Which do you think will have a greater impact on the future of the US Military?

1. AI
2. National debt/inflation
3. Climate change

Budgets.

The impact these both are gonna have on the military is that we are gonna suffer more pay deductions and less benefits just to keep these .... Things.... On the budget.

I think this guy will have the greatest impact on the future. It is what the diplomacy always relies on. He is the fighter, trigger puller, or pipe hitter. What ever you call him he is what will be the future of war. We will never replace him. With all the F-35s or Ships with all the bells & whistles can't do much to defeat ISIS. We seen what airstrikes did. ISIS doesn't care about a ship. The infantryman has always been there and will always remain.

That is hands-down, the ugliest ship I've ever seen. It kind of looks like we're bring back the civil war era Ironclad.

Drones. Bar none. Thank you for posting this question!

Unless the situation escalates with a near-peer, neither the DDG 1000 nor the F-35 will have a major impact on combat operations in the military. Both may have financial impacts, since the services will have less money to spend on other weapons systems.

As someone mentioned, drones will probably be the next game changer. Assuming attack drone experiments do not go awry, I would expect to see more combat drones, first against Levant, and next against a TBD adversary.

Well as a prior Air Force I am going with the obvious for me. BUT not for the reasons you are probably thinking.

First the F-35 was supposed to be a multi-service aircraft with capabilities for three different missions, Marine, Navy and Air Force. Being High tech and stealthy it was the Next generations F-16 or F-18 or Harrier.

Noticed I used the Past tense on that. Because that is what it was billed as. That was the hype. The problem is, to many people with fingers in the punch bowl tried to make a Jet, and what you have is an over priced, over deadline, Technical, mumbo jumbo aircraft that it seems some of the services are trying to get out of taking.

What amazes me is after EVERYTHING went down with the F-22 you would have thought that lessons learned would have kicked in. I don't see a new kick butt aircraft that is supposed to make other 4th generation jet fighters obsolete. I see a bureaucratic nightmare, with finger pointing and media biased reporting (Both ways) airplane that is got a long way to go before it proves its worth or earns anyone's respect.

Now I don't believe everything I read. I don't buy into rumors or jargon from people looking promote something. But even I am starting to wonder.

The Reason I say the F-35 will have the greater impact is because of the boondoggle that was caused by its purchase, its cost and production overruns and its over all Horrible program management. Like I said. With the F-22 out and about, you have a whole lot of lessons learned and it looks like the everyone in charge just forgot about it. I could be wrong. I have not hard about the Zumwalt Class destroyers yet, but from the Article they are looking quite cool.