Something WICKED This Way Comes: The Future Singularity of Asymmetric Warfare Innovations

Something WICKED This Way Comes: The Future Singularity of Asymmetric Warfare Innovations

Robert J. Bunker

Author’s note: This short essay provides a projection of the future operational environment (2035-2050)—through the fictional Project WICKED—and its impact on US Army warfighting through the lens of Fourth Epoch War theory. This OSINT fusion-based theory has been utilized since the early 1990s to support US LE, MIL, and GOV activities including Minerva (DoD), Futures Working Group (FBI/PFI), and Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning Group (LA Sheriff’s) programs.

The Nuevo-Krasnovian armored formation was decimated before early warning systems even detected an attack had begun. Armed ground and air droids stealthily and quickly swarmed the unit in the dead of night from all sides, hitting it with a flurry of standoff munitions, kamikaze attacks, and directed energy and hyperkinetic fires then vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The specter of burning tanks and broken crewmembers bore graphic testament to another success of the US Army’s new distributed AI battle management system (Project WICKED). Since 2043, prototypes incorporating this system were integrated with innovations in electrical power generation and management and five-dimensional (inter-dimensional domain reality) fusion. The system was finalized in 2049 with the human neural interface allowing mandated human on-the loop C² monitoring of AI targeting and engagement without excessive OODA loop degradation—thus passing JAG review for ‘conduct of war’ compliance. ‘Something wicked’ had indeed appeared—and it had UNITED STATES PROPERTY stamped upon it. 

The modern world and dominance of conventional (symmetric) warfighting systems operated by human combatants—main battle tanks, capital warships, fighters and strategic bombers—is rapidly approaching its twilight. This ‘gold standard’ of military innovation and technology is completing its functional weapons systems life cycle as it transitions from institutionalized to ritualized usage on the more advanced mid-21^st century battlefield. This battlefield has disparate elements now readily recognizable and the mosaic forming portends a form of conflict inherently alien to our modern comprehension of state-on-state warfighting.   

Asymmetric Warfare Innovations

While asymmetric warfare is typically viewed as unorthodox and even insurgent in approach—leveraging weakness against a superior force using innovative applications of technology and tactics—it also possesses an advanced warfighting component. This is the circumstance behind the contemporary suite of asymmetric warfare innovations, derived from a synthesis of technology and CONOPS (concepts of operations), now forming. However, the disruptive innovation taking place is a level of magnitude above that of 1920s-1930s revolution in military affairs (RMA) perceptions. That level of operational change, resulting in blitzkrieg tactics, carrier operations, et al., existed within the modern paradigm of warfare. The level of disruptive change we are now witnessing is out-of-paradigm change equivalent to the shift from the Classical to Medieval or Medieval to Modern epochs of Western civilization. These shifts have been characterized respectively as ‘The Dark Ages’ and ‘The Renaissance’ in their societal, state institutional, and military impacts. We are within a post-Modern shift that will witness modern (legacy) nation-state mass industrial force structures becoming ineffective on the battlefield as asymmetric warfare innovations mature and are increasingly fielded by states and non-state entities.

While human combatant utilized and controlled infantry weapons still form the baseline of the conduct of warfare, the following innovations will become increasingly impactful. Reminiscent of the gradual force structure shift between the proportion of medieval ‘pike’ to modern ‘shot’ in Early Modern armies, eventually advanced technology replaces the legacy artifacts that had been the mainstay of warfare:

Drones and Droids: Uncrewed systems, semiautonomous and autonomous, have been fielded which can operate on/in land, sea, and air. Static platforms and smart facilities can be militarized, with gun turrets controlled virtually by personnel thousands of miles away, as is already done with Reaper drones. Non-state actors have already weaponized cheap consumer drones.  UAS are actively proliferating with tens-of-thousands of ISR and hunter-killer drones being fielded collectively in the Russo-Ukrainian War.   

Artificial Intelligence: With advances in computer science such as heuristic programing, weak AI systems have become increasingly capable. AI’s ability to take over C² functions for autonomous systems can now better navigate OODA (observe-orient-decide-act) loop iterations vis-à-vis human C²teleoperated systems, challenging human ‘in’ (or at least ‘on’) the loop oversight requirements.  Further, the potential of AI residing throughout a swarm of droids as a decentralized hivemind suggest its control would be highly resilient in real world combat versus a single AI computer controlling a network of integrated weapons systems.        

