Recommended: The Future of War

I have continued to read George Friedman’s earlier works, and have just finished the 1996 book The Future of War, by George and his wife Meredith Friedman (see book list in the side bar for details). It is well worth reading.

The Friedmans make the point that every weapon begins from its invention a progress toward senility, in which the defensive costs of protecting the weapon against evolving countermeasures escalate while the ability of the weapon to project power remain more or less static. At some point the defensive burden becomes so great that the weapon is essentially useless.

Thus the tank was invincible at first, but as opposing tanks mounted heavier guns and anti-tank rockets improved tanks had to carry more and more armor, until now a tank weights 50 tons or more, and yet can be destroyed by a relatively inexpensive anti-tank missile from a single infantryman or a helicopter miles away.

Similarly, the aircraft carrier was a brilliant new weapon in World War II, but now must be surrounded by a fleet of destroyers, cruisers and submarines whose only purpose is defense, and even so a couple of inexpensive sea-skimming cruise missiles could destroy it or at least put it out of action in an instant.

Anti-aircraft defenses have improved steadily over the past half century, so than now a $2.2 billion dollar B-2 stealth aircraft is needed to penetrate a good air defense system, yet it’s bomb load of 50,000 pounds is not significantly different than that of an old B-52 bomber. All those extra billions in cost are needed just to defend the plane long enough for it to perform it’s mission.

Of course cultures are slow to adapt, so the military services are loath to give up their manned aircraft, their aircraft carriers, and their tanks, just as earlier generations of military and political leaders were slow to give up walled castles, armored knights, horse cavalry, and massed infantry charges. Nonetheless, the Friedman’s argue, the advent of increasingly intelligent precision munitions, space-based surveillance, GPS guidance systems, and the like will profoundly change the nature of warfare.

Indeed, it already has. Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan are killed by rockets fired from Predator unmanned aircraft controlled by pilots sitting comfortably in bases in the U.S. As we saw in the Gulf War, current precision munitions can be directed through one particular pane of a window of a building. Cruise missiles can fly thousands of miles to their targets, navigating by GPS and by comparing the ground topography under them to their own maps, and deliver munitions within an accuracy of a few feet. Anti-ship missiles can be fired in the general direction of a distant enemy fleet and can find and recognize the ships, decide which is the most valuable, and attack it all on their own with no further human guidance. Small anti-tank munitions can be dispersed a thousand or so feet above an armored column, can recognize their targets (even using millimeter-range radar to distinguish real tanks from dummys), and can select, attack, and destroy a particular tank or armored vehicle in the column all on their own.

Clearly there is a revolution in military affairs in progress, significantly different than the buzz-word bureaucratic efforts of the same name in the Pentagon. And clearly it will change the nature of warfare. The only question is: how fast can the military and political cultures catch up to the changes.