Salam.
Firstly thanks for tag and opening this thread.
ANS: The clash of civilizations and progress of this clash with time.
You see The style and nature of warfare have changed ever since the major conflicts in World particularly in modern history. War shapes the next upcoming times and also develop new tactics of offense and defense, hence changing the complete nature of warfare.
Lets take example of Europe. Ottoman Umpire was at its evening and Europe powers were emerging. England, France, Spain, Germany to name few. These emerging powers developed industry based mechanical work of progress instead of agricultural human power based system. Invention of gunpowder, turbine engine revolutionized their armed forces and techniques so instead of fighting against each other they virtually engaged each other by conquering more World and establishing colonies. For a long period of time, England kept its throne high but soon was challenged by Germany. WW1, fought with newly developed weapons and tactics and idea behind this war to give dominance to respective civilization and overcome the power of enemy culture and system. WW2 was too fought with same reasons and it saw way more surprising inventions and strategies compared to WW1. Tanks, Aircrafts, Subs, Destroyers, Atomic Bomb, Radar, Jet Engine, cruise missiles, Ballistic missiles etc to name a few. Both sides were pushed to last limits so their thinkers also pushed them to last limits to surpass opponent in scientific technology. Of course all this tech was meant for Military purpose, but it saw its civilian applications after war was over.
Now comes the most bright example, i.e of Cold war.
It was less a Soviet vs USA war more a Capitalism vs Communism war. It was democracy vs socialism. And both countries and nations were eager to protect theirs and beat the rival ones. The presence of huge piles of Nuclear bombs prevented a full flagged war between both countries but it do forced them to surpass each other in scientific progress+ military tech+ advance strategies+ new mods of policies to beat opponent in non violent battle fields like in economy, human progress, education, health etc etc. I consider the ''Space progress'' as fruit of Cold war. Soviet took the lead by sending first man in Space, USA won the race by reaching moon. After even the war ended, the space programs of western countries was up high and it is making fast progress till date. All this happened due to friction of two power full civilizations.
Now Soviets are gone, but Chinese are in. Almost same system but different enemy holding its flag. Chinese introduced a new mod of warfare using its army of Hackers. i.e cyber war. Hacking the sensitive info of enemy helped them to create new ideas by merging them with their own ideas. These hybrid ideas forced their enemies (NATO) to develop further advance ideas including mind warfare i.e media war, intelligence war also called 4thG and 5thG warfare.
So simple to saw is when ever two opposite systems collide each other they create new dimensions of work. If they end up in war then their tactics and weapons transform into civilian technologies and they get absorbed in society. After winning this collision, The winner keep its work high in order to beat any future opponent.
What will future war look like?
That depends in how far future you are talking about.
Tactics of warfare changes according to nature of weapons, so
Lets just talk about weapons only for a while.
In entire human history and far future, the weapons used, still in used or will be used (in my opinion) can be divided into three very Distinct classes or generations.
1: First Generation: Weapons like Sword, Shield, Arrow, Spare etc. Warfare during this era was simple, also the terminologies and tactics. Arrange a army. Face your enemy, may use gorilla tactics, no attacks at night etc etc. Only land based warfare.
2: Second Generation: Its generation of projectiles. From Bullet to Tanks shell, from heavy bomb to ballistic warhead, every thing is projectile filled with dirty explosive nature. This generation warfare is diversified to water, air and land.
3: Third Generation: Its next and upcoming generation. In near future the use of gun powder and explosive warheads rule out. Instead high energy weapons are used. Like lasers, microwaves, etc. It also includes Rail gun technology which still use projectiles but lack warheads and use electric power instead of explosive material for projection. Now imagine future weapons, extremely accurate and lethal, no recoil, no smoke, speed of light and yeah no visibility. It is in progress and its not easy to describe it in one article.
How do we recognise it as it develops?
We can recognize materialistic warfare only. Like we know that war is going on at various places in World involving military action from either side. But several form of war is going on which we don't even consider. It can be information warfare, physiological warfare, economic warfare etc etc. All these non materialistic forms of wars are fought inorder to downgrade the morals of your opponent and damage them in non visible but solid way. It results in mass hypnosis, mass propaganda, panic and distrust. Religion, Race, Social values, National values are operating grounds and usually general public who have too simple minds to comprehend complex issues are prime target.
For intellectuals and thinkers who develop sound understanding of human nature particularly mind nature recognize it very well. Just like today we knows many complex forms of warfare while general public still believes in concept that wars are fought at borders with arms.
It also varies from person to person and society to society.
You can counter some thing only if you believes that it exists. If you don't believe on its existence then simple you cannot counter it. E.g media wars are very popular now a days. Media distort the truth and manipulate General public. This media is controlled by Power full personalities via money and they use media to achieve their goals. Now if a person have sense to understand that how media works and how they deliberately hide many things and boast other things then he sure know how to counter it. But if a person don't believes on such stuff and have firm faith on what ever is displayed on his TV set then surely he is very easy prey of media war and thus easily controllable.
In current times I see mass population of World under mass Hypnosis. They believe what ever media tells them and those who try to awake them are tagged as ''conspiracy theorists''. a very simple example I will give is of Democracy. People vote that person who run his campaign in most colorful way. He give money to media, media show positive stuff regarding him and it create a positive sense in minds of public and ultimately they vote him! Now actually the one with money is controlling the people opinion and people still have no realization and they still believe that they are making their own independent choice................!!
More examples of it are Iraqi WMD program etc etc..............
I guess I shared satisfactory answers with you................
@Neutron