Black Ops III-the future warfare

I know I have been playing video games a lot recently, I talked about Watchdogs in my previous blog. But, the Black Ops III which just came out in the beginning of November is really awesome for video game perspective; and more importantly, it opens more possibilities and chances for us to think about the future of warfare, soldiers and even human beings’ fate.

The whole story starts in the year of 2065; the form of war has shifted from waves of soldiers into waves of robots and  several cybernertically enhanced soldiers who are considered as the elite of the elite. There are a lot more to talk about the plot. Long story short, these cyber soldiers were hacked by a AI called Corvus which is smart enough to control soldiers’ minds and create virtual battlefield real enough to fool humans. These soldiers wear a suit called Direct Neural Interface (DNI) which make them directly communicate with other machines, share vision with their comrades who wear the same suit, and become a portable computer hard drive. And this suit gives them different abilities to use on battlefield such as running on the wall, create smoke screen, release fireflies which are nano-robots who can burn enemy soldiers and many other special abilities. I have not finished the campaign yet, but according to what I have seen in game so far, it is truly amazing and terrifying at the same time.

There are three main countable assumptions I make for the future warfare. First, robots will take over soldiers eventually; there are definitely will be soldiers who wear high-tech suit like the ones in Black Ops III to fight with robots. Drones, heavy tanks, UAVs, robot squads and other types of highly-intelligent lethal machinery weapons will appear more in battle. In the first mission of Black Ops III, the player’s legs and arms were twisted off by an enemy robot, and that is also the reason why he went through surgery to become a cyber soldier. Robots can do most of things now, they are being massively used in factories; yes someone will argue that robots have huge advantages on doing heavy labor works in long period of time which is exactly what a soldier is doing in battle, but they are not humans in all so when they are facing some emergency situation, they cannot decide what to do because it is not in the program they have been written. That is why I said there will still be soldiers fighting alongside robots, and as technology goes further and further, robots will become more and more advanced in the future so that they can deal with more complex battlefield situation instead of shooting guns and throwing grenades.

Another assumption is that the warfare will expand into space, internet and everywhere you can ever imagine in the world, even your dream. What happened in Black Ops III is that you as the player basically play most of your mission in dreams because of the AI who hacked your DNI make everything look so real that you will not never doubt it. Why do we send satellite and space shuttles into the universe? Why do we keep doing research to see if Mars is capable for human being to live in the future? Why do we keep inventing faster and smarter phones and computers? All these may tell you that our technology is developing really fast, and human being civilization has reach another level comparing to hundreds years ago. Technology is always a double side sword, the next world war will not only happen in earth, also in the universe. There will not be numerous soldiers forwarding to enemy lines, instead, a simple click on a keyboard will destroy a whole country’s communication system. EMP bomb will be used more often than it is now. The internet helps us know about news faster, but it also helps terrorists organize and plan their attack plans faster too. We need to consider that how to utilize internet as a way to both attack and protect in future cyber warfare.

The last one is that this war which will happen in the future is devastating, it is much more than WWII. It will destroy everything based on the armed force that all the countries have on earth right now. Nuclear weapons is just one of them, cyber weapons, biochemical weapons, and even mind-controllling weapons will become more widely used and effective in the future. Globalization has connected every country on earth so tight that if there ever breaks out a war, every one will suffer, not one country will have the chance to win or lose, everything will be destroyed. America will probably look like what happen in Fallout, apocalypse is what future warfare will bring. It is really a matter of time.

Another personal opinion about relationship between China and America because my professor has been picking on China, Chinese hackers, Chinese stuff a lot recently in front me. I know he does it because he is being sarcastic, or personal interest. I want to say that there is no permanent enemy or friends in political relationship, there is only permanent shared profits. No one wants to see a war happen between these two countries, because if it does, then it will turn this world up side down and everything I said above will probably happen. China does want to start any type of war at first, but it will definitely react to some aggressive and ridiculous defiance which are way out of the limits. Peace is all we want but for politicians it is the shared profit. At least having an object view about another country’s policy and action is what I think a mature smart people should do. Think more before you talk is probably all bloggers and people who comment online should keep in mind.

I do not want to see a war happen but I am excited to see how far human beings can push themselves physically and mentally with the help of technology such as the cyber suit used in the game. Like they said in this game, “Your mind is truly your most powerful weapon.” War was created to release the original sinful nature of human beings, which is violence, but now it is a way to balance world order and political system. Maybe one day all we do is fight in our own dreams, and wake up, then come back to dream again. This cycle will probably never ends, who knows?

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