A Convergence of Warfare in Space, Cyberspace, & through Special Operations:
A Refined Supra-Global Landscape for Conflict in 2030-2050
This blog is a forward looking security analysis coupled with theory and scenario planning to consider 2030-2050 and how our species may transform how we go about engaging in organized violence (hence, war). A famous maxim attributed to Yogi Berra is appropriate here: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” An example I like to start with when lecturing on this topic is to show a slide with several images from the 1989 movie ‘Back to the Future II’.
In preparation for making the sequel set in 2015, or 30 years ahead of 1985 where the original movie left off, Spielberg brought in plenty of futurists and technology consultants to help ensure the script made a plausible ‘future’ for the audiences in 1989. He would do the same for his other movies set in the future such as ‘Minority Report.’ Of course, when we look at movies like BTTFII or Bladerunner where we eventually end up living in those future worlds, we find that the futurists simply got plenty of things wrong. They do get some things close to the mark, but what is important here for a security affairs discussion is whether the overarching patterns, trends, and disruptive emergent phenomenon are considered in the present so we might devise new strategies and organizational change early enough to prepare for what may lie ahead. This is where institutions tend to bet on traditional, safe options that also conveniently reinforce established tenets, beliefs, and shared worldviews (paradigms).
Today, we live in a dynamic and technological diverse world where advanced societies are rapidly developing artificial intelligence (bordering on strong AI, or advanced general intelligence which may exceed all human capabilities), quantum technology able to perform calculations that cannot ever be replicated by classical computing, space exploration and colonization on other celestial bodies, hypersonic flight, and virtual worlds so immersive that users may soon struggle with telling the fake from the real. This is all unfolding on a planet where 44% of the global world remain in poverty (living on $6.85 or less per day), coupled with regional conflicts, genocide, threat of existential crisis through a panoply of devastating weaponry, and many other societal and social challenges. 2025 is a difficult position to predict what might unfold in the next 6-12 months, let alone talk coherently about 2030-2050. Yet if we are charged with thinking boldly and creatively about security affairs, we must offer fresh ideas and concepts so that we have some ‘skin in the game’, intellectually speaking, to revisit such discussions as reality lurches onward.
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Space… the final frontier. As a domain, it continues to be developed by humans as our technological, scientific, and governmental interests move us further into where no other (known) life can prosper. Space is a wickedly hard area to exist in, with high costs for access along with tremendous technological and informational barriers to do what is quite easy terrestrially. For more on this domain and military applications in the future, check out this public-facing USAF monograph:
https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/AUPress/Display/Article/3608993/reconceptualizing-the-space-domain-beyond-historic-perspectives-of-warfare/
Space differs from our familiar terrestrial domains of air, land, and sea. Militarily, things destroyed or disrupted (even non-lethal effects on sensitive spacecraft) in orbit continue to orbit at very high rates of speed. Destroy a tank on the ground, it stays there. Hit an aircraft in the sky, it falls. Blow up a ship in the maritime domain, it sinks. Not so for space. Merely striking an adversary’s satellite with an anti-satellite missile (especially if you do so poorly or incompetently) in low earth orbit (LEO) may create tens of thousands of debris that may continue in the same orbital speeds (roughly 22-27,000 mph) for tens of thousands of years. Virtually everything we enjoy in our high-technology filled lives relies upon a stable and secure space domain, from pumping gas at the station (ever wonder how your ATM card works so perfectly?) to enjoying entertainment on your devices, even in remote locations, or how millions of bits of information are sent around the world invisibly. Enjoy weather forecasts which are (sort of) accurate, at least compared to previous generations in the pre-space era?
Check out this 1952 televised weather forecast for example. The weatherman is on the telephone while getting data and then drawing with chalk on the map to explain to viewers what basic weather they should be looking for. The video is below and it is a remarkable time capsule into a previous world most of our current society never experienced. We take many things about space for granted… including the security challenges.
Space as a domain will only gain in prominence and security concerns as we venture further out and in greater numbers into the vast unknown. First, we will become highly reliant upon AI to aid us. The distances are intense and will prevent any human controlled or centralized efforts from Earth… the time for a radio signal to reach Mars differs between 3 and 20 minutes (dependent on our orbital locations around the sun). For minute maneuvers and split-second actions that must be done immediately upon detection, we cannot wait for an unmanned craft to radio back to Earth to ask permission to do things when the security of that system (and whatever it is protecting) is under threat.
Closer to our planet, the orbital “terrain” and special regions of space called Lagrange Points are also vital for security reasons and probably will not permit decisions to be sent back to the planet’s surface if an adversary is using AI on the system in space to move and act faster. Lagrange Points are special areas where the gravitational pull of two large and celestial objects (the sun and Earth, the moon and Earth, the sun and Jupiter, Jupiter and Mars, etc.) creates a region where things stay put. This is highly advantageous in that the costs for fuel to adjust course are far lower than putting something in orbit. Lagrange Points likely will become important logistical and resupply hubs for future long-range travel in space. The security concerns thus are obvious.
