War in 2035
War will never look the same again
The Ukraine war pushed us into a new era, the era of robots. The Global War On Terror showed us what one side with sophisticated drones can do, but this is the first time we’ve seen drones used by both sides in a real way. The attack on the Kerch bridge with surface drones (drone boats) solidified that and it’s only going to get more interesting.
AI Assistants
The US Airforce is working on AI assistants, no not ChapGPT mf. They call it Collaborative Combat Aircraft, basically AI drone assistants that help pilots with their missions. You can’t fit everything you would want on to one fighter jet, they have to be a certain size and weight or risk sacrificing maneuverability. If you had your own AI drones flying around with you though. One could carry extra fuel for you, one could have extra missiles, one could jam enemy systems for you. The possibilities are endless with that, plus these drones could theoretically be used as sacrificial pieces for the pilot. Whether that’s blocking an incoming missile or engaging enemy air defense sites on your behalf.
Are your eyes starting to open now? War in 2035 looks a lot different huh? The AI movement is not just about ChatGPT. Let’s not even get started on the AI UAV swarm technology they’re working on where each individual drone is not controlled in itself but instead it shares a collective.
Robots in the Ocean?
We talk about drone boats but people never really talk about drone submarines. The US contractors are working on undersea drones that can be launched and recovered by submarines and do things like:
Reconnaissance
Mine countermeasures
Anti-submarine warfare
Communication/navigation network nodes
Payload delivery (aka probably suicide into targets)
Some of them will be very small and launch from subs but some will be very large depending on the mission.
Augmented Reality
Earlier this year apple demonstrated their augmented reality glasses. Ever since that day my mind started racing on the military applications of it. I know F35 pilots already use AR but there’s nothing for ground fighters yet. Imagine snipers having their sights come up right in their goggles instead of having to look through it. Guys using regular riffles can high a bright dot that shows them exactly where it’s pointed, like a first person shooter game. Imagine tank/fighting vehicle operators having 100% better field of vision. Militaries have experimented with AR for ground troops before but it was all kind of a goofy thing until now. If apple can get this right, I’m sure they will. The possibilities for military use with this tech is endless.
Imagine being able to throw up a tiny reconnaissance UAV and immediately see what it sees without having to switch goggles. With the help of AI it can probably just spot enemies for you and highlight them on your goggles. If you’re familiar with shooter games, this would be like a wallhack. Also, imagine having the ability to toggle and see what your teammate sees.
Body Enhancements
Yes I know performance enhancing drugs are already a thing but I wonder why militaries don’t experiment with them. Even though some guys already do them it’s still illegal in the US military to do steroids. Because of sports looking down on them and people abusing them, PEDs have an unfair reputation in the public. If used properly they can enable warfighters to do amazing things like recover faster that way you can shorten training time because they need less rest periods. So you can spit out way more special operators then you probably could normally. Most people in the US are fat, you can have fresh recruits in fat camp and shredded in no time. Again I should have probably consulted
on this so take some of this with a grain of salt. With things like blood doping soldiers can have more endurance, based on their mission sets of course. We always talk about weapon enhancements but body enhancements are taboo. Here’s how I think it’ll happen, once one country starts a PED program for their military and they end up being super successful, everyone will want to do it too so they can stay competitive. It seems to be the cycle of life.
This week I wanted to make the article a bit more fun, so here it is. What do you guys think war 12 years from now in 2035 looks like?