Given the uncertainty of future global interactions and the potential for unexpected surprises, understanding the factors and trends influencing the types and levels of complexity expected to shape the evolution of the international system until 2030 and beyond becomes crucial. This is particularly important amid waves of “noise/counter-noise” regarding the acceleration of technological innovation and its potential impact, while some focus on non-technological factors, especially within Western military traditions.
In an effort to improve the decision-making process and ensure that leadership can make high-quality decisions in an increasingly fast-paced and complex international conflict landscape, RAND Corporation released two research papers in January 2024 titled “Leadership and Control in the Future.” The first paper explored mechanisms for dealing with complexity, while the second focused on defensive leadership and control institutions and addressing the requirements arising from complexity in the future operational environment, particularly for the United Kingdom.
Leadership and Control in the Future:
There is no universally agreed-upon definition of “leadership and control” (C2) due to significant debate over the scope and importance of the term in the contemporary operational environment. However, RAND’s study defines it as a dynamic and adaptive socio-technical system designed to perform collaborative work to provide focus for individuals and organizations, allowing them to integrate and optimize their resources and activities to achieve the greatest possible benefit, considering organizational, technical, and human elements.
Thus, there is an urgent need to introduce changes in the decision-making cycle. For example, advances in sensing and communication technologies provide opportunities for deeper and broader data sets, including data related to complex problems. Hence, improving cognitive capacity is crucial to understand all this data and harness the benefits of both humans and machines while mitigating their drawbacks. Changing decision-making methods will also require changes in leadership styles to make decision-makers more comfortable handling adaptive and complex systems.
The study identifies various forms of complex problems that the UK Ministry of Defence might need to address. There may be multiple parallel models of leadership and control simultaneously, rather than a uniform approach. To address this, continuous learning, adaptation, and openness to change are essential. Therefore, impact measures and change mechanisms should be integrated into plans and leadership and control systems from the outset, enabling them to learn and adapt over time in response to future operational conditions.
This involves exploring these environments by answering questions such as: What are the potential characteristics of the operational environment for the UK Ministry of Defence and its Western partners in the context of ongoing competition and multi-domain operations? What will be the nature of the complexity faced by future leadership and control systems? What will this environment require in terms of capabilities, systems, and organizations? How will this differ from today, and what needs to change? Can organizations effectively respond to these demands? To address these questions, the study focuses on discussing definitions of key terms like leadership, control, and complexity, and aims to understand the drivers of complexity until 2030 and beyond.
The study argues that the nature of leadership and control as a dynamic and adaptive socio-technical system designed for collaborative work requires consideration not only of the potential role of technology, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, in providing solutions but also of human interaction through developments that center around changing norms, values, ethics, and perceptions. This means exploring possible ways to integrate humans and machines within the system while considering the strengths and weaknesses of each.
As the study notes, complex systems often present challenges known as “wicked problems,” which are unstable situations resistant to resolution through traditional problem-solving methods and lack centralized authority or coordination for resolution. These problems are akin to “social chaos” because they involve multiple stakeholders and no agreed-upon solution. Some theorists also describe other problems as “super wicked,” such as climate change, which are considered unsolvable due to characteristics such as running out of time for resolution and leaving the solution in the hands of those creating the problem.
Main Drivers of Complexity:
The nature of the future operational environment and the types of tasks expected of command and control systems and organizations are shrouded in significant uncertainty, necessitating caution in any future predictions. However, a set of trends is expected to shape the evolution of the international system up to 2030 and beyond, including the following:
Increasing Global Competition: Strategic documents, government policies, academic sources, and think tanks frequently mention the growing competition among major powers, a more multipolar and increasingly chaotic world, and the “revisionist” challenges to the liberal international order established after 1945, which includes institutions like the United Nations, NATO, and the Bretton Woods system with principles such as the sanctity of sovereign borders.
These geopolitical and geoeconomic trends are seen as leading to increased complexity by amplifying the simultaneous and converging challenges faced by societies, and consequently, governments and militaries. This includes growing mistrust in international interactions, exemplified by Russian intervention in Ukraine, the Chinese challenge, ongoing difficulties posed by regimes like North Korea and Iran, and the expansion of global competition through a mix of covert, ambiguous, overt, and deniable means.
