The Joint Force in a Contested and Disordered World

Section 1 - The Future Security Environment 2035
“The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and
commander have to make is to establish . . . the kind of war on which they are
embarking.” 2
The emerging security environment can be described by two distinct but related sets of challenges.
The first is contested norms, in which increasingly powerful revisionist states and select non-state
actors will use any and all elements of power to establish their own sets of rules in ways
unfavorable to the United States and its interests. The second is persistent disorder, characterized
by an array of weak states that become increasingly incapable of maintaining domestic order or
good governance. These twin challenges are likely to disrupt or otherwise undermine a security
environment that will remain largely favorable to the United States, but less overtly congruent with
U.S. interests.
Contested norms and persistent disorder are not mutually exclusive. They frequently intersect and
involve competition with a military dimension short of traditional armed conflict. This competitive
behavior is characterized by ambiguity regarding the nature of a particular conflict, opacity of the
parties involved, or uncertainty about relevant policy and legal frameworks. 3 In light of these
changes, the ambiguous but still violent pursuit of political goals will be a normal and recurrent
condition under which the Joint Force will interact with any number of potential opponents over
the next two decades.
What follows is a description of how contested norms and persistent disorder will manifest in the
future security environment across three thematic areas – World Order; Human Geography; and
Science, Technology, and Engineering. Within each of these areas, there are a number of
conditions that will define and shape the future of conflict and war. Each condition encapsulates
three or four militarily-relevant trends that describe the speed and direction of important changes
in the security environment. The conditions are designed to provide a “snapshot” of the most
critical security-related challenges that the Joint Force will likely confront in 2035. 4
The first thematic area – World Order – describes how the international system may change in
terms of state behavior, interstate relationships, and the network of rules, norms and agreements
(both tacit and explicit) that govern these relationships. The second thematic area– Human
Geography – describes the quantity, characteristics, and distribution of human populations around
the world and how changing demographics and culture may affect the future security environment.
The third thematic area – Science, Technology, and Engineering – illustrates a set of likely
technological advances and other scientific capabilities that may emerge over the next 20 years to
impact the future security environment.
2
Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, (trans. Paret and Howard, 1976/1984) p. 88.
3
United States Special Operations Command, The Gray Zone (9 September 2015), p. 1, and Michael Mazarr,
Mastering the Gray Zone, U.S. Army War College (December 2015).
4
This section of JOE 2035 was derived from a Joint Staff J-7 study titled Anticipating the Future Security
Environment: Key Conditions for Future Joint Force Operations (May 2015).
4