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This is a fun question, and if some of the technologies that research and development organizations like DARPA pan out, the answer might surprise you.In the future, much of the weapons technology is going to shift to enable smaller and smaller teams becoming able to command more and more power on the battlefield. Of course, this initiative will be led by large nations and their multi-billion, perhaps trillion dollar budgets for research and development. Once the initial technological barriers are overcome, however, and the pandora's box released, we very well might see new models for the old industries like defense and security come up that we haven't seen before in history and art of warfare.[New weapons systems] will allow smaller "players" to take part in global defense operations, allowing smaller nations wishing to get into the game, like the Netherlands or Qatar, to command vastly disproportionate forces to what exists today. The ramifications would be a world where very few, very powerful troops are required to dismantle regimes and upset political realities is that this power will shift from few massive nations, to many wealthy small nations. Large nations will still hold the majority of the strength, but small nations would shift the balance of power greatly. They will also be able to do this without the massive leviathan military apparatus of world spanning legacy systems that the United States currently fields. They will simply leapfrog this system entirely.One interesting thing this also leads us to is that when small nations can afford elite special forces... so will large corporations and it may be a very profitable business to be in, far in excess of the Black Waters and the Academis of today. Future warfare technologies and techniques will be used against insurgents, unspecialized lightly trained militia, by experienced, professional troops using overwhelming resources. This will mean that the individual soldier will be far more valuable than the insurgent targets, but the average future mercs will also have a kill ratio orders of magnitude greater than that of the difference in their costs.Jon Davis's answer to As more advanced weapons and military knowledge become accessible, can we expect a terrorist organization to compete with the US army and use biological and nuclear weapons in the future?By the way, this is the sort of technology I am referring to.Raytheon has unveiled their new XOS 2 Exoskeleton, a wearable robotics suit developed for the military. It's not made to kick soccer balls.The wearable robotics suit is being designed to help with the many logistics challenges faced by the military both in and out of theater. Repetitive heavy lifting can lead to injuries, orthopedic injuries in particular. The XOS 2 does the lifting for its operator, reducing both strain and exertion. It also does the work faster. One operator in an exoskeleton suit can do the work of two to three soldiers. Deploying exoskeletons would allow military personnel to be reassigned to more strategic tasks. The suit is built from a combination of structures, sensors, actuators and controllers, and it is powered by high pressure hydraulics.There are two main variants being developed; one which is meant for the logistics of carrying heavy loads in non-combat situations, which I can attest to, is a major pain, and the other a combat variant, intended to carry massive loads such as heavy packs, ammunition, and yes, heavy weapons and even massive shields. Right now the system requires a powered tether and hopefully going to be ready in the next five years, with an untethered version ready in the next eight. We'll see...The military is thinking much, much bigger than simple exo-skeletons. Along with these and other companies working toward producing military grade exoskeletons, the military is pushing for more in the terms of a completely armored combat power suit. The project's name is the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS).So far, the only thing that has come out of the TALOS project are CG and hopeful wishes, but in the future, the military is hoping to have specialized warriors straight out of the Iron Man comics.Having shown at least some of what is actually being developed for the warriors of tomorrow, let's look back at the question: What type of corporations might be capable of getting some use from having private armies? The first thing I always think about when I hear "corporate military" is the thought of some evil imperial international corp who brings about the use of a private army for reasons that aren't clear in the goal of selling more of product "x"? Does that really make sense to anyone? Think about companies like Coca-cola or Apple, they are already some of the largest and most powerful corporations on the planet. They can sell their products almost anywhere on the planet. Now ask yourself this, honestly, what would adding in someone with a gun to the equation do to help them sell more cokes and iPhones? For the vast majority of products that people sell, the bottom line isn't created by military conquest, it is provided by selling