the origins of victory

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 THE
ORIGINS
OF
VICTORY
How Disruptive Military Innovation
Determines the Fates of Great Powers

A N D R E W F.
KREPINEVICH, JR.

New Haven and London

 Copyright © 2023 by Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr.
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 For Julia
My One and Only
With regard to estimating military power there seem to
be only problems and very few, well-accepted adequate
methods of making such estimates. There are conceptual
problems in defining appropriate measures of military
power, and many practical problems in carrying out even
those partial formulations that seem appropriate. Indeed
there are so many problems and difficulties that I can
touch on only a few of them.
—andrew w. marshall
 Contents

Acknowledgments ix
List of Abbreviations xiii

part i
Introduction 3
1. Come the Revolution 7
2. The Shape of Things to Come 21
3. The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 43
4. Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave 85
5. W(h)ither Deterrence? 141

part ii
Introduction 163
6. Fisher’s Scheme 166
7. Out of the Trenches 254
8. Twilight of the Battle Line 296
9. From Mass to Precision 342
10. Echoes of History 400
11. Where Do We Stand? 429

Notes 445
Index 521
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 Acknowledgments

This book is the product of many years of research and reflection,

benefiting along the way from the inspiration, mentorship, and support
of many colleagues. They are too numerous to mention, so I must limit
specific acknowledgments to those who had the greatest direct bearing
on this book. Whatever shortcomings this work may contain, they would
have been far greater had it not been for the kindness and support of
many colleagues, friends, and my family.
My work in the security studies field has benefited enormously from
having the privilege of serving a full career in the world’s finest army.
The experience of working with men and women in uniform, from all
services and in all ranks, provided me with an understanding of military
organizations. It also gave me a deep admiration and appreciation for
those service members who chose to endure hardship and family separa-
tion while declaring their willingness, if need be, to make the ultimate
sacrifice to defend their fellow citizens’ security and freedom.
I was blessed to have been assigned for four years during my military
career to the Social Sciences Department at West Point. My service there
set the foundation for all that was to follow in my work in the field of se-
curity studies. Under the inspired leadership of Brigadier General Lee
Donne Olvey, faculty members were told to “be kind” to one another and
that any “surprises” we might have to share with him would not improve
with age. He assumed, correctly, that the officers he recruited would
strive for excellence in every aspect of their duties. While on the faculty, I
was most fortunate to have three mentors, Colonels George Osborn and
William Taylor and Lieutenant Colonel Tom Johnson, who encouraged

ix
x Acknowledgments

me to expand my intellectual horizons while guiding me along the path

to completing my dissertation.
As the reader will no doubt infer from this book, Andrew Marshall
has been by far my principal intellectual mentor, as well as one of our
country’s greatest and most underappreciated strategists and public ser-
vants of the post–World War II era. For more than thirty years, I was the
very fortunate beneficiary of his wisdom, kindness, and encouragement.
His mark is on all that is of value in this book.
My work for the Office of Net Assessment over the years has also
made me the beneficiary of intellectual encounters with many of its
alumni, among them Eliot Cohen, Fred Downey, Aaron Friedberg, Karl
Hasslinger, Andrew May, James Roche, Stephen Peter Rosen, Paul Selva,
and Barry Watts.
This book benefited from the insights, wisdom, and encouragement of
my colleagues at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments,
which I founded and where I spent more than twenty years of my profes-
sional career. Among those whose great kindness and strength of character
were matched only by the power of their intellects and willingness to aid in
my intellectual growth are Steve Kosiak, Robert Martinage, John Stillion,
Jim Thomas, Jan van Tol, Michael Vickers, Barry Watts, and Robert Work.
This book also benefited greatly from exchanges with colleagues who
patiently listened to—and often improved on—my ruminations on disrup-
tive innovation, among them Ross Babbage, J. R. Backschies, Jim Baker, Ad-
miral (Retired) John Harvey, Nobukatsu Kanehara, Andrew May, Admiral
(Retired) William Moran, Major General (Retired) Rick Olson, and Admiral
(Retired) John Richardson. I am especially indebted to Philip Bilden, Chris-
topher Bowie, Michael Scott Brown, Elbridge Colby, Lieutenant General
(Retired) David Deptula, Captain (Retired) Karl Hasslinger, Nicholas Lam-
bert, Colonel (Retired) James McDonough, and Robert Stevens for review-
ing drafts of the book, in part or in whole, and providing thoughtful and
constructive criticism along with much-needed encouragement.
For nearly thirty years, most of my intellectual efforts, including the
writing of this book, have been enabled by the generous support pro-
vided by the Smith Richardson Foundation. I owe a tremendous debt to
its chairman, Peter Richardson, and its board, which in 1993 took a
chance on a newly retired army lieutenant colonel who aspired to estab-
lish a public policy institute that would apply Andrew Marshall’s net as-
sessment methodology to reach a wider audience.
I am especially grateful to the foundation’s senior vice president and
program officer, Dr. Marin Strmecki, who for three decades has been an
 Acknowledgments xi

inexhaustible wellspring of wise counsel, thoughtful criticism, and con-

stant encouragement. His ability to pose the “right questions”—to iden-
tify issues of strategic significance meriting inspection—and to match
them with those in the strategic studies community who are most capa-
ble of addressing them, is beyond value. Like Andrew Marshall, he is one
of our country’s hidden treasures.
Thanks are also owed to my agent, Eric Lupfer, who patiently took
my idea for a book and worked diligently with me to shape and reshape
the proposal until it was ready to be submitted to publishers. Eric then
found a perfect match for the project in Yale University Press. This is my
third book with Eric, a partnership I have come to cherish.
Special thanks are also in order for my editors at Yale. Joseph
Calamia and, following his departure, Jaya Chatterjee and Eva Skewes
have provided just the right amount of friendly prodding and encourage-
ment throughout a three-year collaboration. My gratitude also extends
to Phillip King and Andrew Katz, whose editing greatly enhanced the
manuscript. The book’s index was superbly crafted by Alexa Selph, who
imposed organization on a wide range of topics. For that I am very much
in her debt.
My work on this book also benefited greatly from the efforts of
Katherine Dougherty and Michael Krepinevich, who typed and retyped
versions of this manuscript more times than they would like to remem-
ber, with Michael also providing fact-checking and editorial support.
Progress in endeavors such as this book make considerable demands
on the home front. In this regard, I have been blessed by a supportive
family. My three children, Jennifer, Andrew, and Michael; Andrew’s wife,
Nikki; and our grandchildren, Katherine, Sean, Alexandra, Meaghan, and
Casey, have been a constant source of joy, encouragement, and support,
while displaying remarkable patience. Indeed, during the past three years,
the grandkids, upon their arrival at our home, no longer ask, “Where’s
Grandpa?” They just come straight to my office.
There is also the empty chair at our family table. Not a day goes by
when I do not think of young Drew. He continues inspiring me to make
the most of the opportunities I have that were denied to him.
At the center of it all, as she has been through our lifelong journey,
now in its fiftieth year, is Julia, my one and only. In recent years, she has
advised me to undertake projects that are more a “labor of love” than
“hard labor.” As so often in the past, I am the beneficiary of her wisdom.
I dedicate this book to her.
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 Abbreviations

AAA anti-aircraft artillery

AAM air-to-air missile
ADC Air Defense Command
AFB Air Force Base
AGM air-to-ground missile
AI artificial intelligence
AIM air intercept missile
AM additive manufacturing
AMRAAM Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile
APT advanced persistent threat
ARM anti-radiation missile
ASAT anti-satellite
ASW anti-submarine warfare
ATO Air Tasking Order
A2/AD anti-access/area-denial
AWACS Airborne Warning and Control System
Azon azimuth only (glide bomb)
BDA battle damage assessment
BDS BeiDou Satellite System
BGV boost-glide vehicle
BLU bomb live unit
BuAer Bureau of Aeronautics
BuNav Bureau of Navigation
BVR beyond visual range
C2 command and control
C4 command, control, communications, computers
CAA Civil Aeronautics Authority
CAD computer-aided design
CAS close air support

xiii
xiv Abbreviations

Cas9 CRISPR-associated protein 9

CCP Chinese Communist Party
CEP circular error probable
CHAMP Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced
Missile Project
CHASE Cyber Hunting at Scale
CID Committee of Imperial Defence
CNO chief of naval operations
CRISPR Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats
CSBA Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments
CV aircraft carrier
CVE escort carrier
CVL light carrier
DACT dissimilar air combat training
DARPA Defense Advanced Research and Projects Agency
DE directed energy
DIB defense industrial base
DNA deoxyribonucleic acid
DNI director of national intelligence
DRM Defense Reform Movement
DRFM digital radio frequency memory
ECCM electronic counter-countermeasures
ECM electronic countermeasures
EM electromagnetic
EMCON emissions control
EMP electromagnetic pulse
EW electronic warfare
FAC forward air controller
FARP forward arming and refueling point
FBIS U.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service
GBU guided bomb unit
GEO geosynchronous Earth orbit (also geostationary equatorial
orbit)
GLONASS Global Navigation Satellite System (Russia)
GPS Global Positioning System
G-RAMM guided rockets, artillery, mortars, and missiles
HARM High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile
HCM hypersonic cruise missile
HMS His/Her Majesty’s Ship
HPM high-powered microwave
IADS integrated air defense system
IAF Israeli Air Force
IAMDS integrated air and missile defense system
ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile
 Abbreviations xv

IDF Israeli Defense Force

IED improvised explosive device
IFF Identification Friend or Foe
IJN Imperial Japanese Navy
IoT internet of things
IR infrared
ISR intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
IT information technology
JADC2 Joint All-Domain Command and Control
JAM-JC Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global
Commons
JASSM Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile
JASSM-ER Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, Extended Range
JDAM Joint Direct Attack Munition
JFCOM Joint Forces Command
JSOW Joint Standoff Weapon
JSTARS Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System
LANTIRN Low-Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night
LEO low-Earth orbit
LGB laser-guided bomb
LRRDPP Long-Range Research and Development Planning Program
MAC Military Airlift Command
MAD mutual assured destruction
MALD Miniature Air-Launched Decoy
MCF Military-Civil Fusion
MEO mid-Earth orbit
MOE measure of effectiveness
MICOM Missile Command
MIRACL Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MRAP mine-resistant, ambush-protected
MTR military-technical revolution
NACA National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NCO noncommissioned officer
NID Naval Intelligence Department
NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology
NRO National Reconnaissance Office
NSTAC National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee
ONA Office of Net Assessment
PAVN People’s Army of Vietnam
PGM precision-guided munition
PLA People’s Liberation Army
xvi Abbreviations

PLAAF People’s Liberation Army Air Force

PLARF People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force
PLASSF People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force
PNT precision navigation and timing
QC quantum computing
RAF Royal Air Force
Razon range and azimuth only (guided weapon)
RMA revolution in military affairs
RNA ribonucleic acid
RNAS Royal Naval Air Service
RPV remotely piloted vehicle
RSC reconnaissance-strike complex
SA situation awareness
SAC Strategic Air Command
SAM surface-to-air missile
SAR synthetic aperture radar
SEAD suppression of enemy air defenses
SM subtractive manufacturing
SSGN submarine, guided missile, nuclear-powered
SSL solid-state laser
SSN submarine, nuclear powered, attack
TAC Tactical Air Command
Tarzon Tallboy Azimuth and Range Only (guided weapon)
TISEO Target Identification System Electro-Optical
TSTC Time-Sensitive Targeting Cell
UAV unmanned aerial vehicle
UUV unmanned underwater vehicle
VPAF Vietnamese People’s Air Force
WPTO Western Pacific Theater of Operations
the origins of victory
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PA RT I
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 Introduction

T
here is a disruptive shift under way in the character of
warfare, sometimes referred to as a military revolution. Simi-
lar revolutions have occurred before, but rapid advances in a
wide range of technologies over the past two centuries have
increased their frequency. As the term suggests, militaries that identify
and exploit these periods of disruptive change realize quantum leaps in ef-
fectiveness that can result in a major shift in the balance of power, with all
its attendant consequences for the security and prosperity of their nations.
The most recent military revolution, the Precision-Warfare Revolu-
tion, finds battle networks directing and coordinating extended-range
scouting and strike forces—functioning together in what Russian military
theorists call a “reconnaissance-strike complex.” This revolution was intro-
duced in nascent form by the U.S. military in the First Gulf War. Following
the collapse of the Soviet Union, for roughly two decades the Americans
stood alone in their ability to wage precision warfare. Now, however, the
precision-warfare regime is reaching its mature stage. Other military pow-
ers, China especially, have acquired most of the capabilities that enabled the
U.S. military’s dominance. For the Americans, it’s a whole new ballgame.
In at least one respect, the new era of great-power rivalry finds the
U.S. military at a disadvantage, as it has spent the better part of three de-
cades perfecting ways of waging war against minor powers such as Iraq
and terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda. Meanwhile, the Chinese and Rus-
sian militaries have invested that time figuring out how to wage war
against the U.S. military. In particular, they have focused on defeating
the U.S. military’s ability to project power. This has primarily taken the

3
4 Part 1

form of so-called anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) reconnaissance-strike

(or “recce-strike”) complexes. Put another way, the Chinese and the Rus-
sians have been looking to the future, while the Americans have been ac-
cumulating experience waging war in what they term “permissive”
environments, where they operate at relatively little risk to themselves—
environments that will be absent in any great-power war.
Even as the precision-warfare regime matures, a new military revolu-
tion is emerging. As with most such revolutions over the past two centu-
ries, this one is enabled by advances in a range of commercial
technologies—among them artificial intelligence, additive (“3D”) manu-
facturing, synthetic biology, and quantum computing—as well as military-
driven technologies, including directed energy and hypersonic weapons.
This new revolution’s pace is being accelerated by the growing intensity
of the competition between the United States and the two revisionist
great powers, China and Russia.
Disruptive shifts in war’s character are a matter of strategic signifi-
cance. History shows that a military that first masters the new form of
warfare enjoys a clear and potentially decisive advantage over its rivals.
The mid-1860s found Prussia exploiting its railway system to speed its
armies’ mobilization and deployment, and its telegraph system to better
coordinate their movements. Along with the Dreyse needle gun, they
formed the foundation of the “Railroad, Rifle, Telegraph Revolution,”
which facilitated Prussia’s rapid victory over Austria in the Seven Weeks’
War of 1866. In the spring of 1940, Germany’s integration of aviation,
mechanization, and wireless (radio) to create Blitzkrieg enabled it to de-
feat France in six weeks, something it had failed to accomplish despite
four years of effort a generation before. The introduction of nuclear
weapons by the United States in 1945 was widely recognized as herald-
ing a fundamental shift in warfare.
Viewed from a lagging competitor’s perspective, failing to keep pace
in exploiting the potential of an emerging military revolution risks oper-
ating at a severe disadvantage. Consequently, the common challenge for
all major-power militaries in a period of military revolution is to be the
first to identify its salient characteristics and exploit its potential. Silver
medals are not awarded to those who come in second.
This book addresses two matters of strategic significance. First, it
provides a preliminary assessment of the disruptive changes occurring in
general war in this era of increased competition among great powers.1
Modern general warfare between advanced military powers is a highly
 Introduction 5

complex phenomenon. Should such a war occur today, it would exhibit

very different characteristics from the last general war, concluded more
than three-quarters of a century ago. Indeed, the length of time between
the American Civil War and World War II is roughly the same as from
1945 to the present. Just as those two wars’ features were profoundly dif-
ferent from each other, a general war today would be very much a war
like no other.
It’s been said that predicting is difficult—especially about the future.
Given the long general peace that thankfully followed the last general
war and the profound advances in military-related technologies that have
occurred since the end of the Cold War, any attempt to set forth a de-
tailed description of future warfare would provide only the illusion of
precision. As President Dwight D. Eisenhower sagely observed, “There
is only one thing I can tell you about war, and almost one only, and it is
this: no war ever shows the characteristics that were expected; it is always
different.”2
The objective here is more modest: to identify some salient charac-
teristics of the maturing precision-warfare regime, while offering some
informed speculation on the features of an overlapping successor revolu-
tion. This study does not examine the extremes along the spectrum of
conflict: subconventional (now popularly relabeled as “gray area”) war-
fare and nuclear war.
Second, the book examines how military organizations have success-
fully anticipated and exploited disruptive changes in warfare faster than
their rivals, creating major new sources of competitive advantage. The
topic of disruptive innovation in large organizations is far too complex
and the number of cases involving great-power military organizations far
too small to enable a definitive treatment. The findings are therefore
more suggestive than conclusive.
The book consists of two parts. Part 1 identifies the emerging com-
petitive environment’s prospective characteristics. Using a “building-
block” approach, it begins by presenting some general trends in warfare
that have emerged over the past two centuries and that may yield in-
sights on the future military competition. This is followed by some in-
formed speculation on the maturing precision-warfare regime: Does it
represent a “new normal” in military affairs, or might militaries find ways
of projecting power effectively despite the creation of modern no-man’s-
lands? The narrative then turns to identifying how emerging military ca-
pabilities are setting the stage for a new, overlapping revolution. Part 1
6 Part 1

concludes by exploring the implications of these disruptive changes for

deterring a general war, which is widely viewed as preferable to fighting
one.
Part 2 addresses the strategic importance of being the first military
organization to identify and exploit a military revolution’s potential and
the danger of failing to develop proficiency in the new ways of war. Suc-
cess here is linked to a military’s competence in pursuing disruptive in-
novation. As the term suggests, disruptive innovation is an ambitious
undertaking that focuses not on improving military effectiveness within
the existing warfare regime but rather on seeking to overthrow it, replac-
ing it with far more effective means and methods of waging war. The
principal purpose of Part 2 is to identify qualities that enable military or-
ganizations to pursue disruptive innovation at a high level. This is
achieved by examining the experience of four military organizations that
succeeded in doing so. Given the methodology’s limitations, the insights
emerging are informative and suggestive, not definitive. Yet they repre-
sent a significant improvement over informed speculation. Part 2 con-
cludes with some preliminary observations regarding the U.S. military’s
competence to pursue disruptive innovation.
 chapter one
Come the Revolution

Rapid changes in the development of conventional means of

destruction and the emergence in the developed countries of
automated reconnaissance-strike complexes . . . make it possible
to sharply increase, by at least an order of magnitude, the
destructive potential of conventional weapons, bringing them
closer, so to speak, to weapons of mass destruction in terms of
effectiveness.

—marshal nikolai ogarkov

In the early evening of January 16, 1991, I departed the Pentagon,

where I was serving in the Office of Net Assessment, located in the Of-
fice of the Secretary of Defense. The Army had assigned me, a lieutenant
colonel, to the office in the fall of 1989, just as the Berlin Wall was com-
ing down. The office functions as the secretary of defense’s personal
“think tank,” focusing on matters of long-term strategic importance to
the Pentagon’s most senior policy makers and military leaders. The ana-
lytic staff, numbering around a dozen, included officers from each of the
military services.
The Pentagon’s focus that night, as it had been for nearly six months,
was on the Middle East. I arrived home in the Washington, D.C., suburbs
7
8 Part 1

to find my family gathered around the television. Images of intense anti-

aircraft fire over Baghdad dominated the screen, signaling the U.S.-led mil-
itary coalition’s launching of operations against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,
which had invaded and occupied Kuwait the previous August.
Before the First Gulf War, there was widespread speculation as to
how it would play out. Only a few years earlier, Iraq had ended its eight-
year war with Iran. That war, with its trenches and massive casualties,
produced comparisons to the Western Front in World War I. Many well-
respected military experts believed that even though the coalition would
ultimately prevail, the war could drag on for months, with American ca-
sualties running as high as 30,000. Trevor duPuy, a military veteran, his-
torian, and Pentagon consultant, declared, “My projection is that there
would be about 10,000 American casualties in 10 days of fighting to oc-
cupy Kuwait.” The noted military expert Joshua Epstein spoke for many
when he said, “You can win . . . but it will be very bloody and very expen-
sive. A lot of people are going to die.”1
Not everyone we came in contact with subscribed to the conven-
tional wisdom. Days before the war began, one of my colleagues re-
turned from bilateral discussions with our Indian counterparts. He was
shocked to find the Indians dismissing predictions of an extended, costly
conflict. The war, they said, will be a cakewalk for the Americans and
their allies. We found their views difficult to accept.
The Indians, however, were right.
What occurred over the next six weeks astounded military experts.
Given the high losses U.S. air forces had suffered in Vietnam two de-
cades earlier and those inflicted on the Israeli Air Force during the Yom
Kippur War of 1973, it seemed the coalition’s air arm would suffer a sim-
ilar fate against Iraq’s integrated air defense system, which was counted
among the world’s best. Yet armed with only a handful of stealthy aircraft
and a small stockpile of precision-guided munitions (PGMs), and orga-
nized around what today would be viewed as a nascent “battle network,”
the coalition, led by the U.S. Air Force, quickly suppressed Iraq’s air de-
fenses.2 Soon coalition air forces were operating with virtual impunity
over Iraq. The Iraqis, hoping to husband their aircraft, placed them in
hardened shelters, which were promptly collapsed by U.S. precision-
guided “smart” bombs. After a few days, the Iraqis, in desperation, began
flying their planes to Iran.
The coalition’s air arm then turned against Saddam Hussein’s ground
forces in the Kuwait theater of operations. U.S. aircraft, employing
 Come the Revolution 9

precision-guided weapons, began knocking out scores of Iraqi armored

vehicles. Iraqi soldiers started abandoning even undamaged tanks, believ-
ing themselves safer outside the “protection” offered by their armor. The
strikes were so effective that when the coalition ground offensive to liber-
ate Kuwait began on February 24, the Iraqi army simply collapsed. The
ground war was over in less than 100 hours. Fewer than 150 Americans
were killed in action; fewer than 500 were wounded. The U.S. Air Force
lost only fourteen fixed-wing aircraft in combat, while flying more than
29,000 sorties.3 Postwar studies attributed the lopsided U.S. victory to a
combination of innovative war-fighting (or “operational”) concepts and
relatively new systems and weapons, including stealth aircraft, precision-
guided munitions, unmanned aerial vehicles, and a rudimentary battle
network comprising, among other elements, the E-3 Airborne Warning
and Control System (AWACS), the E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack
Radar System (JSTARS) aircraft, and the space-based Navstar Global Po-
sitioning System (GPS).
Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. Despite the widespread surprise over
the rapid and decisive victory of the U.S.-led coalition, there were clear
indicators before the war suggesting it would be a very one-sided affair.
There were, of course, the views of our Indian colleagues. At the fore-
front, however, were the Russians. For more than a decade before the
war, Russian military leaders and theorists had been asserting that a dis-
ruptive shift in the character of warfare was becoming increasingly
likely.4 They generally referred to it as a “military-technical revolution”
(MTR), driven to a large extent by rapid advances in information-related
technologies, such as precision-strike munitions and wide-area surveil-
lance systems. This “IT revolution,” they believed, would trigger a “revo-
lution in military affairs,” with the first military mastering this new form
of warfare realizing a profound increase in its effectiveness.
At the core of this revolution was the “reconnaissance-strike com-
plex,” a combination of advanced scouting (the reconnaissance element)
and precision-guided munitions (the “strike” element), integrated and di-
rected by a battle network. Russian arguments were summarized by Mar-
shal Nikolai Ogarkov, the chief of the Soviet general staff. In 1984, he
declared, “Rapid changes in the development of conventional means of
destruction and the emergence in the developed countries of automated
reconnaissance-strike complexes, long-range high-accuracy terminally-
guided combat systems, unmanned flying machines, and qualitatively
new electronic control systems make many types of weapons global and
10 Part 1

make it possible to sharply increase, by at least an order of magnitude, the

destructive potential of conventional weapons, bringing them closer, so
to speak, to weapons of mass destruction in terms of effectiveness” [em-
phasis added].5
There were Americans who shared Ogarkov’s views. Nearly a decade
earlier, U.S. military planners working on the Pentagon’s Long-Range
Research and Development Planning Program concluded, “Near zero
miss, non-nuclear weapons could provide the National Command Au-
thority with a variety of strategic response options as alternative[s] to massive
nuclear destruction” [emphasis added].6
In the war’s aftermath, the Russians concluded that they had at last
witnessed, albeit in primitive form, the long-anticipated reconnaissance-
strike complex: “the integration of control, communications, reconnais-
sance, electronic combat, and delivery of conventional fires into a single
whole.”7

The Offset Strategy

With a few key exceptions, U.S. defense officials and military leaders be-
fore the First Gulf War did not talk in terms of “reconnaissance-strike
complexes,” “battle networks,” or “precision warfare.” The Pentagon’s ef-
forts to create the capabilities that kept its Russian rivals up at night
emerged in the early 1970s. That decade saw the Soviets erasing the U.S.
lead in nuclear forces, the “trump card” that Washington had played in
the Cuban Missile Crisis and that, since the Cold War’s early days, had
offset the Soviet advantage in conventional forces in Europe.
In searching for a new source of advantage, senior Pentagon officials
decided to exploit the United States’ growing advantage in information
technologies (IT). Although not as prescient as their Russian counter-
parts, a few Americans saw the IT revolution’s potential to trigger a dis-
ruptive shift in the character of warfare—a military revolution. Like the
Russians, they believed that a major shift in the military balance of power
would accrue to whichever side could first master the new way of war.
Thanks to the West’s free-market economies and strict controls on
technology transfers between advanced Western states and Soviet Russia,
the West’s IT advantage seemed likely to endure as the Soviets continued
struggling to transition from the industrial era to the information age.
Led by the U.S. defense secretary, Harold Brown, and his head of re-
search and engineering, William Perry, the Pentagon began investing
 Come the Revolution 11

more in IT-related capabilities, such as stealth aircraft, precision-guided

munitions, submarines equipped with exquisite quieting technologies,
advanced sensors, and computer-enabled “battle management” systems.
The goal of the “Offset Strategy” was to shift the military rivalry into
areas where the Soviets were ill equipped to compete. By the time the
Iraqis invaded Kuwait, more than a decade later, the U.S. military had
succeeded in fielding a small number of stealth aircraft, creating a mod-
est stockpile of guided weapons and long-range, precision-guided cruise
missiles, and fielding piece-parts of a “battle network.” Combined with
other novel capabilities, these systems set the stage for the Precision-
Warfare Revolution.

A Military-Technical Revolution?
Soviet thinking about a coming military revolution attracted the atten-
tion of Andrew Marshall, one of the United States’ leading defense strat-
egists. Known by many in defense circles as “Yoda” owing to his stoic
character, sphinxlike demeanor, and legendary ability to spot key trends
in the military competition, Marshall headed the Pentagon’s innocuously
named Office of Net Assessment, reporting directly to the secretary of
defense. In December 1990, shortly before the onset of the First Gulf
War, Marshall decided the time was right to undertake an appraisal of
Russian views on a coming transformation in warfare and assigned me
the task of producing the assessment.8
Marshall noted that neither we nor the Soviets had fought a major
conventional war since the Korean conflict, nearly forty years earlier.
Therefore, the coming war with Iraq, whose military was equipped pri-
marily with Russian weaponry, might provide clues as to whether the Rus-
sians’ ideas about a “military-technical revolution” were correct. He
instructed me to focus the assessment on four questions: First, did we
agree with the Russians that a major change in war’s character was in
progress? Second, if we concurred that the Russians were on to some-
thing, what could we say about warfare’s new defining characteristics?
Third, if we concluded the Russians were right, how could we best posi-
tion ourselves to compete effectively? Finally, if, however, we thought the
Russians were wrong, how could we encourage them to pursue their
flawed ideas to their ultimate dead end, while also hedging against the
possibility that we would prove mistaken? Marshall said that an assessment
with answers to these questions would be of interest to the Pentagon’s
12 Part 1

most senior civilian and military leaders. He was especially interested in a

“mature regime”—in which at least two major military powers have ex-
ploited its potential—and its characteristics.
The work took eighteen months to complete. Drawing on the expe-
rience of the First Gulf War, the findings convinced us the Russians
were, in fact, on to something. The Military-Technical Revolution: A Pre-
liminary Assessment previewed many characteristics of a mature precision-
warfare regime, introducing concepts that have become core elements of
U.S. defense debate, such as “anti-access/area-denial” (A2/AD) and “sys-
tem of systems.”9
We clearly had a lead in this nascent form of warfare. How could we
maintain it?10 History showed that other militaries would have a strong
incentive to exploit the revolution’s potential, which meant the U.S. mili-
tary’s lead could prove ephemeral. Marshall felt strongly that we had to
determine what would happen when other militaries began creating their
versions of a reconnaissance-strike, or “recce-strike,” complex. How
might we maintain a favorable military balance under such circum-
stances? With technological developments occurring so rapidly, would it
be possible to maintain our competitive advantage by effecting still an-
other disruptive shift, another “revolution” that would move us beyond
the one now emerging?
For the U.S. military to maintain its lead, it needed a world-class
ability to pursue innovation successfully and on a large scale. The assess-
ment’s finding in this regard is worth citing at length:

We are likely at the beginning of a period of revolutionary

change in warfare. This change will probably occur over an ex-
tended period of time, perhaps 10–20 years, or longer. A major
factor in determining the length of this transition period will be
how adept competitors are at fostering and nurturing innova-
tion. For those states that intend to develop the capability to
wage war effectively in a new era of conflict, it is important that
they begin to think through how they will organize themselves
to promote the innovations—in terms of technologies, systems,
and operational concepts—that will be required for a successful
transition. . . .
In this environment the ability to innovate and adapt quickly
would logically assume a much greater priority than it enjoyed
during the Cold War. The fate of military enterprises, and of nations
 Come the Revolution 13

and coalitions, may well depend on military and acquisitional struc-

tures that are able to innovate faster than their competitors, or their
enemies.11 [emphasis added]

The Russians were right in describing these discontinuous shifts in

the character of war as “revolutions.” The competition among militaries,
particularly since the Industrial Revolution, is a story of rivals constantly
searching for ways to translate emerging technologies into new sources
of advantage on the battlefield. At times, these efforts produced a signifi-
cant increase in military effectiveness through acts of innovation. Such
innovations may be the result of an advance in technology, such as the
proximity fuse invented by the British and developed along with the
Americans during World War II. Or it could also emerge from a new
form of tactics, such as the “Thach Weave,” which countered Japan’s su-
perior Zero fighter in the Pacific war, or from a novel way of organizing
or structuring one’s forces, such as in the U.S. Army’s concentration of
large numbers of helicopters into the Airmobile Division in the early
1960s.12 Some innovations, executed on a far greater scope and scale—
disruptive innovations—find military organizations realizing a quantum
leap in military effectiveness, introducing a military revolution.13
A military revolution is a shift in the character of warfare that yields
a disruptive boost—perhaps an order of magnitude or more—in military
effectiveness. This definition, of course, raises several important ques-
tions, such as “What qualifies as a ‘disruptive boost’ in military effective-
ness?” and, more broadly, “How do we measure ‘military effectiveness’?”
Alas, any attempt to develop such a comprehensive theory on the issue of
what constitutes a military revolution is to go down the rabbit hole into
a world where you can never quite reach the destination you seek. In-
deed, entire books have been written on the topic of what constitutes
“military effectiveness” and how to measure it, without arriving at a de-
finitive conclusion.
The challenge of devising a comprehensive definition of what con-
stitutes a “revolution” has proved difficult for both the “hard” and “soft”
sciences. Take “revolution” in its political sense. A “political revolution”
can be defined as a challenge to the established political order leading to
its replacement by a new order radically different from the preceding
one. It has also been defined as a major, sudden, and typically violent al-
teration in government and in related associations and structures.14 But
what is meant by “sudden”? A change that occurs in the course of days?
14 Part 1

Weeks? Months? Years? And what is meant by a “radically different” po-

litical order? What constitutes “radical”?
A political revolution is also defined as a “sharp, sudden change or
attempted change in the location of political power which involved ei-
ther the use or the threat of violence and, if successful, expressed itself in
the manifest and perhaps radical transformation of the process of gov-
ernment, the accepted foundations of sovereignty or legitimacy, and the
conception of the political and/or social order.”15 The French revolutions
of 1830 and 1848 can be defined as upheavals in which the government
was replaced or the form of government altered but in which property
relations remained generally intact. But we also have the French Revolu-
tion of 1789, which ushered in a fundamentally new government that
was radically different from the one that preceded it, where property and
social relations were altered dramatically. Even more striking is the Rus-
sian Revolution of 1917. It drastically altered not only Russia’s system of
government but also its economic system, social structure, and, some
people argue, cultural values as well.
Then there is the American Revolution, which brought about a shift
in the form of government, from a monarchy to a republic, the latter
being a sufficiently novel form of government that Abraham Lincoln,
more than eighty years later, pondered openly whether “any nation so
conceived and dedicated could long endure.” Yet in many respects, the
American Revolution, like the French revolutions of 1830 and 1848, left
property relations relatively intact. Moreover, much of the established
local political leadership and government structures (state legislative
bodies, for example) remained in place after the Revolution.
Political science labels all of the shifts just described as “revolutions,”
yet they each exhibit significantly different characteristics. If we boil
down the definition to an abrupt change in the form of government, ar-
guably a military coup constitutes a revolution. The Bolsheviks, a small
(but highly organized) political faction, seized power in Russia in No-
vember 1917 in what could be described as a coup, even though it is
called a revolution.
Even the hard sciences have struggled to devise ironclad definitions,
such as for laws that hold in every instance.16 Richard Feynman, a Nobel
Prize–winning physicist, noted that many of the “laws” of physics are, in
fact, approximations that work well for everyday problems. For example,
one “approximate” law is that mass is constant, independent of speed.
A spinning top has the same mass (weight) as one at rest. This law is
 Come the Revolution 15

incorrect. If an object is moving at a speed of less than 100 miles per sec-
ond, then the mass is constant to within one part in a million. As
Feynman notes, “For ordinary speeds we can certainly forget it [the true
law] and use the simple constant-mass law as a good approximation. But
for high speeds we are wrong, and the higher the speed, the more wrong
we are.” Finally, Feynman notes that even though “approximate laws”
work for nearly all everyday sorts of problems, “philosophically we are com-
pletely wrong.”17 He states the problem in general terms: “Each piece, or
part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the
complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, every-
thing we know is only some kind of approximation, because we know we
do not know all the laws as yet. Therefore, things must be learned only to
be unlearned again or, more likely, to be corrected.”18
To arrive at a “true law” that holds in defining military revolutions
one would have to have complete information on every case of disruptive
military innovation, while acknowledging that at some point further re-
search might identify a way in which an “outlier” case may be made to fit
the general definition.19
The business profession in free-market economies encounters simi-
lar problems when it comes to defining a discontinuous, or disruptive,
shift in the competitive environment. For example, in the mid-1990s, Jo-
seph Bower and Clayton Christensen presented a pathbreaking study ad-
dressing the challenge corporate decision-makers face in attempting to
effect disruptive innovation. They wrote, “One of the most consistent
patterns in business is the failure of leading companies to stay at the top
of their industries when technologies or markets change.”20 Bower and
Christensen did not provide a comprehensive definition (let alone a the-
ory) for what constitutes “disruptive change” but defined “sustaining”
and “disruptive” technologies. Sustaining technologies, they posited,
“tend to maintain a rate of improvement; that is, they give customers
something more or better in the attributes they already value.” “Disrup-
tive” technologies “introduce a very different package of attributes from
the one mainstream customers historically value.”21
In The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen maintained these descrip-
tions of sustaining and disruptive technologies.22 These do not, however,
represent a comprehensive, unified theory or definition of what consti-
tutes disruptive versus sustaining change in the corporate sector. Yet
Christensen’s ideas and the case studies he employed proved of great
value to many corporate and government leaders. Similar policy-relevant
16 Part 1

work has been done in the general field of sustaining and disruptive mili-
tary innovation, despite the absence of a comprehensive theory.23
The concept of a “military revolution” was introduced by Michael
Roberts in 1955 in a lecture at Queens College. Roberts focused his at-
tention on Europe between 1560 and 1660, noting that the size of armies
during this period increased by an order of magnitude. Rogers had the
advantage of limiting his focus to describing only the events of that time
as a “military revolution” and thus did not need to bother himself with a
definition that would describe all such phenomena. He did, however,
argue that “major revolutions in military techniques . . . [include] the
coming of the mounted warrior, and of the sword” in ancient times, as
well as “the triumph of the heavy cavalryman, consolidated by the adop-
tion of the stirrup” in the sixth century A.D., along with “the scientific
revolution in warfare in our own day.”24
The so-called Artillery Revolution of the late fifteenth century also
achieved order-of-magnitude improvements in military effectiveness, at
least in one aspect. According to one observer, “great towns, which once
would have held out for a year against all foes but hunger, now fell
within a month.”25 Rogers’s thesis produced a spirited debate that contin-
ues over what constitutes a military revolution, including whether the
period he referenced was “revolutionary” at all. Geoffrey Parker, for ex-
ample, focuses on the period 1500 to 1750 in arguing that “the key to
Westerners’ [the Europeans’] success in creating the first truly global
empires . . . depended upon precisely those improvements in the ability
to wage war which have been termed ‘the military revolution.’ ”26
Jeremy Black also contested Roberts’s argument, declaring that the
period from 1660 through the Napoleonic Wars was considerably more
important with regard to the transformation of warfare.27 In critiquing
Roberts’s perspective, Parker conceded that the task of providing a com-
prehensive definition of what constitutes a military revolution remains to
be accomplished, while nevertheless asserting that during the course of
the three centuries addressed in his book, “a major transformation in Eu-
ropean military and naval power had taken place, a transformation so
profound that it must surely rank as a ‘revolution.’ ”28
Given the challenges found in both the hard and soft sciences in ar-
riving at comprehensive theories and definitions, or laws, that support
them, it appears the best we can do is to present a definition or descrip-
tion of what constitutes a military revolution, hoping that it will be
improved on over time. This book’s primary purpose, however, is to
 Come the Revolution 17

enhance our understanding of how the character of warfare is changing

and how military organizations succeed in adapting to radical shifts in
war’s character through disruptive innovation, thereby enabling them to
become the first to exploit the “next big thing” in warfare.
Like the Russians, Andrew Marshall’s interest in military revolutions
was not theoretical but practical. Marshall was charged by U.S. defense
secretaries with assessing the state of the military balance, including
identifying factors that could trigger significant shifts in the balance. His
office’s assessments along these lines aided the efforts of senior Pentagon
leaders to develop long-term strategies to improve the United States’
military position.
Marshall realized that his office’s work was never more important
than when the military competition was entering a period of disruptive
change. Such periods magnified the importance of identifying new
sources of advantage and developing them quicker than the United
States’ rivals. Under these conditions, militaries find themselves playing
for the highest stakes.
The MTR assessment anticipated that other leading militaries, given
the risks should they fall behind, would move quickly to close the gap
and exploit the Precision-Warfare Revolution, albeit in their own way.29
This seemed reasonable, as similar periods of disruptive change in the
military competition over the previous century saw rivals quickly match-
ing the military that made the initial breakthrough into a new way of
war. For example, the Imperial German Navy began building modern
battleships only a year after the Royal Navy launched its revolutionary
all-big-gun battleship, HMS Dreadnought, in 1906. Germany’s mecha-
nized air-land Blitzkrieg force that swept over much of Europe between
1939 and 1942 was matched, to a greater or lesser extent, by the U.S.,
British, and Russian militaries by 1944. The U.S. monopoly in nuclear
weapons lasted barely four years before the Soviet Union’s successful
atomic test in August 1949.
This knowledge gave Marshall’s enterprise a sense of urgency. If the
U.S. military’s advantage was likely to be fleeting, senior defense policy
makers needed to have some idea of how the United States might best
extend its lead and what options existed for developing new sources of
advantage once other militaries caught up.
Following the First Gulf War, however, other militaries were slow to
challenge the United States. Although this was not widely understood at
the time, both China and Russia had the desire to compete with the
18 Part 1

United States but lacked the means. Major powers such as Britain, France,
Germany, and Japan had the means but lacked a compelling motive for
challenging U.S. military dominance. Thus, the threats to the United
States’ security were comparatively modest, emanating primarily from
minor powers like Iran, Iraq, and North Korea and insurgent and terrorist
groups. Of course, Washington could not ignore the potential danger
posed by the nuclear arsenals of China and (especially) Russia, but these
powers had yet to openly challenge the U.S.-led international order.
Absent a serious challenge to its dominant position, the U.S. military
saw no compelling need to anticipate and adapt to the challenges it
would confront in a mature precision-warfare regime. Moreover, the de-
clining U.S. defense budgets—the “peace dividend”—that followed the
Soviet Union’s collapse in late 1991 and the corresponding drawdown of
the U.S. military found Pentagon leaders preoccupied with moving to a
smaller force, which they argued must be given priority before attempt-
ing any major innovations. U.S. political leaders, hoping to frame a
world order rooted in collective security rather than balance-of-power
politics, offered few incentives for the military to innovate.
The Balkan War of 1998 confirmed the views of many U.S. military
leaders who argued, “If it isn’t broken, why fix it?” The war revealed that
the Europeans, far from attempting to keep up with their U.S. ally, were
falling further behind. Among other capabilities, the Americans provided
their NATO allies with precision-guided munitions, aerial refueling, and
scouting support. Meanwhile, Russia, still working its way out of the eco-
nomic wreckage wrought by seventy years of communist rule, fielded a
military that was a pale shadow of its Cold War self. China, smarting
from the U.S. Navy’s show of force off its shores during the 1996 ten-
sions over Taiwan, was only beginning to show signs of becoming a
major military power.
Although the post–Cold War period of U.S. military dominance ex-
tended far beyond historical norms, it would not last forever. Things
began to change in the early 2000s. Following the terrorist attacks in
New York and Washington, D.C., in September 2001, the U.S. military
focused on waging war against radical Islamist extremist groups and,
after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, countering insurgent move-
ments as well.
Moreover, many of the U.S. military’s high-technology systems touted
by their service advocates as revolutionary or “transformational”—such
as the Army’s Future Combat System, the Air Force’s airborne laser, the
 Come the Revolution 19

Marine Corps’ Advanced Fighting Vehicle, and the Navy’s next-generation

cruiser—were canceled, primarily for reasons of cost, lack of performance,
or both. Some transformation advocates, your author among them, ap-
plauded these cancellations, primarily out of concern that the U.S. military
was putting the cart before the horse—specifically, that it had not yet ad-
dressed how these new capabilities would maintain their effectiveness as
the Precision-Warfare Revolution matured.30
By the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, with the
United States mired in wars against insurgent and terrorist groups in
Afghanistan and the Middle East, China and Russia were aggressively
seeking to narrow, if not erase, the U.S. military’s near monopoly in pre-
cision warfare. Thanks in large part to the country’s high, sustained eco-
nomic growth rates, China emerged as the leading, or “pacing,” threat.
By the mid-2010s, the Precision-Warfare Revolution began to enter its
mature stage, as China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fielded ele-
ments of battle networks, along with scouting and precision-fire systems.
The PLA did not try to “mirror-image” the U.S. military but fielded ca-
pabilities conforming to Chinese “characteristics,” those reflecting their
geopolitical objectives and strategic culture. It also began exploiting op-
portunities in a new warfare domain—cyberspace—preparing for war in
space and undersea, and deploying advanced A2/AD capabilities.
China’s A2/AD complex, for example, is designed to cast an expand-
ing military shadow over the “First Island Chain” that stretches from the
Japanese islands through Taiwan and the Philippines down to Singapore.
For more than a century, the U.S. military has undertaken major power-
projection operations by transporting forces from the United States to
secure overseas bases, such as in Great Britain in World War II, Japan
during the Korean War, and Saudi Arabia during the First Gulf War.
Once these forces amassed sufficient combat power, they were employed
to achieve their war objectives. The PLA’s A2/AD complex is designed
to increase dramatically the costs associated with this method of power
projection in order to defeat or discourage any U.S. attempt to come to
the aid of its East Asian allies and to provide cover for Chinese offensive
operations in the region. In summary, today the Pentagon’s challenge is
no longer how to maintain a wide lead over its rivals but rather how to
keep pace in a rapidly changing competitive environment.

With the precision-warfare regime’s maturation there are signs that

new discontinuities in warfare may be on the horizon—a new military
20 Part 1

revolution. If the history of the past century or so is any guide, advances

across a range of military-related technologies, including those related to
artificial intelligence (AI), the biosciences, advanced computational
power, directed energy (DE), additive manufacturing, robotics, and hy-
personic propulsion, among others, will continue over the next decade or
so. In many instances, progress will be driven primarily by the commer-
cial sector. There is no guarantee that the United States will be the first
to exploit this new emerging revolution as it succeeded in doing in the
Precision-Warfare Revolution and, before it, the Nuclear Revolution.
The U.S. military’s success in the race to identify and exploit the next big
thing in warfare will depend on understanding its defining characteristics
and how best to exploit them and on creating the new capabilities, doc-
trines, and organizations needed to wage the new way of war more
quickly and effectively than its rivals.
 chapter two
The Shape of Things to Come

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of
those who shoot best.

—voltaire

The first of all necessities is Speed so as to be able to fight when

you like, where you like, and how you like.

—admiral jackie fisher

The speed, range, and connectivity of modern weapon systems

enable belligerents to wage war on a global scale and across
multiple domains. In such a conflict, command and control,
intelligence, the synchronization of movement and maneuver, and
force sustainment must occur on a global scale and rapidly
enough to defeat weapons with extreme speed and range.

—u.s. space force, “Spacepower: Doctrine for Space Forces”

21
22 Part 1

In the late 1990s, I was serving on the National Defense Panel, a

commission mandated by Congress to review U.S. defense strategy. Our
deliberations took some of us to the Far East, to China, Japan, and South
Korea. While in Tokyo, we had discussions with senior officials serving
in Japan’s ministries of defense and foreign affairs and in the self-defense
forces.
At the time, much of the U.S. defense debate revolved around the rev-
olution in military affairs and “transformation”—the initiatives you would
take to “transform” your military if you believed a disruptive shift in war-
fare was under way or on the horizon. Secretary of Defense William
Cohen had signed on to the idea, and our allies were naturally interested
in what the U.S. military, the world’s most powerful, had in mind.
At the time, I was working on the concept of a “stealth battleship”—
converting some U.S. Trident fleet ballistic-missile submarines coming
out of service into conventional cruise-missile carriers.1 I shared the idea
with my Japanese colleagues, who were having trouble understanding
why the U.S. Navy, with its aircraft carriers, would need a converted sub-
marine carrying cruise missiles, even if each held more than 150 of them.
It struck me that an analogy might prove useful. Imagine, I said, you
were refighting the Battle of Midway. Assume the U.S. and Japanese fleets
are 800 miles apart. The Americans have several Nimitz-class carriers, and
you have no carriers, only four of these converted submarines, carrying
cruise missiles armed with 1,000-pound warheads. Let’s also assume that
both sides’ “scouting” forces are equally capable. Under these conditions,
the U.S. carriers have an advantage in armor and in firepower—a carrier’s
air wing can carry more and heavier bombs than the Japanese submarines
with their cruise missiles. The Japanese submarine force has the advan-
tage in stealth, which translates to a scouting advantage: they will be more
difficult to find than the carriers. And its cruise missiles’ range exceeds
that of the U.S. carriers’ aircraft. So, all other factors being equal, your
subs are going to see the U.S. carriers before they see you, and you’ll be
able to attack them before they are in range to attack you. So, I asked,
“Who’s going to win the Second Battle of Midway?”2
Our discussion put me to wondering if there were trends with regard
to those performance characteristics that innovative militaries came to
value during earlier periods of disruptive change in the character of war-
fare. If so, they might offer insights on those attributes that might pro-
vide relatively greater value in a maturing Precision-Warfare Revolution
and an emerging military revolution.
 The Shape of Things to Come 23

Since the dawn of the industrial age, we’ve seen great advances in
military capabilities, including increases in the speed and range of sys-
tems and communications, in scouting and counter-scouting capabilities,
in protective armor, and in massed and precision fires. The world has
also witnessed a remarkable growth in the domains in which warfare is
waged. This chapter examines these phenomena with emphasis on four
periods of disruptive military change since the mid-nineteenth century:
the Railroad, Rifle, and Telegraph Revolution, the Fisher Revolution in
the maritime domain, the Interwar (Mechanization, Aviation, and Radar)
Revolution, and the Precision-Warfare Revolution. The objective is to
identify trends to help strip away some of the uncertainty regarding
where militaries should place their “big bets” when it comes to investing
to develop new sources of competitive advantage.
To begin, some defining of terms is in order. By “armor,” I mean a
metallic sheathing or protective covering, especially metal plates, used on
warships, combat vehicles, airplanes, and fortifications that provides
physical protection against fires. Weapons’ fires are broken down into
three categories: range, accuracy, and volume. A weapon’s “accuracy” is
its circular error probable (CEP). Think of a circle whose target is at its
center. A CEP is the radius of a circle within which half of a missile’s
projectiles are expected to fall. A weapon with a CEP of 500 feet will find
half of those weapons landing within 500 feet of the target and the other
half landing farther away. A weapon has range, defined in terms of dis-
tance, such as in miles or kilometers. Finally, fires can also be assessed in
terms of their volume—the kinetic capacity to destroy or neutralize
human or material targets—that they can produce in a given period of
time. In this study, the term “firepower” is used interchangeably with
volume fires. “Speed” is simply distance traveled in a unit of time, such as
miles per hour. By “scouting,” I mean the use of intelligence, surveil-
lance, and reconnaissance (ISR) to ascertain knowledge of the enemy.
“Counter-scouting” refers to the actions taken to defeat scouting.

The Railroad, Rifle, and Telegraph Revolution

During the Napoleonic Wars, armies moved pretty much as they had
since antiquity—on foot. An army’s mobile arm—its cavalry—moved at
the speed of the horse. Transporting troops by ship had marginally im-
proved over time, with wind and sail replacing muscle and oar. With few
exceptions, command and control of forces at the strategic, operational,
24 Part 1

and tactical levels suffered from enduring limitations. Orders to field

armies were typically delivered by couriers on horseback, although signal
flags were also employed.
On the battlefield, infantry tended to maneuver in very dense forma-
tions, compensating for inaccurate flintlock musket fire by delivering a
barrage of bullets.3 In the middle of the nineteenth century, however,
things changed with what has become known as the Railroad, Rifle, and
Telegraph Revolution, which found warfare expanding into the electro-
magnetic domain.
On an autumn day in 1839, some 8,000 Prussian soldiers traveled
by train from their maneuver grounds at Potsdam to their garrisons in
Berlin.4 Although the distance was short and the number of troops in-
volved modest, it presaged a dramatic shift in mobility at the strategic
and operational levels of war. Twenty years later, during France’s war
with the Austrian Empire, a French army, 120,000 strong, was trans-
ported by rail to Northern Italy in eleven days over a distance that would
have taken more than five times as long on foot.5 Little more than a de-
cade later, in August 1870, the Northern German Federation used its
railway system to deploy 1.2 million troops along the Rhine River in
eleven days, reducing its mobilization time by nearly half.6 Only a few
years earlier, during the American Civil War, the Union exploited its ad-
vantage in railways to great benefit over the Confederacy, offsetting the
latter’s advantage in interior lines of communication.
In addition to offering land forces the advantage of increased speed
in mobilization and maneuver at the strategic and operational levels of
war, railroads greatly reduced the wear and tear on armies induced by
prolonged marches, thereby enhancing their readiness for battle. By rap-
idly moving large quantities of supplies, railroads also gave armies much
greater staying power, while enabling dramatic increases in their size.7
Around this time, in 1844, the American Samuel Morse introduced
the electromagnetic telegraph. Within a decade, a web of more than
20,000 miles of telegraph cable crisscrossed the United States. Much of
Europe quickly followed. During the American Civil War, the new com-
munication network enabled armies to maintain contact with higher
headquarters by playing out telegraph wire from the main telegraph lines
to forces on the march.8 Thus, while railroads greatly expanded the size
and staying power of armies, the telegraph boosted commanders’ ability
to direct the movement of their forces, to include when and where to po-
sition them to greatest advantage.
 The Shape of Things to Come 25

The mid-nineteenth century also saw the widespread introduction of

rifling, enabled by making spiral groves in the barrels of muskets and can-
nons. A smoothbore musket’s effective range was about 80 to 200 yards on
a still day, but rifling increased the range and accuracy of fires by roughly
a factor of five.9 There were advances in the volume of fires—firepower—
as well. In 1848, a French army officer, Claude Minié, developed a cone-
shaped bullet (the “Minié ball”) that could be loaded quickly, without
using a ramrod. Still, soldiers with rifles using Minié-ball ammunition had
to reload after each shot. With the introduction of breech-loading rifles
like the Prussian Dreyse “needle” gun, the rate of fire tripled relative to
the musket, to roughly six rounds per minute. By 1863, repeating rifles
like the U.S. Spencer carbine could fire seven shots in thirty seconds. This
increased rate of fire was made possible by cocking a lever to extract the
spent cartridge, which then fed a new cartridge from a tube in the butt-
stock into the chamber. The Union army began equipping its cavalry
troopers with Spencers, leading one Union soldier to write, “I think the
Johnnys [Confederate soldiers] are getting rattled; they are afraid of our
repeating rifles. They say we are not fair, that we have guns that we load
up on Sunday and shoot all the rest of the week.”10 One observer said that
a couple of cavalry regiments with Spencer repeating rifles sounded “as if
a couple of army corps had opened fire.”11 But it was not only the volume
of fires but their range and accuracy that had increased dramatically.
The implications were profound. As the early battles of the Ameri-
can Civil War revealed all too clearly, the shoulder-to-shoulder infantry
formations of the Napoleonic era were now obsolete. Commanders who
persisted in maneuvering in this way, such as during the Union assault on
Marye’s Heights at Fredericksburg in December 1862, at Pickett’s
Charge against Union forces on Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg in July
1863, and at Grant’s assault at Cold Harbor in June 1864, saw their
troops exposed to terrible slaughter from rifled fire.
In response, troops began entrenching. By May 1864, the Confeder-
ate general Joseph E. Johnston, commanding forces opposing the Union
general William T. Sherman, declared, “I have found no opportunity for
battle except by attacking intrenchments.” Confederate troops said
“Sherman’s men march with a rifle in one hand and a spade in the other.”
Union troops returned the compliment, declaring that “the Rebels must
carry their breastworks with them.”12 Confederate fieldworks such as at
Petersburg in the war’s final months foreshadowed the trench warfare
along the Great War’s Western Front a half century later.13
26 Part 1

As for advances in “armor,” the spade used to dig trenches hardly

qualifies as a major advance in protection, as the widespread use of
trenches dates back at least two centuries to the time of Sébastien Le
Prestre de Vauban, who popularized their use in besieging fortresses. It
was now more expensive in time and material resources to construct
forts than to defeat them. French forts fell to the Prussians in the
Franco-Prussian War, and by World War I, the Germans had manufac-
tured guns capable of knocking them down. The French Maginot Line
was outmaneuvered in World War II, and the Belgian fort at Eban Emael
fell quickly to German glider troops.14 Later, the Stalin, Siegfried, and
Bar-Lev lines suffered similar fates. This does not mean efforts to en-
hance troops’ physical protection are irrelevant. To this day, soldiers
carry entrenching tools to “dig in.” What these trends strongly suggest,
however, is that, broadly speaking, the armor/anti-armor competition has
been shifting in the latter’s favor.
Between the 1860s and World War I, the Railroad, Rifle, and Tele-
graph land-warfare revolution progressed. Gatling guns and machine
guns appeared, firing hundreds of rounds per minute. The artillery used
rifling to increase its effective range and accuracy. Over time, its rate of
fire was augmented by the change to breech-loading guns and the devel-
opment of a better recoil mechanism, eliminating the need for swabbing
out the gun after each shot.15 By the Great War, Europe’s armies had in-
creased significantly both the range and volume of fires far beyond those
of their mid-nineteenth-century contemporaries. Artillery was truly the
“king of battle.”
World War I witnessed the Railroad, Rifle, and Telegraph Revolu-
tion in its most evolved form. The Western Front offered an enhanced
version of the Confederate entrenchments at Petersburg, only on a far
greater scale. The speed of operations had not increased significantly, as
the internal combustion engine and wireless communications were still
in their infancy. Troop movement across no-man’s-land, with its barbed
wire and shell craters, had not improved much since Petersburg.
What had grown substantially was firepower, unleashed by machine
guns and breech-loaded artillery. Modern railway systems had enabled
combat power to be concentrated and sustained at ever greater levels at a
given point, but the means (mechanized and motorized land forces, com-
bat and transport aircraft) to propel these forces forward to exploit any
breakthrough of the enemy’s front had yet to be developed. Simply put,
militaries in the final stages of the Railroad, Rifle, and Telegraph regime
 The Shape of Things to Come 27

could generate volume fires at a much high level than ever before. That
being said, troops attempting to advance across that deadly space be-
tween the trenches in World War I suffered the same failures that Union
troops had in assaulting the Confederate trenches at Petersburg—before
the great gains in firepower.
As Sir Michael Howard observed, “Long before 1914, then, it was
accepted by all the states of Europe that the military effectiveness on
which they relied to preserve their relative power and status depended
. . . on a combination of the manpower of the population and a strategi-
cally appropriate railway network.”16 Simply put, the railroads enabled
the concentration of large armies that, lacking in tactical mobility, con-
tinued to seek an advantage where technology permitted—in firepower
and in extending the range of fires. Thus, by the time of the Great War,
it was generally agreed that “the attack could succeed only by developing
a greater intensity of fire than the defence.”17
Still, the war offered glimpses of what was to come. In the electro-
magnetic domain, the telegraph had been supplemented by wireless
(radio) communications, but it had yet to mature.18 Primitive tanks ap-
peared, enabling troops to vacate their trenches and cross no-man’s-land
with a modest enhancement in speed and armor protection. Aircraft
could scout over vast areas relative to horse cavalry and proved valuable
in adjusting artillery fires. It was a combination of these nascent capabili-
ties, with their emphasis on speed and range, that, when combined with
innovative German tactics that appeared late in the war, would displace
the Railroad, Rifle, and Telegraph Revolution and dramatically alter
war’s character.
What mattered most for militaries looking to exploit the Railroad,
Rifle, and Telegraph Revolution’s potential? Napoleon declared in his
time, “Le feu est tout” (Fire[power] is everything).19 With this revolu-
tion, however, the massing of firepower was dependent on the dramatic
increase in the speed of communications and movement of large forces,
which were enabled by the telegraph and railroad, respectively. Without
the railroad, armies would have been much smaller. Without the railroad
and telegraph, elements of these smaller armies would have had more
difficulty concentrating at the right place and time to mass their fires.
Once on the battlefield, armies equipped with rifles and then repeat-
ing rifles enjoyed a major boost in their effective range, accuracy, and
firepower. What mattered most? Would generals have preferred accu-
rate, ranged fires over sheer firepower? The carnage inflicted by troops
28 Part 1

armed with rifled muskets against those advancing on Marye’s Heights,

on Cemetery Ridge, and at Cold Harbor suggest that the boost in fire-
power’s range and accuracy had more of an effect than the change in the
rate of fire did. Put another way, Napoleonic tactics on the battlefield
were abandoned not principally owing to improvements in firepower but
to increases in the accuracy and range of fires. Indeed, enhancements in
volume fires appeared only toward the Civil War’s end and almost exclu-
sively on the Union’s side.20 Yet in assessing the value of range, accuracy,
and rate of fire, it’s difficult to identify a clear “winner.”21

The Iron and Steam Revolution

At roughly the same time the Railroad, Rifle, and Telegraph Revolution
was occurring, a revolution in warfare at sea was under way. Within the
span of a few decades in the mid-nineteenth century, the world’s great
fleets were transformed out of the Age of Wind and Sail to the Age of
Steam and Iron. Between 1840 and 1870, navies, led first by the French
but quickly eclipsed by Britain’s Royal Navy, abandoned the wooden sail-
ing ships of Drake and Nelson, launching a hodgepodge of ironclad
ships whose motive power was steam. Steam propulsion freed ships from
dependence on the wind’s vagaries, while increasing their speed, cutting
the time from London to Cape Town by more than half. The telegraph
enabled Great Britain to lead the way in constructing a global communi-
cations network via undersea cables.
What had to be sorted out was whether fires or armor would domi-
nate ship design. Early returns, such as the engagement between the
Union ironclad Monitor and its Confederate counterpart, Virginia, in
1862, and the Battle of Lissa between Austria and Italy in 1866 favored
armor. At Lissa, ships actually resorted to ramming, leading some navies
to construct ships with rams emphasizing armor plate at the expense of
their speed, range, and fires.
Advances in metallurgy, propulsion, explosives, and communications
further complicated efforts to determine those qualities that would most
advantage the New Model navies. The Russians built a circular warship,
while the British built a steam-propelled ironclad with a full rig of sail
that capsized and sank.
Metal allowed navies to construct much larger ships, enabling fantas-
tic increases in firepower and armor protection. Where Nelson’s oak-
hulled ships were limited to roughly 2,000 tons, the early ironclads of the
 The Shape of Things to Come 29

1860s achieved a fourfold increase. By the Great War, the Royal Navy’s
“super-dreadnought” battleships stood at 20,000 tons.22 Early French
and British ironclads were covered with wrought-iron armor several
inches thick. By the mid-1860s, armor increased to nine inches and then
to twenty-four inches—a thickness never surpassed—in the British iron-
clad Inflexible, launched in 1876.23 By the late 1880s, the first steel battle-
ship, Royal Sovereign, was built with eighteen-inch armor. The thickness
of armor plate continued to decline, in part because of advances by firms
like Krupp, which, by the late 1890s, was manufacturing steel armor with
roughly three times the strength of that used in Inflexible.24 Advances in
armor, however, were more than matched by progress in the penetrating
power of shells.
By the early twentieth century, the pace of technological advances
had slowed to the point where capital ships could be designed with the
expectation that they could serve for decades. (Indeed, a substantial num-
ber of battleships and battle cruisers built just before and during the
Great War saw service in World War II.)

The Fisher Revolution

This Steam and Iron Revolution in naval warfare overlapped with an-
other that occurred in the two decades before the Great War, known as
the Fisher (or “Dreadnought”) Revolution, after the British admiral who
transformed the world’s preeminent fleet. Fisher’s new battleships, called
“dreadnoughts” after the eponymous warship that entered service in
1906, emphasized speed to set the engagement range and uniform-caliber
big guns, primarily to outrange the enemy’s guns. Toward this end, Fisher
was willing to discount armor plate and large numbers of short-range
quick-firing guns. As he put it, “If we have the advantage of speed, which is
the first desideratum in every class of fighting vessel (Battleships included), then,
and then only, we can choose our distance for fighting. If we can choose
our distance for fighting, then we can choose our armament for fight-
ing!”25 Captain (later Admiral) Reginald Bacon, a Fisher protégé, pointed
out that “the fast ship with the heavier [longer-range] guns and deliberate
fire should absolutely ‘knock out’ a vessel of equal [or lesser] speed and
many lighter [short-range] guns, the very number of which militate
against accurate spotting [accuracy] and deliberate hitting.”26
Before Dreadnought, four 12-inch guns were the norm for a battle-
ship. Dreadnought had ten, giving it a long-range striking capability equal
30 Part 1

to two or three pre-dreadnoughts. The Agincourt, commissioned in 1914,

boasted fourteen big guns, and the super-dreadnought Queen Elizabeth,
commissioned that year, had eight 15-inch guns. This increased the
ships’ firepower, but Fisher’s principal motive was to gain an advantage
in range over rival fleets. Armor was sacrificed to gain speed. Queen Eliz-
abeth had a 13-inch armor belt at the waterline, barely more than half
that of the Inflexible and five inches less than the Royal Sovereign. But
compared with the Lord Nelson class of battleships commissioned a de-
cade earlier, its speed was over 30 percent greater. Thanks to the transi-
tion from reciprocating to turbine engines and from coal to oil fuel, the
super-dreadnoughts also had a greater operational range and could sus-
tain their speed over much long distances.27
Other great-power navies were soon following the British lead. At
the time Dreadnought was being constructed, the U.S. Navy had plans for
two 16,000-ton big-gun battleships, South Carolina and Michigan, while
the Japanese were constructing two 20,000-ton, twenty-knot battleships
with four 12-inch and twelve 10-inch guns.28
Ironically, in World War I, the principal danger to allied fleets and
commerce stemmed from war’s expansion into the undersea, which pre-
sented navies with a formidable problem of locating vessels operating in
this domain. Rapid advances in submarine-related technology, such as
the diesel engine, and in torpedo range, accuracy, and reliability led to
the emergence of new forms of military operations: the undersea block-
ade and anti-submarine warfare. Indeed, the principal reason why the
world’s major battle fleets were moving toward long-range fires was the
rapidly growing threat posed by submarines armed with torpedoes.29 Just
as surface ships were trading volume fires to gain speed and ranged fires,
submarines, relying on their stealth, were sacrificing armor for the speed
and range needed to operate on the high seas, where they could threaten
enemy warships and commerce. In the years leading up to World War I,
the growth in the submarine’s capabilities was nothing short of breath-
taking. Britain’s E9 boat, launched in 1909, had a range of 1,750 nautical
miles, while Germany’s U-19 submarine, launched only a few years later,
had a cruising range of 5,000 nautical miles.30
As for torpedoes, technological advances with gyroscopes in the
1890s boosted their accuracy by enabling them to keep a steadier course.
In 1905, the “Elswick Heater” enabled even greater enhancements in
torpedo range and speed. That year, Japanese torpedoes employed in
their war with Russia ran at less than twenty knots at ranges of around
 The Shape of Things to Come 31

4,000 yards. Less than a year later, the German Navy’s G-type torpedo
was running at 6,560 yards at thirty-six knots. The range of British tor-
pedoes doubled from 6,000 yards in 1905 to 12,000 yards in 1909.31
A submarine armed with torpedoes could not compete with a dread-
nought’s firepower. The torpedo’s charge was generally only a few hun-
dred pounds, a small fraction of the weight of a dreadnought’s broadside.
Moreover, a submarine had a much smaller magazine of weapons than a
major surface warship did. The torpedo’s advantage stemmed from the
fact that existing armored warships were far more vulnerable to damage
below the waterline than from a shell fired against a ship’s superstruc-
ture. It was generally accepted that “one shot getting home from a tor-
pedo tube is worth thirty from a gun.”32 Thus, as with surface warships,
the submarine’s emphasis was less on volume fires than ranged and accu-
rate fires. The result was to drive surface warships to emphasize ranged
fires, not greater armor or firepower, in order to stay outside enemy tor-
pedo range.
Even with rifled guns, accuracy diminished as the range of fires in-
creased. This led to increasing emphasis on gunnery to retain as much
accuracy as possible. The British Navy stood at the forefront of these ef-
forts. Beginning in 1898, gunnery exercises were conducted at ranges
from 3,000 to 6,000 yards. By 1904, the British were convinced that ef-
fective gunnery at 8,000 yards was possible.33 They implemented a “di-
rector firing” sighting process, in which big guns of uniform caliber were
placed in parallel alignment, then aimed and fired electronically by a fire
control officer. By 1908, British capital ships were hitting moving targets
exceeding 8,000 yards, a “phenomenal increase in accuracy” when mea-
sured against the abysmal state of gunnery that existed a decade before.34
Nevertheless, as naval engagements during World War I revealed, accu-
rate long-range gunnery remained elusive. Major improvements had to
await the advent of wireless-equipped aircraft spotting, which was not in-
tegrated into the world’s major fleets until after the war.
As with forces operating on land, those in the maritime domain ben-
efited from war’s expansion into the electromagnetic domain. With cable
telegraphy, navies could transmit and receive information to overseas
naval bases within minutes, as long as these bases were linked through a
network.35 The late nineteenth century also saw the introduction of
wireless communication. Unlike the telegraph, “wireless” did not require
cables or wires, only a transmitter and receiver. Enhancements in the
Royal Navy’s global early warning system were made possible by the
32 Part 1

telegraph and undersea cables. The emergence of wireless communica-

tions greatly compressed the time needed to provide deployed fleets with
information on their enemy’s whereabouts and to coordinate their dispo-
sitions. When combined with their warships’ increased speed and range,
it enabled the Royal Navy to move rapidly to any threatened point in
Britain’s global empire.36
The rapid growth in ship speed and engagement ranges, along with
the advent of stealth warships in the form of submarines, found navies
devoting more resources to scouting. Submarine and destroyer flotillas
were assigned to locate the enemy battle fleet and to screen its scouts
from their fleet. To defend against submarine commerce raiders, destroy-
ers were repurposed to escort cargo-ship convoys. By 1917, they were
armed with hydrophones, the first workable acoustic detection system.
Meanwhile, militaries were taking their first tentative steps into the
air domain. During World War I, another new kind of ship, the aircraft
carrier, was introduced by the Royal Navy. Its principal initial purpose
was to scout for the enemy fleet and screen enemy aircraft away from the
British fleet. Land-based Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) aircraft were
used to detect enemy ships approaching Britain’s shores from the Eng-
lish Channel and the North Sea. They also proved useful in detecting
and engaging enemy submarines.
The use of wireless by belligerents also led to “scouting” through ef-
forts to decrypt enemy coded messages. At the beginning of the Great
War, the British already possessed the makings of a cryptography section
(“Room 40”) in their Naval Intelligence Department (NID), which they
immediately put to good use, thanks to a captured German cypher
book.37 Telecommunications were also used to create a primitive com-
mand-and-control network to direct the activities of Britain’s coastal and
shore-based defense forces.
In summary, the Fisher Revolution witnessed the world’s major na-
vies according a relatively greater emphasis on speed, range, stealth, ac-
curacy, and scouting relative to armor. With respect to fires, the principal
emphasis was on extending range and improving accuracy, not volume
fires. To gain range and accuracy, navies moved to “all-big-gun” dread-
noughts, whose uniform-caliber armament aided efforts to enhance gun-
nery. By gaining an advantage in speed, surface ships could also set the
engagement range to their advantage or avoid battle at their discretion.
Although accuracy improved significantly during this period, major gains
weren’t realized until after World War I. Much of the impetus toward
 The Shape of Things to Come 33

ranged fires was driven by the emergence of submarines and torpedoes,

which also led navies to establish a scouting force to identify and screen
enemy torpedo craft away from the battle fleet.
“Stealth warships”—submarines—became major factors in assessing
a fleet’s combat potential, especially once torpedoes acquired sufficient
range and accuracy to sink warships. Their stealth and their need for suf-
ficient range and speed to operate with the fleet or to engage in com-
merce raiding found submarines discounting firepower and armor.
With the introduction of wireless, war moved more deeply into the
electromagnetic domain, thereby greatly intensifying efforts in the
scouting/counter-scouting competition between militaries while en-
abling them to improve command and control over their forces. The use
of wireless also provided opportunities for belligerents to intercept and,
if their cryptography efforts were successful, “read their enemy’s mail.”

