[jopsen]

You assume the military power has a significant role to play in the future.

Building secure civilian products, countering corporate espionage, and building products bæused world wide, all probably play a bigger part.

As do diplomacy. Disagreement between the bigs powers haven't been solved with military power for a long time.. why would that change?

[Latteland]

It could change if belligerent idiotic leaders get in charge. Remember back in WW 1, at every step of the way leaders of multiple countries thought "surely the other side won't go to that step, they'll stop if we just increase the pressure a bit". Tomorrow a chinese pilot could bomb or crash into a us ship, try to sink a carrier by Taiwan. That could start the war. Someone could take it upon themselves in Russian-occupied Ukraine to move on to the rest, or bomb Poland. Or the bomber flights the us and russia send to each other's borders could crash into the other countries fighters.

We have acting leaders at many levels of the military, and a president who talks the big talk but probably hasn't ever deal with a real crisis where the other side won't fold or de-escalated something ever. He's got no reasonable advisers left.