goods and services better, cheaper, and more abundantly. I just can't really understand who would benefit in this regard by adding in a military wing. Let's be honest, for almost any corporate model today, adding a division of trained and lethal, not to mention very expensive, soldiers just simply doesn't improve profits. In fact, running a war machine is so expensive, that there is a reason that only large nations do it. Think about it, it just doesn't make sense to add a military to a company that has a logical business model already.Having said that, and keeping in mind that for most businesses, there is no sense in making a military no matter how easy it becomes, first let's remember what new quality some of the future weapons are going to have. With the increase in technology and power per dollar, armies will get to be much, much smaller. At some point, a force no larger than a few battalions of United States Marines will reasonably have the fighting strength of the entire attacking force that overthrew Iraq in only three weeks. Don't scoff. In the seventy years since World War II we've created Stealth Bombers than can fly half-way around the world and greater strength than what was held by an entire Marine regiment of Iwo Jima years ago can now be directed by a single squad of AMLICO Marines. Air Naval Gunfire Liaison CompanySo rather than ask, which corporations might field large armies, ask which ones might have a need for extremely potent small armies.To that I will suggest a few. The first might be the privatization of national militaries. The European Union could have a use for this model as it would allow them to temporarily gain a large amount of military power when needed, but not have a need to house, man, and fund large standing armies. Of course, this is just a modern variant of classic mercenaries, but given that future technology will lower the threshold of creating world class military forces, mercenaries are going to be an important part of the picture again. That said, professional militaries today have very little geopolitical role outside of private security for high value individuals. That said, we could foreseeable see a time when these forces will be strong enough that they will be able to realistically threaten nations without the means to defend themselves. You could one day soon see a small unit of elite troops, perhaps a thousand or so, be able to win the war against a regime like Saddam Hussein in 2003, where it took the United States and Coalition forces more than 300,000 to do it then with the strongest military alliance formed in the history of the planet.But just saying mercenaries isn't really that interesting. The second group that I could foresee having a real motivation for an on-call private army might surprise many today... so that's why I want to talk about them.Insurance companies.Let's say that a future exists where data science and advanced prediction algorithms exist that are so powerful that they make it possible to estimate the risks of various losses in various conflict scenarios so precisely that one might consider it a logical financial venture to insure candidates with good enough rating, but a lot to lose. Sure, these accounts may be multi-billion dollar accounts, with payouts in the hundreds of billions of dollars if a claim is rewarded, but what if such a business model could still be considered profitable?Take the country of Lathodonia, a small nation in the Balkans. The Lathodonians are growing concerned about the loss of a power plant in their territory. They have no reason, at the moment, to fear something happening, but if it did, the country would suffer massively. It could be lost in a natural disaster, attacked by terrorists, or captured in a war far down beyond the foreseeable horizon. If this were to happen, they would need their losses covered while they get back online and the people of Lathodonia returning to a normal life with as little disruption as possible. That might including fixing the installation, paying for electricity to be imported into the grid from other sources, or maybe even to pay out damages and reparations for the time when the lights went out. So Lathodonia does what all sensible nations do and it takes out an insurance policy. Let's say they consult an insurance company like none other in the industry. This company doesn't deal with automotives, or health care, nor do they deal in fire protection or anything else that might be available on the market in 2015. This company ensures government agencies, multinational corporations, and entire nations in the cases of catastrophic loss for many billions, and sometimes, trillions of dollars against any number of threats and foreseeable losses that could have never been provided with less than an entire branch of government only thirty years prior. That insurance company is named GloboSure.Where the future gets terrifying is that in the event that a conflict breaks out. GloboSure has a vested interest in ensuring that it suffers as few losses as possible and this means avoiding payout wherever it can. Insurance companies aren't charities afterall. They would, for that reason, be