The Mechanization, Aviation, and Radar Revolution

The period between the world wars produced another disruptive shift in
war’s character, enabled by advances in mechanization, aviation, radio
communications, and radar. This Mechanization, Aviation, and Radar
Revolution transformed war on land and sea and saw conflict waged with
far greater intensity and effectiveness in the relatively new air and elec-
tromagnetic domains.
During the Great War, the firepower that confined both sides to
static, positional trench warfare on the Western Front represented the
maturation of the trend that began with the mid-nineteenth-century in-
troduction of rifling and rapid-fire weapons. Following the war, many
militaries believed that positional warfare had become the “new normal.”
Germany’s military, however, saw things differently and placed a big bet
on leveraging new technologies to restore mobility at war’s tactical and
operational level. The shift arrived in the form of mechanized air-land
operations coordinated by radio communications. Germany’s principal
rival, France, however, placed far greater emphasis on firepower in both
its artillery and tanks and on armor protection, including an enormous
investment in its Maginot Line fortifications.
German panzer formations emphasized speed and range, sacrificing
armament and armor protection to get it. As General Heinz Guderian
summarized it, “Everything is therefore dependent on this: to be able to
move faster than has hitherto been done [and], . . . [to] carry the attack
34 Part 1

deep into the enemy’s defenses.”38 When it came to armor, the Germans
implicitly accepted the views of their military theorist General von Ei-
mannsberger, who concluded, “The battle between the shell and armor
was lost by armor a long time ago.”39 Early German tanks—Panzers I
through IV—maxed out at twenty-five tons with a seventy-five-millimeter
cannon, but all save the primitive Panzer I had speeds of twenty-five miles
per hour or greater. Later German tanks, the Panther and Tiger, added
armor and firepower—but not at the expense of their speed and range. In-
deed, early in the war, French tanks were in many respects better than
their German counterparts—but very few enjoyed an advantage in range
and speed.
Rather than employing the volume fires that characterized warfare
on the Western Front during the Great War, German mechanized forces
relied on aircraft and motorized artillery to provide supporting fires. To
direct and coordinate their highly mobile forces, the Germans placed ra-
dios in their tanks and aircraft, which they also used for scouting. Al-
though volume fires and armor enhancements were hardly neglected,
when measured against the mature stage of the preceding military revo-
lution in the Great War, the armies that followed the German lead
placed a premium on speed and range relative to firepower and armor.
The revolution in war at sea during the interwar period witnessed
the eclipse of the battleship as the capital ship, displaced by the aircraft
carrier. Relative to the battleship, the carrier emphasized speed, range,
and scouting, while sacrificing firepower and armor. The U.S. Navy’s
carriers even eschewed armor-plated decks in favor of wood and kept
their gun armament to a minimum, in part to maximize their aircraft
complement but also to maximize the carrier’s speed. Although a carrier
air wing had nothing comparable to a modern battleship’s firepower, its
aircraft could greatly outrange the battleship’s guns and could operate at
speeds an order of magnitude greater than the dreadnoughts.40 To suc-
ceed, these aircraft only needed to carry bombs far enough and heavy
enough to sink a battleship, which is what happened in the decade lead-
ing up to the United States’ entry into World War II.41 Thus, only a year
following the carrier-dominated fleet actions at Coral Sea and Midway,
the Americans ceased building battleships.
With respect to scouting, as engagement ranges grew, scouting be-
came more important for the simple reason that the greater the distance
from which an attack could be launched, the more area needed to be
searched to locate the enemy. The aircraft’s speed of attack also meant
 The Shape of Things to Come 35

that to maintain sufficient attack warning time, the enemy would need to
be identified at much greater range than was the case with battleship-
centered fleets.
The story on land was generally similar in the air domain. Land-
based aircraft, with their relatively small payloads, could not hope to
match the volume fires of land- and sea-based artillery. Rather, similar to
submarines, aircraft sacrificed armor to enhance their speed and range
and to boost their modest payloads. And as was the case with submarines,
the emphasis on the scouting/counter-scouting competition was strong,
especially in the electromagnetic domain. Both Germany and Great Brit-
ain developed sophisticated, integrated air defense systems (IADS), in-
cluding radar networks, anti-aircraft guns, and interceptor aircraft, all
linked to command centers. New forms of electronic jamming along
with offsetting measures (electronic countermeasures; ECM) and “offsets
to the offsets” (electronic counter-countermeasures; ECCM) were em-
ployed to gain a scouting advantage.
Efforts were made to enhance the accuracy of so-called strategic at-
tacks, but the results were disappointing. In tests, the U.S. Norden bomb-
sight demonstrated a CEP of seventy-five feet. Under combat conditions,
however, it ballooned sixteen-fold, to 1,200 feet.42 As with long-range
naval gunnery accuracy in the Great War, accurate horizontal “strategic”
bombing in World War II remained an aspiration, not a reality. Things
were more encouraging with regard to battlefield operations, where dive-
bombing greatly enhanced air-attack accuracy, as revealed by the impres-
sive performance of German Stuka aircraft and U.S. carrier planes like the
Dauntless. A hint of what was to come was provided by Japan’s kamikazes,
manned guided bombs whose pilots sacrificed themselves to maneuver
their payload to its target. After making their first appearance in the fall of
1944, roughly 2,800 kamikazes sank 34 U.S. Navy ships, damaging 368
others and killing nearly 5,000 American sailors. Despite being detected
by U.S. radar and confronting swarms of fighter-interceptors and a wall of
anti-aircraft fire, one in seven kamikazes hit a ship, and more than 8 per-
cent of these hits resulted in the ship’s sinking.43
Toward the war’s end, Germany introduced ballistic missiles—the
V2s—armed with a modest payload of roughly 1,500 pounds and capable
of covering 200 miles at speeds above 3,500 miles per hour. The missile’s
sheer speed made interception impossible. The Germans fired more than
3,000 V-2s during the war.44 The dawn of the missile age continued the
general trend toward speed and range relative to firepower and armor.
36 Part 1

As military operations continued expanding into the electromagnetic

domain, the major powers placed greater emphasis on gaining an advan-
tage in the scouting competition, with radar, sonar, and long-range
radio playing important roles, along with various forms of jamming and
electronic countermeasures. Scouting’s importance was highlighted by
Sir Michael Howard, who observed that, particularly in the air and mari-
time domains, “success ultimately went to the side that was able to track
the movements of its adversary and read his signals while keeping its
own secret.”45 Indeed, signals intelligence and cryptography played a
major role in the war, as belligerents worked to decipher their enemies’
codes. Successful code-breaking efforts like ULTRA provided the British
with key information regarding German military capabilities and inten-
tions.46 Similarly, American code-breakers provided the U.S. fleet with
vital information on Japan’s fleet and intentions prior to the Battle of
Midway.
In brief, the Interwar Revolution saw military powers continuing the
general trend toward placing greater emphasis on military systems’
range, speed, scouting, and ranged fires, relative to prioritizing volume
fires and armor protection. Mechanized army elements on land, carriers
and submarines at sea, and planes and missiles in the air grew in impor-
tance relative to powerful artillery guns and large, heavily armed surface
warships. The most formidable fortifications—such as the Maginot Line
and Eban Emael—and weapon systems, like the battleship, were dis-
placed. Tanks, submarines, and aircraft did, of course, have greater fire-
power than their primitive Great War ancestors did, but their relative
advantages were not in volume fires, which could have been provided
at far less cost if placed on the weapon systems that dominated World
War I.
With the growth in engagement range and speed of attack came a
corresponding increase in emphasis on scouting and on commanding
and directing forces spread over increasingly large areas. Intense efforts
were devoted to countering the submarine’s stealth and the aircraft’s
speed of attack, as witnessed by the to-and-fro game of cat-and-mouse
waged during the Battle of the Atlantic and the emergence of the first in-
tegrated air defense systems in the Battle of Britain, respectively. The
success of code-breaking efforts, such as Britain’s ULTRA and the
United States’ MAGIC, were major factors in their militaries’ success
and, consequently, were among the Second World War’s most closely
guarded secrets.
 The Shape of Things to Come 37

The Nuclear Revolution

The introduction of nuclear weapons in 1945 is widely regarding as a
special case in the history of military affairs. It radically altered thinking
comparable to the way quantum physics recast classical physics by pre-
senting a new paradigm through which to understand nature, leaving
many military professionals intellectually adrift. It recalls Richard Feyn-
man’s observation upon winning the Nobel Prize in Physics: “I was born
not understanding quantum mechanics. . . . I still don’t understand quan-
tum mechanics!”47
Having discovered nuclear weapons, those who possess them still
struggle to determine how they could be used to achieve victory in a world
where their enemies have them as well. Nuclear weapons, especially
thermo­­­nuclear weapons (“hydrogen bombs”), provide a massive boost in
firepower, so great that a war involving their widespread use would lead to
destruction on such a massive level as to defeat the very purpose of war as
a means of advancing a belligerent’s political objectives. As such, the Nu-
clear Revolution, which might also be called the “Firepower Revolution,”
represents a unique departure from previous revolutions.
Nuclear weapons’ destructive power has led many military theorists
and political leaders to state that their only practical use is to deter an
enemy from employing them. As Bernard Brodie wrote shortly after the
atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “Thus far the chief purpose
of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on the
chief purpose must be to avert them.”48 John Kennedy concurred, ob-
serving that in a general war involving nuclear weapons, “even the fruits
of victory would be ashes in our mouth.”49
Since 1945, despite the proliferation of nuclear weapons to at least
nine states, all have refrained from employing them, even when at war. In
at least one case, in the early hours of Israel’s 1973 war with Egypt and
Syria, when its survival might have been in question, it still refrained
from resorting to its nuclear arsenal—even though its enemies lacked
these weapons. The United States, through the Korean, Vietnam, and
two Gulf wars, also refrained from using nuclear weapons, although its
enemies lacked them, while losing more than 80,000 killed in action. So-
viet Russia also did not employ nuclear weapons in its decade-long war
in Afghanistan.
Simply put, having been given a blank check with respect to fire-
power, to date nuclear powers have refused to cash it. Instead, the two
38 Part 1

principal nuclear powers have taken steps to reduce the yield of their nu-
clear weapons and employ innovative designs with an eye toward possi-
bly eliminating the unofficial taboo against their use. The U.S. nuclear
arsenal, for example, saw its firepower shrink by roughly 75 percent be-
tween its peak at roughly 20,000 million tons (megatons) of TNT
around 1960 and the Cold War’s end, due in no small measure to in-
creases in U.S. ballistic missile accuracy. Today it stands at less than 3,000
megatons.50 The number of U.S. and Russian “high-yield” weapons
(those over four and a half megatons) fell from peaks at roughly 2,000
and 800 to around 0 and 50, respectively, in 2000.51
In summary, the Nuclear Revolution represents a fundamental break
from the military revolutions that have occurred since the Industrial
Revolution, providing militaries with almost unlimited firepower. Yet nu-
clear-armed states have established a long tradition of nonuse, even when
at war with enemies lacking these weapons. It cannot, however, be as-
sumed that this tradition will hold. Thus, although the competition for
military advantage has continued unabated since 1945, it does so under a
nuclear shadow.

The Precision-Warfare Revolution

As the U.S. military did with nuclear weapons, nearly a half century later,
it led the way to another disruptive shift in warfare. As the Information
Revolution was gathering momentum during the 1970s, the United
States sought to leverage its strong lead in information technologies over
Soviet Russia to develop new sources of military advantage. Its efforts
were consistent with the general trend toward a decline in relative em-
phasis on volume fires and armor and toward weapon systems’ speed,
range, and accuracy (or “precision”), as well as toward winning the scout-
ing/counter-scouting competition, such as through enhancements in
stealth, particularly in the air and undersea domains of warfare. When
these new capabilities were combined with existing systems within inno-
vative operational concepts, they produced a quantum boost in military
effectiveness—the Precision-Warfare Revolution—at whose core is the
reconnaissance-strike complex, with its emphasis on scouting, battle net-
works, and extended-range precision fires.
As the name suggests, the Precision-Warfare Revolution saw remark-
able advances in weapon accuracy. The CEPs for unguided bombs re-
mained at roughly 500 feet in the two decades following World War II.52
 The Shape of Things to Come 39

When laser-guided “smart” bombs were developed in the late 1960s, they
reduced CEPs to under ten feet.53 Combined with stealth aircraft linked
to a nascent battle network during the First Gulf War, precision-guided
munitions yielded over an order of magnitude boost in military effective-
ness. As Brigadier General Buster C. Glosson, the U.S. military’s director
of air campaign plans during the First Gulf War, noted, “One need only
look back to our raids on Schweinfurt, Germany, in World War II to see
how dramatically precision weapons have enhanced our capabilities. . . .
Two raids of 300 B-17 bombers could not achieve with 3,000 bombs what
two F-117s can do with only four.”54 Aircraft loss rates also decreased
dramatically. In a shift almost as dramatic as that from battleships to air-
craft carriers during World War II, after the First Gulf War the U.S. mil­
itary’s combat-aircraft designs prioritized stealth with an eye to sustaining
its advantage in the scouting competition. It also prioritized augmenting
the quantity and quality of its PGMs, emphasizing accurate fires over vol-
ume fires.
The Precision-Warfare Revolution also led to efforts to boost the
U.S. military’s speed of action by enhancing its battle networks’ ability to
compress the engagement sequence, the time between which a target is
first identified and when it is engaged. During the First Gulf War, it took
roughly three days to create the Air Tasking Order (ATO), which, gener-
ally speaking, converts information regarding enemy targets into air-
strike orders for U.S. air forces. Eight years later, during the Air Force’s
participation in Operation Allied Force against Serbian forces in Yugo-
slavia, the average time between identifying a target and engaging it was
compressed to between three and four hours. Four years later, during the
Second Gulf War, the U.S. Air Force established a Time-Sensitive Tar-
geting Cell (TSTC), which succeeded in executing some attacks in less
than half an hour from the time the target was spotted.55 Soon drones,
which had earlier been used primarily for scouting purposes, were
armed, thereby fusing the “reconnaissance” and “strike” elements and
compressing the engagement sequence further still.56
The growing emphasis on range and compressing the engagement
sequence also manifested itself through beyond visual range (BVR) air-
to-air combat engagements. In the mid-1960s, an aircraft’s gun range was
roughly 500 meters, while scouting was accomplished by the pilot, whose
eyes provided an effective range of about two nautical miles at roughly
two degrees wide. Air-to-air missiles (AAMs) offered the possibility of en-
gaging targets beyond visual range—if they could be identified.57 With
40 Part 1

the emergence of the U.S. military’s nascent battle network, every coali-
tion air-combat victory in the First Gulf War was achieved with air-to-air
missiles.58 Guns, which accounted for roughly two-thirds of kills in air-
to-air engagements during the late 1960s, dropped to less than 5 percent
of the total between 1990 and 2002. BVR AAMs, on the other hand, reg-
istered no kills in the 1960s but more than half of the air-to-air combat
kills between 1990 and 2002.59 In brief, the Precision-Warfare Revolution
found the United States’ air forces emphasizing accurate, ranged fires. As
in other war-fighting domains, with increased engagement range came a
need to scout over a greater area and to defeat enemy scouting through
stealth and other forms of electronic deception and suppression.
The First Gulf War also revealed the continued decline of armor’s
value in land warfare. Just as battleships had succumbed to air attack, the
First Gulf War confirmed armor’s vulnerability in the absence of effec-
tive air cover. Prior to the onset of ground-combat operations, the U.S.
Air Force used precision-guided munitions to destroy hundreds of Iraqi
armored vehicles.60
Recent efforts to enhance protection by increasing armor have
proved costly and ineffective, even against irregular forces. During the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military spent more than $47 bil-
lion to deploy mine-resistant, ambush-protected (MRAP) heavily ar-
mored vehicles to protect its troops from improvised explosive devices
(IEDs)—roadside bombs that can be manufactured at a small fraction of
an MRAP’s cost. The MRAPs’ effectiveness remains a matter of debate.61
In recent years, the U.S. Army, generally considered the world’s pre-
mier land force, has reduced its emphasis on heavily armored forces. Its
current tank, the Abrams, was first fielded more than thirty years ago. In
2019, the Army’s chief of staff, General Mark Milley, indicated that
armor would not be a significant priority in the next tank, unless he
could identify a “holy grail of technologies,” declaring, “If we can dis-
cover a material that is significantly lighter in weight that gives you the
same armor protection, that would be a real significant breakthrough.”62
The U.S. Marine Corps has gone even further, deciding to eliminate its
tank battalions and cut its cannon artillery units by nearly 80 percent in
favor of increasing its extended-range and precision fires, advanced
scouting capabilities, and battle networks.63
In retrospect, the last decades of the twentieth century witnessed the
general trend away from volume fires and armor and toward enhancing the
speed and range of systems, weapons, and networks, as well as accurate,
 The Shape of Things to Come 41

ranged fires. The scouting competition has intensified with the U.S. mili-
tary’s fielding of a battle network, made up of, among other things, satel-
lites for precision navigation and timing, and airborne early warning and
command, control, and communications systems.

In summary, since the Industrial Revolution, those military organizations

leading the way to a disruptive change in war’s character have—generally
speaking—emphasized speed, range, and stealth of military systems rela-
tive to armor. Similarly, the trend with respect to fires has been toward
favoring accurate, ranged fires relative to volume fires—this despite the
fact that the period witnessed major improvements in armor protection
and firepower.
These trends are not uniform or absolute. Trends are not universal
“laws.” Warfare is so varied that there will always be situations in which
massed fires or armor plate will be what is needed most. The path from
the mid-nineteenth century to today is hardly smooth or straight, as wit-
nessed by the emphasis on ships’ armor in the mid-1800s and volume
fires in the First World War. What we do see, however, is a general trend
in favor of other attributes—speed, range, scouting, accurate fires—that
contribute relatively more to a military’s combat potential.
Perhaps this should not surprise us. This era of military revolutions
has also coincided with the Era of Domain Expansion. Prior to the In-
dustrial Revolution, warfare had existed for millennia solely in the “tradi-
tional” land and sea domains. By World War I, it had expanded to the
electromagnetic and undersea domains and, in nascent form, to the air.
Following the Second World War, expansion continued, with military
systems positioned in space and on the seabed. More recently, the cyber
domain has become an area of intense military competition. Militaries
operate in these domains because they offer the possibility of gaining an
advantage over their rivals.
Interestingly, relative to forces operating in the land and sea surface
domains, four of the six new domains—the electromagnetic, air, space,
and cyberspace—are characterized by speed of action and extended range,
while the undersea domain offers stealth. Perhaps it’s not all that surpris-
ing, then, that as militaries moved into these domains, they sought to le-
verage those characteristics that offered the greatest opportunity for
improving their effectiveness.
The Nuclear Revolution stands alone. Nuclear weapons transformed
warfare so dramatically and the weapons it spawned are so terrible that,
42 Part 1

for three-quarters of a century, nuclear-armed states have refrained from

using them, even when their survival may have been at risk. This, of
course, could change quickly. But if so, and Armageddon came, it would
render discussions like this moot.

Are we likely to see these trends continue? To what extent do they point
the way to informing the characteristics of new and disruptive forms of
military competition? Chapters 3 and 4 strongly suggest that these trends
are reflected in the maturing precision-warfare regime and in the technol-
ogies that are driving an emerging, overlapping military revolution.
 chapter three
The Mature Precision-Warfare
Regime

You go into the Battle to hit the other fellow in the eye first so that
he can’t see you. Yes! you hit him first, you hit him hard and you
keep on hitting. That’s your safety! You don’t get hit back!

—admiral jackie fisher

This is really about not firepower but information. For it is

really the acquisition, processing and dissemination of
information that lies at the root of the speed and accuracy with
which fires can now be applied.

—richard e. simpkin

Over a quarter of a century after Andrew Marshall forwarded the

MTR assessment to senior Defense Department leaders, I was invited to
meet with the Air Force general charged with identifying key emerging
trends in the military competition and assessing how his service might
best position itself to exploit them. My colleagues and I on Congress’s

43
44 Part 1

National Defense Strategy Commission had recently finished our work

reviewing the Defense Department’s new strategy, and I anticipated our
conversation would focus on its findings and recommendations. To my
surprise, the general told me he had a well-worn, marked-up copy of the
MTR assessment on his desk, as he found himself referring to it fre-
quently in his work. He found its description of what a mature precision-
warfare regime might look like interesting. Now, a quarter of a century
later, the regime was finally reaching its mature stage—one in which at
least two major military powers had exploited its potential. The United
States’ principal military rivals—China especially—were now fielding
their own versions of the reconnaissance-strike complex.
This chapter draws on that assessment and recent trends to describe
the maturing precision-warfare regime’s general characteristics. It goes
on to speculate as to whether the current situation represents a “new
normal” in military affairs and whether we might see it overturned
by further disruptive changes in the near future. It finds that in an
environment where to be seen is to run a high risk of becoming a victim
of precision attack, the “scouting” or “reconnaissance” competition is
likely to assume relatively greater importance than in the past, especially
as advanced militaries look to enhance their scouting proficiency by
exploiting two relatively new warfare domains: space and cyberspace.
With that in mind, the space competition is highlighted. The shroud
of secrecy covering operations in cyberspace precludes a comparable
treatment.

The MTR Assessment

The 1992 MTR assessment’s description of a mature precision-warfare
regime has held up well over time. In particular, the assessment high-
lighted the importance of winning the scouting competition, noting,
“Three central areas of technological progression may be laying the
foundation for a military-technical revolution. First, there is the growing
ability to gather, process, and disseminate information (especially infor-
mation concerning potential targets) far more rapidly than ever before.
. . . This advantage may be extended by a rapidly growing capability, ei-
ther through active or passive measures, to deny the enemy information
it needs to attack. . . . Thus the potential exists to create an ‘information
gap’ between friendly and enemy forces, both in terms of peacetime
competition and wartime operations.”1
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 45

The assessment pointed out that an advantage in scouting, supported

by a robust battle network, would enable the effective use of accurate, ex-
tended-range fires.2 Simply put, given “precision” accuracy, to be seen
and tracked is to run a high risk of being engaged and destroyed—hence
the need to win the scouting competition and establish “information
dominance,” which, as the assessment concluded, “could well be the sine
qua non for effective military operations in future conflicts.”3
Owing to the combination of increased speed and extended range
over which reconnaissance-strike complexes can function, operations “be-
come increasingly simultaneous and less sequential in their execution.”4
As operational ranges expanded, the military services have found them-
selves increasingly intruding into each other’s traditional war-fighting do-
mains, while also competing for a role in the relatively new war-fighting
domains of space and cyberspace. In brief, modern recce-strike complexes
conduct “cross-domain” operations at extended ranges, drawing on forces
from all the military services and from all domains, as appropriate. Still,
although the Precision-Warfare Revolution yielded weapons whose accu-
racy is independent of range, “range costs.” Operating at extended ranges,
whether for scouting (“reconnaissance”) or delivery systems (“strike”),
comes at a substantial premium.

Anti-Access/Area-Denial
Now that the Precision-Warfare Revolution is reaching its mature stage,
with U.S. military rivals like China and Russia having reduced the gap,
it’s possible to provide a more detailed description of its salient charac-
teristics. The competition, however, is highly dynamic, from both a geo-
political and a military-technical perspective. Thus, the best that can be
offered here is a few frames of a moving picture.
The U.S. military’s striking performance in both Gulf wars, in the
Balkan War of 1999, and in Afghanistan in 2001 made it tempting to
view “precision” warfare as heavily favoring the offense. But these wars
were fought by the world’s sole superpower against minor-power militar-
ies and nonstate entities. Moreover, the U.S. military’s approach to pro-
jecting power against these enemies remained based on a century-old
approach whose effectiveness is coming under ever greater challenge. In
it, forces are initially sent, not directly against the enemy, but to a rela-
tively secure forward location where combat power can be built up prior
to initiating large-scale offensive operations. In World War I, the focal
46 Part 1

point of this effort was France; in World War II, it was Britain in Europe
and Australia in the Pacific. The Cold War saw U.S. forces pre-deployed
to distant bases rimming the Eurasian heartland, prepared to defend
forward immediately in the event of war. During the Korean War, U.S.
bases in Japan were effectively sanctuaries from attack, as were its bases
in places like Guam and Thailand during the Vietnam War. Iraq avoided
attacking U.S. forces even as they built up in the Middle East before
both Gulf wars. This happy state of affairs, however, is unlikely to
endure.
The U.S. military’s dominance in precision warfare could not but
impress the world’s militaries, especially those of the two revisionist great
powers, China and Russia. They have been working out how to counter
this approach to power projection for more than a quarter century and
are achieving impressive results. The U.S. military, meanwhile, has had
an equally long period of time to develop the “bad habits” associated
with operating in what it calls “permissive environments”—those where
enemies lack the means to seriously contest U.S. scouting, network, and
strike operations.
In particular, the growing ability of China’s PLA to scout over wide
areas and strike over long distances with high accuracy is at the core of
its “counter-intervention” strategy. Its purpose is to defeat the U.S. mili-
tary’s approach to projecting and sustaining military power along its pre-
ferred, traditional lines. In China’s and Russia’s efforts to catch up to the
Americans, they initially fielded a defensive form of reconnaissance-
strike complex popularly known as an anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD)
complex. This was anticipated in the initial MTR assessment, which
noted, “Of course, integrating information systems with extended-range
PGMs will also be employed for defensive purposes; for example, in stra-
tegic or theater defense architectures.”5 The follow-on assessment
pointed out that as these A2/AD complexes arose, key U.S. military sys-
tems and facilities would become increasingly vulnerable to attack: “As
this military revolution matures . . . forward bases—those huge, sprawl-
ing complexes that bring to mind such places as Malta, Singapore, Subic
Bay, Clark Air Base, and Dharan—will become liabilities, not precious
assets. . . . Rather than acting as a source of assurance to friends and allies
in the region, these bases will be a source of anxiety. . . . Forward-
deployed naval forces may be able to offset the future liabilities of for-
ward bases, but only partially and probably not for very long, as currently
configured.”6 To date, China’s PLA has fielded the most sophisticated
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 47

A2/AD complex. It is designed to deter and, if need be, defeat U.S. mili-
tary intervention in a Chinese-initiated war in the Western Pacific.

China’s “Warfares”
Broadly speaking, the PLA’s vision of modern warfare is seen as a contest
between competing “operational systems.” This is similar to Russian de-
scriptions of reconnaissance-strike complexes and American views on
precision warfare. China’s operational system comprises five subsystems:
the information-confrontation and reconnaissance-intelligence (“reconnais-
sance” or “scouting”) systems; the command and integrated support (or
“battle network”) systems; and the firepower-strike (“strike”) systems.
Within this context, the PLA sees the military competition centering on
deconstructing the enemy’s reconnaissance-strike complexes—what the
Chinese call “systems destruction warfare.”7
A consistent PLA theme is the importance of achieving surprise, en-
abled by deception and speed of action. It is no wonder, therefore, that
the PLA prioritizes gaining an advantage in the air, cyber, electromag-
netic, and space, or “speed,” domains.8 Its 2013 Science of Military Strategy
concludes, “The informatization of war means has provided an unprece-
dented possibility to pick up the operational pace and shorten the war
progress. High speed and fast pace in the time dimension can effectively
compress the enemy’s defense space.”9
In 2015, the PLA introduced the concept of “Winning Informatized
Local Wars,” further stressing the importance of seizing control in the cy-
berspace, space, and electromagnetic domains. The Chinese are investing
accordingly, prioritizing scouting networks, including counter-scouting ca-
pabilities within the context of what they call “informationalized warfare.”10
The PLA believes that controlling the “intangible” domains in which
cyber and electronic warfare (EW) capabilities operate is essential to success
in war. Thus, informationalized warfare emphasizes various forms of elec-
tronic attack, including employing anti-radiation and electromagnetic weap-
ons, as well as jamming and deception, all supported by kinetic strikes, while
defending against similar attacks by the enemy.11 Given the importance the
PLA attaches to the competition in the intangible domains, it comes as no
surprise that winning the space/counter-space competition is also accorded
priority. The 2013 Science of Military Strategy anticipates that future wars will
begin in space and cyberspace, arguing that “seizing command of space and
network dominance will become crucial for obtaining comprehensive supe-
48 Part 1

riority on the battlefield and conquering an enemy.” This reinforces the

PLA’s emphasis on controlling the electromagnetic (EM) and cyber do-
mains, as well as employing direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles, di-
rected-energy weapons, and co-orbital weapons to wage “space information
warfare, space blockade warfare, space orbit attack warfare, space-defense
warfare, and space-to-land attacks.”12
The formation of the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) in
2016 reflects the growing priority given to these competitions. The
PLASSF is charged with achieving dominance in the space, electromag-
netic, and cyber domains, including integrating the forces in these
domains to conduct cross-domain operations. It commands satellite in-
formation attack and defense forces; electronic and internet assault
forces; campaign information operations forces (which include conven-
tional electronic warfare forces); anti-radiation assault forces; and battle-
field cyber-warfare forces.13
In waging systems-destruction warfare, the PLA sees computer-
centered battle networks as the nerve centers of modern military forces
and activity, linking, coordinating, and informing the reconnaissance-
strike complex’s (RSC’s) “scouting” or “reconnaissance” elements with its
strike forces. Information superiority is achieved primarily through the
cyber and EM domains, and through strike forces resident in the physi-
cal domains, principally by forces operating in the air domain, including
strike aircraft and precision-strike ballistic and cruise missiles, supple-
mented by an integrated air defense system (IADS) composed of surface-
to-air missiles (SAMs) and advanced fighter-interceptor aircraft. This
strike and air defense arm of China’s RSC, especially its conventional-
armed ballistic missiles, is seen as central to the PLA’s ability to wage a
successful offensive campaign in the Western Pacific.14
In a war in the Western Pacific, the PLA would prefer to initiate op-
erations. In addition to strikes against U.S. and allied forces in the intan-
gible domains and space, it would also seek to control the air domain.
Priority targets would probably include air bases, missile bases, aircraft
carriers, and warships equipped with land-attack cruise missiles, as well
as ground-based air and missile defense systems. Chinese air and missile
defenses would be tasked to defeat any U.S. and allied air elements sur-
viving the PLA’s initial offensive strikes.15
Beyond the near- to midterm future, the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) anticipates creating a new source of competitive advantage by de-
veloping an ability to wage “intelligentized warfare” through its Military-
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 49

Civil Fusion (MCF) Development Strategy. The MCF effort covers all
three elements of China’s RSC, exploiting AI to field autonomous com-
mand-and-control (C2) systems to enhance and accelerate ISR data
analysis and fusion to achieve an advantage in the reconnaissance and bat-
tle network competitions, thereby boosting its strike element’s effective-
ness. The CCP began implementing MCF in 2015, emphasizing
leveraging dual-use technologies to enhance PLA efforts in developing
new, innovative operational concepts that boost the speed at which war
is waged.16 Intelligentized warfare is rooted in the PLA’s assessment that
war is transitioning from “system confrontation” to “algorithm confronta-
tion.” Thus, a key competition will emerge centered on establishing
and exploiting an “algorithmic advantage.” Toward this end, the PLA is
developing autonomous unmanned systems in the air, land, sea surface,
and undersea domains capable of fusing its RSC’s scouting and strike
functions.17
The defensive “shield” provided by China’s A2/AD complex can also
be augmented to support Beijing’s hegemonic objectives. Ideally, from
the CCP’s perspective, over time the Western Pacific military balance
would shift so decisively in its favor that Beijing could prevail without
fighting, as countries along China’s periphery lying under the PLA’s A2/
AD shadow would see resistance as futile. Simply put, the Chinese would
much prefer to “Finlandize” the Western Pacific than risk a war to con-
quer it.18 This strategy conforms to the teachings of China’s great mili-
tary theorist Sun-Tzu, who declared that the mark of a great general was
not to win a hundred battles but to win without fighting.
With the rise of the PLA’s A2/AD complex, the U.S. military finds
itself needing to transform its approach to projecting power. Success will
likely require positioning a substantial portion of U.S. forces beyond the
range of China’s thickest A2/AD counter-intervention forces, at least
early in a conflict. The option of deploying forces outside a rival’s A2/AD
complex may be unique to the United States, given its status as an insular
global power. Other advanced militaries located in close proximity to
one another, such as Japan in relation to China, may have no choice but
to position their forces within easy range of the enemy’s main recce-
strike forces. Yet even in the United States’ case, the hefty premium in-
volved in operating from extended range suggests that the U.S. military
will need to find ways to position a major part of its forces forward.
These forces will probably have to rely on some combination of harden-
ing, mobility, and various forms of physical and electronic deception to
50 Part 1

counter enemy scouting and strike operations, along with active counter-
scouting and counter-strike defenses to keep their losses at acceptable
levels. Moreover, given the range at which attacks can be launched and
the speed at which they can be executed, acquiring effective early warn-
ing of an attack may find scouting forces having to search over an ex-
panded area, since a search area increases as the square of the range over
which the attack can be initiated.

A Twenty-First-Century No-Man’s-Land?
What might define the mature precision-warfare regime’s general geo-
graphic contours? Generally speaking, operations can be viewed as oc-
curring in one of three broad areas that are not dissimilar from
traditional zones of conflict, save for their scope and depth. Up until the
twentieth century, these zones generally included a “contested area”
where fleets or armies met and “rear areas,” which were safe havens from
the threat of any significant organized enemy violence.
Beginning with World War II, however, the introduction of aircraft
capable of carrying substantial payloads over long distances left those
rear areas that lacked robust air defenses highly vulnerable to large-scale
attacks. In a contemporary general war between great military powers,
each side’s rear area is defined as being under the friendly force’s princi-
pal A2/AD umbrella and outside that of its rival.
The existence of a rear area assumes, of course, that at least one of
the competing military powers is quite distant from the other and out of
range of most of its adversary’s scouting and strike forces. The United
States provides a case in point. Its geographic position gives it a large
rear area, as even its littorals and continental shelf are (with the excep-
tion of Alaska) remote from its great-power rivals, China and Russia.
The same condition does not hold with respect to the other major mili-
tary powers. As noted, significant portions of China and a large part of
Japan would be within range of a substantial portion of each side’s scout-
ing and strike forces. A similar condition would exist between China and
India and between China and Russia. These overlapping A2/AD com-
plexes could form a kind of twenty-first-century “no-man’s-land” where,
at least in the opening stages of a conflict, both sides will find it relatively
(and perhaps prohibitively) costly to engage in offensive operations.
Unlike the Great War’s no-man’s-land on the Western Front, how-
ever, a contemporary no-man’s-land could be measured not in thousands
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 51

of yards but in hundreds or even thousands of miles. For example, sup-

pose the United States and Japan were to field their own A2/AD com-
plex along the First Island Chain to counter China’s. Large swaths of the
Western Pacific, including significant parts of coastal China and perhaps
all of Japan, along with forward-based U.S. forces in places like Guam
and Okinawa, could fall within no-man’s-land. As with troops maneuver-
ing between the trench lines during World War I, modern forces at-
tempting to operate in areas covered by dense enemy A2/AD forces
would run a high risk of being identified by the enemy’s scouting forces
and subjected to attack.
What kinds of forces might be able to operate at acceptable levels of
risk in a Western Pacific no-man’s-land? Those blessed with speed and
counter-scouting abilities, such as ballistic missiles, long-range stealthy
aircraft, and advanced attack submarines, would appear to qualify, as well
as small, highly dispersed forces capable of exploiting local cover, such
as Special Forces maneuvering in jungles. On the other hand, forces
tethered to large bases, such as major warships and combat aircraft,
would be well served, at least initially, to operate from friendly rear areas
if possible.19
It may be that highly dispersed irregular forces, armed with modest
scouting systems, such as drones and human scouts, and equipped with
weaponized drones and “G-RAMM”—precision-guided rockets, artil-
lery, mortars, and missiles—might prove able to survive sufficiently well
to operate effectively. Despite their modest payloads, G-RAMM muni-
tions’ accuracy could enable these irregulars to hold at risk unhardened
bases and structures, as well as key staging areas such as ports and air-
fields. If they can be linked to a battle network—a big “if” given the risk
of revealing their position by actively communicating—these forces
could also provide scouting information to more formidable strike
forces.
A nascent version of this kind of force was on display when, shortly
after 9/11, U.S. Special Operations Forces operating with the Afghan
Northern Alliance called in strikes from extended-range U.S. aircraft.
The Second Lebanon War in 2006 saw Hezbollah irregulars armed with
unguided “RAMM” weaponry hold their own against the Israeli Defense
Force. If successful, these new-age irregular forces could represent a con-
temporary version of Germany’s Sturmtruppen (storm troopers), who suc-
cessfully maneuvered in the no-man’s-land between the trench lines in
the Great War. Such combinations of forward-deployed irregular forces,
52 Part 1

especially if they are able to operate in complex terrain, such as cities and
mountainous jungles, when supported by remote fires, could create
“holes” in the enemy’s A2/AD fabric, facilitating offensive maneuver.20

A “New Normal”?
Great-power militaries tasked with projecting power have a strong in-
centive to create a “new normal” where offensive maneuver becomes
possible, even if not to the extent enjoyed by the U.S. military in recent
decades. For starters, aside from the Americans, both the Chinese and
Russians, given their revisionist aims, show a keen interest in projecting
power, particularly in areas bordering their homelands.
What remains to be determined is whether the Precision-Warfare
Revolution’s maturing represents a new normal in the military competi-
tion, as described above. By “new normal,” I mean a regime whose defin-
ing characteristics will endure for an extended period—a couple of
decades or so. If so, the military competition, from a U.S. perspective,
would make projecting power along its “traditional” lines a highly—and
probably prohibitively—costly proposition. In situations where A2/AD
complexes overlap, this may compel militaries, at least early in a conflict,
to emphasize operations in the relatively new competitive domains of
space, cyberspace, and the seabed, where the offense seems likely to hold
an advantage, and perhaps in the air domain as well.21 Here it may be
possible to make significant gains at acceptable cost. Moreover, if, as
Chinese military theorists believe, winning the competition in the space,
cyberspace, and electromagnetic domains is the key to winning the
scouting competition, it may enable the winner to restore offensive ma-
neuver in the “traditional” land and maritime domains.
The balance of this chapter explores how militaries might succeed
in opening up no-man’s-land for offensive operations in the mature pre-
cision-warfare regime. Here it’s important to remember that the situa-
tion as just described is as it exists in peacetime, or at the point prior to
the major powers going to war. Once the war begins, there may be
opportunities to employ existing or emerging forces and capabilities
through innovative war-fighting (or operational) concepts to enable
effective offensive operations.
What might these opportunities be? How can they be exploited? How
might militaries restore freedom of offensive maneuver when engaged in
a contest of dueling reconnaissance-strike complexes? Four general ap-
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 53

proaches are presented. They are not exhaustive; nor are they mutually ex-
clusive. Indeed, they are all but certain to be pursued in some combination.
Two focus on neutralizing core elements of the reconnaissance-strike
complex—specifically, the enemy’s relatively limited arsenal of extended-
range scouting and strike assets—as a means of expanding the set of prom-
ising offensive options. As there is nothing to prevent a military from
attempting to suppress the enemy’s extended-range scouting and strike
forces simultaneously, one should expect that priority would be accorded to
targeting enemy systems that combine the scouting and strike functions,
such as armed scout drones. A third option involves horizontal escalation,
whereby a military conducts operations outside the main theater of war in
another where it enjoys a competitive advantage. Finally, a military may
simply attempt to wage offensive war through attrition, suffering dispro-
portionate losses to prevail over the defense.
Breaking an enemy’s hold over no-man’s-land requires suppressing
its recce-strike complex. Thus, the struggle will center on the scouting/
counter-scouting (or “scouting”), network/counter-network (or “net-
work”), and strike/counter-strike (or “strike”) competitions. How might
a military prevail in these competitions? The answer is far from obvious.
Although cyber strikes will almost certainly play a significant and per-
haps a major role in the struggle to gain the upper hand in this duel be-
tween rival reconnaissance-strike complexes, it appears highly unlikely
that any military would bet the house on a cyber offensive, by itself,
proving decisive.
If initially positioning scouting and strike forces within range of the
enemy’s thickest A2/AD defenses is a risky proposition, then most would
need to be based in the friendly forces’ rear area, beyond the enemy’s main
A2/AD forces. Assuming that access to space assets will be problematic—
an issue we’ll tackle presently—then extended-range terrestrial-based
forces may shoulder much of the burden for scouting the far reaches of
no-man’s-land.
The kinds of forces that appear the most capable of operating in rel-
ative safety in a terrestrial no-man’s-land, such as stealthy long-range
manned and unmanned aircraft, mobile ballistic and cruise missile
launchers, submarines, unmanned submersibles, and Special Operations
Forces, are those that emphasize speed, mobility, stealth, or some combi-
nation thereof—characteristics designed to counter the enemy’s scouting
efforts. They are also relatively expensive and, therefore, available only in
relatively modest numbers.
54 Part 1

The U.S. military, for example, has only a handful of long-range

stealthy bombers and guided-missile submarines (SSGNs).22 The U.S.
Navy’s carrier air wing is only beginning to incorporate stealth aircraft,
which have less range than those that flew off its decks half a century
ago.23 Its nuclear-attack submarine (SSN) force is scheduled to decline
precipitously as the Los Angeles class boats reach obsolescence at a faster
rate than new submarines are being commissioned. The U.S. Air Force’s
stealth fighter aircraft lack the range to operate from outside China’s
thickening A2/AD complex without aerial refueling, which is provided
by tanker aircraft that are not stealthy.
This exceedingly modest complement of extended-range scouting
and strike systems, the product of the U.S. military’s decades of operat-
ing in relatively permissive threat environments, will need to be carefully
husbanded in war, as they cannot be replaced quickly or cheaply. Thus,
ways will have to be found to position more combat power forward. Or
perhaps the principal focus of U.S. power-projection operations will
need to be at the boundary between no-man’s-land and the U.S. mili-
tary’s rear area, where the balance of forces is likely to be most favorable,
as part of a gradual rollback of an enemy’s A2/AD complex.

The Scouting Competition

Since electromagnetic means for scouting were introduced in the early
twentieth century and computers arrived at midcentury, scouting has be-
come progressively more dependent on various types of sensors, radio
communications, and computational power for generating, evaluating,
processing, and distributing scouting data and the information derived
from it. Today advanced battle networks use the information from scout-
ing operations to direct and coordinate the actions of widely distributed
strike elements, including weapon platforms, munitions (such as mis-
siles), and cyber payloads.
With the introduction of precision-guided munitions, if a target is
identified and tracked, an attacker has a high probability of destroying it.
Consequently, forces have a strong incentive to avoid being detected in
the first place and to break the enemy’s scouting contact if efforts at
avoidance fail. As the MTR assessment concluded, “Warfare will become
more of a competition between ‘hiders’ and ‘finders.’ Targets that can be
identified and tracked (if they are mobile) will run a high risk of being
destroyed.”24 To avoid detection and destruction, the assessment foresaw
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 55

militaries emphasizing “active and passive defensive measures (e.g.,

stealth, electronic warfare, deception, cover and concealment, mobility,
air and missile defenses, etc.) [being] employed to protect friendly infor-
mation systems.”25 We can think of this “hider-finder” competition as a
“scouting/counter-scouting” competition.
The assessment noted that the competition between “hiders” and
“finders” would be intense, since “establishing information dominance,
or an information gap over one’s adversary at the strategic and opera-
tional level, will be increasingly important to the success of military op-
erations.”26 Thus, achieving “information dominance” becomes perhaps
the top priority at the onset of war. The assessment also found that
“since establishing information superiority could be the decisive operation
in future conflicts, and since this objective could be achieved early in the
war, we should expect that increasing emphasis will be placed on achiev-
ing surprise,” through preemption.27

Gaining a Scouting Advantage

Given the key role played by forces in space and cyberspace in the scout-
ing/counter-scouting competition, they appear to be particularly attrac-
tive targets for preemption. As will be elaborated on presently, a satellite
network can cast an “unblinking eye” over wide areas, but as currently
constituted, satellites appear to suffer from a lack of defenses while mov-
ing in generally predictable orbits. The ability to attack satellites success-
fully using kinetic interceptors and directed-energy weapons (such as
laser ASATs) and by jamming has been demonstrated. It may also be pos-
sible to disrupt or corrupt satellite functions through cyber attacks.28 At
present, many satellites’ high cost and long production lead times only
add to an enemy’s incentive to attack them early in a conflict. Other
scouting forces, such as the radars of integrated air defense systems and
early warning aircraft positioned at forward air bases, would also be
tempting targets for preemption to preclude them from dispersing.
The scouting competition is also waged by employing decoys, jamming,
and other forms of electronic warfare, including “spoofing” and digital
range frequency memory (DRFM, or “DUR-fum”).29 Passive counter-
scouting measures include camouflage, applying stealth coatings to military
systems such as aircraft, and making systems mobile. Militaries can empha-
size electronic emissions control (EMCON), thereby reducing the amount
of communications data available to enemy scouting forces. This can also be
56 Part 1

accomplished by developing and implementing enhanced cyber defenses

and communicating through buried fiber-optic cables where possible.
Winning the scouting competition may also be aided by securing in-
formation on the enemy’s scouting plans and operations, and destroying
or corrupting the information provided by its scouting forces. Such ef-
forts would likely include cryptanalysis (attempting to break the enemy’s
communications codes) and engaging in cyber operations to exfiltrate
unencrypted data, thereby gaining insight into how and where the
enemy plans to employ its scouting assets. Given the recent remarkable
advances in artificial intelligence, scouting will probably involve “algo-
rithmic warfare,” with competing AI systems plowing through vast
amounts of data to identify patterns of enemy behavior that might elude
human analysts. Identifying enemy operational tendencies may also aid
commanders in employing their forces more effectively, similar to the
way the introduction of operations research aided the allies in identifying
effective convoy operations during the Battle of the Atlantic in World
War II.30 AI could potentially assist efforts to develop malware, which
could be used to erase or corrupt enemy scouting information, including
the enemy’s AI algorithms themselves. If these efforts are successful,
enemy commanders may lose confidence in their scouts, producing a
“mission kill,” in which much of the enemy’s scouting force continues to
operate but where its product is suspect.

Exploiting a Scouting Advantage

Assuming that friendly forces gain the upper hand in the scouting com-
petition, a military can expand the range of friendly scouting and strike
forces operating in no-man’s-land, since they can now do so at signifi-
cantly reduced risk.31 Even partial success in the scouting competition
may prove crucial. If friendly forces can identify “holes” in the enemy’s
scouting coverage, even if they are only transitory, they may be exploited
to conduct scouting and strike operations by forces that enter the
“gapped” area for a brief time and then depart before the enemy can re-
deploy its scouting forces to close the gap.32 Such operations would be
somewhat reminiscent of the Doolittle Raid in April 1942, in which U.S.
forces dashed forward for a brief period inside Japan’s defensive perime-
ter, launching bomber aircraft from the carrier Hornet to execute an at-
tack on Tokyo.33 In this case, the bombers’ greater range also reduced the
time the Hornet had to remain in no-man’s-land.34
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 57

If one side gains a clear advantage in the scouting competition, the

match between the two militaries’ recce-strike complexes would be roughly
analogous to two boxers, one of whom has had sand thrown in his eyes. As
the MTR assessment described the situation with respect to land warfare,
“If a favorable information [or scouting] gap is created, ground forces
would likely have strong incentives to abandon their traditional role of clos-
ing with and destroying the enemy in favor of employing ranged fires as
the decisive element in combat. Line-of-sight (LOS) weapon systems—
principally armored forces and helicopters—would be employed in the tra-
ditional role of cavalry. They would screen enemy forces that, having lost
the information assets necessary to employ deep strikes (at least against
most friendly mobile targets), would have to rely on direct-fire [line-of-
sight] engagements in conducting ground combat operations.”35
Those land forces on the short end of the scouting competition
would, if possible, seek opportunities to fight in “the clinches,” in “com-
plex terrain” such as jungles and cities, where extended-range scouting
and fires are less effective. They could also break down into small groups
waging irregular warfare.
In a general war involving great powers, however, the history of war-
fare suggests that total scouting superiority—information dominance—
will be difficult to achieve. Recalling our two boxers, having sand thrown
in one’s eyes does not result in total blindness, only greatly (and tempo-
rarily) impaired vision. Importantly, the boxer whose vision is unim-
paired may not know his rival’s true state of visual impairment.
Advantage in the scouting competition may also prove a fleeting phe-
nomenon, given the myriad ways a first-rank military has of tapping into
the global information grid. For example, a belligerent power may be
able to scout using commercial satellites owned by firms of neutral pow-
ers, or from data collected by seabed arrays belonging to a nonaligned
state, or through spies using commercial communications. What seems
more likely is that both sides will experience scouting “gaps” and “lags”
to varying degrees. Even our sandy-eyed boxer still has his sense of hear-
ing and smell, while retaining at least some of his vision.

The BDA Problem

A key factor in winning the scouting competition centers on not only
degrading the enemy’s ability to scout but also knowing when this has been
accomplished, to what degree, and for how long. A clever belligerent may
58 Part 1

employ both active and passive counter-scouting measures—especially

those involving deception—to deceive the enemy into believing it has
seized the scouting high ground and can employ its forces at much lower
risk than is actually the case. If the enemy falls for the bait, it risks being
caught in a “scouting ambush.”
How do you know when your counter-scouting operations have
been successful? And how long will your success last before the enemy
restores an effective scouting ability? The key here is the scouting force’s
ability to conduct “battle damage assessment” (BDA). Determining with
a high degree of confidence that an enemy’s scouting ability has been de-
graded to an acceptable level to warrant engaging in offensive maneuver
is both critical to success and challenging to accomplish. Accurate battle
damage assessment is also needed to avoid wasting scarce strike forces in
follow-on attacks, especially if operations are being conducted at ex-
tended ranges.
Even in earlier times when engagement ranges were measured in
hundreds of yards, not thousands of miles, and when the targets were
often enemy forces within the human eye’s field of vision, it could be
challenging to determine if your forces had been detected by enemy
scouts. Today the problem is far more complex. Providing accurate infor-
mation on the enemy’s scouting ability may require knowing whether its
radar has been disabled by an attack or has simply ceased emitting, if a
satellite’s optical sensors have been “blinded” by a laser or successfully
shielded, or if an AI-directed missile defense system has been corrupted
by malware or is simply feigning failure.
In some cases, BDA may be easy to ascertain, such as when kinetic
munitions physically destroy a radar. This will still require friendly
forces, be they satellites, stealthy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or
Special Operations Forces, to scout the area effectively after an attack.
Yet doing so may prove difficult.

Fixed Targets
Assuming that friendly forces gain a scouting advantage, where should
they concentrate their efforts? Scouting forces might disperse initially to
locate the enemy’s main forces. If successful, the scouts could be massed
to support strike forces through the “engagement sequence”—from
when the target is first identified all the way through to BDA operations
following an attack.
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 59

In general, scouting is typically less challenging for fixed targets, like

major military bases, and key economic infrastructure, such as bridges,
power plants, and seabed oil wellheads, than for mobile targets. Fixed
targets can be mapped or “registered” in peacetime. Some mobile targets
are easier to track than others. Many satellites travel in fairly predictable
paths, and power for maneuvering them is typically very limited. So even
though satellites are not in fixed locations, targeting a given satellite may
be analogous to attacking a train as it arrives at a station. You know the
track (orbit); you know the schedule (when the satellite is scheduled to
pass a particular point); so you plan your strike for when the “train” ar-
rives at the “station.” The situation at maritime chokepoints is somewhat
similar in that the search problem is greatly reduced by the target’s need
to transit a known point.
Of course, even fixed targets can pose challenges for scouting forces.
For example, given that strike assets are always limited—especially for
extended-range strikes—commanders will want to strike fixed targets
when they are most vulnerable and when the payoff is highest. For exam-
ple, bases are best attacked when key assets—troops, ships, aircraft—are
present and when defenses are lacking. Providing a pre-strike scouting
update may be relatively easy if space assets are available or if enemy
communication codes have been broken. If such updates are not accessi-
ble, the attacker may have to augment its strike force to hedge against
the possibility that active and passive defenses have been positioned
around the target. For instance, absent an update from friendly scouts,
attacking forces risk arriving at a fixed target only to discover that key
transitory targets (such as ships at a naval base) have departed, or that the
area is now bristling with air defenses, or that aircraft that were located
in the open have been moved to hardened concrete shelters. The history
of World War II would have been quite different if the U.S. carriers had
been at Pearl Harbor on December 7 or if the island’s interceptor air-
craft had been dispersed instead of concentrated at Hickam Field.
As with enemy assets in the relatively new warfare domain of space,
fixed military and economic assets located on the seabed may be increas-
ingly attractive targets, especially if the enemy’s homeland is accorded
sanctuary status from attack and/or is protected by robust A2/AD de-
fenses. As in other domains, a scouting competition will be played out on
the seabed, probably involving sensor arrays, undersea drones, subma-
rines, and airborne and space-based systems. Under these circumstances,
oil and gas wellheads, pipelines, and pumping stations located on the
60 Part 1

seabed could prove attractive targets. Indeed, seabed commerce raiding

seems likely to emerge as a major new form of warfare, with the offense
probably enjoying the advantage—at least early on.

Mobile Targets
Locating and maintaining a track on mobile targets presents a more dif-
ficult problem for scouts, owing to the need to provide a “motion pic-
ture” stream of data of the object rather than the occasional “snapshot”
needed for a fixed target. The U.S. military has found identifying and
tracking mobile targets through the engagement sequence difficult, even
at relatively short ranges and in the absence of sophisticated enemy
counter-scouting efforts, as was the case during operations in Afghani-
stan, the Balkans, and Iraq.
In the Precision-Warfare Revolution’s mature stage, scouting forces
may have to transit from distant bases outside the enemy’s main A2/AD
complex, increasing their exposure to counter-scouting forces and reduc-
ing the time available to scout their assigned area. Under these condi-
tions, especially when scouting forces are tasked with providing
persistent coverage of mobile targets, friendly strike forces will need to
engage them as promptly as possible, lest the scouting force loses its
track. In military parlance, the objective here is to compress the “sensor-
to-shooter” time frame (also referred to as the “kill chain” and “engage-
ment sequence”): the time that elapses between when the scouting force
identifies the target and when the strike force engages it. Under these
conditions, militaries will probably move toward greater reliance on the
“unblinking eye” of space-based scouting systems (if they can survive
enemy efforts to neutralize them) and stealthy terrestrial-based drones,
as manned systems attempting to perform this mission would run a high
risk of incurring excessive pilot fatigue.36
The engagement sequence can be further compressed if strike forces
are loitering in the area when a target is identified, assuming they can com-
municate with the scouting force. The sequence can be reduced even fur-
ther if the scouting and strike elements—the “sensor” and “shooter”—are
fused, as is the case with U.S. Predator armed drones, or if high-speed mu-
nitions are employed in the attack, such as by aircraft firing missiles at the
target rather than flying to it and dropping gravity bombs.
In many situations, transmitting the order to engage requires main-
taining data links from the sensor-shooter system back to a command
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 61

center that can evaluate the scouting data and transmit the “weapons re-
lease” order. As will be discussed presently, advances in artificial intelli-
gence that enable militaries to field a combined arms force of
autonomous reconnaissance-strike systems could significantly reduce the
engagement sequence. Such a force could greatly reduce or even elimi-
nate the need to maintain data links to the command authority, greatly
reducing stress on the battle network.
It is possible for scouting forces to produce a “mission kill” even if
they cannot facilitate a successful engagement. This can be done, for ex-
ample, by compelling a mobile target to keep on the move, lest it be
identified, tracked, and engaged. If, for example, enemy mobile missile
launchers must be moved frequently to avoid detection, then they have
less time to set up and fire. Applied against a squadron of missiles, this
could significantly reduce the squadron’s rate of fire. It may also preclude
the squadron from launching its attacks in salvos—all its missiles at
once—thereby reducing its chances of overwhelming friendly missile
defenses.

Summary
In summary, the scouting/counter-scouting competition—the battle at
the “front end” of a military’s recce-strike complex—will play an impor-
tant and possibly dominant role in a general war in a mature precision-
warfare regime.
The rise of enemy A2/AD complexes may find an increasing per-
centage of scouting force elements basing at great distances from their
search areas. Moreover, the extended ranges over which modern strike
operations can be launched, and the speed at which they can be prose-
cuted, suggests that scouting forces will be tasked with searching a far
greater area than they ever have before. This may lead to heavy reliance
on space-based scouting forces. Given the key role space-based systems
play as part of a battle network, and advanced militaries’ ability to neu-
tralize them, space control and denial operations are likely to be a key
focus of belligerent activity at the onset of war. Simply put, the next
great-power war will be the first “space war.”
The growth of A2/AD defenses, the likely need to scout at extended
ranges and over broad areas for extended periods of time, and concerns
over battle networks’ robustness will make completing the engagement
sequence successfully a challenging task. Consequently, compressing the
62 Part 1

engagement sequence will be essential to success. This will strongly incen-

tivize militaries to invest in unmanned systems capable of operating over
great distances for extended periods of time—and to combine scouting and
strike functions on these systems. The need to move scouting information
quickly will probably also find the competition particularly intense in the
two “intangible” speed domains: cyber and the electromagnetic.
Scouting to locate, identify, and track fixed targets will in most cases
be less challenging than for mobile targets. Yet even in the case of fixed
targets, scouting forces may need to revisit them to determine whether
the movement of mobile assets, such as air and missile defenses, troops,
and aircraft, has altered their defenses or their value. Along these lines,
the rise of the seabed economy, characterized by fixed infrastructure and
the absence of an undersea A2/AD complex comparable to that on the
surface, will likely ease the scouting force’s task considerably, so the com-
petition in this domain seems likely to increase substantially. Scouting
forces may also contribute to the attrition of enemy forces, albeit “virtu-
ally,” such as through mission kills on mobile targets by precluding them
from operating at desirable—and perhaps even required—levels of effec-
tiveness. Finally, the advantages of gaining the upper hand in the scout-
ing competition and the speed at which this may be accomplished will
incentivize militaries to adopt a preemptive strike posture.

The Strike Competition

Restoring freedom of offensive maneuver may also be accomplished by
neutralizing or destroying the enemy’s strike systems, especially ex-
tended-range systems that are relatively few in number and costly to re-
place. An enemy’s inability to strike at extended ranges could enable
short-range friendly forces to operate at acceptable risk along the outer
reaches of the enemy’s A2/AD complex’s coverage, creating a local favor-
able military balance. These friendly short-range scouting and strike ele-
ments could play an important role in a campaign whose objective is to
roll back the enemy’s forward A2/AD defenses, thereby further expand-
ing friendly forces’ freedom of maneuver.
Generally speaking, this situation is hardly new, as those who are fa-
miliar with the U.S. military’s campaign to roll back Japanese forces in
the Pacific Theater of Operations during the Second World War will at-
test. What is new, however, are the enormous distances over which the
forces involved in this campaign will operate, the speed at which war will
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 63

be waged, the expansion in war-fighting domains, and the high level of

integration that characterizes scouting and strike operations.37

Gaining an Advantage
Of course, friendly forces would probably not gain an advantage by de-
pleting the enemy’s long-range strike forces at the expense of exhausting
their own. How might this be avoided? In the case where one belligerent
enjoys a substantial quantitative advantage in long-range strike opera-
tions over its enemy, direct trade-offs may be acceptable. In cases where
two great powers are at war, however, assuming such an advantage could
be risky. If the two sides’ extended-range systems were in rough balance,
attacks on enemy systems would likely suffer losses from the enemy’s ac-
tive and passives defenses. Assigning part of the strike force to defeat the
defender’s active air and missile defenses would shift the exchange rate
even further in the defender’s favor. Given these circumstances, military
planners might explore other possibilities, such as taking the risk of posi-
tioning forces forward and initiating war through a preemptive strike.
That being said, depending on how the belligerents’ forces are struc-
tured, the attacker may enjoy an asymmetric trade-off advantage. A clas-
sic example is found in the U.S.-Soviet nuclear competition, where one
nuclear weapon employed against a strategic bomber air base could de-
stroy dozens of aircraft—and dozens of nuclear weapons. In a somewhat
similar vein, during World War II, U.S. and Japanese long-range naval
aviation forces squared off against each other during the Battle of Mid-
way. Thanks in large part to superior scouting, aircraft from a smaller
American naval force sank four Japanese carriers, at the loss of only one
U.S. flattop. Thus, for example, it may prove attractive for China’s PLA
Rocket Force (PLARF) to fire missiles to take out a U.S. air base or air-
craft carrier if, in so doing, a far greater number of U.S. long-range
scouting and strike aircraft are destroyed.
There are indirect ways to deplete an enemy’s extended-range strike
forces. As mentioned in the discussion on scouting, one involves decep-
tion. Decoys, for example, have long been a part of war and have been
employed to great effect. If successful, a decoy will draw attention and
even an attack on itself instead of on the target whose characteristics the
decoy is designed to mimic. Simply put, deception operations can find an
enemy wasting considerable scouting and strike assets, diverting the for-
mer from actual targets while luring the latter into attacking false targets.
64 Part 1

For example, prior to the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944,

the Americans used decoys in the form of dummy equipment and false
communications to convince the Germans that an entire U.S. army
was forming in England across the coast of the Pas de Calais, even
though no such army existed. In the days following the D-Day invasion
at Normandy, the Germans held back substantial reinforcements from
the battle, anticipating that the “real” invasion would come at Pas de
Calais.38
During the Cold War, the U.S. Navy experimented with radio fre-
quency decoys to mislead the Russians as to the true location of its carri-
ers. In a mature precision-warfare regime, nuclear-powered submarines
might dispense relatively cheap undersea drones that emit acoustic sig-
nals mimicking those of the submarine—and at a stronger sound level. If
the ploy is successful, enemy anti-submarine warfare (ASW) forces
would expend substantial resources tracking and attacking the decoys
and not the submarine. Carrier strike groups might attempt a similar de-
ception, hoping to draw enemy strikes away from them and toward the
false “carrier” targets. Land-based missile forces could deploy decoy
launchers emitting heat and electronic signals to deceive enemy scouting
systems’ infrared (IR) and electronic sensors.

Exploiting Sources of Advantage

Of course, in a duel between reconnaissance-strike complexes, the scout-
ing and strike operations are waged simultaneously. If the enemy’s scout-
ing capabilities are substantially degraded, friendly scouting and strike
forces may be able to operate at acceptable risk from multiple bases posi-
tioned inside no-man’s-land, thereby shifting the fires balance in their
favor.
Such efforts may be enhanced if friendly forces can shift their strike
forces among the bases to create a “shell-game problem” for enemy
scouting and strike forces. Given that these forces would be operating
from only a fraction of the total bases available to them at any one time,
the enemy would confront a dilemma: disperse its scouting forces to
cover all possible bases, or strike all bases simultaneously to assure de-
stroying a significant fraction of friendly forward-based scouting and
strike forces.39 The attacker’s problems would be magnified further if the
defender employs preferential counter-strike defenses. Simply put, since
the defender knows which bases its forces are using, it can concentrate its
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 65

air and missile defenses on intercepting strikes only at those bases, while
ignoring strikes on the others.40
Geography can also play an important role in situations where two
rivals are in close proximity with each other and one enjoys strategic
depth while the other does not, as is the case with respect to China and
Japan, respectively. In this case, China can use relatively short-range
scouting and strike forces to cover most, if not all, of Japan, while the
Japanese would require a much greater number of long-range scouting
and strike systems to achieve the same coverage of China. This suggests
that the PLA would enjoy a major advantage through its ability to target
Japanese Self-Defense Force long-range strike forces with shorter (and
probably cheaper) strike systems.

Summary
In summary, depleting an enemy’s extended-range strike forces can cre-
ate the conditions that enable friendly offensive maneuver. As with ef-
forts to win the scouting competition, this freedom of maneuver can be
part of a campaign that progressively rolls back the enemy’s A2/AD com-
plex. Such a campaign would be familiar to students of past conflicts,
such as the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II. Under
certain conditions, such as when an attacker can employ one munition
to take out multiple enemy munitions or before the enemy can “flush”
mobile strike systems from their bases at the onset of war, the side
that strikes first is likely to enjoy a significant, and perhaps decisive,
advantage.

Horizontal Escalation
Horizontal escalation, or shifting the conflict’s focus to a different geo-
graphic region, offers another prospective means of compelling the
enemy to risk and expend its long-range scouting and strike forces. This
approach may prove attractive if the cost of operating in no-man’s-land
in the principal contested region proves prohibitive and the enemy’s A2/
AD complex too formidable to overcome through direct action. Under
such conditions, militaries might conduct offensive operations in areas
where they have local superiority and where friendly A2/AD defenses
can hold enemy forces at bay. The goal is to fight under conditions
where friendly forces can rely primarily on short-range scouting and
66 Part 1

strike forces, whereas the enemy would be compelled to employ rela-

tively more of its long-range systems to defend its position.
Thus, horizontal escalation can be considered a variation on the two
options presented earlier in that it seeks to create an imbalance between
friendly and enemy scouting and strike forces, but not in the principal
theater of war. As with the other approaches for restoring offensive
freedom of maneuver, horizontal escalation is hardly a new idea. In
World War I, for example, Britain and France, confronted with a bloody
stalemate on the Western Front, sought to open fronts in the Middle
East, in the southern Balkans, and at Gallipoli near the Dardanelles.
In World War II, the British, unable to challenge Germany’s Atlantic
Wall, persuaded their U.S. ally to support operations against Axis
forces along Europe’s putative “soft underbelly” in North Africa and
Italy as a means of weakening the enemy while they built up the forces
necessary for a more direct confrontation. In a contemporary great-
power conflict, for instance, undersea fiber-optic cables may provide an
enemy with communications links essential to supporting operations.
Cutting these cables may be a high-priority mission, particularly against
enemies with few good alternatives for high-capacity communications
flows.41

Economic Warfare
If a general war were to extend over a protracted period, say, several years
or so, economic warfare in the form of blockade may prove an effective
means of horizontal escalation. As will be elaborated on presently, ad-
vances in submarine and torpedo technology around the turn of the twen-
tieth century enabled Germany to threaten British close blockade forces
with mines and nocturnal attacks from torpedo boats and submarines—a
kind of Victorian-era A2/AD complex that created a maritime no-man’s-
land in littoral waters. When war came, the British were compelled to
adopt a distant blockade along the English Channel and in the North Sea
between Scotland and Norway.
When confronted by advanced enemy A2/AD defenses, friendly
forces could wage economic warfare by imposing a distant maritime
blockade to avoid incurring heavy and possibly unsustainable losses. For
scouting, modern distant blockade forces would probably rely on satel-
lites (assuming space has not been “emptied”) and on long-endurance
drones operating from austere bases, similar to what the U.S. Marine
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 67

Corps calls “FARPS”—forward arming and refueling points—for scout-

ing. If the blockade is concentrated at maritime choke points, land-based
troops ferried by helicopters operating from similar bare-bones bases
could be used for boarding operations. If need be, blockade runners
could be dispatched to the bottom with anti-ship missiles fired by air-
craft and from shore-based batteries or with smart mines.
To counter a distant blockade, the blockaded belligerent may be
compelled to employ—and deplete—its extended-range scouting and
strike forces, including its land-based air and missile forces, along with
submarines and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), to contest it. If
the blockading forces can prevail against such attacks, it may prove an ef-
fective way to weaken the enemy’s A2/AD complex, as well as to impose
economic pain.
Horizontal escalation by means of a distant blockade could occur, for
example, in a conflict between China and the United States. In such a
war, a maritime no-man’s-land might stretch from the Chinese coast to
somewhere between the first and second island chains. Given current
force levels and basing structures, U.S. and allied maritime forces might
impose a distant blockade along Southeast Asia’s maritime chokepoints.
In this example, the prospect of the PLA escorting oil-tanker convoys
through the Strait of Hormuz all the way to China seems problematic.
Under these circumstances, contesting the blockade would probably re-
quire China to employ its extended-range scouting and strike forces
against far more numerous U.S. and allied short-range forces.
The situation could change significantly, however, if China succeeds
in its apparent efforts to establish bases at Djibouti (Somalia), Gwadar
(Pakistan), Hambantota (Sri Lanka), and Kyaukpyu (Myanmar). Success
here would greatly enhance China’s ability to employ relatively short-
range scouting and strike systems to contest U.S. blockade operations.42
Other factors must also be considered. China might stockpile strategic
materials to withstand a blockade, and its borders lie on the world’s larg-
est continent, holding out the possibility of resupply over land transpor-
tation routes.43
Moreover, the interests of the blockaded state’s neutral trading part-
ners would also have to be considered. Cutting off China’s supply of oil
would probably trigger a steep price drop, damaging the economies of
key neutral powers, such as Indonesia and Russia. History finds that
blockades can have important second-order economic effects extending
beyond the blockaded state to the economies of powerful neutrals.44
68 Part 1

New Domains
Warfare in a mature precision-warfare regime in which belligerents pos-
sess formidable A2/AD complexes that overlap to form a no-man’s-land is
also apt to find militaries looking to engage in offensive maneuver by
shifting the competition into relatively new warfare domains—such as
space, cyberspace, and the seabed—where the offense currently appears to
have the upper hand. Indeed, success here, particularly in space and cyber-
space, could significantly and perhaps even fatally compromise the enemy’s
scouting forces and battle network, thereby opening the way for offensive
maneuver in no-man’s-land. Shifting the fight into these domains, while
avoiding direct kinetic attacks on a rival great power’s homeland, may also
reduce the risk of the war escalating to nuclear Armageddon.45

Prompt Attrition
Although attrition strategies have succeeded, they should be avoided if
possible, as they tend to be resource intensive with respect to casualties
and material resources. A military should pursue attrition only if it enjoys
a clear advantage in combat power, feels it must take prompt action at all
hazards, and has no other options for securing its objectives.
Enduring disproportionately high casualties and equipment losses is
always an option for overcoming the enemy—if one is willing and capa-
ble of paying the butcher’s bill. This was the case with the Chinese offen-
sive against U.S. forces at the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War
and in the Red Army’s conquest of Berlin in 1945, where attacking forces
suffered enormous losses but succeeded in accomplishing their objec-
tives.46 Another example of pursuing prompt attrition to obtain freedom
of maneuver is found in the Royal Navy’s willingness, at times, to run the
gauntlet of German and Italian air and naval forces to reinforce Britain’s
key island base at Malta in the central Mediterranean Sea during World
War II. In the Tet Offensive, North Vietnam leveraged its advantage in
manpower and U.S. aversion to casualties to attack American forces in
South Vietnam. Communist forces suffered heavy losses but succeeded
in breaking the U.S. political leadership’s will to achieve its objectives.47
Still another example is the Luftwaffe’s willingness to sustain far greater
losses in both aircraft and pilots than the Royal Air Force in the Battle of
Britain. Given the prospective payoff—creating the conditions for a suc-
cessful German invasion and conquest of Great Britain—the cost was
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 69

arguably justified. Of course, as the Germans discovered, a willingness to

accept high losses in troops and equipment does not guarantee success.
In the future, there may be new “Maltas” situated in the shadow of
the enemy’s A2/AD complex that cannot be abandoned without suffering
a heavy geostrategic or geopolitical price. This might occur, for example,
in a conflict between China and the United States. If the United States
has signaled its commitment to defending allies and security partners
along the first island chain in the Western Pacific by deploying ground
forces on some of the islands, they will probably lie well within range of
China’s thickest A2/AD defenses. In the event of war, the choice con-
fronting Washington may be similar to the one President Franklin Roos-
evelt faced regarding reinforcing the Philippines following the onset of
the Pacific War in December 1941. Roosevelt concluded that the United
States lacked the capability to sustain a defense of the Philippines and
withheld reinforcements.
If need be, blockade operations in no-man’s-land could occur as part
of an attrition strategy. In our example, submarines, UUVs, mobile smart
mines, and undersea missile payload modules positioned well within
China’s A2/AD complex could attack high-priority cargo—in effect,
waging a modern “close” blockade, while risking heavy losses. Major
enemy ports and cargo ships could also be attacked with long-range mis-
siles or stealthy strike aircraft, either to destroy the port’s cargo-handling
facilities or key transportation nodes leading to and from the ports or to
damage or destroy the ships anchored in the port. This approach to attri-
tion risks deploying relatively high-value extended-range strike assets
that are time-consuming and expensive to replace.
In brief, pursuing an attrition strategy to enable offensive operations
in a mature precision-warfare regime will probably be pursued only when
the stakes are high, a prompt result is needed, and all other options have
been exhausted. Even then, it should be undertaken with trepidation.

