Gates on future wars

By 2009, I had come to believe that the paradigms of both conventional and unconventional war weren’t adequate anymore, as the most likely future conflicts would fall somewhere in between, with a wide range of scale and lethality. Militias and insurgents could get access to sophisticated weapons. Rapidly modernizing militaries, including China’s, would employ “asymmetric” methods to thwart American’s traditional advantages in the air and at sea. Rogue nations like Iran or North Korea would likely use a combination of tactics.

Gates, Robert M (2014-01-14). Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (p. 303). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.