Swarm Networks: Drones/droids deployed for combat have been primarily utilized in ones and twos and slightly larger groups under human control. Netwar perceptions have for decades projected mass fielding of these systems and their ability to swarm (like bees) against a target and then immediately dissipate their concentration of force. Thousands of  drones creating integrated images in the sky have taken place in China and the American military has experimented with a hundred drone swarm. Future military drone swarms comprised of up to hundreds of thousands are envisioned.

Electrical Power: Internal combustion engines and turbines cannot hope to power the weapons systems, shielding, cloaking, sensing and related technologies for the military vehicles and platforms being developed. All-electric power systems will allow energy to be immediately directed to a specific capability such as shielding and then dynamically shifted to other onboard capabilities. High-tech fuel cell arrays which store and release electrical energy will become mainstays. Warships will be among the first weapons platforms to utilize these dynamic power systems in their basic design.   

Directed Energy: Mechanical based weaponry (combustive; explosive based) derived from firearms, bombs, and similar munitions is giving way to directed energy systems which can be utilized both offensively and defensively. Laser, high-powered microwave (HPM), radio frequency (RF), and millimeter wave (MW) weaponry is gradually being fielded. Defensively, active stealth technology (visibility masking) is being developed as is energy shielding which generates specific frequencies to pre-detonate incoming munitions and/or negate specific beam weaponry frequencies.

Five Dimensional Fusion: The present multi-domain structure of land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace will witness inter-dimensional domain realities being fused by means of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality technologies. Humans increasingly virtually interact in cyberspace and AI based machines are extending into human space via augmented reality. An overlap is spanning the operational environment across inter-dimensional domains along with stealth space (defensive bastion) and narrative space (influence operations) components.

Human Neural Interface: Wetware and appliance interfaces blur the line between humans and machines as cyborg-type dualities emerge. Humans are increasing fitted with artificial hip and knee joints, pacemakers, insulin pumps, and hearing aids.  RFID (radio frequency detection) tags, microchips, and artificial (bionic) limbs are also being implanted. Brain-to-machine interfaces will allow the accessing and control of informational systems and increased cognitive capabilities, achieving faster processing speeds.

Projected Evolutionary Trajectories

The ongoing integration and fielding of asymmetric warfare innovations into state military (and non-state paramilitary) force structures will result in a quantum leap in operational environment lethality from both a destructive and disruptive capabilities metric. Just as the medieval knight became obsolete on the ‘advanced’ early modern battlefield, the modern human-crewed tank will become obsolete on the ‘advanced’ post-modern battlefield. Neither legacy system (configured around the energy foundation of the earlier civilizational form—animal and mechanical respectively) survive the warfighting requirements of a more sophisticated level of warfare.   

The trajectories of this battlefield shift will be inherently unpredictable. Attributed to William Gibson, “The future is already here – it's just not very evenly distributed” pretty much sums up where we are. The pieces are in play and a new warfighting mosaic is forming with tiles randomly flipped and moved into position as the final image appears. A ‘guestimate’ of the projected impact on modern large-scale operations is as follows:

A decade or so out (2035): Technological innovations will be initially utilized singularly to benefit legacy military systems (e.g. electrical power generation for human-crewed battle tanks) or as stand-alone cost-effective advanced weaponry. For example, commercial UAS fitted with IEDs with FPV human controlled guidance are currently wreaking havoc on tanks, AFVs, and infantry personnel in the Ukraine war. Combinations of these innovations will be incorporated into extending the functionality of legacy systems (as ‘bolt ons’) but innovation synthesis will see drone and swarm network capabilities being increasingly deployed together.

Mid-21^st century (2050): The synergistic effect of these technological innovations on the operational environment are pronounced. As innovations are integrated, higher-level synergistic effects occur. Greater battlefield effectiveness in directed energy weaponry, active stealthing, and energy shielding when placed on autonomous platforms due to advanced fuel cell and power management systems being more efficiently controlled by subordinate AI routines is expected. The opening vignette signifies integration of these asymmetric advanced warfare innovations into the US Army’s notional Project WICKED. Synergistic synthesis of innovations will result in new systems such as distributed AI battle management. The fielding of similar systems by allied as well as opposing states and entities will eventually be an ‘extinction event’ for all legacy conventional forces.

While the vignette optimistically positions the US Army as the alpha predator of the 2050 battlefield, this dominance is by no means assured.  Epochal level change has historically devastated status quo state forms along with the military systems they field, with heavily armed non-state and mercenary forces dominating during the initial deinstitutionalized period. The US Army must master the advanced form of warfighting now emergent and escape this brutal historical trap to retain the mantel of premier land power force—any other outcome is simply unacceptable.