About this Issue

New Ways of Making War

War in the future might not be as bloody as previous wars, but they could be far more disruptive, since they’ll affect everyone, not just soldiers. Cyberwars will be about destroying the enemy systemically, through insidious attacks on networks and controls that run the economy, agriculture, communications systems, utilities, and other vital components of the infrastructure, according to defense analyst and futurist Marvin J. Cetron.

As part of his ongoing work monitoring and evaluating major global trends, Cetron and his staff at Forecasting International Ltd. focus, in this issue of THE FUTURIST, on the top 10 trends driving an increased risk for cyberwar.

In addition to rapid technological advances—and society’s reliance on those systems—the loss of technological leadership in the United States is making the last global “superpower” more vulnerable to future attacks from a widening array of sources, Cetron warns. See “World War 3.0: Ten Critical Trends for Cybersecurity.”

The trends toward cyberwar do not excuse us from thinking about traditional conflict and their causes, which include competition over diminishing supplies of resources. The advent of peak oil, for instance, will set in motion a wave of disruptive trends around the world. Journalist Roger Howard, a specialist in resources issues, examines the potential impacts on the economies of petroleum-producing countries facing a loss of their most important source of income. See “Peak Oil and Strategic Resource Wars."

The workplace is another area in which current trends are causing major disruptions. While some of these disruptions have to do with technological advances, such as the displacement of service workers by automation and expert systems, the trends worrying most people now seem to contradict each other: a growing talent shortage and increasing unemployment. In this issue, workforce futurists John A. Challenger and Edward Gordon illuminate the key issues and offer ideas on what we can do about these problems.

—Cynthia G. Wagner

Managing Editor

cwagner@wfs.org