There are many other reasons why space as a domain is unique, different, and of increasing importance for security and governmental reasons. However, let’s shift to cyberspace and special operations to get into the space-SOF-cyber discussion.
Cyberspace is not ‘space’ in any conventional sense of the term. Remember, we humans like to use concepts that worked well in our legacy frames. We know the air, land, and sea domains (militarily speaking) and we tend to transfer concepts and terminology directly from them to explain and understand new domains. Cyberspace has no “space” in that when you glance at your smartphone and see an app for mail next to the app for X or Facebook, your mind conceptualizes these things using terrestrial domain constructs (land, air, sea). We assume that sending a Tweet on X and posting the same content to our LinkedIn profile or our Snapchat, TikTok, or other social media content happens “in space” as if they were like newspapers being delivered by digital paperboys all over the globe to viewers. It does not work this way, and our cyberspace should not be imagined as akin to these physical and geographically structured domains. True, cyberspace is 100% dependent upon these physical domains to exist and function, and the effects of cyber manifest in physical domains once they are actioned. Yet cyber should not be conceptualized as if it mirrored a physical domain, nor should military organizations assume the tactics, theories, and metaphoric devices that underpin traditional (legacy) decision-making for war in the physical domains (air, land, sea) translates into cyber activities.
Special operations forces (SOF) are a modern manifestation that extends from earlier irregular and non-standardized or ‘special’ military forces. Arguably, they have always been around in conflict, although earlier incarnations were rarer and the effects of such individuals were difficult to regulate or apply with certitude. SOF require special skills that are uncommon and difficult to replicate. SOF effects are exquisite, meaning they must be used carefully and with great consideration. Historically, assassins, spies, saboteurs, privateers, scouts, and skilled diplomats wielding unique powers could fall under the SOF category in earlier periods. For example, inventor David Bushnell during the American Revolutionary War deployed his submersible, ‘The Turtle’, to try to attach explosives to British warships docked in New York Harbor. Although the effort failed, this is a great example of a proto-SOF security application. SOF by definition are hard to create, cannot be mass produced, require support and integration with traditional military forces, and can easily be misapplied if decision makers directing a military instrument of power do not understand their value.
Prior to the First Gulf War where we witnessed the first conflict where space, cyberspace, and SOF were used with significant effect collectively (the grainy footage of bomb strikes on Iraqi forces used space, cyber, and SOF to accomplish many of those smart bomb effects), wars were centered primarily in the physical domains of land, air, and sea. SOF predates the emergence of cyber and space by many decades, yet SOF is also defined by a deeper and more sophisticated integration with disruptive and cutting-edge technology compared to traditional military forces, if only due to the investment costs of training SOF professionals and creating specialized teams of highly skilled (rare, expensive) experts.
Over the last several decades, the space domain has become a far more active, congested, and dynamic area for security affairs. The cost of entry has lowered considerably, while commercial enterprises now exceed state-based capabilities in many respects. The current Ukrainian Russian Conflict is a perfect example where cyberspace, space, and SOF are being used in dynamic combinations that are altering our previous calculus on how warfare works (this topic deserves a separate Substack article). There are more space-faring nations, many spacecraft operating in multiple orbits and into cislunar space (the larger region incorporating space around the Earth and the moon), and soon we will extend regular spacecraft operations to Mars and other celestial objects. Another technological leap is the shift from static spacecraft (they launch with the only fuel and payload they will ever have) to dynamic spacecraft capable of refueling, re-arming, or re-supplying with new payloads or upgrades. This itself will be a game-changer where satellites and space craft can rapidly burn propellent in ways previously inconceivable or reckless. This also will dramatically complicate security analysis and interpretation of adversary behavior in space.
I propose that this integration of space, special operations forces (SOF), and cyber capabilities marks a pivotal evolution in modern defense strategy, particularly for the upcoming period of 2030-2050. Conflict previously has certainly been dynamic, disruptive, and destructive… at scales that are shocking and potentially existential for our species. Yet we are not prepared for the cognitive transformation our military needs to think differently in the security contexts yet to come, if only because we continue to project outdated and irrelevant ideas upon this new panoply of domains, effects, and war configurations. That is a bold statement to make, so I want to take some time to unpack the argument and avoid the trap of merely extending pre-existing concepts forward with a shiny coat of fresh paint.
