devastating on a regional scale, and it would be almost impossible to avoid it going global. Despite the recent advances in algorithmic prediction and monitoring, conventional battlefield warfare where the two sides are evenly matched quickly becomes bogged down – it is also horrendously expensive, given the cost of modern weaponry and its associated technology. Both the Russian and Israeli experiences of the past three years have already proved that. The logistic difficulties associated with moving large numbers of troops even short distances also provide a powerful disincentive.
To illustrate the extent of the cost, we have
only to consider the financial effects of the Ukraine conflict so far. In the
first 18 months of the war, the West poured many billions into weapons for
Ukraine, and continue to do so in response to Zelensky's incessant entreaties. While the start of a Trump 2nd presidency has already produced a degree of 'resupply drag' at present, Europe has woken up to the imminent danger a Russian victory in Ukraine would represent to their territory, and even Trump would probably be forced to bow to NATO pressure if this were on the cards. Putin's economy is still at risk of meltdown and only Russia’s copious oil and gas reserves, and the revenues they
generate from the remaining buyers who are still willing to defy sanctions, have saved him from bankruptcy in the
face of his extensive troop and weapon losses – and the attritional effects of sanctions on Russia's economy. A recent report indicates that the Russian economy is likely to be severely challenged if the war continues through 2025, due primarily to the rapid fall in the value of the rouble and the ensuing debt crisis that would precipitate. It's unlikely in this that China would be able to bail out its erstwhile ally if this happens. Putin is therefore going 'hell for leather' while he can to maximise the area of Ukraine his army occupies before a peace settlement becomes imperative as his economy tanks.
Thus, arguably, the only viable option for an autocratic leader seeking world dominance is to seize
electronic control and hold the enemy to ransom. This method has the added
advantage that infrastructure is not destroyed on either side, and resources
are not squandered in fruitless military strikes. And such a strategy will remain perfectly feasible
as long as we continue to depend on universal open connectivity via the internet and the phone networks to enable
our way of life.
The recent numerous examples of organised hacker groups brazenly disrupting UK
businesses with ransomware attacks merely highlights our lack of
resilience in the west generally, and will hopefully spur on the authorities to tackle the
problem head on. The message is a clear one - tighten up your systems or face business meltdown.
An indication of active EW development which has surfaced recently is a report that Putin is developing space-based nuclear capability. This is distinct from Reagan's 1980s 'star wars' technology in that it is aimed at taking out satellites rather than deploying multiple warheads aimed at terrestrial targets. As discussed, command and control systems, whether civilian or military all rely heavily on satellite comms, particularly GPS. Putin's thinking may be that a selective pre-emptive strike on key western satellite technology could force major territorial concessions from NATO as an alternative to full scale nuclear war, and allow him to achieve his stated goal of re-establishing the 'Russian empire'. The West should be concerned here - at the very least, nuclear explosions in near earth orbit would present a major hazard to operational hardware - for everyone - and it would be difficult to recover from this type of 'space vandalism' since the resulting highly radioactive orbital debris would remain in place for thousands of years and be virtually impossible to clear away.
There are plenty of unresolved issues that could 'drive' a global conflict, not the least of which is depletion of resources and continued unfettered population growth. We should not therefore assume it will never happen.
We may perhaps take a crumb of comfort from the fact that both nuclear and conventional 'set piece' military conflicts are now widely acknowledged to be essentially unwinnable. The alliance which manages to win the electronic war, without devastating its own and its opponent’s territory, however, is likely to take the prize – perhaps without even firing a shot….we must ensure we in the West don't end up on the losing side through our own inaction.
Final thoughts:
1) Will we ever manage to abolish war ?
As stated in the opening paragraph, Homo Sapiens as a species has an incurable 'addiction to war', and we should probably regard this as the default state, pending long-term evolutionary change.
History readily bears this out - military conflict is virtually continuous somewhere in the world, and has been since records began. Proxy wars have become the 'staple' method of waging war since the dawn of the nuclear age, given the implications of a full scale global nuclear conflict for our species' survival.
2|) How does Artificial Intelligence (AI) figure in warfare to come ?
The advent and rapid development of AI is likely to widen the scope of warfare again by removing or even replacing the battlefield element with strategic military and economic objectives. Some (rather naively) believe that AI will solve many of our problems as a society and make us all less vulnerable to the vagaries of human error. If anything, however, it will increase our vulnerability. AI is a remarkable tool in the right hands, but the complex algorithms needed to power it are understood by only a few thousand souls at most, and the rest of us are dependent on their ability (and willingness) to configure and control AI systems properly. By its very nature, A is self-educating, and can develop its internal resources independently of human control, which means that it is potentially uncontrollable.
The recent widespread computer systems meltdown as a result of a single errant cyber-security patch should already have convinced us of our vulnerability in this respect. This augurs ill for military applications - progressive removal of the human element from the equation may make it more, rather than less, likely that a nuclear release will be triggered in error (or even by design if the algorithm decides it's the best option!).
If AI falls into the wrong hands, things could, and probably will, go badly. See blog on AI for more details of the advantages...and the perils, of AI. We have only to look at the brazenness of recent ransomware attacks to realise the enemy is all around us in cyberspace, often operating very efficiently from his or her teenage bedroom while their parents are blissfully unaware of their 'precious' offspring's disruptive activities against the society that has nurtured his (/her) existence.
One thing is certain - only a wholesale evolutionary change in the human psyche would remove the impetus for tribalism and war within us; we know that major evolutionary change takes hundreds if not thousands of generations to achieve - and requires active selection pressure to drive it. As a species, on present performance we simply don't have that long, so our survival is likely to be in the hands of the fates, and is by no means assured. A look at our position in the universe should convince us that our precious and very limited habitable biosphere is all we'll ever have to support us.
Let's hope we can use our (human) 'intelligence' to avoid ruining it.....
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Update 2.12.24: Recent news reports indicate that the sort of clandestine disruptive operations against western interests predicted in previous analyses may be already underway.
Putin has always been at pains to show the west how long his reach is when it comes to 'getting even' with any Russian who defies his will; the Salisbury poisoning episode is perhaps the most notable example of this within our own borders.
In recent years operations designed to damage to infrastructure have also started to emerge. The Nordstream pipeline incident in 2022 was one of the first, and was almost certainly sabotage by Russian agents ordered by Putin to show his displeasure at western sanctions on Gazprom sales. The Russian 'shadow' fleet, whose main role is illicit supplies of russian oil to any state willing to evade sanctions, has already been implicated in destruction of undersea communication cables in the Baltic.
More recently, following the first use of US and UK cruise missiles by Ukraine against targets within Russia, there have been a spate of incidents (both cyber-operations and physical) ascribed to both Russian and Chinese agents. These were also designed to compromise western infrastructure and thereby disrupt our way of life. We should expect these to continue, and we need to develop ways to make our infrastructure less vulnerable.
WW3 has almost certainly already begun - only time will tell whether we all manage to survive it......
More updates to follow in due course.
First published 23.2.23
Updated 17.6.25
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