Washington Post columnist David Ignatius writes that a big topic of conversation at the Aspen Strategy Group, which annually brings together top-level current and former national security officials, and some journalists, to discuss defense and foreign policy, was the dawning era of high-tech combat. According to Ignatius, the big takeaway was the the future of warfare is now, and China is set to dominate it.
The new generation of combat systems are powered by artificial intelligence, cyberweapons and robots that can operate on land, sea and air. Meanwhile, America’s military is still largely based in weapons of the past, like aircraft carriers, submarines and fighter jets, and though superbly engineered, they are no match to advanced technology.
“We have a small number of exquisite, expensive, manned, hard-to-replace systems that would have been familiar to Dwight D. Eisenhower. They are being overtaken by advanced technology,” argued Christian Brose, staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to The Post.
Brose’s argument is that the Pentagon instead needs to obtain a large number of “inexpensive, unmanned, expendable, autonomous systems that can survive in the new electronic battlespace and overwhelm any potential adversary.”
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