sneaky business

groups will sooner or later start targeting infrastructure, logistics networks and even possibly farmlands since it cripples a country while it has a low collateral damage at first. This will make it harder for governments to blame groups for resulting civilian deaths.

governments should take this development seriously and make the necessary investments in relevant security.

Wake up.

In the future wars will be fought in the shadows. That means the victories will be had in the shadows.

If two countries are in conflict and another party takes control of both of these squabbling countries it will not be known for their own military, security services or even intelligence services. The only ones in the know would be some covert activity or cell trusted by the invader. Only when the power is absolute will the new command entity reveal itself.

Some of these takeovers will be necessary to keep the peace, but mostly because most countries are too cowardly to fight a proper war with an equal opponent.

The leadership affected countries will likely be kept in the dark until further notice.

And when they are informed they will be ordered to continue squabble with each other for the sake of the civilians populayions happiness.

So what does this mean in practical terms? Well in the far future there will be no world wars, only smaller wars with a few countries involved. 

Conflicts will continue, it is part of human nature.

If some soldiers come into contact with some unit that their own command refuses them to deal with. Congratulations, those soldiers gave come into contact with tools of the new command structure.

Theoreticsl warfare in 50 years time.

In the far future a commander could be connected to a military without knowing what country or it belongs to or where it operates. This could be done through digital anonhmized communication.

The battlefield could have a virtual representation. This is all well and good. The commander does not know where the troops are and other details, need to know and all that.

Commander could be rented out to allied countries. But through a series of bizarre events the commander could end up commanding the opponents military. Without even knowing it, because of virtual battlefield and anonymized information.

This would not be a serious problem as long as both opponents don't end up in war with each other.

A commander who discovers himself in this situation would want to get fired from one or both responsibilities. Problem would be if both opponents already knew about this situation and still refuses to fire "their" commander.

Only way out of this is if commander try to prevent the two opponents from ending up in warfare with each other. But if it comes to conflict just end the war very quickly in a draw.