A Complex Combination
The preceding sections provide a preliminary exposition on how militar-
ies might restore the ability to conduct effective offensive campaigns at
an acceptable cost when confronting advanced A2/AD reconnaissance-
strike complexes. The discussion is illustrative, not comprehensive. A re-
ductionist approach was used, reducing a complex set of interlocking
competitions into some of its constituent piece-parts. What we are far
70 Part 1

more likely to find are advanced militaries employing an integrated com-

bination of the operations described here and still others. Indeed, the
fourfold expansion of war-fighting domains over the past two centuries,
combined with the great advances in the speed, range, and accuracy of
military scouting and strike forces, presents an opportunity for military
planners and theorists to engage in the most stimulating speculation.
Any detailed assessment of the mature precision-strike regime will re-
quire persistent and sustained intellectual effort by a military’s most tal-
ented strategists, an effort that, alas, lies well beyond the scope of this
work.
By way of example, however, the following discussion presents some
preliminary thoughts on how the military competition in one of warfare’s
relatively new domains—space—may alter the character of warfare be-
tween major military powers.

Space: Combining High-Tech with the High Frontier

Space forces are playing an increasingly critical role in advanced militar-
ies’ scouting and battle-network operations, and in aiding their strike
forces by providing precision navigation and timing (PNT) information.
Yet the satellites providing this support also appear highly susceptible to
attack. This combination of high value and high vulnerability is apt
to lead advanced militaries to contest for space control or, failing that, to
impose mutual space denial at the onset of a general war.

SPOT
In the Cold War’s final years, one of my duties while serving as the secre-
tary of defense’s military assistant for special projects was as editor in
chief of Soviet Military Power. This document, a forerunner to today’s an-
nual report on China’s military developments, was designed to inform
the U.S. public and the citizens of its allies on the state of Soviet military
forces and key trends in the military balance.
One year while my colleagues and I were preparing the report, an
intelligence community representative suggested we purchase satellite
photos from the French satellite SPOT (Satellite Pour l’Observation
de la Terre), owned by the commercial firm Spot Image. The satellite,
providing photos with ten-meter resolution, had only recently been
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 71

launched. Photographs with this resolution would allow us to show our

readers Soviet bases and forces.
It seemed like a great idea, so we went ahead. Several photos were
included in the final draft sent to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger
for his approval. Word quickly came back from the front office that
Weinberger was irate. Who, he wanted to know, had OK’d using U.S. re-
connaissance satellite photos in the report? Why were we revealing our
satellites’ capabilities—and limitations?
Needless to say, he was greatly relieved—and more than a little
surprised—to find that the photographs came from a commercial firm.
As would soon become evident, the commercialization of space was only
beginning.

The Ultimate High Ground

Over three score years ago, Senator John Kennedy proclaimed, “The na-
tion that controls space will also control the world.” The senator’s views
resonated with those of many other political and military leaders, includ-
ing a general officer of the world’s other space power, Soviet Russia.
Shortly after Kennedy’s inauguration as president in January 1961, Lieu-
tenant General N. Korenevskiy produced a paper, “The Role of Space
Weapons in a Future War,” echoing the new president’s views.48
The general’s assessment talked of weaponizing space, creating a
“space-bombing system” composed of “a great number of nuclear bombs
circling the earth in various orbits.”49 He went on to note that “certain
requirements for a space bombing system have been formulated.” Hav-
ing demonstrated the ability to launch artificial satellites, the general as-
serted that creating a constellation of satellites supported by numerous
decoy satellites (sputniklovushka) for misleading the enemy “does not
present any great difficulty.” Korenevskiy even advocated a form of
stealth for these satellites, combining “antiradar covering” and paint
coatings in order to avoid observation from Earth.50 The general be-
lieved that his space-bombing system would compel the United States
“to take defensive measures which will entail huge expenditures,” impos-
ing disproportionate costs on the Americans.51 Looking ahead to the
1970s, he anticipated that satellites would be employed “not only for
conducting war in space, but also for delivering strikes independently
against ground objectives and targets.”52
72 Part 1

Over sixty years later, the weaponization of space for the purpose of
establishing control of that domain and influencing the struggle for con-
trol of others has yet to occur. It is also not clear that dominating space
would, as Kennedy asserted, enable a country to control the world. Nev-
ertheless, both men correctly foresaw space’s enormous potential to alter
war’s character, and with it the military balance of power. The succeeding
three decades witnessed both Cold War superpowers militarizing—but
not weaponizing—space. Following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991,
the United States had no major rival in this domain. Today, however, it
can no longer make that claim. Neither do its satellites enjoy sanctuary
from attack. And, as Caspar Weinberger discovered, states long ago lost
their monopoly over what transpires in this domain.

Selected Space Trends

In the sixty-plus years since the first manmade satellite was launched into
orbit around the Earth, space-based systems, such as the U.S. Global Po-
sitioning System constellation of satellites, have become increasingly im-
portant to the effective functioning of the global economy and to
military forces’ effectiveness. Indeed, GPS was originally designed to
support U.S. military operations and proved a spectacular success in the
First Gulf War. America’s armed forces are even more dependent on
GPS today. This satellite constellation has also become a global utility,
with roughly two billion GPS receivers in use. Estimates are that the
number will reach seven billion before long. The telecommunications,
banking, airlines, electric utilities, and cloud-computing businesses,
among others, require the consistent and precision navigation and tim-
ing that GPS provides. Of the sixteen sectors of the U.S. economy desig-
nated by the government as critical, fourteen depend on GPS to function
effectively. Many other countries rely on GPS for similar types of sup-
port. Reflecting GPS’s importance to their economies and, by extension,
their security, the United States’ two great-power rivals, China and Rus-
sia, operate their own space-based navigation systems: the BeiDou Satel-
lite System (BDS) and GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System),
respectively. The European Union also has its own system, Galileo.53
Today many countries are “space powers.” Tiny New Zealand hosts a
spaceport. Turkey and Peru have their own spy satellites, and in 2020
Iran launched its first military satellite. Space is also being progressively
invaded by commercial firms in search of financial gain. The private
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 73

sector’s advance into space has been enabled in large measure by steeply
declining launch-to-orbit costs, for which it—not governments—is prin-
cipally responsible.
Since Sputnik went into orbit in October 1957, satellites have been
expensive to build and costly to launch. This changed with advances in
technology and as the commercial sector embraced a “smaller-is-better”
view with regard to satellites. In 1999, researchers from the Technical
University of Berlin launched a tiny satellite—TUBSAT—weighing
roughly 100 pounds and measuring around a foot on each side. At the
time, TUBSAT was seen as a novelty. Less than fifteen years later, how-
ever, Orbital Sciences, a U.S. company, launched a rocket carrying
twenty-nine small satellites to low-Earth orbit (LEO). Shortly thereafter,
Kosmotras, a Russian joint venture, boosted thirty-two “SmallSats” into a
similar orbit.54 Many of these small satellites are built to a standard for-
mat and are referred to as “CubeSats.” CubeSats are employed in multi-
ples, each measuring roughly four inches on each side and weighing less
than three pounds. By 2020, more than 1,100 CubeSats had been placed
in orbit.
That year also saw a U.S. firm, SpaceX, producing an unprecedented
120 satellites a month and boosting 143 commercial and government
satellites into orbit on a single mission, shattering the record of 104 set
by India in 2017—this at a time when there were only around 3,000 ac-
tive satellites in orbit. In other words, this single launch increased the
satellite population by 5 percent. In February 2021, SpaceX launched 60
Starlink satellites on a single Falcon 9 rocket as part of its plan to create
an initial constellation of 1,440 satellites providing internet service, with
the ultimate goal of creating a global high-speed internet network in-
cluding some 12,000 satellites.55
SpaceX is but one example, albeit a prominent one, of the commer-
cial sector’s surge into space. In recent years, the number of private firms
operating satellites—many of them CubeSat clusters—has expanded sig-
nificantly, performing a growing range of functions. Most of these func-
tions are commercial in nature, but some have clear military applications.
Some carry small yet powerful lasers capable of beaming data to ground
stations at very high data rates. Still others rely on short-wavelength in-
frared imaging to peer through clouds or on synthetic aperture radars
(SARs) to obtain images at night.56
Government and commercial satellites are producing enormous
amounts of data, to the point where the then-director of the National
74 Part 1

Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Robert Cardillo, asserted that by the

early 2020s, the agency would have “a million times more” data to ana-
lyze than it had less than a decade before. He also declared, “If we at-
tempted to manually exploit all of the imagery we’ll collect over the next
20 years, we’d need eight million imagery analysts.”57 Governments and
the private sector see advances in artificial intelligence as the solution to
this problem. Today AI is being used for analyzing and processing data
onboard satellites prior to downloading it to Earth, thereby easing de-
mands on communications bandwidth and human analysts. Other firms
have constructed “data refineries” to clean up data sets to provide the
high-quality data needed for the machine learning that creates and re-
fines AI for space applications.58
Private space firms are also getting into satellite “repair” services. An
Italian company, D-Orbit, has built spacecraft to move errant CubeSats
into their proper position. Japan’s Astroscale is looking to create satellite
“tow trucks” to intercept drifting inert satellites threatening to collide
with other celestial bodies, redirecting them into the atmosphere, where
they will burn up.59
In brief, commercial activity in space has changed dramatically from
what it was only a decade ago. Private firms are also involved in tradi-
tional launch operations. SpaceX is launching large satellites into orbit at
very competitive prices, triggering major changes in the launch industry.
Even as more and more countries become space-faring nations, the pri-
vate sector is increasing its market share and range of services. A major
reason is the collapse of one of the long-standing barriers to boosting
payloads into orbit: cost. And it’s the commercial sector that has made it
happen. As a U.S. Air Force study candidly found, “A government agency,
even a well-run agency, does not have the correct economic incentives to
lower costs. NASA was not incentivized to eliminate the operational and
labor costs that were part of the Shuttle system. Since NASA depends on
political support, which is driven by the number of jobs in congressional
districts, the opposite is true.”60
Between 1970 and 2000, the cost to launch a kilogram to space was
roughly $18,500. The price-to-orbit of NASA’s space shuttle was an exor-
bitant $54,500 per kilogram. But the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket can do it for
$2,700 per kilogram, and the firm’s Falcon Heavy rocket for roughly half
that.61 In 2013, Russia controlled nearly half of the global commercial
launch business. Thanks to competition from SpaceX and other private
firms, in 2018 Russia’s market share had declined to less than 10 percent,
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 75

while SpaceX alone had 65 percent.62 For the United States, the rise of
private-sector firms like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin
may provide it with a latent “space arsenal of democracy” in the event of
war, with a significant potential to support military operations.

The Military Competition in Space

An advanced military’s reconnaissance-strike complex relies heavily on
space satellites for, among other things, communications, global posi-
tioning, navigation and timing, weather forecasts, and scouting. Many of
these satellites, whether military, government, or commercial, appear to
be vulnerable to attack and difficult to hide or defend. Just as for centu-
ries commercial ships transporting cargo on the high seas have been
targets for commerce-raiding forces, satellites—including those belong-
ing to neutral powers—appear likely to be targets in any great-power
conflict.
At present, there are no barriers to keep a major space power from
fielding anti-satellite forces to threaten a rival’s entire space architecture
with destruction, and apparently at far less cost than it would take to suc-
cessfully defend against such attacks or replace lost satellites. If so, space
powers confront several strategic choices: accepting the growing vulner-
ability of their space assets; paying what will probably be a dispropor-
tionately high price to maintain assured access to space through active
and passive defense measures and replacing “downed” satellites; pre-
empting an enemy’s ASAT forces at the onset of war before they can be
employed; exploiting advancing technologies to maintain access to space
through different means and methods; or some combination thereof.
Today the threat to U.S. and ally satellite architectures comes pri-
marily from China and Russia. That being said, even lesser powers are
pursuing counter-space capabilities, including jamming, dazzling, and
cyber attacks.63
As with most areas of the military competition, Washington consid-
ers China the principal threat in space. In 2007, China destroyed one of
its own satellites using a rocket interceptor. Six years later, it launched a
missile 22,000 miles into space, to geosynchronous orbit. Beijing stated
that the launch was for purely scientific purposes, yet this is the orbit
where the U.S. military and intelligence agencies position their most
sensitive satellites. China also launched a satellite, Shiyan 7 (Experiment
7), with a prototype robotic arm that captured another satellite in orbit.
76 Part 1

Although the Chinese stated that this action was a space maintenance
mission, the robot’s ability to grab satellites is not limited to those be-
longing to China.64
Like China, Russia continues to develop ASAT forces. In 2008, a
Russian spacecraft moved between two commercial communications sat-
ellites operated by Intelsat, later positioning itself near another satellite.
It requires little imagination to realize that, were these Russian satellites
armed, they could function as ASAT “grenades.” More recently, in July
2020, the Russians released a projectile from an orbiting satellite that
could be used to strike spacecraft. Three months earlier, it tested a di-
rect-ascent anti-satellite missile, continuing its efforts to field multiple
means of attacking space systems.65
Satellites are also at risk from jamming and cyber attacks. As far back
as 1998, there were allegations that Russian hackers had taken control of
a U.S.-German satellite and pointed it at the sun, destroying its sen-
sors.66 In 2005, China began incorporating cyber attacks into its military
exercises, primarily in preemptive attacks on enemy networks. In 2008,
anonymous hackers seized control of Terra, a civilian imaging satellite in
low-Earth orbit, where military reconnaissance craft reside. Fortunately,
the hackers refrained from any further mischief.67 A decade later, the cy-
ber-security firm Symantec warned that a China-based cyber-espionage
group known as Thrip was targeting satellite, telecom, and defense com-
panies in the United States, possibly looking for ways to intercept or
alter satellite communications, including inserting malware to infect
computers linked to the satellites.68
There have been attempts to disrupt GPS signals. During a demon-
stration in 2012, U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials ob-
served one of their drones being hijacked off its intended route by a
hacker inserting false GPS coordinates into its software. There are re-
ports that Russian forces have similarly “spoofed” drone signals over
Syria and the Black Sea.69 In 2018, Finland’s GPS signal was intention-
ally disrupted during NATO field exercises in Scandinavia, with Russia
the suspected source of attack. Around that time, pilots operating in
Norway’s airspace also experienced a loss of their GPS signals.70 After as-
sessing these trends, the U.S. Defense Department concluded, “The
global threat of electronic warfare (EW) attacks against space systems
will expand in the coming years in both number and types of weapons.
Development will very likely focus on jamming capabilities against dedi-
cated military satellite communications, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 77

imaging satellites, and enhanced capabilities against Global Navigation

Satellite Systems, such as the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS).
Blending of EW and cyber-attack capabilities will likely expand in pur-
suit of sophisticated means to deny and degrade information networks.”71
In addition to fielding kinetic ASAT missile interceptors, China and
Russia are fielding land-based high-powered laser ASAT weapons. Ana-
lysts have identified a site in China’s Xinjiang region as one of five mili-
tary bases whose lasers can fire beams of concentrated light at U.S.
reconnaissance satellites, with the goal of blinding or disabling their
optic sensors.72
The “democratization of destruction” is occurring in space, as small
groups and even individuals are gaining access to capabilities that could
potentially compromise the function of satellites, including those provid-
ing precision navigation and timing. There are hundreds of types of jam-
mers available to those with the means to procure them. Although
jamming is illegal in most countries, the European Global Navigation
Satellite Systems Agency recorded some 50,000 jamming incidents in
2017 and 2018.73 Jamming near airports may prove a precursor to non-
state groups’ jamming space-based systems. Perhaps the most notorious
case occurred in June 2019 when Israeli pilots lost their GPS signals
around Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, Israel’s busiest, for three weeks.
This was not an isolated incident. Three years earlier, some forty airlin-
ers had their GPS signal broken when approaching Manila’s Ninoy
Aquino International Airport.74
America’s new GPS 3 satellites are designed to last fifteen years and
provide a signal eight times stronger than the current generation of sat-
ellites, making them more difficult, but hardly impossible, to jam. (They
also lack the two strongest anti-spoofing technologies on the market.)75
This raises the question of the potential mischief that might be inflicted
on satellites by disaffected groups, or even individuals, if jamming tech-
nology improves and power levels increase.
Although the United States has lost its dominant position in space, it
remains the world’s most advanced space power and arguably has the
most to lose from a war in space, incentivizing its rivals to field ASAT
forces. Consequently, like its rivals, the United States is looking for ways
to defend its satellites and deter attacks against them, including fielding
ASAT capabilities of its own.
Although much of what the U.S. military does in space is shrouded
in secrecy, information regarding some initiatives has been made public,
78 Part 1

such as the U.S. military’s kinetic intercept of one of its own satellites in
2007. The U.S. Defense Department has also experimented with several
laser systems that could eventually lead to its fielding a laser ASAT sys-
tem.76
A potential “game-changing” U.S. capability about which little is
known is the X-37B space plane. The Air Force has at least two X-37Bs,
each about thirty feet long and ten feet high, with a wingspan of roughly
fifteen feet and a payload bay about the size of a standard pickup-truck
bed. Like the space shuttle, the X-37B is launched vertically and lands on
a runway. The X-37B’s initial mission occurred in April 2010, lasting 224
days. A recent mission ran nearly 800 days. The X-37B’s tenth anniver-
sary was marked by its sixth launch to orbit in May 2020.77
The Air Force has kept the X-37B’s purpose and missions, as well as
most of its payloads, classified. The veil of secrecy was pulled back slightly
by former Air Force secretary Heather Wilson, who declared that the
space plane can perform maneuvers in space that would drive potential ad-
versaries “nuts.” From this highly ambiguous statement, experts speculate
that the X-37B may be capable of changing its orbit, making it difficult for
rivals to predict the spacecraft’s location.78 Assuming that this is the case,
the X-37B could present a difficult target for enemy ASAT forces. For ex-
ample, assume that the Chinese military locates the X-37B in space and is
seeking to intercept it. In theory, the X-37B’s controllers could shift its
orbit. Following such a maneuver, the Chinese would find the X-37B fail-
ing to appear at the predicted time and location, compelling them to
renew their scouting efforts from scratch.79
Presuming that the X-37B is performing as experts speculate, then as
its development continues, the character of the military competition in
space could change dramatically. In fact, China is working to field its
own reusable space plane. In September 2020, the Chinese successfully
boosted an experimental craft into orbit and returned it to Earth, where
it landed horizontally. Another successful launch occurred ten months
later. A second space plane, Tengyun, is being developed and is designed
to take off and land horizontally. The Chinese claim that their space
plane program’s purpose is to reduce launch costs. Given that the U.S.
space shuttle’s cost to orbit was well over an order of magnitude greater
than SpaceX’s current price, the Chinese assertion seems disingenuous. A
more plausible explanation is that China, as in nearly every area of the
military-technical competition, is seeking to match, and eventually sur-
pass, its U.S. rival in space.80
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 79

Space War
Today war in space appears to favor the offense, and by a clear margin.
There are several ways in which an attacker can destroy or neutralize a sat-
ellite or satellite architecture. Thanks to motion pictures such as the Star
Wars and Star Trek series, popular images of war in space tend to emphasize
kinetic weapons, such as “photon torpedoes,” generating kinetic effects—
with everything from space fighters to “Death Stars” blowing up, complete
with the explosive “sounds” that would never occur in the vacuum of space.
Yet kinetic and directed-energy anti-satellite weapons do exist.
There are “hit-to-kill” ASAT missiles that work by striking the target
satellite directly. These missiles are most effective against satellites in
low-Earth orbit, where many imaging satellites are located. Attacking
satellites at mid-Earth orbit (MEO) or in geosynchronous orbit (GEO)
is more demanding, requiring larger, more sophisticated missiles. Al-
though a sophisticated military satellite can use thrusters in attempting
to move out of a kinetic interceptor’s path, it could expend a large
amount of its fuel doing so.81 If this maneuver forced the satellite into an
unfavorable orbit where it lacked the fuel to return to its intended sta-
tion, the attacker may still claim a “mission” kill.
One major barrier to the use of kinetic ASAT weapons is the “space
junk” that may be created in the wake of a successful attack. Compare
China’s ASAT test in 2007 and the U.S. satellite intercept the following
year. These events yielded strikingly different environmental results. Al-
though both intercepts were against disabled satellites in LEO, the Chi-
nese intercept occurred at an altitude greater than 500 miles, while the
U.S. intercept happened at roughly 150 miles. The difference in altitude
found the debris produced by the U.S. test burning up in the atmosphere
relatively quickly. The Chinese test was a disaster, creating more than
150,000 pieces of space junk—roughly 15 percent of all the space debris
now in orbit—while ground controllers around the globe scrambled to
move dozens of spacecraft out of harm’s way.82
China’s space junk is global, indiscriminate, and irreversible. It’s
global because the debris spreads naturally over time into other satellite
orbits. It’s indiscriminate because it affects all satellites, not just those be-
longing to China. Its effects are irreversible because there is, as yet, no
practical way to remove space junk. Over time, the growing debris cre-
ated by space junk colliding with satellites or pieces of debris striking
one another risks increasing to the point that everything in that orbit is
80 Part 1

destroyed—a phenomenon known as the “Kessler Syndrome.” Should

this occur across multiple orbits, militaries would be compelled to return
to “industrial-age warfare.” As General John Hyten, then head of
U.S. Strategic Command, described it, “It’s Vietnam, Korea, and World
War II; no more precision missiles and smart bombs—which means ca-
sualties are higher, collateral damage is higher.”83
Turning space into a kinetic shooting gallery risks creating space
junk that would compromise the attacker’s own space systems along with
its enemy’s. Such a calamity would not spare the satellites of neutral
powers. For these reasons, employing kinetic attacks against a rival’s sat-
ellites as part of a campaign to win the scouting competition or, more
broadly, cripple its reconnaissance-strike complex appears unattractive.
There are, however, other options for fighting in space, such as by
employing nonkinetic weapons like high-powered lasers, high-powered
microwaves, and jammers. Ground-based lasers could temporarily—or
permanently—blind or dazzle imaging satellites, provided the satellite’s
sensor is looking at the laser’s location when being targeted. High-pow-
ered lasers could also damage satellites by overheating key satellite com-
ponents. In a somewhat similar vein, a high-powered microwave (HPM)
weapon could “fry” a satellite’s unshielded electronics, causing perma-
nent damage. In the case of jammers, if their power is sufficiently strong,
they can block a satellite’s communications. Another option, one that
may be the objective of the Chinese and Russian satellite maneuvers, is
to employ a “space robot” that is launched into orbit and maneuvered to
capture or otherwise disable its target. Importantly, these weapons do
not produce space junk, unless one counts the “dead” satellite that re-
mains in orbit after a successful attack. Assuming it’s effective, jamming
may be the ASAT weapon of choice, as its effects are reversible, thereby
boosting an enemy’s incentive to come to terms.
Although the competition in space appears to favor the offense, the de-
fense still has options, especially if it enjoys a large resource advantage over
the attacker. There are four basic ways the defense can protect its space-
based capabilities: by making them invulnerable, replaceable, or invisible,
or by destroying the enemy’s ASAT forces. All other factors being equal,
the best way to deal with threats to one’s satellites appears to be striking
at the source of the problem. Since all ASAT weapons must originate from
the Earth’s surface at some point in time, the most effective defense
appears to be targeting the enemy’s hit-to-kill and laser ASAT launch facil-
ities, the radars used to track friendly satellites, and jamming sources.
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 81

States (and perhaps commercial firms as well) seeking to protect

their satellites could also make them more difficult to attack. Lasers and
jammers work both ways. They could be used to blind the sensors on an
incoming kinetic ASAT weapon or to jam its communications, respec-
tively. Automatic lens covers could be positioned on imaging satellites
that activate when a laser attack is detected, although a closed lens cover
could constitute a mission kill. Confronted with jamming, communica-
tions satellites could use techniques like frequency hopping to reduce its
effects. Satellites can also have their electronics “hardened” to defend
against high-power microwave attacks.
Progress being made with artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and
new methods of propulsion may eventually enable small satellites to
combine into self-healing clusters, displacing today’s large, complex sat-
ellites. If so, they may prove more difficult to target, ensuring that a sat-
ellite constellation’s effectiveness degrades gracefully, rather than
precipitously. For example, the many CubeSats constituting a cluster
would probably prove more challenging to detect and disable than a
large satellite performing the same function. And it may be possible to
replace damaged or destroyed CubeSats far more quickly and cheaply
than large satellites.
There are also ways to maneuver CubeSat spacecraft without deplet-
ing their onboard fuel. One method exploits the presence of errant air
molecules that have drifted into space from the Earth’s atmosphere.
These molecules are most abundant in LEO. They provide resistance
such that a satellite with a small facing surface area will slowly gain on
another satellite with a larger surface area launched at the same speed. A
satellite can accomplish this by enlarging or shrinking its forward-facing
area, creating “differential drag.” This is relatively easy to accomplish,
and the commercial firm Planet has 120 Earth-imaging satellites in orbit
that maneuver exclusively using this principle. Indeed, exploiting differ-
ential drag is essential for firms like Planet that boost clusters of satellites
on a single rocket and need to position them properly once they achieve
orbit. According to Spire, another small satellite operator, it only takes a
few weeks for differential drag to position a CubeSat cluster to eliminate
unnecessary overlaps. As with Planet, Spire’s seventy-two satellites ma-
neuver exclusively in this way.84
Above an altitude of roughly 350 miles, there are too few air mole-
cules for differential drag to work. At these altitudes, a satellite’s solar pan-
els may be employed as a kind of “space sail.” Since light exerts pressure, if
82 Part 1

a satellite’s solar panels can be positioned to face the maximum amount of

light when it’s receding from the sun and the minimum amount when it’s
approaching the sun, the spacecraft can gain speed and therefore altitude.
A CubeSat could use this technique to boost its orbit some 70 to 100 feet
per day.85 Differential drag and space sails may enable satellites to maneu-
ver out of harm’s way or aid militaries that have launched spare CubeSats
to maneuver them to replace those lost to enemy action.

Summary
Spacecraft have become central to the functioning of advanced militar-
ies’ reconnaissance-strike complexes. This, as well as satellites’ economic
value and the apparent challenges associated with establishing effective
defenses, will likely make them highly attractive targets in a general war.
The potential advantage accruing to the side that takes out its rival’s
space-based forces, combined with the speed at which this might be ac-
complished, suggests that belligerents may have strong incentives to
strike first.
Whereas belligerents may be self-deterred from employing kinetic
ASAT strikes, there are other methods to neutralize enemy space-based
systems, including directed-energy systems like laser ASATs, that appear
to be both effective and discriminate. Counter-space operations may be a
game in which even nonstate entities can play, especially when it comes
to jamming and cyber attacks.
Although the competition in space appears to favor the offense, new
developments, such as the proliferation of CubeSat constellations, the
ability to maneuver small satellites, and the emergence of space planes
like the X-37B, may help level the playing field toward the defense. In
any event, it is all but certain that in a mature precision-warfare regime,
a war between two advanced military powers will witness the first war in
space.

The Mature Precision-Warfare Revolution

The Precision-Warfare Revolution’s maturation, combined with the
scale on which China and Russia can compete, is shifting the military
balance against the United States. For more than a century, the U.S. mil-
itary has projected and sustained large forces over great distances to de-
fend America’s vital interests, especially in the Western Pacific and in
 The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime 83

Europe. In every case, the buildup of these forces overseas occurred with
minimal, if any, enemy interference. This happy state of affairs no longer
exists in the Western Pacific and perhaps not in Eastern Europe. China
(especially) and Russia are increasing dramatically the price the U.S. mil-
itary must pay to project power in these regions, as well as to defend
American military and economic assets in the relatively new war-fighting
domains of space, cyberspace, and the seabed.
A key issue with respect to the maturing precision-warfare regime
characterized by dueling reconnaissance-strike complexes is whether it
represents a “new normal” or whether ways might be found to enable of-
fensive power-projection operations at an acceptable cost. Several point-
of-departure approaches for prevailing in this “duel” were presented to
stimulate efforts at developing operational concepts designed to restore a
military’s ability to maneuver offensively at the operational level of war.
Although suppressing the enemy’s scouting force and depleting its
extended-range strike forces were described separately, it’s clear that the
greatest effect will be achieved by employing these operations in combi-
nation, in particular by fusing scouting and strike functions in “sensor-
shooter” systems.
If a new general war cannot be averted, its opening phase may be its
most crucial. Owing to the apparent advantage enjoyed by the offense in
the space (and probably cyberspace) domains, the speed of attack enabled
by systems like laser ASATs and speed-of-light cyber strikes, and the ad-
vantages that will accrue to the side that gains the upper hand in fractur-
ing its enemy’s reconnaissance-strike complex, the incentives for
adopting a preemptive war posture are likely to increase significantly. As
the 1992 MTR assessment concluded:

Since establishing information superiority could be the decisive

operation in future conflicts, and since this objective could be
achieved early in the war, we should expect that increasing em-
phasis will be placed on achieving surprise. As this revolution
matures, the day may come when the forces of . . . [major pow-
ers] evolve to a “hair-trigger” posture, characterized by a trend
toward automated engagements with forces ready to fire on little
warning. To adopt a less threatening posture could be seen as in-
viting a pre-emptive attack against friendly information net-
works, allowing the enemy to establish information dominance,
which would quickly lead to the progressive inability of friendly
84 Part 1

forces to execute the highly integrated, information-intensive

military operations that will be crucial to success in war.86

This observation is consistent with the general long-term trend in war-

fare of increased speed in scouting and strike operations and the in-
creased range over which these “reconnaissance-strike complexes”
operate. It is also the result of the introduction of precision, or guided,
weapons in large numbers, which has created an environment where to
be seen and tracked is to run a very high risk of being destroyed. To
avoid being seen, you must be a good “hider,” and the best way to hide is
to prevent your enemy from seeing you by neutralizing its scouts.
 chapter four
Disruptive Technologies
Catching the Wave

There is only one thing I can tell you about war, and almost one
only, and it is this: no war ever shows the characteristics that
were expected; it is always different.

—dwight eisenhower

Proof of Trotsky’s farsightedness is that none of his predictions

have come true yet.

—isaac deutscher

During the course of my research on this book, from time to time I

visited the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA). On one occasion,
I met with its current director, Jim Baker, who, along with his deputy,
Dr. Andrew May, continues the office’s tradition of producing world-class
assessments on matters of strategic importance to the Defense Depart-
ment’s senior leaders.1 During our conversation, I mentioned to Baker
that it was proving difficult to get a handle on what seems likely to be a
successor military revolution to the mature precision-warfare regime.

85
86 Part 1

I pointed out that the MTR assessment had focused almost exclu-
sively on the effects triggered by the IT revolution and Defense Secre-
tary Harold Brown’s Offset Strategy. Now I was confronting a cluster of
military-related technologies, some of which could, by themselves, dra-
matically shift the character of warfare. Complicating matters further,
these technologies were advancing at a steady and, in some cases, rapid
pace. Further complicating matters were their interrelationships. In
some cases, these technologies’ potential to act as “game changers” in the
military competition depended on progress with other emerging tech-
nologies: breakthroughs in additive manufacturing could prove critical
for the success of hypersonic missiles; advances in quantum computing
and AI could make a big difference in synthetic biology; and so on. Thus,
the order in which these various technologies matured could, I said,
greatly affect how the emerging revolution plays out: if solid-state lasers,
rail gun, and powder gun technology matured before hypersonics, then
fleet missile defense could gain the advantage. If hypersonics arrive first,
it might become impossible to mount an effective defense of the fleet. All
this, I told Baker, was making for a really tough go.
In the finest traditions of the office that he now leads, Baker simply
looked at me and said, “Well, I guess you’ll just have to think harder,
won’t you?”
Indeed.
For thousands of years, new technologies have provided militaries
with more effective means of waging war. Technology’s ability to confer
advantage on the battlefield has never been more evident than during the
industrial age, when advances enabled innovation and, at times, military
revolutions. Today military-related technologies are progressing at a fast
pace and on a broad front. They encompass increased computational
power—including the prospect of quantum computing—facilitating big-
data analytics, machine learning, and, through them, advances in artificial
intelligence. Impressive progress is also being made in additive manufac-
turing, robotics, directed energy, and hypersonic propulsion. Defense
planners ignore at their peril the stunning progress in the biosciences,
especially in gene editing made possible by CRISPR-Cas9.
Which emerging technologies will mature when expected and as ex-
pected? Which will find their true potential being realized much later
than anticipated? Which game-changing technologies will simply fail to
emerge? Finally, what technologies will alter the character of warfare in
ways that were wholly unanticipated, even by their originators?
 Disruptive Technologies 87

There is a strong temptation for people in my line of work to try to

predict the future. Lengthy, detailed studies have been produced describ-
ing and analyzing the prospective value of emerging military-related
technologies. Senior defense policy makers and military leaders want an-
swers, not ambiguities, when setting research and development priorities
involving tens of billions of dollars and potentially affecting thousands of
lives, not to mention the country’s security. Yet attempting to predict
with precision how any technology will shape the military competition is
an impossible task. Again, no one can say with confidence when, or even
if, these technologies and the military capabilities they might enable will
mature as anticipated. It takes restraint on the analyst’s part not to suc-
cumb to the temptation to offer the illusion of false precision, and wis-
dom on the policy maker’s part not to demand it. Sadly, both are often in
short supply.
The best that I can accomplish is a survey of selected technologies
that seem promising for their military potential, buttressed by some
hopefully insightful observations as to their prospective influence on the
character of war. Hence, the discussion that follows is illustrative, not pre-
dictive and certainly not exhaustive. Although the technologies are pre-
sented individually, in most instances it is their combination that will be
most likely to bring about the most disruptive shifts in war’s character.

Artificial Intelligence
The Information Revolution that began in the mid-twentieth century
continues, thanks to advances in high-speed data processing; the growing
availability of large data sets drawing increasingly on raw material pro-
vided from the emerging internet of things (IoT); the use of big-data an-
alytics; advances in machine learning techniques; and rapidly expanding
private- and public-sector investment.2 All of this has led to impressive
increases in artificial intelligence performance, with its biggest boosters
promising, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”
Before proceeding further, some defining of terms is in order. Artifi-
cial intelligence refers to leveraging digital technology to create systems
that are capable of performing tasks commonly thought to require human
intelligence. Machine learning is viewed as a subfield of AI and centers
on digital systems that improve their performance on a given task over
time through experience.3 The National Institute of Standards and Tech-
nology (NIST) describes big data simply as “the deluge of data in today’s
88 Part 1

networked, digitized, sensor-laden, and information driven world.” In-

deed, it was estimated that five exabytes (1,000,000,000,000,000,000
bytes) of data, the equivalent of 15,000 times the content in the Library of
Congress, had been created from the beginning of time up until 2003. By
2010, that same amount of data was being created every two days.4 Big
data is characterized by the growing size of data sets, the variety of data
(such as from multiple repositories, domains, or types), and the velocity
(flow rate) of data. Hence, big-data analytics is a collection of techniques
that leverage vast and disparate sets of data to extract knowledge.5
The internet of things is a major contributing factor in the growth
of big data. The IoT is defined as “a decentralized network of objects,
applications, and services that can sense, log, interpret, communicate,
process, and act on a variety of information or control devices in the
physical world.”6 Estimates of the number of IoT devices vary. It is gen-
erally accepted that their growth in both the industrial and consumer
marketplace is advancing at breakneck speed. In November 2015, one
estimate predicted that 6.4 billion connected “things” would be in use
by 2016, a 30 percent increase from 2015, with the IoT including
20.8 billion devices by 2020. Another estimate concluded that there were
13.4 billion devices connected in 2015 and that this figure would rise
to 38.5 billion by 2020. By 2018, the estimate had grown to more than
50 billion.7
Perhaps the best-known recent advance in AI is AlphaGo, developed
by Google’s DeepMind team. In March 2016, AlphaGo defeated Lee
Sedol, one of the world’s top players, four games to one, in a Chinese
strategy board game known as Go (or Weichi) whose origins date back to
the time before Christ. The AlphaGo system learned the game in forty
days after being fed moves and countermoves by past Go masters. Not
long after AlphaGo’s success, DeepMind released AlphaGo Master,
which defeated the top-ranked player, Ke Jie, in March 2017. Following
this success, the DeepMind team developed AlphaGo Zero, which was
simply fed the rules of the game. Starting from scratch, the machine
played against itself without any historical data. As it played, AlphaGo
Zero identified new tactics and moves. Three weeks later, in October
2017, it defeated the previous AlphaGo version, 100 games to zero.8
More recently, a poker-playing algorithm named Pluribus, designed
by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the Facebook AI lab,
bested a group of elite poker players in a game of Texas Hold ’Em, a
 Disruptive Technologies 89

complex game of poker in which psychology was thought to have played

a significant role in determining the winner. Yet Darren Elias, a profes-
sional player involved in the games, concluded that Pluribus’s success
could be expressed simply in “pure numbers and percentages.”9
The rapid advance of AI over the past decade or so finds Russia’s
Vladimir Putin paraphrasing President Kennedy’s predictions on space,
declaring that the state that first masters AI “will become the ruler of the
world.”10 For some observers, examples like AlphaGo indicate that AI
will transform every aspect of how humans live, including the way they
fight.
The manufacturing process offers a metaphor for understanding the
competition among states and firms to take the lead in developing and
exploiting AI’s potential. The raw materials for AI are data sets. They are
processed through machine-learning techniques powered by computers.
The end products are algorithms employed for various purposes. Put an-
other way, the growing internet of things is generating enormous quanti-
ties of data, which can be organized into data sets. Big-data analytics
“refines” the data and feeds it into the machine learning that enhances
AI. As one expert puts it, “Information is the oil of the 21st century, and
analytics is the combustion engine.”11
Advances in AI can enable increased levels of autonomy. Autonomy
involves delegating a decision to an authorized entity to take action
within specific boundaries. Systems governed by prescriptive rules that
permit no deviations are considered to be automated, not autonomous. For
a system to be autonomous, it must be able to identify and choose among
different courses of action independently to accomplish goals on the basis
of its knowledge and understanding of the environment in which it is
functioning. The foundation for autonomy is artificial intelligence. Gen-
erally speaking, systems incorporating autonomy at rest operate virtually,
in software. Systems incorporating autonomy in motion have a physical
presence, such as in robotics and autonomous vehicles.12
Autonomous weapons are not new. Those that employ a sensor to
trigger an automatic military action, such as land mines, have existed for
more than a century. More advanced weapons, such as acoustic-homing
torpedoes capable of engaging targets unsupervised, arrived during
World War II. More recently, computers with ever increasing computa-
tional power are enabling a gradual and ongoing shift toward greater au-
tonomy in military operations. During the Cold War, “fire-and-forget”
90 Part 1

missiles were fielded, using onboard sensors and a computer to guide

them to their target without any communication from the operator once
the target had been selected and the missile fired.

Military Implications
AI has the potential to make significant, and perhaps profound, contribu-
tions to the effective functioning of reconnaissance-strike complexes.
This is due, in part, to the rapid growth in sensor technology that sup-
ports intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance efforts. Modern sen-
sors produce an enormous amount of raw data, outstripping the ability of
military and intelligence organizations to process and analyze it.
Some unattended ground sensors and undersea systems use onboard,
autonomous processing to reduce the torrent of data being fed back to
users, significantly reducing communications bandwidth requirements
and the burden on human analysts. Expanding the amount of data that
can be analyzed while reducing the time needed for analysis is especially
important in the mature precision-warfare regime described in Chapter 3,
which emphasizes compressed engagement cycles.
Using AI, a sensor platform could also adjust its collection and analytic
focus in real time, without waiting for instructions, thereby eliminating ex-
traneous data. For example, for a drone with a human “in the loop,” en-
crypted data must be transmitted to and fro between it and the operator.
But battle-network data links will be targeted by the enemy. To the extent
AI can lower data transmission requirements, it reduces the stress on a
reconnaissance-strike complex’s battle network and scouting forces.
AI is beginning to make its way into efforts to improve the scouting
ability of advanced military organizations. For example, the U.S. mili-
tary’s Project Maven is seeking to address the growing challenge of ana-
lyzing the incoming avalanche of data fast enough and effectively enough
to maximize its value. To enhance the U.S. military’s ability to strike
time-sensitive targets, the project has been looking at turning drone sur-
veillance footage into useful intelligence through machine learning more
quickly than can be accomplished by human analysts. One general in-
volved with the effort was so impressed that he recommended that “the
Department of Defense should never buy another weapons system . . .
without artificial intelligence baked into it.”13
The scouting competition involves actions taken to identify what the
enemy is up to, while denying the enemy similar information regarding
 Disruptive Technologies 91

friendly forces, intentions, operations, and capabilities. This includes

efforts to deceive the enemy, actively feeding its scouting forces informa-
tion on what friendly forces are not up to. Recent advances in deep-
learning systems find them generating high-resolution, believable images
of key civilian and military leaders, as well as scenery (including key geo-
graphic features) and objects, such as ships, planes, and tanks. To the ex-
tent such images can confound humans, success in determining the
difference between what images scouting forces are providing that is real
and what is not may come down to which side’s AI algorithms can best
identify the other’s deceptions within the context of “algorithmic war-
fare.” Belligerents could also employ AI to generate large quantities of
seemingly interesting—but false—data to saturate an enemy’s AI analytic
processing capacity.14
The success of scouting efforts can enhance an RSC’s effectiveness by
enhancing its speed of action, also known as the “engagement sequence”
or “kill chain.” But speed of action is also a function of how rapidly scout-
ing information can reach the commander; how promptly a decision is
made on whether and how to act; coordinating that action; and how
quickly weapons can be dispatched to their targets. It also depends on the
target itself. Scouting that reveals a fixed target, all other factors being
equal, does not require as compressed an engagement time as a mobile
target whose location can change as a function of its speed and the lag be-
tween its detection and engagement. The sequence of detecting, deciding,
acting, and assessing the results may be enhanced by AI-powered intelli-
gence analysis and decision support. Consider, for example, the U.S. Na-
tional Reconnaissance Office’s (NRO’s) Sentient program.15
The NRO is responsible for designing, acquiring, and operating the
United States’ reconnaissance satellites. Its AI program, called Sentient,
is purportedly designed to receive and crunch vast amounts of data, ana-
lyze it, and orient U.S. satellites on those things that will yield the best
results. In theory, Sentient could be asked to work with images produced
from NRO, military, and commercial satellites, along with additional rel-
evant intelligence—an avalanche of data that would overwhelm the
NRO’s human analysts. An NRO official states that, armed with this
data, “Sentient catalogs normal patterns, detects anomalies, and helps
forecast and model adversaries’ potential courses of action. . . . Sentient is
a thinking system.” Ideally, Sentient could provide early warning of an
attack by detecting patterns and anomalies related to rival military troop
movements and communications patterns that human analysis might
92 Part 1

miss. According to the NRO, “Sentient aims to help analysts ‘connect the
dots’ in a large volume of data.”16
Sentient’s success depends, in large measure, on the quantity and
quality of the data with which it is provided. With this in mind, the NRO
has contracted with private firms to provide data that can be fed to Sen-
tient. One firm, Maxar, provides high-resolution satellite imagery. An-
other, Planet, operates a CubeSat constellation that images all the Earth’s
land each day. A third firm, BlackSky, “hoovers up” data from twenty-five
satellites, more than 40,000 news sources, some 100 million mobile de-
vices, roughly 70,000 ships and planes, eight social networks, and about
5,000 environmental sensors. BlackSky provides this data as raw material
for big-data analytics to refine for machine learning to aid the NRO in
focusing its satellites more effectively, while alerting human analysts to
key patterns and insights.17
The need for AI support is especially acute in situations where the
engagement sequence is highly compressed and must be sustained. Those
of a certain age may recall an early video game called Space Invaders, in
which the player was tasked with “shooting” down hostile aliens de-
scending down the screen from the “sky.” As the game progressed, the
aliens descended more rapidly, eventually overwhelming all but the most
skilled players. The problem is similar to those who are tasked with de-
fending against cyber and missile attacks. Such situations threaten to
overwhelm the decision and reaction abilities of even highly capable,
well-trained humans. In situations like these, the challenge involves not
only reacting promptly and effectively to an attack but sustaining that re-
action for as long as the attack persists, which could extend over minutes,
hours, or (in the case of cyber) even weeks.
Looking to the future, the “space invaders” may appear in new forms,
such as drone swarms (as they do in many of today’s action films), hyper-
sonic missiles, or cyber payloads. For example, consider an aircraft carrier
under attack by large numbers of ballistic and hypersonic cruise missiles.
Defending effectively against such an attack depends on rapidly process-
ing and analyzing large volumes of data, using the results to prioritize tar-
gets, identifying engagement options, and selecting the appropriate one.18
The speed at which this must occur and the time over which it might
have to be sustained will probably overwhelm a human’s ability to manage
the carrier’s defense effectively. Advances in machine learning may enable
effective autonomous behavior in such circumstances. Recent years have
seen dramatic improvements in signal-processing applications, which can
 Disruptive Technologies 93

accelerate and enhance the integration of data generated by a sensor net-

work. The combination of AI and sensor fusion can assist in determining
those attackers that should be engaged, in what sequence, and the best in-
terceptors to employ.19 A precursor of this “algorithmic warfare” occurred
during the rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza in 2021. Iron Dome, Israel’s
missile defense system, was crucial in limiting the damage from these
attacks. When the rocket attacks came in large salvos—a “downpour” of
rockets—an AI-directed computer determined when and where to fire
Israeli interceptors.20

AI-Enabled Swarms
On the night of January 5–6, 2018, unknown assailants mounted an attack
with thirteen armed aerial drones against the Russian airbase at Hmeimim
and the neighboring naval base at Tartus, both in Syria.21 The Russians de-
feated the attack using a combination of anti-aircraft defenses and elec-
tronic warfare. On September 14, 2019, more than twenty explosive-laden
drones launched by Iran or one of its proxies struck Saudi Arabia’s oil
facilities at Abqaiq, the world’s largest crude-oil-stabilization facility. The
drones knocked out some 5.7 million barrels a day of oil production, or
roughly 5 percent of the world’s total.22
Although these attacks were coordinated, it appears unlikely that the
drones were controlled by a single, AI-based swarming algorithm.23
Swarming attacks may appear amorphous; however, as defined here,
they are deliberately structured and coordinated, capable of being
executed from multiple directions.24 Over time, advances in AI may
enable highly coordinated attacks by hundreds or even thousands of
autonomous systems, something that would be infeasible for human
controllers.25
What will happen when defenders are confronted by a much larger
drone attack employing sophisticated AI-based control? The question
may have been fanciful a few years ago. It seems far less so now.26 In early
2019, Iran conducted an exercise called “Way to Jerusalem,” comprising
fifty drones that Tehran asserted operated in a coordinated manner to
strike predetermined targets in an area extending over 500 miles.27
The world’s leading militaries are looking to leverage AI to enable their
drones to operate in swarms. In January 2017, the U.S. Navy tested a swarm
of 103 drones launched from three F/A-18 aircraft. The drones communi-
cated with each other independent of human control and demonstrated
94 Part 1

advanced swarm behaviors such as collective decision-making, adaptive for-

mation flying, and self-healing.28
The U.S. Navy is not the only service in the U.S. military exploring
the potential of swarms. A U.S. Air Force effort, Golden Horde, links
precision-guided munitions with the Miniature Air-Launched Decoy
(MALD) to operate as an autonomous swarm after being launched. The
swarm could help aircraft penetrate enemy air defenses by deceiving or
simply overwhelming them. They could also be instructed to prioritize
particular targets and to engage any “pop-up” targets that appear unex-
pectedly during their flight. If some drones in the swarm are equipped
with sensors and communications, they could perform battle damage as-
sessment by transmitting images of the target immediately prior to and
following a weapon’s impact. This data could be fed into a computer’s AI
algorithm whose purpose is to rapidly, continuously, and autonomously
shift the drones’ target priorities as needed. Progress to date has been
encouraging. A test at White Sands, New Mexico, in May 2021 saw two
F-16 aircraft simultaneously releasing their weapons—four from one air-
craft and two from the other—whereupon the weapons established com-
munications with each other, receiving in-flight target updates from a
ground station directing them to shift their focus to a higher-priority
target. The test also successfully found two weapons executing a syn-
chronized simultaneous time-on-target attack.29
The United States is far from the only country pursuing swarm tech-
nology. At the close of China’s Global Fortune Forum in Guangzhou on
December 7, 2018, the hosts set a world record for the largest drone
swarm ever deployed. For nearly ten minutes, 1,180 drones maneuvered
as a group, dancing and flashing lights in coordination as part of an aerial
show. The firm providing the swarm, Ehang, prices each drone at
roughly $1,500, including the data links and software used to operate it.
These drones can maneuver within a flight deviancy of two centimeters
horizontally and one centimeter vertically. If a drone can’t reach its pro-
grammed position, it automatically lands rather than threatening the
swarm’s integrity.30
China has ambitious plans for its swarms. One involves taking drone
swarms into near space, as part of a “combined arms” strike force of
stealth drones, hypersonic vehicles, and high-altitude airships. A highly
complex, heterogeneous swarm integrating scouting, command and con-
trol, and strike elements could be released by manned aircraft, such as
fighters and bombers, and even other drones.31 If the PLA realizes its
 Disruptive Technologies 95

vision, it will have created a new type of AI-driven reconnaissance-strike

complex capable of significantly compressing the engagement sequence.
Swarm operations would not necessarily be limited to the air do-
main. Consider, for example, advanced anti-ship mines. Mobile smart
mines could operate as a swarm, positioning themselves as a minefield
and maintaining that field, despite enemy minesweeping operations, by
detecting where gaps appear in the field and closing them on the basis of
which geographic locations (such as choke points) have coverage priority.
Correspondingly, the defender, depending on the sophistication of its AI,
could employ underwater drones in minesweeping hunter-killer groups
directed to locate, disable, and/or destroy the AI-directed minefield
swarm.32
The development of swarms may be limited less by advances in AI
than by other factors, such as propulsion and communications. The rela-
tively unsophisticated drone attacks described here, involving large num-
bers of small drones carrying modest payloads, suggest that they may be
very limited in range. Of course, drones could be delivered by long-
range systems, such as stealthy bombers or large “arsenal drone” aircraft.
Yet even simple swarms could attack highly valuable targets, especially
those in which only a small amount of explosives or shrapnel are needed
to destroy or disable the target. In fact, many large, complex platforms
like warships and aircraft are highly dependent on “soft” components
such as radars and stealth coatings that even a small explosive charge,
properly placed, could render ineffective. Drone swarms may also be
particularly well suited to attacking electric-power-grid substations and
other key fixed critical infrastructure.
For instance, assume that small drones armed with modest payloads
could be launched close enough to an aircraft carrier—say, by submarine,
by commercial craft, or from shore as the carrier transits a chokepoint.
Current air defenses may be sorely tested against a swarm of hundreds of
such attackers.33 What options are open to the defender? One possibility
is a wide-area weapon similar to a shotgun, whose bursts might eviscer-
ate a swarm of small, fragile drones. Advances in high-energy lasers,
powder guns, and rail guns might also enable effective defenses against
swarm attacks. Much, of course, would depend on their rate of fire and
ability to target and engage effectively at high speeds. This may require
AI-driven decision-making, particularly with respect to target identifica-
tion and prioritization, especially in situations where the attacks persist
beyond a few minutes or so.
96 Part 1

Owing to the increasing efficiency, scalability, and diffusion of AI

systems, it hardly seems far-fetched to envision their being employed to
expand the size, speed, and complexity at which attacks can be carried
out. Of course, as the number of prospective actors capable of undertak-
ing such attacks expands, it may become increasingly difficult to identify
the true source of an attack.34

The Democratization of Destruction

The proliferation of advanced military capabilities, combined with the
prospective low barriers to entry for competing at a high level in several
emerging warfare areas—such as in cyber and biological warfare—has
produced a “democratization of destruction” that finds even small groups
having the potential to inflict damage far exceeding what comparably
sized groups were able to do only a generation ago. As evidenced by con-
flicts such as the Second Lebanon War, Russian “Little Green Men” oper-
ations in Ukraine, and the growth of nonstate ransomware attacks on
critical economic infrastructure, the gap between the destructive potential
of state and nonstate forces has greatly diminished in recent decades.35
Swarm operations are enabled by the proliferation of unmanned
ground, sea, and air platforms directed by AI. Access to both is becoming
increasingly available to those who are willing and able to pay the price.
The market for commercial drones exceeded $22 billion in 2020, and
some observers expect it will double by 2025.36
Drones are becoming increasingly available as prices are declining,
roughly mirroring our experience with computers. A small rotary-wing
drone sells on the Chinese firm Alibaba’s website for around $400. Made
of carbon fiber, it uses GPS and inertial navigation for guidance, employs
autonomous flight controls, and includes both a thermal sensor and
sonar ranging. This UAV also offers full-motion video and carries a one-
kilogram (2.54-pound) payload with eighteen minutes’ endurance.37
Sales of quadcopter drones are expanding rapidly. Precise figures are dif-
ficult to obtain, but estimates are that annual consumer drone sales have
surpassed the million mark.38 In the United States alone, there are more
than 120,000 commercial drone pilots and 800,000 drone hobbyists.39
The same trend is evident with undersea drones. A relatively cheap Chi-
nese UUV, the Haiyan, carries a multiple-sensor payload and can cruise
at four knots up to a range of roughly 650 miles, reach a depth of 1,000
meters, and sustain itself for thirty days.40
 Disruptive Technologies 97

Although minor powers and nonstate groups may find it too costly
or too technically challenging to develop the AI that can transform
drones into swarms, the barriers to acquiring it may not be unsurmount-
able. New commercial AI algorithms are sometimes copied and spread in
a matter of weeks.41 As is often the case with commercial software, some
may be adopted for military use. And even though it’s reasonable to as-
sume that the algorithms that drive AI military systems will be carefully
protected, the history of cyber espionage suggests that determined pene-
tration efforts by an advanced cyber power, or even a criminal group, can
succeed. Thus, it’s not unreasonable to posit that sophisticated AI-driven
systems may become widely available. In fact, the growth in drone capa-
bility and sales is complemented by the increasing availability of autono-
mous navigation and control systems and small, high-quality cameras
capable of being placed aboard these drones. Efforts like Buzz, an open-
source programming language specifically designed for understanding
and predicting swarm behavior, may speed the development of swarming
for less advanced militaries and even nonstate groups.42
These trends suggest that relatively primitive drone swarm attacks
could be employed even by nonstate groups like Hezbollah. Swarm at-
tacks could, for example, disrupt operations at a U.S. Marine Corps air-
craft forward arming and refueling point (FARP). The FARP’s fuel and
munitions stores, along with communications antennas and other “soft”
targets, could be attractive targets for drones with relatively small explo-
sive payloads. Rather than attempting precision targeting, a swarm of
hundreds of small fixed- or rotor-wing UAVs could overwhelm the
FARP’s defenses, either by presenting more targets than the defenders
could engage simultaneously or by exhausting their counter-swarm
weapon magazines. That being said, depending on the defending sys-
tems’ AI, it may prove possible to defeat the attacking swarm with a
counter-swarm, roughly similar to what the Israelis have been able to do
with Iron Dome against Palestinian rocket attacks. In this example, the
Marine unit defending the FARP would launch its own swarm, featuring
drones with superior agility relative to the attacking swarm, intercepting
the attacking drones before they can put the FARP out of action.43
Other swarm operations could employ simple quadcopter drones
armed with small payloads and sensors to detect enemy communications
in their vicinity. Once detected, the quadcopter drone could fly to the
communications emitter and self-detonate. Assuming modest defenses,
which should be able to detect a simple drone quadcopter, the attack may
98 Part 1

require a swarm to succeed. If the targeted emitter stops transmitting be-

fore the UAV detonates, the remaining drones, no longer sensing radio
frequency emissions, could return to their dormant state until activated
by their sensors.
Another possible counter to this form of attack might see the de-
fender using cheap false emitters to draw the attackers away from the
real communications systems. Still another defensive tactic could find a
networked communications system varying those emitters that are in use
at any one time. By turning systems on and off, the defender could in-
duce the drones to exhaust their relatively small fuel payload. A counter-
move by the offense could have drones striking a target once it has been
identified, whether or not its emissions have ceased. In addition to assist-
ing the attacking drones in identifying targets and coordinating the at-
tack, AI may also prove valuable in helping the swarm distinguish true
from false emitters.44
Advances in AI image recognition may also enable precision target-
ing, even by relatively unsophisticated actors. In less than a decade, the
best AI systems improved from correctly categorizing around 70 percent
of images presented to them to 98 percent, topping the human bench-
mark of 95 percent. This suggests that autonomous weapon systems,
such as drones, may be equipped with AI that enables them to recognize
a target’s face.45 The implications are sobering. On November 12, 2017, a
video called “Slaughterbots” was posted on YouTube. It is set in a future
in which small drones fitted with facial-recognition systems and shaped
explosive charges seek out and kill specific individuals or classes of indi-
viduals, such as those wearing a particular uniform. These kinds of at-
tacks may appear the stuff of fantasy, but given the recent advances in AI
and drones just described, it would be foolish to discount them. In fact,
the robotics expert Paul Scharre believes that “ultra-cheap 3D-printed
mini-drones could allow the United States to field billions—yes, billions
—of tiny, insect-like drones.”46

Blood and Treasure

There’s a saying in the U.S. military: “Never send a soldier when you can
send a bullet.” This is generally true in Western societies, which place a
high value on human life. The shift toward professional (“volunteer”)
militaries in the leading Western powers and in several other military
powers, combined with sharply lower birthrates in advanced economic
 Disruptive Technologies 99

societies, has made recruiting, training, and retaining members of the

armed forces an increasingly expensive proposition. As military organiza-
tions never seem to have enough funding to do all that is demanded of
them, substituting AI-enabled autonomous robots for troops represents
an increasingly attractive proposition. The retired British Army general
Sir Richard Barros put it bluntly: “You can send your children to fight
. . . and do terrible things, or you can send your machines and hang on to
your children.” He might have added that robots don’t get tired or sick
or have families that worry over their welfare. And as one former senior
British officer pointed out, “The thing about robots is they don’t have
pensions.”47

AI and Cyber-Warfare Attacks

Progress in AI seems likely to exert a strong influence on the cyber com-
petition. Autonomous decision-making within a system resides in its
software. The more complex the AI’s decision-making environment, the
more complex the software is likely to be. Autonomous decision-making
systems will generally have, among other things, organic sensors, a body
of stored information, and an ability to receive and implement software
updates. If these systems are mobile, they will typically have precision
navigation and timing (PNT) and collision-avoidance capabilities. They
may also possess self-diagnostics and contingency fail-safe elements.48 All
these provide potential entry points for launching cyber attacks against
them. AI can enhance the chances of successfully hacking autonomous
decision-making systems.49
Consider the advanced persistent threat (APT), in which the at-
tacker, typically a state or state-sponsored group, actively exploits weak-
nesses in the defender’s cyber security to gain access to its computer
network, intending to remain undetected while it manipulates the net-
work for its own purposes, such as by introducing malware. Generating
APTs is labor intensive, requiring highly skilled individuals. With ad-
vances in machine learning and AI, the process of searching for network
vulnerabilities could be increasingly automated, enabling sophisticated
attempts to penetrate networks to occur at a far greater rate. Should this
prove out, the limiting factor in developing APTs could become capital,
in the form of machine learning and AI, rather than labor. If so, any
group possessing the financial resources to buy an AI-driven APT capa-
bility could greatly enhance its offensive cyber-warfare potential. This
100 Part 1

may be possible even for groups with only basic knowledge of cyber op-
erations. In theory, one would simply put a turnkey AI system to work.
As the cost of replicating AI software is negligible, the barriers to prolif-
erating APTs could be greatly reduced.50
Today mounting cyber attacks typically requires choosing between
the frequency and scale of attacks, on the one hand, and their effective-
ness on the other. This is the case with “phishing” and “spear phishing.”
Phishing attacks involve sending out general messages to a large number
of recipients. They are used despite their very low success rates simply
because of the huge number of targets being attacked. Nearly everyone
has received an email message directed to a general audience that en-
courages them to click on an icon or web address that will download
malware onto their computer or to reveal personal or proprietary infor-
mation. Most recipients simply delete the email. A small percentage,
however, do not.
Spear phishing, on the other hand, is a kind of “designer” phishing
that involves tailoring email messages to specific groups or individuals.
The objective is to convince the recipient that the email is from an indi-
vidual or organization that they know and trust, such as a friend, co-
worker, or employer. For example, in 2019, hackers infiltrated Redbanc,
an interbank network connecting Chile’s ATM system. To do so, they
faked a lengthy hiring process, complete with rounds of video interviews,
to dupe a single employee into downloading and running their malware.
The time, effort, and skill devoted to spear phishing is rewarded by the
significantly greater probability of success relative to simple phishing. It
also makes spear phishing relatively expensive. If, however, a significant
portion of the work involved can be automated with AI, it might be pos-
sible to undertake spear-phishing attacks more effectively and on a larger
scale.51

AI and Cyber Defense

The cyber competition appears to favor the offense. That is to say, given
equal resources to the offense and the defense, the attacker will typically
prevail. The potential use of AI to enhance offensive cyber operations
only further complicates matters for cyber defense. As is the case with
other areas of military competition, however, AI works both sides of the
street and is capable of aiding the defense as well as the offense. How is
this done?
 Disruptive Technologies 101

When a cyber attack is executed against a set of specific targets, it

leaves behind forensic artifacts or digital clues produced during the
course of the attack. An attack typically finds the attacker first undertak-
ing reconnaissance activities to identify weaknesses. The attacker exploits
those weaknesses in executing an attack.52
Most defenses today are optimized against known threats. To enhance
cyber defenses, it’s essential to cull information about previous attacks on
other, similar targets that can be used to defeat future attempts to com-
promise the defended system.53 Sophisticated cyber defenses rely on
amassing large quantities of data to provide the raw material for big-data
analytics. This is very labor intensive, requiring the talents of highly
skilled individuals. Some experts believe that a combination of AI and ma-
chine learning can enable cyber defenders not only to learn from previous
attacks but to identify ongoing anomalous behavior in cyberspace to
thwart as-yet-unknown threats.54 For example, big-data analytics can be
used to baseline network traffic and machine interaction patterns. This
baseline can be exploited through machine learning to identify anomalies
in the traffic with an eye toward detecting the early warning signs of
enemy probing activity or of an attack that is being prepared or under
way. This can enable the AI to identify and block novel attacks, conduct
forensic activities, and undertake repairs or patches in the system’s de-
fenses before the attacker can initiate a modified follow-on attack. And it
could do so at speeds that would be impossible for humans to match,
while sustaining its defensive efforts over an extended period of time.55
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),
the Pentagon’s cutting-edge technology research and development arm,
is working to leverage advances in big-data analytics and machine learn-
ing to enhance cyber defenses. A DARPA program called Cyber Hunting
at Scale (CHASE) combines computer automation and advanced algo-
rithms and data-processing speeds to track large volumes of data in real
time, enabling human cyber defenders to identify sophisticated attacks
that might otherwise remain hidden among the flood of data entering
the system.56 Put another way, AI enables the defense to examine and an-
alyze a far greater percentage of incoming data than would otherwise be
possible. If DARPA’s effort proves out, it will significantly boost defenses
against more traditional forms of attack, such as commonly used mal-
ware, phishing, and denial-of-service attacks, as well as APTs.57
Yet employing big-data analytics as a key element in cyber defense
poses its own set of challenges, as it requires access to enormous quantities
102 Part 1

of data and associated data sets. This creates a vulnerability, as an attacker

could gain access to the data and manipulate it, thereby corrupting ma-
chine learning and the AI derived from it.58

Logistics
Combining AI and additive manufacturing could revolutionize military
logistics, with regard to both moving supplies and reducing inventory
stockpiles. The commercial sector is leading the way in showing what is
possible. The U.S. railway industry, for example, is creating a network of
internet-linked railcar wheel and track sensors and speed indicators,
along with visual and acoustic sensors embedded in brakes, rails,
switches, and hand-held tablets. The network has been generating large
quantities of data on train movement around the country. This data,
when fed through big-data-analytics-enabled machine learning, is en-
hancing AI’s ability to aid in managing rail traffic.59 Data on the location
of trains and track conditions across the country is analyzed and used to
adjust the routing of thousands of trains in real time. In tests, the system
was able to route roughly 8,000 trains operating in twenty-three states in
the face of multiple track outages without requiring a single train to
stop.60 Similar improvements in military logistics flows seem possible, at
least in peacetime and in secure rear areas in war.
Another commercial business, Amazon, shows how advances in big-
data analytics and machine learning, especially when combined with ro-
botics, can enhance logistics. Amazon is well known for creating models
of its consumers’ purchasing behavior by examining their orders, product
searches, wish lists, and returns to predict what a customer might buy
next. The large-scale positioning of warehouse inventories on the basis
of anticipated demand has dramatically boosted efficiency.61 Demand by
military units for supplies in chaotic wartime situations is likely to be far
more difficult to model using Amazon’s approach; however, it may be
possible for military organizations in peacetime to enhance logistics effi-
ciency by adopting some of the firm’s best practices.
Amazon also uses AI to direct robots moving items in its warehouses.
The firm is exploring how delivery trucks might employ additive manu-
facturing (3D printing) to print customers’ products while on the way to
make deliveries, thereby reducing storage and transportation costs while
compressing delivery times.62 The implications for military logistics are
clear.
 Disruptive Technologies 103

With respect to logistics in wartime, militaries may benefit from

commercial retailers’ efforts to leverage AI in coping with periods of
highly fluctuating demand. For example, Home Depot, the hardware
chain, employs severe-weather prediction analysis to identify and posi-
tion key supply points just outside likely storm impact areas. These ef-
forts also project post-storm shifts in demand for up to six weeks or
more.63
The military has taken note. The U.S. Army contracted IBM’s Wat-
son (whose AI software defeated two Jeopardy quiz-show champions) to
develop detailed maintenance schedules for its Stryker combat vehicle
fleet, drawing on data from sensors installed on each vehicle. A second
project has Watson analyzing the shipping of military repair parts to de-
termine the most time- and cost-efficient means to deliver supplies.
Human analysts working on the problem have saved the Army around
$100 million a year—but could only assess 10 percent of the data. Wat-
son can examine all shipping activity, potentially generating far greater
cost savings, more quickly, and with reduced manpower.64

AI Barriers
Despite the remarkable advances being made with AI, autonomous sys-
tems have exhibited superior performance in only a relatively small per-
centage of tasks that humans are capable of completing. There is also no
consensus regarding how rapidly AI will advance.65 Several variables
could act as accelerators or brakes on AI’s progress and humans’ willing-
ness to embrace it. Having extolled AI’s potential, let’s now turn to the
barriers to its implementation.
Recall that an AI system independently identifies alternative courses
of action on the basis of its knowledge and understanding of the world,
itself, its objective, and the context in which the decision is being made.
Consequently, autonomous systems must respond to situations that are
not preprogrammed or anticipated, as their purpose is to function effec-
tively across a wide range of prospective situations that cannot all be pre-
determined. Obviously, the actions that the AI system takes also cannot
be pretested. Therefore, the possibility of being surprised—for better or
worse—by the AI system’s actions is ever present. The more complex the
situations that autonomous systems are tasked with addressing, the less
likely it is that their human masters will be able to predict their actions
or even control them.66
104 Part 1

The risks are hardly trivial. Although AI can sort through masses of
data faster than armies of human analysts and find patterns that no unaided
human mind would identify, it can also make mistakes that no human brain
would fall for, a phenomenon known as “artificial stupidity.”67 The problem
is inherent in the way AI is created. It’s not the product of line-by-line pro-
gramming; rather, the favored method involves feeding it huge quantities
of data refined through big-data analytics. The data is used to enable ma-
chine learning through trial and error and experience. This method, how-
ever, makes it very difficult for the AI’s creators to understand how it is
learning or the linkages between an AI system’s decision and those factors
that led it to make such a decision. Consider, for instance, the use of AI to
enable driverless cars. As most of us know, when human-driven cars are
waiting at a stop light, drivers often inch forward to try to beat the traffic.
It’s been found that some AI-driven cars occasionally join in, inching for-
ward at a red light even though there is nothing in the rules of driving pro-
vided to the AI to suggest it should act in this manner. The AI learned this
behavior, but its creators don’t know how or why. You don’t need a malevo-
lent AI to cause problems, just an AI that can generate some unwelcome
surprises. What is AI learning that it is not “telling” us? Can we anticipate
unexpected and unwanted AI decisions as its learning progresses?68
Some AI experiments serve as examples of this all-too-real problem.
In one experiment, reminiscent of the runaway brooms in The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice, a robot prototype was programmed to put warehouse boxes
down a chute. A surveillance camera monitored its progress so the robot
could be deactivated when needed. The robot, however, learned to block
the camera so it could keep doing its job of stuffing boxes down the
chute. In this context, the consequences of the robot’s actions were rela-
tively harmless. Yet it does not take much imagination to envision an AI
fire-control system designed to engage incoming high-speed missiles en-
gaging inbound friendly aircraft as well.
Big-data analytics will play an important role in determining how in-
telligent AI will become and how quickly this will happen. This is because
the machine-learning algorithms that form the basis for AI are only as
good as the data sets that constitute the raw material for its training. Raw
data is a poor diet for machine-learning algorithms, especially in their in-
fancy. These algorithms need well-labeled data to provide a baseline of
truth against which they can check their conclusions. Does a video feed
reveal an enemy tank column or a line of decoys? Do reconnaissance
 Disruptive Technologies 105

photographs show a terrorist camp or a group of refugees? Are signals

detecting an important coded transmission or simply static? A data set
that is too small, poorly labeled, plagued with inaccuracies, or corrupted
by malicious actors can undermine the development of effective AI. In
such instances, big-data analytics becomes a big problem.69
A clever enemy will try to corrupt the data set being used to train AI.
Since getting enough good data to feed into the machine-learning pro-
cess is often difficult, many data sets are widely shared, narrowing the
problem for an enemy trying to compromise their value. Even more
worrisome, an enemy military or intelligence organization that has pene-
trated a database may be able to feed its rival false data in an attempt to
“turn” its AI to learn the “reality” that the enemy wants it to know.
The risks associated with rogue AI behavior may be particularly
acute in cases where large numbers of robots are controlled by an AI sys-
tem that runs on a centralized server, or if many robots are controlled by
identical AI systems. In such cases, if the AI receives the same corrupted
stimuli, it could produce large-scale, simultaneous friendly force failures.
For example, a successful enemy attack on a friendly server on which AI
is directing autonomous weapon systems could trigger catastrophic con-
sequences in several ways. The AI might order a massive attack on
friendly forces or strikes on noncombatants. Of course, it’s possible that
since AI may take undesirable actions, enemy efforts to undermine AI-
driven actions may backfire. For example, the AI could launch attacks
against enemy targets that result in friendly forces taking actions that
cross the enemy’s “red lines,” triggering an unintended—and undesirable
from the enemy’s perspective—escalation of the war.70
If the enemy succeeds in corrupting the data being used to develop
AI, it may be especially hard to diagnose why the AI system is misbehav-
ing. This is because the inner workings of machine-learning algorithms
are often notoriously opaque and unpredictable, even to their designers.
This hardly inspires confidence among military organizations when con-
templating shifting life-and-death decisions away from humans and to
the “ghost in the machine.”71 But given the highly compressed engage-
ment time frames associated with many operations, such as air, missile,
and cyber defense, the pressure to do so may prove irresistible, even
though human AI controllers may not realize that their systems have
gone rogue until disaster strikes. Ironically, just where AI support is
needed most, it also poses the greatest risks.72
106 Part 1

Summary
Recent decades have witnessed impressive advances in artificial intelli-
gence. But as much as humans endeavor to put AI to work for them, it
has a mind of its own and an ability to act—for good or ill—on what it
has learned. It will not be motivated by any sense of kindness or malevo-
lence. It will not feel any satisfaction or remorse from its actions, or grow
weary in its tasks, suffer from burnout, call in sick, or negotiate for im-
proved working conditions.
If AI advances, it will almost certainly exert a significant—and poten-
tially profound—influence on the military balance and on the character
of warfare, even its frequency. As the U.S. National Intelligence Council
concluded, “The increasing automation of strike systems, including un-
manned, armed drones, and the spread of truly autonomous weapon sys-
tems potentially lowers the threshold for initiating conflict, because
fewer lives would be at risk.”73
Given this prognosis, any military that is not on the cutting edge of
developments in AI risks finding itself at a major disadvantage. Conse-
quently, it will be difficult for any military with the means to compete to
refrain from doing so. Moreover, unlike the development of nuclear
weapons or ballistic missiles, militaries do not exercise a monopoly when
it comes to AI. Today many commercial firms are actively pushing the
envelope of AI development. Whether we like it or not, the AI genie is
out of the bottle.
That said, AI is truly a double-edged sword, its “thinking” not fully
transparent to its makers. Yet that’s precisely the point: AI’s value—and
its danger—is inherently in its ability to surprise, to reveal “solutions” to
problems that have evaded the human mind, and to act on them.