To credit the minority theorists, strategists, and futurists out there already working hard on these problem sets, we need to give some props to those outliers attempting to transform the institution. There are pockets of theorists already working on how space, cyber, and SOF work in these new frames… yet many are satisfied with addressing the technological and tactical aspects of space-SOF-cyber without rising into the abstractions needed for serious operational and strategic change. Additionally, military organizations tend to label things too quickly, shifting toward convergent thinking by slapping acronyms upon ill-structured and emergent concepts before giving them the necessary period of experimentation, design thinking, prototyping, and iterative development. Part of this is due to institutional preferences to follow existing doctrine and ensure any new ideas are hammered into doctrinal obedience so that the ‘new’ matches the ‘old’. Sadly, emergence and paradigm shifts do not work this way, leading to institutional resistance of requiring everyone to continue with bows and arrows when real change is just around the corner toting a machine gun.
This brings us to the terms ‘NEXUS’ and ‘TRIAD’. These new terms are being thrown around across the U.S. Joint Forces, along with allies and partners in new and myriad combinations. For example, see:
https://www.army.mil/article/268971/leaders_give_update_on_modern_triad
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/March-2024/Cyber-Space-Triad/
https://defensescoop.com/2025/02/21/military-irregular-triad-cyber-sof-space-operational-concept-deterrence/
https://www.sandboxx.us/news/space-force-will-get-its-own-special-operations-element-socom-commander-reveals/
In the above articles and posts, the U.S. Department of Defense is offering a variety of concepts through both the use of a TRIAD metaphoric device and that of a NEXUS to combine space-SOF-cyber in ways that apparently differ from earlier Joint war-fighting configurations. My own two cents on this is that once again, the military institution prefers to retain the legacy system as the dominant war paradigm… we want earlier concepts and terminology to extend shared metaphoric devices and ontologies, epistemologies into tomorrow. “Joint” originally meant the combination of the original physical domains where past warfare manifested. Air, land, and sea were the primary domains where ‘Joint’ needed to develop. It was not until the twentieth century where ‘joint’ really became something necessary. Maritime theorist Alfred Mahan wrote (in the 19th century) on the supremacy of maritime power, making arguments that sea power alone could deliver total strategic goals… even without the army being used except for clean-up and secondary requirements. The famous Prussian Carl von Clausewitz framed most all of his war theory on land battle, as did his dueling Napoleonic counterpart, Jomini. If we look to the First World War, military services struggled both to combine domain effects (air power, sea power, land power) and international coalitions (the ugly history is that the British didn’t like American forces, American forces disliked the French, Australians disliked the Canadians, and so-on). Even in World War II and then the Korean and Vietnam Conflicts, we had difficulties combining physical domain activities along with a cohesive combination of different military services, international partnerships, and integration of various agencies and other instruments of state power.
Today’s military generation is largely a post-9-11 population. Indeed, many service members today did not join until afterward, with many in uniform that were not part of the Iraqi or Afghan Conflicts! Senior military professionals today are largely composed of Iraqi and Afghan veterans, with few remaining of earlier conflicts such as the First Gulf War, the Somali or Haiti operations, or Panama and Balkan operations. This population was raised in a doctrinal and training world that draws upon ‘Joint war-fighting’ in a strictly physical-domain centric sense. Everything is conceptualized and defined through these physical (terrestrial) domains… even when we agree we are talking about space or cyber.
This is problematic in that the space domain and the cyber domain require not just different terms, but different ontological and epistemological assumptions on what conflict is within those unique domains. We require different metaphoric devices and mental models that depart from the physical air-land-sea constructs. Celestial space is not terrestrial space, while cyberspace is simply not equivalent to physical space either. How SOF operates and produces effects in cyber and space also differ, requiring new and divergent ways of understanding irregular and unconventional warfare. This is where NEXUS and TRIAD appear to enter the conversation.
As global threats grow more sophisticated—spanning satellites, covert operations, and digital networks—the U.S. military appears to be pioneering two frameworks, NEXUS and TRIAD, to fuse these domains into a cohesive force that still reinforces existing doctrinal and institutionally accepted war frames. These constructs aim to outpace adversaries through innovative, multi-domain approaches, but their success, particularly for international military organizations over the next decade, hinges on navigating a host of complex challenges. Arguably, if defense organizations fail to pivot from physical-domain centric thinking (set within a terrestrial-dominant mindset), we might end up drifting far off course for 2030-2050. Of course, I could be as wrong as the futurists writing for ‘Back to the Future II’ in 1989… if so, reply to me in 2030 on this thread and remind me how very wrong I was!
What is NEXUS?
NEXUS attempts to unite U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM), U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), and U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) in a command-centric effort. That means that these combatant commands (yes, SOCOM has service-like characteristics, but they certainly punch well above their weight in terms of cost to military output) are attempting to create NEXUS as a new construct to aid them in preparing to respond to crises, challenges, and conflicts.
