After the EMP duel you'll see everyone rolling out their secret EMP hardened weapons designed to be directly controlled by humans.
I'm fairly sure plenty are working on plans and building stuff that will work and communicate during active EMP events.
As everyone races to replace all their war stuff with drones and remote control which work really good when you are a super power fighting against sand dwellers, I'm fairly sure the top level players are working on their EMP weapons, hacking weapons and also how to counter what the other side does in the same manner.
This right here...
It is one thing to carry out a multinational police chase against third world goat fuckers who want to mass murder innocent civilians in order to win 72 virgins upon entering the afterlife... It is a whole another thing when it comes to a conventional war between near-peers and equals.
Every military conflict in history is all about ONE thing. And that is one-upsmanship over your enemy. Each side is always going to be seeking to dominate their foe technologically and that is by innovation, research, and production on scales that approach a frenzy. This is also the reason why every major military conflict has also seen rapid developments in science and technology. World War II, despite it's appalling devastation, was responsible for pushing the human race into the Space Age and also seen the development of the first electronic computers. The world entered this conflict still heavily under the influence of Victorian era mannerisms and social structures, and emerged in just 6 years with jet aircraft, rocket planes that cruise the edge of space, and the controlled release of atomic energy. Look at the Internet... One of the most important channels of global communication today. It was first developed at the height of Cold War hostilities in order for military leaders stationed across long distances to be able to receive real time information and orders in case of a sudden nuclear attack.
One thing that this current global outbreak of SARS-COV-2, no matter WHAT origins it has, whether accidental, natural, or done with deliberate malice, must remind all of us, is that warfare is NOT limited to firearms, bombs, and aircraft. If there is a way to neutralize an enemy and even inflict mass carnage upon the population of an enemy country or planet, there WILL be people and agencies that will exploit it to the MAXIMUM. Do not think for a second that multiple high security laboratories all over the world are not looking for a way to weaponize Ebola, or splice the genetic material of a similar killer virus into vectors that spread with far more ease. Nanotechnology, another branch of cutting edge research with extreme future potential, is yet another thing that can prove to be both the saviors and annihilators of mankind. If a viral epidemic is bad enough, imagine the release of programmed nannites that can latch onto specific gene sequences of their creators' choosing and kill their targets via an Ebola-like "grey-out". The possibilities are endless, and that is one aspect of human nature and the nature of warfare that the greatest science fiction writers across the ages have perfected and understood to a T. Military sci-fi has ALWAYS seen the gradual and eventual development of a superweapon of mass annihilation, whether biological or nuclear, and behind the fearsome technology is always a political or military entity seeking to subdue or eradicate their foes, at any cost. It will be stupid beyond measure to think that wars in the present or the future between near peers will abide by ROE or some other ink-and-paper code of chivalry. Everybody is seeking to work smarter and achieve more with less effort, rather than the other way around. Medieval duels have always been "sanctioned", with the presence of multiple witnesses, clergy, judges, and even government officials, just in case a party who is about to lose a fight calls in a sharpshooter hidden in a nearby thicket to kill his opponent with an arrow through the head...
