Thank you. We have talked about connecting the "dots" in the past. The dot here is the fighting the next war, not the last war. IMO, we are not going to have another major standoff with a semi-superpower for 25-50 years. The current state of the global economy is too interdependent and fragile. IMO, poorer nations and certain semi-superpowers will continue to use asymmetrical warfare and proxy fighters targeting military, civilians and infrastructure. This is why I like the use of our products (and partners) for ISR and next-gen electronic warfare: think Syria 2007 and again recently with the “convoy” hit. Russians were not happy their radar systems were silent (and it is not because stealth jets/munitions were used). I have tried to stay quietly optimistic about our new partners. Inside, I am giddy.
Readers should not forget that technology is changing “asymmetrical” warfare as well. A 16 year old wiz programmer can do some very bad things to our power grids, water supply, food supply, railways, air traffic control systems, etc. regardless of which government/ non-state actor employs him/her. Hezbollah just flew a drone above an Israeli nuclear reactor. The internet is being used to wage jihad, and the plans for the next caliphate have been in the works for some time (this is one reason I warned about the salafists earlier on this board).
If anyone thinks I am compromising opsec, as IJO would say, all of this information is in the public realm.