Imagine that the world doesn't really change, it doesn't even get better, not at first. The people fail to revolt against their governments. But the vectors of warfare changes.
First, suppose national primacy is the continuous push. We know that a puppeteer is working to manage all of this but the typical deceived public is still driven by just random political strife to push for national primacy. Then all these primacy-pushing nations become vigilant about whom has nukes or other hidden weapons: so they employ one of the quickest military means to expose: bunker busters. We've talked about bunker busters exposing underground cities. But let's add another vector. "Skynet" at least its national equivalents *is* the trend. But what if a powerful weapon against a nation's military is a type of hacking that is less costly than trying to get through all the fire-walls. Can you get the enemy nation's data centres to become "self aware"? You are not trying to get the upper hand by defeating their military. You're just getting the military to serve itself.