incentivized into supplementing defense of this particular asset to help ensure that it doesn't need to award any multi-billion dollar payouts in the near future. Rather than that, they would rather just offset the costs of an defensive operation to defend the asset, this time being a power plant, and deduct it from next year's tax returns. Of course, before that, GloboSure's diplomatic wing of international government lobbyists will have a go at it first, keeping, of course, return on invest always in mind. Either way, they know that spending a few million to safeguard a client's assets will cost far less than paying out the balance of the account.It won't end with small nations, though. The second possibility would be very large multinational corporations that have an interest in protecting their fixed assets abroad. Once again, it doesn't make sense for them to build their own military, and very rarely would it be worth going through a private military company either. All they really want is asset protection, after all. Why go through all that trouble? Once again, they will find their solution through insurance companies like GloboSure. But when would a multinational company ever really want to hire an insurance company that specializes in armed defense?Imagine a future where nuclear power became the norm and a few companies now produce electricity for billions of people across the globe. They have many, many plants across the world and across border lines. Say that, as sometimes happens, one nation, let's call it the Meznick Federation, decides it is in the best interest of all parties concerned, that they should annex the Western portion of Lathodonia, which just so happens to be the territory holding the power plant. NuPower, the owners of the international power electric company, are not particularly willing to see their multi-billion dollar energy plant be handed over to Meznick Federal Electric, in what amounts to a very hostile takeover. The billion dollar insurance account includes catastrophic loss, hostile government seizure, or terrorist involvement policy. This happens to be a high risk moment for the event of item #2 "Hostile Government Seizure", so it is in the interest of the GloboSure Insurance Company to provide a reaction force capable of ensuring that no hostile powers decide they wish to also annex their client's asset. Globosure's quick reaction force would also ensure that no patriotic Lathodonian defenders decide to use the site outside of it's intended design, by turning their own lovely nuclear plant into a defensive location. So while NuPower won't have a need for its own actual military, it has one available at a moment's notice... if GloboSure determines that such intervention is necessary.Of course, there is nothing to say that the policy's owners may not just another agency, or group of agencies acting together for some other random interest, one that is totally their business, but that few others would expect to be an active participant in a war. The policyholder on the power station could, for instance, be a collection of international environmental agencies pooling their collective funds to ensure that there is no major nuclear disaster anywhere in that part of Europe. If a nuclear power plant were to suffer a catastrophic event caused by some conflict, it could poison the entire region for generations. Clean up from such an event would also be devastating and cost millions to cleanse of the radiological purge and millions more to restore the land to something useful. By their estimation, it is a logical idea to have someone prepared to prevent an incident from occurring, while also having the fallback of getting a large enough payment award that clean-up can be made. So they too have a use for a policy with the hopes of safeguarding, or at least having a plan to clean and rebuild after an event that would be a worst case scenario today. As a side note, if you were paying attention, I just laid the groundwork for the United States Environmental Protection Agency to have a legitimate cause for creating a "Combat Operations" department.No matter who owns the policy, the government being attacked, the company who owns the assets, or the collective of environmental agencies, or whoever else in the world feels they have a large enough stake in the matter to merit taking out a policy, when conflict seems imminent, GloboSure is going to get a call. When they do, they deploy their troops, most likely third party contractors to the selected sites and a new level of complexity is created in the future of warfare.In truth, it's doubtful that anyone in these situations would actually fight. Their goal is to exist as merely the threat of violence that would force anyone who might seek to make this private piece of property their own for either greed or nationalistic purposes. By merely bringing a big enough gun to the show, in this case, that gun being a next generation special operations infantry task force, whose one job is to make sure no one sets foot inside the power station, battlefield commanders for both the Meznick Army invasion forces and Lathodonian Defense Forces will have to decide