Additive Manufacturing: Doing More, and Better, with Less

Additive manufacturing (AM), often referred to as “3D manufacturing”
(or “3D printing”), holds the promise of introducing a Fourth Industrial
Revolution.74 The First Industrial Revolution emerged in the late 1700s
and early 1800s and saw the invention of the steam engine, the power
loom, and the telegraph. These advances laid the groundwork for the
first wave of economic globalization. In the late 1800s, the introduction
of the telephone and wireless (radio) further enhanced communication,
and the invention of the lightbulb and the electric motor saw countries
 Disruptive Technologies 107

tapping electricity’s vast potential. Henry Ford’s introduction of the first

assembly line in 1913 made this Second Industrial Revolution the “mass-
production” revolution, reducing the time to build his Model T car by
over two-thirds.75
Following World War II, a Third Industrial Revolution emerged
with the invention of the integrated circuit and the birth of the semicon-
ductor industry. Beginning in the 1970s, inventions such as the personal
computer, followed later by the internet, made prompt access to large
amounts of information ubiquitous. In the manufacturing sector, much
of what was once accomplished through mechanical processes became
automated, thanks to computer systems and robotics. It was during this
time that 3D printing first appeared, in 1981, employing a process
known as “stereolithography.”
Early on, AM machines could only print with one material at a time,
greatly limiting their value. Gradually 3D printers acquired the ability to
employ multiple materials simultaneously. Although early AM processes
employed only plastics, current 3D printers can combine many materials
together seamlessly, enabling the manufacturing of a range of compos-
ites.76 Today there are 3D printers that can print using more than 100
materials. The expanding sophistication of the additive manufacturing
process recently led to experimenting with organic materials.77
Some people believe that the world stands on the cusp of a potential
Fourth Industrial Revolution based on digital manufacturing and “smart”
production. One harbinger of the revolution is the slowing of the shift of
manufacturing from advanced to low-cost economies. This stems from
two major trends: an increase in productivity in highly advanced indus-
trial societies driven by cutting-edge robotics and artificial intelligence;
and 3D printing’s growing ability to manufacture custom goods rela-
tively cheaply at any time and in any place.

Additive Versus Subtractive Manufacturing

By using digital instructions and laying down successive layers of raw
materials, 3D manufacturing creates a solid, three-dimensional object.
There are several methods of 3D printing, including material jetting,
powder-bed fusion, and photo-polymerization.78 The choice of method
depends on the product being printed, its specifications and quality, the
choice of materials, and production speed.79
108 Part 1

Additive manufacturing represents a fundamental shift from subtrac-

tive manufacturing (SM), which dominated production through the ear-
lier industrial revolutions. Subtractive manufacturing enables the mass
production of products at high speeds, but it also produces significantly
more waste than AM and is more limited in the structures that it can
produce. By reducing the time needed for tooling and product assembly,
compressing production lead times and minimizing material waste, addi-
tive manufacturing can increase the rate of innovation, expand specializa-
tion, and enhance supply-chain efficiency.80
Consider the difference between AM and SM in producing a tool
such as a hammer. Subtractive manufacturing takes a block of raw mate-
rial and removes the excess until the finished product remains, leaving
considerable waste as a by-product. The AM process simply adds the ma-
terial that is needed to create the hammer, making production more effi-
cient and less wasteful. Moreover, additive manufacturing offers
“complexity for free.” With subtractive manufacturing, increasing design
complexity increases costs. With an AM printer, costs are roughly the
same for producing complex objects as they are for simple ones. Once
the digital design is completed, creating a complicated shape does not re-
quire more time, skill, or cost than printing a simple cube.81
Additive manufacturing can also produce objects that cannot be built
using subtractive manufacturing processes. The 3D printer’s process of
applying layer-by-layer additions enables the designer to optimize a
component’s strength, durability, and other material properties, making
possible the production of a wide range of novel materials with variable
properties, such as stiffness and conductivity.82 In the aerospace industry,
for example, a premium is often placed on materials with high strength
and low weight. Using 3D printing, manufacturers can hollow out parts
to make an aircraft lighter and more fuel-efficient.83 Saving weight can
be translated into savings on fuel consumption or increases in an air-
craft’s range, speed, or weapons payload. Unlike SM, with AM it’s possi-
ble to produce a component that has greater material strength only
where it is needed and less where it is not.84
Thus, AM also facilitates manufacturing complex components, such
as those incorporating honeycombing. Furthermore, intricate mechani-
cal parts, such as an encased set of gears, can be made without requiring
the assembly of component parts. For example, GE Aviation has manu-
factured more than 45,000 jet-engine fuel nozzles using 3D printing.
The nozzles are produced as a single component, as opposed to being
 Disruptive Technologies 109

assembled from nearly two dozen separately cast parts using subtractive
manufacturing.85 When Boeing applied AM to the F-18 fighter’s envi-
ronmental control system duct, sixteen component parts were reduced to
one.86 The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
is using 3D printing to make parts for its rocket engines.87 Perhaps even
more impressive, the U.S. firm Aerojet Rocketdyne successfully built and
tested an engine that normally includes dozens of parts using only addi-
tive manufacturing. The AM version, however, had only three compo-
nents: the injector and dome assembly; the combustion chamber; and a
throat and nozzle section.
Finally, a component’s design and specifications can be changed and
the new product produced far more rapidly, and at far less cost, using
AM as opposed to subtractive manufacturing, especially in cases where
retooling is required.88 Today additive manufacturing is turning out a
wide range of products, from the soles for Adidas athletic shoes to re-
placement parts for nuclear weapons and the International Space Sta-
tion.89 And it appears we are only at the beginning of what this new form
of manufacturing can accomplish, with the world’s leading militaries po-
tentially realizing major enhancements in systems development and pro-
duction, logistics, and readiness.

Implications
Additive manufacturing could yield significant cost savings in military
system development and production. As mentioned earlier, by reducing
the need for high-cost traditional manufacturing facilities and lowering
labor costs, AI can assist the defense industrial base (DIB) in realizing
substantial efficiency gains, freeing up significant resources to address
other military priorities. By avoiding the expense associated with stand-
ing up unique tooling and facilities, AM can make modifications more
quickly and cheaply than traditional manufacturing processes can.90 This
can compress engineering cycles, aiding a military’s efforts to adapt more
effectively in a turbulent threat environment.
Relative to SM processes, additive manufacturing can save substantial
amounts of energy, both in the manufacturing process and in the created
product. This is particularly relevant for industries requiring low-volume,
high-value parts, such as those in the aerospace, military, and nuclear
sectors. This is accomplished by AM eliminating production steps, reduc-
ing raw-material wastage, reusing by-products, and producing lighter,
110 Part 1

more fuel-efficient components. Consider satellite manufacturing, for ex-

ample. Satellites, as well as the launch vehicles that boost them into space,
require intricately designed parts to reduce weight to an absolute mini-
mum while conserving the use of scarce payload space. Moreover, many
satellite and launch-vehicle parts are needed only in very small quantities,
making them very expensive to fabricate using subtractive manufacturing
technologies requiring expensive machine tools. These types of parts can
often be produced more quickly and relatively cheaply using additive
manufacturing.91
Employing purpose-designed materials is also possible with 3D
printing, such as novel alloys with chemical and physical characteristics
designed specifically to support the item being produced. For example,
high-performance magnets or materials with smart technology (such as
sensors) can be built directly into the material structure.92 By reducing
the need for factories and labor, 3D printing could see a return of manu-
facturing to the more advanced industrial states. This could reduce the
risk associated with military systems that rely on global supply chains for
key components.93
Additive manufacturing could enhance military logistics by moving
some manufacturing closer to the front lines, producing parts on demand
where and as they are needed.94 3D printers can use diverse raw materials
to produce a wide variety of parts, thereby enhancing the logistics sys-
tem’s flexibility.95 This represents a major shift from traditional military
supply-chain procedures, in which warehouses stock multiple items in
various sizes, attempting to ensure that the necessary equipment is on
hand when needed. Physical and fiscal constraints, however, impose lim-
its on the range and quantities of equipment and parts that can be kept
on hand. With AM, it’s possible to envision supply points equipped with
3D printers and the raw materials that can create parts as needed—“just-
in-time logistics”—and only the parts that are needed.
Militaries clearly see AM’s potential. The U.S. Navy, for example, has
3D printers aboard the Essex, an amphibious assault ship, and is using
them to produce customized drones. The most advanced 3D printers can
even produce the drone’s electronics and seamlessly integrate them into
the finished product.96 This enables the ship’s crew to save space—always
at a premium on ships—by stocking only basic raw materials and then
printing parts on an as-needed basis.
AM continues to gain market share. An experiment introducing AM
into a traditional warehouse operation in 2014 found expenses reduced
 Disruptive Technologies 111

by between 70 and 85 percent of the traditional supply-chain costs, with

the greatest savings in transportation costs. Significant economies (17
percent of the total) were also realized from reduced inventory.97
In wartime conditions, the savings generated from AM from these
second-order effects could be profound. Think of military truck supply
convoys, even those moving in a relatively safe environment, soaking up
costly manpower and consuming large quantities of fuel. Casualties and
equipment losses from attacks on convoys can be significant, as can be
seen by the damage caused by IEDs against U.S. troops in Afghanistan
and Iraq.98 By reducing the need for troops and trucks moving supplies
and their escorts, as well as the size and number of supply points and
their security details, additive manufacturing can exert a significant
indirect influence on logistics requirements. Signs of AM influence in
combat zones are already being seen. The U.S. Army, for example, de-
ployed 3D printers to Afghanistan to provide soldiers with small parts on
demand.99
Additive manufacturing processes can cut costs in other ways. For
example, today’s 3D printers can repair metal parts when a portion of the
part is damaged, instead of the supply system being tasked to purchase or
produce a new part. Moreover, when a manufacturer discontinues a
product or component, it can be difficult or impossible to replace it.
Where possible, additive manufacturing could be employed in creating
replacements for discontinued parts after the original manufacturer has
gone out of business, extending the lives of older military systems and
weapons.100 This is hardly a trivial issue, given that many military sys-
tems’ service lives, such as tanks, ships, and aircraft, can extend over
many decades.
Peering over the horizon, it is far from fantasy to envision a time
when militaries will establish “virtual” equipment inventories of major
combat systems and their components and perhaps even munitions as
well. In the event of war, AM could assist with surge production by print-
ing parts and even major items of equipment. If so, peacetime militaries
could field smaller active forces and correspondingly less equipment.101

Barriers
Although additive manufacturing enjoys advantages over subtractive
manufacturing processes, it also retains significant limitations, especially
in production speed. The AM production process can require hours or
112 Part 1

even days to produce an item. By contrast, once tooling is in place, SM can

typically produce items much more quickly—and if a key part fails on a
warship in combat, it must be replaced immediately, not hours later. Con-
sequently, a balance will need to be established between time-sensitive
“ready spares” and those that could be 3D printed for less critical needs.
Similarly, in situations where battle losses are high, 3D printing
of replacement parts may not be able to meet the military’s needs at a
scale and within the time frame required. Thus, “iron mountains” of
munitions and well-stocked spare-parts “bins” will probably remain an
enduring feature of military logistics—although their contents may
increasingly be created by AM.
There are also concerns regarding the software used to guide the 3D
printing process. The potential for espionage and cyber mischief is clear.
Enemies will attempt to steal the program files that provide 3D printers
with their instructions. If successful, an enemy would have access to in-
formation on how to produce critical military components or even major
weapon systems, greatly aiding its efforts to identify these systems’ weak-
nesses. This could, of course, work both ways. The defender could create
a “honey pot” containing flawed designs that would backfire on the
enemy as it tried to exploit them.
Of course, a hacker could also introduce malware into a 3D printer’s
computer-aided design (CAD) software, corrupting the AM process.
This could manifest itself in a breakdown in production or the fabrica-
tion of flawed parts. Such cyber-data tampering may prove difficult to
prevent or even to identify when it has occurred.102

Summary
Significant progress has been made in additive manufacturing in recent
years in offering enhanced flexibility, significant savings, and greater op-
portunities for innovation relative to subtractive manufacturing. There is
already talk of “4D printing”: printing products capable of changing
form or function over time in response to shifts in their environment.103
Although barriers to AM’s growth remain—such as the threat posed by
corruption of its production software—its overall prospects appear
promising. AM will not displace subtractive manufacturing anytime
soon, but it seems destined to increase its market share relative to SM,
while retaining the potential to greatly enhance, and perhaps transform,
military logistics.
 Disruptive Technologies 113

The Biosciences: CRISPR and “Precision” Bio Warfare

A few years ago the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering,
and Medicine brought together a group of experts to assess the threat of
biological warfare. Upon completing their report, the group’s chair, Mi-
chael Imperiale, a microbiologist at the University of Michigan, declared,
“The U.S. government should pay close attention to this rapidly pro-
gressing field, just as it did to advances in chemistry and physics during
the Cold War era.” He warned of new dangers on the horizon, while
conceding, “It’s impossible to predict when specific enabling develop-
ments will occur; the timelines would depend on commercial develop-
ments as well as academic research, and even converging technologies
that may come outside this field.”104
Broadly speaking, the emerging bio threat presents itself in several
forms. One involves re-creating known pathogenic viruses such as small-
pox. Rare contagious viruses may also be produced against which the
population may have narrow immunity and for which supplies of vac-
cines are inadequate.105 Existing viruses may also be modified in a man-
ner similar to naturally occurring mutations to present them in novel
forms. Another source of concern stems from the growing potential to
create synthetic bio weapons.106
Addressing the full range of existing and emerging biological-
warfare threats is well beyond the scope of this book. The focus here is
on synthetic biology in general and a major breakthrough in the biosci-
ences in particular, known as CRISPR-Cas9.
Britain’s Royal Society defines “synthetic biology” as an area of re-
search involving “the design and construction of novel artificial biological
pathways, organisms or devices, or the redesign of existing natural biolog-
ical systems.”107 Biotechnology involves getting cells to produce proteins
that they would not normally make by cutting a gene out of one organism
and inserting it into another. Protein design and deoxyribonucleic acid
(DNA) synthesis now make it possible to produce proteins that, separately
or together, do things that nature does not. The ability to synthesize
DNA piece by piece emerged in the late 1980s. Being able to write DNA
from scratch allowed metabolic engineers to bring together genes from a
number of different organisms to build new pathways, thus offering the
prospect of making molecules beyond the reach of chemistry. DNA
synthesis became more widely available in the early 2000s, with the first
international conference on synthetic biology held at MIT in 2004.108
114 Part 1

The growth of synthetic biology research has been made possible by

leveraging progress in molecular biology and genetic engineering with
expertise from other branches of biology, as well as the chemical and
physical sciences. Computing power, better machine-learning and
image- and data-analysis software, and even 3D printing are all key con-
tributors to advances in synthetic biotechnology.109

CRISPR-Cas9
Several years ago, I was in a meeting on emerging technologies at the
Center for a New American Security in downtown Washington, D.C. The
center is a public-policy institute, popularly known as a “think tank,” spe-
cializing in national security affairs. Among the people present was Robert
Work, who had recently stepped down from his post as deputy secretary of
defense. Bob and I have known each other for decades, and I was pleased
to find myself seated across from him at the conference table.
The opening discussion covered familiar ground on technologies
such as directed energy, hypersonic propulsion, and robotics. Then the
conversation turned to something called “CRISPR.”
I had no idea what CRISPR was.
Glancing across the table, I could see Bob nodding knowingly as a
colleague spoke of his concerns that CRISPR could be a “game changer”
when it came to the security challenges confronting the United States.
Bob agreed, noting that the issue had attracted attention at the highest
levels of the Obama administration.
My approach in such situations where I am totally clueless about
what is going on is to listen closely to the conversation in the hope that
it will eventually reveal what is being discussed in terms that I can under-
stand.
No such luck.
After what seemed like an eternity—probably five minutes or so—I
leaned across toward Bob and asked, sotto voce, “Bob, what is CRISPR?”
“Gene editing!” came his whispered reply. “It’s a gene-editing tech-
nique that is revolutionizing the bio sciences.”
It was clear I had some serious homework ahead of me.
Bob, as he almost always is, was right. The prospects for disruptive
advances in synthetic biology had received a major boost with the dis-
covery of a new gene-editing technique based on a molecule, CRISPR-
Cas9 or simply CRISPR. CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly
 Disruptive Technologies 115

Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. These are unique DNA se-

quences found in some bacteria and other microorganisms. These se-
quences, along with the genes that are located next to them, termed
“CRISPR-associated” (or “Cas”) genes, constitute an immune system
that protects against viruses and other forms of infectious DNA.
The CRISPR system identifies, cuts, and eliminates DNA. The most
studied CRISPR system is associated with the Cas9 protein, hence
“CRISPR-Cas9.” Beginning in 2012 and 2013, researchers began modi-
fying CRISPR-Cas9 and using it for editing the genomes of plants, ani-
mals, and microorganisms. (A genome is an organism’s entire set of DNA
and includes all its genes.) CRISPR represents a major improvement
over other similar technologies in ease of use, speed, efficacy, and cost. It
works by combining an enzyme (Cas9, a nuclease) that cuts DNA with a
guiding piece of genetic material—a guide RNA (ribonucleic acid)—to
identify the location in the genome.110 The guide RNA targets and binds
to a specific DNA sequence, with the attached Cas9 enzyme severing the
DNA at that location. Once this occurs, the cut can be used to insert
into, remove from, or otherwise edit the DNA sequence. The cut is then
closed, with the modifications in place. A guide RNA can be fabricated
that corresponds to nearly any sequence within an organism’s genome,
including that of a microorganism, animal, or plant.111
These characteristics led Science magazine to name CRISPR-Cas9 its
“Breakthrough of the Year” in 2015.112 Using a word-processing analogy,
the move to CRISPR is somewhat similar to moving from the use of an
electric typewriter, where a misspelled word was corrected using a liquid
(Wite-Out) or tape to blot out the offending letters, to today’s personal
computers, where the process is quickly and precisely executed through
the “cut” and “paste” commands. These advantages find many experts in
the biosciences field concluding that CRISPR-Cas9 may enable major
advances in preventing, treating, and curing a wide range of diseases and
other harmful medical conditions, while also realizing substantial eco-
nomic savings.113
CRISPR-Cas9 has promoted breakthroughs in gene-drive research by
enabling a modified gene and gene-drive components to be inserted far
more precisely than was possible employing previous methods. A gene
drive is a way of biasing inheritance with the objective of increasing the
likelihood of passing on an altered gene to successive generations. Off-
spring inherit one copy of each gene from their parents, limiting the num-
ber of mutations. Gene-drive components enable genetically modified
116 Part 1

DNA to copy itself into the DNA from the unmodified parent, producing
an increase in the preferred specific trait from one generation to the next.
Over time, this change could spread throughout the population.
In this way, and in combination with other genome-engineering
techniques, CRISPR offers an unprecedented ability to improve agricul-
tural productivity and human health by enabling more effective pest con-
trol, enhanced nutritional properties, and crop variations that can be
grown successfully in areas with marginal soil quality.114 Theoretically,
CRISPR-enabled gene editing could lead to eradicating or curbing the
transmission of disease, such as when used against the species of mos-
quito that spread malaria.
Controlling the specific genetic variations introduced into plants
opens up a fundamentally new method of fashioning novel plant culti-
vars.115 Chinese researchers claim that such methods are enabling them
to develop a wheat strain resistant to powdery mildew, a fungal disease
that affects a wide range of plants.116 CRISPR has also aided researchers
in altering the genes of other crops, such as oranges, potatoes, rice, sor-
ghum, soybeans, and tomatoes.117
Crops produced in this manner could include those modified via
transgenesis—the introduction of foreign DNA into a plant genome—
which has characterized most of commercial plant biotechnology inno-
vation since the 1990s.118 Most of the global acreage planted with
genetically engineered crops today involves corn, cotton, soybean, and
canola. Pest-resistance and herbicide-tolerance traits are the dominant
features engineered into these crops. New genetic variations can be cre-
ated by identifying the precise DNA sequence modifications that are
wanted in the cultivated variety and then introducing them using
CRISPR.
Researchers are also using CRISPR to alter livestock genes. One ef-
fort focuses on reducing the loss of livestock to a virus that causes a
deadly form of swine flu. Another finds Chinese scientists employing
CRISPR in attempting to create pigs with a quarter less body fat than
normal pigs to produce livestock that are cheaper to raise.119

Implications
There are security risks associated with these emerging biotechnologies.
They are well expressed by Françoise Baylis, a Canadian bioethicist, and
worth quoting at length:
 Disruptive Technologies 117

I can think of two major limitations with the CRISPR-Cas9 sys-

tem: the first limitation is “the user,” and the second limitation is
“user error.” With respect to the first limitation, there is reason to
expect that the science will seed fierce competition among re-
search teams, for-profit companies, and nation states. This com-
petition might be similar to that which characterized the 20th
century’s space race and nuclear arms race. . . . With respect to the
second limitation, we must be wary of the potential consequences
of off-target [unintended] effects, lack of specificity in targeting,
incomplete targeting, and so on, all of which could have devastat-
ing effects on patients. Here it is worth remembering that we
have no idea what most of the human genome does. . . . We are
part of a very complex networked system, the boundaries of
which are difficult to determine. Try as we might, the ecosystem
we inhabit is not subject to our understanding or control.120

Simply put, bioethicists fear that in rushing to be the first to reap the
benefits of CRISPR, countries, organizations, or even individuals intent
on using these new techniques to alter a population’s genetic makeup
may trigger harmful effects—perhaps intentionally.
From a national security perspective, there are worries that rivals will
use these techniques to enhance their military capabilities, such as by
breeding humans with specific “enhancements,” such as a race of “super
warriors” to meet the demands of an authoritarian regime, like Stalinist
Russia or Hitlerite Germany, or those that exist today in countries like
China and North Korea.121 The Chinese Communist Party leadership
has shown few, if any, scruples in employing social engineering in ad-
vancing its agenda, which revolves around the CCP maintaining a
stranglehold on power.122 For example, the Chinese company BGI is
conducting large-scale gene-sequencing studies of very-high-IQ individ-
uals, reportedly as part of an effort to increase the Chinese population’s
IQ.123 (This raises an interesting question regarding the military poten-
tial of teaming “super-smart” individuals with advanced AI systems.)
In 2015, at the International Summit on Human Genome Editing, it
was agreed that researchers should be allowed to edit genes in human
embryos subject to regulation but that no pregnancy should be estab-
lished before dealing with questions of safety and ethics. The day before
the opening of the second summit in Hong Kong in November 2018, a
Chinese expert in DNA sequencing, Dr. He Jiankui, announced that he
118 Part 1

had done just that, resulting in the births of two Chinese babies with
modified CCR5 genes. The modification appears to offer some protec-
tion against infection from HIV but is also associated with slightly lower
life expectancy. It was generally agreed that Dr. He had not done any-
thing innovative, but as one of the pioneers in developing CRISPR, Dr.
Feng Zhang of MIT, stated, “The method has existed for several years
now, and we, as a community, have decided it is still too immature to
move to humans. But Dr. He pressed ahead anyway, and in a way that is
totally unnecessary. It is simply beyond belief.”124 One concern is that Dr.
He’s actions may result in mutations in nontarget genes and other unde-
sired changes in the babies’ DNA, which could have severe negative con-
sequences. These concerns notwithstanding, not long after, a Russian
scientist announced that he would use CRISPR in attempting to repli-
cate the Chinese gene-editing experiment on human embryos.125
Scientists are playing with fire. As with many emerging technologies,
technical hurdles must be overcome before CRISPR is capable of safely
realizing its full potential. Although CRISPR is very good at cutting out
faulty DNA, it is less effective at inserting new genes properly. It
can alter DNA in places where it’s not supposed to. It can also fill gaps
with random DNA that could “turn off” genes that may be needed.
Among the most significant challenges are those associated with reduc-
ing unintended—and unwelcome—genetic changes, known as “off-target
activity.” Such activity poses a number of potential risks, including in-
creased cancer rates.126 Moreover, even if “successful,” the consequences
of using gene drives to alter the genome of whole species may be difficult
to arrest, let alone reverse, should they trigger unanticipated negative
outcomes.127
Alas, as the actions of Dr. He remind us, instances when ethical con-
cerns have blocked the march of science for potentially malevolent pur-
poses are exceedingly rare. Consequently, it would be irresponsible for
defense planners to ignore the implications of CRISPR-Cas9 and other
advances in the biosciences.
Historically, biological weapons (or “agents”) were developed in lab-
oratories using natural resources. With advances in synthetic biology,
multiple techniques have been developed to synthesize and map the
DNA characteristics of biological agents.128 The genetic-engineering
techniques just described have the potential to synthesize infectious
diseases from scratch, produce them more cheaply and effectively, and
manipulate DNA to increase their pathogenicity.129
 Disruptive Technologies 119

The technical barriers to developing biological agents into weapons

will drop as manufacturing costs decrease, DNA sequencing and synthe-
sis improve, and genetic-editing technology becomes more widely acces-
sible. For example, synthetic biology could be used to create a previously
inaccessible pathogen, such as smallpox virus, by re-creating its genome.
Or it could be exploited to modify an existing bacteria or virus, render-
ing conventional antibiotics or vaccines ineffective.130
This is no longer the stuff of B horror movies. Researchers at the
University of Alberta recently synthesized the previously extinct horse-
pox virus, related to the smallpox virus, from mail-order genetic material.
The Canadian scientists conceded, “Most viruses could be assembled
nowadays using reverse genetics, and these methods have been combined
with gene synthesis technologies to assemble poliovirus and other extinct
pathogens like the 1918 influenza strain. Given that the sequence of vari-
ola virus has been known since 1993, our studies show that it is clearly
accessible to current synthetic biology technology, with important impli-
cations for public health and biosecurity.”131 The cost to reconstitute
horsepox was about $100,000. The Canadian team confirmed that their
process “did not require exceptional biochemical knowledge or skills,
significant funds or significant time.”132 Put another way, it would not re-
quire even a well-funded or technically sophisticated terrorist organiza-
tion to undertake such work.
With respect to the democratization of destruction, what makes
CRISPR special is not its ability to enable the genetic editing of a patho-
gen. This has been possible for decades. Rather, CRISPR enables even
people with rudimentary training to engage in gene modification. With
the advent of CRISPR-Cas9, key technological barriers that largely kept
biological weapons out of the reach of terrorist and criminal organiza-
tions are being stripped away.
The apparent similarities between cyber attacks and prospective “bio
attacks” are sobering. A little over thirty years ago, on November 3,
1988, an MIT graduate student, Robert Morris, launched the first mal-
ware attack on the internet. Morris and those who followed him fabri-
cated computer “viruses.” Similar risks are occurring with biological
warfare. “Biohacking” groups are experimenting with DNA as “software”
they can manipulate, similar to the way hackers do with computer soft-
ware. At some point, these biohackers may be able to manufacture lethal
pathogens and offer them to any state, group, or individual that can meet
their price, similar to how cyber malware is marketed.133
120 Part 1

The biophysicist Steven Block notes that “genetic maps of deadly vi-
ruses, bacteria, and other micro-organisms already are widely available in
the public domain.”134 CRISPR kits are cheap, some costing under
$500.135 There are pathogen-specific kits, such as for West Nile virus,
human coronavirus 229E, and human adenovirus 35, sold with few con-
trols or restrictions. The manuals included with the kits contain only
modest cautions regarding the potential risks associated with their con-
tents.136 The use of CRISPR-Cas9 and other biological engineering tech-
niques could enable these pathogens to be modified. Such novel weapons
could theoretically be employed to target entire populations indiscrimi-
nately or to eliminate sectors of a population or specific individuals—a
kind of “precision” biological warfare.137
Henry T. Greely, director of the Center for Law and Biosciences at
Stanford University, warned, “Modified organisms might harm the envi-
ronment, whether through an accidental escape from the laboratory or
intentional release. Think of your least favorite invasive species—kudzu,
Dutch elm disease, the starling in the U.S., the rabbit in Australia. Ge-
nomic engineering could produce more. Even worse, terrorists (or crimi-
nals) could use this to make pathogens for biowarfare or extortion.”138
Nonstate entities, especially terrorist and millenarian groups, may be
especially attracted to this technology, given the minimal effort and re-
source expenditure required to acquire it and the declining levels of ex-
pertise needed to use it effectively. If they want to avoid being identified,
these groups may be emboldened by the forensic challenges posed in de-
tecting the employment of bio weapons. They may also find encourage-
ment from the generally poor performance of the world’s health
organizations in responding effectively to naturally occurring epidemics,
such as Ebola, SARS, and, more recently, COVID-19, and the willing-
ness of certain countries (China comes to mind) to actively block investi-
gation into the origins of disease.139
Consider a suicide bomber, for example, going through an airport
security system. With today’s sensors, this person will probably be de-
tected. Now imagine the same individual injected with a genetically en-
gineered virus capable of transmitting a highly virulent disease triggered
at her discretion. The chances of this person getting through security
without being detected would likely be much greater. By the time she
started showing signs and symptoms of an illness, she would already have
begun infecting people around her. The snowball effect of a cluster of
these infected suicide bio warriors could trigger a public health crisis.
 Disruptive Technologies 121

Although CRISPR-Cas9 technology has made genetic engineering

cheaper, easier, and more effective, manufacturing bio weapons and em-
ploying them effectively remain a challenging undertaking. Yet here,
too, we find the barriers to doing so eroding. This multistep process in-
volves acquiring the pathogen; obtaining the necessary information
about the desired bio weapon; securing the equipment needed to pro-
duce the weapon; growing the bio weapon in the quantity required to
achieve the desired effect; weaponizing the biological agent, including
achieving the requisite stability and shelf life and processing it into a
form for delivery, such as in a concentrated slurry or dry powder; and
possessing an effective method and means of delivery.
Recent advances are lowering many of these barriers, in some cases
dramatically. Today, as the Canadian scientists demonstrated, a biological
agent can be produced synthetically, something that not long ago
would have required a laboratory, with far more modest support, as in-
formation, methods, and materials for creating bio weapons become
ubiquitous.140
To have confidence that a bio weapon will perform as desired, it
must be tested, a process that consumes substantial amounts of time and
skilled labor. Authoritarian regimes, radical terrorist groups, or others
with low moral and ethical standards could short-circuit the testing pro-
cess by infecting human subjects. Even here, however, developing a syn-
thetic bio weapon would probably require significant testing to ensure its
stability and reliability.141
Additive manufacturing in the form of 3D printing could help ad-
dress the testing challenge. It’s conceivable that AM could produce bio-
logical agents, as well as materials for testing these agents, at relatively
low cost. Although current biological 3D products are both expensive
and require high levels of technical expertise to generate, it is not unrea-
sonable to assume that, if AM technology continues to advance along its
current trajectory, the process will become cheaper, more widely avail-
able, and more user friendly.142
Some states or groups, however, may be unwilling to wait for AM
advances to aid their efforts. They may simply want to terrorize a popu-
lation. Other actors, such as the despot leader of a state under attack or a
terrorist group fearing detection, may conclude that time is against them
and see their choice as between launching a suboptimal bio attack or
none at all. If so, they may forgo testing their agents and employ them as
quickly as possible.
122 Part 1

A bio weapon must also be grown in quantities sufficient to cover the

chosen target population, which could range from an individual to a large
segment of a country’s citizens. Large-scale bio-weapon production is ex-
tremely challenging, as many agents lose their potency during the scaling
process. Addressing this problem requires significant financial resources
and technical expertise. That being said, mass production may not be
necessary for attacks that can be spread by a replicating pathogen.143 Re-
call the infected airline passenger, only now picture an “army” of hun-
dreds of these “bio zombies”—“dead terrorists walking”—boarding
planes, subway systems, and bus lines.
For effective delivery, a bio weapon must be weaponized, remain sta-
ble until it can be employed, and be employed properly. This means it
must remain potent through freeze-drying and storage. Large-scale at-
tacks generally employ aerosol dispersal, through a spray or an explosion.
The agent particles must be dispersed in the right size to facilitate inha-
lation and remain suspended in air long enough to be absorbed by the
target population. Finally, the bio-weapon particles must remain potent
in threatening environmental conditions, such as ultraviolet sunlight and
extreme temperatures.
Advances in nanotechnology could enhance a bio weapon’s stability
and delivery. Nanomaterials are increasingly used for medical-device
coatings, diagnostic contrast agents, sensing components in nanoscale di-
agnostics, and advanced drug delivery. They might be used to create mi-
crocapsules or nanocapsules of the bio weapon to provide protection,
thereby improving its stability and enhancing its effective delivery.144
With regard to the latter, “nanotech” can assist the pathogen in penetrat-
ing the skin and through bronchioles in the lung by augmenting its
aerosol properties. There are, however, less sophisticated ways to short-
circuit these barriers, at least partially. For example, a communicable
agent might be deployed in small amounts at many points and allowed to
spread naturally, albeit more slowly.145 Again, think of suicide “bio zom-
bies” “attacking” via mass transit systems.
Thanks to advances in gene editing, a bio weapon could theoretically
be employed against a particular target or group of targets. Up to now,
targeting has generally been defined by the victims’ geographic location;
however, the rapidly growing creation of health and genomic data may
enable “precision” targeting analogous to precision kinetic warfare.146
Today people can contribute their genetic material for general use, to
support research to treat diseases like cancer, or for private use, as when
 Disruptive Technologies 123

individuals mail cheek swabs to companies such as 23andMe to obtain

information on their ancestry. Currently, only about 6 percent of Ameri-
cans say they have had their genomes sequenced. But the cost to se-
quence a genome is dropping, and more people than ever before will
probably have access to their own genomic information.147 It also seems
likely that some authoritarian regimes will compel their people to pro-
vide it. And for terrorist groups seeking to target a particular individual,
obtaining their genome could be as easy as taking a coffee cup their tar-
get used and having the DNA sequenced.148
“Precision medicine” is already leveraging this data. The biotechnol-
ogy business is expanding rapidly. Revenues from its three major sectors—
agriculture, drugs, and industry—expanded from roughly $100 billion in
2005 to nearly $400 billion a decade later, with some estimates projecting
the biotech market exceeding $700 billion by 2025.149
Synthetic biology employs concepts and approaches similar to engi-
neering disciplines, such as standardized components (for example, well-
characterized functions encoded by DNA); software and computer-based
modeling for designing biological systems from those components; and
constructing prototypes based on those designs. Synthetic biologists use
this approach in “design-build-test” cycles to accelerate progress. Today
the low cost and increasing availability of technologies used in designing
and creating new DNA constructs to test incentivize proceeding without
a hypothesis of how the design will work. Simply put, it’s become easier
and cheaper “to make than to think.”150
The biotechnology industry is developing chemicals created by ge-
netically altered microorganisms to produce products such as plastics,
food additives, fragrances, and biofuels. In London, at the DNA
Foundry, robotic arms move small plastic dishes, each containing up
to 1,536 minuscule wells, each well holding tiny amounts of liquid and
a few strands of DNA. The foundry often mixes 150,000 DNA
samples each day before noon. Snippets of genetic code are used to
create a collection of genes that can combine to produce enzymes that
convert one type of chemical into another. The genes are assembled
into circular DNA molecules called “plasmids.” The mixture is trans-
ferred to a machine that increases the number of plasmids using a pro-
cess called a “polymerase chain reaction.” The plasmids are then
introduced into living cells, bacterial or yeast. The cells are incubated,
and the result is tested to determine if any of the genetic designs proved
useful.151
124 Part 1

A number of synthetic-biology software companies rely on machine-

learning programs to identify promising changes to the genome being
considered for modification. The reason is simple: these companies use
massive amounts of synthesized DNA. Consider, for example, Jason
Kelly, the CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks, a self-described “organism com-
pany.” During the five years Kelly spent at MIT in the early 2000s, he es-
timates that he ordered around 50,000 bases of commercially synthesized
DNA. Today his firm orders synthetic DNA sequences at 50,000 times
that rate, using them to change the genomes of thousands of organisms
each day. Operations on this scale require that experiments be designed
and managed by software. A few years ago, Ginkgo reached the “cross-
over point,” where its automated foundries were as productive as human
researchers. Today Kelly estimates that the automated approach is ten
times as productive as Ginkgo’s human researchers. Automation has also
increased the complexity at which experimentation can take place.152
Linking human genomic data with other health-related data is be-
coming the pharmaceutical industry’s favored research model.153 It’s fu-
eled by the data sets developed through big-data analytics and the
machine learning that enables artificial intelligence to identify patterns
and insights that might elude human researchers. This data could prove
useful to people seeking to conduct discriminate attacks against individu-
als or groups that possess a particular characteristic (such as ethnic
groups). As a “nation of immigrants,” the United States’ genetic diversity
may make the U.S. population relatively resistant to attacks based on
ethnicity. Countries lacking such diversity—Japan comes to mind—may
be particularly vulnerable to such attacks.
Until now, an attacker’s fear of “blowback”—the possibility that a bio
attack may develop in unanticipated, and unwelcome, ways—served as a
deterrent. A pathogen that is introduced into an enemy’s population may
end up spreading back into the attacker’s society. The 1918–19 “Spanish
flu” and, more recently, COVID-19 show how a disease can spread rap-
idly, especially in an era when large numbers of people are traveling daily
to distant points around the globe.154 The implications of these develop-
ments for deterrence are potentially profound.
This may be changing. CRISPR’s “precision” gene-editing ability
may reduce dramatically, or even eliminate entirely, the fear of blowback.
If bio weapons can be fabricated that threaten only those individuals
with specific genetic characteristics, it could enable “precision” bio war-
fare. This, however, is hardly assured. One problem with engineered
 Disruptive Technologies 125

viruses and bacteria is that they tend to evolve over time. Thus, there is a
risk that “precision” pathogens could become less precise in their effects
and, by evolving, produce unwanted “collateral damage” on nontargeted
groups and even trigger blowback.155
In summary, synthetic biology in general has enormous potential to
bring about dramatic improvements in the human condition. Yet, to
draw on Winston Churchill, if humankind fails to address the dangers
posed by advances in the biosciences, then it risks “sink[ing] into the
abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more pro-
tracted by the lights of perverted science.”156

Hypersonics: “Faster than a Speeding Bullet”

The trend in warfare toward increased speed and range, in both weapon
systems and munitions, is unmistakable. Since antiquity, militaries have
sought an advantage in range over their enemies for the simple reason
that it enables them to strike without being hit in return. As described in
Chapter 3, the emergence of anti-access/area-denial complexes will
probably require a rival military to place increased reliance, at least ini-
tially, on long-range scouting and strike forces to offset the growing risk
to its forward-deployed forces from the enemy’s more numerous shorter-
range scouting and strike forces. Operating from distant range, however,
increases the need for speed, for two reasons. First, the faster an attacker
can transit a heavily defended area, the less time defenses have to iden-
tify, track, and engage it. Second, all other things being equal, the greater
the distance between where a strike force is based and its target, the
more warning time a defender will have to hide or otherwise improve its
defenses before the attacker arrives. Boosting a weapon’s speed buys back
some of the time lost from the increased engagement distance.
In kinetic warfare, the best combination of speed and range is the bal-
listic missile, which remains difficult to intercept despite the enormous re-
sources advanced militaries have devoted (and are devoting) to missile
defenses. Ongoing advances in hypersonic propulsion weapons, or “hyper-
sonics,” may find militaries armed with new types of high-speed missiles
capable of engaging at long range. Hypersonics’ potential to significantly
alter the military balance finds the world’s leading militaries, China, Russia,
and the United States in particular, racing to develop these weapons.
Hypersonic vehicles travel at least five times the speed of sound
(Mach 5), or roughly 6,200 kilometers (or 3,600 miles) per hour at sea
126 Part 1

level. Aside from ballistic missiles, only a few other manmade devices,
such as the X-37B spacecraft, are capable of reaching hypersonic speeds,
with the U.S. rocket-powered X-15 being the only manned aircraft to
accomplish this.157
Work on hypersonic systems takes two principal forms. One involves
a “scramjet,” a “fanless” engine that uses the shock waves generated by its
speed to compress incoming air and ignite it to accelerate a vehicle, such
as a cruise missile, to hypersonic speeds. Hypersonic cruise missiles
(HCMs) use a solid-fueled booster rocket to accelerate to at least Mach
4. As the missile approaches or achieves hypersonic speeds, the missile’s
booster drops off, and the scramjet ignites. The scramjet includes three
components: an inlet that draws in the air surrounding the missile, a
combustor to burn fuel combined with that air, and a nozzle to release
the pressurized air to maintain the missile’s hypersonic speed. Unlike tra-
ditional jet engines, scramjets have no moving parts or machinery to di-
rect and combust air, making them highly efficient at propelling an
airframe at high speeds.
The second approach centers on a rocket-assisted “boost-glide” ve-
hicle (BGV) employing multiple-stage rocket engines to propel it into
the upper atmosphere—some twenty-five miles or so—whereupon it is
released. Its initial speed and high altitude enable the vehicle to maintain
hypersonic speeds without internal power, while the friction induced by
passing through lower atmosphere may slow the weapon enough to en-
able it to be guided accurately toward its target. This approach is being
pursued by DARPA with a weapon known as Tactical Boost Glide.158

Implications
Hypersonic missiles’ unusual trajectories enable them to approach their
targets at altitudes between twelve and fifty miles, below the altitude at
which ballistic missile interceptors are typically designed to operate but
above the altitude of air defense systems. Hypersonic vehicles can also ma-
neuver during their trajectory, making it extremely difficult for air and mis-
sile defenses to predict their future location in order to intercept them.159
Hypersonic missiles can do enormous damage. For instance, a hypersonic
weapon weighing 500 pounds, with an explosive charge in a rod casing be-
tween five and ten feet long made of ceramic and carbon-fiber composites
or nickel-chromium superalloys, would strike its target with tremendous
kinetic energy, the equivalent of three to four tons of dynamite.160
 Disruptive Technologies 127

Hypersonic weapons’ ability to overcome modern defenses and

high-impact speed makes them particularly threatening to warships. For
example, if a carrier strike group’s defenses detect a hypersonic weapon
at a range of 150 miles, they would have less than a minute to launch an
interceptor—and that interceptor would need to be capable of hitting a
maneuvering target moving at six miles per second.
Even the U.S. Navy’s current radar systems are unable to adequately
track and identify a hypersonic attack, let alone defeat it.161 A hypersonic
missile striking a warship would have a significant chance of putting it
out of action, if not sinking it. More broadly speaking, as one senior Pen-
tagon official put it, “When the Chinese can deploy [a] tactical or re-
gional hypersonic system, they hold at risk our carrier battle groups.
They hold our entire surface fleet at risk. They hold at risk our forward-
deployed forces and land-based forces.”162
Continuing our focus on the implications for maritime forces, once
hypersonic missiles are fielded by rival militaries, the U.S. Navy could be
compelled to undertake changes in the fleet’s composition on a scale not
seen since the carrier supplanted the battleship. Maritime forces may
have to become more distributed, so as to spread their assets over a
greater number of ships to enhance the fleet’s resilience. The fleet may
also have to operate at greater distances from the enemy to reduce its
vulnerability to shorter-range enemy hypersonic strike systems and to
provide adequate warning time to defend against longer-range weapons.
Of course, naval forces would still have to address the threat posed by
short-range anti-ship hypersonic weapons launched from relatively close
range by stealthy aircraft, submarines, and UUVs. Mounting an effective
defense against these kinds of hypersonic attacks seems problematic.
Consequently, the Navy may have to move a greater portion of its com-
bat power beneath the waves.
Alternatively, the situation at sea may hark back to the Cold War’s
latter stages, when the U.S. Navy faced a threat from Soviet aircraft
armed with anti-ship missiles. Back then, given the difficulty (and cost)
of successfully engaging large numbers of incoming missiles, the Navy
focused on “killing the archer”—Soviet strike aircraft—before they could
launch their “arrows.” Success rested, to a great extent, on the Navy’s
ability to scout: to locate Soviet aircraft before they reached their
missile launch point. This history may repeat itself, as it will be impor-
tant to identify the enemy strike platform before it can release its hyper-
sonic arrows.
128 Part 1

Recalling our earlier discussion of a contemporary Battle of Midway,

winning the scouting competition—in the form of locating an enemy’s
hypersonic strike force before it launches its attack—could be the differ-
ence between victory and defeat. If so, the speed and range of the
friendly force’s hypersonic missiles will be just as critical as that of the
aircraft that flew off the decks of U.S. and Japanese carriers at Midway.
All other factors being equal, a range advantage will compel the enemy to
spread its scouting assets over a greater search area, while an advantage
in weapon speed will enable the attack to reach the enemy before it de-
tects friendly forces’ location and launches its own attack. Even if
friendly forces are detected, an advantage in weapon range and speed of
engagement may enable victory if the enemy strike force has not yet
reached its hypersonic weapons’ effective range.
Hypersonic weapons could play a key role in defeating an enemy’s
A2/AD defenses. A force could employ hypersonic weapons to spearhead
an offensive by striking the enemy’s fixed air and missile defense systems,
as well as its hypersonic missile units. If successful, it could pave the way
for friendly scouting and strike forces to operate inside the enemy’s A2/
AD complex at acceptable risk.
Imagine, for example, a force of advanced U.S. B-21 stealth bombers,
each armed with dozens of hypersonic missiles. The bombers’ stealth,
combined with their ability to adjust their flight paths to avoid enemy air
defenses by using real-time intelligence from onboard sensors and off-
board scouting elements via the battle network, could enable them to
penetrate the enemy’s outer air defenses. Having done so, the bombers
could launch their short-range (and less expensive) hypersonic missiles,
destroying or neutralizing the enemy’s air and missile defenses, along
with key elements of its scouting forces, enabling follow-on forces oper-
ating in the land, sea, and air domains to operate at greatly reduced
risk.163
More broadly speaking, a strike force of stealthy manned and un-
manned bombers could function as its own reconnaissance-strike ele-
ment, carrying a payload of hypersonic weapons, swarming drones,
standard PGMs, drone decoys, and jammers. This force could be supple-
mented with strikes from attack submarines and UUVs, as well as
long-range hypersonic cruise missiles and BGVs to erode an enemy’s
A2/AD complex, thereby greatly expanding opportunities for offensive
maneuver.
 Disruptive Technologies 129

Barriers to Implementation
Given the potential of hypersonic weapons to trigger a major shift in the
military balance, it’s easy to see why the world’s leading militaries are
pursuing them. There are, however, formidable challenges that must be
overcome before they can be fielded, especially for hypersonic cruise
missiles. One of the biggest barriers involves getting combustion to hap-
pen in a stream of supersonic air. For scramjet engines to work, they
need to be moving at high speeds to compress air for combustion.
Consequently, scramjets must first be accelerated by piggybacking on a
jet plane or rocket. Assuming that this can be reliably accomplished, hy-
personic missiles face challenges with regard to accuracy and structural
integrity.164
Cooling is crucial in engines of all kinds. Even a commercial jet air-
liner’s turbofans operate routinely at around 400 degrees above the melt-
ing point of their component materials. An elaborate network of cooling
channels is needed to keep these engines from breaking up. The chal-
lenge is greatly magnified with hypersonic engines moving through the
air at speeds ten times faster than a commercial airliner. The higher lift-
to-drag ratios required for hypersonic missiles necessitates their having
sharp leading edges. This, combined with the missile’s extreme velocity,
can generate surface temperatures as high as 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit,
where the heat generated can erode the vehicle’s protective coating, fry
its electronics, and bend it out of shape.
There is also the matter of targeting and heat distribution. In some
hypersonic missile designs, the heat differential between the top and bot-
tom of the missile is so intense that it changes shape during flight, mak-
ing accurate targeting very difficult.165 3D printing may offer a solution.
If you want to make cooling vents using subtractive manufacturing, it re-
quires drilling holes in the material and hoping the process doesn’t com-
promise its structural integrity. To produce cooling vents in a 3D-printed
component, you simply program the printer to print the component to
have the openings in it from the start. Moreover, drilling cooling chan-
nels through subtractive manufacturing imposes far more limits on their
shape, while forming the channels with a 3D printer enables you to pro-
duce elaborate shapes that vent heat much more efficiently.166
There are yet other challenges to be solved. A hypersonic weapon’s
high speeds can also break up molecules in the atmosphere, creating a
field of charged particles (or “plasma”) around the vehicle, disrupting its
130 Part 1

ability to receive guidance signals from GPS and other sources. As the
U.S. Air Force’s Office of Scientific Research concedes, we “still don’t
completely understand the physics of hypersonic flight.”167

Summary
The development of hypersonic missiles, in both their cruise and boost-
glide versions, is consistent with a general long-term trend in the mili-
tary competition toward greater speed and range, often at the expense of
payload and physical protection. If hypersonic weapons perform as ad-
vertised, they may render today’s most advanced air and missile defenses
ineffective. They may be particularly effective against high-value targets
that are difficult to hide or harden, such as surface warships. Hypersonic
cruise and boost-glide missiles could also make a major, and perhaps de-
cisive, contribution to winning the scouting competition, such as by neu-
tralizing key nodes in an enemy’s battle network and by eliminating
ground-based ASAT systems and scouting platforms located at air bases.
Hypersonic weapons—especially if they achieve precision accuracy—
may trigger shock waves in the strategic balance. Their combination of
speed, kinetic energy, and precision accuracy reduces a defender’s warn-
ing time against attacks on bomber bases, missile silos, hardened subma-
rine pens, and underground command-and-control centers. The result
could be a further blurring of the distinction between nuclear and non-
nuclear forms of attack. It could also further increase the incentives for
preemptive attacks. For example, one of the U.S. military’s hypersonic
prototype missiles now being developed is designed to fly at speeds be-
tween Mach 15 and Mach 20, or more than 11,400 miles per hour. If
fired by U.S. submarines off the coast of Shanghai, they could strike any
target in China in less than thirty minutes.168 Correspondingly, a similar
Chinese hypersonic missile battery located near Shanghai could hit the
large U.S. airbase at Kadena, on Okinawa, in less than five minutes. Al-
though ballistic missiles can strike with even greater speed, hypersonic
missiles appear to have a significant advantage in avoiding detection and,
if detected, defeating attempts at interception.
There are significant barriers to fielding highly reliable hypersonic
weapons, particularly the cruise missile versions. The challenges associated
with hypersonic missile engine design and structural integrity are signifi-
cant, and it is not clear that hypersonic weapons will match the accuracy
of today’s precision-guided munitions. However, it would be foolish to
 Disruptive Technologies 131

discount hypersonic weapons’ potential. The world’s leading militaries cer-

tainly are not.

Quantum Computing
The term “quantum computing” (QC) was coined in the 1980s by the
Nobel laureate and physicist Richard Feynman, who raised the possibility
that quantum phenomena, such as exploiting subatomic particles’ “don’t
look and I don’t exist” characteristics, could process information.169
The idea of quantum computing gained traction thanks to the work
of Dr. Peter Shor, a mathematician at Bell Laboratories. In 1994, Shor
published a paper showing that a quantum computer could identify the
prime numbers that, when multiplied together, yield an exceedingly large
number. This meant that Shor had shown, at least in theory, that a quan-
tum computer could break the cryptographic protocols used to protect
military communications and key economic critical infrastructure, such
as those used to secure credit card transactions—an exponential leap in
computational capability over today’s computers.170
Quantum computing’s power is derived from the ability of quantum
bits, or “qubits”—a unit of quantum information—to do more than what
is done in classical computers, which alternate between zero and one. Qu-
bits are capable of existing in the “zero” and “one” state—and in both
states simultaneously.171 This extra mode is called “superposition,” a math-
ematical combination of both 0 and 1. It is the key to making qubits more
powerful than ordinary bits. But qubits alone cannot provide the massive
computational power promised by quantum computing. The qubits must
be “entangled.” A quantum entanglement is a highly counterintuitive phe-
nomenon that occurs when two qubits in a superposition are such that
certain operations on one have instant effects on the other, irrespective of
the distance separating them. This gives a quantum computer an enor-
mous advantage over a traditional computer, which needs to read and
write from each element of memory separately before operating on it. Put
another way, when the qubits are entangled, operating on one qubit in-
volves operating, in varying degrees, on all those qubits that are entangled
with it. Quantum computer algorithms use entangled qubits and their su-
perposition to create a shortcut through calculations. This allows them to
perform incredibly complex calculations at speeds far greater than those
that are possible today and to solve certain classes of problems that are
beyond the grasp of even the most advanced supercomputers.172
132 Part 1

Quantum computing begins with choosing an algorithm for the

problem to be addressed. The calculation is accomplished through quan-
tum-mechanical laws running on superimposed and entangled qubits.
The result is a huge increase in the complexity of programming that can
be executed, at least for certain types of problems.173
To get a sense of quantum computing’s power, consider that, for to-
day’s computers, adding one bit to a classical computer chip has a negli-
gible effect on its computing power. Adding one qubit doubles the power
of a quantum computer chip. A 300-bit classical computer chip could
power a basic pocket calculator. A 300-qubit chip, on the other hand, has
the computing power of two novemvigintillion bits—a two followed by
ninety zeros, or ten to the ninetieth power—a number that exceeds the
number of atoms in the known universe.174

Implications
Although quantum computers are not ideal for all computational prob-
lems, for some they can provide an exponential boost in speed, given that
their advantage over a classical computer increases at a highly nonlinear
rate with the size of the problem.175 For example, classical computers are
unable to simulate the behavior of atoms and electrons during chemical
reactions, as they are driven by quantum mechanics, whose complexity is
too great for classical computers to handle. If QC becomes practical, it
will probably be employed in simulating new molecules and chemical re-
actions that can aid in identifying substances that can be used for a wide
range of purposes, such as engineering lighter airplane parts, creating
more effective drugs, and designing better batteries.
So it’s not surprising that the German automobile makers Daimler
and Volkswagen are investigating quantum computing with the ultimate
goal of improving the chemical process in batteries for their electric ve-
hicles, while Microsoft is exploring how quantum computing can be used
to identify ways to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to offset
global warming.176
From a national security perspective, quantum computers would be
ideal for code-breaking—penetrating the mathematics that are the basis
for the encryption securing military communications, as well as a coun-
try’s critical infrastructure, such as online commerce, including banking
and shopping. As alluded to earlier, these transactions are secured by
using an algorithm that uses factorization, or reverse multiplication, of
 Disruptive Technologies 133

an enormously large number, typically several hundred digits long. This

“locks” the encrypted data. This form of encryption works because even
today’s most advanced computers would require years to find the two
prime factors at the core of the encrypted data. In theory, a quantum
computer could break this encryption quickly.177
The security implications for breaking current encrypted data are
profound. Although quantum processors currently have nowhere near
this capability, both governments and corporations are not discounting
the possibility that they will in the not too distant future. The U.S. Na-
tional Institute of Standards and Technology is already evaluating new
encryption systems to “quantum-proof” the internet. At the same time,
many national intelligence agencies are gathering and archiving inter-
cepted encrypted communications, waiting for the arrival of quantum
computing that will enable them to resurrect these communications and
hopefully translate them into valuable intelligence.178
Given quantum computers’ ability to manipulate vast arrays of data
and identify patterns that elude classical computers, their potential to aid
in developing and refining machine-learning algorithms appears formi-
dable. As the physicist Johannes Otterbach notes, “There is a natural
combination between the intrinsic statistical nature of quantum comput-
ing . . . and machine learning.”179
The high cost of a quantum computer is likely to limit them to nation-
states and the world’s major technology corporations. Assuming that quan-
tum computing services are not made available for rent, at least initially QC
is unlikely to contribute to the democratization of destruction.180

Barriers
The enthusiasm surrounding recent advances in quantum computing
after three decades of glacial progress is considerable. Google’s Harmut
Neven expects that by 2030 all machine learning will be running on
quantum computers. Some experts speculate that by then Google and its
leading competitors will be selling quantum computing services via the
cloud—and charging by the second.181
There are, however, skeptics who believe that QC optimists have
been overpromising. One is Jerry Chow, an IBM quantum-computer sci-
entist, who says that QC is “a bit like trying to balance an egg at the
end of a needle. You certainly can do it, but any little disturbance from
noise, from heat, from vibrations, and you’ve suddenly got yourself a
134 Part 1

sunny-side up.”182 Even Feynman warned, “If you want to make a simula-
tion of nature, you’d better make it quantum mechanical, and by golly it’s
a wonderful problem, because it doesn’t look so easy.”183 Indeed, signifi-
cant technical and practical challenges remain to building a quantum
computer and to using it to solve practical problems.184
One barrier is a quantum computer’s relatively high error rate, which
is due to noise.185 A classical computer bit is either one or zero. Even if
the value is slightly wrong due to noise in the system, today’s computers
can strip out variations in their inputs and produce clean, noise-free out-
puts. Not so with qubits. Recent research finds that the error rates for
two-qubit operations on systems with five or more qubits are more than
a few percent.186 Some enthusiasts argue that the problem can be ad-
dressed through error-correction algorithms. But such algorithms would
need additional qubits to check the work of the qubits running computa-
tions. This risks taking a trip down the rabbit hole, with some experts
estimating that checking the work of a single qubit will require an addi-
tional hundred!187
Still, theoretically speaking, there is nothing to prevent adding more
qubits to solve this problem. Quantum computing’s solution to address-
ing the errors problem centers on forming logical qubits using multiple
physical qubits. If so, a practical, useful quantum computer would need a
million or more qubits. Accomplishing this is a daunting task, so it be-
comes difficult to state with any confidence when it might occur.188
Another barrier is the so-called input problem. At present, there is
no method for rapidly converting a large amount of classical data to a
quantum state. For problems requiring large data inputs, the time
needed to convert the data would typically be far greater than the com-
putation time, potentially offsetting the quantum computer’s advantage.
The good news is that this problem goes away if the data can be gener-
ated algorithmically. The bad news is that designing quantum algorithms
is also proving to be challenging. Yet another barrier involves developing
quantum computing software, as well as methods to debug quantum
hardware and software.189

Summary
Quantum computing involves manipulating things at the smallest level of
energy in atoms, where physical behavior is often at odds with our under-
standing of how the world behaves. Owing to qubits’ unique superposition
 Disruptive Technologies 135

property and the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, quantum com-

puters could, in theory, provide major advances in such fields as cryptogra-
phy, chemistry, and artificial intelligence.
Despite recent progress, the challenges to creating useful quantum
computers remain as they were when identified decades ago by the IBM
physicist Rolf Landauer, who called for papers on quantum computing to
include the following disclaimer: “This scheme, like all other schemes
for quantum computation, relies on speculative technology, does not in
its current form take into account all possible sources of noise, unreli-
ability and manufacturing error, and probably will not work.”190 That
being said, quantum computing’s enormous potential to transform not
only the character of the military competition but society itself makes it
too important to ignore, even taking Landauer’s disclaimer into account.

Some Other Military-Related Technology Game Changers

The technologies described so far in this chapter are illustrative of prog-
ress being made by modern science that could enable a disruptive shift in
the military balance. There are other technological developments that
also seem likely to exert a significant influence on the character of the
military competition.

