(Editor’s Note: The Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to present our first international guest blog post from Mr. Hal Wilson of Great Britain. His post provides us with an international perspective of how speed, scope, and convergence — addressed earlier this month in blog post 22 — will affect our allies’ efforts to modernize military capabilities. It also emphasizes the necessity of bi- and multi-lateral cooperation in developing future military technologies and the importance of closely integrated coalitions in preparing for a robust common defense.)
In the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, for example, Russian cyber operations coordinated attacks against Ukrainian artillery, in just one case of a “really effective integration of all these [cyber] capabilities with kinetic measures.” 2 To translate into plain English, Russia has successfully combined traditional weapons of land warfare (such as artillery) 
with the new potential of cyber warfare. Such capabilities will only advance and proliferate in coming decades: sooner or later, they will surely be used in anger against British forces.
Britain’s answer to both the questions of future costs and threats should be simple. Specifically, Britain and its allies should deploy seed financing for future key capabilities. Small investment projects across industry, focusing on disruptive technologies, could deliver outsized dividends – not least assuring the resilience of key supply chains at home, as well as of future forces when deployed.
Fortunately, a recent Ministry of Defence policy paper suggests an “increased interest in the resilience and competitiveness of supply chains…” Similarly, British seed-corn investments are already yielding some notable successes: in early 2017, a £30m contract was passed to the Dragonfire Consortium – a group of leading British aerospace firms 
That said, a devil’s advocate will rightly argue such efforts alone are not enough.
Instead, Britain will have to coordinate with its allies for future cost synergies. Yet the litany of failures in recent pan-European defence acquisition highlights ample risks of dealing with multiple cost-shy European partners. 
More ambitiously, British industry is supporting the future Turkish stealth fighter programme, intended for service through to the 2070s. 
Britain stands to gain plenty by these steps – and much to lose by ignoring them. But the question remains: will today’s leadership have the foresight to consider tomorrow?
For more on the challenges facing the British Defense Establishment, please see Defense Cuts Leave Britain Vulnerable to Russia, Army Chief Says.
Hal Wilson has been published by the Small Wars Journal, and has written finalist entries for fiction contests with the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, as well as the Atlantic Council’s Art of the Future Project. Hal graduated with first-class honours in War Studies and History from King’s College, London, and is studying an MA on the Great War. He lives in Britain, and works in the aerospace industry.
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1 The Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Future Warfare, p.14
2 Keir Giles, Handbook of Russian Information Warfare, (Rome: NATO Defence College, 2016), p.68
3 Industry for Defence and a Prosperous Britain: Refreshing Defence Industrial Policy, (2017) p.29
The Mad Scientist 
War, intrinsic to the human condition, will persist as a fundamentally human activity, and because human nature is in turn enduring, so too is the nature of war. 
Similarly, the U.S. has enduring interests out to 2050, but we can anticipate an accelerating collision of interests as peer competitors assert interests of their own, as do a wider range of threats including Violent Extremist Organizations (VEOs) and super-empowered individuals.
– Geography. Although we tend to view geography as somewhat immutable, even geography will not escape the impact of a global population that will have increased from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 9.5 billion in 2050. Development and climate change will alter even the fundamentals of geography, open arctic sea routes, and raise sea levels at the littorals. Cities will physically cover large areas of the globe with complex urban sprawl and incorporate a global population that will be 66% urbanized. 
Some megacities will be more important politically and economically than many nation-states; others will out-grow their host state. The convergence of more information, more people, together with less community cohesion, state resources, and governance threaten rampant poverty, violence and pollution: a breeding ground for discontent and anger among an increasingly aware yet still dis-empowered population.
– Demographics. The increase in global population will be far from even: Africa’s population will rise, Europe’s will decline, as will East Asia, but at a lower rate. European and Asian population average ages will increase while Africa stays young. The disparate growth rates and average ages will drive the direction of migration, unemployment trends, and the availability (and inclination) of individuals fit for military service.
and this relative improvement will not occur evenly across the globe; the bottom 30% will not see any improvement in their relative economic position. Relative deprivation drives instability; not deprivation per se – and in a world increasingly connected regardless of income level, the deprived will be painfully aware of their relative status.