if taking that asset, or even damaging it, is truly something worth sacrificing men and material for. Likely, a strong nation could take it, but at what cost? Among other things, the station itself when it gets caught in the crossfire, most likely. What would most likely happen following this, is that the power station would become a no man's land. No one would set foot within miles of the place besides those authorized to. For anyone else, a warning shot from over three miles away, followed by less subtle methods of delivering a message of welcoming.Quite frankly, if war is unavoidable, this is the best option for everyone. Lathodonia will probably lose, and the plant will probably be turned over, but that isn't the worst thing that could happen. Consider this from the policy holder's points of view, what they ended up with, and what they would have had had they not taken out the policy.NuPower didn't have a total loss. They still control the plant even if there is a several mile long siege around it. Meznick wouldn't break the No-man's-land to suffer some needless battle because that would surely destroy the station. That station, by the way, is no good to anyone broken and impossible to take from the forces guarding it with likely doing just that and definitely killing a lot of his own people. Besides, the plant itself is still precious, not only to NuPower, but to Meznick, as well. Instead, because of the threat of force of what would happen if players didn't play nicely, it's doubtful that anything else would bring the new owners of the real estate and the old owners of the plant to a table to plan a mutually beneficial trade. Mutually beneficial may not be an appropriate word, but GloboSure did provide NuPower with the best possible scenario, given the bleak state of affairs and given that their only other option without GloboSure was having their technology looted before being violently taken over by an enemy army. NuPower eventually lost the plant to Meznick Federal Power, but left on their terms, took what they wanted from the plant, and remarkably, never had a day without service to its customers throughout the war.That was good for Lathodonia too. They got to keep the lights on during the war for as long as possible. Furthermore, there is little to no destruction of the grid, which means life can get back to normal relatively quickly. This wasn't the case in Iraq where terrorists bombed the grid regularly, keeping a constant state of not being able to rely on the power. In Lathodonia, though they don't want to admit it now that half their nation is flying the wrong flag, they suffered little beyond the loss of their lands. That was unfortunate, but a completely collapse, that was avoided.The EPA got their money's worth out of the deal. One more nuclear disaster averted.Lathodonia may rate a payout, but I wouldn't be surprised if Globosure might be able to negotiate a reasonable settlement there too in exchange for leaving the plant peacefully for the Meznick forces. A few bargaining chips like that can be worth a lot, perhaps better terms in the treaty at the end of the war. You never know. Globosure might end up saving a lot of money on this operation, and just out of good fortune and the well applied application of greed, a lot of lives too.I know this reads like some dystopian science-fiction, but it is actually rather utopian when you really think about it. This move represents one more layer of complexity making the act of war that much harder and more costly for those who want to use it for their own gain, be it nation or individual. As with insurance companies today wanting to maximize their own profits through ensuring the best chance of never paying out, like when they offer you a discount for having working fire and smoke detectors or driving safely, they will be incentivized to make sure that client assets are protected from human harm. This will save lives and save money on all sides. It's not altruistic by any means. It's just flat out capitalistic greed. But where greed does more good than altruism could ever hope for, who really cares about why it works?As twisted as it sounds, for some private companies to gain the ability to become armed forces, it might lead to a future that sees less destruction from war, less disruption to daily life during conflict, and fewer deaths and suffering when times of violence erupt. Conflict will never stop. Conflict is a natural and unavoidable reality of life, but that doesn't mean that conflict might not become more bearable for the innocents who are caught up in it. That said, in most insurance cases, you aren't hoping for a best case scenario. No one gets paid unless something bad is happening already. Everyone just wants to make it out better than a total loss. Today we have total loss, but who knows about tomorrow?Still, I'm a little weirded out by a future that creates actuaries making millions if they hold a double Master's Degree in both the fields Finance and Accounting and Military Studies.You might also enjoy:Jon Davis's answer to What is the future of war?Jon Davis's answer to What are the pros and cons of a real world military jacket, as portrayed in "Edge of Tomorrow"?Jon Davis's answer to What currently-in-development real world military tech is closest to what is seen in "Edge of Tomorrow"?Thanks for reading!For more answers like this check out Inspired Lunacy and follow my blog War Elephant for more new content. Everything I write is completely independent research and is supported by fan and follower pledges. Please consider showing your support directly by visiting my Patreon support page here: Help Jon Davis in writing Military Novels, Articles, and Essays.

