Some of this could be interpreted as satire. For example, it's not necessary to improve AI capabilities in order to generate believeable propaganda - nation-st

Some of this could be interpreted as satire. For example, it's not necessary to improve AI capabilities in order to generate believeable propaganda - nation-states have been doing that ever since the printed press was invented, and before. It certainly reached a fever pitch in the 20th century, with radio, television, print and internet media all being the scene of numerous pitched propaganda battles, with social media being (perhaps) the dominant information-warfare battleground of the 21st century. As far as the Ukraine drone war, that's not really different from the Afghan drone war, the main difference being the relative lack of energy infrastructure or heavy armor to attack in Afghanistan. Whatever one can say about Russia vs NATO-backed Ukraine, or the USA vs Afghanistan, neither serves much purpose for making predictions about an 'all-out war' between China and the United States. One glaring omission is the failure to recognize that China is a nuclear power (as its ally North Korea), and it's not hard to imagine a serious naval conflict between the USA and China going nuclear - what better way to eliminate an offshore aircraft carrier battle group, for example? This article mentions nuclear once (in a 1942 context) and barely discusses what a real naval conflict would look like, other than to claim that 'autonomous adaptive drone swarms' would be harder targets to than aircraft carriers. That's a science fiction story line from, say, the Iain M. Banks Culture novels, not a realistic scenario for naval warfare (and what about submarines?). All in all this reads like a bit of hyperventilation, or maybe a sales pitch put together by the AI warfare divisions of Lockheed and Northrup. It also ignores the rationale for 'having a human in the loop', but then maybe the author hasn't seen the 1980s movie War Games?