Marcelo Ramírez
Noticias Holisticas, April 2nd, 2025
There is a war being fought without cannons or missiles, but it is defining the balance of global power just as decisively. It is invisible to most people, yet it is conditioning every conflict, every alliance, and every geopolitical movement. It is technological warfare.
The United States has dominated the global stage for decades, largely thanks to its technological supremacy. From Silicon Valley to DARPA, innovation has been the lubricant of its military, economic, and cultural machinery. But that dominance is beginning to crack. China, and to a lesser extent Russia, are breaking the siege.
It's not just about producing more microchips or launching more satellites. The real leap, the one that seriously worries Washington's strategists, is qualitative. We're talking about military artificial intelligence, autonomous combat systems, networked platform interconnections, advanced electronic warfare, hypersonic missiles, and sixth-generation stealth platforms. And there, China and Russia are showing their teeth.
The recent unveiling of the Chinese J-36—a sixth-generation fighter with a tailless design, high maneuverability, and the ability to operate in a network with drones—is not a simple aerodynamic advance. It's a message. A declaration that they no longer accept the role of technological follower. And what's worrying for the West is not just the aircraft's capabilities, but its pace. Because China no longer imitates, it innovates. And it does so with breakneck speed.
Meanwhile, the United States is forced to respond with announcements rather than actions. The F-47, presented with great fanfare by Trump, is nothing more than a render. There is no visible prototype, no public testing, not even a model. Just a promise. A drawing. And that, in strategic terms, is a symptom: brawn no longer obeys brains as it once did.
The choice of Boeing as the company responsible for the new fighter jet raised more questions than answers. A firm plagued by quality scandals in civil aviation, which hasn't designed an original fighter jet since the 1930s, is now responsible for producing the most advanced aircraft in the US arsenal. This isn't a technical decision. It's a political gamble. A move to sustain industrial employment, revive a key company, and prevent Lockheed Martin from concentrating all its power.
But the underlying problem is something else. While the West invests fortunes in increasingly expensive, less operational systems with greater dependence on vulnerable global logistics chains, the East opts for a different logic: efficiency, scale, adaptability. Russia, for example, is working on the MIG-41, a hypersonic interceptor with anti-satellite capability and stratospheric operation. It doesn't seek to compete with the F-35 in marketing or design, but in its ability to deny airspace and destroy strategic targets before they cross its border.
This new technological paradigm reshapes power. It's no longer enough to have aircraft carriers if a swarm of drones can saturate your defenses. It's no use hiding stealthily if a quantum radar detects you anyway. Nor is it enough to have the largest number of missiles if you can't guarantee their effectiveness against advanced electronic warfare.
What's at stake is the heart of the Western model of domination. If it loses its technological advantage, it loses everything. That's why the United States is betting big: more investment in R&D, more military contracts, more pressure on its allies to buy obsolete weapons that sustain a decaying system. But the numbers don't lie. The F-35s are more expensive to maintain than they provide in effectiveness. And if the F-47 follows the same path, it won't be a leap forward, but a leap into the void.
China and Russia, on the other hand, play by a different logic. They don't need to control the world. It's enough for them not to be controlled. Their technological leap doesn't seek to impose a new global order, at least not for now. It seeks to negate the current one. To prevent it from being subjugated. And they are succeeding.
The West, failing to understand this, responds with propaganda. It exaggerates its capabilities, hides its weaknesses, and feigns a control it no longer possesses. But technology is unforgiving. No narrative can mask a radar that sees farther, a drone that flies undetected, or a missile that travels five times faster than sound. On the real battlefield—and also on the symbolic one—this difference is lethal.
The world is witnessing a historic transition. The axis of power is shifting. And the driving force behind this movement is neither ideological nor military. It is technological. Whoever controls this key will control the century. And while some are preoccupied with military parades and speeches, others are already building the future.
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