Strategic Implications of Emerging Disruptive Technologies

How will emerging and disruptive technologies like AI, autonomous robotics (including heterogenous swarms), hypersonic weapons, and directed energy shape the Army’s ability to deter China in the future operational environment of 2045? What are the implications for force structure, doctrine, and acquisition?

• Baker, Capt. Melissa, "Countering the PRC's A2/AD Strategy: Adapting the US Military Operations and Strategy for the Indo-Pacific," AFGC thesis, 2025.
  • Examines the doctrinal and force posture transformations required to deter China's A2/AD strategy in the future operational environment. The research asserts that the U.S. can no longer rely on traditional power projection models; instead, it must integrate hypersonic weapons, AI-enabled decision support, and an expanding range of unmanned and autonomous platforms to maintain technological superiority. By shifting acquisition and doctrinal focus toward these disruptive technologies and distributed operational concepts like Agile Combat Employment (ACE), the U.S. can create an adaptive, networked force capable of surviving and operating effectively across contested domains.
• Bishop, Lt. Col. Jeremy, "Implications of Artificial Intelligence in Future Conflict with China," AFGC thesis, 2024.
  • Explores the strategic implications of disruptive technologies by analyzing how AI, autonomous systems, and hypersonic missiles will fundamentally alter warfare philosophies and doctrines in a U.S.-China conflict. The paper argues that integrating AI into military operations will compress decision-making timelines and create an era of "algorithmic warfare" where traditional military doctrines focused on firepower must expand to include cyber autonomy and decision superiority. To effectively deter China and maintain strategic stability, the author emphasizes that the military must adapt its force structure and acquisitions to balance the rapid development of AI-enhanced missile defenses and autonomous robots with robust ethical frameworks and counter-AI strategies.
• Caldwell, Lt. Col. James T., "Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control: Requirements to Distribute Missile Defense Information to the Tactical Edge," AWC RTF, 2021.
  • Addresses how emerging technologies will shape future conflicts where near-peer rivals use anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) zones and asymmetric weapons, such as hypersonics and anti-satellite missiles, to deny U.S. power projection. Caldwell suggests that to effectively deter and fight in this environment, forces at the tactical edge must utilize faster, AI-driven decision cycles integrated with all-domain intelligence, enabling unmanned drone swarms to attack mobile ground missile launchers or directed energy systems without risking human casualties. The paper concludes that successfully fielding these cross-domain capabilities will force the military to undergo a massive doctrinal evolution that redefines traditional air superiority to include space and cyber domains, ensuring distributed control and decentralized decision-making for forces defending against advanced missile threats.
• Dougherty, Maj. Matthew J., "The Dragon's Tail: Deterring China in an Era of Maneuverable Hypersonic Weapons," ACSC 2022.
  • Examines the strategic implications of maneuverable hypersonic weapons (MHWs) on the United States' ability to deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific as China aims for global military power by 2049. The author notes that China’s rapid fielding of MHWs challenges traditional nuclear deterrence architecture, requiring the U.S. to explore "Cross-Domain Deterrence" options to restore the strategic balance. Regarding force structure, doctrine, and acquisition, Dougherty argues that because MHWs are highly contested as long-range fires by the Army, Navy, and Air Force, the DoD must write new joint doctrine to define how these services will coordinate their use. Furthermore, given the extraordinarily high costs of these disruptive technologies, the military must make critical research and acquisition choices to determine the exact 'niche' capacity of MHWs and defensive interceptors required to credibly deter China without bankrupting the defense budget.
• Evers, Capt. Braden, "sUAS for Dispersed Agile Air Defense," SOS AUAR 2026.
  • Discusses the convergence of directed energy weapons and automated systems to protect military forces from the disruptive threat of adversary small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) swarms. Evers highlights the Army's M-LIDS (Mobile, Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft Integrated Defeat System) as a scalable, mobile defense platform that can incorporate these emerging technologies. To effectively utilize directed energy and automated defenses against rapid, autonomous drone swarms, the paper argues that doctrine must shift to redefine defense zones and push engagement authorities down to lower tactical echelons, enabling decentralized command and control for agile defense.
• Feldhausen, Maj. Lee R., "Constitutional War Powers: 18th Century Framework for 21st Century Warfare," AFGC thesis, 2024.
  • Answers the query by explicitly identifying artificial intelligence, quantum computing, hypersonic weaponry, directed energy weapons, and autonomous weapon systems as the defining technologies of future wars against strategic competitors like China. The study details the severe implications for force structure and doctrine, asserting that future combat operations will occur at speeds entirely beyond human cognition, forcing the military to rely on AI and algorithmic-based tools to replace human decision-making for rapid operational planning. Without well-developed doctrinal plans to mitigate these effects, the paper warns that adversaries will successfully use these combined technologies to destabilize the U.S. and achieve their strategic objectives.
• Jaski, Benjamin, "Speed Kills: Embracing the Proliferation of Hypersonic Weapons," AFGC thesis, 2020.
  • Explores the strategic implications of Chinese hypersonic programs and how they challenge US deterrence. The paper notes that the Army, Navy, and Air Force are all actively pursuing their own hypersonic weapons to overcome advanced adversary defenses. To effectively deter China in future operational environments (specifically targeting next-generation capabilities by 2040), the US must rapidly adapt its acquisition strategies to field both offensive hypersonic weapons and regional glide-phase defense systems. Jaski emphasizes that embracing this disruptive technology through accelerated acquisition is absolutely vital for the military to guarantee survivability and project power against near-peer competitors.
