Will Roper plays video games like the future of the country depends on it, because, well, it kind of does.

As ‎director of the Pentagon's Strategic Capabilities Office, Roper spends his days predicting how war will work in the not-so-distant future, and developing the technological capabilities that will enable the American military to lead the way. Because Silicon Valley's companies evolve so much faster than the bureaucracies of Washington can, Roper and the SCO draw inspiration from the private sector picking apart the genius of Pokémon Go.

"I think they've solved one of the toughest challenges for warfare," Roper said of the app in a conversation with WIRED's Nick Thompson at South by Southwest Monday. "How do you take amazingly complex information and make it so integrated with the person interacting with it?"

War And the Valley

Roper envisions a day when soldiers will be able to drop a digital marker on the battlefield that future deployments and faraway units could also see, similar to how Pokémon Go enables millions of strangers to spot the same Jigglypuff in the middle of Times Square. Or perhaps augmented-reality advances could help soldiers access a global map of the surrounding area in the lower corner of their field of view, familiar to any fan of first-person shooters like Call of Duty.

For Roper, it's all part of puzzling out the delicate interplay between man and machine in the future of war. Already, the Obama administration's escalation of drone strikes in the Middle East has created something of a soul-searching moment for Americans who oppose sending troops overseas, but who shudder at the mass casualties that drone fighting leaves in its wake. Roper's objective? Take advantage of the best that technology has to offer, while preserving the American military's moral core.