A United States aircraft carrier group is one of the most secure entities on the planet.What I feel is most misunderstood is that carriers never travel alone. There are numerous ships always traveling around a carrier to ensure its safety against a number of possible enemy threats. This is to ignore many layers of satellite, missile, and ground based defenses. Together, they create many layers of protection for the fleet against a vast array of dangers which the carrier could one day face. Together, through an overlapping mesh of threat deterrent systems, they function at the highest level of defense that technology can provide.A carrier battle group (CVBG) consists of an aircraft carrier (designated CV) and its large number of escorts, together defining the group ... CSG or CVBG normally consist of 1 Aircraft Carrier, 1 Guided Missile Cruiser (for Air Defense), 2 LAMPS (Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System) Capable Warships (focusing on Anti-Submarine and Surface Warfare), and 1–2 Anti Submarine Destroyers or Frigates.[2]That said, they aren't invulnerable by any stretch of the imagination. Its doubtful that anyone could out fight a carrier in the ocean through the use of fighters or bombers, such as the iconic Battle of Midway in World War II. Because of its many layers of defense, most other systems built by rival carriers would not be a major threat to the ships. Instead, I would envision the threats coming from newer technologies few people are talking about currently. The first of these, is the hypersonic cruise missile systems.HypersonicsHypersonics have made a lot of news in the last few years, as progresses in the scramjet have made it possible to travel at speeds never before imagined. In 2011, the United States tested a hypersonic missile with speeds exceeding Mach 6 and are capable of creating missiles and aircraft which could one day reach Mach 20, more than 15ooo miles per hour. China, Russia, and even India have invested much work into the creation of hypersonic weapons systems like the Chinese Wu-14 and the Indian Shaurya.Current U.S. missile defense sensors and interceptors are designed primarily to hit ballistic missile warheads that travel in predictable flight paths from launch, through space and into ground targets. China surprised U.S. intelligence agencies last year by conducting three flight tests of the Wu-14 in January, August and December. The vehicle traveled at speeds up to Mach 10, or nearly 8,000 miles per hour. U.S. intelligence agencies assessed the Wu-14 to be a nuclear delivery vehicle designed to break through U.S. defenses. In addition to China, Russia and India are working on hypersonic strike vehicles.To put the capabilities of these weapons in perspective, the Indian Shaurya clocked in at a speed of about Mach 7.5. That means that in its test, it could cover the distance of San Francisco, California to Phoenix, Arizona in roughly the same time as a TV commercial break. A test for an American system this year may see the distance of California to Hawaii covered in the same amount of time. What this means for warfare is a highly unpredictable, impossibly fast moving weapons system that will test every technological capability in our arsenal, but push for an era of threat deterrent systems most of us aren't even ready to conceive of yet.The threat of hypersonic missiles means that, in spite of the numerous defenses, something that fast will simply be able to outrun any defenses or tracking systems that can be produced. With a system like that, it is feared that a missile could be created that could deliver a nuclear warhead, one which would explode over the carrier group. Add to this that, in the future, these systems may be able to be deployed from submarines, allowing the missiles to be launched from virtually anywhere.To counter the threat of hypersonic missiles, a new generation of counter ballistics is being developed. The push towards solving the hypervelocity problem has devised even more radical new systems, which not only give the United States added defense against hypersonics, but also give the military additional capabilities, as well.One of these defense systems is the electromagnetic railgun. The railgun uses focused electrical energy to create a magnetic field that pushes a ballistic projectile at speeds around mach 7. A hypervelocity weapon itself, the projectiles have the capabilities of intercepting incoming cruise and ballistic missiles of both the extreme speed and conventional variety. What's more, the weapon can be used to attack not only incoming missiles, but also land targets, as well. On top of this, the