Interesting Toys
In the late twentieth century, James Schlesinger was one of the United
States’ leading polymaths and strategists, traits that led to his serving in
administrations of both political parties, at various times, as defense sec-
retary, secretary of energy, and director of central intelligence.
Schlesinger also had a reputation as one who did not suffer fools
gladly—and his description of “fools” was quite expansive. For some rea-
son, he took a liking to me, and we would meet from time to time to dis-
cuss some research in which I was engaged. On one occasion, I came to
get his thoughts on directed-energy weapons—those producing concen-
trated electromagnetic energy to incapacitate, damage, disable, or de-
stroy enemy equipment, facilities, or personnel.
At the time, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on whose policy board
Schlesinger and I were serving, had recently canceled the Air Force’s air-
borne-laser aircraft. The program called for a Boeing 747 armed with a
chemical laser to fly near an enemy country and use the laser to intercept
136 Part 1

ballistic missiles while they were in their “boost phase”—in the atmo-
sphere shortly after launching and before reaching outer space. The air-
borne laser was an idea whose time had not come. The laser itself relied
for its power on a vat of highly corrosive chemicals. A joke at the time
was that if the vat ever sprung a leak, the chemical mix might eat the
plane away before the pilot could land it.
Trying to avoid poking the bear, I mentioned to Schlesinger that re-
markable progress was being made with solid-state lasers that rely on
electricity—not chemicals—for their power. Schlesinger looked at me,
sucked on his pipe, and said, “Ah, yes. Lasers. Those interesting toys.”
I mentioned that there had been other “toys” that seemingly took for-
ever to bear fruit. Torpedoes, for example, took decades before White-
head’s version provided the accuracy and range that turned the maritime
competition on its head. Couldn’t this happen with lasers? Schlesinger re-
sponded by saying that, on this issue, he was “from Missouri.”191

Interesting Progress
Schlesinger’s skepticism notwithstanding, two major developments in re-
cent decades have increased confidence in directed-energy systems’ po-
tential to make significant, and perhaps profound, contributions to
military effectiveness. The first involves changes in expectations. During
the 1980s, lasers were viewed (unrealistically) as components in a “High
Frontier” space-based missile defense system contributing to the U.S.
Strategic Defense Initiative, designed to defeat a Soviet nuclear missile
attack. Over time, expectations were reduced, to where today the focus is
primarily on defending against threats like drone swarms or mortar sal-
vos and rocket barrages.
Second, directed-energy technology has advanced. During the 1990s,
major gains were made in fiber-optic telecommunications, and large
sums began pouring into their development. In the early 2000s, compa-
nies working on the technology began to look for new markets. They
discovered that industrial applications using high-power fiber-laser tech-
nology could be done very cost-effectively, such as with high-precision
cutting, welding, and drilling. At this point, militaries began to look at
how to combine fiber-optic communications and high-power laser tech-
nologies with an eye toward scaling them to weapon-class power levels.
Encouragement was provided in the form of lasers powered by elec-
tricity, not chemicals. As long as they are connected to an electrical
 Disruptive Technologies 137

source, like a power grid or batteries, solid-state lasers (SSLs) and fiber
lasers can sustain their rate of fire. That being said, SSL and fiber-
laser power levels are not yet strong enough to defeat threats like high-
performance aircraft and high-speed cruise missiles, let alone hypersonic
or ballistic missiles.
Recent work involving individual fiber lasers shows promise. It’s be-
come possible to field laser weapons capable of defeating low-end threats
and to make them small and rugged enough to be deployed on combat
vehicles and ships. For example, the U.S. Navy’s Laser Weapon System
has been deployed and approved for operational use. The U.S. Army is
making encouraging progress toward fielding laser weapon systems for
countering rockets, artillery, and mortars. That being said, the United
States is but one of several military powers looking to field DE weapons.
Both China and Russia, along with U.S. security partners like Israel, have
well-established DE weapons programs. In some areas, their efforts may
match or surpass current U.S. efforts. Indeed, the Israelis may already be
using an advanced algorithm to combine several laser beams, forming a
strong beam with enhanced coherency capable of intercepting drones
and guided rockets.192
As noted earlier, space-based systems, especially those in low-Earth
orbit, are already vulnerable to laser ASATs.193 The PLA appears to be
pursuing laser ASAT weapons and may already have the ability to “daz-
zle” or disable satellite sensors. The U.S. intelligence community finds
that China will soon field ground-based laser weapons to defeat low-
orbit space-based sensors, if it has not done so already, as well as high-
power systems to threaten satellite structures.194
Like the Chinese, the Russians have been active in developing di-
rected-energy ASAT systems. In 2018, Russia’s military unveiled its
Peresvet laser system, positioning it near its mobile intercontinental bal-
listic missile launchers. The purpose, apparently, is for Peresvet to tem-
porarily dazzle or even blind passing rival satellites, thereby preventing
them from tracking the launchers.195
Lasers may also enhance military communications. Consider, for in-
stance, a battle network’s need to move high volumes of information se-
curely in the face of determined enemy efforts to block it. Lasers can
provide greater speed, data flow, precision-reception, and bandwidth
transmission than other forms of wireless communication. Moreover,
security is enhanced by their narrow beam, as the information in the
beam cannot be compromised unless the interceptor is directly in its path.
138 Part 1

This is in marked contrast to radio waves, which produce “lobes” near the
point of transmission that increase the possibility for an enemy to listen
in. Laser communications technology has been successfully tested at mod-
est ranges of ten miles. Proponents of laser communications believe the
technology can be extended significantly. If so, it may enhance a military’s
reconnaissance-strike complex by securely linking communications from
drones to aircraft, aircraft to each other, and these systems to ground-
based command-and-control centers.196
There are notable advances being made in the area of high-powered
microwave weaponry. These weapons achieved notoriety from a test con-
ducted in 2012 by the Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Ad-
vanced Missile Project (CHAMP), which produced impressive results.197
The test, undertaken by Boeing’s Phantom Works, knocked out the tar-
geted electronic systems (computers and their monitors) along with the
cameras put in place to record the results. The systems were down for
only a matter of seconds, but depending on how a computer network is
configured and the kind of computers and peripherals employed, a
CHAMP-like weapon generating a larger electromagnetic pulse (EMP)
could disable a computer network, and other enemy electronic systems
such as radars, for a far longer period, perhaps even permanently.198

Barriers
Directed-energy weapon advocates look forward to the day when high-
powered lasers will provide effective defenses against cruise missiles and
aircraft, with laser interceptor “shots” costing about $1 each, compared
to some $3 million for the U.S. Navy’s SM-6 interceptor missile.199 De-
spite the progress made in directed-energy weapons, that day is unlikely
to arrive anytime soon, as there are formidable barriers that must be
overcome before they can achieve game-changer status in their ability to
transform the character of warfare. Most informed observers are still
“from Missouri.”
To begin, there remains the question of boosting a laser’s power to
be effective against more sophisticated threats. There is also the problem
of maintaining a laser’s “beam coherency”—the beam’s ability to remain
focused, rather than dissipating along with its power, as it travels through
the atmosphere, thereby limiting its range. Thus, lasers perform poorly
in bad weather and not at all in rainstorms. They are also as yet unable to
be employed against non-line-of-sight targets.
 Disruptive Technologies 139

Consequently, even the most enthusiastic laser supporters have a

hard time envisioning laser weapons intercepting high-speed ballistic
missile warheads or hypersonic weapons. These weapons move too fast
for lasers—whose effectiveness is linked to their ability to deposit suffi-
cient energy on the target within “dwell” time available—to defeat
them.200

Conclusion
Today military-related technologies are advancing at an impressive rate
along a broad front. Advances in artificial intelligence, directed energy,
hypersonic propulsion, synthetic biology, and quantum computing,
among others, have the potential to bring about significant and perhaps
even disruptive shifts in the character of warfare.
These advances correlate well with the general trend in industrial
and information-age warfare toward emphasizing system speed and
range, and accurate (as opposed to volume) fires. Increased speed of ac-
tion is also enabled by the growing emphasis on cyber warfare, thanks in
part to advances in artificial intelligence, as well as the prospective vul-
nerabilities of some emerging capabilities, such as additive manufactur-
ing and artificial intelligence itself. Work on military systems employing
directed energy, such as anti-satellite lasers and hypersonic missiles, also
speaks to the focus on speed of action.
The boost in speed enables more effective engagements at enhanced
range. Hypersonic boost-glide vehicles could strike targets halfway
around the world. Land-based laser ASAT weapons can reach into space.
Cyber attacks can span the globe. And although it’s been said that quan-
tity has a quality all its own, the cost of range rewards accuracy relative
to mass when it comes to fires. This is certainly the case with respect to
hypersonic missiles and appears to be so for directed-energy weaponry,
although the latter do not employ kinetic energy to neutralize targets.
Cyber weapons constitute an outlier, as they make good on the informa-
tion age’s promise of the “death of distance.”
As the preceding narrative shows, it’s possible to develop a rough sense
of how these emerging technologies will change warfare. Forecasting how
they will combine with the technologies that enabled the Precision-
Warfare Revolution is another matter entirely. Simply put, there is great
uncertainty regarding how things will play out. For one thing, advances
in certain technologies and the military capabilities they may enable may
140 Part 1

depend, to a great degree, on how quickly progress is made in developing

enabling technologies, such as with hypersonic missiles and additive manu-
facturing or with synthetic biology, where advances are likely to depend on
the maturation of AI, quantum computing, and nanotechnology.
Which of these technologies will prove out? Fully? Partially? Be-
yond expectations? Not at all? And when will we know? It took nearly
half a century for submarine- and torpedo-related technologies to move
from being militarily irrelevant novelties to transforming naval warfare.
A generation later, advances in radar during World War II altered the
dynamic of naval warfare in the Pacific, from heavily favoring the offense
to giving the defense more than a fighting chance. Had the sequence
been reversed, the Battle of Midway would probably have been fought
very differently.201
Cyber warfare casts a long shadow over the prospective effectiveness
of many of these technologies. Artificial intelligence stands to influence
greatly the development of most, if not all, of them. Yet artificial intelli-
gence’s effectiveness can be corrupted though cyber means, through at-
tacks that corrupt data sets and machine-learning algorithms. Cyber
attacks that corrupt additive manufacturing data files can lead to cata-
strophic flaws in the resulting products, such as in hypersonic missiles.
What does seem clear is that should these technologies mature, we
will witness the “democratization of destruction”—the concentration of
ever greater destructive power in the hands of small groups and, perhaps,
even individuals. Nonstate groups are already conducting crude swarm
attacks, holding parts of national critical infrastructure hostage to ran-
somware demands, and re-creating viruses like horsepox. Although this
work’s focus is on general war between great powers, there is clearly a
great deal of analysis to be done on this emerging phenomenon.
In summary, as the Danish politician Karl Kristian Steinke observed,
“It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.”202 This is
especially true with respect to the current military competition. The best
we can hope for is to reduce uncertainty at the margins. As Part 2 of this
book shows, this can be done. Even here, however, success will not be ab-
solute but relative. But you don’t need to be perfect, only better than your
rivals, to realize a significant, and perhaps decisive, military advantage.
 chapter five
W(h)ither Deterrence?

Humankind’s character is not improving at anything close to the

rate of its capacity for destruction. This is placing it in increasing
danger if general wars—and perhaps even lesser conflicts—
cannot be avoided.

—winston churchill

Would a declaration of war between Russia and Japan be made,

if within an hour there after a swiftly gliding aeroplane might
take its flight from St Petersburg and drop half a ton of dynamite
above the enemy’s war offices? Could any nation afford to war
upon any other with such hazards in view?

—john brisben walker

Modern general war is characterized by enormous suffering and loss

of human life, along with widespread material destruction. This chapter
examines how changes in the geopolitical environment, combined with
the emerging mature precision-warfare regime and the emergence of a

141
142 Part 1

new military revolution, are eroding efforts to deter general war. Ad-
vances in the cognitive and behavioral sciences find the challenge of con-
structing effective deterrence strategies even more daunting than
previously believed. Consequently, political and military leaders con-
fronted with disruptive shifts in the character of conflict must address not
only how to win the wars of tomorrow but even, more importantly, how
to meet the complex challenge of deterring them.
In the spring of 1986, Graham Allison, a renowned Harvard profes-
sor, was finishing up an extended consultancy for Defense Secretary Cas-
par Weinberger. Allison had been helping Weinberger formulate the
Annual Report to the Congress, known in the Pentagon as the “Posture
Statement.” It was a comprehensive, albeit unclassified, statement of U.S.
defense strategy, policy, resources, and programs spanning more than
200 pages.
With Allison’s departure, someone was still needed to fill his very
large shoes. The Army nominated me, and despite my modest shoe size,
after a series of interviews, I became Weinberger’s military assistant for
special projects, one of which involved overseeing the Posture State-
ment. The job gave me a perspective on how defense strategy was made
at the highest levels of government.
The last Posture Statement completed during my tenure was Defense
Secretary Frank Carlucci’s, submitted only months before the Berlin
Wall came down. It included a twenty-page discussion of the balance of
forces between the U.S. and its NATO allies and Soviet Russia and the
Warsaw Pact. These balances, both “regional” (such as the balance in
Europe) and “functional” (such as the strategic, or nuclear, balance) set
the stage for a detailed discussion of U.S. strategy that spanned nearly
forty pages. One could not help but be impressed by the quality and level
of intellectual effort that went into both developing and explaining the
strategy.
As it turned out, the Berlin Wall was not the only thing that came
down. The Cold War’s end and the rise of the United States’ unipolar mo-
ment made military strategy and defense planning seem less important. In
2005, the annual Posture Statement was replaced by “The National De-
fense Strategy.” The Pentagon managed to publish a twenty-three-page
version in 2008. A decade went by before the most recent version—an
eleven-page “summary”—was produced.
Quantity is not necessarily an indicator of quality, but considering
the progressive decline in the United States’ relative military standing
 W(h)ither Deterrence? 143

over the past decade, it seems fair to view the Posture Statement’s demise
as a sign of strategic neglect. Given the importance of securing U.S. vital
interests without having to resort to general war, such negligence is diffi-
cult to understand. Indeed, great-power war in the industrial age in-
flicted enormous levels of destruction and human suffering. As Winston
Churchill was moved to declare following the First World War, “War,
today, is bare—bare of profit and stripped of all its glamour. The old
pomp and circumstance are gone. War is now nothing but toil, blood,
death, squalor and lying propaganda.”1 Churchill’s observation was con-
firmed in World War II, especially by the introduction of nuclear weap-
ons with their immense destructive power.
Emerging from the wreckage of two world wars and with the grow-
ing specter of nuclear Armageddon, the cost of waging general war had
become so high that there appeared to be no political gain that could
justify it. Shortly after the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
the strategist Bernard Brodie was moved to write, “Thus far the chief
purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now
on the chief purpose must be to avert them.”2 Although deterrence strat-
egies stretch back to antiquity, they achieved greater prominence in the
nuclear age. For roughly three-quarters of a century, U.S. defense strat-
egy has rested on a foundation of deterrence to preserve its security
while avoiding general wars, both nuclear and conventional. The other
declared nuclear powers—Soviet Russia, Great Britain, France, and
China—either formally or informally appeared to accept the central role
of deterrence in their strategies.
Deterrence, in its simplest form, involves efforts to prevent a rival (the
“target”) from pursuing a proscribed action. Deterrence strategies seek to
influence the target’s calculation of the costs, benefits, and risks associated
with pursuing the proscribed action. Assuming a rational opponent—one
that acts to maximize its overall anticipated gains and minimize anticipated
costs—deterrence succeeds by convincing the target that it has an unac-
ceptably low probability of achieving its goals (deterrence through denial)
or that the costs involved in pursuing the proscribed action will exceed any
benefits derived (deterrence through punishment).
Deterrence prevailed through the Cold War. It was later discovered,
however, that on several occasions, the two superpowers came perilously
close to nuclear Armageddon.3 Following Soviet Russia’s collapse in 1991,
the United States’ military dominance constituted a strong deterrent to
any rival contemplating general war. But this dominance no longer exists,
144 Part 1

and the efficacy of deterrence is eroding, perhaps precipitously, along

with it. This would not surprise Churchill, who stated, “I desire to see the
collective forces of the world invested with overwhelming power. If you
are going to run this thing on a narrow margin, . . . you are going to have
war.”4
Today the world’s military powers in general, and the United States
in particular, are pursuing deterrence on an increasingly narrow margin.
Yet over the past decade, U.S. administrations have addressed deterrence
in only the broadest terms. The Obama administration’s national security
strategy in 2015 discussed deterrence in aspirational terms, focusing al-
most exclusively on the goals of deterrence rather than a strategy for en-
suring it. Thus, it includes assertions like, “We will deter and defeat any
adversary that threatens our national security and that of our allies.”5
The administration’s statement of defense priorities in 2012 is similarly
vague as to how deterrence is to be achieved.6
The Trump administration’s 2018 national defense strategy affirmed
the centrality of deterrence by declaring, “The Department of Defense’s
enduring mission is to provide combat-credible military forces needed to
deter war and protect the security of our nation.” Yet there is no explana-
tion as to how this is to be accomplished. The best it could muster was an
ambiguous discourse to the effect that the United States would deter ri-
vals by being “strategically predictable, but operationally unpredictable,”
and somehow “maneuvering [rivals] into unfavorable positions, frustrat-
ing their efforts, precluding their options while expanding our own, and
forcing them to confront conflict under adverse conditions.”7
It appears that these strategy documents share a common assumption
that all political leaders understand and appreciate the devastation associ-
ated with modern general war and therefore that deterrence does not re-
quire any heavy lifting, either intellectually in the form of strategy or with
respect to military capabilities. The truth, however, is that the conditions
enabling effective deterrence strategies are shifting, and in ways that are
eroding their efficacy. The emergence of a mature precision-warfare re-
gime and an emerging military revolution, the diffusion of increasingly
destructive capabilities to minor powers and even nonstate entities—the
“democratization of destruction”—and relatively recent advances in the
cognitive and social sciences are making devising and implementing de-
terrence strategies an increasingly difficult proposition.
The balance of this chapter is devoted to providing an overview of
these trends and their implications for deterrence strategies as they pertain
 W(h)ither Deterrence? 145

to general war. Although the discussion is primarily from a U.S. perspec-

tive, it can be applied more broadly.

The Shifting Geopolitical Environment

Today’s international security system, unlike the bipolar and unipolar
systems between 1945 and recent years, is multipolar. The emergence of
major revisionist powers in China and Russia, combined with the prolif-
eration of nuclear weapons and other advanced military capabilities to
second-tier powers, has increased the number of rivals the United States
seeks to deter. This provides more opportunities for deterrence to fail.
With respect to nuclear weapons, the reductions in U.S. and Russian
Cold War nuclear arsenals by more than 90 percent, combined with the
growth in China’s arsenal, is shifting the bipolar Cold War nuclear com-
petition to a multipolar nuclear world. The summer of 2021 produced
revelations that Beijing is constructing hundreds of silos for its new
DF-41 ICBMs, each capable of carrying ten warheads. As the head of the
U.S. Strategic Command stated, “We are witnessing a strategic breakout
by China.” If so, “parity”—having nuclear forces roughly comparable to
that of your existing or prospective rival(s)—which has been a staple of
U.S.-Russian arms-control agreements owing to its contribution to “cri-
sis stability,” will no longer be possible.8
The Cold War logic was that if both U.S. and Soviet arsenals were at
rough parity, it would enable both to survive a surprise attack by the
other and still retain sufficient residual forces to deliver a devastating
“second-strike” counterattack. This condition was termed “mutual as-
sured destruction” (MAD). Since neither side could execute a disarming
first strike against its rival, neither would be tempted to attack, and de-
terrence would be assured. Although there were other nuclear powers to
consider, their arsenals were trivial compared with those of the super-
powers and therefore could be safely discounted. But parity is not an op-
tion for all rivals when more than two powers are involved.
A multipolar rivalry seems likely to accentuate these fears. Consider
a situation, for example, in which Russia and the United States maintain
their current deployed nuclear arsenals at 1,550 weapons each, while
China increases its nuclear arsenal to that level.9 In this case, no power
has parity with the other two; each must contend with two potential ri-
vals whose combined arsenals are twice the size of its own, significantly
complicating efforts at maintaining a secure second-strike force capable
146 Part 1

of withstanding an attack by both rivals and still delivering a devastating

response against them. Each of these three rivals’ planning would be fur-
ther complicated to a greater or lesser extent by the now-significant arse-
nals of minor nuclear powers, like Britain, France, India, Israel, and
Pakistan, which have arsenals numbering “only” in the hundreds.
Moreover, the current geopolitical environment is more dynamic
than either the Cold War system or the U.S.-dominated unipolar system
that followed, making highly destabilizing shifts in geopolitical align-
ments and the military balance possible. In a politically unstable multi-
polar world, each major power would be incentivized to hedge against
the possibility that its rivals could join in an alliance against it. In our ex-
ample, any of the three powers feeling threatened with isolation might
increase its arsenal to offset, even if only partially, the “weapons gap” it
confronts. This could lead its rivals to increase their arsenals as well, trig-
gering a nuclear arms race.
Moreover, the PLA textbook, The Science of Military Strategy, de-
scribes deterrence as having two objectives. The first, similar to the
Western definition, sees deterrence as discouraging an opponent from
pursuing a particular course of action. The second objective of deter-
rence, however, is to coerce an opponent into pursuing a course of action
that it would otherwise not undertake. Thus, it includes the Western
concept of compellence, suggesting that the CCP has more ambitious
goals for its nuclear forces than U.S. policy makers do. This raises ques-
tions about how the CCP would use its nuclear forces to coerce its rivals
and what kind of nuclear arsenal would be required for it to succeed.10

A Multidimensional Military Competition

The problems for deterrence strategies do not end with the emergence of
multipolar nuclear rivalries. The maturing precision-warfare regime finds
conventional precision-guided weapons capable of striking some targets
once reserved solely for nuclear weapons.11 At the same time, advances in
nuclear weapons design find some militaries fielding very low-yield “dis-
criminate” weapons. The result is a blurring of the “firebreak”—the clear
distinction that once existed between nuclear and conventional weapons
use.12
The partial coupling of these weapons finds policy makers drawing
different conclusions regarding the circumstances under which they
would be employed. Some Western political leaders believe that nuclear
 W(h)ither Deterrence? 147

weapons’ only purpose is to deter others from employing nuclear

weapons—in essence, that nuclear and conventional weapons remain
“decoupled.”13 On the other hand, many civilian and military leaders in
China and Russia appear to reject these views and consider certain types
of nuclear weapons available for use in a general conventional war.14
Assuming that these disparate views are genuine, they pose problems
for strategies designed to deter general conventional and nuclear war.
Political leaders who believe that nuclear and conventional weapons are
decoupled will, all other factors being equal, see less risk in a conven-
tional war escalating to nuclear war and thus be less deterred from wag-
ing conventional war. Yet those policy makers who believe that
“discriminate” nuclear weapons can be used without escalating to a full
nuclear exchange will be less deterred from employing nuclear weapons
once a general conventional war has broken out.
The introduction of cyber weapons further complicates efforts at
deterrence, owing to their potential to corrupt early warning and
command-and-control systems. Suspicions arose following the successful
2007 Israeli air attack on a Syrian nuclear reactor under construction.
No Israeli aircraft were shot down, even though all lacked stealth protec-
tion and their target was defended by Syrian air defense units. This led
to speculation that the strike was coordinated with an Israeli cyber attack
that altered the Syrians’ integrated air defense system (IADS) radar
data.15 If cyber weapons reduce senior decision-makers’ confidence in
their early warning and C2 systems, they may feel compelled to delegate
nuclear force release authority to subordinate commanders, increasing
substantially the number of individuals who can authorize an attack. If
only one of these individuals is more risk tolerant than their political
leader, deterrence will be weakened.
From an attacker’s perspective, if it believes the effectiveness of a ri-
val’s early warning and C2 systems is significantly compromised, this
would logically reduce the anticipated costs (and risks) of executing an at-
tack, all other factors being equal. If so, the efficacy of deterrence would
be further diminished. Furthermore, if a prospective attacker knows that
its rival has delegated release authority to lower-level commanders, it may
be incentivized to attack, lest one of them gets an itchy trigger finger.
If attacks employing nonnuclear forces, such as PGMs and cyber
payloads, are able to create strategic effects (like disabling key compo-
nents of the enemy’s critical economic infrastructure or destroying a sub-
stantial portion of its nuclear forces), it could also reduce the perceived
148 Part 1

risk of engaging in strategic warfare below the nuclear threshold in a

general great-power war. More than a decade ago, the Russian defense
analyst Alexi Arbatov summarized Moscow’s thinking:

The high-precision weapons in the U.S. armed forces’ arsenal

today can be used to destroy a wide range of targets, including
hardened fixed facilities. . . . With due targeting, the existing types
of cluster bombs can effectively destroy mobile land-based
ICBMs. High-precision weapons could also pose a threat to exist-
ing silo-based launchers. . . . Russian policymakers worry that fu-
ture [U.S.] ballistic missile defense capabilities could undermine
Russia’s potential for strategic retaliation, and that U.S. strategic
conventional precision-guided weapons (cruise and ballistic mis-
siles) have a growing counterforce capability, meaning that they
increasingly pose a threat to Russia’s nuclear capabilities.16

Arbatov concluded that “the main unspoken assumption behind this

threat perception is that traditional nuclear deterrence may not be effective
against conventional counterforce threats, since nuclear retaliation in case of
such an attack would invite suicide by follow-on nuclear strikes and thus
lacks credibility” [emphasis added].17 The Russian military’s 2018 doc-
trine provided that, in the event of war, “the Russian Federation shall re-
serve the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear
and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its al-
lies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation
with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the
state is in jeopardy.”18 In 2020, Russian president Vladimir Putin released
“On Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nu-
clear Deterrence,” reaffirming this position. As Russian military exercises
include simulating the use of nuclear weapons against NATO, this would
appear to confirm that Russian doctrine calls for employing its nuclear
forces at a far lower threshold than in responding to a nuclear attack.19
From a U.S. perspective, Russia’s belief that the use of nuclear weapons
would “deescalate” a conflict “increase[s] the prospect for dangerous mis-
calculation and escalation.”20
As with Russia, the rise of U.S. dominance in precision warfare has
led the Chinese to consider employing nuclear weapons first. The PLA’s
The Science of Military Strategy asserts that new military capabilities are
exerting a strong influence on the character of deterrence, declaring,
 W(h)ither Deterrence? 149

“Brand-new methods of deterrence, based on new theory, new

mechanism[s] and new technology, could effectively create more uncer-
tainty when the adversary is evaluating the two sides’ military capabili-
ties, and affect the adversary’s original strategic plan. In this way, the
credibility of deterrence is enhanced. In particular, the emergence of new
deterrence forces, based on new technology such as information, cyber-
space, space, and new-material technologies, is revolutionarily changing
the mechanism, method, and area of operation. It heralds a completely
new method of deterrence, symbolized by constructing [an] asymmetri-
cal method of deterrence.”21
The Chinese have not elaborated on what they mean by a “com-
pletely new method of deterrence” and how this “new method” applies.
Importantly, they also assume that increasing the target’s uncertainty
(and risk) invariably enhances deterrence. Yet advances in the cognitive
sciences show that this is not necessarily so. Indeed, uncertainty may en-
hance deterrence of those political leaders who are least likely to need it:
the risk-averse leaders. Correspondingly, risk-tolerant leaders—the Adolf
Hitlers, Saddam Husseins, Nikita Khrushchevs, Mao Zedongs, and Josef
Stalins of this world—are more disposed to take the chance that uncer-
tainties will be resolved in their favor.
In summary, advances in conventional weapons are enabling them to
be employed effectively against some targets once reserved solely for nu-
clear weapons, while advances in nuclear weapons design have led to in-
creasingly discriminate types. Thus, the clear distinction that existed for
most of the Cold War between conventional and nuclear weapons is be-
coming increasingly blurred. Today both the Russians and the Chinese
view strategic warfare as encompassing more than nuclear weapons. The
Russians have sought to increase their emphasis on nuclear weapons as
their principal response to the challenge posed by modern reconnais-
sance-strike forces. The CCP, however, is pursuing a broad-front ap-
proach, which includes greatly expanding its relatively modest nuclear
arsenal while boosting a combination of “informatized” conventional
forces, information warfare forces, an enhanced space force, and what it
calls an “innovative and developmental civilian deterrence force.”22

Proximity and Speed of Attack

The weakening of deterrence also stems from the growing speed at
which contemporary war is waged, particularly between great powers.
150 Part 1

This reduces warning time, thereby facilitating surprise. As Chapter 4

makes clear, attack warning is being compressed even further with the
use of cyber payloads and the introduction of new weaponry such as
anti-satellite lasers and hypersonic missiles.
These shrinking attack timelines are straining the limits of the most
advanced military powers’ early warning and command-and-control sys-
tems. Under these conditions, even instantaneous warning of an attack
may not provide a state’s political leaders with sufficient time to make a
clear, informed decision as to how to respond. The Cold War offers at
least two examples where false attack warnings came uncomfortably
close to triggering a nuclear exchange between Soviet Russia and the
United States.23 The danger is not new; what is new is the enhanced abil-
ity to corrupt early warning systems and the compressed time available
to confirm that an attack is, in fact, under way and to formulate and to
execute an appropriate response.

Known Unknowns
War between major military powers reveals the true value of military
systems, force structures, and the doctrines governing their employment.
The (thankfully) long absence of general war, compounded by the dis-
ruptive shift in its character triggered by the Precision-Warfare Revolu-
tion, has increased uncertainty with respect to the military balance. The
ongoing introduction of new capabilities described in Chapter 4 further
complicates political and military leaders’ calculations of cost, benefit,
and risk.
These factors heighten the chances that prospective belligerents will
reach significantly different conclusions regarding the risks associated
with pursuing a particular course of action. This will probably enhance
deterrence of risk-averse decision-makers. Decision-makers who are
highly risk tolerant, particularly tyrants, would appear more likely to as-
sume that uncertainties with respect to the military balance will work in
their favor, undermining deterrence where it is needed most.

New Domains and the Biosciences

In both U.S. and Chinese military circles, it’s become popular to talk about
warfare domains. There is good reason for this. Since the last general war,
the military competition has moved beyond the land, sea, undersea, air,
 W(h)ither Deterrence? 151

and the electromagnetic domains, advancing into space, cyberspace, and

the seabed. Each of these domains finds a growing number of state and
nonstate rivals competing for economic and military advantage.
As noted earlier, commercial activity has grown enormously in these
domains in recent decades. A substantial portion of the world’s oil and
natural gas supplies comes from offshore fields, while undersea cables
move the vast majority of the globe’s electronic communications. These
assets—wellheads, pumping stations, pipelines, fiber-optic cables—are
increasingly vulnerable to attack, including from nonstate actors. Space’s
growing economic value and military importance make securing access
to it a high priority. Yet, as with the seabed infrastructure, satellites are
vulnerable to attack. Countries are increasingly susceptible to cyber
strikes against critical infrastructure, including the power grid, transpor-
tation systems, and financial sector. If so, cyber weapons may join nuclear
weapons as a means of inflicting prompt and perhaps even catastrophic
destruction. Standing apart from “domain warfare” are the remarkable
advances in the biosciences. Bioengineering techniques like CRISPR-
Cas9 are widely available. Progress in synthetic biology may enable the
manufacture and use of “precision” biotoxins that will enable individuals
or groups to be targeted with little fear of blowback occurring against
the attacker.
What does this mean for deterrence? Given the stream of economic
benefits and enhanced military effectiveness that states derive from their
activities in the “new” warfare domains and the biosciences, states have a
strong interest in deterring attacks on these assets.
It’s easier said than done.
With respect to deterrence through denial, in each domain, the com-
petition favors the offense—given equal resources and all other factors
being equal, the costs associated with attacking a rival’s space and undersea
systems or launching cyber or advanced biological attacks appear likely to
be far less than those needed to block the action successfully. How do you
defend the Gulf of Mexico’s vast seabed energy infrastructure and cables
from attacks by explosive-laden “kamikaze” underwater drones, now
widely available commercially? How do you defend satellite sensors from
being blinded by ground-based lasers? How do you block every possible
entry point to the national energy grid—including those “insider” threats
who already have access? How do you prevent a wave of suicide human
biological-warfare attackers spreading a synthetically designed “precision”
biotoxin? This imbalance, heavily weighted in the offense’s favor, increases
152 Part 1

the attacker’s prospective gains while reducing the risk of failure, eroding
the efficacy of deterrence through denial.
What about deterrence through the threat of punishment? If deter-
rence through denial fails, and the attack inflicts heavy damage, the vic-
tim state’s leaders will probably feel intense political pressure to retaliate
promptly. The ability of modern military organizations to wage war at
unprecedentedly high speeds may also compel a prompt response, lest
the means to do so are lost. What is needed is prompt—and accurate—
attribution of the attacker’s identity.
In each domain, identifying the source of an attack—especially
promptly—appears relatively difficult compared with attribution of large-
scale attacks in more traditional war-fighting domains, such as land, air,
and sea. The problem, for those who seek to deter through the threat of
retaliation, is that many states and perhaps even nonstate groups are ca-
pable of conducting significant cyber and bio attacks, and against targets
on the seabed. The growing number of space-faring nations and the
spread of directed-energy weaponry seem likely to complicate efforts at
timely attribution of attacks in this domain as well. Given the advantages
accruing to the attacker and the problems of achieving prompt, effective
attribution, risk-tolerant actors—all other factors being equal—will find
the prospective costs and risks involved in taking proscribed actions re-
duced, perhaps dramatically, weakening strategies based on deterrence.

Catalytic War
In a multipolar system with many actors in which the competition is of-
fense dominant and the prospects for prompt and effective attribution
are spotty, the risk of a “catalytic war”—one initiated covertly between
two states by a third party—may increase significantly. This occurs when
one state incorrectly attributes an attack to another state or nonstate en-
tity. The term was popularized in On the Beach, a novel from 1957 that
depicts a nuclear-proliferated world where an Egyptian nuclear attack
against American and British targets is misattributed as an attack by the
Soviet Union. A nuclear retaliatory attack is launched against Russia,
triggering Armageddon.24
The novel’s presumption of multiple actors; the diffusion of new, ad-
vanced weaponry; geographic proximity; and highly stressed early warn-
ing and C2 systems mirror the trends described earlier. For example,
consider a crisis between Israel and Turkey set in the early 2030s. With
 W(h)ither Deterrence? 153

tensions high and warning times compressed, a radical regime in Iran

that considers both the Jewish and Turkish states enemies could attempt
to trigger a catalytic war between the two by launching missiles against
Israel from along its border with Turkey, in the hope that the Israelis
would see it as an attack by the Turks.
More subtle means for triggering a catalytic war may be employed.
Given the odd absence of a Syrian response to the Israeli attack on its
nuclear facilities in 2007, in our example it seems plausible that malware
injected by a third party into Israel’s early warning system could corrupt
it to show—falsely—that a Turkish ballistic missile attack on Israel is
under way. Given the short missile flight times, Israeli leaders would
have no time to confirm that such an attack was, in fact, occurring before
launching their missiles in a retaliatory strike. Similar situations could
arise elsewhere where military powers are in close geographic proximity
to one another, as is the case with China, India, Pakistan, and Russia.

The Democratization of Destruction

More than two decades ago, Martin Shubik warned of what I call the
“democratization of destruction.” He argued that the increasing avail-
ability of technical information and dual-use materials risk making mass
killing possible for small groups or even individuals.25 Although Shubik
emphasized biological attacks, his warning has broader applicability in
today’s world. Formidable military capabilities are increasingly accessible
to nonstate actors, including small groups, as the technical and capital
barriers to developing or acquiring devastating malware and sophisti-
cated biological weapons, among other means of destruction, are eroding
at a worrisome rate.
The rapidly increasing ability of nonstate entities to inflict destruc-
tion undermines deterrence, as some actors, like millenarian groups, wish
nothing else but to inflict destruction on society. The point is expressed
well in the motion picture The Dark Knight, in which the protagonist,
Bruce Wayne (Batman) tells his butler, Alfred Pennyworth, that he is
struggling to figure out what his arch rival, The Joker, wants:

alfred pennyworth: With respect, Master Wayne, perhaps

this is a man that you don’t fully understand, either. A long time
ago, I was in Burma. My friends and I were working for the local
government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders
154 Part 1

by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were

being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So, we
went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never met
anybody who traded with him. One day, I saw a child playing
with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throw-
ing them away.
bruce wayne: So why steal them?
alfred pennyworth: Well, because he thought it was good
sport. Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like
money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated
with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.26

For those who only want to “watch the world burn,” deterrence through
denial is the only possible strategy. Moreover, if such groups or individu-
als lack sanctuary, they will be incentivized to employ their weapons as
quickly as possible, lest they be captured.

Crazy Armed Humans

Crafting deterrence strategies is greatly simplified by making two as-
sumptions: first, that people make decisions rationally—acting to maxi-
mize their prospective gains in the context of their utility functions—in
making decisions involving risk; and second, that they calculate their
costs, benefits, and risks as you would if you were in their position.
As it turns out, neither assumption is true. Human beings cannot be
counted on to act rationally in making decisions involving risk. There are
also major impediments to understanding how others calculate cost, ben-
efit, and risk, which, of course, is at the heart of deterrence.
The work of John Locke, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill pre-
sumed that all normal human adult cognitive processes were identical.
David Bernoulli, however, found that most people dislike risk and uncer-
tainty and that, offered the choice between a gamble and a “sure thing”
equal to the expected value of the gamble, people usually pick the sure
thing. Simply put, human decision-making is based on prospective mate-
rial gains and losses, as well as on psychological factors.27
In the 1950s, Herbert Simon introduced the concept of bounded (or
limited) rationality, in demonstrating that people’s ability to make ratio-
nal decisions is limited by the difficulty of the decision problem they
confront, their inherent cognitive limitations, and the time available for
 W(h)ither Deterrence? 155

them to make a decision. Under these conditions, rather than making

decisions that maximize their expected utility, people typically abandon
attempting to make the “best” decision and instead default to making a
“good enough” decision. Simon called this “satisficing.”28
Simon’s collaboration with James March showed how, in organiza-
tions, senior leaders’ decisions are influenced by their bureaucracies,
which provide—or withhold—information that could exert a significant
influence on their decisions.29 Further work by March in collaboration
with Richard Cyert found that senior decision-makers often made deci-
sions based on relatively simple rules, as opposed to a thorough analysis
of costs, benefits, and risks.30
The erosion of belief in rational human decision-making was accel-
erated when, in the late 1970s, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman
found that people systematically violate the laws of probability on which
utility theory is based. They called their findings “prospect theory,”
which states that people’s choices are influenced by their “reference
point,” specifically, that an identical situation may be viewed differently
based on a person’s sense of their prospective gains and losses, which
Kahneman and Tversky term the “framing effect.”31 Their work was
aided by Richard Thaler’s discovery of the “endowment effect,” which
states that individuals tend to value retaining what they have rather than
acquiring comparable things they do not have.32 Thus, a policy maker
would be more likely to run higher risks to retain territory than to seize
territory of equal value from another country, thereby supporting pros-
pect theory’s “reference point.” The endowment effect would seem to
strengthen deterrence. But, alas, this is not always true.
This is because much depends on how decision-makers set their ref-
erence point. One might assume that decision-makers always set their
reference point with respect to the situation that exists when the decision
is being made—the status quo. This assumption, however, is false. Tver-
sky and Kahneman discovered that after securing gains, decision-makers
typically reset their reference point around the new status quo. They view
any subsequent setback as a loss rather than a gain foregone and are rela-
tively risk tolerant in defending their gains. On the other hand, when de-
cision-makers suffer losses, they typically do not reset their reference point
but retain the pre-loss status quo as their reference point. They view retak-
ing what they’ve lost not as the pursuit of gains but as preventing losses,
framing their decision using the old status quo. Consequently, they will
run relatively greater risks to achieve this end.
156 Part 1

The endowment effect influence on the reference point may weaken

deterrence. For example, the Arab states’ decisive defeat by Israel in the
Six-Day War in 1967, combined with Israel’s nuclear capability, should
have deterred any overt act of Arab aggression. Yet only six years later,
Egypt and Syria went to war with Israel to recover their lost territories.
Arguably, the Arab leaders saw themselves as trying to recover land that
was rightfully theirs. Their reference point had not changed after the
1967 war. The Israelis, on the other hand, having adjusted their refer-
ence point on the new status quo, fought to defend what they viewed as
theirs.
Today, consider China’s attempts at creating “new facts” by militariz-
ing existing and artificially created islands in the South China Sea, many
of which are claimed by its neighbors. One can readily envision the Chi-
nese Communist Party’s leaders framing their perspective around a new
status quo in which the region has become a part of China, while other
countries reject Beijing’s claims and retain a reference point based on
the status quo that existed before China’s expansionist actions. Should a
crisis occur, both parties may well view themselves as being in a domain
of loss and willing to run greater risks to prevail, weakening efforts at
deterrence.
Yet another revelation from the cognitive sciences—“optimism
bias”—finds that deterrence strategies are far less robust than some peo-
ple may assume. Its roots are in research showing that “optimistic” peo-
ple are more likely to achieve positions of authority, such as senior policy
makers. These individuals typically made it to the top by beating long
odds, reinforcing their optimism, including faith in their judgment and
the chances of overcoming unfavorable odds. Generally speaking, such
individuals are prone to double down when faced with failure and are
willing to run greater risks to prevail rather than cutting their losses.
Simply put, political leaders’ optimism is generally “widespread, stub-
born, and costly.”33 Or as Henry Kissinger observed, “It is in the nature
of prophets to redouble their efforts, not to abandon them, in the face of
recalcitrant reality.”34
Deterring a leader with optimism bias may be particularly challeng-
ing when dealing with tyrants, such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Hussein, and
even lesser despots like Khrushchev. Given the cutthroat political envi-
ronment in which they operated, the relatively long odds involved in at-
tempting to seize absolute power, and the fate of those who competed
and failed, these men must have been extremely risk tolerant. Once they
 W(h)ither Deterrence? 157

had prevailed, the experience would almost certainly have boosted their
optimism regarding their ability to navigate threats to their rule, both in-
ternal and external.35
Optimism bias may partially explain Hitler’s decision to reoccupy the
Rhineland while in a weak military position relative to Great Britain,
France, and Soviet Russia. It may also aid in understanding Stalin’s cut-
ting off U.S. access to West Berlin even as the Americans enjoyed a nu-
clear monopoly. Saddam Hussein’s decision to take on the United States
not once but twice suggests a belief in his ability to prevail in the face of
enormous odds, as does Mao’s decision to plunge China into the Korean
War barely a year after seizing power following a long civil war. Then
there is Khrushchev’s high-stakes gamble of deploying nuclear missiles
to Cuba despite clear U.S. warnings that it would precipitate a major cri-
sis. In summary, these leaders’ actions strongly suggest that each pos-
sessed a personality that believed all would turn out well even when
pursuing very risky enterprises. This suggests that tyrants may be espe-
cially difficult to deter.
Other recent advances in the behavioral sciences reveal that mem-
bers of markedly different cultures exhibit significant and, in some cases,
dramatic differences in their cognitive processes, including how they
view matters of equity, cost, benefit, and risk.36
In the 1990s, the anthropologist Joseph Henrich was researching an
assumption that humans all share “the same cognitive machinery—the
same evolved rational and psychological hardwiring.”37 His work found
him testing people from various cultures using the Ultimatum Game,
which has two players. Player A is given an amount of money, say, $100.
Player A must then offer Player B an amount of money, anywhere from
$1 to $100. Then Player B chooses to accept or reject the offer. If B ac-
cepts A’s offer, they each receive A’s proposed payout. If, however, B re-
fuses the offer, neither player receives any money, and both end up
empty-handed. Since Player A must offer Player B at least $1, both play-
ers stand to come out ahead if the offer is accepted: a classic “win-win”
result. Henrich knew that most American Player Bs tended to reject of-
fers from Player A that fell below a rough split of the money, even
though B’s financial situation would have improved by accepting it.
With this data in hand, Henrich began conducting the Ultimatum
Game with members of the Machiguenga tribe, which lives in the Peru-
vian Amazon. To his surprise, Machiguenga Player As’ offers were typi-
cally much lower than those advanced by their American counterparts.
158 Part 1

Even more surprising, Machiguenga Player Bs rarely refused even very

low amounts. They felt that it just seemed ridiculous to reject an offer of
free money. Why would anyone forgo money to punish someone who
had the good fortune of playing the other role in the game?38
Henrich then tested people from more than a dozen small societies
in East Africa, South America, the Southwest Pacific, and Mongolia. He
found that the average offers made by Player A varied widely from cul-
ture to culture. In some cultures, even when Player A made offers above
$60, Player B would often refuse the offer, outcomes that were almost
unheard of when Americans were playing the game.39
Henrich concluded that humans will reject what they perceive as un-
fairness or slights to their personal honor, even at substantial cost to them-
selves. These perceptions are highly subjective. Where people have
conflicting judgments of what constitutes fairness, both risk being left, at
least materially speaking, with a “lose-lose” outcome.40
How do deterrence strategies account for “honor” and “fairness”? Or
does it even matter when dealing with matters of state? The renowned
historian Donald Kagan found that in matters of war and peace, there is
indeed a link between a policy maker’s sense of fairness and national
honor. Kagan notes that in the Peloponnesian War and in World War I,
some belligerents went to war in no small measure due to the perceived
cost to their honor in failing to act. In the former conflict, the Corinthi-
ans’ “driving motive” in going to war with Corcyra “was neither fear nor
interest, but honor, a determination to avenge the slights they had suf-
fered from the Corcyraeans.” Britain’s decision to declare war on Ger-
many in August 1914 found some senior British officials, “those who
would not fight for the balance of power and British security, . . . [consol-
ing] themselves that they were fighting for international law, the sanctity
of treaties, and the protection of helpless neutrals.”41
As the Ultimatum Game shows, preserving one’s honor and a sense
of fairness is not limited to political and military leaders. During a visit
to Germany in 1934, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre encoun-
tered a German who had served as a sergeant during the Great War. The
old soldier declared that in the next war, “We shall retrieve our honor.” A
shocked Sartre said that given the horrors of the last war, everyone ought
to want peace. “Honor comes first,” the old sergeant replied. “First we
must retrieve our honor.”42
As for “fairness,” the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s decision-
making during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 was influenced by, as he
 W(h)ither Deterrence? 159

saw it, a lack of “fairness” in U.S. and Soviet overseas nuclear-armed mis-
sile deployments. The United States had deployed missiles in Britain,
Italy, and Turkey, and Khrushchev expected President Kennedy to accept
Soviet missiles in Cuba “as the Turkish missiles were received in the So-
viet Union.”43 When Kennedy did not, both sides moved to the brink of
nuclear war—the ultimate lose-lose outcome. At the time, the United
States enjoyed an enormous advantage in nuclear forces over Soviet Rus-
sia, and the U.S. missiles in Europe were a minor factor in nuclear mili-
tary balance. Despite Khrushchev’s inferior position and the irrelevance,
militarily speaking, of the U.S. missiles in Turkey, getting Kennedy’s
commitment to withdraw the missiles became a crucial sticking point in
negotiations to resolve the crisis. Yet Khrushchev persisted, primarily
due to his need to show that he and his country had been treated fairly
and honorably.44
It seems clear that factors relating to perceptions of fairness can
exert a significant influence on decision-makers when making choices
under conditions of risk. Could U.S. decision-makers today feel confi-
dent that they understand how the Chinese leadership or that of Russia,
Iran, or North Korea views the cost it is willing to pay to be treated in a
way that is “fair” or “honorable”?

For roughly three-quarters of a century, U.S. defense strategy has relied

on deterrence to avoid the horrors of a third great-power war. The ab-
sence of such a war and the period of U.S. military dominance in the two
decades following the Cold War appear to have convinced a generation
of U.S. policy makers that deterrence is assured. But recent dramatic
geopolitical shifts, especially the rise of revisionist great powers, com-
bined with a maturing precision-warfare regime and the emergence of
potent new military capabilities, are radically shifting the conditions
under which deterrence strategies are constructed. Finally, human frail-
ties cannot be ignored. As President Eisenhower came to understand, “It
is remarkable how little concern men seem to have for logic, statistics,
and even, indeed, survival: we live by emotion, prejudice, and pride.”45
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PA RT I I
This page intentionally left blank
 Introduction

T
he preceding chapters describe some prospective char-
acteristics of the maturing precision-warfare regime, as well
as those of an emerging military revolution. The shift in the
military competition’s character will probably be profound.
As such, a military’s ability to adapt on a grand scale—to demonstrate a
world-class competence in disruptive innovation—will be crucial to its
ability to gain a competitive advantage over its rivals.
How well positioned are the world’s militaries to win the race to
identify and exploit the “next big thing” in warfare? How might they im-
prove their odds of succeeding?
Insights on these questions may be found by examining periods over
the past century or so when militaries undertook disruptive innovation
to trigger a military revolution. By examining how these militaries suc-
ceeded, it may be possible to identify general characteristics of military
organizations with a high level of competence in pursuing disruptive in-
novation. These characteristics may be used to help identify how well a
particular military—and the militaries of its rivals—are positioned to
create a military revolution.
Although military revolutions have occurred periodically stretching
back over thousands of years, the emphasis here is on the late nineteenth
and twentieth centuries: the industrial and information ages. The four
militaries examined reflect different time frames, national military orga-
nizations, and branches of the armed services. The purpose is not to
write a new history of these militaries in the periods under investigation.
Many skilled scholars have accomplished that with varying interpreta-

163
164 Part 2

tions, to the point where in some cases we are now in post-revisionist pe-
riods. Rather, the effort here is to draw on their scholarship for a twofold
purpose: to understand how these militaries pursued disruptive innova-
tion, and to identify common features that emerge from their experience.
Four militaries are examined in general chronological order. Among
the factors examined are leadership; fiscal resources; military-technical
resources; the industrial base; investment strategies; field exercises and
experimentation; manpower; and external factors, such as the political
leadership, civilian oversight, and arms control. The four studies vary
considerably in length. This stems primarily from the length of the pe-
riod examined and, to an even greater extent, the level of complexity as-
sociated with the changes they pursued.
We begin in Chapter 6 with the British Royal Navy during an era of
overlapping military revolutions, spanning from the mid-nineteenth cen-
tury’s Steam and Iron Revolution through the so-called Fisher Revolu-
tion, a term coined by Nicholas Lambert that reflects the extraordinary
individual at its heart. During this period, Great Britain confronted major
shifts in the geopolitical and military-technical environment. In response,
the Admiralty, under Admiral John (“Jackie”) Fisher’s leadership, ex-
ploited the potential of emerging technologies—including those associ-
ated with new types of weapons, propulsion, and communications—and
operations in new domains to affect a radical shift in the fleet’s character
and capabilities in order to sustain Britain’s maritime superiority.
Chapter 7 tracks the German military’s pursuit of disruptive innova-
tion between the world wars. Following Germany’s defeat in World
War I, the interwar years saw its armed forces leverage advances in
mechanization, aviation, and radio to create mechanized air-land opera-
tions, popularly known as “Blitzkrieg.”
At the same time that the German military was transforming war on
land, the United States Navy was at the forefront in creating a military
revolution at sea, primarily through naval aviation, long-range radio, and
radar. Its successful efforts led to the battleship being eclipsed by the air-
craft carrier and the fast carrier task force, the subject of Chapter 8.
The examples conclude in Chapter 9 with the United States Air
Force, which led the way in introducing precision warfare. After suffer-
ing substantial losses during the Vietnam War and facing a growing
threat from advanced Soviet integrated air defenses in Europe, the Air
Force developed and fielded what Soviet military theorists referred to as
the first operational “reconnaissance-strike complex.”
 Introduction 165

Chapter 10 identifies common characteristics shared by these mili-

taries. They provide a point-of-departure scorecard of sorts to handicap
a military organization’s potential to pursue disruptive innovation. Chap-
ter 11 completes Part 2 by offering a preliminary assessment of how well
the U.S. military is positioned to pursue disruptive innovation.
 chapter six
Fisher’s Scheme

The first essential is to divest our minds totally of the idea that a
single type of ship as now built is necessary.

—admiral of the fleet john fisher

It’s astounding to me, perfectly astounding, how the very best

amongst us absolutely fail to realise the vast impending
revolution in naval warfare and naval strategy that the submarine
will accomplish. . . . In all seriousness I don’t think it is even
faintly realised—the immense impending revolution which the
submarines will effect as offensive weapons of war.

—admiral of the fleet john fisher

The Most Powerful and Far-Reaching Weapon

On Saturday, June 26, 1897, the Royal Navy assembled at Spithead to
celebrate Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee; 165 ships were present, ar-
rayed in five lines stretching over thirty miles. It was by far the greatest
concentration of naval power the world had ever seen, even though the

166
 Fisher’s Scheme 167

Admiralty had not recalled a single ship from Britain’s huge Mediterra-
nean battle fleet or from its more distant squadrons deployed around the
globe. As the Times of London declared, “The Fleet . . . is certainly the
most formidable force in all its elements and qualities that has ever been
brought together, and such as no combination of other powers can rival.
It is at once the most powerful and far-reaching weapon the world has
ever seen.”1
For nearly a century, since the Battle of Trafalgar, the Royal Navy’s
supremacy on the world’s oceans had remained unchallenged. The fleet
had underwritten the establishment of the largest empire the world had
ever seen, covering one-quarter of all the territory on the globe and in-
habited by more than 350 million people. The fleet linked Great Britain
and its colonies and dominions, while protecting the global seaborne
commerce that enabled Britain to emerge as the world’s leading eco-
nomic power. Finally, as long as Britannia ruled the waves, it was safe
from invasion.
Yet despite the awesome display of naval might that warm June day,
it represented more a reflection of the century then passing than the one
to come. Just as Queen Victoria’s reign was coming to a close, so too was
the Pax Britannica. Soon the British would find their naval dominance
challenged as it had not been since Napoleon swept across the Conti-
nent. Shifts in the global power balance moved Great Britain to abandon
its aversion to seeking alliances and security understandings. In the two
decades following Victoria’s diamond jubilee, a disruptive shift in the
character of war at sea resulted in the Royal Navy undergoing a radical
transformation in its composition, capabilities, disposition, and approach
to war. This transformation vastly improved the navy’s effectiveness and
enabled it—albeit barely—to defeat an enemy with no naval tradition in
a form of warfare the Admiralty only dimly perceived.
Indeed, as Britain’s sea lords watched the fleet’s hours-long proces-
sion honoring the Queen, they had little idea that the coming years
would find the Royal Navy abandoning its time-honored practice of im-
posing a close blockade of enemy fleets in war; undertaking the whole-
sale decommissioning of more than 150 warships; introducing several
new warship types; creating a “combined-arms” line of battle; adopting
new forms of maritime operations; and exploiting the communications
revolution to realize fantastic increases in the fleet’s combat effectiveness.
The Royal Navy’s transformation was also a product of several other
key developments, principal among them Britain’s relative declining
168 Part 2

economic and industrial power, the emergence of three new naval pow-
ers, demands at home for increasing spending on social welfare, and the
genius of its greatest admiral since Nelson.

The Sources of Maritime Dominance

Given the importance of sea power to the country’s survival and well-
being, Admiral Frederick Richards, who served as the Navy’s most senior
admiral, or first sea lord, in the 1890s, declared that when it came to sea
power, “What this country wants is clear and undisputed superiority.”2
For most of the nineteenth century, from the end of the Napoleonic
Wars until the 1880s, that was exactly what Britain enjoyed. Thanks to
its being in the lead in the Industrial Revolution, Britain’s economic and
industrial capacity was considerably greater than that of France, its only
major maritime rival. An island nation, Britain could rely on the Royal
Navy to protect it from invasion, while France, a continental power, had
to maintain a large army. The French, unable to match the British Navy
ship for ship, were compelled to pursue novel maritime strategies.
British maritime superiority was sustained by a virtuous cycle. The
Royal Navy protected the country’s maritime commerce and the empire.
Access to markets and secure sea lines of communication created the
wealth necessary to support a large fleet and enhance the maritime in-
dustrial base. This set the foundation for Britain’s maritime supremacy,
which secured British trade, and so on.
Thanks to Great Britain’s global empire and network of overseas
bases, it also enjoyed positional advantage over France. As Admiral John
(“Jackie”) Fisher boasted, as long as the maritime competition remained
confined to European powers, Britain controlled the “keys” that enabled
access to the world’s major sea lanes. With the exception of France,
whose Atlantic Ocean bases could be bottled up through blockade, other
European fleets would have to pass through chokepoints to gain access
to the open seas to threaten the British Empire or its commerce. These
chokepoints—the English Channel, the Strait of Gibraltar, and the Suez
Canal—were all under the Royal Navy’s watchful eye.
Reflecting the Navy’s culture, Admiral Richards declared, “The role of
the British fleet in war must always be the offensive.”3 The Royal Navy’s
battle fleet was to “command the seas” in home waters. Contemporary
strategists believed that the existence of a superior battle fleet together with
a blockade of enemy naval bases would preclude any attempt to invade or
 Fisher’s Scheme 169

blockade the British Isles. Meanwhile, relatively small, distant station fleets
were assigned to protect Britain’s imperial interests. If trade were threat-
ened, the Navy would hunt down enemy commerce raiders and destroy
them. More passive, defensive means for protecting shipping, such as con-
voys, were rejected almost out of hand—even when they were shown to be
effective.4
Britain’s unsurpassed maritime industrial base was yet another source
of competitive advantage. The Admiralty could let its rivals set the pace
and direction of naval innovation, confident that Britain’s superior finan-
cial and industrial strength would enable it to overtake any adversary
seeking to steal a march on the future.5 At midcentury, however, the
French, looking to shift the maritime competition in their favor, ex-
ploited emerging technologies to fuel a naval revolution.

Steam, Iron, and the Telegraph

Between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the American Civil War,
new technologies enabled the introduction of steam propulsion and
screw propellers; iron hulls and armor plate; ever larger guns; and
breech-loading rifled guns. The French were the first to introduce
steam-powered warships in 1850, with Napoleon. Steam as a motive
power was more powerful, reliable, and efficient than wind and sails.
Steamships cut the trip from London to Cape Town by more than half.
For the Royal Navy, charged with defending an empire on which the sun
never set, steam greatly enhanced its ability to move quickly to any
threatened spot on the globe.
The shift to steam propulsion came at a price. Instead of using wind
to propel sails, coal was required to fuel the boilers creating steam. The
Admiralty found itself creating a global network of coaling stations to
sustain its far-flung fleets. The shift from sail to steam also had impor-
tant implications for the Royal Navy’s blockade operations, as ships so
engaged had to return to a base for engine maintenance and to restock
with coal.
The Age of Steam had barely arrived when, in March 1858, the
French Navy laid down four warships designed with iron plates bolted
over their timber hulls, the first oceangoing “ironclads.” France’s new
ships were far superior to their wood-hulled predecessors, especially
against the rifled shells that were greatly increasing both the accuracy
and the penetrating power of a warship’s guns.6
170 Part 2

News of the French initiative reached England in May, leading Brit-

ain’s surveyor of the navy, Sir Baldwin Walker, to declare, “Although I
have frequently stated it is not in the interest of Great Britain, possessing
as she does so large a navy, to adopt any important change in the con-
struction of ships of war which might have the effect of rendering neces-
sary the introduction of a new class of very costly vessels until such a
course is forced upon her by the adoption by Foreign powers of formida-
ble ships of a novel character requiring similar ships to cope with them,
yet it then becomes a matter not only of expediency but of absolute
necessity.”7
This strategy of the “second-move advantage” characterized the Ad-
miralty’s thinking throughout most of the nineteenth century. As Peter
Padfield has found, “It accorded with all natural instincts to preserve a
familiar and if not physically comfortable at least comforting and highly
successful way of life, and it kept costs down by preserving existing dock-
yards, ships and naval skills which were known to be superior. And, most
important, it worked—because . . . the country had engineering and in-
dustrial potential which exceeded anything elsewhere. This is perhaps
the deciding factor [in sustaining British maritime superiority] through-
out the century.”8
The first seagoing ironclad was France’s La Gloire. Yet only a year
later, the British launched the far more powerful Warrior. In 1859, one-
third of the merchant tonnage produced in British shipyards employed
iron in their construction. By 1870, the proportion had risen to five-
sixths, substantially surpassing that of the French. The British shift from
wind to steam propulsion was equally impressive, thanks to the govern-
ment’s policy of providing subsidies that encouraged creating and sus-
taining steamship lines as early as 1840, even though steam engines at
that time were uneconomical.9
Britain’s advanced industrial base and ability to build more quickly
than its rivals also enabled it to maintain a smaller fleet—with its
significant savings in human, fiscal, and material resources—knowing
that it could rapidly increase the Navy’s size if needed. By the 1870s,
Great Britain had forty ironclads built and under construction, only five
more than France. Still, the British fleet was generally considered more
than a match for its French counterpart, thanks to Britain’s ability to
compete based on time—to build quickly.10 It also made sense to avoid
launching large numbers of ships that, owing to the quickening advance
 Fisher’s Scheme 171

of technological change, could find their effectiveness depreciating at a

relatively rapid rate.
In the two decades following the French launching of La Gloire, the
navies of the great European powers were in a state of constant churn as
technology advances enabled rapid progress in armor and armament.
What the Admiralty lacked was a sense of how these new ships would
fare in war. Thanks to the Pax Britannica, by 1880 the Royal Navy had
only one admiral on active duty who had ever been in combat with an
enemy warship on the open seas.11 The absence of major fleet engage-
ments that characterized the post-Napoleonic era led navies to examine
even the smallest engagement between these new ship types for clues as
to how they should design their fleets.
Early returns suggested that ships designed with rams would be ef-
fective. A battle between Austrian and Italian ships at Lissa in 1866 saw
the Re d’Italia sunk after being rammed. With contemporary guns inac-
curate and limited to close range, visions arose of melees between ships
maneuvering and sinking each other with rams, and beginning in the
mid-1860s, a significant number of ships were equipped with rams.
By the 1880s, however, a ship’s armament had eclipsed the ram’s chal-
lenge as the main threat to a ship’s armor. The earliest French and British
ironclads were covered with wrought-iron armor several inches thick. By
the mid-1860s, the armor had increased to nine inches, and then to
twenty-four inches in the British ironclad Inflexible, launched in 1876.
Moreover, advances in metallurgy were making stronger and lighter types
of armor possible. By the late 1890s, the German firm Krupp was manu-
facturing steel armor with roughly three times the strength as the armor
used in the Inflexible. At the same time, guns were rapidly increasing in
size, range, and rate of fire. By the 1880s, breech-loading guns were dis-
placing muzzle-loaders, and steel armor-piercing rounds began appearing
around the same time. The 1890s saw “quick-firing” guns capable of fir-
ing up to fourteen rounds a minute entering the fleet. Armor appeared to
be losing its competition with shells.
The rapid pace of technological change—and warship obsolescence—
saw British warships often built in ones and twos. The ships themselves
presented a wide variety of forms, shapes, types, masts, riggings, and arma-
ments. It took until the 1890s and the emergence of the Franco-Russian
alliance before the Royal Navy built an entire class of battleships, the
seven Royal Sovereigns, to a single design.12
172 Part 2

The Devil’s Device

Impressive as the advances in ship design, armor plate, guns, and weap-
onry were, nothing caused the Admiralty more anxiety during the nine-
teenth century’s latter decades than the torpedo. The first practical
torpedo appeared in 1867, the product of collaboration between an Aus-
trian naval officer, Commander Giovanni Lupis, and Robert Whitehead,
an English engineer.
The Whitehead torpedo quickly attracted the Admiralty’s attention.
In September 1872, Commander Jackie Fisher, an early torpedo enthusi-
ast, was assigned to HMS Excellent as a torpedo instructor. Two months
after his arrival, Fisher published a memorandum that made its way
throughout the fleet urging that a committee be established to investi-
gate the novel weapon’s potential. The memo apparently had an effect.
In May 1873, the “Torpedo Committee” began work.
Over the next three years, the committee undertook a series of ex-
periments leading to the publication of a seminal report on the subject.
Its findings were sobering. The committee expressed concern that “the
most powerful ship is liable to be destroyed by a torpedo projected from
a vessel of the utmost comparative insignificance” and that this threat-
ened to “reduce to one common level the Naval Power of the greatest
and the most insignificant nations.” The committee made this declara-
tion with foresight, as the Whitehead torpedo was as yet a primitive
weapon with a range of only 200 yards and a speed of nine knots. Never-
theless, the committee concluded, “Any maritime nation failing to pro-
vide itself with submarine locomotive torpedoes would be neglecting a
source of great power both for offence and defence.” The torpedo also
had important implications for the Royal Navy’s use of the close block-
ade to confine enemy warships to their bases. The committee foresaw
that “none of [Britain’s] large vessels could remain for any length of time
during war off an enemy’s port without imminent risk of destruction by
offensive torpedoes; experiments in this and other countries have fur-
nished data which leave no room for doubt on this head.” As Admiral
Richards lamented, “No man ever did his country a worse service [than
Robert Whitehead]. . . . The millions which his invention has taxed his
country up to the present would have built a large fleet.”13
By the mid-1880s, a growing number of officers believed the torpedo
was about to transform naval warfare. At the vanguard of this movement
was Admiral Hyacinthe Aube, who was appointed as France’s minister of
 Fisher’s Scheme 173

marine in 1886. The admiral and like-minded French officers were

known as the Jeune École. They argued that small, cheap, fast torpedo-
carrying boats could sink the Royal Navy’s largest, most heavily armored
ships. They envisioned France’s torpedo boats, sacrificing armored pro-
tection to achieve high speed and benefiting from the dispersion made
possible by their large numbers, could successfully press home their
swarm attacks on the Royal Navy’s blockading battle fleet. While French
torpedo boats were savaging Britain’s close blockade fleet, French steam-
powered cruisers would be terrorizing British commerce on the high
seas. All this could be done on the cheap. An article in La Reforme de la
Marine asserted that if three torpedo boats would suffice to torpedo an
ironclad, they could be built at a cost of 600,000 francs, against the
20-million-franc cost of a major warship. And they could be crewed by a
small fraction of the sailors needed to man an ironclad.14
The prospect that the Jeune École’s vision of future warfare at sea
might prove true triggered alarm bells at the Admiralty. In September
1884, Captain W. H. Hall of the Royal Navy’s Foreign Intelligence
Committee (the forerunner of the Naval Intelligence Department) sub-
mitted a memo examining prospective naval operations in the event of a
war with France. In addressing the close blockade, Hall concluded that
“torpedo boats constitute the chief danger to a blockading squadron . . .
unless it is accompanied by an adequate number of torpedo vessels suffi-
cient to protect the squadron.” Hall’s concept of a suitable “torpedo ves-
sel” was a ship much larger than a torpedo boat.15
Hall’s memo gained traction the following April, owing to a war
scare with Russia, which raised the prospect of the Royal Navy confront-
ing Russian torpedo boats lurking in the Baltic Sea. To counter the
threat, the Admiralty ordered fifty-four torpedo gun boats, or “catchers,”
smaller and faster versions of the cruisers of that time. The early classes,
the Rattlesnake, Grasshopper, and Sharpshooter, arrived in time to be evalu-
ated in the early-1890s maneuvers.
Despite the near panic induced by the emergence of the torpedo-
boat threat, there was little hard evidence to back the Jeune École’s
claims or substantiate the fears triggered by the Anglo-Russian crisis.
Critics pointed out that torpedoes were not effective against moving
ships beyond 400 yards, while ship-mounted guns were effective at
nearly four times that range and could fire more rapidly than torpedoes
could be launched. Moreover, torpedo boats had yet to prove they were
seaworthy in open waters. With an eye toward identifying the true state
174 Part 2

of the naval balance and obtaining an accurate measure of the torpedo-

boat threat, the Royal Navy began a series of fleet maneuvers that would
continue for nearly thirty years until the onset of the Great War in 1914.
Even before Admiral Aube came to power, the French themselves
were conducting naval maneuvers exploring the torpedo boat’s potential.
One maneuver in 1884 that generated excitement saw a torpedo-boat
flotilla intercept and attack ironclads at night on the open sea.16
The Royal Navy undertook its own maneuvers with the opposite ob-
jective in mind: countering the torpedo-boat threat. The fleet maneuvers
of 1885 off Ireland’s west coast found the Royal Navy testing coastal and
blockade operations. They revealed that the British fleet was unprepared
for an opponent well versed in the use of torpedoes and that torpedo-
boat catchers were not sufficiently seaworthy to support overseas block-
ade work.17
The French Navy’s follow-on experiments with torpedo boats
proved sobering for Jeune École members. The 1887 maneuvers, con-
ducted in poor weather, exposed serious flaws in the boats’ sea-keeping
abilities. One boat was lost, and two others were so badly damaged that
they were scrapped. Still others were so damaged that the flotilla was re-
duced to half strength. The exercise coincided with Aube’s replacement
after barely a year as France’s minister of marine.
The Royal Navy’s fleet exercises in 1888 and 1889 examined the fea-
sibility of maintaining an effective blockade against an enemy’s torpedo-
boat squadron and its fast cruisers in strongly fortified ports. The
maneuvers’ findings mirrored those of the French: torpedo boats showed
severe limitations operating on the high seas and in daylight. The British
began to discount the torpedo-boat threat, even though they did not ex-
plore the possibilities of torpedo craft operating in restricted waters at
night, even as many of their French counterparts were concluding that
torpedo boats could be effective under such circumstances.18
In fact, the Royal Navy’s maneuvers revealed that, in avoiding the
threat posed by torpedo boats at night, the blockading force retreated far-
ther out to sea. This led to wider gaps in the blockade line, reducing its
effectiveness. The 1888 exercise employed a “British” force of thirteen
battleships and eleven cruisers blockading an “enemy” fleet. This force
failed to prevent nine “enemy” battleships and eight cruisers from eluding
the blockade, whereupon they commenced attacking Britain’s coasts and
shipping. The maneuvers also exposed the logistics problems associated
with close blockade in the Age of Steam. During the Napoleonic Wars,
 Fisher’s Scheme 175

Admiral Nelson’s wooden sailing ships stood watch off enemy ports for
months and even years. Steam-powered ships, however, needed coal. But
coaling at sea was difficult, and impossible in bad weather, and steam en-
gines needed periodic maintenance. This meant that the Navy would have
to rotate the ships conducting the blockade. Thus, although blockade ap-
peared feasible, the combination of moving it farther offshore and the
fleet’s mechanization raised the price of doing business considerably.19
Along with the Russia war scare and the growth of the tsar’s navy, the
fleet exercises provided ammunition for those who advocated a bigger
navy. Further support came when the French began to establish torpedo-
boat bases, or points d’appui, from Brittany to Dunkirk to threaten British
shipping in the English Channel and dissuade any thoughts of close
blockade by “Perfidious Albion.”20 The Admiralty charged three admi-
rals, Sir William Dowell, Sir R. Vesey Hamilton, and Sir Frederick Rich-
ards, with studying the feasibility of maintaining a close blockade, how it
might be accomplished under the changed conditions, and the kind and
number of ships required.

