Conflict Going Unconventional

More lower-level conflict perhaps captures less notice than big high-profile conflict – the current Russia-Ukraine conflict being a case in point. Yet that lower-level conflict is increasing, and the reports captured it. Conflict is perhaps more of an outcome of other drivers in the sense that failures or shortcomings in governance, social relations, economics, resources, and the environment create conditions conducive to conflict. The inclusion of cybersecurity is important as well, as it too reflects the growing importance of technology in general, and I/T and virtual applications in particular.

Future of Government in 2030 by eRepublic Magazine. The biggest trends right now are disinformation and bad actors — people who want to harm others and interfere with other countries’ infrastructure and elections. All these problems that are caused by a global and open Internet are going to shape the Internet over the next decade, as countries try to respond. Some will be responding because they want to protect their citizens, and some will be responding because they want to protect their regimes.

Future of Government in 2030 by eRepublic Magazine. Our voting system is incredibly ripe for disruption. If governments moved their records to a blockchain, we could dramatically improve the voting process by ensuring that every vote is counted while simultaneously cutting down on voter fraud. It could also make voting much easier, removing the need for people to manually queue up at a polling station. If we can shop online, why shouldn’t we be able to vote online, too? Especially if we’re able to use blockchain to make digital voting fairer and more tamper-proof than the existing system.

Non-ferrous Metals Manufacturing: Vision for 2050 and Actions Needed by the European Commission Joint Research Centre. Political, economic, and financial instabilities in countries where raw materials are produced, as well as natural disasters, make costs of resources fluctuate.

African Futures 2035: Key Trends by the Journal of Futures Studies. Conflict is down from the 90s, but the demographics and types of violent conflicts are changing. “Increasingly political and communal militias and unidentified armed groups dominate.”

Driving Forces Cards 2035 by the Singapore Government Centre for Strategic Futures. Information is more valuable than ever, harder for governments to control and will reshape state-market-society relations.

GAO 2018-2023 Strategic Plan: Trends Affecting Government and Society by US Government Accountability Office. Cyber threats are challenging public trust in institutions and governance. Home-grown violent extremists remainan unpredictable terror threat. Social media is allowing extremists to find each other and meet—and gives them a platform for violent ideas. Major powers (e.g., Russia, China, and the United States) increasingly have competing interests. North Korea and Iran threaten regional and global order. Cyberattacks may be used against the United States and its allies to counter military advantages. The global threat from terrorism, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), will remain geographically diverse and multifaceted.

Geostrategic Cluster Findings – The Future of Asia: Implications for Canada by Policy Horizons Canada. Non-traditional security threats are becoming increasingly complex and combining in new ways that could overwhelm the ability of some Asian governments to deal with them, potentially compromising regional stability.

Future of Government in 2030 by eRepublic Magazine. If we don’t increase international and U.S. internal collaboration to make cybercrime less lucrative, our states and cities will be decimated by the costs. The digital threats will continue to grow, so we can’t let our guard down.

Geostrategic Cluster Findings – The Future of Asia: Implications for Canada by Policy Horizons Canada. As cyberspace becomes a new battlefront for espionage and military conflict, the Internet could become fragmented or insecure for financial transactions and e-commerce.

The Future of Conflict in an Age of Climate Extremes by Global Governance Futures. We identified four key trends that pervade both of our scenarios for the years 2035: 1) decreasing volumes of drinking water for large parts of the world; 2) the growing political and economic power of China; 3) increasing urbanization across high- and middle-income economies; and 4) (violent and non-violent) conflict, contestation and cooperation between states.

Exploring Europe's capability requirements for 2035 and beyond by Rand. A number of societal factors may increase society’s vulnerability to unrest and could aggravate tensions leading to non-armed and armed conflicts. Society may become increasingly polarised along political, social, religious, gender, population, racial, urban–rural, age and other divisions, exacerbating the pressures on welfare systems caused by the continuous population decline in Europe and increased urbanisation. Furthermore, increased empowerment of individuals may result in a decline of trust in government and defence and security forces.

Exploring Europe's capability requirements for 2035 and beyond by Rand. Future technological developments are likely to be ‘game-changing’ for society; for example, increased computing power, the widespread use of artificial intelligence (AI) and further developments in autonomous systems and human–machine inter-faces may change individual, intra-national and international interactions in many domains.