NEXUS currently focuses on synchronized planning to deliver flexible deterrence and response options across regions, per public statements made by leadership (see the earlier HTML links to those specific statements online). NEXUS leverages space-based intelligence, SOF precision, and cyber disruption to create strategic dilemmas for adversaries—disrupting their plans, deterring aggression, and securing U.S. advantages, often through discreet, pre-conflict actions. This is not “new” in that before cyberspace and space were even in existence, the earlier Joint efforts of air, land, and sea forces with interagency and international collaboration did much the same. The Cold War has countless examples of this, although these are almost entirely in physical domains where humans as actors are in direct engagement with one another, whether in lethal or non-lethal action.
The NEXUS construct appears to align these commands to address threats that defy geographic boundaries, offering a scalable model for global operations. This creates a tension for Combatant Commands, at least traditionally, in whether the geographic barriers and arrangements of authorities are working for or against emerging security needs. Space as a domain already is in friction, in that something in orbit moves over multiple geographic commands within minutes. A spacecraft in LEO orbits the entire earth in roughly 90 minutes! Consider the following: if a satellite has some military capability and one command that operates on the African continent needs that space-based effect, the operators of that system may then need to deny another geographic command the effects they wanted for some other requirement because the satellite is now diverted to support the Africa-based need… while in orbit of course. It will continue to pass over the other continent, but satellites and their effects are not unlimited nor can they do everything everywhere at once.
How about another scenario? Suppose in the 2030s, space lift is so much cheaper that most any commercial enterprise might offer it at a low price to the global market. What if a powerful drug cartel in South America decided that the existing transcontinental costs for moving a ton of cocaine were so high that they might try to move the drug using orbital means? Yes, we are talking about space cocaine. This seems preposterous today in 2025, but by 2030-2035, it may be a serious and real challenge to nations battling narco-cartels. Were a commercial entity to agree to put into orbit a payload that could then re-enter the atmosphere and navigate using a craft that is autonomous and capable of maneuvering (whether parachute or drone system able to enter the maritime domain and become a submersible, or land domain as a ground drone), the payload could potentially bypass existing terrestrial barriers and rapidly reach the arrival zone for a narco enterprise at a sufficiently low cost to justify putting cocaine into space. Certainly, nation states will counter such actions, but this will require entirely new counter-space requirements and new collaboration beyond existing space domain awareness as currently configured. We are not worried about space cocaine yet… and readers can easily extend this hypothetical into many other security threats imaginable.
NEXUS would, in theory, be a new way for various combatant commands dealing with these emergent and novel security threats to work closely together and adapt new ways to deal with problems that are only just now coming into focus. We cannot rely upon past institutionalized constructs as many are outdated or incompatible with these new problem sets. Existing authorities, regulations, doctrines, and policies are terrestrially and physical domain-centric because that was the mode for conflict in earlier periods of humanity. Cocaine went the old fashioned way…
Having discussed NEXUS and then introduced some of the challenges on why combatant commands are considering these new arrangements that break with earlier understandings of what ‘joint war-fighting’ is (and is not), we need to touch upon TRIAD.
TRIAD, by contrast to the earlier discussed NEXUS model, is an Army-driven initiative, linking U.S. Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER), U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), and the Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC). (Again- see here: https://www.army.mil/article/268971/leaders_give_update_on_modern_triad) Senior leaders from these organizations are discussing these concepts publicly in panels to further simulate new thinking on how and why to go about working on the TRIAD to adapt to new changes and emergent security concerns. NEXUS and TRIAD go after much the same thing, but do so from different organizational configurations. One is from the geographic combatant command configuration (despite SPACECOM being a celestial domain, CYBERCOM having a non-physical domain, SOCOM being service-like), and the other is a service-centric approach. Military services provide the personnel, training, and equipment to the Combatant Commands so they can go about doing what the nation directs the Instrument of Military Power to do in service of the nation(s).
TRIAD emphasizes tactical and operational synergy, delivering specialized capabilities for trans-regional missions. Hence, proponents of the TRIAD concept quickly go into tactical actions with less discussion at the abstract levels of strategy or military theory. TRIAD integrates space-derived awareness, cyber tools, and SOF expertise to attempt to enhance the Joint Force’s ability to detect, engage, and neutralize adversaries. This makes perfect sense in that the Services working on TRIAD are doing a service-centric approach to new and complex challenges. TRIAD wants to provide asymmetric options—unconventional tactics that keep adversaries guessing— which again is not anything “new” except in how these efforts span far beyond the original physical domains. Asymmetric options date back to things like trying to sink British battleships in New York Harbor in the American Revolutionary War using a prototype submarine invention. Yet doing things in space, cyber, and through SOF in such contexts requires a pivot from traditional (legacy frame) thinking.
Part II coming soon. Hit the subscribe button to gain access to that and more.