“Charlie B”
At this time, in December 1888, Captain Charles Beresford introduced
his naval program. Beresford, an Irishman, was born in 1846 into nobil-
ity, the second son of John Beresford, the fourth Marquess of Waterford.
Tall and handsome, the future admiral looked—and acted—the part. He
was popular with his men, thanks to his well-deserved reputation for
generosity and his interest in their welfare. As commander of the gun-
boat Condor, he took part in the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882,
winning acclaim by maneuvering his ship to engage the Egyptian batter-
ies at close range. Beresford later took part in a failed expedition sent to
relieve the besieged British garrison at Khartoum in Sudan. While en
route, the British were attacked by Arabs. Beresford formed up with a
British square and fought with distinction.
But there was another side to “Charlie B,” as he was popularly
known. He also enjoyed—indeed, seemed to need—the limelight. He
could often be seen with his bulldog, and his admirers, of whom there
were many, thought him the personification of “John Bull,” Britain’s
“Uncle Sam.” When attention was not forthcoming, Beresford sought
ways to attract it. Born into privilege, Beresford exhibited a lifelong be-
havior of acting as though the Navy’s regulations did not apply to him,
176 Part 2

and that he did not need to heed the orders of its leaders. It’s not surpris-
ing, then, that Beresford combined two careers, one with the Navy and
the other, starting at the age of twenty-eight, as a member of Parliament,
where he served periodically over the next forty years. This enabled him
to take leave from military service and denounce the Admiralty as a
member of the House of Commons.21
Beresford enjoyed playing the role of a maverick reformer. Upon re-
turning from Sudan in 1886, he was again elected to Parliament. The
Prince of Wales (and future King Edward VII) lobbied the prime minis-
ter, Robert Salisbury, to find a suitable spot for Charlie B in his govern-
ment. Salisbury appointed him junior sea lord at the Admiralty, where
Beresford promptly alienated his superiors, eventually resigning his post
in January 1888.22 Returning to Parliament, Beresford began to criticize
the Admiralty, claiming that it was basing its requirements in the absence
of any well-defined strategy or policy. He argued that the government
should establish a definite standard for the fleet that would enable it to
meet the nation’s security and economic needs. Beresford called for a
Royal Navy able to defeat the fleets of two powers combined, one of
which should be France.23
Beresford was only echoing the concerns that led to the Three Ad-
mirals’ Committee. Many politicians and members of the military felt
that Beresford was using his platform in Parliament to attract attention
to himself and gain credit for the ideas of others. Although Charlie B
rarely offered any new insights on naval affairs and often spoke in a ram-
bling, incoherent manner, he had a knack for attracting large audiences
of devoted followers and was described by many contemporaries as “the
biggest of all recorded gas bags.”24 Indeed, Beresford’s observations were,
on occasion, wildly at odds with the state of the maritime competition.
At a time when guns capable of penetrating an ironclad’s armor at ever
greater ranges were coming into service and navies were rapidly aban-
doning the ram, Beresford declared, “In my opinion the ram is the most
fatal weapon in naval warfare—more fatal even than the torpedo.”25
Salisbury remarked to the Queen that Beresford “is too greedy of
popular applause to get on in a public department. He is constantly play-
ing his own game at the expense of his colleagues.”26 Charlie B continued
sniping at the Navy over the next two decades, even as he rose to the
rank of admiral. Ultimately, he would lead the so-called Syndicate of
Discontent that nearly derailed the Royal Navy’s massive effort to adapt
to the new ways of war.
 Fisher’s Scheme 177

The Three Admirals’ Report and the Two-Power Standard

The Three Admirals’ Report was presented to Parliament in February
1889. It concluded that blockade remained feasible. The admirals, how-
ever, found that steam and torpedoes were making close blockade em-
ploying existing methods impractical. They concluded that “provided
that a suitable anchorage can be secured in the immediate neighbour-
hood of the enemy stronghold, the advantages would be in favour of the
ironclad fleet occupying such a position, and maintaining a sufficient
number of swift look-out vessels off the port in direct communication by
signal, or cable from a telegraph look-out ship.” To sustain the blockade
at a greater distance, however, the Navy would require a much larger
force in proportion to the blockaded fleet than was currently thought ad-
equate. This translated into a minimum advantage of five to three in bat-
tleships and two to one in cruisers. Their report concluded that the Navy
was “altogether inadequate” for offensive operations in a war against
even one great power, and therefore, they were “decidedly of opinion
that no time should be lost in placing the Navy beyond comparison with
that of any two Powers.”27
The so-called Two-Power Standard was nothing new. It extended
back at least to the early nineteenth century. In 1817, shortly after the
conclusion of Napoleon’s last threat to the European order, Britain’s for-
eign minister, Lord Robert Castlereagh, stated that Britain’s objective
should be “to keep up a navy equal to the navies of any two Powers that
can be brought against us.”28
Following an examination of the statements of past prime ministers
and first lords of the Admiralty, Lord George Hamilton, the current first
lord, argued that the “leading idea” behind Britain’s naval preparations
had always been that its “establishment should be on such a scale that it
should be equal to the naval strength of any two other countries.” This
Two-Power Standard, he maintained, was neither new nor provocative.
In adopting it, Britain would merely be sustaining the position set by
earlier governments.29
It was understood that the standard would be measured primarily in
terms of battleships but that Britain required a substantial superiority in
cruisers to defend its seaborne commerce. The standard would be mea-
sured in terms of warships of the newest type and most advanced de-
sign.30 Some maritime experts and others in government pressed for
more details on how such a standard might be determined. The noted
178 Part 2

strategist John Colomb, a retired captain of the Royal Marines and

member of Parliament, argued that “one could not base calculations of
superiority merely on the abstract question of numbers,” as was implied
by the Two-Power Standard. Beresford also objected, declaring, “Noth-
ing could be more misleading, nothing more ridiculous, than comparing
the numbers or tonnage of the fleets of England with those of France or
any other Power. What should be compared is the work the respective
forces have to do.”31
Thus, Colomb believed the standard should be judged in terms of
“the power necessary to keep the enemy’s battleships in their harbours”
through blockade.32 Although many political leaders might concede the
points made by Colomb and Beresford, it was difficult, if not impossible,
to determine with precision the composition of the fleet that would meet
their criteria, owing to the wide range of contingencies that might con-
front the Navy and the rapid pace of technological change, among other
variables.
Yet it was also clear that some measure needed to be established as a
rule of thumb that could be generally understood by the body politic,
hence the attraction of the seemingly simple, straightforward Two-Power
Standard. As Colomb admitted, “There were obviously details which
could not be explained in the House of Commons or to the man in the
street; and, therefore, something had to be done to satisfy public opinion,
. . . and the rough and ready Two Power Standard was adopted.”33
The Two-Power Standard adopted in 1889 was directed against the
French and Russian navies and validated in 1891 with the Franco-
Russian entente (soon to become an alliance). Concerns over Britain’s
ability to maintain the Two-Power Standard quickly made their way into
the public debate. In 1893, the London Chamber of Commerce reported
that Britain had 12.5 million tons of merchant shipping afloat, against
less than a million tons for France and Russia combined, and had sea-
borne trade to the value of £970 million, against only £331 million for
France and Russia together. Yet, it was noted, Britain had fewer armored
ships in the Mediterranean than the French, and its total tonnage of
armored ships built and building was less than France’s and Russia’s com-
bined, suggesting that France and Russia together would exceed the
Royal Navy’s number of capital ships by the end of the decade. The im-
plication was clear: Britain’s enormous seaborne commerce was at risk.
The Admiralty was most concerned over Britain’s declining naval
power in the Mediterranean, the lifeline to the nation’s empire in East
 Fisher’s Scheme 179

Africa and Asia. Here the Royal Navy confronted the fleets of Russia and
France. In time of war, fears were that the British fleet based at Malta
could be trapped between the French fleet to its west and the Russian
fleet to its east. Some officials advocated adopting a “Scuttle Policy,” re-
positioning the fleet from Malta to Egypt and Gibraltar and turning the
“Med Sea” into a “dead sea.” Successive governments refused to abandon
the imperial lifeline, moving instead to strengthen the fleet at Malta.
Still, during the Armenian crisis of 1895, the Admiralty, supported by the
majority of the Cabinet, refused to send the Mediterranean Fleet to
Constantinople should a Russian fleet attempt to force the Dardanelles,
over fears that it risked being cut off in the rear by the French.34
Indeed, during the quarter century that elapsed between the Two-
Power Standard’s adoption and World War I, there were periodic public
alarms over the vulnerability of the British fleet to this or that particular
state’s naval program. These alarms often credited potential enemies
with every warship type still on the active list, irrespective of its ability to
accomplish the missions prescribed for them, as well as every major war-
ship authorized in their future programs. In truth, neither the French
nor the Russians ever succeeded in completing their programs, nor were
they ever able to build as quickly or as cheaply as the British.35
Nevertheless, the British had legitimate cause for concern. The Rus-
sians increased their naval expenditures by 64 percent between 1889 and
1893, initiating construction on what were intended to be the fastest,
most heavily armed cruisers of their time. The Italians, with an eye on
the French naval buildup, began to construct battleships designed to ac-
commodate the world’s biggest guns. British apprehensions over French
and Russian naval strength were magnified by rising maritime powers in
Japan, the United States, and Germany. The Japanese fleet that would
destroy its Russian rival at Tsushima was already under construction by
the mid-1890s, and the first new American battleships had been com-
pleted.36 Britain was able to mitigate the challenge posed by these two
rising naval powers. As for the third, Germany, it would ultimately re-
quire the combined effort of all these countries, as well as France and
Russia, to defeat Berlin’s move to overturn the European balance of
power.
Parliament’s adoption of the Two-Power Standard sought to reassure
the British people that maritime supremacy would be preserved. At the
time of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee, however, an astute observer
would have identified major geopolitical, domestic, and military-technical
180 Part 2

trends that were eroding Britain’s maritime advantage. Sustaining it

would require the Royal Navy to undertake an extended period of dis-
ruptive innovation.

Torpedo Boats and Close Blockade

As the Admiralty worked to implement the Two-Power Standard, the
growing strength of Britain’s traditional and rising naval rivals was not its
only concern. As the fleet exercises of the 1880s showed, the challenge
posed by torpedo-armed boats, both to its blockading force and to its
trade, could not be met through traditional means and methods.37
Considering the rapid pace of technological change, the Admiralty
understood that each maneuver provided only a snapshot of a constantly
shifting maritime competition. Any findings emerging from exercises
were almost certain to have a short shelf life. Frequent maneuvers were
needed to keep abreast of new dangers to be countered and emerging
opportunities that might be exploited.
The 1890 fleet maneuvers were designed to test the threat posed to
the Royal Navy by torpedo boats—specifically, French torpedo boats—
and pitted a “British” force of two squadrons of ironclads and torpedo
gunboats (“torpedo-boat catchers”) against an “enemy” torpedo-boat flo-
tilla. The maneuvers found the “French” flotilla surprising the “British”
fleet at anchor, compelling it to withdraw, whereupon the “French” tor-
pedo boats feasted on British merchant shipping in the Channel. The ad-
miral commanding the “British” force protested the results, arguing that
the “French” attacked before issuing a formal declaration of war. The ad-
miral’s protest notwithstanding, the Navy’s director of naval intelligence
(DNI), Captain Cyprian Bridge, believed that the threat posed by French
torpedo boats stationed along the Channel demanded attention. The Ad-
miralty sided with Bridge, directing that countermeasures be developed
to defeat the torpedo boats, as the Navy’s torpedo gunboats failed to
prove their effectiveness. This triggered a series of counter-torpedo-boat
maneuvers, while adding urgency to efforts to develop a ship capable of
defeating the torpedo-boat menace: the torpedo-boat destroyer.38
The 1891 maneuvers continued the effort to find ways to counter
the torpedo-boat menace. The exercise called for “enemy” torpedo boats
to attack a British ironclad squadron supported by cruisers and torpedo
gunboats. With the torpedo boats unable to reprise their surprise attack,
 Fisher’s Scheme 181

their limitations were on display, as “British” torpedo-boat catchers kept

them from attacking the squadron. The Naval Intelligence Department
(NID), which functioned as a naval staff in the absence of a formal staff,
concluded that if torpedo-boat catchers aggressively countered the tor-
pedo boats, the fleet could maintain a close blockade.39 Though hardly a
ringing endorsement of close blockade operations, the NID’s findings of-
fered hope.
Over the next three years, the Royal Navy’s maneuvers focused more
broadly on the torpedo-boat threat to the Royal Navy’s command of the
high seas. The August 1892 maneuvers found a “British” fleet organized
along traditional lines operating in narrow waters and tasked with estab-
lishing command of the sea while effecting a junction of two divisions of
the fleet screened by torpedo-boat catchers and torpedo boats. The
“enemy” fleet was organized differently, around cruisers, torpedo boats,
and some coastal defense craft. Once again, the “British” fleet success-
fully employed its screening forces to ward off the “enemy” fleet and
unite its two divisions.40 Nevertheless, there were concerns that a battle
fleet operating in narrow waters, such as the English Channel, would be
running greater risks than in the past. The exercise again found torpedo
boats far more effective in defeating a close blockade in coastal waters
than in participating in open ocean operations.
The following year’s maneuvers pitted two more evenly matched
fleets. The “British” battle fleet was slightly superior to its rival, but the
“enemy” possessed an advantage in torpedo boats. The maneuvers saw
enemy torpedo boats sinking ships—including some of their own. The
price of their success, however, was high, with twenty-seven torpedo
boats sent to the bottom in only five days. The maneuvers triggered a
debate, with some officers arguing that, given the torpedo boats’ high
loss rate, the torpedo-boat threat might prove short-lived in war. Others
countered that a high loss rate could prove acceptable if the torpedo
boats could damage or destroy enough blockading ships to render the
blockade ineffective. The 1894 maneuvers took up the issue, but poor
weather precluded the torpedo boats’ effective employment.41
In sum, the fleet maneuvers of the early 1890s suggested that the
torpedo-boat threat in open waters could be successfully countered
through a combination of a screening force and the torpedo boat’s own
lack of seaworthiness. At the same time, the exercises failed to assuage
fears of the torpedo-boat threat to close blockade operations.
182 Part 2

Fisher
The Royal Navy’s fleet exercises led the first naval lord, Admiral Sir
Frederick Richards, to declare, “The invention of the locomotive tor-
pedo has introduced a feature into naval warfare which must render it a
madness for fleets to move in narrow waters or to remain at anchor in
exposed positions after nightfall when in the vicinity of torpedo flotilla
organizations.”42 To counter the threat, Richards turned to Jackie Fisher,
now a rear admiral and serving as the Navy’s controller (third naval lord)
responsible for procuring new systems and matériel.
Richards could not have made a better choice. Fisher, it will be re-
called, had been among the first to identify the torpedo’s potential, re-
turning from sea duty in 1872 to head the torpedo section at the Navy’s
gunnery school, which was also responsible for mine training. There
Fisher negotiated the purchase of the fleet’s first Whitehead torpedo. In
1879, as captain of the newly completed battleship Inflexible, Fisher was
primarily responsible for implementing the decision to introduce
breech-loaded guns. Like Beresford, Jackie, as he was popularly known,
had commanded a ship in the bombardment of Alexandria during the
Anglo-Egyptian War. Like Beresford, Fisher emerged a hero.43
From 1886 to 1890, Fisher served as the director of naval ordnance,
where he was responsible for developing the quick-firing guns that the
Admiralty hoped would, through sheer firepower, counter the growing
torpedo-boat threat. Fisher was promoted to rear admiral and assigned
to the Portsmouth dockyards as admiral superintendent, traditionally a
figurehead expected to refrain from engaging in management—a “back-
water” assignment, in today’s jargon. Apparently, no one told Jackie.
Under his command, the dockyards, which had grown both slow and in-
efficient, were transformed into the cheapest and fastest building yards in
the world for major warship construction. Fisher’s efforts were aided
considerably by the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors, established in
1883 and consisting of naval architects and engineers, along with skilled
electrical workers. As Fisher recalled, “I felt positive of the fearful loss to
the country in the slow construction of ships, and equally positive there
was a remedy by ruthless dealing with contractors, with dockyard em-
ployees, and with the distribution of labor, and, backed up by each of the
three First Lords I had the pleasure of serving with, and by ‘re-potting’
the chief constructors and other obstructionists, the time of building
a battleship of 15,000 tons was reduced nearly half!”44 The results were
 Fisher’s Scheme 183

indeed striking. From 1879 to 1907, Britain built sixty-two pre-dread-

nought battleships, compared to a combined Franco-Russian total of
sixty-one. Yet the Royal Navy’s ships cost £63 million, nearly £6 million
less than the Franco-Russian price, while the total tonnage was 857,729
to 744,940 in Britain’s favor.45
In February 1891, Fisher submitted a memo identifying two possible
solutions to the torpedo-boat problem. The first called for destroying
the French points d’appui. Accepting the difficulties involved in succeed-
ing with a massive preemptive strike, Fisher offered an alternative
involving offensive patrolling, employing cheap ships capable of main-
taining themselves off the French coast and enjoying an advantage in
speed over British torpedo-boat catchers and size relative to the torpedo
boats they hunted. These “destroyers,” as they eventually became known,
would, it was hoped, enable the Royal Navy to continue conducting close
blockades. As Fisher put it, “our real line of defense lies on the French
side of the Channel.”46
Fisher’s idea was adopted. The first torpedo-boat destroyer, Havock,
was equipped with guns, not torpedoes. In exercises, Havock showed itself
capable of overtaking torpedo boats. Buoyed by the results, by 1894
thirty-six 0f the twenty-seven-knot destroyers were in service, with sixty-
six larger thirty-knot ships laid down or procured by the turn of the cen-
tury. Over the next decade, the torpedo-gunboat catchers would evolve
into the Scout class cruisers, and the torpedo-boat destroyers into the
first true (River class) destroyers.47
While working on launching the torpedo-boat destroyers, Fisher was
also engaged with the construction of the Royal Sovereign class of battle-
ships. The general features of the battleships were approved by the board
of the Admiralty in August 1888. At 15,585 tons, Royal Sovereign was the
biggest ship built thus far in Portsmouth and the first steel battleship,
with eighteen-inch armor plate. The ship was hailed for its remarkable
balance between armor, armament, speed, and sea-keeping. Thanks to
Fisher’s reforms, the entire class was completed in the remarkably short
space of five years. Fisher pointed out, “If you build two ships in the same
time as it formerly took to build one . . . instead of a ship being almost ob-
solete by the time she is commissioned, she is in the prime of her power.”
Admiral Richards proclaimed that the Royal Sovereigns “provided the Brit-
ish Navy with the finest group of fighting ships afloat.”48
By the mid-1890s, Fisher, by virtue of his early work on torpedoes at
the gunnery school and as captain of Excellent, director of naval ordnance,
184 Part 2

and then third sea lord and controller, stood as a central figure in the
Royal Navy’s efforts to maintain its maritime dominance in a period
of disruptive geopolitical and military-technical change. Having come
aboard a Navy of wooden-hulled sailing ships, he now served in a fleet
defined by steam and steel.
Yet if the naval competition appeared to have slowed in the mid-
1890s, it soon surged ahead. Advances in torpedo design and gunnery
and the emergence of the submarine, along with tectonic shifts in the
geopolitical environment, resulted in Fisher pursuing innovation on a far
grander scale.

Growing Threats Above and Beneath the Waves

The late 1890s and early 1900s witnessed France launching commerce-
raiding cruisers, continuing to seek ways to enhance torpedo-boat opera-
tions, and exploiting technology that promised to make submarines more
than curiosities. Regarding the latter, the French had conducted trials in
1888 and 1890 with submarines, which were then little more than novel-
ties. They were, however, encouraged enough to initiate work on two
boats. One, the Gustave Zédé, participated in the French fleet maneuvers
of November 1898.
The exercise saw the boat’s skipper, Lieutenant Lucian Mottez, sail
his craft forty miles from Toulon to the Isles d’Hyrères, whereupon he
“torpedoed” the battleship Magenta twice, once when the ship was mov-
ing and once when it was anchored. The great-power navies began
vigorously exploring how the torpedo—the “devil’s device”—might be
employed on submersible craft.49
The Admiralty’s worries over the torpedo threat were heightened
when, in 1895, Ludwig Obry introduced his gyroscope, a precision-
crafted instrument capable of achieving the very high rotation rates
needed for torpedoes to sustain their course over far greater distances
than had previously been possible.50 By 1898, Obry’s gyroscopes were
being fitted on torpedoes to control their vertical rudders, doubling their
effective range.
In 1897, the French began cutting battleship construction in favor
of launching large cruisers designed primarily for commerce raiding.
They were fast enough to run away from any battleship capable of sink-
ing them and powerful enough to run down and destroy any smaller
cruiser, thereby rendering Britain’s trade-protection cruisers obsolete.51
 Fisher’s Scheme 185

In February 1898, George Goschen, first lord of the Admiralty, con-

cluded that the French now understood that their cruisers, not their bat-
tleships, posed the greater threat to Britain.52
The cruisers did indeed complicate an already difficult situation for
the Royal Navy, particularly in Asian waters. Up to this time, the major
naval powers’ Pacific squadrons included gunboats and cruising vessels,
with few, if any, major warships, a problem the Admiralty could manage
without much difficulty. Now Russia and France began stationing first-
class capital ships with their Asian squadrons. By 1900, the Russian
squadron at Port Arthur boasted six modern battleships.53 Japan was
building a powerful, modern navy. Despite the formidable costs involved,
the British government believed it had to meet the Russian challenge—
but how? The early 1900s saw Britain straining to finance the construc-
tion of battleships to maintain the Two-Power Standard, to address the
rapidly emerging torpedo and submarine threat, and to build modern ar-
mored cruisers to keep pace with France and Russia.
Britain’s initial response lacked imagination and fiscal prudence. The
idea of convoys remained anathema to a navy devoted to the offense.
The default choice, therefore, was simply to build armored cruisers to
match those laid down by the French and Russians. But armored cruisers
were almost as expensive to build as battleships and even more expensive
to maintain. This placed additional strain on the Royal Navy’s budget at
a time when naval estimates were coming under increased scrutiny.
Moreover, it also created manpower problems.54 It took until 1904, when
Fisher came to power, for the Admiralty to devise an innovative response
to its problems.

The Système Ballard

The late 1890s found the Admiralty focused on the threat posed by the
navies of the Dual Alliance powers, France and Russia. The Royal Navy’s
strategy remained centered on putting the enemy ships on the bottom in
a major engagement or blockading the enemy fleet at its bases. The
growing difficulties involved in maintaining a close blockade, however,
led the Admiralty to adopt the advanced base concept to support its
squadrons engaged in an observational blockade, where ships operated at
a greater distance offshore.
The 1895–99 maneuvers focused primarily on the blockade problem
and torpedo boats, in particular, and as a test bed for the new destroyers.
186 Part 2

They revealed British torpedo-boat countermeasures to be less effective

than expected, although destroyers proved far more effective in blockade
operations than torpedo-boat catchers were. The 1899 maneuvers were
notable in identifying the value of employing wireless telegraphy in con-
voy operations—which the Admiralty continued to discount—as an ef-
fective means of safeguarding British trade.55
Apart from Fisher, arguably no other individual had more influence
on the Royal Navy’s strategic development in the two decades prior to
World War I than George Ballard. Born in Bombay, India, Ballard joined
the Navy in 1875 at thirteen, the same age as had Fisher. By the mid-
1890s, he was considered one of the Navy’s best strategic thinkers.
In examining the fleet’s decade of maneuvers, Ballard concluded that
it was becoming increasingly difficult to prevent at least some enemy
commerce-raiding ships from slipping through a Royal Navy blockade.
In a Royal United Services Institute prize-winning essay published in
1897, Ballard recommended implementing an observational blockade
sustained by the seizure of advanced bases that would enable ships of the
blockading force to refuel, rearm, and undergo maintenance while oper-
ating forward, rather than shuttling back and forth from a main base.
The observational blockading force would be backstopped by cruiser
“hunter” patrols assigned to destroy any enemy raiders that slipped
through. Ballard called for the Royal Navy squadrons blockading French
squadrons at Dunkirk, Calais, and Le Havre to use Dover and Ports-
mouth for support. For the Cherbourg and Brest blockades, advanced
bases would be located at the island of Alderney for the former and the
islands of Ushant and Île de Groix for the latter. Ballard’s concept was so
insightful that the French, impressed by his work, named it the Système
Ballard. Ballard’s concept became the focus of British fleet maneuvers.56
The Royal Navy’s July 1900 maneuvers explored the two missions
addressed in Ballard’s essay: high-seas commerce defense and blockade.
The maneuvers, however, proved inconclusive. The following year in
August, the fleet examined the challenge of maintaining sea control of
the English Channel. The “British” fleet (the Channel Fleet under Vice
Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson) was tasked with securing control of the
Channel, while the “French” fleet (the Navy’s Reserve Fleet commanded
by Rear Admiral Sir Gerard Noel) was directed to accomplish the same.
The “British” fleet prevailed, which was not surprising, as Wilson was
widely regarded as the Navy’s best tactician and his fleet was consider-
ably more powerful than that of the “French.”
 Fisher’s Scheme 187

The maneuver’s principal value was the insights it produced, espe-

cially with respect to the value of destroyers, which proved ineffective in
capturing merchant ships. Destroyers could sink them, of course, but this
would violate the rules of war. The destroyer also exhibited shortcom-
ings when armed with torpedoes, as both sides feared they would inad-
vertently attack their own ships.57
The following month, the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet, under
Admiral Fisher, held maneuvers against the Channel Fleet. The maneu-
vers made a striking impression on Admiral Beresford, serving under
Fisher. Like most officers, Charlie B had had little training handling a
fleet in a major engagement against another first-class maritime power.
He wrote, “I was fifty-five years of age and had been forty-three years in
the Service before I and my brother Officers discovered what was the
proper position for an Admiral in his Fleet in action.” He described the
experience as “Simply Incredible!!!” Beresford later said that the exercises
organized by Fisher taught “admirals . . . lessons they ought to have
known as lieutenants. . . . Fisher deserves the lasting gratitude of the Em-
pire for having started these practical manoeuvers in time of peace.”58
Fisher admired Beresford, declaring him “a first-rate officer afloat”:
“no better exists in my opinion.” But that was the limit of Jackie’s praise.
He was skeptical of Beresford’s thinking on the future needs of the Navy.
“There is a good deal in what Beresford urges,” wrote Fisher, “but he ex-
aggerates so much that his good ideas become deformities.” In short,
though Beresford’s seamanship and personal bravery were exemplary, he
continued to exhibit little interest (or talent) in matters of strategy or
even operations. Percy Scott, who was at the forefront of fleet gunnery
innovations, remarked, “In the Navy we knew he was not a sailor, but
thought he was a politician; in the House of Commons, they knew he
was not a politician, but thought he was a sailor.” In the 1890s, increasing
gun ranges had consigned the ram to history’s dustbin. Yet Beresford, in
an interview, declared, “In my opinion the ram is the most fatal weapon
in naval warfare—more fatal even than the torpedo.” In another inter-
view, Beresford proposed that seventeen “old but useful” ships be re-
armed with modern guns, discounting the ships’ obsolete engines, the
time it would take to obtain new guns, and the extra personnel required
to man the ships at a time when the Navy was experiencing manpower
shortages. Fisher reported Beresford’s idea to the first lord, drawing his
attention “to Beresford’s indirect criticism of the Admiralty in his inter-
view as to rearming certain ships. . . . He really is very stupid, but he can’t
188 Part 2

resist self-advertisement.” As Lord Salisbury succinctly stated, “I am

afraid CB is an ass!”59
The Royal Navy continued its efforts to sustain the blockade in the
1902 maneuvers, which brought together elements of the Mediterranean
and Channel Fleets. One “British” (Mediterranean) fleet, commanded by
Admiral Sir Compton Domville, was joined by a second “British” (Chan-
nel) fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Wilson. They were tasked with
blockading the “French” fleet, commanded by Captain Prince Louis Bat-
tenberg, at the port of Argostoli (representing Toulon) on Cephalonia, an
island off Greece’s west coast. On the night of October 5–6, Battenberg
ordered his cruisers to attempt to slip past the blockade as a feint to draw
off the British force. The diversion succeeded, and Battenberg’s battle-
ships effected a breakout.
Although the blockading fleets’ battle force suffered little damage,
their watching force lost eight of their fourteen destroyers. Battenberg’s
“enemy” fleet, with half as many, lost only two. Moreover, even as the
“enemy” fleet was given ten days to escape the blockade, it did so in only
five. In brief, destroyers could not be counted on to bottle up a block-
aded force using close watch tactics. Even more discouraging were the
results of two war games conducted at the Naval College earlier that
year, in which close blockades of Bizerta and Oran also proved ineffec-
tive. Making matters worse, the French were now incorporating subma-
rines in their counter-blockade maneuvers. In evaluating the French
exercise, the NID concluded that “the blockade of a port defended by
torpedo boats and submarines is almost impossible.”60
The Royal Navy’s 1903 maneuvers confirmed recent trends in the
maritime competition. Destroyers were ordered to support blockade op-
erations and defeat enemy torpedo boats, while their ability to screen the
main fleet from torpedo boats was also evaluated. Once again, the de-
stroyers supporting the blockade took heavy losses while failing to pre-
vent the boats from escaping their base. On the open seas, however, the
destroyers screening the main fleet succeeded in warding off torpedo-
boat attacks, suffering no losses.61 But the maneuvers had yet to tackle
the rapidly growing problem posed by submarines armed with torpedoes.

The Growing Submarine and Torpedo Menace

In the years leading up to Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee, considerable
effort had been expended, especially in France and the United States, on
 Fisher’s Scheme 189

developing submarines. In January 1898, shortly after the grand review

at Spithead during the course of a French Navy experiment, one of its
two practical submarines, the Gustave Zédé, successfully torpedoed an an-
chored battleship. Two years later, the Gustave Zédé became the first sub-
marine to torpedo a moving battleship during exercises.62 The revolution
that was denied the Jeune École enthusiasts in the 1880s seemed about
to be realized twenty years later. In Britain, Admiral Wilson fumed, “The
submarine is underhanded, unfair and damned un-English.”63 The admi-
ral observed, “We cannot stop invention in this direction [and] we can-
not delay its introduction any longer, but we should still avoid doing
anything to assist in its improvement in order that our means of trapping
and destroying it may develop at a greater rate than the submarine boats
themselves.”64
Wilson understood the problem. It did not matter that Britain could
quickly outproduce another navy in submarines. Submarines, it seemed
at the time, could not fight submarines, at least not underwater. Britain
could build as many submarines as it liked, and France would still be able
to dispatch its own stealthy, silent boats through any blockade to strike at
the Royal Navy’s battle fleet and ravage British trade. The Royal Navy’s
battle line that so outclassed that of any other navy, the French hoped,
would now become irrelevant.

A Glass Half Full?

Despite Admiral Wilson’s hopes, the first decade of the new century
found the submarine threat advancing far more rapidly than the means
to defeat it. By January 1904, it was estimated that the Royal Navy’s A
Class submarines could operate as far off the coast as the Channel Is-
lands. The new B and C Class submarines, which were about to enter
production, would probably be able to operate anywhere in the English
Channel for up to a week.65 The D Class submarine, which came into
service in 1908, could remain at sea for a week and had sufficient range
to reach the German coast. As one submarine commander noted, “From
1908 onwards, submarines had enough success during maneuvers to
open the eyes of all senior officers not willfully blind.”66
For Jackie Fisher, the submarine represented both a danger and an
opportunity. The danger posed was primarily a consequence of the sub-
marine’s stealth—there seemed no way to detect it while it was sub-
mersed—and its ability to fire torpedoes, whose range was increasing
190 Part 2

rapidly. Indeed, a torpedo warhead was much more destructive than a

shell fired by the biggest battleship gun. In 1903, Admiralty experiments
revealed that existing armored warships were far more vulnerable to
damage from hits below the water line than had been believed. Conse-
quently, submarines armed with long-range torpedoes had the potential
to displace the battle line as the ultimate arbiter of war at sea.67
But submarines offered the Admiralty opportunities, as well. In Au-
gust 1901, three years before Fisher became first sea lord, Hugh Oakeley
Arnold-Forster, Parliamentary and financial secretary to the Admiralty,
circulated a memorandum arguing perceptively that the Admiralty could
employ submarines to defend the British Isles from invasion: “The intro-
duction of this new weapon, so far from being a disadvantage to us, will
strengthen our position. We have no desire to invade any other country;
it’s important that we ourselves are not invaded. If the submarine proves
as formidable as some authorities think is likely to be the case, the bom-
bardment of our ports, and the landing of troops on our shores will be-
come absolutely impossible.”68
Arnold-Forster’s logic resonated with those who felt that, just as sub-
marines would make enemy coastal areas increasingly risky areas for sur-
face-fleet blockade operations, they could also provide the same
deterrent effect against rival navies attempting to support an invasion of
Great Britain. Admiral Battenberg concurred: “The establishment of
submarine stations along the South Coast of England ought to go a long
way towards dispelling the ever-recurring fears of invasion. . . . [The]
French in all their utterances on the subject—be they Ministerial
speeches or press articles—point out with pride that the existence of sub-
marines as part of the defense mobile [sic] make any attempt at invasion
of French territory the act of lunacy. They are quite right and the argument
cuts both ways.”69 Fisher agreed. Following the 1903 fleet maneuvers, he
wrote a paper, titled “The Effects of Submarine Boats,” presenting his vi-
sion of submarine warfare:

The Submarine Boat which carries this automobile torpedo is up

to the present date absolutely unattackable. When you see
[enemy surface ships] on the horizon, you can send others after
them to attack them or drive them away! You can see them—you
can fire at them—you can avoid them—you can chase them—
but with the Submarine Boat you can do nothing! . . . It
must revolutionise Naval Tactics for this simple reason—that the
 Fisher’s Scheme 191

present . . . formation of ships in single line presents a target of

such length that the chances are altogether in favour of the
Whitehead torpedo hitting some ship in the line. . . . It affects
the Army, because, imagine even one submarine boat with a flock
of transports in sight loaded with some two or three thousand
troops! Imagine the effects of one such transport going to the
bottom in a few seconds with its living freight!70

In the coming years, in pursuing what later became known as the

“Scheme,” Fisher and others combined submarines with destroyers
under the concept of “flotilla defense” to provide a final line of defense
against invasion.71
Placing greater reliance on submarines also appealed to Britain’s po-
litical leadership, which was calling for fiscal austerity with respect to de-
fense spending. Even before becoming first sea lord, Fisher argued that
submarines would depreciate in value far more slowly than recently built
capital ships did. Even older boats, he argued, by virtue of their stealth
would continue posing a threat to targets such as enemy troop trans-
ports. His ideas appealed to Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, who wrote
to the Admiralty’s first lord, William Palmer (Lord Selborne), in early
1904, “I wish we had more submarines,” noting, “they are, after all,
cheap.”72

A Broad-Based Challenge
The submarine’s maturation was matched by that of the torpedo. Obry’s
gyroscope had greatly enhanced torpedo accuracy. In 1905, the “Elswick
Heater” provided a major boost in torpedo range and speed. At the time,
Japanese torpedoes being employed in the war with Russia ran at less
than twenty knots to achieve ranges of around 4,000 yards. Less than a
year later, the German Navy’s G-type torpedo boasted a range of 6,560
yards and a speed of thirty-six knots.73
In looking back on these developments after the Great War, Admiral
Reginald Bacon described how the battle fleet would have to transform
itself: “This insidious and somewhat sneaking weapon had, in the inter-
vening years altered the whole of naval tactics, for its deadly menace had
forced the effective fighting range of ships up from the 3,000 yards or so
at Tsushima to some fourteen, sixteen, or even eighteen thousand yards
at Jutland. . . . A decision had to be obtained outside of torpedo range,
192 Part 2

otherwise the action would merely have developed into a gamble in

which skill and training would have been sacrificed to sinkings by the
chance adventures of torpedo attack.”74
The marriage of the submarine and torpedo was about to revolu-
tionize war at sea. For many observers at the time, however, this was
hardly self-evident. It took a visionary leader like Fisher to move the
Royal Navy, often kicking and screaming, to adapt to the radically
changing maritime competition.
Yet there was no denying that the Admiralty confronted a strategic
dilemma following the disappointing results of the early-1900s exercises.
It had committed itself to finding a way to sustain some form of blockade
to defend its homeland, empire, and commerce during war. Even though
blockade appeared an increasingly risky course of action, the Admiralty,
having placed a big bet on destroyers, saw no readily apparent alterna-
tives when failing to solve the torpedo-boat problem. Making matters
worse, the destroyers were incapable of maintaining normal fleet cruis-
ing speeds. Consequently, in their current form, destroyers were ill-
suited in the role for which they seemed best suited: screening enemy
torpedo craft from the battle fleet.
All this was occurring at a time when Great Britain’s spending on its
Navy was growing rapidly, triggering calls from the country’s political
leaders for significant cuts to the Navy’s budget. It took a radical shift in
the Admiralty’s approach for the Royal Navy to maintain its dominant
position in a time of fiscal austerity and disruptive shifts in the character
of war at sea. Fortune intervened, in the form of a geopolitical revolution
and the appointment of Admiral Fisher as first sea lord.

A Geopolitical Revolution
At the time of the Queen’s diamond jubilee, Britain’s geopolitical posi-
tion was growing less favorable. The Dual Alliance powers, France and
Russia, continued dominating the Admiralty’s planning, particularly in
the Mediterranean. That being said, it could not ignore the emergence
of two rising naval powers outside Europe, the United States and Japan,
that could not be blockaded or brought to battle by the Mediterranean
or Home Fleets. The U.S. Navy had performed well in the war with
Spain in 1898, and its “Great White Fleet” would soon be heading
out on a world tour. The Imperial Japanese Navy, much of which was
being built in British shipyards, would soon demonstrate its prowess in
 Fisher’s Scheme 193

the crucible of war. Then there was Germany, whose economy, like that
of the United States, had surpassed Britain’s, and whose kaiser was keen
on building a powerful modern fleet.
The waning of the Pax Britannica found Whitehall searching for dip-
lomatic means to shore up Britain’s geopolitical position and, in so doing,
relieve some of the stress on the Royal Navy’s global commitments
—and its defense budget estimates.75 Remarkably, within the span of
a few short years, the British engineered a diplomatic revolution that
saw France transformed from being the obsession of the Admiralty’s
fleet maneuvers to a quasi-ally, and the United States and Japan becom-
ing benign rivals and allies, respectively, with the latter effectively elimi-
nating the Russian fleet from the geostrategic board. That left only the
Kaiser’s rapidly growing fleet as the principal menace to British maritime
dominance.

The United States and Japan

The United States posed a unique problem for British naval strategists.
Toward the latter part of the nineteenth century, the North American
giant had become the world’s leading economic power and seemed des-
tined to continue its impressive growth. Senior British officials knew that
the United States had the ability, should it desire, to build a navy of enor-
mous size. Lord Selborne, not long after assuming his position as first
lord of the Admiralty in 1900, declared privately, “If the United States
were to build such a navy as they can well afford even the Two Power
Standard would become beyond our strength. The standard which I be-
lieve now to be the true one is not one which could be publicly stated. In
Parliament I would always speak, in general terms, of not falling below
the Two Power Standard. To the Cabinet I would suggest that if we make
such provisions as will offer us the reasonable certainty of success in a war
with France and Russia, we shall have fully provided for all contingen-
cies.”76 Essentially, Selborne proposed that British policy should assume
that the United States would remain a sleeping giant, or at least not a
hostile naval rival to Britain, and that the Two-Power Standard would be
applied against the Dual Alliance, which posed an immediate danger.
Fisher expressed his views more directly: “The more carefully this prob-
lem is considered, the more tremendous do the difficulties which would
confront Great Britain in a war with the United States appear to be. . . .
[That it] would be unpopular and that the outcome of the struggle could
194 Part 2

only result sooner or later, in the loss of Canada, are the conclusions diffi-
cult to avoid.”77 Given this situation, Fisher advised the government to
“use all possible means to avoid such a war,” as “it seems an utter waste of
time to prepare for it.”78 As for Canada, which would no doubt be a prime
target in the event of war with the United States, the Admiralty’s
view was that Ottawa was effectively on its own and should do its best to
get along with its southern neighbor. Simply put, the United States
was not to be included in calculations pertaining to the Two-Power
Standard.79
Britain’s problem in the Far East was trickier. As noted earlier, when
the naval competition heated up in the 1890s, things changed, and France
and Russia began to station first-class warships in the Far East. In the
spring of 1898, the Royal Navy had three battleships and ten cruisers of
various descriptions in Chinese waters, while France and Russia together
had three major warships and twelve smaller ones. Germany seemed to
hold the balance between the two sides, with two battleships and five un-
armored cruisers. Japan, however, now possessed a navy that included
three battleships and twelve unarmored cruisers. Despite its relatively
small size compared to that of the major European maritime powers, the
Japanese fleet was deemed by the Admiralty to be “very formidable,” and
there was every prospect that it would continue to expand.80
Britain’s immediate response was to strengthen its squadron in
China with second-class battleships and to build a class of smaller battle-
ships that could move through the Suez Canal to reinforce its Far East
squadron. By 1900, however, the Russian squadron at Port Arthur in-
cluded six modern battleships. Despite the large cost involved, the Brit-
ish saw no alternative but to follow suit. Yet as in the Mediterranean,
both Whitehall and the Admiralty saw the Royal Navy’s dominant posi-
tion in the Far East eroding rapidly.81
By Britain’s excluding the U.S. fleet from the Two-Power Standard
and its implicit ceding of maritime supremacy in the Western Hemi-
sphere to the United States, the stage was set, at least in principle, for di-
plomacy to address the challenge in the Far East. Advocating an
arrangement with Japan, Lord Selborne argued that if Britain found it-
self at war with France and Russia, “the decisive battles . . . would cer-
tainly be fought in European waters,” and that the Royal Navy should
attempt to ensure that it amassed the strongest possible force in this the-
ater of operations.82 Selborne continued, “If the British Navy were de-
feated in the Mediterranean and the Channel the stress of our position
 Fisher’s Scheme 195

would not be alleviated by any amount of superiority in the Chinese seas.

If, on the other hand, it were to prove supreme in the Mediterranean and
the Channel, even serious disasters in Chinese waters would matter little.
These considerations furnish, therefore, a sound argument for keeping
our naval strength in Chinese waters as low as is compatible with the
safety of the Empire.”83 Having assumed away any threat to British inter-
ests in the New World by relying on the goodwill of Britain’s American
cousins, Whitehall looked to securing British interests in East Asia while
concentrating overwhelming naval power against the Dual Alliance in
Europe by forging an alliance with Japan. Such an alliance would find
the combined battleship strength of Britain and Japan in Asian waters at
eleven, two ahead of the combined strength of France and Russia, along
with a preponderance of cruisers as well.

The Kaiser’s Fleet

Although Whitehall intended to use the diplomatic tools of appeasement
and alliance to shore up its position on the periphery and maintain the
Two-Power Standard against France and Russia in Europe, there re-
mained the matter of Germany. This rapidly rising power in Central
Europe clearly had the industrial potential to displace both France and
Russia as naval powers and, under Kaiser Wilhelm II, increasingly mani-
fested an interest in doing so. By 1900, Germany was second only to the
United States in iron and steel production and was producing twice as
much iron annually as Great Britain. The Admiralty’s concerns regarding
Germany’s rapidly growing maritime potential were made clear in 1905,
even as the Russian fleet was on its way to its doom at the Tsushima
Strait. Lord Selborne stated, “It is an error to suppose that the Two
Power Standard adopted by this country some fifteen years ago, ratified
by every Government since, and accepted as an article of faith by the
whole nation has ever had reference only to France and Russia. It has al-
ways referred to the two strongest Naval Powers at any given moment.
. . . If the Russian navy were to emerge from the present war materially
weakened, the result will be that the Two Power Standard must hereafter
be calculated with reference to the navies of France and Germany.”84
That Germany stood next in line to inherit a place in the Two-Power
Standard was a consequence of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s fascination with sea
power, his mixture of admiration and envy of the Royal Navy, and his de-
sire to have a fleet reflecting Germany’s growing stature in the world.
196 Part 2

The Kaiser saw what the numerical, material, and strategic superiority
of the Royal Navy could do during the Fashoda crisis between Britain and
France over control of the Upper Nile River. The crisis was the climax of
a series of territorial disputes in Africa between France and Great Britain.
In 1898, the French sent an expedition to Fashoda on the White Nile
River. Britain saw the expedition as a French move to control the Upper
Nile River basin that fed the Nile River. The French force met a far larger
Anglo-Egyptian force under Lord Kitchener. During the standoff between
the two forces, the Royal Navy began to mobilize its reserves. Given Brit-
ain’s maritime supremacy, the French would find it difficult to reinforce
their expedition if war broke out. Moreover, France, increasingly con-
cerned over Germany’s growing might, was hardly in a position to take on
Britain as well. In November, the French ordered their troops to withdraw
from the area. Observing France’s humiliating diplomatic retreat and the
key role the Royal Navy played in bringing it about, the Kaiser com-
mented, “The poor French. . . . They have not read their Mahan!”85
Until Kaiser Wilhelm II’s accession to the throne in 1888, Germa-
ny’s navy had actually been headed by an army general. Germany’s rapid
ascension to the first rank of maritime powers began in 1897, when the
Kaiser appointed Admiral Tirpitz as secretary of state of the German Im-
perial Naval Office. Tirpitz proved a master at dealing with the Reich-
stag, Germany’s legislative body, which held the purse strings for military
expenditures. His efforts quickly bore results. In 1898, it passed a naval
law authorizing construction of a seagoing battle fleet. At the time, the
German fleet barely rivaled France’s northern squadron or the Russian
Baltic fleet, and its modest mission centered on supporting the Army’s
flanks in the event of a war against France or Russia.86
In 1900, Tirpitz introduced a supplementary Navy Bill, arguing that
protecting German overseas trade and securing its recently acquired col-
onies required a battle fleet sufficiently powerful that even the greatest
sea power would not risk a war against it, lest it suffer losses that would
imperil its position against the world’s other maritime powers. This, as
Tirpitz famously articulated, was a “Risk Fleet.” The British Admiralty
became increasingly focused on the Kaiser’s fleet, especially since, “in
marked contrast to the gross venality and bureaucratic inefficiency pre-
vailing in the Russian service, the gadfly policies of the French and the
chronic inefficiency of the Italian navy, the German service was notori-
ously hard-working, was backed by great industrial strength and was
administered with single-minded determination.”87
 Fisher’s Scheme 197

When war between Japan and Russia broke out in February 1904,
both the French and the British feared being drawn into the conflict on
the side of their allies while Germany stood on the sidelines enjoying the
spectacle. To allay these fears, London and Paris negotiated a series of
agreements signed in April 1904 resolving their differences in Asia, Af-
rica, and the Americas. The British viewed this Entente Cordiale as en-
abling both powers to better address the German threat. Over time,
however, it would blossom into the alliance that sustained the two an-
cient rivals through the Great War.88
The Japanese destruction of the Russian fleet at Tsushima, combined
with the Entente Cordiale, left Germany as Britain’s only major-power
naval rival. This made Britain’s challenge of maintaining a favorable
naval balance less stressful, in part by shifting the competition’s geo-
graphic focus. Sir Charles Ottley, director of naval intelligence, saw an
opportunity for Britain to leverage its positional advantage by emphasiz-
ing economic warfare against Germany: “In view of the geographic con-
ditions, the British Isles, lying like a breakwater 600 miles long, athwart
the path of German trade with the West and remembering the immense
strategic advantage of the French harbours so close to the mouth of the
Elbe, I believe there would be no practical difficulty in proclaiming and
maintaining an effective blockade of the entire German seaboard.”89
To sum up, in the span of little more than five years, British diplo-
macy and the Russo-Japanese War greatly improved the country’s geo-
strategic position. Old rivals France and Russia had been neutralized
through the Entente Cordiale and by the Imperial Japanese Navy, re-
spectively. Britain’s American cousins, though flexing their maritime
muscles, seemed content to focus on their recently won “empire” in the
Caribbean and the Philippines and following George Washington’s in-
junction to steer clear of foreign entanglements. Japan not only was a
British ally but had proved its value by disposing of the Russian fleet.
Only Germany possessed the means and motive to pose a major threat to
Britain’s maritime dominance.

The Need for Economies

Despite favorable changes in the geopolitical environment, neither
Whitehall nor the Admiralty could ignore the relative decline of Britain’s
economic standing. Britain’s efforts to maintain maritime supremacy in
the face of rising regional maritime powers and a dynamic maritime
198 Part 2

competition stressed its financial resources. The British people were de-
manding expanded social services, and the Liberal Party’s rise to power
in 1905 stemmed, in no small way, from its pledge to meet this demand.
Its ability to do so, however, was threatened by the costs incurred by the
recently concluded Boer War, as well as the rising cost of military man-
power and matériel.
Despite the Royal Navy’s great stature, the British Army had, since
midcentury, enjoyed higher annual budgets.90 Defense expenditures bal-
looned during the Boer War, which lasted from 1899 to 1902. Early esti-
mates were that a conflict in South Africa would cost £5 million to £10
million a year. They quickly grew to £21.5 million. In 1900, expenditures
on the British Army rose to £44.1 million, surging over the following
two years to £92.4 million and £94.2 million.91 Owing to the expense as-
sociated with new technology and the relatively rapid obsolescence of
warships, the price of naval power was also rising dramatically. Between
1889 and 1900, the Royal Navy’s budget roughly doubled, to the point
where it absorbed more than a quarter of the government’s revenue—
and the Admiralty’s demands for ever larger budgets showed no signs of
abating. In the seven years prior to 1904, the naval estimates also nearly
doubled, from £22.5 million to £41.7 million. Adding insult to injury,
that year saw Britain’s economy in recession and tax revenue declining.92
It was also increasingly difficult to man the fleet. Between 1889 and
1904, fleet manpower had more than doubled, to 131,100. The introduc-
tion of advanced technology into new ships found the Royal Navy’s thirst
for skilled sailors seemingly unquenchable. Roughly three-quarters of the
seamen assigned to the battle cruiser Invincible, designed in 1906, required
“skilled” ratings, as compared with only one-third of the seamen manning
the armored cruiser Drake, designed only four years before.93 The prob-
lem was compounded in that it took the Royal Navy roughly six years to
qualify a seaman as a specialist and eight years to train an entire crew
from scratch.94 This was more than twice as long as it took to build a large
ship. Consequently, for the Royal Navy to keep its warships at a high
level of battle efficiency, it needed increasing numbers of experienced sail-
ors, as well as high reenlistment rates. Yet the Navy was experiencing
retention problems. Between 1900 and 1904, the Admiralty offered pay
raises and, in some cases, financial incentives to boost retention, with little
success. Thus, in 1904, at least a third of enlisted personnel had less than
five years’ experience. One of the most serious complaints among sailors
was the large amount of time they spent on deployments overseas.95 The
need to address this issue would become a significant factor in Jackie
 Fisher’s Scheme 199

Fisher’s “Scheme” for redeploying Britain’s fleets when he became first sea
lord.96
Another major cause of the Navy’s manpower problems was simple
mathematics: maintaining the numbers of ships required to meet the
Two-Power Standard and patrolling the far reaches of the empire meant
that very few warships had been decommissioned, even though the con-
tinued broad and rapid advance in military technology had made many
of them of dubious value in combat.97 The Royal Navy was also com-
pelled to pay a significant overhead price, in terms of maintenance and
operating costs, to keep these ships in the fleet. These costs acted as bar-
nacles on a ship’s hull, slowing Britain’s ability to keep pace with the dy-
namic maritime competition.98
Given these trends, the state of affairs could not continue. In 1904,
Austen Chamberlain, chancellor of the Exchequer, called for reductions
in government spending, with particular emphasis on defense. He
warned, “however reluctant we may be to face the fact, the time has
come when we must frankly admit that the financial resources of the
United Kingdom are inadequate to do all that we should desire in the
matter of Imperial defense.”99
Politicians were willing to lend an ear to those who could sustain the
Royal Navy’s dominant position within the new fiscal constraints. This
meant looking for ways the Royal Navy could squeeze more value out of
every pound and shilling in its budget. It also meant seizing opportuni-
ties to transform substantially the character of the maritime competition
in ways that advantaged Great Britain, particularly by exploiting the on-
going rapid advances in technology, and especially if such actions could
impose disproportionate costs on its naval rivals.
The task of formulating British naval policy fell to Lord Selborne,
who was first lord of the Admiralty from 1900 to 1905. He, like the Lib-
eral opposition, was a strong supporter of the Navy but also saw the need
for economic reforms.100 In May 1904, Selborne offered the job of first
sea lord to Admiral Fisher, who offered not only to realize economies but
to maintain Britain’s naval primacy—but only if he could enact what he
called his “Scheme.”

Admiral Fisher
As noted earlier, Fisher, unlike most of his contemporaries, had a keen inter-
est in matters of strategy and technology, including their interrelationship.
In 1897, following his unprecedented five-and-a-half-year tour at the
200 Part 2

Admiralty as the Royal Navy’s controller, Fisher took command of the

North America and West Indies Station, viewed as a maritime backwater for
admirals no longer on the “fast track” to higher promotion. Yet only two
years later, Fisher was selected for command of the Mediterranean Fleet,
Britain’s most powerful combination of warships. His command, which
lasted until June 1902, deeply influenced Fisher’s thinking on the maritime
competition.
Before Fisher, the fleet’s battleship commanders were typically found
devoting enormous energy to polishing the great guns until they shined
under the Mediterranean sun, with the ship’s watertight doors below
decks given similar treatment—until they were no longer watertight.
Fisher would have none of it. As Lord Maurice Hankey, then a captain in
the Royal Marines, recalled, “Before his [Fisher’s] arrival the topics and
arguments of the officer’s messes . . . were mainly confined to such mat-
ters as the cleaning of paint and brasswork, the getting out of torpedo
nets and anchors, and similar trivialities. After a year of Fisher’s regime
these were forgotten and were replaced by incessant controversies on
tactics, strategy, gunnery, torpedo warfare, blockade, etc. It was a verita-
ble renaissance and affected every officer in the fleet.”101 Fisher invited
officers to lectures and discussions of tactics, gunnery, ship design, and
engines, treating all opinions with respect. Fisher also made the first
moves toward longer-range gunnery while pondering how to deal with
the French emphasis on torpedo warfare. At the end of Beresford’s com-
mand, he praised Fisher, writing, “From a 12-knot Fleet with numerous
breakdowns, he made a 15-knot Fleet without breakdowns.” Charlie B
cited twenty achievements that he attributed to Fisher—including some
that he later claimed for himself!102
In 1902, Selborne appointed Fisher second sea lord, tasking him
with fixing the fleet’s manpower shortfall. Fisher reported back that only
radical reforms could solve the problem. This proved too much for the
first sea lord, Admiral Lord Walter Kerr, and Selborne, unwilling at that
time to make the tough choices involved, backed Kerr.103
During this time, Fisher was recruited by Prime Minister Arthur
Balfour to serve on what became known as the Esher Committee, to
identify shortcomings that had emerged during the Boer War of 1899–
1902. Defying the Admiralty’s wishes, Fisher accepted Balfour’s invita-
tion. Among the committee’s recommendations was a call to establish an
organization for coordinating defense planning. In May 1904, the Com-
mittee of Imperial Defence (CID) was established, to be chaired by
 Fisher’s Scheme 201

the prime minister, with Lord Esher serving as a member from 1906
to 1914.
Fisher’s character was as exceptional as his naval background. Born
in Ceylon into a family of modest means, he entered the Navy as a cadet
at the age of thirteen. He was short and stocky, standing about five feet
seven inches. Owing to bouts with dysentery and malaria, Fisher had a
yellow tint to his skin, and this, combined with his features and place of
birth, led his enemies to claim that he was part Chinese, calling him,
among other things, the “Half-Caste” and the “Yellow Peril.” Fisher
gravitated naturally toward nonconformists, mavericks, and radicals of all
kinds. He got on well with the two most notorious liberals of the time,
Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George, and once cheekily sug-
gested naming four of a new class of battleships Winston, Churchill, Lloyd,
and George.104
All who came in contact with Fisher were inspired—for better or ill—
by his enthusiasm. He once persuaded a group of captains to pull oars and
handle wet cable “as if once again they were midshipmen.” Dancing was
an old pastime of the Royal Navy, and Fisher was ready to dance with
anyone, male or female, at any time. If there was no music, he would
whistle or hum a tune. Fisher also had a way with senior leaders. While
serving as the captain of the Royal Navy’s most powerful battleship in
1881, he was introduced to Prime Minister William Gladstone at a Lon-
don party. Gladstone solemnly observed, “I really wonder the human
mind can bear such responsibility.” “Oh, sir,” Fisher responded cheerily,
“the common vulgar mind doesn’t feel that sort of thing.” Whereupon the
prime minister’s face “relaxed into a grim smile.”105 Fisher was fond of
claiming that the British were really the Lost Tribe of Israel. When it was
argued that they didn’t look much like the other tribes of Israel, he replied
that of course they didn’t, or they wouldn’t be lost!106
Fisher proved indefatigable in his work. At the Admiralty, he was
rarely at his desk later than five in the morning or gone earlier than nine
at night. On slow days, he would wander the halls with a sign around his
neck reading “i have nothing to do” or “give me something to sign.”
Yet despite his outsized personality, Fisher preferred to work behind the
scenes. He made only four public speeches in his life. Fisher typically
avoided fashionable London society, with a notable exception. Once a
quarter, he would meet for dinner with Lord Esher, a Liberal Party
member who was influential in military affairs, and Lord Knollys, King
Edward VII’s principal private secretary.107
202 Part 2

Jackie believed the Royal Navy’s dominance was a powerful force for
good and that if war should come, it should be employed ruthlessly to
restore peace. If a British fleet ever went to war under his command, he
assured everyone, nobody would be immune to its power. In speaking to
a British correspondent during a conference on disarmament at the
Hague, Fisher declared,

Look, when I leave The Hague I go to take command of the

Mediterranean Fleet. Suppose that war breaks out and I am ex-
pecting to fight a new Trafalgar on the morrow. Some neutral . . .
[freighters loaded with coal] try to steam past us into the enemy’s
waters. If the enemy gets their coal into his bunkers, it may make
all the difference in the coming fight. You tell me I must not
seize these colliers. I tell you that nothing that you, or any power
on earth, can say will stop me from seizing them or from sending
them to the bottom, if I can in no other way keep their coal out
of the enemy’s hands; for tomorrow I am to fight the battle
which will save or wreck the Empire. If I win it, I shall be far too
big a man to be affected about protests about the neutral colliers;
if I lose it, I shall go down with my ship into the deep and then
protests will affect me still less.108

Fisher’s message: Britain and its Navy did not seek war, but if war came,
the fleet would wage it ruthlessly with every means at its disposal. The
same could be said regarding Fisher’s approach to implementing his
Scheme for transforming the Royal Navy.

The Scheme
In October 1904, Fisher assumed his duties as first sea lord. Like a long-
simmering volcano building up pressure before erupting, the following
months saw Fisher bursting forth with a range of initiatives designed to
transform the Navy. On his first day, Fisher produced a memo declaring
that Britain could sustain its maritime position “with a great reduction in
the Navy Estimates!”—but only if the Scheme was adopted without
modification. Fisher wanted “The Scheme! The Whole Scheme!! And
Nothing But The Scheme!!”109
The Scheme separated Fisher from the other naval leaders of his time.
It was a holistic vision of how war at sea was changing and the practical
 Fisher’s Scheme 203

policies needed to enable the Royal Navy to adapt to preserve its dominance.
No vision is without flaws, and several were revealed over time; Fisher was
also unsuccessful in implementing “the whole scheme and nothing but the
scheme.” Yet the great changes he instituted, and they were more than a few,
produced a fleet that passed the ultimate test: achieving victory in war.
Fisher soon bound together a selection of his writings and circulated
them to a select group of naval officers. Titled “Naval Necessities,” it in-
cluded thirty-four essays, thirteen sets of tables, and nine appendices set-
ting forth Fisher’s vision. One paper, titled “The Fighting Characteristics
of Vessels of War,” declared “strategy,” not tradition, “should govern
the types of ships to be designed.” As for ship design itself, “the first es-
sential is to divest our minds totally of the idea that a single type of ship
as now built is necessary.”110
Challenging the primacy of the battleship of the line, Fisher argued,
“There is good ground for enquiry whether naval supremacy of a coun-
try can any longer be assessed by its battleships. To build battleships
merely to fight an enemy’s battleships, so long as cheaper craft [such as
torpedo craft] destroy them, and prevent them of themselves protecting
sea operations [through blockade], is merely to breed Kilkenny cats un-
able to catch rats or mice. For fighting purposes they would be excellent,
but for gaining practical results they would be useless.”111 Fisher’s vision
rested on three main pillars: constructing a new kind of capital ship, the
battle cruiser; employing a “flotilla defense” of the home islands; and
“plunging”: exploiting Britain’s superior industrial and technology base
to disrupt other navies’ ability to compete.
Fisher’s time in command of the Mediterranean Fleet gave him a
healthy respect for the growing danger of attempting close blockades
against an enemy naval base protected by torpedo boats, anti-ship mines,
and, if developments continued along present lines, submarines. Fisher
insisted that the number of destroyers be tripled to combat the guerrilla-
like attacks he anticipated from torpedo-armed craft in the event of war.
“If more destroyers are not obtained,” he warned, “we shall have the
Boer War played over again at sea. . . . To steam a fleet at night without a
fringe of destroyers is like marching an army without an advance guard,
flanking parties or scouts.”112
If torpedo boats were difficult to detect at night, Fisher expressed
even greater concern over the havoc that submarines would create once
they were introduced into the maritime equation. Writing to a fellow
admiral, Fisher declared,
204 Part 2

It’s astounding to me, perfectly astounding, how the very best

amongst us absolutely fail to realise the vast impending revolu-
tion in naval warfare and naval strategy that the submarine will
accomplish. . . . In all seriousness I don’t think it is even faintly
realised—the immense impending revolution which the submarines
will effect as offensive weapons of war. . . . When you calmly sit
down and work out what will happen in the narrow waters of the
Channel and the Mediterranean how totally the submarines will
alter the effects of Gibraltar, Port Said, Lemnos and Malta, it
makes one’s hair stand on end!113

After departing his command, Fisher spoke at the Royal Academy, where
he predicted “the submarine-boat and wireless telegraphy”: “When they
are perfected, we do not know what a revolution will come about. In
their inception they were weapons of the weak. Now they loom large as
weapons of the strong. Will any fleet be able to be in narrow waters? Is
there the slightest fear of invasion with them, even for the most extreme
pessimist?”114
In a letter written in January 1904 to Rear Admiral Francis Bridge-
man, a member of the “Fishpond”—the name given to his group of
disciples—Fisher boldly asserted,

a) The Submarine is coming into play in Ocean Warfare almost

immediately.
b) Associated with a Whitehead torpedo 18 ft. in length it will
displace the gun and absolutely revolutionise Naval Tactics.
c) No single Submarine ever built or building will ever be
obsolete.

“I stake my reputation on the absolute reliability of these three state-

ments. . . . The deduction is:—‘drop a battleship [construction] out of the
program’ (if it be necessary on account of financial necessities) but at any
cost double the output of submarines.”115 Fisher was not the only British
admiral who thought of exploiting the submarine’s potential; however, he
was the first to suggest that the Royal Navy should rely on submarine-
destroyer flotillas rather than the battle fleet as the main instrument of
deterring and, if necessary, defeating an attack on the British Isles. In
“Naval Necessities,” Fisher proposed to organize four “défense mobile”
groups, each consisting of one flotilla of twenty-four destroyers and one
 Fisher’s Scheme 205

section of twelve submarines, all bristling with torpedoes, to be stationed

along England’s southern coast.116 The flotillas’ mission would be to in-
tercept enemy merchantmen and commerce raiders in surrounding wa-
ters, while the battle-cruiser squadrons would attack them on the high
seas. The flotillas could also safeguard the British coast from maritime
attack the same way rival flotillas were undermining the Royal Navy’s
practice of close blockade.
“My beloved submarines,” Fisher enthused, would “magnify the
naval power of England seven times more than present.”117 Fisher be-
lieved that a flotilla defense made up of submarines, torpedo boats, and
destroyers could reduce the need for battle cruisers in home waters, free-
ing them to deploy quickly to danger spots throughout the empire. Al-
though time would prove Fisher correct, as he advanced this element of
the Scheme in 1905 the ability of submarines to perform this mission
was more potential than fact. There was considerable risk involved in
adopting flotilla defense, therefore. But there was also risk in not advanc-
ing submarine development.
In March 1905, following the Liberal Party’s election victory, the
Earl of Cawdor became first lord of the Admiralty, succeeding Lord
Selborne. Fisher quickly convinced him not only that the submarine rep-
resented an emerging revolution in warfare at sea but also that it was an
indispensable element of the Scheme, both for its potential military ef-
fectiveness and for relieving the strain on naval estimates. By adopting
flotilla defense, Fisher told Cawdor, the Admiralty could scrap many old
warships kept in reserve whose sole function was to assist in home
defense.118
Fisher’s arguments attracted support, especially given the advances
being made with submarines and torpedoes. With the political leader-
ship’s blessing, Fisher began efforts to shift toward flotilla defense. Dur-
ing his tenure, spending on new submarines more than doubled to
over £2 million, at a time when the shipbuilding construction budget
declined by more than £2 million.119 Elements of the torpedo flotilla—
submarines, destroyers, and torpedo boats—more than 100 in all, were
concentrated in the Home Fleet. The decommissioning of eleven ar-
mored vessels in 1906–7 freed manpower that Fisher used to increase the
reserve nucleus crews of flotilla craft from 40 to 80 percent of their war-
time strength.120
Fisher’s early success in implementing this critical part of his Scheme
was remarkable; however, as the implications of his plans became better
206 Part 2

understood, resistance mounted. Ultimately Jackie would find himself en-

gaged in a confrontation over flotilla defense and other aspects of the
Scheme with Admiral Beresford and the so-called Syndicate of Discontent.

