Power projection
The US, Russia, China, Britain, and France have renounced the use of nuclear weapons in 2022. However, in the face of threats of nuclear war (say from Russia, as threatened during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine), NATO keeps about 100 B61 nuclear bombs in storage in Europe.: 4:50, 5:55  Certain F-35As were certified to carry the B61 nuclear bomb on 12 October 2023. 
The British Army is investigating innovations, such as robots and drones, including 70 technologies funded by the £800 million (US$1 billion) Defence Innovation Fund launched in 2016. Two hundred troops will engage in "surveillance, long-range, and precision targeting, enhanced mobility and the re-supply of forces, urban warfare and enhanced situational awareness". The British Army is reducing size by about 10,000 troops as well, by 2025. The British Army will have Integrated Operating Concept (MDI—like MDO) for "gray zone" operations across domains, using a synthetic operating environment, with repeatable hard and soft strike capability. The UK, Germany, and France respectively have established a joint command for space United Kingdom Space Command, a Space Situational Awareness Centre (Germany), and Commandement de l’espace (France). In light of the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine NATO members are implementing new stockpile guidelines for their arsenals.
"By 2020 the Army's programs for modernization were now framed as a decades-long process of cooperation with allies and partners, for competition with potential adversaries who historically have blurred the distinction between peace and war"—from: § Reorganization plan of the United States Army

In 2020, one measure of § military power projection ranks the competition between the armies of the world (after the US Army, which is ranked atop this list).  The list of armies, a mixture of allies, partners, and competitors is estimated to be:
Russia  jammed the GPS signal during NATO exercises in November 2018. In 2014 the DoD's research and engineering chief Alan Shaffer warned that the 'US lost dominance of the electromagnetic spectrum'  (EMS), in part due to the US government selloff of EMS radio frequencies, and also due in part to the proliferation of digital technologies which allow for low-cost jammers. (See: meaconing) General Valery Gerasimov advocates hybrid warfare, a "blend of political, economic and military power to bear against adversaries". Russia took Crimea without firing a shot. In April 2020 Russia tested an anti-satellite system for low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. On 15 November 2021, a Russian anti-satellite test destroyed its Kosmos 1408, endangering its own cosmonauts on the International Space Station, and other satellites in low earth orbit.  Cyber attacks on the whole of the US government via Supply_chain_attack § Whole of government began in March 2020, but only reached the attention of the news media on 14 December 2020. Russia is mapping the undersea cables which bear the majority of the communications traffic between the US and Europe.
On 25 December 2021 President Putin disclosed that Russia would be unable to defend itself against missiles launched against Moscow from Ukraine; their flight times would be four to five minutes, according to him. However, Putin did not acknowledge that the West's Aegis Ashore sites in Poland and Romania are for defense against ballistic missiles, and not the Tomahawk missiles which he named in his statement. See: A-135 anti-ballistic missile system, A-235 anti-ballistic missile system, S-400 missile system, S-500 missile system   To prove that Aegis Ashore is defensive only, inspection of the sites in Poland and Romania have been offered to Russia.
Ukraine had a trench network on its border with Russia, in a standoff as of April 2021. A border exercise involving 110,000 Russian troops on the Ukraine border has pulled back; however hundreds of armored vehicles, including tanks are remaining 100 miles (160 km) from Donbas (colloquial for Donets basin) in spite of a partial armor pullback. Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OCSE) drones which are monitoring the line between Ukrainian troops and the Donbas separatists are seeing jamming of their drone's dual GPS receivers, with tens of thousands of infantry troops remaining on the Ukrainian border. The OSCE has provided a map of the line dividing the Ukrainian forces and the Russian-backed forces. As of 18 February 2022 there were up to 190,000 troops along Ukraine's borders; after recognizing the separatist states of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, Moscow is moving troops over the border of Russia into the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, and establishing military bases there. This troop movement triggered sanctions on five Russian banks and three individuals, on 22 February 2022. (See 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine which began 24 February 2022)
Andrei Illarionov cites Pavel Felgengauer, who projects a scenario by which Russia can create a 'Novorossia' (see § CSIS figures 2a-2c) stretching across Southern Ukraine to Transnistria (Moldova) after a gas pipeline to the EU is completed (September 2021). If the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline were to be weaponized by holding the liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply to Western Europe hostage, the US is countering this threat with contingency plans to redirect LNG supplies from the rest of the world. Germany has agreed to safeguard Ukraine, as well. See 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage —26 September 2022 
Cyber attacks on Ukrainian government websites are occurring in January 2022. Frida Ghitis and Richard Galant point out that the muddy season that ends winter would bog down an armored invasion. US Army Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vershinen points out that if the Russian Army were to attempt a quick fait accompli and then dig in, its logistical capability would be insufficient to complete a large land grab, as its logistic capabilities are largely based on railroads, but not trucks. Russia's logistic capability without railroads is 90 miles (140 km), without replenishment; thus Sebastien Roblin suggests that a "short, victorious war" by Russia (as in the 12-day war with Georgia in 2008), with stipulations largely resembling its current diplomatic demands, namely installation of pro-Russian leadership, Ukraine's withdrawal from the path of joining NATO etc., coupled with the expedient of bypassing Russian control of Kyiv's population, might avoid Russia's getting bogged down in Ukraine. This calculation could get up-ended by a longer war, with determined resistance in Ukraine, via guerilla warfare, as in Afghanistan (1979-1989), which indirectly ended the Soviet Union. Within two months of the beginning of the First Chechen War, an antiwar movement arose in Russia.
On 22 February 2022 historian Sergey Radchenko recalled a vignette from September 1945, during the post World War II Potsdam Conference negotiations on the division of world power at the London Conference of Foreign Ministers, when Soviet Foreign Commissar Vyacheslav Molotov asked U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes whether he carried the atomic bomb in his side pocket, to which Byrnes threatened Molotov to stop stalling, or else Byrnes would pull the atomic bomb out of his pocket and use it on Molotov (laughter). Molotov was guided by Stalin's directive "It is clear that you must display complete obduracy". (See Proxy war)
Russia and Belarus began Zapad 2021, a 200,000-troop exercise held every four years. The Pripyat marshes would bog down an armored invasion through Belarus.: 2:22 
In the opinion of James Stavridis, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is showing that Special Forces, unmanned systems, and Cyber will become far more important in the future.
In 2021 Russia spent 2.7 percent of its GDP on defense, a level which is expected to drop to 2.3 percent by 2023, as part of a mandate to boost domestic production.
Unmanned ground combat vehicles (UGCVs), among them Uran-6, Uran-9 (Уран-9), and Uran-14 are entering service in the Russian Army as of 2021. Uran-6 is a mine flail; Uran-14 is an unmanned firefighting vehicle. Uran-9s are semi-autonomous robotic combat vehicles; specialists can operate them using mobile control stations. Their first attempted service was in Syria. Analysts from BAE Systems (UK) assessed the Uran-9s in Syria as unreliable, with their radio-controls sometimes blocked by buildings; their sensors and guidance were unstabilized. An armed Uran-9 weighs 12 tons, and measures 5 meters long, which is a fifth of the weight and half the length of a T-90 tank. Each Uran-9 control system operates at ranges up to 1.8 miles (2.9 km) from the UGVs;: min 1:00 : minute 2:20  each control system currently (2021) guides 4 UGVs, in a leader-follower configuration.