weapon system surpasses older conventional naval guns in range and utility. While modern weapons can fire a projectile around 13 nautical miles, the railgun can be fired as far as 110 nautical miles, and it does this without the use of dangerous munitions which would need to be stored on ship and handled by crew members. Because the entire bulk of the missile systems doesn't need to be used, assault ships armed with rail technology can store hundreds more railgun rounds than they could conventional missiles. One last benefit that the railgun offers? It costs about 100x less to operate than any other alternative. That's a game changer.Submarine WarfareNew generations of submarines are now capable of operating undetected like no other generation of subs before. They've proven themselves in combat trials to be capable of greeting the carrier fleet from beneath the surface with frightening stealth and capabilities.The Gotland-class submarines of the Swedish Navy are modern diesel-electric submarines, which were designed and built by the Kockums shipyard in Sweden. They are the first submarines in the world to feature a Stirling engine air-independent propulsion (AIP) system, which extends their underwater endurance from a few days to weeks.[2] This capability had previously only been available with nuclear-powered submarines.In 2004, the Swedish government received a request from the United States of America to lease HMS Gotland – Swedish-flagged, commanded and manned, for a duration of one year for use in antisubmarine warfare exercises. The Swedish government granted this request in October 2004, with both navies signing a memorandum of understanding on March 21, 2005.[5][6] The lease was extended for another 12 months in 2006.[7][8][9] In July 2007, HMS Gotland departed San Diego for Sweden.[10]HMS Gotland managed to snap several pictures of the USS Ronald Reagan during a wargaming exercise in the Pacific Ocean, effectively "sinking" the aircraft carrier.[11] The exercise was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the US fleet against diesel-electric submarines, which some have noted as severely lacking.[12][13]Advances in submarine technology left US naval shipbuilders and commanders rather embarrassed. As yet, that was their purpose in taking part in the war games. The fleet was again challenged in 2006 when a similar vessel, one of the Chinese Song-class attack submarine quietly surfaced within nine miles of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. The vessel was close enough to strike with one of its 18 homing torpedoes. None of the ships escorting the Kitty Hawk within the carrier strike group detected the Song until it breached the surface.The 2004 exercises validated many concerns for the aging fleet, and the 2006 shot across the bow cemented them. Still, in light of the last decade since, many of these concerns we've had about the new generation of subs have left many fears sunk. For instance, ships like the Song and the Gotland were not meant for deep sea operations. Their revolutionary systems, while novel, limit their range. They are short range ships that do not possess the range for true "blue water" operations, exactly what the aircraft carrier was engineered to do. They were, instead, designed for missions nearer to their home ports in the North Sea and the waters surrounding China in primarily defensive roles. This allows ships like the modern carriers to maneuver out of range for most of their purposes, limiting the threat of the new silent running submarines. Added to this reduction in threat is the fact that China has slowed its purchasing of new subs, further limiting its naval presence in the coming era of warfare and its threats to the United States Navy. In the interim decade, the US Navy has also been updating its systems, particularly in the form of the new Gerald R. Ford class super-carrier to replace many of the Nimitz ships. The new carriers are loaded with new technologies, many developed with insights gleaned from the missions against new technology submarines.Cyber WarfareCyber Warfare is the unappreciated threat to all military defenses. Many people talk about it as being something terrifying, but few people understand the nature of the threat posed to the US Military, or any other military for that matter.Cracking has become a major sector of cyber warfare. An example would be the Stuxnet virus, made famous for its approach to disabling Iranian nuclear refinement operations. Joel Brenner, a Senior Counsel at the National Security Agency, in his book America the Vulnerable, describes why Stuxnet was so incredible. It was a worm, a self-replicating virus, which utilized not just one, but four previously unknown vulnerabilities in Microsoft operating systems to spread itself throughout a worldwide infection. Once spread, it sought out particular Siemens centrifuges, like those used by the Iranians to refine Uranium, and bring them down. This virus baffled engineers for months, unaware that random system outages were really the result of advantage sabotage from outside the country. What it showed was the threat to even extremely powerful and well defended