The Future Of War Will Be Unmanned

The US F-35 program is the most expensive weapons program in history, and arguably the most expensive project of any kind ever undertaken. Costing at well over $400bn, the price is close to four times that spent to send astronauts to the Moon. One could certainly make a convincing argument that this project to build stealth fighter jets is the very embodiment of the wasteful nature of defence spending.

But there is an even more tragic dimension to this giant waste of money.

The jets at the centre of the acquisition program will soon be obsolete. Why would anyone bother to fly a hugely expensive manned aircraft when they can fly a cheaper, more capable unmanned aircraft for no political cost?

While drones have been around for decades, the technology to mass produce them cheaply and to equip them with capabilities on-par with manned craft has only begun to emerge more recently. As such craft are used more and more in conflict zones — something I have written about previously — they will reshape war, and will obsolete trillions of dollars invested into older technologies (such as fighters and aircraft carriers) around the world.

Dr Thomas X Hammes, from the Institute for National Strategic Studies, gives a very concise and detailed explanation of these changes that are beginning to rock the defence establishment. Through his 30-minute presentation, he shows not just how the technologies are evolving but also how wars in the future being fought with unmanned systems might look. Victory, in his opinion, will come to the nations that first embrace this new concept of war, and there is no guarantee that these nations will be in the West.