Wes, there is an overarching lesson here regardless of what we are discussing: institutional inertia and the desire of institutions and those in it to perpetuate themselves at the cost of needed change and different thinking. There is an organizational psychology that abhors change and seeks to block it out of self interest and fear of loss. Loss of status, jobs, relevance.
Exactly Paul. That’s one of the quiet villains in the book. Technology is hard, but institutions are harder. A drone doesn’t care about branch culture, promotion paths, congressional districts, or whether a colonel’s favorite program still looks useful on a briefing slide. People do. Every major military transition runs into the same problem: the old system has offices, budgets, careers, and prestige attached to it. The future usually arrives before the institution is emotionally ready to admit the past is expiring.
It is refreshing to see that someone who knows what they are talking about from inside is willing to come forth and admit the problem. We know that everytime there is an advance in attack method or weapon, it is not long before a counter is developed. A fossilized development and procurement process will not adapt quickly enough. The Navy contains the most fossils. Look at what they keep doing. Even their drone development that we know about is all about bigger and more complex.
Thanks, Wes. Does Mr. Kendall speak about future personnel needs overall? With drones on the front lines, it would seem there'll be little need for the highschool-educated infantry. Robots will build the drones, AI will create the systems, so a much smaller force seems in the cards. Does he discuss?
Craig, Kendall does discuss it, though more as part of the larger force-design problem than as a separate manpower chapter.
His argument is “fewer people doing the close killing and dying.” In his future land-war concept, humans move up the chain. They’re supervising, commanding, setting rules, managing autonomous systems, interpreting the fight, and making the higher-level decisions that machines shouldn’t be trusted to make on their own.
So yes, the traditional infantry role changes dramatically. Kendall is pretty blunt that massed infantry and manned armored formations are going to have a hard time surviving in a battlespace saturated with autonomous sensors and weapons.
In my mind, the bigger shift is probably from trigger-pullers to system managers, drone operators, maintainers, EW specialists, logisticians, software-aware troops, targeteers, and commanders who can manage machine-speed combat without losing human judgment. The force may become smaller in some combat arms roles.
Wes, there is an overarching lesson here regardless of what we are discussing: institutional inertia and the desire of institutions and those in it to perpetuate themselves at the cost of needed change and different thinking. There is an organizational psychology that abhors change and seeks to block it out of self interest and fear of loss. Loss of status, jobs, relevance.
Exactly Paul. That’s one of the quiet villains in the book. Technology is hard, but institutions are harder. A drone doesn’t care about branch culture, promotion paths, congressional districts, or whether a colonel’s favorite program still looks useful on a briefing slide. People do. Every major military transition runs into the same problem: the old system has offices, budgets, careers, and prestige attached to it. The future usually arrives before the institution is emotionally ready to admit the past is expiring.
It is refreshing to see that someone who knows what they are talking about from inside is willing to come forth and admit the problem. We know that everytime there is an advance in attack method or weapon, it is not long before a counter is developed. A fossilized development and procurement process will not adapt quickly enough. The Navy contains the most fossils. Look at what they keep doing. Even their drone development that we know about is all about bigger and more complex.
Awesome.
"Frankly, physics doesn’t give a shit how good your top gun is."
Or anything else, really.
Thanks, Wes. Does Mr. Kendall speak about future personnel needs overall? With drones on the front lines, it would seem there'll be little need for the highschool-educated infantry. Robots will build the drones, AI will create the systems, so a much smaller force seems in the cards. Does he discuss?
Craig, Kendall does discuss it, though more as part of the larger force-design problem than as a separate manpower chapter.
His argument is “fewer people doing the close killing and dying.” In his future land-war concept, humans move up the chain. They’re supervising, commanding, setting rules, managing autonomous systems, interpreting the fight, and making the higher-level decisions that machines shouldn’t be trusted to make on their own.
So yes, the traditional infantry role changes dramatically. Kendall is pretty blunt that massed infantry and manned armored formations are going to have a hard time surviving in a battlespace saturated with autonomous sensors and weapons.
In my mind, the bigger shift is probably from trigger-pullers to system managers, drone operators, maintainers, EW specialists, logisticians, software-aware troops, targeteers, and commanders who can manage machine-speed combat without losing human judgment. The force may become smaller in some combat arms roles.
Thanx Wes