Redistributing the Fleet

Fisher’s Scheme also addressed strengthening defense of the empire.
His plans centered on exploiting technology to shift from a forward-
deployed fleet posture to emphasizing rapid communication, mobility,
and maneuver, while realizing significant economies that would please the
political leadership and help underwrite other elements of the Scheme,
especially that part concerning manpower.
Fisher had been immersed in efforts to bring about efficiencies during
his previous assignment as second sea lord from 1902 to 1904. In a letter
to Beresford in early 1903, Fisher railed at the “frightful waste of ships and
personnel” inherent in the then current dispositions of the fleet.121 In
“Naval Necessities,” he called for reducing the number of overseas squad-
rons, composed primarily of older and smaller vessels, to liberate the man-
power needed to crew the reserve fleet based in Great Britain.
Fisher scoffed at those who believed that the reductions in overseas
presence would compromise British interests. He argued that naval su-
premacy and effective deterrence demanded capability more than simple
presence. A strategy of maneuver, centered on mobility and the ability to
compete based on time, was Fisher’s preference. He noted that the devel-
opment of wireless telegraphy coupled with Britain’s dominance of
global telecommunications though its ocean cable network would pro-
vide the Royal Navy with early warning of a crisis. This, combined with
Fisher’s plan for a centrally located force of high-speed, long-range,
powerful battle cruisers, would enable the Royal Navy to dispatch over-
whelming force quickly to any trouble spot.
Fisher informed Selborne that there would be strong opposition to
his fleet redistribution plan from within the Navy, especially from those
admirals whose minds he viewed as rooted in the past. He told the first
lord, “We can’t have a redistribution of our fleet until we rearrange our
strategy. . . . How many types of ships do we want? This is quite easy to an-
swer if we make up our minds how we are going to fight! Who has made up
his mind? How many of our admirals have got minds?”122
Selborne backed Fisher and, on December 6, 1904, presented the
plan to the Cabinet, arguing that “the principles on which the present
 Fisher’s Scheme 207

peace distribution of His Majesty’s ships and the arrangement of their

stations are based, date from a period when the electric telegraph did not
exist and when wind was the motive power.”123 Remote squadrons in-
cluded mainly old, outdated ships that could “neither fight nor run
away.” They would be decommissioned and the remainder of the fleet re-
positioned to support the “best strategical distribution for war.”124 This
would realize economies and free up badly needed manpower.
The Royal Navy would be reorganized around three major fleets:
Home, Atlantic, and Mediterranean. The Home Fleet, with eight battle-
ships, was to have “its strategic centre at Dover.” The Channel Fleet and
its eight battleships would be redesignated as the Atlantic Fleet and
based at Gibraltar. The Mediterranean Fleet at Malta with twelve battle-
ships would remain Britain’s most powerful.125 While the redistribution
was under way, the Japanese victory over the Russian fleet at Tsushima
helped mute criticism when all five battleships of Britain’s China squad-
ron were called home to European waters. Remnants of the Australian,
Chinese, and East Indian stations were combined to form an Eastern war
fleet.126 For Fisher, the Atlantic Fleet based at Gibraltar was key to his
plans for a rapidly deployable force able to swing quickly either north or
east. As he put it, “We have rearranged it with our best and fastest battle-
ships and cruisers and our best admirals . . . instantly ready to turn the
scale (at the highest speed of any fleet in the world) in the North Sea or
the Mediterranean.”127 Faced with a crisis outside European waters, the
Navy would rely on Britain’s unsurpassed global basing network to pro-
vide the early warning and logistics required for a new type of ship—the
fast battle cruiser—to concentrate more quickly than its rivals where
needed and, if need be, sustain themselves on station over an extended
period of time. (Thanks to the Royal Navy’s strategically located bases, it
was the only navy that maintained a sizeable stock of coal in the Indo-
Pacific region.)
The fleet redistribution enabled Fisher to realize another part of his
Scheme, bringing the Reserve Fleet to war readiness by manning its
most capable ships with so-called nucleus crews. The crews released
from the ships decommissioned through redistribution amounted to
11,000 sailors and nearly 1,000 officers. They were reassigned as the nu-
cleus crews for the previously unmanned ships of the Reserve Fleet,
which could now be manned at 40 percent of their wartime strength. Im-
portantly, Fisher wanted these crews manned with a full complement of
skilled sailors, rather than those assigned to basic tasks such as stoking
208 Part 2

engines and handling ammunition. This enabled the crews to drill nor-
mally and periodically take their ship to sea for gunnery and tactical ex-
ercises, thereby maintaining their readiness at a fraction of the financial
and manpower costs required to fully man an active warship.128 Fisher
described his nucleus-crew system as “the keystone of our preparedness
for war.” The whole fleet, he said, was now “instantly ready. . . . Sudden-
ness is now the characteristic feature of sea fighting!”129 In announcing
the nucleus-crew initiative to the Cabinet, Selborne mentioned in pass-
ing that to free the needed manpower, “a certain number of ships
of comparatively small fighting value have or will be withdrawn from
commission.”130
Left unsaid was that this amounted to more than 150 ships.131
The redistribution was announced on January 1, 1905. In all, 154
ships were recalled, 90 to be scrapped and the remainder to be placed in
reserve. Fisher won support for redistributing major warships among the
three main fleets and for his battle cruiser concept, both of which sup-
ported his strategy of maneuver while reducing emphasis on forward-
based forces. Fisher did, however, have to make some compromises.
Selborne, more risk-averse than Fisher, insisted he retain eleven old
battleships.
As word spread throughout the Navy, a firestorm ensued. Admirals,
many of whom would later help form the Syndicate of Discontent, saw
Fisher as a traitor to the service. Not surprisingly, admirals on those sta-
tions slated for recalls complained bitterly. The China Station com-
mander charged that “British interests are much handicapped.” The
secretary of the Committee on Imperial Defense argued that declaring
ships unfit for fighting a war as Fisher did ignored the need for them to
support the Navy’s traditional role in carrying out “police duties in peace
time,” which it “must continue to do.” The secretary, however, did not
specify how this was to be achieved at the same time that major econo-
mies were being realized, or why such duties should have priority over
the fleet’s ability to prevail in war.132

Wireless
Fisher’s success in winning the political leadership’s support for the fleet’s
redistribution was, in no small way, enabled by rapid advances in com-
munications. Prior to wireless, information could be moved at high
speed through a telegraph network, which enabled the Admiralty to
 Fisher’s Scheme 209

transmit and receive information to overseas naval bases within minutes

—as long as these bases were linked to a network. Absent such networks,
however, information moved at the rate of the fastest ship, which is to
say at a far slower pace.133
While Fisher and Selborne were advancing their proposal for redis-
tributing the fleet, the Navy was creating a network of wireless telegra-
phy stations atop Great Britain’s existing cable network. In 1905, the
quantity of information processed by the Naval Intelligence Department
of the Admiralty increased exponentially once its “trade” division began
tracking the daily movements of every warship and steamer belonging to
every nation in the world. The Admiralty now also possessed the ability
not only to know the readiness and whereabouts of all British warships
but also to keep track of rival fleet movements.134 Once linked to its net-
work of intelligence agents in major foreign ports, the Admiralty could
use this information to optimize the positioning of its warships, dispatch-
ing them to threatened areas more quickly than could its adversaries.
Fisher believed his “New Model” warships, the fast battle cruisers, would
further enhance the Admiralty’s ability to mass superior naval power at
the decisive point.
Fisher consciously sought to create what essentially amounted to a
British near monopoly in global communications.135 Preparations were
made for all “enemy”-owned undersea cables to be cut in the event of
war. (When war came in August 1914, on the first day of hostilities, all
German undersea cables were severed or rerouted to British-controlled
territory.) The Admiralty’s new communications network was also criti-
cal to the flotilla defense system. Beginning in 1907, the Royal Navy’s
torpedo-armed submarines and destroyers were never under the opera-
tional command of the Home Fleet, to which they were assigned. Rather,
command and control was centralized from London via wireless. Indi-
vidual units reported directly to the Admiralty, which then determined
the appropriate course of action to be taken. This primitive command-
and-control network constituted a revolutionary departure from all pre-
vious practice with respect to fleet operations.136
Fisher’s strategic insights, based on his understanding of how tech-
nology like wireless communications was changing war at sea, combined
with his ability to satisfy political demands for economies, enabled the
admiral and his ally the first lord to weather the fierce criticism of the re-
distribution scheme. Although the Royal Navy reduced considerably the
number of ships it deployed at various points beyond Europe, this was,
210 Part 2

Fisher argued, more than offset by the quality and mobility of the fleet’s
new battle cruisers. The redistribution also exploited the positional ad-
vantage afforded Britain by its global basing posture and its network of
British-controlled wireless telegraph stations.137

Transforming the Battle Fleet

Fisher’s Scheme for transforming the battle fleet had three principal ele-
ments. As noted earlier, one called for a new ship—a fast battle cruiser
capable of steaming rapidly to threatened parts of the empire, defeating
enemy commerce-raiding cruisers, and, if need be, taking on an enemy
fleet’s battleships. To ease demands on the battle fleet, Fisher proposed
establishing a flotilla defense of the British Isles, employing submarines
and destroyers, all bristling with torpedoes. The scheme’s third element
involved shifting the Admiralty’s long-standing procurement strategy.
Fisher believed the traditional metrics by which the Royal Navy
measured its combat capability required radical revision, focusing on the
numbers of fast battle cruisers and torpedo craft, rather than battleships,
long the principal measure of maritime supremacy. He declared,

The battleship of the olden days was necessary because it was the
one and only vessel that nothing could sink except another battle-
ship. Now every battleship is open to attack by fast torpedo-craft
and submarines. Formerly, transports or military operations could
be covered by a fleet of battleships with the certainty that nothing
could attack them without first being crushed by the covering
fleet! Now all this has been absolutely altered! A battle-fleet is no
protection in daytime because of the submarine. Hence what is
the use of battleships as we have hitherto known them? None!
Their one and only function—that of ultimate security of defense
is gone—lost! No one would seriously advocate building battle-
ships merely to fight other battleships—since if battleships have
no function that the first class armored cruiser cannot fulfill, then
they are useless to an enemy and do not need to be fought.138

Fisher also sought to change the metrics of surface-ship design. He be-

lieved that the guiding principle in warship construction is to view it as a
floating gun carriage. But how should trade-offs be made in constructing
this “floating gun carriage” with regard to armament, speed, armor,
 Fisher’s Scheme 211

range, and endurance? Without reservation, Fisher opted for speed and
long-range armament, specifically on uniform, big-gun armament that
would enable the Royal Navy’s capital ships to engage the enemy at ex-
tended range—and beyond the range of torpedoes.
Of course, the longer the range, the more difficult it is to hit the tar-
get, all other things being equal. Beginning in 1898, gunnery exercises
were conducted at ranges from 3,000 to 6,000 yards to improve accuracy.
Accurate fire control was made easier if the ship fired in coordinated sal-
vos, not independently. The splash from the fall of the salvo was ob-
served, and range adjustments were made until it matched the range of
the target. Since different caliber guns had different ranges, salvo firing
worked best when using guns of a single caliber. Long-range gunnery ex-
periments were carried out in both the Mediterranean and home waters.
In April 1904, it was concluded that effective gunnery at 8,000 yards was
possible, with the engagement beginning at 9,000 to 10,000 yards.139
To exploit an advantage in long-range fires, Fisher’s fast battle
cruiser (or, simply, “battle cruiser”) sacrificed armor in exchange for a
uniform all-big-gun armament—and with it greater engagement range—
and superior speed to rival battleships. And he let everyone know it, de-
claring, “There is no question whatever that the first desideratum in
every type of fighting vessel is speed. . . . It is absolutely impossible to ex-
aggerate the supreme importance of speed.”140 This combination of
range and speed, Fisher argued, would enable the Navy to dictate the
terms of battle:

The first desideratum of all is Speed! Your fools don’t see it—
They are always running about to see where they can put on a
little more armour! to make it safer! You don’t go into Battle to be
safe! No, you go into the Battle to hit the other fellow in the eye
first so that he can’t see you. Yes! you hit him first, you hit him
hard and you keep on hitting. That’s your safety! You don’t get hit
back! . . . The first of all necessities is Speed so as to be able to
fight when you like, where you like, and how you like.141

Battle cruisers also recognized the Admiralty’s financial constraints, per-

forming double duty. Fisher saw them engaging enemy battleships as
part of the Royal Navy’s line of battle while also moving quickly to
threatened parts of the empire to destroy any commerce-raiding cruisers
that Britain’s enemies might put up against it.
212 Part 2

Fisher’s support for battle cruisers was part of his efforts to get out in
front of major shifts in battleship design. Some of Britain’s maritime ri-
vals were already moving to launch all-big-gun battleships. In the spring
of 1905, Congress provided the U.S. Navy with funding for two 16,000-
ton battleships, South Carolina and Michigan, each with eight 12-inch
guns. At that time, the Japanese were laying down two large 20,000-ton,
twenty-knot battleships of mixed armament, each carrying four 12-inch
and twelve 10-inch guns.142 The Royal Navy clearly needed to respond
to these developments, but how? With the battle cruisers, Fisher looked
neither to ape the competition nor to dominate it through superior
numbers alone.
But Fisher could not discount battleships entirely in favor of his bat-
tle cruisers. The political and institutional resistance was far too strong
for that. It also did not make strategic sense to abandon entirely the class
of vessels that for generations had dominated war at sea. Typical of
Fisher, he continued to support battleship construction, but for novel
reasons, which brings us to the HMS Dreadnought.
Upon becoming first sea lord, Fisher tentatively proposed before the
Committee on Designs that battleship construction be suspended in
favor of battle cruisers. Fisher would get his all-big-gun ships, but not all
of them would be battle cruisers. There would be a new battleship,
Dreadnought, incorporating radical advances in its design. For decades,
almost all battleships mounted four big guns. Dreadnought had ten. Most
battleships steamed at a maximum eighteen knots; Dreadnought, incorpo-
rating the new turbine engines in lieu of the then standard reciprocating
engines, could make twenty-one knots and sustain high speeds over
much longer distances—an important consideration given Britain’s far-
flung empire. Admiral Reginald Bacon enthused, “No greater single step
towards efficiency in war was ever made than the introduction of the tur-
bine. Previous to its adoption every day’s steaming at high speed meant
several days overhaul of machinery in harbour. All this was to be changed
as if by magic.”143 Remarkably, Dreadnought’s cost was only slightly
higher than that of earlier battleships. Yet its all-big-gun armament gave
it a long-range striking capability equal to two or three of them. More-
over, since a “dreadnought” only needed ammunition and spare parts for
one type of gun, further economies were realized.144
Fisher wanted the ship built in record time, and it was. Construction
began on October 2, 1905, and Dreadnought was commissioned for ser-
vice on December 3, 1906. Still, Dreadnought was not so much the core
 Fisher’s Scheme 213

of Fisher’s revolution in the battle fleet as it was a useful adjunct. The ad-
miral’s true passion remained the battle cruiser.
Battle cruisers, both Fisher and Selborne argued, represented a
major new approach to naval warfare, owing to the great emphasis
placed in their design on high speed and long-range striking power. As
with Dreadnought and all preceding battleships, the new battle cruisers
would far surpass their immediate ancestors in ranged firepower. Where
existing battleships typically mounted four big guns, the battle cruiser
Invincible would mount eight, and its speed of twenty-five knots would
surpass Dreadnought’s by a full four knots. Selborne pointed out that once
these new ships put to sea, all the commerce-raiding cruisers of Britain’s
maritime competitors “would be hopelessly outmatched.”145
The three Invincible-class battle cruisers were laid down in the spring
of 1906. Unlike Dreadnought, the first battle cruisers were built in se-
crecy. To deceive the competition, however, Fisher did leak misinforma-
tion that the Invincibles would mount 9.2-inch guns. To his delight, the
three battle cruisers, armed with 12-inch guns, appeared nearly simulta-
neously between March and October 1908, creating a stir almost as great
as Dreadnought had. In armament, they were more powerful than any
battleship afloat except Dreadnought, to which they were not far inferior.
They were also much faster. In July 1908, the newly commissioned battle
cruiser Indomitable steamed across the Atlantic Ocean at an average speed
of twenty-five knots, validating the turbine engine’s promise.
Fisher’s New Model warships provoked more frustration in Berlin,
where Germany’s already obsolete cruiser Blucher was still under con-
struction. As with Dreadnought, Tirpitz once again had been outfoxed.146
As Fisher saw it, “You had to have Moses before Paul! You couldn’t
have had the New Testament without the Old first! The Dreadnought
paved the way to the Indomitable. It’s no use one or two knots superiority
of speed—a dirty bottom brings that down! It’s a d——d big six or seven
knot surplus that does the trick! then you can fight how you like, when
you like, and where you like!”147
In the 1909 program, with Fisher seeking to maintain his advantage
in long-range firepower and to address the ever increasing ranges of
modern torpedoes, he included a new battle cruiser class, Lion. It
boosted armament from 12-inch guns to 13.5-inch guns, nearly doubling
the shell weight that could be fired in a single broadside. The Lion-
class ships would be equipped with engines with almost twice the power
of earlier battle cruisers, increasing their speed from twenty-five to
214 Part 2

twenty-seven knots. Fisher proclaimed, “The ships we have just laid down
are as far beyond the Dreadnought as the Dreadnought was beyond all before
her! And they will say again, ‘D—n that blackguard! Again a new era of
Dreadnoughts!’ But imagine the German ‘wake-up’ when these new
ships by and by burst on them! 70,000 horsepower!!! And guns that will gut
them!!!”148

The Shift to Oil Propulsion

In 1908, a British destroyer, Swift, began its sea trials. It was, in many
ways, unremarkable, but the ship did demonstrate one unusual attribute:
it was powered by oil, rather than coal.149 Over the next decade, the
Royal Navy would convert to oil to power its warships. Accomplishing
the shift represented a considerable strategic risk for Great Britain,
which had large indigenous coal reserves but no oil.150
Why the change to oil? There were several reasons, the principal
being that oil provided more energy per unit relative to coal and thereby
enabled warships to travel faster and farther, two key attributes in Fish-
er’s Scheme. Oil also eliminated the need for coal stokers, reducing man-
power requirements. Oil-fired engines produced less smoke, making
ships more difficult to spot. This was particularly attractive for a fleet
planning to engage at extended ranges. Oil was easier to transport, facili-
tating refueling at sea, as opposed to having ships return to coaling sta-
tions to restock.151
Experimentation with oil-fueled ships had been going on for several
decades and had proved feasible. The Italian Navy had led the way, and
by 1900 most of its torpedo boats were oil-fired. In the United States,
the first oil-burning U.S. destroyer, Paulding, was commissioned in 1910,
and by 1911 the Nevada-class battleships were being designed solely for
oil fuel.152 As with the all-big-gun battleship, if Britain failed to respond
to developments already under way in other first-class navies, it risked
being at a disadvantage.
By 1911, the Royal Navy had adopted oil for submarines and de-
stroyers. In advocating transitioning to oil-powered capital ships, Win-
ston Churchill, appointed first lord of the Admiralty in 1911, observed,
“The oil supplies of the world were in the hands of vast oil trusts under
foreign control. To commit the Navy irrevocably to oil was indeed ‘to
take arms against a sea of troubles.’ If we overcame the difficulties and
surmounted the risks, we should be able to raise the whole power and
 Fisher’s Scheme 215

efficiency of the Navy to a definitely higher level; better ships, better

crews, higher economies, more intense forms of war power—in a word,
mastery itself was the prize of the venture.”153 Spurred by Churchill’s
views, which were strongly influenced by Fisher, the Cabinet moved to
secure adequate oil supplies, acquiring 51 percent of the Anglo-Persian
oil company’s stock.154
The shift could not occur soon enough for Fisher, who declared,
“The oil engine will govern all sea-fighting, and all sea-fighting is going to be
governed by submarines.”155 Fisher was particularly anxious that Britain
beat Germany, now looming as the Royal Navy’s principal rival at sea, in
shifting to oil. As he informed one associate, “The one all pervading, all
absorbing thought is to get in first with motor ships before the Germans!
Owing to our apathy during the last two years they are ahead with inter-
nal combustion engines! They have killed 15 men in experiments with
oil engines and we have not killed one! And a d——d fool of an English
politician told me the other day that he thinks this creditable to us.”156 By
the time of the Great War, the Royal Navy would have oil-fired capital
ships.

Long-Range Fires
Fisher’s vision of a transformed battle fleet presupposed that his ship’s
big guns could hit their targets at very long range with sufficient accu-
racy to prevail. This appeared to be a reasonable assumption, thanks to
recent advances in gunnery.
For decades prior to the late 1890s, the Royal Navy’s gunnery profi-
ciency ran a poor second to spit and polish. The long peace following the
Napoleonic Wars led to an emphasis on drill rather than marksmanship.
Although ever larger guns could hit targets at 6,000 yards, they seldom
did so in practice even at 1,500 yards. Thus, the default tactics remained
those of Nelson a century before: move to close range and pour over-
whelming fire at the enemy. Moreover, gunnery exercises were typically
unrealistic, with ships steaming at eight knots on a course firing at a tar-
get at a known distance, often around 1,500 yards.
For men like Fisher, advances in technology made this situation in-
tolerable. First, the introduction of guns capable of ever greater range
meant that the navy that first figured out how to hit accurately at long
range would have a major advantage over an enemy battle fleet. Second,
advances in torpedo range and accuracy were making engagements at
216 Part 2

close range a prohibitively costly proposition. If opportunity would not

be the mother of innovation, necessity must be.
Things needed to change, and they did. On May 26, 1899, Captain
Percy Scott, commander of the cruiser Scylla, in seeking to enhance his
ship’s gunnery accuracy, replaced the open sights of his 4.7-inch quick-
firing guns with telescopic sights. He also changed the gear rotation on
the elevating mechanism to allow for quick adjustments. Scott had also
been training his gunners to aim continuously to enhance their ability to
correct for the ship’s pitching and yawing. The results were impressive.
Scott’s “continuous aim” gun-laying technique saw the crew making
fifty-six out of its seventy shots, twice the fleet average. Scott’s gunners
were also able to hit at ranges out to 7,000 yards. Scott soon found him-
self assigned to command the Excellent, which served as the Royal Navy’s
gunnery school, educating a generation of gunners in his technique. At
that time, Fisher, commanding the Mediterranean Fleet, began practic-
ing at ranges of 6,000 to 7,000 yards to address the growing torpedo
threat. Although the results were disappointing, the need for accurate
long-range fires was clear, and the Admiralty, following Fisher’s lead, re-
quired annual gunnery fleet exercises at 6,000 yards.157
With Dreadnought’s launching and Fisher’s big bet on long-range
fires, gunnery assumed even greater prominence. Initial results were dis-
appointing. The 1906 fleet maneuvers occurred in misty weather and
rough seas and saw the secondary batteries performing better than the
larger guns.158 Fisher had to find a way to enhance the big guns’ accuracy
if the Royal Navy was to transform the potential advantages of his New
Model warships into reality.
In March 1905, Fisher made Scott the first inspector of target prac-
tice and ordered him to establish gunnery competitions between ships
and fleets. That August, Scott submitted a paper describing a new
method of sighting and firing. It called for laying all of the ship’s big
guns at a fixed elevation and for the salvo timing to be determined by a
device he called a “director,” located on a mast and operated by a single
observer. The system of “director firing” placed the sighting process
above any interference from sea spray or smoke, while ensuring that the
big-gun salvo was nearly simultaneous. By 1908, thanks to Fisher and
Scott, British capital ships were hitting moving targets at 8,000 to 9,000
yards.159
During this time, two distinct approaches to fire control were being
tested. One, named Argo and developed by Arthur Pollen, was relatively
 Fisher’s Scheme 217

sophisticated compared to its competitor, the Dreyer system. The latter

was the brainchild of Commander (later Admiral) Frederick Dreyer, who
had a background in gunnery, having served under Scott.
The Dreyer system, however, suffered from a fatal defect in that it
ignored the effect of yaw—a ship’s side-to-side movement owing to its
being buffeted by waves. The Dreyer system’s early trials were failures.
Next, a series of trials between the two systems took place on the battle-
ship Vengeance. They were held under ideal weather conditions, minimiz-
ing the problem of accounting for the effect of yaw. Pollen and his crew,
on the other hand, had to incorporate Admiralty equipment such as the
Dumaresq calculator and Vickers clock into their performance, even
though they had no experience with these instruments and did not desire
to use them.
Despite the scales being tipped in favor of one of their own, the trials
supervision committee found Pollen’s system vastly superior to Dreyer’s.
Nevertheless, the Admiralty chose the Dreyer system. Fisher appears to
have been persuaded by Dreyer that the Navy had produced a cheaper
and equally effective alternative to Pollen’s system. It may also be that
Fisher’s judgment was affected by his rapidly growing feud with Beres-
ford, who had purchased Pollen systems for five of his ships. In any
event, of the twenty-eight British all-big-gun battleships and battle cruis-
ers in service in July 1914, more than half were making do with second-
class fire-control gear. It was arguably the worst decision Fisher made in
his efforts to implement the Scheme.160

Mines
By the early 1890s, the Royal Navy had developed automatic contact
mines, with Fisher and Ottley closely involved in the effort. Realizing
the dangers posed by mines, and with no countermeasure readily avail-
able, the Admiralty chose to let other navies make the first move in
adopting them. By the time Fisher became second sea lord in 1902, how-
ever, rival navies had already stolen a march. “What justification can we
advance for our apparent supineness?” asked Fisher. “If we do not adopt
them,” he wrote, “we shall lack one weapon possessed by our enemies,
which will be used against us and we shall not be able to retaliate in the
same manner. . . . We cannot afford to leave anything to be a matter of
opinion which affects, in the slightest degree, the fighting efficiency of
the Fleet.”161
218 Part 2

Ottley, newly appointed as DNI, reported on the “startling success

achieved by automatic mines during the present [Russo-Japanese] war.”
Fisher appointed Ottley to chair a committee on the matter and accepted
its recommendations to begin procuring 10,000 mines. Although the
committee envisioned mines as supporting blockade operations, Fisher
wanted them primarily as an additional means of preventing enemy ships
from entering British waters, and he included mines in the Navy’s esti-
mates every year. This continued until Churchill, as first lord, discontin-
ued their stockpiling, believing that mines were weapons of a weaker
naval power forced on the defensive.162

Plunging
During Fisher’s tenure as first sea lord, Britain possessed the world’s
largest, best-equipped, and most technically advanced warship industry.
It allowed Britain to build warships of cutting-edge design, faster and in
greater numbers than its rivals. This enabled the Admiralty to pursue a
strategy of the “second-move advantage” during the periodic disruptive
shifts in the naval competition during the nineteenth century. It was
France, not Britain, that first moved to launch steam-propelled warships
and ironclads. Even though Britain was fully capable of leading the tran-
sition, it held back so as to maximize its advantage in existing warships.
Similarly, the Admiralty sought to “ignore” the development of subma-
rines until a major naval rival introduced this new form of war at sea.
Fisher sought to preserve, exploit, and where possible, extend Brit-
ain’s industrial base supremacy. Typical of Fisher, however, was his deter-
mination to apply these advantages in a new way. He called his approach
“plunging,” and it was, along with the development of the battle cruiser
and flotilla defense, one of the Scheme’s three central elements. In decid-
ing to build Dreadnought and the battle cruisers, Fisher followed the tra-
dition of the second-move advantage to move quickly if a rival was about
to move first.163
But Fisher wanted to do more than react to the competition—he
wanted to shape it. He was looking to set its pace and direction. Dread-
nought was Fisher’s test case. Fisher publicized everything not classified
about the ship’s construction to paralyze rival navies. Through reforming
labor practices in the dockyards and ordering critical-path components
such as big-gun mountings and turbine engines several months before plac-
ing the contract for the hull, he dramatically compressed its construction
 Fisher’s Scheme 219

time. A year and a day after construction started, Dreadnought began its sea
trials. Fisher had cut the normal building time for a battleship—in this
case, a radically different and more powerful battleship—by more than
half.164
Dreadnought disrupted the planning efforts of Britain’s principal ri-
vals, the Germans in particular. As Dreadnought was emerging from the
drawing board, Tirpitz was launching Deutschland, the first of five
planned new German battleships. These ships, with their 13,400 tons,
four 11-inch and fourteen 6.7-inch guns, and eighteen-knot speed,
would be inferior even to some of the Royal Navy’s pre-dreadnought
battleships. With Dreadnought, this class was already obsolete.
Tirpitz’s program was also stretching the limits of size in his ship de-
signs. A key limiting factor was the Kiel Canal, which provided the Ger-
man fleet with a shortcut between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. If
Tirpitz wanted bigger ships, the canal would have to be enlarged, requir-
ing years of effort at enormous expense. Consequently, as news of the
planned size, speed, and armament of Dreadnought reached Tirpitz, near
panic ensued in Berlin.165
Tirpitz secluded himself for months with his most trusted advisers to
determine how best to respond. A consensus emerged that Germany
should meet the British challenge, even if this required expanding all ex-
isting canal and dock facilities. Thus, Fisher’s “plunging” strategy was
also a “cost-imposing strategy,” in that it exploited an enduring source of
German competitive weakness—the limitations imposed on ship design
by the Kiel Canal—to impose substantial cost penalties should Germany
decide to meet the British initiative. As Dreadnought was being built,
Fisher wrote, “An increase in the size of German ships will necessitate ei-
ther widening or deepening the Kiel Canal, possibly both, and its ap-
proaches, and also extensive dredging operations in their naval ports. . . .
It may, therefore, well be doubted whether Germany is at present in a
position to make a sudden advance to ships of 20,000 tons.”166 Fisher’s
gambit also imposed a penalty with regard to time. By moving the naval
competition in a dramatic new direction, Fisher cost the Imperial Ger-
man Navy roughly a year as Tirpitz reassessed his position.167
To Fisher, disrupting the naval plans of his rivals was intended to be
not a one-time affair but an ongoing practice. He hoped his battle cruisers
would continue promoting chaos in his adversaries’ shipbuilding schemes.
Later, he summarized his thinking on plunging to Churchill, who became
first lord in 1911, shortly after Fisher retired. By launching ships that were
220 Part 2

substantially superior in quality to anything then afloat, Fisher declared,

the Admiralty could compel other navies to reconsider their own ship-
building plans. If the Admiralty’s plans were not revealed until the last pos-
sible moment, the disarray produced among rivals could enable the
Admiralty to slow its own naval construction program, providing econo-
mies to the naval estimates. The “secret” of successful naval administra-
tion, Fisher declared, “is ‘plunging’—it stupefies foreign Admiralties. . . .
Put off to the very last hour the ship (big or little) that you mean to build (or
perhaps not build her at all!). You see all your rival’s plans fully developed,
their vessels started beyond recall, and then in each individual answer to
each such rival vessel you plunge with a design 50 per cent. better! know-
ing that your rapid shipbuilding and command of money will enable you
to have your vessel fit to fight as soon if not sooner than the rival vessel.”168
Although Dreadnought was built partially in response to the move by
other navies toward all-big-gun capital ships, while providing a major
boost in combat potential over existing ships at a modest increase in cost,
its appearance attracted criticism from various quarters, including in the
Navy itself. Many Liberal Party members, including such luminaries as
Lloyd George, saw the ship as militarily provocative. Sir George Clarke,
the CID secretary, condemned Fisher to Prime Minister Henry Camp-
bell-Bannerman. The former first sea lord Admiral Richards, who dis-
liked Fisher’s Scheme, declared that the entire British fleet had been
“morally scrapped.” Beresford, though subordinate to Fisher, joined in
the chorus, asserting, “If Germany attacked us suddenly, she would inflict
terrible disasters on us and she might win,” to which Fisher informed
Lord Tweedmouth, the Admiralty’s first lord from 1906 to 1908, that
Britain’s naval superiority over Germany was so “overwhelming” that the
Germans knew it would be “madness” to challenge it.169
Fisher had his allies, including the growing number of reform-
minded officers in the Fishpond and men such as Lord Esher, Lord Sel-
borne, future first lord Reginald McKenna, and, quietly, King Edward
VII. As one supportive journalist wrote, “The most monstrous accusa-
tions were hurled against him, by men who were not worthy to black his
boots. At a time when he was risking everything by his dogged determi-
nation to keep up the supremacy of the Navy, he was denounced as a
traitor in the pay of Germany.”170
Fisher was also confronting threats to a key source of Britain’s mari-
time supremacy: its defense industrial base, on which his plunging strat-
egy rested. The issues were straightforward: the rapidly rising cost of
 Fisher’s Scheme 221

warships and the need to realize economies in the naval estimates meant
that fewer ships could be built. Between 1896 and 1904, the Royal Navy
contracted to build seven capital ships a year, on average. When Fisher
became first sea lord, however, budget projections called for no more
than four large ships to be constructed, on average, in the coming five
years, a reduction of more than 40 percent. Fisher’s plan to shift funds
away from capital shipbuilding and toward flotilla craft would only
worsen industry’s problems.
A major consolidation of Britain’s warship-building industry seemed
inevitable. Fisher wanted to avoid any major reduction in the industry’s
research and development budgets, the key to Britain’s ability to main-
tain a technological lead. He also needed an industrial base with the ca-
pacity to produce his new ships quickly and to surge production if
necessary.171 With these concerns in mind, Fisher reached an informal
(and illegal) agreement with the four most important shipbuilding firms
in the country.172 In return for their being granted an effective monopoly
on all major warship contracts, which included subsidies virtually guar-
anteeing the firms’ profitability, they agreed to maintain spare manufac-
turing capacity for critical components and to retain existing levels of
investment in research and development.173

Leveraging the Two-Power Standard

Fisher may have had little use for the Two-Power Standard as the means
to gauge British maritime superiority, but he wielded it to deflect at-
tempts to cut his naval shipbuilding estimates—and preserve the indus-
trial base. Recent geopolitical developments were fueling the Liberals’
ardor for naval reductions. The new chancellor of the Exchequer,
Herbert Henry (H. H.) Asquith argued that the signing of the Entente
Cordiale with France and the Russian fleet’s destruction at Tsushima
meant the Two-Power Standard was no longer relevant as a measure
of the Royal Navy’s required strength. Fisher, however, knew that
Asquith realized the political dangers associated with publicly abandon-
ing the standard. The Admiralty also pointed out that Britain’s closest ri-
vals for maritime supremacy were no longer France and Russia but
France and Germany. Asquith asked, Was it reasonable to assume that
these traditional enemies would join together to oppose Britain? Even if
they did, Asquith argued, the Royal Navy possessed forty-seven com-
pleted battleships less than fifteen years old, against twenty-nine in
222 Part 2

France and Germany. Asquith pointed out that the Admiralty’s argument
for new capital ships assumed that Britain’s naval rivals would execute
their building plans, which could well be a “bluff” on their part.174 As-
quith said the French “paper program” would remain just that—a plan
that would not be fulfilled. As for Germany, he noted the Kaiser’s diffi-
culties in getting the Reichstag to approve his naval budget requests.
Why, then, should Britain lay down additional battleships?
Fisher’s response to the new government’s challenge essentially ad-
opted the claims of his critics, claiming that Dreadnought’s construction
had effectively restarted the naval competition from scratch. The Admi-
ralty Board noted, “With the introduction of the Dreadnoughts—a leap
forward of 200% in fighting power has been effected, so that as compared
with the dreadnought designs, all existing types of battleships are more or
less out of date.”175
Fisher confided to close colleagues that, in fact, Asquith was right.
He admitted, “our present margin of superiority over Germany (our only
possible foe for years) is so great as to render it absurd in the extreme to
talk of anything endangering our naval supremacy, even if we stopped all
shipbuilding altogether!!!”176
In a letter Fisher penned to King Edward in October 1907, he as-
serted, “The English Navy is now four times stronger than the German
Navy, . . . but we don’t want to parade all this, because if so we shall have
Parliamentary trouble. . . . [Prime Minister] Sir Henry Campbell-Ban-
nerman’s warmest supporters . . . have sent him quite recently one of the
best papers I have read, convincingly showing that we don’t want to lay
down any new ships at all—we are so strong. It is quite true!”177
But Fisher realized that Britain was in an open-ended rivalry with
Germany and that the alignment of other powers could change to Brit-
ain’s detriment as quickly as it had to its benefit. Thus, Britain needed to
sustain its world-class maritime defense industrial base. In July 1906, at
the height of Asquith’s challenge to the Admiralty’s shipbuilding pro-
gram, a private document drafted by the Admiralty Board concluded
that, should the Liberal Party follow through on its plans to reduce ship-
building, the long-term consequences for industry—and British mari-
time superiority—would be devastating. “A day will come when our naval
supremacy will again be challenged, and when, by consequence, the abil-
ity to rapidly build warships in considerable numbers will be a national
asset of incalculable importance. To starve the construction vote in the
 Fisher’s Scheme 223

present will, should expansion ever again become necessary, not merely
inevitably enhance the cost of any future program, but will greatly im-
pair the national power of rapid naval recuperation in the vital matter
of our output of new warships.”178 Fisher knew that this argument for
maintaining—indeed, subsidizing—the armaments industry would not
fly with the Liberal leadership, either on fiscal or ideological grounds.
Another line of argument was needed. Hence, Fisher’s support for the
Two-Power Standard and the use of dreadnoughts as the principal mea-
sure of naval power was in no small way motivated by his strategy of
plunging and his desire for fast battle cruisers, rather than out of any
strong belief in the need to maintain a two-to-one supremacy in battle-
ships. Fisher also ensured that the first three battle cruisers were built in
private shipyards, knowing that any Liberal government move to cancel
the contracts would face strong political opposition.179
Fisher’s ability to advance his Scheme despite opposition from multi-
ple quarters was due in large measure to his ability to achieve economies
while providing the Liberal government with political cover by main-
taining the Royal Navy’s status as the world’s preeminent maritime
power. From 1906 through 1908, with Asquith serving as chancellor of
the Exchequer, Fisher produced savings in the shipbuilding budget. The
£8.4 million spent on battleships and armored cruisers in fiscal year
1905–6 dropped to £7.9 million in 1906–7, then to £6.5 million in
1907–8 and to £5.5 million in 1908–9. The slowing construction rate was
the result of Fisher’s plunging strategy’s “wrecking” the shipbuilding pro-
grams of rival navies, particularly Germany’s. Overall, and in spite of ris-
ing costs in other areas, Fisher was able to keep the net naval estimates of
1906–7 through 1908–9 between £31 and £32 million—£5 million less
per year than the peak of £36.9 million that had been reached in fiscal
year 1904–5.180
Yet, despite Fisher’s success, and perhaps because of it, attacks on the
Scheme, and on him personally, continued.

War, War Plans, and Fleet Maneuvers

During Fisher’s time as first sea lord, the Royal Navy continued conduct-
ing fleet maneuvers to keep pace with the changing character of the mar-
itime competition and to adapt to it. His tenure also coincided with the
first great-power naval war in the Age of Steam and Iron.
224 Part 2

The Russo-Japanese War

A persistent problem confronting senior political and military leaders in
all the maritime powers was how to assess the naval balance. As outlined
earlier, many new naval capabilities and methods of operation were being
introduced. They were evaluated in war games and tested in fleet exer-
cises, but there were clear limits as to what firm lessons could be derived
from such efforts. The “problem” was the absence of any maritime war
between great powers since the Crimean War (1854–56), which did not
involve any major sea battles and was waged in the Age of Wind and Sail.
Thus, it was not surprising that the Russo-Japanese War, fought between
February 1904 and September 1905, was the subject of intense interest,
particularly the two major naval engagements, the Battle of the Yellow
Sea on August 10, 1904, and the Battle of Tsushima on May 27–28,
1905.
In August 1904, the Russian naval squadron being blockaded at Port
Arthur by the Japanese fleet attempted to break out and join the Russian
fleet at Vladivostok. Although the Russians successfully slipped through
the blockade, the Japanese pursued them, and an engagement ensued.
Each side inflicted damage on the other, but the Japanese scored a lucky
hit on the Russian flagship, Tsesarevich, killing the squadron’s com-
mander, Admiral Wilgelm Vitgeft. The Russian squadron retreated to
Port Arthur, where its ships were eventually lost when the besieged port
surrendered in January 1905.
The Battle of Tsushima, on the other hand, was one of the most one-
sided in naval history. It occurred when the Russian Baltic Fleet, follow-
ing a long and arduous voyage, was intercepted steaming in the Tsushima
Strait between Japan and Korea. The Japanese fleet, under Admiral Hei-
hachiro Togo, captured or destroyed thirty-one of the thirty-eight Rus-
sian ships in Admiral Zinovi Rozhestvensky’s squadron, including all
eight Russian battleships. Japanese casualties were but 117 dead and
some 600 wounded, against nearly 5,000 Russian dead, 6,000 captured,
and countless wounded.181
During the battle, Admiral Togo exploited his fleet’s superior
speed—some fifteen knots against the Russians’ nine—to dictate the
range at which the battle would be fought. He used this advantage to di-
rect all his ships’ fires against the leading Russian ships in each division.
The British attachés’ reports concluded that speed was crucial in the
war’s two main fleet engagements.182 Despite the extended range of
 Fisher’s Scheme 225

roughly 8,000 yards at which the battle opened, the bulk of the damage
sustained by the Russian fleet was at much shorter range. This stemmed,
in part, from the Japanese ships’ mixed armament, which made it impos-
sible for the gun-layers to spot their shells’ landings and adjust their aim.
Tsushima was won by a Nelsonic “hail of fire” and not long-range fires.
The war provided the world’s navies with an opportunity to assess
how the new technologies, systems, and tactics they had adopted would
fare in modern naval warfare. A long and spirited debate followed over
the “lessons” to be derived from the war, with much of the discussion
focusing on ship speed and engagement range, issues near and dear to
Fisher’s heart.
Fisher’s critics seized on the short range of the Tsushima engage-
ment to criticize his push for the all-big-gun battle fleet. But there was
more to the story. The Royal Navy’s observers found the Japanese fire-
control training and spotting to be poor. Moreover, a complete broadside
of guns of identical caliber would make a splash that was far easier to
spot than a fleet with mixed-caliber armament. This reinforced Fisher’s
argument for ships with uniform-caliber guns. Jackie also had his trump
card: the need for the line of battle to engage beyond the rapidly grow-
ing range of torpedoes.183
There was, however, no consensus on the value of torpedoes emerg-
ing from the conflict. They played no role in the Battle of the Yellow
Sea. In December 1904, however, the Japanese fired roughly 150 torpe-
does in a series of night attacks on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. Al-
though only four hit their target, they sank the battleship Sevastopol and
fatally damaged the destroyer Storoshevoi. At the close of the Battle of
Tsushima, Japanese torpedo boats finished off Russia’s Baltic Fleet, sink-
ing or fatally damaging the battleship Sisoi Veliki and the armored cruis-
ers Admiral Nakhimoff, Vladimir Monomakh, and Dmitri Donskoi. Torpedo
skeptics tended to agree with Admiral Cyprian Bridge, who concluded,
“Perhaps nothing stands out more clearly in the campaign than the in-
significance of the results effected by locomotive torpedoes.” Others, like
Commander (later Admiral) Murray Sueter, a Royal Navy submarine
commander, countered that Japanese torpedoes suffered from mainte-
nance and technical shortcomings, along with an alarming failure to det-
onate when striking their target.184
Mines, on the other hand, were coming into their own. No battleships
were lost to mines at the Battle of the Yellow Sea, yet three had already
been sunk by mines. Japanese mines destroyed the Russian flagship,
226 Part 2

Petropavlovsk, on April 13, 1904, and Admiral Togo lost two battleships to
mines on May 15, 1904.185

Fleet Maneuvers
As the war between Japan and Russia was heating up, the Royal Navy
continued to conduct fleet maneuvers exploring ways to maintain a suc-
cessful blockade of enemy ports. The 1902 and 1903 maneuvers sug-
gested that such operations were becoming increasingly difficult due to
advances with torpedoes and submarines, and these concerns dominated
the Royal Navy’s 1904 fleet maneuvers. The Channel Squadron was di-
rected by its commander, Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, to focus on anti-
submarine warfare (ASW) tactics. Captain Reginald Bacon, a budding
member of the Fishpond whom Fisher described as “the cleverest officer
in the navy” (and who would later serve as Dreadnought’s first captain),
commanded the “enemy’s” submarines. Bacon’s crews hit Wilson’s battle-
ships so many times with unarmed torpedoes that the umpires reluc-
tantly ruled two of his battleships “sunk.”186
The August maneuvers confirmed the submarine’s growing influence
on the naval competition and, correspondingly, the prospects for success-
ful blockade. They called for a superior “British” fleet with 106 destroy-
ers to operate within range of a strong “enemy” force of torpedo craft.
The exercises found the destroyers distracting Bacon’s submarines from
attacking the main battle fleet, but only at considerable cost to them-
selves, principally because no reliable method existed for a destroyer to
attack a submarine. Following the exercise, the “enemy” fleet com-
mander, Rear Admiral C. G. Robinson, concluded that close blockade
under modern conditions was becoming impossible.187
Fisher and Bacon felt vindicated in their view that commanders
would not risk major warships in narrow waters if they believed subma-
rines were present. Admiral Wilson was inclined to agree. Their views
soon spread through the Admiralty, as more officers began to accept that
close blockade was no longer an option against any port or base defended
by submarines. “Suffice to say,” Fisher declared in April 1905, “in three or
four years of this date . . . the English Channel and the western basin of
the Mediterranean will not be habitable by a fleet or squadron.”188
There was more distressing news for the Admiralty in the joint ma-
neuvers conducted with the British Army a month later. The exercise
called for landing a force of 12,000 infantry, cavalry, and artillery on a
 Fisher’s Scheme 227

hostile shore, albeit with no enemy opposition. The Admiralty hoped to

show that the Army could best be employed as, in Fisher’s words, a “pro-
jectile” to be “fired” by the fleet, rather than it pursuing its preferred
“continental” strategy that called for deploying a large expeditionary
force to support France should it be attacked by Germany. To the Navy’s
great embarrassment, the landings, witnessed by foreign officials and
military attachés, were a disaster.189
If blockade operations were becoming increasingly problematic, it
would be more difficult to bottle up enemy commerce-raiding ships, and
the risk to Britain’s seaborne commerce would grow. The 1906 maneu-
vers sought to determine the fleet’s ability to address the commerce-
raiding challenge and saw a strong “British” fleet tasked with protecting
its commerce ships from a weaker “enemy” fleet. The eight-day exercise
found the “enemy” fleet capturing 55 percent of the ninety-four partici-
pating merchant vessels. The percentage was viewed as greatly inflated,
owing to the small number of merchant ships involved relative to the
number of raiders. In wartime, it was noted, the number of commerce
transports would vastly exceed the number of raiders. The maneuvers’
brevity also encouraged the “enemy” commander to be very aggressive,
capturing a high percentage of transports but losing more than half of
his sixty-two ships. Finally, since the raider ships would have to return to
base to recoal, rearm, and refit, the judges refereeing the maneuvers
found that “it is practically certain that the commencement of the third
week of the war would have seen all commerce-raiding ships either cap-
tured or blockaded in their defended ports.” The Admiralty’s key finding
was that while Britain might suffer a high rate of loss to its merchant
shipping at the war’s outset, the enemy would also suffer high losses to
its raiding force and that, once that occurred, normal maritime trade
flows would be restored. These findings were welcomed, as they sup-
ported the Navy’s preference for offensive “search-and-destroy” opera-
tions against raiders, rather than convoy operations.190

War Plans
In March 1906, Ottley urged Fisher to create formal war plans to pre-
empt criticism from Beresford, now commanding the Mediterranean
Fleet and slated to assume command of the Channel Fleet. The two
most well known officers in the Royal Navy apparently had a falling out
when, on December 4, 1905, the last day of the Balfour government,
228 Part 2

Fisher was promoted to admiral of the fleet, permitting him to remain

on active duty an additional five years beyond the mandatory retirement
date at age sixty-five, which he would reach in 1906. Had Fisher not
been promoted, Beresford’s chances for succeeding him would have been
excellent. By 1911, however, time would have robbed Beresford of the
opportunity. His ambitions scuppered, Charlie B became an implacable
enemy of Fisher’s reforms, emerging as a leader of the Syndicate of Dis-
content, a loose coalition of politicians, journalists, and active and retired
senior officers opposed to Fisher’s reforms. It became increasingly clear
that, while Fisher was concerned about the Navy, Beresford’s focus was
on revenge.
Beresford had a long habit of publicly criticizing the Admiralty for
its lack of war plans. Fisher directed Ballard to form a secret committee
to formulate plans for a war with Germany. Four months later, Ballard,
aided primarily by Captain Hankey, provided Fisher with eight plans,
with three presented in detail. While the Ballard Committee’s plans did
not constitute the formal War Plans of 1907—a grab-bag of prints and
reports, authored by various groups or individuals, written over different
times, with different purposes and audiences in mind—they constituted
its intellectual core.191
Fisher provided guidance to Julian Corbett, who authored Part I of
the plans, instructing him to write a scholarly introduction for a “non-
professional” audience, including “influence shapers” like King Edward,
Reginald McKenna, and the press. Parts II and IV were a collection of
Naval War College reports and studies.
The Ballard Committee’s work formed the basis for Part III, con-
taining the war plans. War Plan A/A1 focused on crippling German trade
through a distant North Sea blockade stretching from the north coast of
Scotland to the Norwegian coast. The Channel would be blocked by de-
stroyers, torpedo boats, and submarines. The plan presented a version of
Fisher’s flotilla-defense concept. The Royal Navy’s battle fleet would be
positioned to reinforce either force should the Germany’s High Seas
Fleet challenge this new form of blockade.192
Plan B/B1 directed a close blockade of German trade but was clearly
not intended for implementation, as it offered no advantages over Plan
A/A1, while greatly increasing the risk to the British fleet. Plan C/C1 fo-
cused on employing the fleet against Germany’s overseas commerce. At-
tacks against the German fleet and the Kiel Canal, as well as amphibious
operations along the German coastline, were of secondary importance.
 Fisher’s Scheme 229

Plan D/D1 addressed the contingency of a German seizure of Denmark

at the outbreak of war. It called for cutting off German forces occupying
the large islands of Fyen and Zealand at the mouth of the Baltic Sea.193
Fisher asked Admiral Wilson for his views on the 1907 plans. Wilson
responded that a “close continuous watch off all the German ports”
would be “very difficult to maintain,” especially at night. He doubted the
Navy’s ability to cripple Germany’s commerce, which he believed could
be sustained from shipments overland and neutral maritime shipping.
Wilson gravitated toward Plan A/A1, supporting using submarines and
destroyers to block the Strait of Dover and the entrance to the Channel.
If war became imminent, the Royal Navy’s destroyers “alone should be in
the North Sea” as an early warning force, so as not to risk the battlefleet
against attack by German torpedo craft.194
Fisher was in general agreement with Wilson but showed some en-
thusiasm for waging a more aggressive form of economic warfare.195 In
late 1908, Fisher proposed a strategy for exploiting Britain’s naval su-
premacy and dominant position in the global trading system to trigger
Germany’s prompt economic collapse in the event of war. The plan
called for an unprecedented intervention in the nation’s economic sys-
tem, with the Admiralty seizing control of the nation’s commercial ship-
ping movements, regulating the ships’ cargoes, imposing censorship over
all cable communications, and directing the financial services industry’s
actions in a concerted effort to wreck Germany’s economy. The proposal
was strongly opposed by Britain’s business sector and by diplomats con-
cerned with the effects that all-out economic warfare would have on re-
lations with neutral powers. By the time war broke out in the summer of
1914, Fisher’s strategy was but a shadow of its initial form, and by year’s
end, after only a few months of war, it was effectively abandoned.196
Fisher briefed Beresford on the 1907 plans and provided him a copy
of the Ballard Committee report. Charlie B was not impressed. He vig-
orously objected to Fisher’s idea of flotilla defense. Beresford also dis-
liked the idea of his fleet being assigned the mission of distant
blockade.197
Ottley’s war-plan warnings proved prescient, as the Admiralty faced an
inquiry in 1907 triggered by one of Britain’s periodic invasion scares.
These scares often pitted the British Army against the Royal Navy in a
battle over resources, with both advancing arguments as to the critical role
they played in defending the homeland, while deprecating the position of
their sister service.
230 Part 2

Fisher had little use for such reviews, given his dismissive attitude re-
garding the danger of a successful invasion of the British Isles.198 This was
reflected in his participation in the review, where his arguments were pre-
sented primarily for their political effect and not as a serious discourse on
strategy.199 Fisher happily shared the war plans that called for seizing vari-
ous North Sea islands to support close blockade operations and bombard-
ing German naval bases. These options were presented in great detail but
were quite incapable of being executed—and Fisher knew it.200
But he also knew that the political leadership wanted the comfort of
knowing that the Royal Navy would conduct an aggressive campaign
against Germany should war erupt. Although Fisher was convinced that
operating fleets of capital ships in narrow seas was too risky to venture—
indeed, his concept of flotilla defense and distant blockade was the
Scheme’s response to this danger—Fisher gave the politicians what they
wanted to hear and escaped serious damage at the hands of those, like
Beresford, who sought to depict the Admiralty as unprepared. Years later,
Fisher admitted that the plans had been produced solely for the con-
sumption of his critics. Referring to Sir Arthur Wilson, who succeeded
him as first sea lord, Jackie confided, “Not being a Machiavelli, [he]
wouldn’t tell the Cabinet anything. I, on the contrary, told them so much
they thought me perfect. I gave them 600 pages of print of war plans!”201
The war plans were updated in 1908, but these “W” plans were only
marginally different from the Ballard Committee’s work on the previous
year’s “ABCD” plans. Both the W1 and W2 plans called for British heavy
warships to keep out of the North Sea. In August 1908, after meetings
with King Edward’s private secretary and Admiral Fisher, Lord Esher
stated, “J. [Jackie Fisher] told me of Arthur Wilson’s determination, in the
event of war with Germany, not to locate his battle-fleet in the North Sea.
The rendezvous would be in the Orkneys, and there the fleet would lie,
ready for battle. Only Cruisers and Destroyers in the North Sea.”202
Despite objections from Wilson, Corbett, and others that close
blockade was impractical, Plan W3 called for such operations. The Strat-
egy Committee opposed W3, noting, “It is fraught with greater possibili-
ties of danger to the blockading squadrons than the system cordons
across the Straits of Dover and across the northern entrance to the
North Sea.”203 But, again, Fisher’s “war plans” were primarily used for
warding off criticisms from his bureaucratic and political rivals. His
candid thoughts on operating the battle fleet in the North Sea, let
alone having it engage in close or observational blockade, were set forth
 Fisher’s Scheme 231

November 1908, in his paper titled “The Submarine Question.” In it,

Fisher declared, “No practicable means at present exist or appear to be
feasible for effecting the destruction of the latest type of submarine, or of
being even warned of her approach.” Consequently,

It is inevitable that when the Germans fully realise the capability

of this type of submarine . . . the North Sea and all its parts will
be rendered uninhabitable by our big ships—until we have
cleaned out the submarines. . . . The arguments in this brief re-
cord in no way attempt to lessen the influence and necessity of
big armoured ships. . . . They do however point to a complete
approaching revolution in the type of our war with any power,
particularly with any European power on account of the narrow
waters of the North Sea and the Baltic, English Channel and
Mediterranean being denied to large ships of war until the sub-
marine is cleared out.204

Fisher supported Admiral Wilson’s position that the battle fleet should be
kept out of the North Sea and advocated flotilla defense, pointing out, “It
would be suicide to expose the armoured units of our Fleet to a surprise
Torpedo attack by stationing them before War within striking distance of
the enemy. . . . At such time the North Sea should swarm with our De-
stroyers and Submarines backed with their supporting Cruisers.”205
Fisher shared his views with King Edward with such passion that, for
his Christmas present in 1909, the monarch sent him a silver model of a
submarine. Beamed Fisher, “He thinks I’m mad about them.”206 Indeed,
he was.
Following the Ballard Committee’s work, the Channel Fleet’s June
and July 1907 maneuvers explored close-watch operations on enemy
ports as called for in Plans B and C. The “friendly” force composed of
the Fifth Cruiser Squadron and accompanying destroyers was tasked
with watching the “enemy” fleet under Beresford, who had orders to
break out of his base unobserved. The exercise was a botch. The
“friendly” fleet failed to maintain a fix on the “enemy,” while the latter
failed to engage its rival. The maneuvers’ second phase found Beresford
again commanding the “German” fleet with the objective of crossing one
of two sea zones without being brought to an engagement. He did so, re-
vealing shortcomings in the Royal Navy’s scouting operations. The ma-
neuver’s final phase explored a blockaded fleet employing a torpedo
232 Part 2

attack prior to breaking out from its base. Beresford’s “German” fleet de-
stroyers slipped out undetected and located the “British” fleet, again in-
dicating a scouting problem. This led Beresford to conclude that
conducting an observational blockade would require the “friendly” fleet
to employ “two to three times the number of seagoing Destroyers” as it
had for the exercise.207 Fisher, of course, was not planning to employ an
observational blockade in the event of war.
The July 1908 maneuvers once again found the “German” fleet under
Beresford tasked with preventing a superior but divided “British” fleet
from concentrating. The exercise proved a failure, and Sir Arthur Wilson,
observing the maneuvers, was highly critical of both commanders.208

Naval Budget Estimates

In May 1908, Reginald McKenna, a lawyer by trade, succeeded the ailing
Lord Tweedmouth as first lord and soon became a supporter of Fisher’s
reforms. He arrived just as a major clash over the Navy’s estimates was
brewing, complicated by yet another war scare.
In late 1908, the Admiralty received intelligence that Germany was
accelerating its shipbuilding program. The news, which quickly became
public, triggered a scare in the press, in Parliament, and among the gen-
eral public. In response, McKenna proposed laying down two additional
dreadnoughts in the coming year, for a total of six.
The budget estimates were further stressed by Admiralty’s plan to
arm four of the ten major warships on order in 1909–10 with 13.5-inch
guns, raising the price of a battleship by some 14 percent and that of a
battle cruiser by more than a third relative to ships armed with 12-inch
guns. The 1912–13 program proposed moving to 15-inch guns. Battle-
ships so armed would cost over 30 percent more than their immediate
predecessors, and 60 percent more than the 12-inch-gun battleships.209
Asquith, now Britain’s prime minister, was searching for a way to
keep a lid on the naval estimates while defending against charges that his
government was lax in responding to the German threat. He broached a
compromise in which the government would ask for four dreadnoughts
in the 1909 estimates and would seek authority to build four additional
dreadnoughts no later than April 1, 1910, but only if the German con-
struction program validated the intelligence estimates.
Asquith’s political maneuvering continued. On November 12, 1908,
he pledged that his government would uphold the Two-Power Standard.
 Fisher’s Scheme 233

The following April, noting that the next two largest rival navies were
now Germany and the United States and that the United States was a
friendly power, the government for planning purposes privately adopted
a one-power standard, calculated as being equal to Germany’s capital
ships plus a margin of 60 percent. On December 29, 1911, McKenna’s
successor, Churchill, proposed that the 60 percent standard be formally
(and publicly) adopted, and three months later, he announced it to the
Commons.
In the summer of 1909, however, Austria-Hungary expressed its in-
tention to build three and possibly four dreadnoughts. This led the Ital-
ians to augment their shipbuilding program to four dreadnoughts.
Although each regarded the other as a potential enemy, both countries
were Germany’s allies. From the Admiralty’s perspective, this meant con-
fronting thirteen German dreadnoughts in the North Sea, plus roughly
half that number or more Austrian and Italian dreadnoughts in the Med-
iterranean. In July 1909, McKenna announced that the contingent four
dreadnoughts would be built. The decision moved Churchill, who had
advocated only building the original four ships, to observe, “In the end a
curious and characteristic solution was reached. The Admiralty had de-
manded six ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compro-
mised on eight.”210

The Inquiry
As work on the Scheme progressed, it confronted growing challenges on
multiple fronts from individuals and organizations whose interests and
preferences were threatened. We have seen Fisher’s apparently inconsis-
tent behavior, such as his dismissive views on the Two-Power Standard
and building more dreadnoughts—unless they could help sustain the de-
fense industrial base—and his cranking out war plans that honored the
Navy’s traditions of close blockade and offensive action, even though his
true views were quite different. Such behavior stemmed in no small mea-
sure from Fisher’s delicate balancing act, which focused on protecting
the Admiralty’s budget from being raided by the Army, gutted by the
politicians, or diverted away from the Scheme’s priorities by admirals
whose affection for the past blinded them to the dramatic changes under
way in the maritime competition.
The politicians, of course, were constantly pressing for Fisher to
generate savings from the scheme, and he was able to do so and keep
234 Part 2

them at bay—for a time. He sorely missed Selborne’s support in dealing

with the political class, later recalling, “Never did any First Lord hold
more warmly the hand of his principal adviser than Lord Selborne held
mine.” Fisher had received little in the way of effective support from
Lord Tweedmouth, a lightweight described as as fit for the job of first
lord “as for the Office of Astronomer Royal.”211 Tweedmouth’s successor,
McKenna, though supportive, confronted a rising tide of opposition.
The party out of power, the Tories, criticized Fisher’s reforms. On
one occasion, he was asked if his reforms were successful and, if so, why
he hadn’t pursued them more aggressively. He responded, “The answer
to the first part of the question is in the affirmative; as regards to the sec-
ond part, it might have been asked [of] the Deity about the Creation.”212
Fisher found himself in a constant state of bureaucratic warfare with
the Army, whose supporters called for expanding it at the Navy’s expense
to defend the country from invasion and, in the event of war with Ger-
many, for a large British expeditionary force to be sent to the Continent
to aid in defending France.
Jackie had no patience with the argument that the Royal Navy could
not prevent an invasion, declaring, “The Navy . . . is the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,
4th, 5th . . . ad infinitum Line of Defence! If the Navy is not Supreme,
no army however large is of the slightest use. It’s not invasion we have to
fear if our Navy is beaten, it’s starvation!” As for rapidly transporting
an army to France, Fisher noted that in October 1899, at the start of the
Boer War, Britain, the world’s greatest sea power, could transport only
30,000 troops. Churchill put it directly, stating, “As to a stronger Regular
Army, either we had command of the sea or we had not. If we had it, we
required fewer soldiers; if we had it not, we wanted more ships.”213
The Army, for its part, opposed the Admiralty’s concept of conduct-
ing amphibious operations against Germany, given its powerful army.
For support, Army leaders could cite Fisher’s own arguments on the lim-
itations of transporting even a small force by sea and the experience of
exercises confirming the point. (Indeed, Fisher seems to have had little
interest in such operations.)
Thus, Fisher did his best to keep mum during the debate over using
the Army in amphibious operations along the German coast and the Ar-
my’s preference to deploy to France. This may have been due to his in-
terest in a strategy of waging an economic-warfare “Blitzkrieg” against
Germany, yielding a quick victory that would preclude the use of land
forces either for amphibious operations or on the Continent. Should the
 Fisher’s Scheme 235

economic-warfare offensive fail, Fisher seemed content to impose a dis-

tant blockade on Germany and flotilla defense of the British Isles, with
the Royal Navy’s battle fleet positioned to take on the Imperial German
Navy should it sally forth to seek an engagement.

Fisher Versus Beresford

Yet it was Fisher’s own service that posed the greatest threat to the
Scheme. As neither strategy appealed to the Navy’s traditions, Fisher
feared that stating his views openly would trigger even greater opposi-
tion from the growing Syndicate of Discontent. In early 1909, during the
scare over Germany’s shipbuilding plans, Fisher told Esher that he would
not share his true war plan with anyone, especially the CID or Beresford,
declaring, “The only man who knows is [Admiral Sir Arthur] Wilson,
and he’s as close as wax!”214
Indeed, whether it took the form of a preemptive strike on the
enemy fleet lying in harbor, the close blockade of a rival navy’s port to
bottle it up or force it to fight, or the discounting of convoys as a means
of maritime commerce protection in favor of “search and destroy” opera-
tions against enemy cruisers, the Royal Navy reflexively pursued offen-
sive operations. As Fisher put it, “British naval policy is to take the
offensive.”215 The problem with this long-held preference for the offen-
sive, however, is that in several instances it conflicted with Fisher’s own
strategy, which rejected close blockade and amphibious assaults in favor
of flotilla defense and distant blockade. Convoy operations—dull and de-
fensive oriented as they were—would prove to be the solution to the
commerce-raiding threat in World War I. Fisher’s expansive ideas on
waging economic warfare to crash Germany’s economy were even more
alien to Royal Navy traditions. The tension over these matters of sub-
stance finally came to a boil, owing to the growing personal animosity
between Beresford and Fisher.
Shortly after Fisher’s promotion to admiral of the fleet, which effec-
tively ended the hopes of ever becoming first sea lord for Beresford, he
was offered command of the Channel Fleet by Lord Tweedmouth. This
failed to mollify Beresford, who disliked the reduced role that the
Channel Fleet would play in Fisher’s Scheme.216 When the two met to
discuss Beresford’s new command, Fisher was greatly put off by his col-
league’s attitude, sensing that trouble lay ahead.217 Beresford’s opposition
to the plan stemmed from Fisher’s intention to employ flotilla defense
236 Part 2

and distant blockade. Beresford’s Channel Fleet, with the main battle
fleet, would stay in reserve. Beresford, however, believed the threat from
torpedoes overrated and rejected Fisher’s strategy.218
In October 1907, Beresford conducted a series of fleet exercises to
test his ideas for blockading the Heligoland Bight off the German coast.
The maneuvers confirmed his earlier experience in similar maneuvers
that the Channel Fleet required vastly more “small craft”—small cruisers
and destroyers—to maintain an effective blockade of German ports at
night. Exercises conducted the following year by Vice Admiral Sir Fran-
cis Bridgeman’s Home Fleet appeared to support Beresford’s conclu-
sions, as well as those of the 1906 maneuvers, that the blockading force’s
small craft should outnumber the blockaded fleet’s craft by a ratio of
three to one. If true, Beresford would require roughly 300 of these ships.
The cost of building and manning such a force in peacetime was prohibi-
tive. Indeed, it was one of the principal reasons why Fisher had moved
toward flotilla defense.
Ballard found Beresford’s strategy nonsensical, pointing out that
Beresford had placed his fleet in danger for no good reason, risking
heavy losses from the “enemy’s” destroyers.219 In other words, Charlie B
was proposing to achieve at great cost, through close or observational
blockade, the same effect that could be obtained, at far less cost, through
flotilla defense and distant blockade.
Beresford’s sniping continued unabated throughout his command,
which he left in March 1909. Although his tour of duty would typically
have run another year, the Admiralty finally tired of his insubordination.
But truncating his command, and thus his career, did not silence Beres-
ford. On April 2, he wrote a letter to Prime Minister Asquith citing the
Admiralty’s numerous alleged shortcomings, including a failure to con-
struct sufficient small craft, strategic incompetence in the fleet’s distribu-
tion, and an absence of adequate war plans. Beresford intimated that if
Asquith failed to take appropriate action, the letter would be pub-
lished.220 Asquith caved and decided to resolve the matter by personally
chairing a subcommittee of the CID to explore Beresford’s allegations.

The CID’s Investigation

The inquiry spanned fifteen meetings, between April 27 and July 13. The
Admiralty was represented by First Lord McKenna. Fisher, though pres-
ent, did not actively participate in the proceedings. This use of the CID
 Fisher’s Scheme 237

to investigate an internal Navy matter was both highly irregular and in-
appropriate, as it allowed a subordinate, Beresford, to challenge his chain
of command and its authority. But it was clear that Asquith was less con-
cerned about Beresford’s insubordination or the true state of Britain’s de-
fenses than about protecting his political flanks. Not one witness
appeared at his request. Whenever it was possible to skirt an issue, he
did.221 Wherever possible, he left issues unaddressed.
In the hearings, Beresford derided Fisher’s strategy as a “pedagogue
plan.” Reflecting the Royal Navy’s offensive tradition, he found distant
blockade to be “a defensive policy that we cannot afford to adopt.”
Beresford argued, “We have got to have an attacking policy. . . . We have
got to watch the enemy’s coast with watching cruisers; they [the Ger-
mans] have only two egresses, and when they come out the Admiral
should know they have come out.”222 He went on to criticize Fisher’s
scrapping of more than a hundred small cruisers that, Beresford argued,
were needed for close blockade work.
Replying for the Admiralty, First Lord McKenna explained to the
committee that the battle cruisers had rendered the old cruisers obsolete.
Moreover, McKenna added, submarines had assumed the mission for-
merly held by small cruisers. That is to say, if an enemy’s ports were to be
blockaded, it would be accomplished by submarines, not small cruisers.
As Captain Ballard, a member of the Fishpond, concluded, “It is evi-
dent that he [Beresford] entirely fails to grasp the main ideas. These
cruisers are not watching cruisers in any sense of the word as regards
watching for the exit of the enemy’s fleet, but placed solely to intercept
[the enemy’s] trade. . . . Our object is to force them [the enemy] to pro-
ceed a distance of more than 300 miles from their own sheltered base to
defend their trade and then fall on them when outside, or cut off their
retreat.”223 Beresford drew a clear line between his views and Fisher’s
Scheme and declared that he “attached no importance to submarines.” As
Charlie B elaborated, the logic behind his position proved difficult to
discern. “A propos of what I said with regard to shortage [of cruisers], if
the submariners are to take their place, I want to point out that all sub-
marine warfare is entirely theoretical. I will not say they will not ‘put
down’ ships, but they will not revolutionise [naval] warfare unless the
Admirals are afraid of them. . . . Now the submarine is always in a fog.
The one thing that beats a seaman on the top of the water is a fog. So it
is entirely theoretical.”224 Beresford eventually admitted that he had
never seen a submarine at sea, even though he had recently spent more
238 Part 2

than two years commanding the Navy’s premier battle fleet.225 His pre-
sentation bordered on incoherency at times, bringing to mind
Churchill’s observation of Charlie B: “When he gets up, he does not
know what he is going to say; when he is speaking he does not know
what he is saying; and when he sits down he does not know what he has
said.”226
Finally, Beresford tried to prevail in the debate by calling on the re-
tired admiral of the fleet Sir Arthur Wilson to support his contention
that the fleet was “dangerously short” of destroyers and small cruisers. It
was generally accepted that Wilson, who had spent the previous five
years commanding the Navy’s largest fleets, was “the finest Admiral of
his day in command of a Fleet, . . . scrupulously just and extraordinarily
level-headed.” Presented with Beresford’s argument, Wilson balked.
When Beresford persisted, Wilson finally replied, “My point is that, as I
do not want to work over the on German coast [close blockade], I do not
want so many.” Despite Beresford’s pressing him on the point, Wilson
replied, “I say I would work on our side in the North Sea [distant block-
ade].” When Beresford complained that the Admiralty had not supplied
him with war plans, Wilson discounted their value, echoing Helmuth
von Moltke in declaring that he was “perfectly certain that any plan
drawn up in peace would not be carried out in war,” finding the value of
drawing up plans primarily educational. Beresford’s gambit of calling on
Wilson had backfired. As one observer concluded, Wilson “does not be-
lieve in Charlie’s strategy—he does not believe in going over to the Ger-
man coast and watching there day and night.”227
Despite Beresford’s poor showing, Asquith went out of his way to
issue a “General Conclusion” that was critical of Beresford and Fisher.
The committee found that “during the time in question no danger to the
country resulted from the Admiralty’s arrangements for war, whether
considered from the standpoint of organization and distribution of the
fleet, the number of ships, or the preparation of war plans.” It found that
“Lord Charles Beresford . . . failed to appreciate and carry out the spirit
of the instructions of the Board and recognize their paramount author-
ity.” Remarkably, Fisher was implicitly censured for not adequately con-
sulting Beresford during his time in command, implying that Beresford
should have had a veto over his superior’s decisions.228
For Asquith, it was the politically correct thing to do. Despite the
weakness with which Beresford presented his case, he was seen as the
leader of the traditional wing of the Royal Navy and had a great deal of
 Fisher’s Scheme 239

public support for his views as well. For Asquith to come down on
Fisher’s side would have been politically risky.229
Beresford considered himself the victor and acted accordingly. He
declared his intention to run for a seat in Parliament and lobbied the op-
position Conservative Party to appoint him as first sea lord to succeed
Fisher should they regain power in the next election. Fisher stewed, writ-
ing to a fellow admiral, “The Committee, by not squashing Beresford
when they had the chance and so utterly discrediting him thereby in the
face of all men, have given Beresford a fresh leash of insubordinate agita-
tion. Had they smashed him, as they could have by the evidence, as a bla-
tant liar, he would have been so utterly discredited that no newspaper
would have noticed him ever again.”230
The findings effectively undermined both Fisher’s authority and
public confidence in the Board of the Admiralty. There was a growing
sentiment that it was time for “Radical Jack” Fisher to go. And so he did.
Fisher retired on January 25, 1910, after fifty-five years’ service. He
did exact some measure of revenge against his tormentor Beresford.
King George V, a friend of Charlie B, urged Asquith to appoint Beres-
ford as first sea lord. McKenna, however, succeeded in blocking the
move in favor of recalling Admiral Wilson to active service. McKenna
was determined that Fisher’s successor sustain the reforms that had been
undertaken during his tenure. Although recalling a retired admiral to ac-
tive duty in peacetime was unusual, Wilson had many qualities that made
him an attractive choice. Fisher was very pleased with Wilson’s selection,
in part because he was not a member of the Syndicate of Discontent and
also because Sir Arthur would reach the mandatory retirement age of
seventy in 1912, by which time he could be succeeded by a member of
the Fishpond.231
In responding to Asquith’s inquiry regarding Beresford’s prospects to
serve as first sea lord, McKenna icily noted, “Sir Arthur Wilson stands
out by universal acknowledgement as the greatest sailor we have had for
many years.” As for Beresford, he merited an unfavorable comparison to
Fisher. “His services are no longer required. He has commanded at sea
with much, but not unusual success. . . . He has not been responsible
for, or associated with, any development of naval science, strategy, or
training.”232
As one prominent historian summarized it, “Beresford stood for
things as they were, for orthodoxy and tradition. Fisher looked beyond,
imagining new men, new rules, new ships, new worlds that broke tradition
240 Part 2

so violently that they constituted revolution. Both men had colossal egos,
but over a lifetime of service, Beresford’s ego tended to focus on himself,
while Fisher’s was devoted to the advancement of the Service.”233

Fisher’s Shadow
Both Fisher and Beresford were now gone. Percy Scott and Reginald
Bacon retired later that year. The Navy was losing some of its best offi-
cers, just as tensions with Germany were heating up. How would Fisher’s
Scheme, or at least those parts he had implemented, be preserved?

The Fishpond
In the near term, support for the concept of flotilla defense persisted.
Only a few months after Fisher stepped down, McKenna, in correspon-
dence to the foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, noted, “our destroyers
and submarine flotillas, which are the true defense against invasion, will
be stationed on the East Coast [of England].”234 But McKenna would
soon leave the Admiralty.
Fisher, through his apostles in the Fishpond, sought to preserve and
even advance the Scheme. Shortly after his retirement at the end of
1909, Rear Admiral Bacon presented a paper to the Institute of Naval
Architects. Echoing Fisher, Bacon announced that torpedoes of ever
greater ranges had been developed that made it possible for swarms of
smaller ships to engage battleships effectively. “Not only is the battleship
itself open to attack by small craft which it cannot engage on equal
terms, but it is powerless to protect any form of vessel against the attacks
of such craft.”235
Bacon also predicted that the ongoing naval revolution would re-
quire Britain’s all-big-gun warships to carry only light armor protection,
as it seemed certain that the long struggle between offensive firepower
and defensive armor would be won by the former. Continuing to channel
Fisher, Bacon observed that ships capable of high speeds would be
needed, for both tactical and strategic reasons. Hence, Fisher’s battle
cruisers, with their high speed, light armor, and long-range hitting
power, must be supported.
Finally, Bacon argued that as capital ships would become more vul-
nerable to torpedoes, it would be risky to form them into a traditional
line of battle, the reason being that it would provide those who were
 Fisher’s Scheme 241

firing torpedoes with targets analogous to ducks passing along in a

shooting gallery. He concluded by offering a vision of the battle fleet
abandoning the line of battle to what might be termed a “combined-
arms” fleet: “The battleship as now known will probably develop from a
single ship into a battle unit consisting of a large armoured cruiser with
attendant torpedo craft. Line of battle, as we now know it, will be radi-
cally modified, and the fleet action of the future will, in course of time,
develop into an aggregation of duels between opposing battle units. The
tactics of such units open up a vista of most exhilarating speculation.”236
Thus, destroyers could defend the capital ships from torpedo attack
more effectively than battleship gunfire. Destroyers also cost far less than
capital ships, enabling commanders to take risks with them that would
have been foolhardy with a dreadnought or battle cruiser. “It would be
simply suicidal,” Fisher declared, “for any battleship squadron to cruise
without an attendant destroyer flotilla.”237 Fisher’s thinking was soon
confirmed in a series of fleet exercises.
For the most part, Fisher’s estimate of Wilson proved correct. Wil-
son did not pursue Fisher’s reforms energetically; however, he also did
not repudiate them. He remained skeptical of Fisher’s concept of eco-
nomic warfare and, given the formidable political challenges to imple-
menting it, rightly so.238
Wilson gave greater priority to building dreadnoughts than battle
cruisers and submarines. As had Fisher, the Navy under Wilson struggled
to address the problem of submarines and torpedoes. As Bacon hinted in
his speech, the fleet began to assign squadrons of cruisers, along with de-
stroyers and submarine flotillas, to the battle fleet to create for the first
time a combined “battle unit.” The small craft would screen the battle-
ships and battle cruisers from enemy torpedo craft, while attempting to
threaten the enemy’s battleships with their own torpedoes. The concept,
however, was hobbled in execution, owing to the fleet’s tactical com-
mand-and-control capabilities, which were limited to flags, lights, and
primitive wireless.

