War and the Modern Battlefield: Domains, Tech, and Readiness

The United States faces an unusually complex security environment where recent conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East illustrate rapid change on the battlefield.

Warfare is expanding beyond traditional land, sea, and air to include cyber, space, the electromagnetic spectrum, information operations, and integrated logistics. Technological advances—AI and GenAI, autonomous systems, drone substitutes, and mesh sensing for air and missile defense—are reshaping tactics, sensors, and decision loops.

These shifts create interlocking policy and engineering challenges: adapting doctrine and procurement, securing dual-use industrial bases, shoring up supply chains, and modernizing intelligence in a more transparent world. Workforce shortages are salient; analyses warn that meeting skilled trade demand through 2030 will require targeted training, immigration, and innovation-policy interventions.

Transnational risks—ranging from AI-enabled biosecurity threats to adversary investments in foreign ports and shipyards—underscore the need for whole-of-government resilience. Recommendations across defense, economic-security, and technology domains emphasize investing in human infrastructure, reforming innovation programs like SBIR, and expanding education, exercises, and cross-sector partnerships.

Policymakers and technologists must integrate multidomain concepts, workforce planning, and supply-chain resilience to maintain deterrence and operational advantage in rapidly evolving conflicts.