Innovative technologies shaping the 2040 battlefield

Innovative technologies

Rome [ENA] The European Parliamentary Research Service published in August 2021 a study by the Panel for the Future of Science and Technology. The study whose title is: Innovative technologies shaping the 2040 battlefield, provides an assessment of the risks, challenges and opportunities related to new and emerging technologies that are most expected to shape the future battlefield out to 2040. The study presents implications

stemming from consideration of individual technologies, as well as cross-cutting analysis of their interactions with broader political, social, economic, and environmental trends. In doing so, the study highlights a need for EU Institutions and Member States to pursue a broad range of capability development initiatives in a coherent and coordinated manner, ensure the development of an swift regulatory and organisational environment, and guide investments in technologies most relevant to the European context. The coming decades are likely to be a time of transition, possibly characterised by instability within and between state actors. The world is expected to face the need to address the impacts of: a changing climate, the increasing pace

of innovation and technological change, rapid population growth, increasing resource scarcity and global power shifts. Such trends are also likely to drive significant change in the character of warfare and the technologies used by defence organisations, allies and adversaries.Understanding technological change and forecasting its potential impact on and shaping of the future battlefield is crucial to formulating policies and investment decisions conducive to making appropriate modifications to armaments, military operations, wartime preparations and defence budget priorities. It is therefore important to understand what technology areas are likely to lead to profound changes on the future battlefield, and how such impacts may materialise.

This understanding will inform decision-making and maximise, to the extent possible, returns on investment in a context of limited resources and competing priorities. In the last decade, the global and European security environment saw a number of strategic, political, economic and technological trends consolidating and leading to greater instability and conflict. In particular, following almost two decades of relative stability in its neighbourhood, the EU was confronted with significant security challenges. Countries in its eastern neighbourhood faced a range of security threats and vulnerabilities in the military, economic, political and energy spheres. Further, the failure of a number of states across the southeastern Mediterranean

region, the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa generated a series of conflicts, crises and ungoverned spaces in which instability could breed and have further impacts on the European stage. Over the next two decades, the strategic environment is expected to be further influenced and shaped by a range of trends that will also have repercussions for the characteristics and dynamics of the future battlefield. These trends may be categorised as political, societal, economic, environmental or technological in nature. The sections of the report provide a thematic overview of factors and drivers expected to influence the future strategic environment. These trends were identified through a targeted review of literature on future trends and

clustered in thematic groups to facilitate their discussion. Trends have been organised according to political, societal, economic, environmental and technological thematic clusters. For each cluster, the chapter provides an overview of the main drivers and factors identified by the study team and expected to have an impact on future developments, including possible implications from a defense and future battlefield standpoint. This overview captures findings from the scoping literature review conducted within WP1 (Scoping and framing) part of the study.

The various political, social, economic, environmental and technological trends discussed in the previous section may shape the future battlefield in different ways. The interaction of the above-described trends and the associated impacts on the characteristics of the future battlefield can be categorised by several key factors, including: adversaries, mission types, terrains, weather and climatic conditions and timeliness requirements. Collectively, these factors shape the spectrum of operations in which new and emerging technologies may be utilised by the European armed forces.