“non-renewable” resource. Increasing scarcity may drive conflict. Water stress is already high in many portions of the globe, wide-spread water shortages are probable in 2050, with billions potentially impacted.
In 2016, the number of net food importing countries is growing while food price volatility is increasing. This scarcity – together with that of water — will also almost certainly create future migratory pressures and mass population movements, with destabilizing results in both the donor and recipient regions. 
– Resource Competition. Growing and shifting populations will increasingly compete for water, food, fossil fuels, and unique mineral resources.
– Mass Migration. The National Intelligence Council predicts that 2030 will be characterized as the “new age of migration.” Driven by climate change, water and food scarcity, uneven economic opportunity, and political and social insecurity, 
mass migration will pose a significant governance challenge to receiving states as these migrants concentrate predominantly in urban areas. Immigration can result in beneficial, synergistic blending of cultures, ethnicities, and ideologies as groups assimilate into their new region; alternately disparate cultures, ethnic tensions and stigmatizing stereotypes can force people into small enclaves, pockets and neighborhoods of ethnically homogenous migrants. 
These isolated areas often suffer from less capable governance including law enforcement, sanitation services, and institutional education opportunities that lag behind most of the host country. The key is the rate at which an immigrant population can be assimilated; if that rate is exceeded, then the impact is destabilizing.
“… the study concluded that autonomy will deliver substantial operational value across an increasingly diverse array of DoD missions, but the DoD must move more rapidly to realize this value. Allies and adversaries alike also have access to rapid technological advances occurring globally. In short, speed matters—in two distinct dimensions. First, autonomy can increase decision speed, enabling the U.S. to act inside an adversary’s operations cycle. Secondly, ongoing rapid transition of autonomy into warfighting capabilities is vital if the U.S. is to sustain military advantage.” — DSB Summer Study on Autonomy, June 2016 (p. 3)
Scope. It may be necessary to increase not only the pace but also the scope of these decisions if these technologies generate the “extreme future” characterized by Mad Scientist Dr. James Canton as “hacking life” / “hacking matter” / “hacking the planet.” In short, no aspect of our current existence will remain untouched. Robotics, artificial intelligence, and autonomy – far from narrow topics – are closely linked to a broad range of enabling / adjunct technologies identified by Mad Scientists, to include:
Co-Evolution. Clearly humans and these technologies are destined to co-evolve. Humans will be augmented in many ways: physically, via exoskeletons; perceptionally, via direct sensor inputs; genetically, via AI-enabled gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR; and cognitively via AI “COGs” and “Cogni-ceuticals.” 
Human reality will be a “blended” one in which physical and digital environments, media and interactions are woven together in a seamless integration of the virtual and the physical. As daunting – and worrisome – as these technological developments might seem, there will be an equally daunting challenge in the co-evolution between man and machine: the co-evolution of trust.
Trusted man-machine collaboration will require validation of system competence, a process that will take our legacy test and verification procedures far beyond their current limitations. Humans will expect autonomy to be nonetheless “directable,” and will expect autonomous systems to be able to explain the logic for their behavior, regardless of the complexity of the deep neural networks that motivate it. These technologies in turn must be able to adapt to user abilities and preferences, and attain some level of human awareness (e.g., cognitive, physiological, emotional state, situational knowledge, intent recognition). 
Even today, unmanned combat systems can be controlled from home installations — a trend that only will increase in the future. Technological integration and advancement of future bases — artificial intelligence, big data, IoT, power generation — will also present tremendous opportunities in areas such as manufacturing, power grids, maintenance, expeditionary capability, and quality of life. 
This comes down to whether we want to be an organization like Netflix — embracing the digital revolution to create a new business model and transforming the way consumers obtain video content (away from legacy video box stores, initially to DVDs ordered on-line and received via the U.S. Postal Service, then to streaming original content on-demand); or like Kodak — developing a digital camera in 1975, but dropping it out of fear that it threatened their then lucrative analog film business, thereby missing the digital media wave that would forever change their business model.
Netflix was future ready, while Kodak writhed in bankruptcy and suffered a slow, painful decline.
• How does our organization transform to face challenges or opportunities in a rapidly evolving operational environment?
• How does our organization build, retain, and regain decisive advantage in relation to our competitors?
• How does our organization develop the ability to quickly adapt to emerging trends and traditional and non-traditional competitors’ actions?