Uday India: "Disruptive Technologies and Future Warfare"

Technology development is a continuing process. Technological developments are known to impact the advancements taking place in various sectors. The modern world is found getting driven mostly by technologies. From health to agriculture to education to human development to truism to critical infrastructure, almost every part of human life is found increasingly getting dependent on technologies. Apart from these sectors, technology is known to be influencing the security sector for a long.

Historically, it has been witnessed that different technological innovations used to originate in the defence arena and were found subsequently making inroads in the civilian domain (e.g. Computers, Internet, GPS etc). Particularly, during the period of world wars and the cold war, much of the government funding used to go to the defence sector for technology research, development and innovation. This is because owing to the strategic challenges, the military leadership always used to be hunting for new technologies. These technologies were meant for replacing the existing lighting systems or for juxtaposing their existing military structures in order to improve the performance. All in all, the level of technological expertise used to dictate the warfighting strategies of a country or a power block. However, the post-Cold War period is witnessing a societal change in many parts of the world. The process of globalisation and economic liberalisation made a huge impact on the way the global economy used to function. The process of technology development is no longer been governed exclusively by military needs. At present, market needs are found mostly driving the innovation cycle. In the present era, new technologies are found frequently making inroads into the commercial sector and subsequently the defence sector is found consuming them. [Uday India]