• Kerns, Maj. Ryan O., "Strategy in the Automation Age: Strategic Weapons Theory and Hypersonic Implications," SAASS thesis, 2023.
  • Addresses the query by evaluating how hypersonic weapons, when integrated with AI and machine learning, will shape the military's ability to deter near-peer adversaries and overcome Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) strategies. The author argues that the combination of AI data processing and maneuverable hypersonic weapons speeds up kill chains so significantly that it fundamentally alters escalation control, providing a massive deterrent value over existing legacy weapons. For acquisition and doctrine, the paper proposes a new "Strategic Weapons Framework," recommending that defense planners explicitly classify and acquire conventional precision-guided hypersonics as strategic weapons capable of dominating the coming war-fighting regime of proliferated sensors and autonomous systems.
• McGonegal, Maj. Jack, "High Power Microwave Weapons: Disruptive Technology for the Future," ACSC RTF, 2020.
  • Examines how directed energy weapons—specifically High-Powered Microwaves (HPMs)—will shape the military's ability to engage in conventional peer-on-peer conflicts. Calling directed energy a "game-changing" technology, the author notes that HPMs offer military leaders scalable, non-kinetic precision strike options with little to no collateral damage. To acquire and field these systems in the near future and maintain a strategic advantage, the military must adjust its doctrine and force structure by changing how intelligence professionals support these platforms and incorporating countervalue targeting to directly affect an adversary's decision calculus.
• Palmer, Maj. Kyle, "Autonomous IFCs: Artificial Intelligence and Intermediate force Capabilities," ACSC EL 2023.
  • investigates the implications of the "Third Offset Strategy," which envisions using AI and autonomous, decentralized swarms to deter the technological advances of China and Russia. The paper acknowledges that fully lethal autonomous weapons face immense ethical and doctrinal roadblocks; therefore, the author proposes a rapid acquisition and force structure adjustment: pairing AI with less-lethal Intermediate Force Capabilities (IFCs). This strategy provides senior leaders with a low-risk, scalable option to aggressively advance AI integration, increasing precision and targeting efficiency at the speed and scale necessary to counter emerging high-speed swarm threats while bypassing the ethical hurdles of lethal automation.
• Pothula, Capt. Jay R., "Integration of Semi-Autonomous Drone Swarms into the USAF," SOS AUAR 2020.
  • Addresses how autonomous robotics and heterogeneous swarms can generate highly scalable and cost-effective Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities against peer adversaries. By deploying thousands of small, low-cost autonomous drones governed by swarm theory and collective intelligence, commanders can spread risk across many vehicles rather than relying on a single expensive, vulnerable legacy asset in contested airspace. To successfully field these systems, the military must make significant acquisition and testing adjustments by mandating the development of "Explainable AI" (XAI). Implementing XAI in the acquisition process ensures that human operators can understand the AI's rationale, fostering the necessary trust to fully integrate autonomous swarms into the future force structure.
• Steele, Lt. Col. Eric D., "Aerial Robotic Swarms and Joint All-Domain Command and Control," AWC SSP, 2020.
  • Explores how AI, hypersonic weapons, directed-energy, and advanced robotics—specifically autonomous aerial swarms—will shape the future strategic environment and great power competition against adversaries like China and Russia. As China actively develops and exports AI-enhanced lethal drone swarms, the paper projects that by 2040, the battlespace will be saturated with thousands of miniaturized autonomous aircraft maneuvering across domains. To prepare the Joint Force for this highly contested operational environment, Steele emphasizes that major doctrinal and structural adjustments must be made; specifically, the military must develop new Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) methodologies and update airspace management procedures to seamlessly integrate these autonomous capabilities into the theater air control system.
• Varilek, Lt. Col. John D., "United States Hypersonic Weapons and China Deterrence Effects," AWC SSP, 2019.
  • Answers the query by evaluating how the development and deployment of hypersonic technologies influence the U.S.-China deterrence posture. The paper notes that the Army and other services are rapidly accelerating the acquisition of these systems—such as the Army repurposing Navy boosters to build road-mobile, deep-strike hypersonic weapons—in order to recapture the global lead in technological innovation. Varilek emphasizes that while integrating these disruptive weapons into the military toolkit is essential to counter China, policymakers and senior leaders must thoughtfully manage the doctrine and policy surrounding their employment. By finding the right balance in acquisitions and establishing a realistic deterrence strategy, the U.S. can leverage hypersonic capabilities to maintain stability in the Indo-Pacific without unintentionally sparking a destabilizing arms race.
• Wetzel, Lt. Col. Tyson, "Seizing the Advantage: A Vision for the Next US National Defense Strategy," AF Fellows (Atlantic Council), 2021.
  • Answers the question by outlining how the Department of Defense must fundamentally redesign its force structure to dominate a data-centric, all-domain battlefield against the pacing threat of China. Wetzel argues that to achieve "Integrated Deterrence," the military must divest from vulnerable legacy platforms and invest heavily in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, autonomous combat platforms (including drone swarms and human-machine teaming), hypersonic weapons, and directed energy weapons. Regarding acquisition implications, the paper asserts that the U.S. must shift from an expensive "competition-by-differentiation" model to a "competition-by-cost" model, rapidly procuring low-cost, attritable systems that can overwhelm adversary defenses and provide a decisive, affordable advantage in future conflicts.