military systems. More perplexing, the Stuxnet virus, Brenner postulates, could have only have been created by one of a very few groups who would have had the technological capability to create it, that being the national governments of either United States, Russia, China, Israel, or one of a few members of the European Community. It goes way beyond the capability of the midnight hacker savant or the college computer science nerd out for kicks. This was deliberate and ingeniously engineered attack conducted by nations.He continues in his book to describe the threat posed by China. China is a special case in that, besides a cyber warfare branch of the People's Liberation Army, China also has the added asset of tens of thousands of nationalistic, "Patriot Hackers". These individuals form a community of cracker groups which focus on exploiting all international information vulnerabilities from corporate, to military, and even personal. This core group of international hackers has been responsible for countless patent thefts and billions in lost research and development to the benefit of Chinese corporations, but is also responsible for compromising classified information worldwide. China's hacker community is distinctly different from that of nations like the United States, which, if a pattern could be set, would be better described as anarchistic and anti-government, and even those in Russia, who are much more geared to cyber crime for profit. China's hackers, instead work together alongside, or at least to the benefit of, China's national government. All this while still be officially "unaffiliated" with the government for diplomatic and legal reasons. Effectively, the Chinese have a clandestine cyber national guard, growing in capabilities and there isn't really a thing the world can do about it.From Cyber-warfare 'is a growing threat'Future state-on-state conflict, as well as conflicts involving non-state actors such as al-Qaida, would increasingly be characterised by reliance on asymmetric warfare techniques, chiefly cyber-warfare, Chipman said. Hostile governments could hide behind rapidly advancing technology to launch attacks undetected. And unlike conventional and nuclear arms, there were no agreed international controls on the use of cyber weapons."Cyber-warfare [may be used] to disable a country's infrastructure, meddle with the integrity of another country's internal military data, try to confuse its financial transactions or to accomplish any number of other possibly crippling aims," he said. Yet governments and national defence establishments at present have only limited ability to tell when they were under attack, by whom, and how they might respond.The US Defence Department's Quadrennial Defence Review, published this week, also highlighted the rising threat posed by cyber-warfare on space-based surveillance and communications systems."On any given day, there are as many as 7 million DoD (Department of Defence) computers and telecommunications tools in use in 88 countries using thousands of war-fighting and support applications. The number of potential vulnerabilities, therefore, is staggering." the review said."Moreover, the speed of cyber attacks and the anonymity of cyberspace greatly favour the offence. This advantage is growing as hacker tools become cheaper and easier to employ by adversaries whose skills are growing in sophistication."From: Navy Battles Cyber Threats: Thumb Drives, Wireless Hacking, & ChinaSome of those vulnerabilities are forehead-smackingly simple, once you know where to look. “You can walk around any ship, most aircraft, and you can find either USB ports or serial ports that were put there for maintenance,” said Leigher. “They were done for good engineering reasons” — to download diagnostic data, for example — “but the engineer wasn’t thinking about computer security.” What if an enemy agent under cover as a contractor or even as a civilian on a good-will tour slipped a virus-loaded thumb drive into one of those ports? What if the bad guy simply tricked a sailor into doing it for him?From: Page on ali-cle.orgU.S. computer experts playing the part of foreign hackers managed to shut down all communications among the U.S. Pacific fleet, and could have shut down the entire western half of the U.S. power grid.Having said all this, it is plausible a group of hackers which are well enough organized and with enough backing could comprise our carrier's systems. It is possible that infected equipment could be installed on the ships themselves, since it is economically impossible to produce all the technologies built for these ships in government controlled factories, nor even, all in the United States. Foreign manufacturing produces gateway points for hardware to be slipped in with infected files that could then reproduce throughout the vessel's internal secured networks and systems. If this were to happen, it is possible that these ships could be brought down through their own control systems, hypothetically locking up their systems, halting their communications, melting down their reactors, crashing them into the rocks, or just causing them to float dead in the water. This is broadly