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The world may be entering an era of "potential international instability" with the rise of China and the advent of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics that could prove decisive to warfare, the top U.S. general warned on Wednesday.

Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, compared the current era to other major geopolitical shifts in world history, including the fall of Rome and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Reuters reported.

"We are entering a period of potential international instability," Milley said in an address at Howard University. Milley said that China's rise was changing the status quo after decades in which the United States essentially was "the unchallenged global military, political and economic power."

He warned that the geopolitical change was being accompanied by technological innovation in robotics, hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence and other technologies.

"And they are extraordinarily disruptive and potentially decisive in the conduct of war," Milley said.

Milley's remarks came just days after U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned the United States needed to prepare for a potential future conflict bearing little resemblance to "the old wars" that have long consumed the Pentagon.