WASHINGTON — While warfare might be made up of a conglomeration of trends and capabilities, the most important trend right now is networking, according to top commanders in the Indo-Pacific region.

Officials over the last several years have spoken ad nauseam about the changing character of warfare. Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of INDOPCOM views this through the lens of a “mega trend” encompassing three smaller trends, according to his deputy.

“The mega trend that you could think about wrapping up all those other three meta [trends] and underpinning it, connecting it, enabling it, is ubiquitous competition for networks,” Lt. Gen. Joshua Rudd, deputy commander of INDOPACOM, said Thursday at AFCEA’s TechNet Indo-Pacific in Hawaii. “If you can’t network all these systems capabilities together on an architecture that enables us to connect and apply and move data, move information, move updated software at the speed of war, none of that works.”

The meta trends that make up this larger competition for networks are: information and cognitive operations; the democratization of drones; and penetrating strike and precision effects.

Rudd described the information revolution as at its dawn rather than its conclusion, pointing to the ability of social media and artificial intelligence to shape public opinion and political will faster than the movement of forces.

“What happens on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, that might affect whether we do or don’t move troops and how fast they get there, and whether or not we should, and it’ll definitely influence populations and political decision makers,” he said. “Information operations, influence campaigns, cognitive warfare are all becoming central to how nations compete and fight wars.”

The side that shapes the narrative oftentimes determines when and where the first shot is fired, or fired at all, Rudd said, quoting a military historian.

In fact, adversaries have begun to use information capabilities to great effect, below the threshold of armed conflict to seize the objective all without firing a shot.

On the democratization of drones, while they have had a startling effect on the battlefield, particularly in Ukraine, Rudd cautioned against the thought that modern warfare will be nothing but drone warfare. But, he said, that isn’t to discount the role drones will have and how they’ve reshaped warfare, acknowledging they’ve done so at “breakneck speed in the Middle East and Europe.

“Gone are the days of where only great powers possessed unmanned capability. Everybody in this room could go out and afford to buy a relatively cheap, inexpensive, capable, unmanned system,” Rudd said. “Today a startup company right here in Honolulu could produce unmanned capability at cost, at speed and at scale like never before. This trend fundamentally changes the traditional calculus of assault warfare.”

He added it has upended how forces assault and defend. Consumer drones coupled with innovative tactics in Ukraine have afforded defensive capabilities unimaginable a decade ago, which has caused invading forces to reconsider how they attack?

On the offensive or invading force side, drones are also having effects, Rudd said. One example is, he said, allowing the drones to be the first in contact to make way for humans, so forces don’t have to be put in as much risk as in prior conflicts.

The third meta trend Rudd pointed to involves the utilization of commoditized space access, advanced propulsion, secret technologies and computing power, that put together, make the targeting process faster and more lethal than before.

“Survivable, penetrating strike warfare is becoming increasingly salient tool for influencing political decision makers … When precision munitions can travel thousands of miles and strike critical targets with minimal collateral damage, the calculus of deterrence changes exponentially,” he said. “Think about that in terms of what it means to the Indo-Pacific region and what we have to develop and deliver across the region.”

That capability is the pinnacle of deterrence, Rudd said, especially with the vast distances in the Pacific with friendly forces having to operate within a weapons engagement zone of an adversary that is increasingly expanding.

But none of these trends and capabilities matter if they can’t be connected.

“We would argue, space cyber, sensors, AI compute and 5G, this is all enabling the data, the compute power, the transport and security to bring things that have never happened at the speed and the scale of a war in a conflict that we potentially face if this were to happen. That’s the mega trend,” Rudd said. “The competition isn’t just about hardware or software. It’s about creating an integrated system that delivers decision superiority, as well as command and control. The side that masters cognitive operations, counter-assault capabilities, survivable precision strike will shape the future security environment.”