Almost Right

and 

100% Wrong

October 25th, 2026

File under “Blind Squirrel Finds Acorn.”

A few years after Desert Storm I was sitting in a lecture hall listening to someone (I don’t remember whom, but it was definitely a "brilliant expert”) tell us how dominant battle space awareness, and precision engagement and focused logistics had irrevocably changed warfare. And he commented on drones (UAVs) that were just emerging and he had a half dozen other “hot” concepts and these would make future wars nearly bloodless and fast and focused. Enemy weapon systems would be negated and overrun in a fraction of the time of earlier wars and this would lead to short, intense warfare and the side that had the technologic edge would find itself to be essentially unbeatable; wars would be short and decisive.

This perspective, or something close to it, seems to have driven a good deal of assessments, assumptions and planning in the roughly 3 decades since. And while politicians have been drawn into thinking along these lines, the simple fact is that very few politicians in the US, or in the EU, have any real experience in warfare or, perhaps more importantly, in thinking deeply about it. They have, instead, left it to the generals.

I remember the briefing if only because I sat there listening and thought “he is 180 degrees off.” It occurred to me that once all these neat new ideas settled in, particularly as, so it was argued, some of the technology would make these systems very cheap, that this would all proliferate, groups that formerly were no worry at all would acquire operational capabilities that were unthinkable a decade earlier, and war would become incredibly difficult and expensive and slow and painful… 

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, many of our generals, and their staff planners, bought the argument and the idea was born of rapid deployments, short, quick actions, in and out, great strategic results for low cost. Worse yet, the special operations community was dragged into this, thrown at what were and are fantastically complicated problems, and asked - expected - to perform miracles. That they did, in fact perform very close to miracles several times is a testimony to the community. That they were expected to do so is also a condemnation of the staff planners in Washington and the 3 and 4-star flag officers to whom those staffs report.

Many years ago - right after World War I, military professionals studied that war and nearly in unison around the globe decided that that sort of war must never be fought again. Aircraft, tanks, commutations - all that sort of thing was going to end stalemates and trenches and they would be replaced with maneuver, lighting movements that swept around defenses, shortening wars from months and years to weeks, or even days. 

Germany’s attack on Poland and later on France seemed to validate this analysis, though there were many pieces that were overlooked. Still, it lead to such moments as Churchill, commenting on Germany’s attack on France (1940), that “certainly he [Hitler} cannot have accomplished in days what the Kaiser could not in 4 years.” 

Or consider Somalia. One of the fascinating things about the fighting in Somalia - the grind of US special operators making raids over the years (per the Internet since January, 2007) to grab this or that Al Shabaab character, is how effective the locals were  and are at negating many of our capabilities that should have given us this sort of “overwhelming” edge. At the heart of it was communications, the ability to post a lookout every place an American might be, and then to call into their “command system” whenever there was any sort of change. Digital communications had changed the game, just not quite the way we thought.

There is a gray and somewhat tedious explanation for all that and it resides in an understanding that technology and tactics - which tend to develop side by side - tend to swing back and forth, from favoring the defense to favoring the offense and back to the defense. 

The challenge now is to find some way to either: a) fully embrace the defense and make an attack on any US asset or interest - to include our allies - truly too difficult to attempt OR, b) find a way to now make the next swing, negate the impact of the drones and the ubiquitous data processor (the smart phone) and, and return warfare to the offensive OR, c) somehow do both.

We need to defend ourselves. Consider how hard it is for Ukraine to defend itself. We have a country of 3.7 million square miles. Ukraine covers 230,000 square miles; unoccupied Ukraine, the part Ukraine is trying to defend, covers perhaps 180,000 square meals. That means the US defense problem in area alone is 20 times that of Ukraine’s. 

We have 343 cities of 100,000 or more people. We have 260 military installations. Some of those overlap, many do not. And we have other critical infrastructure - power plants, large factories, etc. It would not be difficult to come up with a list of 1,000 locations that need to be defended from missiles and drones and sabotage. 

We also need to come up with “TTP” (tactics, techniques and procedures) and technology that allows the US to, essentially, negate the capabilities of drones, and at the same time fight the war we choose, when we choose to do so - defense and offense.

But as we do this, we need to remember several points: 

You pay for hubris. The Pentagon and the big staffs were (and still are I suspect) packed with folks who think they’ve solved every problem they ever faced. Some of them helped plan Iraq and Afghanistan. And Somalia. In each we were able to demonstrate all the buzz words that got folks promoted and contracts signed. None were quick. Each lasted years and years (Somalia isn’t done yet). And as far as being successful? Well, let’s leave that for another time.

Where does that leave us? Perhaps it distills down to two key points, which really are only one point, one that we always seem to forget:

1) War is a struggle of Will. He who has the will, wins.

2) Tactics, techniques, technology, all that stuff, are wonderful to have. And they can win battles for you. But they do not win wars; in particular, technology does not win wars. Or, to reduce it to the key point:

War is a struggle of will. So?

Wars, except in rare - and almost always bizarre - circumstances do not resolve quickly, and anyone who plans a war to only last 180 days, soup to nuts, is dreaming.

Wars are bloody. Lots of people are going to die. May not be your people, depending on how you fight it and whether you have the wealth to spend to prevent your own losses. But if you want to win, plan on killing a lot of people. 

Wars do not go as planned. Ask Hannibal. Or Napoleon. Jefferson Davis or Kaiser Wilhelm.

So, returning to the “brilliant expert” who was pontificating 30 years ago, he was almost right: wars would be changed by all the amazing technology that has appeared over the last 40 years. But he was 100% wrong that it would be mean quick, “neat” wars. The folks who should understand that best are the folks in uniform at the Pentagon. Let’s hope they have finally learned that lesson.