This analysis of recent progress in the field of wireless communication protocols focuses on the evolution of mobile ad hoc networks and sensor networks and highlights their potential future development in both civilian and military domains. The cutting-edge aspects and problems related to these systems include the design of unicast/multicast routing protocols, the support of the quality of service, the security mechanisms for routing and data transmission, the service discovery, the techniques of clustering and self-organization, the mobility of code, and the fault-tolerance techniques.