hypothetical, but has precedent.In the 1980's Russia had poor abilities to produce microchips and the soviets worked to steal technology from the West, decades aheads of them technologically speaking. Because of a defector, the United States was able to know what it was Soviet spies were after. The Americans allowed flawed microprocessors to be stolen and their programs copied. These were made so well that they passed an initial inspection, only break down chemical and manufacturing facilities and overpower turbines in the Trans-Siberian pipeline. When soviet spies stole plans for gas-line pumps, they were unaware that it was intentionally designed to pump with much more pressure than the pipes were ever meant to handle. William Safire of the New York Times in 2004 was the first to break this story 25 years later. In his words, "The result was the most monumental, non-nuclear explosion and fire, ever seen from space."While this is purely hypothetical, all the necessary ingredients are in place for the possibility of cyber-threats from other nations, or even cyber-terrorism. For that reason, the United States military created the US Cyber Command. On June 23, 2009, the Secretary of Defense directed the Commander of U.S. Strategic Command to establish a sub-unified command, United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). Full Operational Capability (FOC) was achieved Oct. 31, 2010. The Command has three main focus areas: Defending the DoDIN, providing support to combatant commanders for execution of their missions around the world, and strengthening our nation's ability to withstand and respond to cyber attack. I couldn't find a video. I don't think they want me talking about it.SummaryI don't think that anyone out there thinks the aircraft carrier is almighty. It's vulnerabilities are well known. While these vulnerabilities are at the center of many debates within military circles, they aren't enough to mean that the carrier is dead. The truth is that the carrier will live on, so long as there is a need for them which outweighs their costs and the risks to use them.Frankly, many involved in the debates taking place today over the future of the carrier don't consider the big picture of why the ships exist at all. They are quick to note the massive costs of these floating cities, and the potential loss of life if one were sunk. The best can list off a few times when vulnerabilities in the system have been discovered. This, however, doesn't mean the sky is falling and that the end of American blue water dominance is nigh. What is equally important is understanding how even the new technologies have vulnerabilities themselves, and to realize that other new technologies are being equipped to counter them warfare's endless waltz.That said, of all the people who say that the costs are too high, I never hear anyone offer the only real thing that could serve as a true threat to the carriers; a better alternative. Show me a better method for giving the military the ability to utilize strong diplomacy to preserve peace and I will agree with you, the air craft carrier needs to be a museum. An example of this would be the recent parking of a floating runway off the coast of Yemen to deter Iranian support of rebels, thus preventing an escalation of the Iran/Saudi proxy wars. This is what the carriers do and why we will need them in the future.This is why, in spite of the costs and the risks, the Navy is currently in the process of replacing their Nimitz class supercarriers with the new Gerald R. Ford class housing improvements to the technology suite and boasting a lighter crew requirement. In light of super death nuke missiles moving at 10,000 miles an hour and an army of Chinese hackers, people often view tactics as old as a war that ended 70 years ago as outdated. What all the vulnerabilities showcase is that only the most powerful nations in the world have the means to create the threats necessary to put the United States' carrier fleet at risk. For those willing to even try, no attack being guaranteed. of course, would surely have resigned themselves to nothing less than the beginning of World War III. I'm not saying that the fleet can't be defeated through some means known or as yet uncreated. I'm just saying that anyone who wants to sink a few very powerful ships are going to need to be able to follow it up with something far, far more intensive, because even if you can take down the Navy's aircraft carrier fleet, all of them, you then must deal with the rest of the Navy, along with the US Air Force, Army, and the United States Marine Corps. Good luck with that.If this answer interested you, you may also enjoy Jon Davis's answer to What is the future of war?Thanks for reading!For more answers like this check out On War by Jon Davis and follow my blog War Elephant for more new content. Everything I write is completely independent research and is supported by fan and follower pledges. Please consider showing your support directly by visiting my Patreon support page here: Jon Davis on Patreon: Help support in writing Military Novels, Articles, and Essays.

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