Impact of Climate Change: Social and environmental trends may lead to more chaos, instability, and conflict into the 2030s and 2040s. Examples include environmental changes and extreme weather; accelerated climate change and pollution could lead to broad and unexpected shifts across the world. This is likely to impact British defense institutions in terms of the tasks they are required to perform (e.g., military assistance to civilian authorities, humanitarian aid, and disaster relief).
The climate emergency and increased awareness of potential energy security risks (e.g., following the Russian-Ukrainian war) are expected to continue driving investment in renewable energy, though oil and gas are likely to retain a significant role in the coming decades. Additionally, climate change and pollution might disrupt food and water supplies, increasing migration, instability, and sectarian violence, especially in the world’s vulnerable regions.
This ties into demographic shifts and resource scarcity; growing world populations are likely to increase demand for resource sharing and competition for land and raw materials. Demographic trends will vary by region, with a youth bulge in Sub-Saharan Africa. Climate-related events like floods and desertification are expected to increase both internal and cross-border migration and refugee flows, including toward Europe and the UK.
Impact of Technology and Digitization: As the world continues to digitalize, technological communications play a central role in military command and control systems, driven by technological change and the accelerating pace of innovation. Technological innovation is inherently widespread and globalized. However, the center of innovation has shifted from the public sector (including defense labs) to the private sector, from vertically integrated large companies to a globally distributed network of innovative small and medium-sized enterprises.
Today, the research and development budgets of major multinational companies far exceed those of the UK Ministry of Defense, and this trend is expected to continue, with a growing focus on civilian and dual-use technologies (both civilian and military applications). This implies a reduced role for government and defense specifically in shaping innovation trends and markets.
Blurred Traditional and New Domains: Traditional distinctions between domains may diminish with the emergence of global systems and networks, which are increasingly interconnected; in terms of competition in cyberspace, increasing reliance on data and networks by both militaries and societies creates a need for effective cybersecurity and cyber defense. This is reflected in ongoing advancements in information and communication technology, including fifth and sixth-generation technologies, as well as electronic warfare capabilities (such as cognitive electronic warfare systems, and jamming or spoofing signals).
Shifting International Norms and Value Sets: Challenges to trust and legitimacy in governance systems are particularly pronounced with failures to meet economic growth commitments, mitigate the negative impacts of technology, or address climate change. There are also sovereignty challenges concerning the erosion of the state’s monopoly on legitimate violence and fundamental sovereignty principles. With the growing influence of non-governmental organizations, multinational corporations, media, and major tech companies, these actors are expected to play an increasingly significant role in shaping international norms, laws, and regulations. Additionally, conflict between states (such as the Ukraine war or a potential conflict over Taiwan) may further undermine the sanctity of post-1945 principles, such as resolving disputes through diplomacy rather than armed aggression.
In conclusion, no single trend or main driver leads to change or complexity in future environments; rather, the convergence of multiple factors and their unpredictable interactions are what create concern. The UK may not always want its adversaries to make poor decisions, as this could result in an undesirable situation for all parties. Therefore, the UK needs some assurance that deep uncertainty will not lead opponents into actions that result in a worse overall outcome for the UK, even if harmful to their own adversaries as well.
Future command and control systems and organizations must focus on enhancing key comprehensive traits such as resilience, adaptability, and learning ability. Especially as the abundance of data, the challenges to its safety and integrity, lead to cognitive overload and risk information paralysis. The primary challenge for command and control is to enhance initial processing power and the ability to clean, integrate, and analyze this data, which is supported by ongoing advancements in information technology and big data analytics.
Sources
Black, J., Lucas, R., Kennedy, J., Hughes, M., & Fine, H. (2024, January 29). Command and Control in the Future: Concept Paper 1: Grappling with Complexity. RAND. Avaialable at:
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2476-1.html
Lucas, R., Ellis, C., Black, J., Carlyon, P., Kendall, P., Kendall, J., Coulson, S., & Jeffries, L. (2024, January 29). Command and Control in the Future: Concept Paper 2: The Defence C2 Enterprise. RAND. Avaialable at:
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2476-2.html
