How the Military-Industrial Complex fits into the Metaverse

Much of the conversation around the metaverse has been about how it will be commercialised for business purposes and personal use. While this is set to take center stage over the next decade, the applicability of the metaverse could prove useful to the military. The 2023 U.S. defense budget was recently increased by 8% to a staggering $858 billion. The military budget is expected to cover all arms of the military, including training and weapons, among other things.

In the era of the metaverse, military activities and executions will become immersive, and national security approaches will take on new dimensions. In this article, I discuss how the military-industrial complex fits into the metaverse and how immersion will redefine national defense approaches around the world.

Military Training in the Metaverse

Military operations have rapidly evolved since the Second World War. The infusion of industries, technology, and military research, has immensely impacted the level of military exercises over the years. Today, the top militaries in the world have military bases and special units positioned in different corners of the globe.

The collaborations that ensued have introduced new military training regimes. As part of the process, military simulations are frequently done while new experiments take place periodically. Some of the top companies that are known to take part in this complex landscape of the military-industrial complex are Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics, among others.

The metaverse will provide an environment where military training could take on new dimensions. Complex simulations, military drills, virtual combats, and many more can take place in the virtual world without causing real casualties. The metaverse will serve as an immersive environment that makes all of these activities seem real and achieves the desired results.

Combat Enagagement Simulations

At present, military drills often take place in the physical space. Some common sights in this regard include the annual U.S.-South Korea military drill and the Russian-Belarus military drill.

While we cannot deny that these drills serve specific purposes such as deterrence and the display of military might, they often come at a huge cost. Aside from the cost implications, military drills also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Funds could be better utilised if such exercises took place in the metaverse, while emissions could be eliminated.

In the metaverse, militaries could carry out drills in an environment that had been custom-built for that purpose. The immersive capacity of the metaverse will become the building block for the near-real-life simulation of drills.

Additionally, militaries will benefit from the metaverse by using it to simulate planned operations. In an age when location and maps can be obtained with relative ease, militaries could use them to build virtual environments. They can plan operations and simulate missions within these environments. The metaverse could also boost their chances of success when eventual engagement takes place as soldiers will only be executing a perfectly choreographed mission.

Fusing Intelligence into the Metaverse

While it will be possible to simulate missions in the metaverse before the actual military operation, precision could be further enhanced through military intelligence. Militaries could use local intelligence reports to plan for possible scenarios long before missions.

The intelligence gathered on the ground can be used to design possible scenarios, which will further aid in the planning of operations. The major advantage of this approach is that fusing intelligence into the metaverse immediately factors in real-life situations. Metaverse immersion, therefore, paints a real picture of on-the-ground situations to soldiers. Thus, helping them plan possible responses and overall coordination.

Using knowledge of local intelligence to build metaverse scenarios exponentially enhances the success rates of military operations, reduces casualties, and limits the possibility of unplanned attacks. Though, it must be stated that warfare and modern military operations are much more complex than ever before.

Metaverse and National Security

The world of security will be redefined with the commercialisation of the metaverse. While it is impossible to deny the benefits of the metaverse, it could also become a tool for the expansion of terrorists’ agendas and the global jihadist network.

At present, terrorist networks are known to create local sleeper cells and recruit new soldiers over the internet. Tools such as recorded videos, phone calls, and emails, have been documented as being used by sects. While these tools do not offer much in terms of physical interaction, they have been used to devastating effects.

The evolution of the metaverse has the tendency to create a new avenue for dark agents and terrorist networks to recruit new soldiers, train them, plan, and coordinate attacks. The metaverse will create an immersive connection—something that has been missing for a long time.

Thus, there is bound to be a redefinition of what national securities will look like and how countries will approach them both in the immediate and in the long run. Therefore, it is important that national militaries take early steps into this vastly ungoverned space in order to master how it functions and the appropriate steps that should be taken to prevent national security issues.

The Metaverse could be Expensive

The cost of building the metaverse could be a major issue despite the benefits that it might bring. However, it must be stated that the associated cost might not amount to much for national militaries and their partners.

Estimates have shown that the cost of building a metaverse ranges from $40,000 to $400,000. However, the features of such a project are expected to be simple. As a result, building a highly complex virtual environment such as a military training facility, a simulation ground, or a mission-specific target location is expected to cost more.

While there is no exact figure as to what it will cost, recent developments have shown that it could be much more complex than it seems. Improbable, a UK-based military metaverse project, recently switched its attention to commercial metaverse after spending its early days building a metaverse project labeled Skyral for national security agencies and the military.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that the military has a lot to gain from the metaverse. Yet, early ventures into military adoption of the metaverse have not been promising. While funds might not pose too much of a problem for countries, the demands are enormous, and the human capital required to constantly build virtual environments for military operations and national security is far off.

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