The Fight Is Here: 5 Realities of 21st-Century Conflict
The comfortable certainties of the post-Cold War era are dissolving before our eyes. The long-held assumption that major conflicts unfold with ample warning, allowing for gradual mobilization and diplomatic de-escalation, is a luxury we no longer have. In an age of unrestricted competition across economic, political, and technological domains, the old rules of readiness no longer apply.
These urgent insights are drawn from a new book, Fight Tonight Force: Combat Readiness at the Speed of Relevance, which synthesizes discussions from a Sir Richard Williams Foundation conference in September 2025 that brought together leading military practitioners, academics, and industry experts. The analysis delivers a series of stark, counter-intuitive truths about the nature of modern warfare. This post distills the five most impactful takeaways, revealing a cascade of interrelated challenges that demand a holistic, whole-of-society response.
The Window for Conflict is Closing Faster Than We Think
In a stark wake-up call, Professor Justin Bronk of the Royal United Service Institute argues that Australia and its allies face a critical 2-5 year window to prepare for potential conflict, not the comfortable 5-10 year timeline many defense planners assume. This compressed timeline is not arbitrary; it is driven by a cold, strategic calculus.
According to Bronk’s analysis, American military capabilities are set to improve significantly by 2030 with the introduction of new platforms. This creates a window of temporary advantage for adversaries like China, who may feel pressured to act before that window closes. The urgency is compounded by the interconnected nature of potential flashpoints; a crisis in Europe could provide an opportunity for aggression in the Pacific, and vice versa, as American attention and resources are divided. This compressed timeline is made all the more dangerous by a critical peacetime vulnerability: the illusion that a nation’s industrial might can be summoned on demand.
You Can’t Just “Flip a Switch” to Prepare for War
One of the most critical and counter-intuitive lessons is that industrial mobilization is not a rapid response but a long-term capability built in peacetime. As Matt Jones of BAE Systems warns, “Waiting for crisis to justify investment leaves us with money, but no time.” As AVM (Retired) Robert Denney powerfully argued, mobilization is not a switch to be flipped in a crisis but a capability built in advance. Money cannot buy back the years it takes to build resilient supply chains, a skilled workforce, and the institutional knowledge to scale production under pressure.
History provides a powerful contrast. Bill Knudsen successfully mobilized America’s “Arsenal of Democracy” by forging government-industry partnerships before the US officially entered World War II. In contrast, Australia’s Essington Lewis was frustrated by governmental inaction, proving that even with adequate funds, “money cannot buy lost time.” This challenge is particularly acute for modern economies. As analyst Anne Borzycki notes, the “globalized, just-in-time interconnected economy of 2019 has eroded the resilience Australia had in the 1930s.” While these physical threats demand urgent attention, an even more insidious battle is being waged in a domain most planners overlook: the cognitive realm.
The Ultimate Battlefield Might Be Your Own Mind
The most surprising threat may not come from a missile or a cyber-attack, but from a “Pandemic of the Mind.” A study by John Blackburn of the Institute for Integrated Economic Research argues that the most profound impact of Artificial Intelligence may not be technological, but cognitive. By delegating an ever-increasing number of mental tasks to AI, society risks a collective “cognitive atrophy.”
This erosion of critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and complex problem-solving skills threatens the very foundation of a functioning democracy, especially during a national security crisis. A population that has outsourced its thinking is uniquely vulnerable to manipulation and disinformation, paralyzing the decision-making processes essential for an effective national response within the dangerously short timelines that now define conflict.
Artificial Intelligence’s (AI) most profound impacts may not be technological, but cognitive, affecting how humans process information, make decisions, and maintain the mental capacities essential for the effective functioning of a democratic society and for national security.
While this trend is alarming, some practitioners, like AI innovator Tom Hanson, believe this cognitive decline could be a temporary phase before humanity learns to augment itself with AI, viewing it as a “technological necessity” for a new era of human development.
The Future of Air Defense Could Be Cheap Rockets and Old Planes
The economics of modern air defense tell a sobering story of unsustainable cost exchanges. In recent encounters, NATO forces have used missiles worth $1.2 to 1.8 million** to intercept reconnaissance drones valued at just **20,000. Separately, Russia has exploited this vulnerability by driving the production cost of its Shahed-136 attack drones down to approximately $7,000 per unit, enabling saturation attacks designed to exhaust a defender’s expensive interceptors.
The war in Ukraine has become a laboratory for innovative, low-tech solutions to this high-tech problem. In a surprising twist, Ukrainian forces have found that some of their most cost-effective counter-drone platforms are “helicopters equipped with machine guns” and “crews in light aircraft like Yak-52s armed with assault rifles.”
This unsustainable reality is forcing a fundamental rethink, driving a search for more affordable and scalable solutions. Among the most promising is the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS), a laser guidance kit retrofitted to standard rockets. At 20,000-35,000 per interceptor, APKWS breaks the unsustainable cost curve. Professor Bronk highlights it as a prime candidate for Australian domestic production, offering a tangible way to build a deep magazine of defensive interceptors to counter the threat of massed, low-cost systems without bankrupting the nation.
Cyber War Isn’t Instant—It’s a Years-Long Game of Sabotage
Popular culture portrays cyber warfare as an instantaneous event, happening at the “speed of light.” The reality, as presented by Professor Justin Bronk, is precisely the opposite. Developing and embedding a sophisticated cyber weapon into a target, such as an adversary’s air defense network, is one of the slowest and most patient forms of warfare.
This process requires extensive preparation, reconnaissance, and pre-positioning of capabilities. The payload that could disable a critical enemy system on the first day of a conflict may need to be developed and embedded years in advance, long before any hostilities are apparent. Strategically, this means cyber dominance is not about quick hacks but about immense foresight and the quiet, long-term positioning of assets that could prove decisive in the opening hours of a conflict.
Counter military networks type cyber payloads are one of the slowest forms of warfare. You’re actually looking at between 18 months and three years, often to develop and embed a capability in an adversary Air Defence Network.
Conclusion: The Choice Between Adaptation and Vulnerability
The core theme emerging from this analysis is that the comfortable assumptions guiding security planning are obsolete. The dangerously short timeline for conflict, the fragility of our just-in-time industrial base, the erosion of our cognitive resilience, the unsustainable economics of modern defense, and the years-long patience required for cyber dominance are not separate issues. They are interconnected facets of a single reality: modern defense requires the active engagement, preparation, and resilience of entire societies.
As Robbin Laird concludes in the book’s final analysis, the evidence suggests that maintaining the status quo is not a viable option. For nations facing this new era of unrestricted competition, “The choice, ultimately, is between adaptation and vulnerability.”
This leaves us with a final, question: If the nature of conflict has already changed so fundamentally, are our societies preparing for the right fight?