The purpose of war has remained constant since time immemorial. Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously stated, “War is merely a wrestling match on an extensive scale, an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will”. Nevertheless, the ways and means to achieve such goals have transformed through the course of history, spurred mainly by evolution in the technological realm. There have been attempts to capture and categorise these changes through different analytical frameworks, but the influence of technology and geopolitics forms a deadly mix, making future warfare far more complex.
The Future Warfare and Technologies: Issues and Strategies, a collection of 18 essays, explores the challenging path ahead in terms of technological interface with emerging trends in warfare. There are issues of uneven technological development trajectories, which have influenced global governance debates on critical and emerging technologies, the insufficiencies and vagueness of existing governance measures, and the integration of many of these technologies in conventional military operations, all of which are examined in a nuanced manner. This volume is merely an attempt at unpacking some of the critical technologies in the context of changing warfare.
Please find versions for e-readers here and a pdf here.
Introduction
General Strategic Perspectives
1 The Future of Joint Operations in a Technology-Intensive Battlefield: An Indian Perspective by Arjun Subramaniam
2 Blast from the Past: Return of High-intensity Warfare? by Sameer Patil
3 Can Economic Sanctions Replace Forces in Modern Warfare? by Kazuto Suzuki
4 Strategic Instability Across Domains by Wilfred Wan and Nivedita Raju
5 The Next Generation of Warfare: Grey Zone Operations by Amarjit Singh
6 Cyberattacks Against Satellites by Non-State Actors: The Attribution Problem by Ashok G.V.
7 Future of Warfare in the Changing Technological Context: An Indian Military Perspective by Raj Shukla
Strategic and Tactical Perspectives on Technologies
8 AI and the Rise of Autonomous Weapons by Lieutenant General Ravindra Singh Panwar
9 The Role of Nuclear Weapons in Future Wars by Manpreet Sethi
10 The Future of Cyber Warfare in the Indo-Pacific by Bart Hogeveen
11 The Use and Potential of Cyber Weapons in Contemporary and Future Conflict by Noëlle van der Waag-Cowling, Brett van Niekerk, and Trishana Ramluckan
12 Quantum Technology in Future Warfare: What is on the Horizon? by Michal Křelina
13 Gene Editing and the Need to Reevaluate Bioweapons by Shambhavi Naik
14 War on the High Frontier by Malcolm Davis
15 Space and Future Warfare: Are We Heading Towards ‘Star Wars’? by Almudena Azcárate Ortega
Implications Perspectives
16 The Legal Constraints of Cyber Operations in Armed Conflicts by Kubo Mačák and Laurent Gisel
17 Lawfare in China’s Hybrid Warfare Against Taiwan by Jyun-yi Lee
18 Emerging Technologies and their Impact on National Strategies by Samyak Rai Leekha, Pulkit Mohan, and Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan
About the Editor and Authors