As Christopher S. Chivvis writes, the Russian-Ukrainian war has also drawn attention to “hybrid warfare”. The emergence of transnational hacktivist groups and the publication of Russian military intelligence by private satellite companies, as well as the tactical use of new weapons, all point to the future of warfare. In particular, the utility of tanks, a traditional core weapon, has been fundamentally questioned, and Ukraine’s aggressive use of drones has allowed it to deliver tactical and psychological shocks to its opponents cheaply and with minimal casualties, despite its asymmetric power compared to Russia. This is not to say that these new weapons can completely replace conventional weapons. According to the UK’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), 90% of Ukrainian drones were destroyed in the first five months of the war, and the average life expectancy of a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was about six flights.
However, it is clear that the face of warfare is changing. There are now multiple ways of fighting a war, and there is no one-size-fits-all weapon. Last year, China seemed to test-fire a hypersonic missile that could penetrate the U.S. Missile Defense (MD). The future of the arms race in emerging technologies and the future of warfare is becoming more complex than anyone can predict. As the pace and intensity of warfare increase, so does the rate at which equipment and supplies are consumed. Therefore, even if the United States has overwhelming military superiority, it may become difficult for other countries to sustain a large-scale all-out war on their own for an extended period of time, and the United States may not be able to rely on its own military power in the future. It’s time to rely more heavily on the cooperation of allies and friends, and isn’t it time to attach less significance to the military might of conventional weapons?