Description
It is commonly understood that as technology advances it becomes faster, more complex and interconnectable. This is likely to persist as new technologies allow us to perform feats of strength and intellect far beyond what we could achieve alone. In the context of the military, these capabilities guide planning and resourcing, to enable forces to operate faster and more precisely against less technologically capable adversaries. Though strategically sound, this push to outpace our enemies creates a context in which the problems of speed and complexity also accelerate, leading to a future operational environment that will be too fast, complex and dangerous for humans to operate within. This presentation will explore what it might be like to take part in military operations in the midst of technologies outpacing of human warfighters.
In particular, I draw out how pastoral security specifically is affected by the deployment of these acceleratingly fast and complex technologies in advanced military technologies. I will highlight how speed and complexity relate to, and threaten, pastoral security. I will then discuss the implications of these relationships and threats to operational effectiveness, morale and security. By doing this, I will explore a hitherto under-researched area of the future battlefield and demonstrate the importance of thinking pastorally about this future.