Exploring Europe's capability requirements for 2035 and beyond by Rand. While technological advances may help to address key military capabilities, they may also create new security vulnerabilities and cause ethical, moral and legal concerns. Continuous technological developments may also create a misleading perception among populations and decision makers that technologies can provide a solution to all problems, which could lead to an overreliance on them. Communication technologies may also alter high-level strategic political and military decision making by making them increasingly influenced by individual opinions. Moreover, due to the global growth of technology, technologies such as cyber-based tools, non-lethal weapons, bio-engineered weapons and weapons of mass destruction may become more affordable and increasingly become part of adversary’s arsenals.

Exploring Europe's capability requirements for 2035 and beyond by Rand. Due to the global growth of technology, technologies such as cyber-based tools, non-lethal weapons, bio-engineered weapons and weapons of mass destruction may become more affordable and increasingly become part of adversary’s arsenals.

Exploring Europe's capability requirements for 2035 and beyond by Rand. While the overall role and influence of the state may diminish due to the increasing power and influence of the individual and of non-governmental and commercial organisations, state actors are still expected to continue to be major players in international and regional security and defence. Guaranteeing the territorial defence and sovereignty of a country will continue to be the main responsibility of a state and its armed forces. Depending on the national arrangements, armed forces are likely to become more involved in supporting the resilience of a country’s civilian security sector and society as a whole.

Exploring Europe's capability requirements for 2035 and beyond by Rand. Some countries in Europe and elsewhere may choose to gradually outsource military functions to private security and military companies (PSMCs) due to economic and demographic reasons and the increased cost of specialised systems. This may, however, pose legal challenges and issues related to the chain of command, further decrease the role of the state as a provider of security and erode public control over armed forces.

Exploring Europe's capability requirements for 2035 and beyond by Rand. Adversarial non-state actors will continue to have a significant role in conflicts and may include groups of different actors ranging from ideologically motivated terrorist organisations and rebel groups to multinational corporations, PSMCs and criminal organisations with varied capabilities. These actors may also act as state proxies through projecting their political influence, which could add confusion to the crowded environment.

Exploring Europe's capability requirements for 2035 and beyond by Rand. The overall character of war is unpredictable and continuously evolving; new technologies will most probably not be able to eliminate the fog of war. Future conflicts are likely to be characterised by a disintegration of the border between conventional and unconventional or asymmetric warfare and between the states of war and peace. While the possibility of interstate conflicts will continue to exist, conflicts may include elements of hybrid warfare, proxy wars, use of cyber capabilities and use of strategic attacks to disrupt critical infrastructure, particularly in areas that highly value data integrity, such as financial services. At the same time, war will retain its fundamental nature as a violent and purposeful activity.

Global Foresight 2022 by the Atlantic Council. The risk of conflict extends beyond growing Sino-US tensions. In today’s multipolar order, governments see battlefields as fertile grounds to shape balances of power, advance their economic agendas, or aid parties to the conflict that are more aligned with their national security interests. Turkey, Russia, and Iran, for instance, are jockeying for expanded influence in such conflicts. In part because of this internationalization of intrastate conflicts, fighting is increasingly protracted, intense, and complex, to the detriment of civilians.

Global Foresight 2022 by the UK Government Office for Science]. Next generation photonics could offer greater online security for digital networks by exploiting quantum effects. In the simplest terms, quantum-based technologies would reveal whether transmitted data had been intercepted or viewed by unintended parties. ====Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning==== [[library:the_impact_of_new_and_emerging_technologies_on_the_cyber_threat_landscape_and_their_implications_for_nato|The Impact of New and Emerging Technologies on the Cyber Threat Landscape and Their Implications for NATO by Rand Europe. Artificial Intelligence in general, and Machine Learning in particular, could be used to: 1) to automate cyberattacks; 2) analyse large, complex real-time data sets to predict or support strategic, operational and tactical decision making; 3) cause adversaries' Machine Learning models to behave in unintended ways, and 4) generate deepfakes for propaganda or covert purposes.

The Impact of New and Emerging Technologies on the Cyber Threat Landscape and Their Implications for NATO by Rand Europe. The most significant impact on the cyber threat landscape will stem from the complex interaction and combination of new and existing technologies and broader interplay with the socio-technological environment. The pervasiveness that new and emerging technologies will achieve will span defence, security, critical infrastructure and the overall day-to-day functioning of societies. It may also result in cascading effects which will be difficult to predict or mitigate in increasingly complex and non-linear systems.

Caribbean 2030 Trends by Global Americans. Several countries across the region face extremely high rates of violent crime, to the extent that it has been deemed “comparable to countries in armed conflict.” These rates have continued to rise in recent years and pose a major challenge to the domestic stability and economic growth of these countries.

Central America 2030 Trends by Global Americans. Transnational crime and security remain Central America’s biggest threat—a threat that is spilling outside the region’s borders, affecting Mexico and the United States.

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