In March, leading military researchers hailing from institutions like the NSA, DARPA, and the U.S. Naval Academy convened at the University of Maryland to attend a two-day workshop funded by the U.S. Army to discuss what they think ground warfare will look like in 2050.
The participants were instructed to imagine themselves, time traveling as it were, waking up in 2050 “in the middle of an on-going battle” and describe what they envisioned, with the results compiled in a written report.
A large number of themes emerged in the ensuing discussion, some of them—cyborg soldiers, autonomous weapons—already familiar to the general public, and others, such as cognitive modeling of the enemy, more obscure. But one observation was repeated again and again: hackers will play a decisive role in the wars of the future.
