Disruptive Technologies & Virtual War

“How will Defence adapt to the challenges presented by disruptive technologies and embrace the opportunities they offer?” Major General Copinger-Symes

Adoption of disruptive technologies is nothing new for Defence, IT is just the latest technology in a long line of disruptive technologies adopted by the Military over centuries. This upgrade should be even easier, as commercial organisations have been successfully using these same disruptive technologies for years to process, exploit and dominate opportunities in their markets. Global industry and commerce has been able to embrace, adapt and even thrive using these disruptive technologies. If we are to prepare for the next war(s), theCyber-Enabled Information Warsof the 2020s, below are listed some of the disruptive technologies a military might consider adopting and details of the opportunities they could bring?

Many of these technologies are already being used to compete in a similar (but less lethal) commercial competition for the mind of consumers but on similar battleground to the Information Wars of the 2020s. All of these technologies are Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS), available, affordable and could be easily adapted to the modern warfare environment. As part of a model to effect Information Superiority in this same Battlespace, these technologies…