We already see advances by the West to put a choke-hold on both Russia and China by empowering its allies. The reason why the West is risking the Iran deal even when there is a high possibility of Iran defecting from the deal in the future is to have a formidable military power become a buffer zone between Europe and Russia. As we can see, Russia escalated its struggle for the region by directly opposing Western interest in Syria. Further, Trans-Pacific Partnership - a partnership that covers 40% of world's economy - was drafted. China, however, is being excluded from it. A sharp comment by President Obama followed. He said: "When more than 95% of our potential customers live outside our borders, we can't let countries like China write the rules of the global economy" (BBC). The potential for a massive war, therefore, is great, supposing that no country is dumb enough to detonate a nuclear bomb. And with this potential, the great powers are racing for better technology in order to have the necessary edge over their enemies.
The current military world is a defense-dominant world; the military equipment favors defensive doctrines. One might observe the U.S. operations in the Middle East and say that our technology favors offense. But in all of the recent U.S. operations, the U.S. had superior weaponry and the terrorist factions did not have the tech to counter them. This is not true for wealthy powers.
A single RPG can disable a tank, and a single stinger missile can demolish a jet. This means that, as long as there are soldiers who can operate them, defending against offensive armored charge and airstrikes can be stopped with greater cost-efficiency. Even if a stealth bomber goes past the radar, if it is seen by the naked eye, it can be shredded to pieces by a stationary AA gun or, possibly, a weaponized laser (which is in development). Further, a jammer can effectively put a stop to unmanned drone strikes... drones only appear to be an effective war machine for terrorists simply have no counter to it. With it, any future possibility of there being a large robotic (droid?) army disappears.
What does this mean? It means that the future of warfare, despite our best efforts to have machines do all the work for us, will ultimately depend on infantrymen. Exoskeleton suits and invisibility suits for soldiers are already in development to give the infantry the edge required to defeat their enemies, and these will likely succeed in trials. With these developments, infantry and mechanized infantry will likely increase in number. With it, there is a temptation to make new technological innovations to kill numerous infantrymen fast. The U.N. protocol only bans certain chemical weapons... it does not say anything about vaporizing people in seconds with directed microwave beams. This, I think, is worthy of ethical examination. We can perhaps put a ban on certain weapons before they are invented.
