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World War Three could see Russia or China attack with undetectable missiles 27 times the speed of sound while blinding it by cutting off the internet – after developing capabilities while the West was consumed with the Middle East.
Experts say the future of warfare will see the use of hypersonic missiles and the web brought down in mere seconds.
Technology is now the battleground where conflicts will be fought with Russia and China said to be investing huge amounts in the field.
Money spent on traditional weaponry and hardware has gone down with British defence and security investing more in digital, AI and cyber tech.
In fact there have even been ‘training exercises’ from Russia and China just months ago.
On November 16 Russia destroyed one of its own satellites in space by firing a missile at it.
And in October China tested a top secret weapon that can circle the globe at 21,000mph and descend from space to strike anywhere on Earth in minutes.
The suspected test of new satellite killing S-550 missile at Sary-Shagan test site in Kazakhstan, November 2020
Cyber warfare is already a battlefront countries attack each other on, but this will increase as technology gets more advanced
New weapons could strike with no notice and evade all warning systems until it was too late to stop the attack
It is designed to travel in low orbit to dodge missile detection and defence systems, allowing China to strike virtually anywhere on the planet with little or no warning.
Michele Flournoy, former Pentagon policy chief for US strategy under both Presidents Clinton and Obama, warned: “We are really at a strategic inflection point where we – the US, the UK and our allies – are coming out of 20 years of focusing on counter terrorism and counter insurgency, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and lifting our gaze to realise we are now in a very serious great-power competition.
“While we were focused on the broader Middle East, these countries went to school on the Western way of war. And they started investing massively in a whole host of new technologies,” she added to the BBC.
The U.S. and Russia have also spent decades working on their own hypersonic systems and the two countries have conducted tests on the weapons in recent months.
The Zircon is due to go into service next year, and will first be deployed via the Admiral Golovko frigate (pictured) which carries significant stealth-technology
Russia said earlier this month it had completed flight tests of the new-age missile from a frigate – the Admiral Gorshkov
The C8RJ4A underwater cable near Tuvalu used for data and internet services under the sea waves in the South Pacific
There have also been worrying leaps by some countries in disruptive cyber attacks, such as stealing data and trying to influence elections.
Experts think if full-scale hostilities ever broke out, sides would try to cut off communications for the opponent.
It would include targeting satellites or even as simple as disrupting undersea cables that carry data.
Meia Nouwens, a senior research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, added: “China’s People’s Liberation Army has built a new agency called the Strategic Support Force which looks at space, electronic warfare and cyber capabilities.”
In a year when the UK has seen an increase in cyber threats, teams from across the British Army regular and reserve forces, the Royal Navy, France and Denmark were tested in the exercises earlier this year
A soldier from the Royal Signals sits at his computer during the Army Cyber Spartan 4 competition. Over 400 UK and international defence cyber specialists and novices took part in the UK’s biggest cyber competition
“I think this would play out in a very fast-paced environment that’s heavily reliant on the information domain,”
Franz-Stefan Gady, a specialist on future warfare at the IISS, told the BBC phones could suddenly stop working and petrol stations run dry.
He added: ‘Great powers are massively investing not only in offensive cyber capabilities but also in electronic warfare capabilities that can jam satellites and bring down communication.
So not just the military but societies overall will be a prime target in future conflict.”
Source: dailymail