The Next World War Won't Look Like the Last

In this essay for The Washington Post, James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman, co-authors of "2034: A Novel of the Next World War," argue that a future war with China would be fought with drone swarms, hypersonic missiles, and cyberweapons rather than the aircraft carriers and tanks of the past.

Beyond Carriers and Cyberwar's "Pearl Harbor"

The authors argue that unmanned drone swarms, stealth technology, and hypersonic missiles are eroding the dominance of carrier warfare, while the 2020 SolarWinds hack shows the U.S. remains dangerously underprepared for a cyberwar "Pearl Harbor."

A New Strategic Triad

Stavridis and Ackerman call for investment in offensive cyber capabilities, smaller and unmanned platforms, and elite, technologically integrated personnel, forming a new strategic triad spanning from beneath the ocean to orbit.

Imagining the War to Avoid It

Citing Sun Tzu, the authors argue that imagining and war-gaming future conflict, including insights from historians, writers, and artists alongside military planners, is itself a form of deterrence against a war in which, they warn, no one truly wins.

Read the Original Article

This essay originally appeared in The Washington Post.

Read “The next world war won’t be anything like the last. Here’s how the U.S. must prepare.” at The Washington Post →