Wargame 2033: The future of War, blackmirror style…
2033, it’s 11pm Joan is walking in the streets of a modern metropole , she’s on her way to a late concert. Putting her mobile AR glasses on she easily finds her way while reading about history her favorite subjects; especially since the recent debates and tensions rising.
She loves using her new AR galsses even though she still have her old phone. She especially use its live translation feature that perfectly translates any language into live subtitles, many of her friends comes from all around the world and it has been a life changer allowing them to communicate in 10 different languages.
As she follows the direction to the concert something odd happens, her glasses shows an error: “GPS signal not found” She immediately tries to restart her new glasses, while also noticing that everyone around her seems to have the same issue. She picks up her phone to check the news, but her 5G signal has no bars, nothing seems to work. Someone else comes to her, and confirm that the problem seems to be local. She laugh it out, thinking of this old south park episode where everyone ran in terror because the Internet went down.
She asks people around her if they know the location of the concert and she continues her path enjoying reconnecting to this old way when people used to have paper maps. Her phone starts making a terrible noise, she recognize an Amber Alert, an echo of the same irritating noise is happening as far as she can see, everyone is looking at the message sent by the presidency.
“from the presidency: Imminent Invasion, take cover, we estimate you have 10 minutes, go to the closest building underground, lock doors and duck under strong structure. We will prevail!”
Terrorized Joan is now with 20 other people who took shelter in the 24/7 gas station nearby. The group agrees to go out after 3h. The streets are dark and full of a lost crowd, it is also strangely quiet, too quiet.
As she walks back home, she noticed some kind of a buzzing noise coming from far away, the buzzing is heading towards her fast. Her instinct tells her to run as fast as she can back to a shelter, but all doors are now closed, the buzzing is now few meters away, she instinctively turns back and sees nothing but the buzz is clearly there. Then a shock of pain hits her, it’s her neck, she collapses...
What happened to Joan?
1. The element of surprise thanks to Quantum based encryption
A modern impossible to solve Enigma
2. Satellites neutralization
Spying and neutralizing satellites will most likely be a big part of how modern warfare should start..
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45448261
3. Attacking the internet / electric network
There are many ways this could happen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse
4. Amber alert
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Hawaii_false_missile_alert
5. Swarm of drones and AI
Here is a good fictionized version too
6. Weaponized Virus
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-biological-weaons-commentary-idUSKBN17L1SZ
7. And more
https://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2018/10/us_military_insects_could_weap.html
Conclusion
It is of course difficult to predict the future of Warfare, as we shift from conventional to non conventional / modern warfare. Charles de Gaulle ( famously wrote about the modernization of armies in 1930s stating the importance of tanks vs classic infantry and WWI type of war. He was proven right when Hitler attacked France and England wiping out both armies following a BlitzKrieg strategy powered by tanks and aviation, a novelty for that time that surprised every European armies.
The same goes in anciant history when Sparta famously defendend with less men the Persian invasions thanks to far more advance weapons made of metal. The USA and later USSR took over by leveraging Nuclear weapons as a potential retaliation. We are now moving to the next level, where AI and other technology advance will power war and this is not a fiction: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/06/stephen-hawking-ai-could-be-worst-event-in-civilization.html.
— Franck
