The Joint Force in a Contested and Disordered World

Shifting ideological affiliations could lead to new and surprising fractures in societies. Rapidly
shifting groups may mobilize populations by encouraging greater intolerance, prompting urban
political paralysis, and orienting their members on radical but still coherent violence in the service
of political ends. Terrorists, insurgent groups, and state-sponsored proxies are likely to take
advantage of a range of polarization techniques to reinforce their messages or to create favorable
conditions within which to operate. This environment will ultimately lead to new forms of
“shadow” governance where organizations the United States deems illegal or illegitimate begin to
fulfill citizens’ needs – and problematically, are seen as legitimate by the local population. These
groups will build regional and global networks around sets of ideas, forged and disseminated
within cyberspace, with a range of “online ideologies” and identity networks displacing
nationalism as a source of legitimacy for many.
Alternative Hubs of Authority
Over the next two decades, the distribution of power will continue to transition away from a statecentric
world towards a multi-level, multi-nodal model, characterized by competition for control
and influence between different institutions, groups, and individuals. By 2035, varying kinds and
degrees of economic, informational, and ideological power will be exercised by non-state actors
such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private corporations, extremist groups, or
empowered individuals that may include celebrity figures and the wealthy. As a result, formal
governing organizations and mechanisms within states will become increasingly less effective,
while informal networks will increase their capacity and capability to control or drive international
and domestic outcomes.
The emergence of alternative hubs of authority is likely to result from several important trends:
An accelerating diffusion of power. The power of the state is likely to be eroded by an array
of non-state actors who will be increasingly capable of distributing and diffusing control over
outcomes away from states at global, national, and local levels. Future conflict will involve a
greater number of actors, both state and particularly non-state entities, due to a continuing
diffusion of power.
Cooperation/convergence among terrorist and criminal organizations. Despite differing
goals and objectives, terrorist groups and criminal organizations will converge at times to plan
or complete a particular operation of common interest. Dependent on very local conditions,
the linkage between criminal and terrorist groups is likely to increase in both geographic terms
and in terms of specialization such as logistics, finance, and security.
Globalized criminal and terrorist networks. Technology designed to maintain anonymity
such as The Onion Router (TOR) or the Invisible Internet Project (I2P) as well as improved
encryption techniques will allow illicit networks to evade detection and expand operations.
Globalized criminal and terrorist entities are likely to amass significant financial resources
and demonstrate the ability to challenge traditional state economic and military capabilities.
Future conflict will center on an array of organizations filling spaces vacated by states. Some
terrorist organizations will leverage and exploit illicit activities such as drug smuggling, human
trafficking, and even poaching to develop new lucrative sources of funding for their violent
activities. Conflict resulting from a more integrated criminal-terrorist group nexus will not
necessarily lend itself to a purely military solution, as financial flows and movement across many
legal jurisdictions transcend military boundaries and authorities. As the line between terrorist and
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