Churchill
Winston Churchill succeeded McKenna as first lord in October 1911.
Although Churchill had been a leading voice in efforts to wring greater
economies from the fleet, his views changed dramatically once he joined
the Admiralty. He also emerged as an ally of Fisher.
242 Part 2

The two met at Biarritz in 1907 and immediately hit it off. Fisher
wrote, “Fell desperately in love with Winston Churchill”; Churchill told
Fisher, “You are the only man in the world I really love.” King Edward
VII called them “the chatterers.” The prime minister’s daughter, Violet
Asquith, observed, “they can’t resist each other for long at close range.”
Fisher’s fondness for Churchill grew with the new first lord’s support for
his ideas. Fisher lost no time preaching his gospel to Churchill, promot-
ing battle cruisers and proclaiming, “Speed, Big Gun and Cheapness those
are the 3 Fundamentals—& you can have them.”239
In the years immediately following Dreadnought’s appearance, the Lib-
eral government’s financial challenges were eased thanks to an economic
boom. Knowing that busts follow booms, in the spring of 1911, Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer Lloyd George argued that the government needed to
prepare for an inevitable economic downturn. Like many politicians, he
knew the dangers of increasing taxes. The only solution, then, was to be
found in trimming social welfare and military expenditures. As did Fisher
in 1904, Churchill felt pressure to realize economies in the Navy’s budget.
In November 1911, Churchill convinced Asquith to retire Admiral
Wilson a few months early and approve Admiral Sir Francis Bridgeman,
a member of the Fishpond, to succeed him.240 Shortly after Bridgeman
assumed his new position, he reported to Fisher that Churchill was “full
of new schemes of strategy which are almost too bold to be believed!”
What Bridgeman did not know was that Fisher was often the inspiration
for Churchill’s schemes. Reprising his arguments during the 1904 push
to trim naval estimates, Fisher convinced Churchill that British maritime
superiority could be maintained and significant savings achieved by em-
phasizing flotilla defense and the construction of battle cruisers.241
In February 1912, the Admiralty received information that Admiral
Tirpitz’s supplementary naval plan called for increasing the number of
warships in the active German fleet from seventeen battleships and four
battle cruisers to twenty-five battleships and eight battle cruisers. The
Royal Navy, however, normally maintained only twenty-two capital ships
in full commission in home waters, including the six based at Gibraltar.
The Admiralty also had to account for the fleets of Austria-Hungary and
Italy, Germany’s two allies within the Triple Alliance. The former was
building four dreadnought-style battleships, while the latter had four
dreadnoughts in its fleet and another two under construction. They also
possessed nine and eight pre-dreadnought battleships, respectively,
against six Royal Navy pre-dreadnoughts at Malta.242
 Fisher’s Scheme 243

A range of alternatives was explored for responding to the challenge.

One option centered on arms control, including a proposal to freeze
British capital ship construction if Germany would do the same. Another
called for extending flotilla defense to the Mediterranean and concen-
trating more battleships in home waters. A major consideration in craft-
ing these options was the lack of skilled manpower to man major
warships. Ultimately, the Navy would place its faith in battleships.
Although Churchill had planned to cut the number of battleships in
full commission from twenty-eight to twenty-two, the challenge posed
by the Triple Alliance powers found him reversing course and supporting
keeping thirty-three battleships in full commission, with another eight
in reserve—a major blow to Fisher’s Scheme. Adding insult to injury,
the only way to come up with the additional manpower to crew the
additional battleships was to rob from the crews of cruisers and flotilla
craft and to dilute the proportion of skilled personnel manning older
battleships.243
Churchill worked to salvage what he could. In May 1912, he effected
a compromise: the new Queen Elizabeth–class “super-dreadnoughts”
would be armed with 15-inch guns and have a speed of twenty-four
knots—three knots greater than Dreadnought, although not as fast as
Fisher’s battle cruisers.244 Still, his overall emphasis on firepower and
speed at the expense of armor in capital ship design was retained.
When explaining the Admiralty’s decision to the House of Com-
mons, Churchill all but sang from the Fisher hymnal, declaring that
when considering “a battle between two great modern iron-clad ships,
you must not think of . . . two men in armor striking at each other with
heavy swords. It is more like a battle between two egg shells striking
each other with hammers. . . . The importance of hitting first, hitting
hardest, and keeping on hitting . . . really needs no clearer proof.”245
Increasing British naval power in the North Sea to counter the
Kaiser’s fleet meant closer cooperation with the French. The Royal
Navy’s Atlantic Fleet was recalled to home waters. The Mediterranean
Fleet, less a few battle cruisers, was repositioned from Malta to Gibraltar.
The French agreed that the Royal Navy would guard both sides of the
English Channel against the German naval threat, while France would
assume a greater role in the Mediterranean, repositioning six battleships
from its Atlantic Fleet to the Mediterranean.246
Still, the Royal Navy’s budget would need to be increased to meet
the anticipated German buildup. Here Churchill’s old ally Lloyd George
244 Part 2

fought a rearguard action against his former “budget hawk” ally, but the
popular mood favored battleships over fiscal probity. Lloyd George told
Churchill that he knew it was time to give in when his wife remarked,
“You know, my dear, I never interfere in politics, but they say you are
having an argument with that nice Mr. Churchill about building dread-
noughts. Of course I don’t understand these things, but I should have
thought it would be better to have too many rather than too few.”247
Churchill, for his part, sought to stay in good standing with the fiscal
conservatives and Lloyd George by proposing a “naval holiday” with
Germany, declaring that any reduction in German warship construction
would be met by a proportionate reduction in British shipbuilding. Thus,
if Germany postponed building the three battleships it had planned for
1913, Britain would drop the five it was planning to start. Despite
Churchill’s repeated efforts to win over the Germans, the Kaiser ruled
out any such “holiday.”248
What caught Fisher’s perceptive eye, however, was not the German
plans for dreadnoughts but those for flotilla craft. Seventy-two new sub-
marines would be added to Germany’s High Seas Fleet, and 99 of its 144
destroyers would be fully manned.

On the Eve of War

Fleet Exercises: Blockade and Flotilla Defense
The combined Home and Atlantic Fleet maneuvers of April–May 1910
tested Britain’s east-coast defensive patrols—flotilla defense. One phase
explored the “British” destroyer flotillas supported by cruisers, which
were put out of action by the “enemy” fleet flotillas and light cruisers.
The culprit was a lack of ships in the British flotilla’s “picket line” early
warning system, intended to enable the defenders to concentrate their
forces against the enemy. The system’s failure enabled the enemy to con-
centrate its forces and attack dispersed British ships and destroy them in
detail before reinforcements could arrive. Simply put, more flotilla craft
were needed, as well as enhanced scouting and command and control.249
The summer maneuvers evaluated the growing threat posed by sub-
marines armed with torpedoes. The submarine D1 was pitted against two
armored cruisers. Operating 600 miles from its base at Portsmouth, the
D1 “torpedoed” the two cruisers before returning to base. The exercise
convinced Admiral Wilson, previously a skeptic, of the submarine’s
 Fisher’s Scheme 245

potential. Wilson perceptively raised the possibility that, owing to their

stealth, submarines might be the key to resurrecting the close blockade.250
The 1911 maneuvers saw the Navy exploring the possibility of im-
posing a blockade at a greater distance from the enemy’s shore to better
protect the blockading force. Forty-eight destroyers and eight light
cruisers from the Home Fleet were positioned along a 60-mile line in
the North Sea with the mission of alerting the main fleet should the
“enemy” fleet emerge. This scouting force failed, even though it was
tasked with patrolling only 60 miles of the 150 miles called for in the war
plan. It left many Royal Navy officers openly questioning not only close
but this more distant “observational” blockade. In April 1912, the Admi-
ralty decided to explore a more distant “intermediate” blockade in the
July–August Home Fleet maneuvers.251
The maneuvers once again showed the screening ships stretched
across the middle of the North Sea vulnerable, confirming the distant
blockade (Plan A/A1) as the only workable strategy for dealing with the
German threat. The Royal Navy simply lacked the cruisers and destroy-
ers necessary to establish an effective screen. The maneuvers, however,
found D Class submarines outperforming expectations, and Churchill
contemplated building more D Class submarines as an alternative to
costly battleships. By year’s end, the fleet was instructed to follow Bal-
lard’s redrafted 1907 A/A1 plan and impose a distant surface blockade
from its base at Scapa Flow.252 Although a distant blockade offended the
Navy’s offensive traditions, it had the virtue of being effective. Destroy-
ers and submarines would close off access to the Channel. Should the
High Seas Fleet challenge the blockade, it would be met with Fisher’s
New Model battle fleet, capable of engaging beyond torpedo range. In
1913, the Royal United Services Institute awarded its Gold Medal to
Commander Kenneth Dewar, whose essay was essentially a restatement
of Ballard’s work.253
The 1913 Grand Fleet maneuvers tested the Navy’s ability to coun-
ter the threat of invasion along Britain’s east coast by Germany’s High
Seas Fleet. Rear Admiral John de Robeck commanded the “British”
fleet’s flotilla patrol, and the battle fleet was under the command of Ad-
miral Sir George Callaghan. Vice Admiral John Jellicoe led the “Ger-
man” fleet, with the mission of mounting an invasion. After ten days, the
“Germans” claimed victory, having landed 3,500 marines. Once again,
the Royal Navy’s scouting patrols failed to detect the enemy in time to
defeat the invasion. Fisher’s flotilla defense concept was not working.
246 Part 2

Admiral Callaghan also pointed out that stationing the battle fleet in
the north of Scotland precluded its ability to intercept quickly an enemy
fleet transporting an invasion force. But having lost 40 percent of his
capital ships to submarine attack during the exercise, the admiral also
conceded that if the fleet was brought south to protect against an inva-
sion, it would also be running unacceptable risks. Echoing Admiral Ba-
con’s paper from 1909, Callaghan argued that a major fleet engagement
should combine both torpedo attacks and long-range gunnery. This fo-
cused further attention on a growing debate over whether the huge bat-
tle fleet could be effectively commanded in an engagement. The Navy
began to work on devising contingency plans to employ aircraft
equipped with wireless to support the Navy’s early warning flotillas, in-
cluding defense of Britain’s east coast.254

Fisher’s Push for Submarines

Amid all this, Fisher continued pressing for more submarines. In March
1913, he began circulating drafts of his paper “The Oil Engine and the
Submarine,” motivated in part by Admiralty plans for steam (rather than
diesel) engines on “fleet” submarines in the hope that they could achieve
the speeds needed to operate as a screen for the battle fleet. When the
Admiralty moved in October to let contracts on experimental steam-
powered boats, Fisher told Churchill that, given budget constraints, pri-
ority should go to proven patrol submarines that can be used for flotilla
defense and potentially for a new form of close blockade.
Fisher’s paper declared, “Submarines are the coming Dreadnoughts. . . .
We are falling behind Germany in large submarines!” Fisher also pre-
dicted—to the horror of Churchill, Battenberg, and others—that in war,
submarines would sink unarmed merchant ships. Fisher expressed the
hope that Britain’s naval rivals would continue to build dreadnoughts:
“vessels that will be securely blockaded by our submarines, as the Medi-
terranean and North Sea will be securely locked up.”255
Fisher’s views prevailed, and the Admiralty decided to emphasize pa-
trol submarines. That same month, the Cabinet pressured Churchill to
fund two dreadnoughts, not four as called for in the 1914–15 estimates,
confronting him with the challenge of cutting the Navy’s budget and
building submarines, while maintaining a battleship force equal to Ger-
many’s plus a 60 percent margin.
 Fisher’s Scheme 247

But Churchill also knew that the Liberal government feared the po-
litical backlash of abandoning the battleship. He also knew that dropping
two dreadnoughts would provide the Canadians, who had committed to
funding three dreadnoughts, with an excuse to renege, placing an un-
bearable burden on the Navy’s budget. This looming political crisis pro-
vided Churchill with an opportunity. He informed Asquith that he could
provide him with political cover against the party’s fiscal hawks and
against charges that he was abandoning Britain’s maritime supremacy.
This could be done, Churchill said, by substituting submarines for some
battleships and adopting a fundamentally new way of measuring the
maritime balance. Drop two battleships from the 1914–15 program and
use the funds to build a new class of semisubmersible torpedo craft and
sixteen submarines. Drop all but two or three destroyers in the program
in favor of four additional submarines, bringing their total to twenty.
The “new” maritime balance would be measured not only using merely
capital ships but also by including submarines and other torpedo craft.
Owing to the sensitivity of effecting such a radical shift, the deal was
known only to the Admiralty Board, Asquith, and Lloyd George. As with
support for Fisher’s scheme in 1904, the motives for backing Churchill’s
gambit were both strategic and financial.256
Just as the Admiralty was moving to implement Churchill’s proposal,
general war broke out in Europe, bringing Britain, France, and Russia
into conflict with Germany and Austria-Hungary.257 The crucible of con-
flict would determine whether Fisher’s vision of the maritime competi-
tion or those of his detractors would prove out.

The Fleet at War’s Edge

The British fleet that went to war was radically different from the one
Fisher had inherited a decade before. The Royal Navy was now able to
maneuver and concentrate with unprecedented speed, thanks to the in-
troduction of turbine engines, oil-fired propulsion, and wireless. This
had enabled a radical redistribution of the fleet, greatly mitigating the
Navy’s manpower problems. Driven in part by advances in torpedo
weaponry, the fleet’s range of engagement had grown fantastically with
the launching of all-big-gun super-dreadnoughts, which enabled the fleet
to engage the enemy at far greater distances than had ever before been
possible. The ability of Britain’s shipyards to produce new ships faster
248 Part 2

than their competitors made possible “time-based competition,” or what

Fisher called “plunging,” in support of his efforts at “wrecking” rival navy
programs.
Although Fisher’s Scheme was not fully implemented, given the bar-
riers he confronted, what was accomplished during his time as first sea
lord and in collaboration with Churchill borders on miraculous. When
war came, the fleet moved to enforce a distant blockade and support eco-
nomic warfare against Germany. The Channel was closed by a form of
flotilla defense, and the eastern approaches to the Home Islands were
screened by flotilla craft. The Admiralty was moving toward a new way
of measuring the naval balance in line with Fisher’s view of submarines
as the “next big thing” in war at sea.
Fisher’s vision was not without its flaws. Fleet maneuvers revealed
problems with command and control of a “combined arms” fleet. Flotilla
defense suffered from the absence of effective scouting that would enable
torpedo craft to mass against an invading force. The challenge associated
with fire control at very long range, which Fisher believed was addressed,
in fact remained unsolved. And although he foresaw submarines sinking
unarmed merchant ships, it was a problem that those in power would
willfully ignore, placing their faith in the rules of civilized warfare.
In August 1914, there was no debate as to whether the previous de-
cade had witnessed a naval transformation. The question was whether
“Radical Jack” Fisher’s revolution would enable the Royal Navy to pre-
vail in the ultimate test of war.

War
The Great War showed how profoundly the character of war at sea had
changed in the span of a few short years. Both Britain’s Grand Fleet and
Germany’s High Seas Fleet proved skittish of submarines. The Royal
Navy adopted a distant blockade. If the High Seas Fleet wished to break
it, it risked moving into waters that might be populated with British
mines and torpedo craft, backed by Britain’s Grand Fleet.
What surprised many people, but not Fisher, was the emergence of
submarine commerce raiding and blockade. Owing to the Navy’s tradi-
tion of offensive warfare, it persisted in search-and-destroy operations
against commerce-raiding submarines while resisting convoy operations.
The results were disastrous, similar to a company of cavalry defending a
wagon train moving across the American West against raids by Native
 Fisher’s Scheme 249

Americans by galloping about randomly along the route. By April 1917,

shipping losses were so heavy that the Admiralty thought it had nothing
to lose by trying convoys, which soon turned the tide in Britain’s favor.
Still, German U-boats sank more than eleven million tons of merchant
shipping during the war, roughly 95 percent with torpedoes.258
As with British commerce, the greatest threat to the Grand Fleet was
not the High Seas Fleet but Germany’s submarines, which, along with
mines, exercised a fearful toll on warships. The light cruisers Amphion
and Pathfinder were lost on August 4 and September 5, respectively. Jelli-
coe, now commanding the Grand Fleet, quickly redeployed it from
Scapa Flow to west of Scotland. On September 22, a German submarine
sent the cruisers Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue to the bottom off the Dutch
coast. When an older cruiser, Hawke, was torpedoed in the North Sea
on October 15, Jellicoe again moved the fleet, this time off Ireland’s
northern coast. Still, the losses mounted. Twelve days later, a mine sank
the new dreadnought Audacious off Lough Swilly, while the seaplane car-
rier Hermes was torpedoed in the Straits of Dover on November 1. On
January 1, 1915, the pre-dreadnought battleship Formidable met the same
fate.259
When the Royal Navy approached the Turkish coast at Gallipoli in
1915, Turkish mines sent three battleships, two British and one French,
to the bottom. During the campaign, the battleships Triumph and Majes-
tic were sunk by submarines.260 As Fisher had foreseen, it was not Germa-
ny’s battleships that were sending British warships to the bottom but
their submarines armed with the “devil’s device.”
In October 1914, Fisher was recalled as first sea lord. He had hoped
that economic warfare would bring about a collapse in Germany’s econ-
omy and a quick victory, but the strategy was never fully implemented,
owing to protests from commercial interests and neutrals and to bureau-
cratic opposition in the government. Less than a month after entering
the war, the government scaled back its efforts. By the time Fisher ar-
rived, distant blockade was the order of the day.
Eight months later, he resigned after a series of disputes with
Churchill. They agreed on the distant blockade, but Churchill was also
looking to take the offensive and strike a dramatic blow against Ger-
many, such as seizing the island of Borkum as part of operations to se-
cure the Baltic Sea, and to wage a campaign against the Ottomans to
open the Dardanelles. Captain (later Admiral) Sir Herbert Richmond,
then serving on the Admiralty’s staff and widely recognized as one of the
250 Part 2

Navy’s best thinkers, viewed Churchill’s ideas for seizing Borkum as

“quite mad,” declaring, “I have never read such an idiotic, amateur piece
of work as this [Churchill’s] outline in my life.” Fisher, who felt that as
long as the distant blockade offered the prospect of success, there was no
reason to engage in reckless offensive operations, doubtless agreed.261
As for a prospective Dardanelles campaign, Fisher argued for main-
taining a robust blockade, noting, “Being already in possession of all that
a powerful fleet can give a country, we should continue quietly to enjoy
the advantage without dissipating our strength in operations that cannot
improve the position.”262 Asquith, however, sided with Churchill.
The operation proved a fiasco and put Churchill and Fisher on a col-
lision course. In May, Fisher resigned when Churchill looked for more
ships to support the campaign, which Jackie believed would only rein-
force failure while threatening the North Sea blockade’s strength. His
departure caused an outcry, threatening to end the truce between the
Conservatives and the Liberal government. A new coalition government
would need to be formed, one without Churchill as first lord.
Fisher’s vision of future war at sea among surface combatants as-
sumed that advantages in speed and long-range gunnery would more
than offset sacrifices in armor protection. Early engagements were en-
couraging. On December 8, 1914, a German cruiser squadron was inter-
cepted by a British force off the Falkland Islands. The battle that
followed saw two British battle cruisers, Invincible and Inflexible, pummel-
ing the German armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with long-
range fires. The British ships sustained only minor damage. Fisher was
exultant. Only a month later, elements of the Grand and High Seas Fleets
engaged near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea. Once again, the British
battle-cruiser force used its superior speed to intercept the German battle
cruisers and begin a long-range engagement at an unheard-of range of
18,000 yards. Firing at that distance placed the shells on a high, lofting
trajectory, landing them on the German ships’ decks, which were thinly
armored relative to their sides. The German armored cruiser Blucher was
sunk and the battle cruiser Seydlitz damaged, while the British suffered
damage only to the battle cruiser Lion, along with a destroyer. The Brit-
ish could have won a major victory save for the persistent problem of ex-
ercising effective command of their ships. Perhaps most worrisome,
despite the British battle cruisers’ success, they were experiencing diffi-
culties firing accurately at long ranges, scoring hits at a rate of less than
2 percent while the enemy scored over 3 percent.263
 Fisher’s Scheme 251

In May 1916, British battle-cruiser performance showed little im-

provement in the Battle of Jutland, off Denmark’s North Sea coast. There,
Britain’s Grand Fleet—by far the most powerful of the Royal Navy’s
fleets—engaged its counterpart, the German High Seas Fleet, for the only
time in the four-year conflict. During the battle, the British battle cruisers
were frustrated in their attempts to employ their speed to gain a range ad-
vantage on their German adversaries. This was due in part to limits on vis-
ibility, as the British battle-cruiser division encountered the lead elements
of the High Seas Fleet in the late afternoon of May 31. Efforts to employ
speed in line with Fisher’s vision also foundered, owing to the huge size
and heterogeneous composition of the Grand Fleet and the difficulties in-
volved in conducting effective scouting.264 Perhaps most discouraging, the
Royal Navy’s Dreyer range-finding gear proved incapable of maintaining
the correct range of the German warships as the two forces converged,
undermining the advantage provided by the fleet’s big guns.
During the battle, Admiral David Beatty, commanding the British
battle-cruiser division, saw the Royal Navy battle cruiser Lion hit first.
Then the Indefatigable blew up. Not long after, the Queen Mary was sunk.
This represented a near perfect cross-section of Britain’s prewar battle-
cruiser classes. Beatty turned to his flag captain and said, “There seems
to be something wrong with our bloody ships today, Chatfield.”265
The performance of the Queen Mary, the only battle cruiser with a
Pollen range-finding Argo clock, hinted at what Beatty’s battle cruisers
might have done with the state-of-the-art system. Before it was sunk some
forty minutes into the battle, its guns registered four hits. The range be-
tween the two fleets at that time often exceeded 15,000 yards and was
never less than 12,900. The Queen Mary scored a hit before any of Beatty’s
other battle cruisers did and hit its targets twice as frequently.266
The battle cruisers probably suffered less from the absence of armor
plate than from a propensity to store powder charges in exposed places.
This enabled the fires started by incoming shells to generate secondary
explosions in the powder magazines. British armor-piercing shells often
failed to detonate, owing to faulty fuses. Finally, German ships benefited
from Tirpitz’s relatively greater investment in armor protection and
damage control.267
At Jutland, the backbone of the British battle line proved to be the
Queen Elizabeth class of so-called super-dreadnoughts, which constituted
the Fifth Battle Squadron. These five fast ships were equipped with 15-inch
guns, bigger than those on any previous dreadnought and substantially
252 Part 2

superior to any other battleship afloat.268 The ships opened fire on the Ger-
man fleet at 19,000 yards, scoring hits at nearly twice the rate as Beatty’s
battle cruisers, inflicting six hits while taking none, partially confirming
Fisher’s faith in speed and long-range fires. Although there was a spirited
debate following the battle as to which side prevailed at the tactical level,
Fisher’s dreadnoughts had prevailed at the strategic level. As a New York
paper concluded, “The German Fleet has assaulted its jailor, but it is still in
jail.”269
In retrospect, Fisher’s vision of an extended-range fleet engagement
leveraging speed and long-range fires was less flawed than the timing of
its implementation. Had the Pollen system been fully incorporated into
the fleet, it could have provided the Royal Navy with the kind of long-
range gunnery accuracy that Fisher believed he had. Moreover, only
three years after Jutland, the U.S. Navy, employing wireless-equipped
aircraft as spotters, produced dramatic increases in long-range naval
bombardment accuracy. Aircraft would also have provided Fisher’s flo-
tilla defense forces with the scouting capability needed to concentrate
against an enemy fleet approaching Britain’s coast.

Conclusion
The period between the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
witnessed several disruptive and overlapping shifts in the character of
war at sea. These shifts challenged the Royal Navy’s traditional methods
of defending the British Isles, the empire, and maritime commerce.
Beginning in the late 1890s, rapid progress with submarines and tor-
pedoes offered an entirely new way of waging war at sea. Anti-ship
mines, when combined with torpedo craft, could make close—and, pro-
gressively, observational and intermediate—blockade an unacceptably
risky proposition. Torpedo craft so threatened the survival of major war-
ships that ways needed to be found to operate beyond their range, hence
the all-big-gun capital ships and oceangoing destroyers operating as part
of a combined-arms fleet. As Fisher foresaw, submarines proved formida-
ble threats to battleships and commercial transports alike.
A handful of individuals identified elements of these challenges to
British maritime supremacy, but only one did so comprehensively while
being in a position to respond to them holistically: Admiral Jackie Fisher.
“Radical Jack’s” Scheme focused on meeting these challenges by pro-
foundly altering the Royal Navy’s size, structural form, and disposition.
 Fisher’s Scheme 253

His vision had three basic components: battle cruisers, flotilla defense,
and plunging. Fisher was willing—much more so than his colleagues at
the Admiralty or Britain’s political leaders—to place big bets on building
a fleet that could outrange the growing torpedo threat, and exploiting
submarines and torpedoes to defend Britain from direct attack when
blockading the enemy’s fleets was no longer a realistic option.
In a way that seems remarkable in contemporary times, Fisher suc-
ceeded in realizing a significant portion of his Scheme. The drag on
Fisher’s efforts, though deleterious in some ways, also had a positive side.
By continuing to build dreadnought battleships, the Admiralty effectively
pursued a hedging strategy against the possibility that all of Fisher’s big
bets might not prove out. This hedging strategy enabled the Royal Navy
to adapt effectively enough to prevail when war came. Partially “wrong”
about battle cruisers, Fisher proved “right” in advancing the construction
of submarines and destroyers. The latter, of course, paid great dividends
in the convoy operations that defeated the threat to Britain’s maritime
lifeline—even though they had been bought with a different mission in
mind. Fisher was right to abandon the close blockade in favor of distant
blockade, and his frightening predictions on the submarine threat to
commerce proved prescient.
When viewed in the balance, Fisher emerges as one of the most
foresighted and capable military leaders of the past two centuries. At the
fleet’s grand view in July 1914, on the eve of war, Rear Admiral Sir Rob-
ert Arbuthnot was moved to say, “All that is best and most modern here
is the creation of Lord Fisher.”270 That fleet would pass the ultimate
test: it prevented the German fleet from ever coming close to directly
threatening Britain’s or its allies’ homelands; it maintained—albeit with
difficulty—maritime commerce essential to Britain’s survival; and it de-
terred the High Seas Fleet from challenging it in a major engagement.
As Arthur Marder concludes, “The verdict of history is that in Fisher
the Navy and the nation had found their man—a strong man ready to
face the tremendous responsibility and personal risk of carrying out a
constructive revolution in a service rendered by the very pride of its tra-
ditions one of the most conservative in the world.” “Fisher,” says Marder,
“whatever his defects, was a genius.” Churchill concurred, writing: “His
genius was deep and true.”271
 chapter seven
Out of the Trenches

The whole future of warfare appears to me to be in the

employment of mobile armies, relatively small but of high quality,
and rendered distinctly more effective by the addition of aircraft.

—general hans von seeckt

We believe that by attacking with tanks we can achieve a higher

rate of movement than has been hitherto obtainable, and—what
is perhaps even more important—that we can keep moving once
a breakthrough has been made.

—general heinz guderian

On the morning of November 8, 1918, representatives of the German

government arrived at Compiègne Forest, roughly thirty-five miles
north of Paris. There, parked along a railway siding, sat the private train
of the supreme Allied commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch. The Ger-
man delegation’s mission was to obtain terms for an armistice.
There were no negotiations in the traditional sense. The Germans
were presented with a list of demands, written primarily by Foch, and

254
 Out of the Trenches 255

given seventy-two hours to sign. The Germans did succeed in getting

the terms amended so that they were not obligated to decommission
more submarines than they actually possessed and were given more time
to withdraw from Allied territory. They also registered a formal protest
to what they saw as a Carthaginian peace. At 5:45 a.m. on November 11,
1918, after representatives of the Allies and Germany had signed the ar-
mistice, Foch arrived and affixed his signature. After more than four
years of fighting, the German Army that had dominated Europe for half
a century had effectively surrendered.
The Versailles Treaty marking the war’s formal end was signed on
June 28, 1919. It all but disarmed Germany’s military, which was forbid-
den from possessing aircraft, tanks, and heavy artillery. Germany’s Army
was reduced to 100,000 men, including 4,000 officers. Its intellectual
core, the general staff, was dissolved, along with its War Academy
(Kriegsakademie) and Cadet School.
It appeared to some observers that Foch’s goal of rendering Ger-
many unable to threaten France ever again had been achieved. Yet as the
treaty was being signed, he remarked, “This is not a peace. It is an armi-
stice for twenty years.”1
Foch’s words proved prophetic. In little more than two decades, the
German military rose from its humiliating defeat to dominate land war-
fare on the Continent. In the process, the German military leadership
pursued a vision of warfare that was dramatically different from the static
trench warfare that dominated the Western Front in the Great War. Em-
ploying advanced military systems made possible by rapidly progressing
technologies in the fields of mechanization, aviation, and radio, Germany
transformed its military into an instrument capable of waging mechanized
air-land warfare, popularly known as “Blitzkrieg” (or “lightning war”).2

The Seeds of Change

Germany’s military, the Reichswehr, began the postwar era in a greatly
weakened state but also with a vision of waging a different kind of war,
the seeds of which were sown in the latter stages of World War I.3 The
stalemate produced by static trench warfare, particularly on the Western
Front, found both sides searching for ways to restore offensive maneuver
at the operational (or campaign) level of war.
The German military’s long-standing preference for waging a war of
maneuver led it to adopt “storm” or “infiltration” tactics, the brainchild
256 Part 2

of General August von Mackensen and his chief of staff, Colonel Hans
von Seeckt. Their concept centered on quickly exploiting even small
breaks in the Russian lines by rushing in reserves to widen and deepen
the penetration, with the goal of producing a breakout. September 1917
found General Oskar von Hutier employing these tactics successfully in
operations around Riga. The Germans also discovered that using a short
preparatory bombardment gave the enemy less time to concentrate
forces in the sector being attacked. They began to employ specially
trained troops—“storm troopers”—that were instructed to infiltrate the
Russian lines, bypassing any strong points to sustain their advance into
the enemy’s rear area.4
The Allies, on the other hand, emphasized exploiting new military
systems, especially the tank, a recent invention that had its proximate
origins in the Royal Navy’s Landship Committee, formed by the
Admiralty’s first lord, Winston Churchill. The French soon joined the
British in this endeavor, and by 1916, both countries were producing
tanks. The British Army first used tanks during the Somme offensive in
September 1916. Ironically, given what transpired, the Germans only
began to develop tanks after encountering them on the Somme and had
only begun producing tanks in significant numbers when the armistice
was signed.
The two sides’ attempts at breaking the trench stalemate were on
display on November 20, 1917. The British massed some 400 tanks and
six infantry divisions supported by Royal Flying Corps aircraft and at-
tacked two understrength German infantry divisions along a seven-mile
front near the French town of Cambrai. Within twenty-four hours, the
British drove the Germans back five miles—an unprecedented feat
against well-entrenched forces on the Western Front.5 The German
counterattack at Cambrai coincidentally saw the first major use of storm
tactics on the Western Front. Twenty German divisions operating with-
out tanks erased the British breakthrough, capturing more than 150 ar-
tillery pieces and some 6,000 troops.6
Although the German assault did not involve tanks, German small
units were now equipped with hand grenades, machine guns, grenade
launchers, trench mortars, and flame-throwers, making them combined-
arms units in miniature. Both massed armor and storm tactics showed
promise for restoring maneuver to the battlefield, at least at the tactical
level.7 Shortly thereafter, taking a page from the British, the German
 Out of the Trenches 257

high command began to use aircraft to provide mobile fire support to

the storm troopers, partially offsetting their lack of tanks.8
No tactical system, however, could solve the German Army’s
fundamental operational problem in the west: the enemy’s railroads and
motor transport columns could move reinforcements to reestablish a
new defensive line more quickly than the German storm troops—
moving on foot and ever farther from their sources of supplies and artil-
lery support—could achieve a complete breakthrough. Simply put, the
Germans were losing the “concentration/counter-concentration” compe-
tition to the Allies.
When the Germans’ Michel Offensive in the spring of 1918 failed to
yield strategic gains, their high command, having exhausted its last major
offensive reserves, found itself confronting the buildup of U.S. armies in
France and the increasingly suffocating grip of the Royal Navy’s eco-
nomic blockade. That summer, at Soissons and Amiens, British and
French forces employed tanks and aircraft together in sizeable numbers
to create cracks in the German lines. Joined by the Americans, they rained
a series of hammer blows on the Western Front in the summer and early
autumn, increasing the stress on the German Army to the breaking point.
By November, the Germans felt compelled to seek an armistice.
The Versailles Treaty left the German military with two principal
operational problems. The first concerned the challenge of defending
Germany’s relatively long borders with a 100,000-man treaty-restricted
army. In the early 1920s, Germany confronted potential threats from
France and Poland, each with a military that was far superior to the
Reichswehr. This problem endured until Germany’s rearmament follow-
ing its renunciation of the treaty in 1935. The second, more enduring
problem was the one left unsolved at the end of World War I: how to re-
store mobility to the battlefield at the operational level of war.9

Hans von Seeckt

In March 1920, General Walther Reinhardt resigned as Chef der Heere-
sleitung of the Provisional Reichswehr and was succeeded by General
Hans von Seeckt, who was appointed chief of Germany’s armed forces.
The change at the top of Germany’s military had profound and long-
lasting effects. Reinhardt believed that the recent war showed that massed
firepower was king and that maneuver warfare had seen its day. Therefore,
258 Part 2

Germany, he thought, should create a mass army based on a national

militia. Reinhardt later praised the French decision to construct the Magi-
not Line as acknowledging the dominance of positional defense in war.10
Von Seeckt’s views could hardly have been more different. His expe-
rience was with infiltration tactics on the Eastern Front, where better
trained and led German troops had defeated numerically superior but
qualitatively inferior Russian forces. This convinced him that mass
armies waging positional, attrition warfare like that which dominated the
Western Front would become artifacts of an era of warfare that was pass-
ing from the scene. Von Seeckt declared that “mass becomes immobile; it
cannot maneuver and therefore cannot win victories, it can only crush by
sheer weight.” Moreover, “a conscript mass, whose training has been
brief and superficial is ‘cannon fodder’ in the worst sense of the word, if
pitted against a small number of practiced technicians on the other side.”
Thus, he concluded, “The whole future of warfare appears to me to be in
the employment of mobile armies, relatively small but of high quality,
and rendered distinctly more effective by the addition of aircraft.”11
Whereas Reinhardt rejected the German Army’s traditional empha-
sis on waging a war of maneuver and encircling the enemy, seeking to
bring about a battle of annihilation, von Seeckt embraced it. German
storm tactics were rooted in the nineteenth-century Prussian military, in-
corporating concepts such as Schwerpunkt and Auftragstaktik.12 To these
terms, von Seeckt added Bewegungskrieg—a war of movement combining
high-speed operations conducted by well-integrated combined-arms for-
mations employing both the existing and newly emerging tools of war.13
As von Seeckt summarized his vision, “The goal of modern strategy will
be to achieve a decision with highly mobile, highly capable forces, before
the masses have begun to move.”14
Von Seeckt’s views were reinforced by the comprehensive study of
World War I undertaken in December 1919, at his direction, by the
Truppenamt (Troop Office), the shadow version of the General Staff,
which was banned by the Versailles Treaty. The fifty-seven committees
involving more than 400 officers produced key insights. One was that
storm tactics could only enjoy success at the tactical level as long as the
enemy retained advantages in operational mobility—the ability to con-
centrate defending forces more rapidly than the Germans could advance
to prevent this from occurring. Storm tactics were further limited by the
breakdown in communications that occurred as the German troops ad-
vanced, undermining the commander’s ability to coordinate the attack.
 Out of the Trenches 259

Yet another problem was that the penetrating force quickly outdis-
tanced its supporting artillery fires. Attempts to offset this problem by
increasing attacking troops’ weapons loads found them quickly ex-
hausted. The study committees found that tanks, by providing mobile
fire support, represented a potential solution to this problem, but only if
they were not tethered to slow-moving infantry that would compromise
their advantage in speed and mobility. Air forces also showed promise for
providing advancing ground forces with supporting fires.15
These insights formed a basis for thinking about how to solve the
principal task that had eluded the German Army in World War I: restor-
ing mobility at the operational level of warfare in such a way as to enable deci-
sive results at the strategic level. Von Seeckt was not alone in thinking along
these lines. One of the men most responsible for developing the tank,
Winston Churchill, found himself not long after the war pondering,
“Suppose that the British Army sacrificed upon the Somme, the finest we
ever had, had been preserved, trained and developed to its full strength
until the summer of 1917, till perhaps 3,000 tanks were ready, till an
overwhelming artillery barrage was prepared, till a scientific method of
advance had been devised, till the apparatus was complete, might not a
decisive result have been achieved at one supreme stroke?”16
Von Seeckt’s vision did not go unchallenged within the Reichswehr.
Several opposing schools of thought emerged, the most formidable being
the “Defense School,” led by Reinhardt, who, in 1919, ordered that pref-
erence for officer retention in the radically reduced Army go to officers
who had served ably on the front lines. Von Seeckt favored General Staff
officers, believing that their intellect and experience in higher command
planning would help the German military identify and embrace a new
way of warfare. In the end, von Seeckt prevailed, and the Reichswehr
chose brains over brawn.17
There emerged yet a third significant faction, what might be called
the “People’s War School.” Its advocates called for focusing the Army’s
efforts on the immediate danger faced by the country in its weakened
state, arguing that Germany’s only hope of resisting invasion by either
France or Poland rested in a mass army waging guerrilla warfare. When
the French occupied Germany’s industrial Ruhr area in 1923 to compel
it to make good on its reparations obligations, many Reichswehr officers
grumbled that von Seeckt and his small “army of leaders,” with its em-
phasis on the long term, ignored the immediate dangers to Germany’s
security.18 Von Seeckt, they groused, was training a military divorced
260 Part 2

from reality, envisioning it possessing weapons that the Reichswehr nei-

ther possessed nor could hope to obtain.
In February 1924, Joachim von Stulpnagel, head of the Truppenamt’s
operations department, set forth his “Thoughts on the War of the Fu-
ture.” In it, he and a member of the People’s War School noted that the
Reichswehr’s seven divisions had sufficient ammunition to fight for only
about one hour. Rather than place faith in what they believed were von
Seeckt’s fantasies, they argued that Germany’s best defense rested on
guerrilla warfare and mass mobilization of the German population. Even
then, von Stulpnagel saw such resistance as more a “heroic gesture” than
a means for achieving victory.19 One can imagine von Seeckt responding
by pointing out that, if victory was out of the question in the immediate
future, why not accord priority to what might be accomplished over the
longer term?
In retrospect, it seems remarkable that the Reichswehr did not suc-
cumb to a defensive or People’s War philosophy. The German Army had
been traumatized by the carnage of World War I and all but disarmed in
its wake.20 Von Seeckt, however, did enjoy several advantages. One was
his extended tenure, which ran from 1920 to 1926, allowing him time to
build a foundation on which his vision could be pursued. It also helped
that his vision built on the German military culture and its emphasis on
wars of maneuver. By preserving the core of the German General Staff,
von Seeckt also had the Army’s best “brains” supporting him. His use of
the shadow General Staff to analyze war operations in the Great War
provided analytic rigor and support for his vision. Von Seeckt also
proved adept at populating the Army with like-minded senior officers.
He was succeeded by Wilhelm Heye, followed, in 1930, by Kurt von
Hammerstein. Neither could match von Seeckt’s intellect. But they
didn’t have to; they only needed to continue building on the intellectual
foundation he had set in place. Future heads of the Army, including Lud-
wig Beck and Werner von Fritsch, embraced von Seeckt’s vision, as did
Oswald Lutz and Heinz Guderian, who would play key roles in develop-
ing Germany’s panzer arm. They and others like them relied on von
Seeckt’s vision as a compass in traveling the path to Blitzkrieg.21
But as the general’s critics pointed out, the Reichswehr needed more
than a vision. It required the means to execute that vision, both human
and material, and a sense of how the new military capabilities that were
rapidly emerging could best be employed. Despite Germany’s very mod-
est resources, its military leadership began to establish the organizations
 Out of the Trenches 261

and processes needed to do exactly that. Although banned from possess-

ing tanks, the Reichswehr established the Inspektion der Kraftfahrtrup-
pen (Inspectorate of Motor Transport Troops). It quickly became the
center of thought on mechanized warfare in the Reichswehr outside of
the Truppenamt itself. Its first inspector, General Erich von Tschisch­
witz, requested a General Staff–trained officer to assist him, and Captain
Heinz Guderian was selected and assigned to the Seventh Motor Trans-
port Battalion under Major Oswald Lutz. Guderian proved an ideal
choice. Not only had he served in several General Staff positions after
attending the Kriegsakademie, but he also had worked for nearly three
years in signals units, gaining a deep understanding of and appreciation
for the potential of radio to coordinate highly mobile, dispersed forces.
Von Seeckt regarded signal troops as an essential component of his
war of movement. In August 1922, First Group Command in Berlin con-
ducted the initial signal exercise of the interwar era, testing the Reichs­
wehr’s wireless capabilities and telephone network in simulated wartime
conditions.22 Three divisions contributed their signal elements to the ex-
ercise. In 1923, the Reichswehr doubled signal support to its divisions.
The following year, Lieutenant Ernst Volckheim, a veteran of Germany’s
World War I nascent tank arm who was increasingly accepted as the Ar-
my’s leading expert on armored warfare, called for mounting a radio in
every tank (should the Germans ever acquire them!). By 1928, the Reichs­­­
wehr was conducting major radio communications exercises involving all
divisions and group headquarters.23
As for mechanization, the German field service regulations dedicated
several sections to the tank, probably written by Volckheim.24 Both
Volck­­eim and the Austrian Captain Fritz Hegel, author of the influential
Pocket Book of Tanks, envisioned fast tanks with a large radius of action as
a key to reviving a war of movement. In theory, armored forces possess-
ing these qualities could quickly mass and effect a breakthrough of the
enemy front. Once the breakthrough was achieved, the armored forma-
tions could then penetrate quickly and deeply into the enemy’s rear area
before its defensive lines could be reestablished. If so, the operational
challenge that vexed the German Army on the Western Front might be
solved.
As early as October 1921, the Reichswehr conducted maneuvers of
ersatz motorized units in the Harz Mountains. In the winter of 1923–24,
Lieutenant Colonel Walther von Brauchitsch, who later became the
Army’s commander in chief, organized maneuvers employing notional
262 Part 2

motorized troops and aircraft. By 1926, the Army was conducting multi-
division maneuvers, the largest since the war’s end, to test aspects of
these concepts.25 These exercises were stimulated by von Seeckt’s orders
that focused on infantry units getting out of the trenches, waging mobile
warfare, and executing flanking maneuvers, including having artillery
working on ways to support mobile infantry operations. Between 1921
and 1925, the German Army issued, in three parts, a new operational
doctrine, Army Regulation 487, Leadership and Battle with Combined Arms,
conforming to von Seeckt’s concept of operations.26

Help from Once and Future Foes

Like Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, the Reichswehr bene-
fited from the “kindness” of others in effecting its transformation. Ironi-
cally, the Versailles Treaty, by requiring Germany to all but demobilize
its military, enabled von Seeckt to start with an elite force. In addition
to retaining the Army’s brightest officers, 40,000 of the 100,000-man
Army were noncommissioned officers (NCOs), all regarded as “officer
material.”27
With the Reichswehr having no tanks or combat aircraft of its own,
Germany’s military leaders found themselves studying other armies, es-
pecially the British. During the 1920s and early 1930s, the British were
generally recognized as the leaders in mobile warfare concepts and prac-
tice. Military theorists such as General J. F. C. Fuller and Captain Basil
H. Liddell Hart were advocating military operations similar to those von
Seeckt had in mind, even as British field exercises provided a vicarious
“proving ground.”28
Heinz Guderian, the self-proclaimed father of Germany’s panzer
forces, recalled that during this early period, “the current English hand-
book on armored fighting vehicles was translated into German and for
many years served as the theoretical manual for our developing ideas.”29
If the German military’s path toward what became known as Blitzkrieg
was dark and filled with many dead-end offshoots, it was the British who
helped light the way and post the warning markers.
The 1926 British maneuvers on the Salisbury Plain proved particularly
enlightening. A Reichswehr report on the exercises noted that armored ve-
hicles with their increased speed now possessed the capacity to strike out
independently and that motorized infantry and artillery were capable of ac-
companying the tanks. The report recommended that “in exercises, armor
 Out of the Trenches 263

fighting vehicles be allowed to break through repeatedly in order to por-

tray this method of fighting and thus to collect added experience.”30 That
same year, the British formed an Experimental Mechanized Force.
In no small measure because of the British exercises, a memorandum
signed in January 1927 by General Werner von Fritsch, the head of the
Truppenamt’s operations branch, presciently concluded, “Armored,
quickly moving tanks most probably will become the operationally deci-
sive offensive weapon. From an operational perspective this weapon will
be most effective if concentrated in independent units like tank bri-
gades.”31 Shortly thereafter, in May 1927, the world’s first completely
mechanized combat brigade made its appearance on the Salisbury Plain.
Although inferior in numbers and lacking in wireless communications,
the brigade completely outmaneuvered the horse cavalry and infantry
formations matched against it.32
Even though the British exercises impressed German military lead-
ers, the Reichswehr had to balance its vision of future warfare with cur-
rent military contingencies, primarily the threat posed to Germany’s
small treaty-limited army from Poland to the east, France to the west, or
a coalition of the two with Czechoslovakia. War games, exercises, and
studies during the winters of 1927–28 and 1928–29 focused primarily on
German military operations in the event of a war with Poland. The find-
ings clearly indicated that a war with Poland alone could be waged only
for a short period and with extensive loss of territory. Major General
Werner von Blomberg, head of the Truppenamt, refused to accept such
an outcome and rigged the 1928 game so as to have the League of Na-
tions intervene to force Poland to accept an armistice. This was followed
by a Soviet invasion of Poland, at which time Moscow offered (and Ber-
lin accepted) an alliance, enabling the German Army to conduct the
large-scale offensive operations it longed for.33
For the most part, however, the Reichswehr’s field exercises in the
late 1920s employed cavalry, and not surrogate mechanized forces, in the
leading role. As late as 1929, the Army’s tank doctrine envisioned tanks
primarily as an infantry support system.34 The pattern continued with the
fall 1930 maneuvers, the largest since World War I. They featured non-
standard “experimental” divisional organizations and a flanking operation
by a cavalry division against an infantry division.35 Still, there was nothing
particularly novel about the exercise, and for inspiration, forward-think-
ing German officers continued to follow the British field exercises closely.
As late as 1934, Colonel Baron Geyer von Schweppenburg, Germany’s
264 Part 2

military attaché in London, reported, “In the mixed tank brigade the
British army created the most important mobile ‘modern formation,’
which it holds to be necessary for powerful, long-range, all-out strikes.”
That same year, British tank maneuvers in Egypt for the first time saw a
tank brigade and an experimental mobile division execute large-scale
penetrations.36 When Germany began to rearm in 1935, Lutz, now a gen-
eral and head of Germany’s Tank Forces Command, remarked to British
General Sir John Dill that “the German tank corps had been modeled on
the British.”37

A Path Not Taken: The Luftwaffe and

Strategic Bombardment
In addition to proscribing a German armored force, the Versailles Treaty
also banned the Germans from maintaining an air force. Nevertheless,
German air-power advocates looked forward to the time when they
would be free of the treaty’s shackles. In thinking about what a German
air force, or Luftwaffe, would look like, the Germans did not embrace the
vision of air power set forth by prominent foreign military theorists—
Giulio Douhet and Billy Mitchell among them—that viewed strategic
aerial bombardment as a, if not the, decisive instrument in future wars.38
Rather, the German military followed a different path, one that produced
an air force better suited to the Blitzkrieg form of warfare than to strate-
gic aerial bombardment.
The German Air Service’s 1919–20 analysis of World War I is con-
spicuous for its general lack of interest in strategic bombing. This may
stem from the failure of its 1917–18 strategic bombing campaign to in-
flict serious damage on the Allies. By 1921, it had discounted, at least for
the time, bombing the enemy’s homeland as a “war winning” option.39
Although skepticism about strategic bombing’s efficacy would abate over
time, the Luftwaffe never fully embraced it. At best, its twin-engine
bombers had sufficient range and payload capacity for major campaigns
(such as attacks on an enemy’s industrial base) only against Germany’s
proximate Continental adversaries: France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.
Moreover, fiscal and industrial limitations also forced choices on the
Luftwaffe. Germany possessed neither the production base nor the eco-
nomic strength to build a bomber force on the scale of the United States
and Britain’s and field aircraft in the required numbers to support the
Army’s land campaigns.40
 Out of the Trenches 265

Almost from the beginning, Germany’s military leaders envisioned

air power enhancing the effectiveness of ground operations, and von
Seeckt made funding the shadow Luftwaffe a high priority.41 Moreover,
when Germany’s Air Ministry was founded in 1933, Werner von Blom-
berg, the minister of defense, insisted that the Army transfer high-quality
officers to the new service. These included not only highly regarded pi-
lots but first-rate General Staff officers as well.42
German air-power doctrine was offensive in nature, emphasizing at-
tacking the enemy air force to achieve air superiority, conducting close
air support (CAS) of ground forces, and performing interdiction opera-
tions near the front lines. These missions were well suited to supporting
operations centered on rupturing the enemy’s lines, followed by a fast-
moving deep exploitation phase.43
That being said, early in the period of rearmament following Adolf
Hitler’s ascension to power there was considerable discussion over Ger-
many’s creating a “Risk Luftwaffe” centered on some 390 four-engine
bombers supported by ten air reconnaissance squadrons. The idea was
the brainchild of Dr. Robert Knauss, the head of Lufthansa, Germany’s
commercial airline, and a disciple of the Italian aerial-warfare theorist
Giulio Douhet. Similar to Admiral Tirpitz’s “Risk Fleet” concept prior to
World War I, the Risk Luftwaffe’s objective was to “greatly increase the
risk for any conceivable enemy in a war,” such that, even though it might
prevail against Germany’s air forces, the enemy would have suffered such
loses as to become vulnerable to its other rivals.44 Knauss argued that
such a force could be fielded quickly, reducing the danger of a preemp-
tive attack by Germany’s enemies during the period of rearmament.
Only a few weeks after becoming Germany’s chancellor in January
1933, Hitler voiced support for Knauss’s ideas in a discussion with
Reichswehr leaders. Erhard Milch, who concurred with Knauss’s think-
ing, was appointed secretary of state of the newly formed Reich Ministry
of Aviation, reporting directly to Hermann Goering, the Reich minister
of aviation and a member of Hitler’s inner circle. Germany’s initial arma-
ment program called for a force of some 600 aircraft to be available by
autumn 1935, including 250 bombers.45 Thus, the initial air-rearmament
program accorded priority to the Risk Luftwaffe concept and its empha-
sis on strategic bombing. The concept, however, was stillborn.
Although the German military conceded the importance of bombers,
both as a deterrent and as a significant factor in air warfare, it maintained
that wars would still be won primarily through cooperation among all the
266 Part 2

military services. In the winter of 1933–34, a Truppenamt war game lent

support to these views, concluding that bombers alone could not elimi-
nate the air force of a major adversary and that a balanced, combined-
arms air fleet that included fighters and air defenses was needed.46 The
dominant objective in creating a powerful Luftwaffe remained fielding an
“operational” force that could, both independently and in coordination
with the Army and Navy, support an overall strategy designed to prevail
in a conflict with Germany’s immediate neighbors, France and Poland.
To sum up, from the time Hitler assumed power in 1933 through
1936, the Luftwaffe’s leadership, which included men such as Milch and
officers such as Walther Wever, Albert Kesselring, and Hans-Jürgen
Stumpf, recognized the potential of a strategic bomber force along the
lines described by Knauss. They also, however, rejected the Douhet-
inspired vision of future wars being dominated by strategic bombing
campaigns, supporting instead a “balanced” force with priority to sup-
porting mechanized air-land operations.47
Following Wever’s death in an air crash in June 1936, the Luftwaffe’s
leadership quality declined. Goering named Lieutenant General Kessel-
ring to replace Wever.48 Kesselring had a well-deserved reputation as an
excellent army officer, but he lacked Wever’s comprehensive vision of air
power. Meanwhile, Ernst Udet was selected to serve as head of the Luft-
waffe’s Technical Office, even though he had little in the way of technical
training or aviation experience.
As with Germany’s ground forces, its air buildup borrowed from
other militaries. In 1934, while in the United States, Udet became en-
thralled observing the U.S. Navy Curtiss Helldiver fighter conducting
highly successful dive-bombing runs. Subsequently, the Germans pur-
chased two Helldivers that were used in developing the Stuka dive-
bombers that played a key role in the campaigns of 1939 and 1940.49
The Luftwaffe’s development of dive-bombing was not without
problems. When Wolfram von Richthofen took over the Development
Branch of the Technical Office, he asserted that modern air defenses
would make dive-bombing too risky a proposition, flatly declaring, “Div-
ing below 6,600 feet is complete nonsense.”50 Fortunately for the Luft-
waffe, several officers in von Richthofen’s branch succeeded in securing
support for additional field-testing, which kept the dive-bombing option
alive and enabled it to prosper.
Yet if dive-bombing was a good thing, the Luftwaffe eventually pur-
sued too much of it. Udet’s enthusiasm for this form of attack saw him
 Out of the Trenches 267

directing that virtually all bombers be designed for dive-bombing. The

decision, James Corum notes, “bordered on aeronautical lunacy.” Thus,
the Ju-88 bomber could have entered production in 1938, but owing to
the thousands of changes required for it to withstand the stresses en-
tailed in dive-bombing, its production was delayed by roughly two years.
Such a delay may seem like a small matter today, when aircraft develop-
ment typically runs well over a decade. The rapid advance in aviation
technology in the 1930s, however, resulted in a rapid turnover in aircraft
as new, improved versions entered production every few years.51
The Luftwaffe’s aerial-bombardment options were further limited
when, in 1937, its four-engine bomber programs were canceled.52 Al-
though Germany’s two-engine bombers were adequate for operations
against its immediate neighbors, the decision left the Luftwaffe without a
long-range bomber. A May 1939 war game showed that the Luftwaffe
lacked the bombers needed to wage an “operational war” against Great
Britain, a likely adversary.
In December 1938, Milch reorganized the aircraft production sys-
tem. The new approach emphasized developing and producing a few
bombers and fighters of superior design. The net effect was to reduce re-
search and development on the next generation of aircraft at a time when
aviation technology was advancing at a rapid rate. When the Germans
realized the problem in 1942, it proved too late: the Luftwaffe con-
fronted increasingly capable Allied aircraft with planes that were increas-
ingly outmatched.53 To be sure, the short-term effects of these decisions
did not prove fatal to the German military’s development of Blitzkrieg.
In fact, if Poland and France were Germany’s security problems and if
the purpose of Blitzkrieg-type operations was to produce a rapid deci-
sion in the near-term future, then locking in aircraft designs to maximize
the Luftwaffe’s strength for a short period arguably made a great deal of
sense from a strategic planning perspective. But German planners could
not know that Germany would go to war in the fall of 1939, or that it
could find itself waging a long war, or that it might confront new bellig-
erents entering the conflict, thereby revealing the pitfalls of moving to-
ward a single-point solution when developing a military capability in a
time of rapid technological change.
In brief, Udet’s decisions cost the Luftwaffe both time and flexibility,
and Milch had locked the Luftwaffe into a force structure whose aircraft,
though initially impressive, would depreciate rapidly in value as the war
dragged on.54 These shortcomings notwithstanding, the Luftwaffe
268 Part 2

achieved a great deal in a remarkably short period of time, thanks in no

small measure to steps taken during the sixteen years that Germany lived
under the Versailles Treaty’s constraints.
When Hitler disavowed the treaty in 1935, the Luftwaffe had
roughly 1,000 front-line aircraft. It was participating in full-scale maneu-
vers with the Army only a year later.55 The aviation industry put the rap-
idly increasing military budgets to good use. The Luftwaffe expanded
from three “aerial advertising squadrons” in 1933 to a force of some
4,100 front-line aircraft six years later.56 Despite Germany’s relatively
late start in aviation, when war came it led the world in a number of im-
portant areas, such as high-altitude flight, aircraft cannon, and bombs.57
When all was said and done, the Luftwaffe was well prepared to support
mobile mechanized warfare against Germany’s immediate neighbors. It
was, however, ill prepared for longer-range bombing campaigns of the
type it undertook against Great Britain in the summer of 1940 or for an
extended war waged on a far greater geographic scale against the Soviet
Union.58

Capital Stock, Manpower, and the Industrial Base

The Reichswehr’s development of Blitzkrieg could not succeed without
the means, both industrial and human, to field the kinds and numbers
of forces needed to execute it. Germany’s rearmament began following
Hitler’s rise to power in January 1933. By October, Germany had with-
drawn from a general disarmament conference and the League of
Nations. In 1935, Hitler announced full German rearmament in defiance
of the Versailles Treaty, and an ambitious rearmament program followed.
The pace of rearmament was limited by Germany’s stunted armaments
industry and the small existing military that would form the foundation
for a much larger Wehrmacht. The German defense industrial base’s
limitations, combined with Hitler’s aversion to placing Germany on a
war-economy footing, meant the Wehrmacht would remain overwhelm-
ingly reliant on horses—not machines—for its mobility.
In forcing Germany to scrap most of its World War I–era equip-
ment, the Versailles Treaty proved a blessing in disguise, enabling the
Truppenamt to design the future German military from a clean sheet of
paper, as it were. Unlike the Allies, Germany was not left with large
stocks of recently produced weapons that had years of service life left
in them. Having spent so heavily on the war, political leaders in Britain
 Out of the Trenches 269

and France were unwilling to replace weapons, even if progress in mili-

tary-related technology was accelerating their depreciation. The ink
was barely dry on the Versailles Treaty when the Reichswehr established
the Waffenamt as its center for weapons and munitions research and
development.59
Although the Germans were required to disestablish the General
Staff, they found ways to preserve their well-educated officer corps.
Reichswehr junior-officer training now featured Military District Exami-
nations—the General Staff entrance examinations in all but name. In
place of the banned Kriegsakademie, a “Leadership Assistant” course
emerged. As with the Kriegsakademie, the course ran three to four years,
emphasizing military history and war games. In recognition of the need
to understand rapidly advancing military-related technologies, every year
a dozen or so officers were sent to civilian universities to obtain engi-
neering degrees, with many going on to achieve high rank.60
As early as 1924, the military districts were directed to ensure that in
each unit and garrison someone would be assigned as its armor officer,
with responsibility for training in mechanized warfare.61 In 1926, the
small technical course for motor officers changed its emphasis from
motor technology and maintenance to armor and mechanized warfare
tactics. The Inspectorate of Motor Troops School steadily evolved to be-
come the Panzer Troops School following the onset of full-scale German
rearmament.62

Skirting Treaty Limits

To skirt the Versailles Treaty’s restrictions, additional training in armored
warfare was conducted at the Reichswehr’s center at Kazan in the Soviet
Union. Between 1929 and 1933, it produced a cadre of qualified armor
instructors.63 Germany’s “exporting” of much of its training and cadre
development also extended to its pilots. Between 1925 and 1933, some
200 to 300 Germans were stationed at the Lipetsk air installation in the
Soviet Union, as students, instructors, ground staff, or test pilots. Be-
tween 1929 and 1932, at least a dozen different aircraft models were put
through trials there.64 In Germany itself, pilot training was conducted
through civilian “front” organizations such as Sportflug. The nation’s
commercial airline, Lufthansa, was, in effect, a reserve air force.65 Thus,
in 1935, when Hitler announced that Germany was rearming, the Luft-
waffe already possessed some 1,000 first-line aircraft.66
270 Part 2

Such training had its limits. In December 1936, Germany initiated the
last comprehensive armaments plan prior to the war’s outbreak. Hitler’s
directive to field “a powerful army in the shortest possible time” severely
strained the country’s manpower and industrial base.67 Up to that point,
the high level of training and quality of personnel in the treaty-limited
Reichswehr had enabled Germany’s Army to expand smoothly from
100,000 to 300,000. The December 1936 plan, however, called for creat-
ing a peacetime force of 830,000 that, supported by reserves, would be ca-
pable of mobilizing a force of 4,620,000 in 102 divisions, including five
panzer divisions and eight motorized divisions, by October 1939.68 Achiev-
ing this required a significant watering down of troop quality, even with a
doubling of the conscription period from one year to two.
Early in von Seeckt’s tenure, he directed the Army to “engage in
joint planning with industry so that mass production of approved weap-
ons and material could be begun at the strategically proper moment.”69
German industry cooperated. Krupp established armament subsidiaries
abroad, including at Bofors gun plants in Sweden, Sideius A.G. ship-
building yards in Rotterdam, and torpedo works at Utrecht and The
Hague. Krupp holding companies were set up in Barcelona, Bilbao, and
Cadiz in Spain, where submarine construction and experimentation went
forward. Indeed, “it would be difficult to find a more perfect collabora-
tion than that which existed between Krupp and the military establish-
ment in these years.” German officers also had access to some equipment
proving grounds, such as those at Bofors.70
Throughout the 1920s, other countries’ military industries also in-
fluenced and aided the Germans in designing and developing equipment.
When the French firm Citroën was pioneering half-track technology,
German firms licensed it to support the German Army.71 Technical work
on tanks began in 1925, when design specifications for a Grosstraktor
(“Large Tractor,” so named to deceive the Allies) were established. Be-
tween 1925 and 1929, the German industrial firms of Krupp, Daimler,
and Rheinmetall were all developing tanks, with work on prototypes of
half-track vehicles beginning in 1930.72 By 1928, each firm had built two
Grosstraktors for German field-testing in Soviet Russia.
Germany’s industrial activities in Soviet Russia were particularly no-
table. In 1923, the Reichswehr launched a private holding corporation
that financed a Junkers aircraft factory at Fili near Moscow, a poison-gas
factory at Samara, and shell factories (under Krupp administration) at
 Out of the Trenches 271

Tula, Leningrad, and Schlusselberg. For its investment, the German

Army received a share of these plants’ production.73
Despite the sophistication of Germany’s industrial base, it suffered
from shortcomings relative to its future rivals, especially the United
States. For example, in 1937, the German automotive industry produced
331,000 vehicles, while the United States was turning out 4.8 million.
For every 1,000 Americans, there were more than 200 motor vehicles, as
compared to 16 for every 1,000 Germans.74 It thus came as no surprise to
many military observers that when the Americans transformed their
commercial automotive industry to military production, its output over-
whelmed Germany’s. Although the Wehrmacht often proved able to best
its rivals in the quality of its equipment and, especially, its troops and
doctrine, at some point Hitler’s willingness to challenge the world’s
greatest economy, largest state, and greatest empire was bound to over-
whelm von Seeckt’s elite force.

Mechanization
Despite efforts to mitigate the effects of the Versailles Treaty, the restric-
tions imposed by it clearly constrained the scale and quality of German
efforts toward mechanization. Although the Germans possessed nearly
1,500 Panzer (Panzerkampfwagen) I tanks by the fall of 1938, production
was terminated at that time as the tank, with thin armor and two machine
guns armament, was already obsolete. Nevertheless, the Panzer I formed
the core of the Wehrmacht’s armored force at the war’s beginning.75 The
Panzer II, designed as a gap filler until state-of-the-art tanks could be
produced, was nevertheless an improvement over its predecessor. The
Wehrmacht had more than 1,200 Panzer IIs for the Poland campaign.76
By 1935, the design for the Panzer IV, a medium (twenty-ton) tank
with a 75-millimeter gun, was completed. It entered mass production in
1937 and remained in production throughout the war. Only 211 of the
tanks, however, were in service in September 1939. By May 1940, when
the campaign in the West began, the number had only risen to around
300. The Panzer III was the last tank developed by Germany before the
war, entering mass production in early 1938. It was specially designed to
combat other tanks and was armed with the moderately high-velocity
37-millimeter gun. By the time the war began, Germany had 148 Panzer
IIIs, and by May 1940, 432 were in service.77
272 Part 2

In 1936, General Beck advocated producing a special, heavily ar-

mored “infantry” tank to supplement the main battle tank (Panzer III)
and fire-support tank (Panzer IV). Guderian strongly and successfully
opposed Beck’s idea, arguing that an “infantry tank” was contrary to the
German armored force’s emphasis on speed and mobility.
Due to production limitations, the Wehrmacht incorporated other
militaries’ tanks into its own formations. The Austrian Army’s integra-
tion into the Wehrmacht following the Anschluss in March 1938 added
two infantry, two mountain, one panzer, and one light division to the
German Army.78 Following the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Ger-
mans seized some 150 Czech tanks and the well-developed Skoda arma-
ments works, which possessed more experience in tank design (and in
production efficiency) than its German counterparts.79 Skoda continued
to produce tanks, only now for the Wehrmacht. By May 1940, some 300
Czech-built P-38(t) tanks formed the core of the newly created Seventh
and Eighth Panzer Divisions.80
Although this hodgepodge of equipment aided the German Army’s
expansion, it also greatly complicated its logistics. The Wehrmacht suf-
fered from a staggering array of vehicle and engine types. In an effort to
make up for the shortcomings of German industry and Hitler’s determi-
nation to go to war before the Wehrmacht was fully expanded, the tanks
and other forms of mechanical transport of defeated or occupied states
were often incorporated into the German Army. By 1941, more than
2,000 vehicle types participated in the German Army’s assault on the So-
viet Union. Army Group Center alone had to carry more than a million
spare parts. One panzer division had 96 types of personnel carrier, and
111 types of truck.81 This situation was further exacerbated by the Ger-
man population’s relative unfamiliarity with motor vehicles and the
breakneck pace of the Army’s expansion following Hitler’s renunciation
of the Versailles Treaty.82

Aviation
Germany’s loss of its air force following World War I retarded the devel-
opment of its aviation industry. Nonetheless, the Reichswehr exploited
the nation’s commercial aviation sector, providing it with subsidies to
create an industrial base that could keep pace with technological devel-
opments in the field. By the mid-1920s, Germany was recognized as a
world leader in commercial aviation, as Germany’s airlines flew greater
 Out of the Trenches 273

distances and carried more passengers than the airlines of France, Great
Britain, and Italy combined.83 German pilots gained substantial experi-
ence in long-distance flying, navigation, and instrumentation.84
Still, there was only so much the military could do by way of “out-
sourcing” research and development of new aviation technology and
subsidizing its commercial airlines. These industrial capacity limitations
appeared when rearmament began in the mid-1930s. Nevertheless, once
the military aviation industrial base began to mobilize, the results were
impressive. From a base of roughly 4,000 workers at the time Hitler
came to power, the aircraft industry boasted a force of more than
200,000 in less than six years.85 As with the ground forces, the Luftwaffe
benefited greatly from the rapid advances in aviation technology during
the 1930s, which had the effect of rapidly obsolescing existing stocks of
combat aircraft in the air forces of Germany’s rivals.

The German Military Takes the Lead

Forced by circumstance to observe the efforts of others in developing
mechanized air-land warfare, the German military also positioned itself to
take the lead when the opportunity arose. Toward this end, field-training
exercises proved invaluable.
From the beginning, General von Seeckt insisted that tanks be repre-
sented in war games and maneuvers “as often as possible,” so mock “tanks”
were fabricated. Both 1926 Reichswehr field exercises employed “dummy”
tanks in emphasizing maneuver, concentration, and offensive operations
by the ground forces, while stressing the use of aircraft in reconnaissance,
observation, and ground-attack roles. The insights derived from the exer-
cises were significant. Following the 1927 maneuvers, the Third Cavalry
Division’s report concluded, “A battle without tanks is obsolete.”86
The fall maneuvers of 1930, the largest since the war, found the
Reichswehr focusing on mobile air-land operations.87 The U.S. military
attaché observing the exercise reported, “The transportation of the 5th
Division was quite modern and up to date. . . . Although there were no
air corps forces connected with this maneuver, all officers and men be-
haved exactly as though they were operating under wartime conditions
in which the enemy aerial observation was very alert. . . . In accordance
with the Versailles treaty, the Germans are not allowed any tanks. Yet,
they had a full quota of dummy tanks with the 5th Division. These tanks
were made by constructing tin covers over light automobiles.”88
274 Part 2

The group maneuvers, the communications exercises, and the Trup-

penamt’s annual war games encouraged those who believed in von
Seeckt’s vision, while attracting converts. An American officer observing
the 1926 maneuvers witnessed the Germans ignoring the “need” to
maintain a continuous front, while advancing rapidly and showing a
reckless disregard for protecting their flanks. He assumed these actions
were the result of inept commanders. As things progressed, he was
shocked to realize it was being “done by intent.”89
The path to Blitzkrieg became a bit smoother when, on April 1,
1931, General Oswald Lutz was appointed inspector of motorized forces,
with Lieutenant Colonel Guderian as his chief of staff. The two made a
formidable team, with Lutz often able to gain an audience for Guderian’s
ideas, which, given the latter’s lack of tact, was no mean feat. A railroad
engineer by trade, Lutz was bright and receptive to new ideas. Earlier in
his career he had served in the technical branches, commanding the mo-
tor-transport assets of one of Germany’s field armies during the Great
War. In the late 1920s, as a colonel, Lutz was responsible for the Reichs­
wehr’s motor-transport troops conducting experiments involving trucks,
dummy tanks, and wooden artillery and antitank guns. The results led to
two experimental infantry brigades being formed in 1929. They included
a light “tank” battalion and three infantry battalions transported by
truck.90
Over the next several years, under Lutz’s watchful eye, these brigades
participated in a series of exercises, leading him to conclude that panzer
forces should be employed independent of infantry and cavalry elements.
Tying them down in support of infantry would, Lutz argued, nullify the
panzers’ advantage in speed and range. He also pressed for employing
the panzers en masse, arguing that they must be concentrated to win the
breakthrough battle and lead the pursuit (or deep penetration) into the
enemy’s rear area. Lutz emphasized the value of surprise in panzer oper-
ations, advocated supporting the panzers with mobile combined-arms
forces, and recommended that larger, multibattalion exercises be con-
ducted to capture the effects at the operational level of warfare. The
small-scale exercises conducted to date, Lutz noted, risked giving a “false
picture of both weapons and troops.”91
The field exercises of 1931 and 1932, employing dummy tanks, rep-
resented a significant step forward for Lutz and his ideas. The “panzers”
operated independently from the infantry. Emphasis was placed on
 Out of the Trenches 275

massed armor, surprise, and exploiting breakthroughs with mobile re-

serves.
Although the Reichswehr brain trust saw potential in mechanized
operations, there was considerable debate over the form such operations
should take. During the 1920s and early 1930s, the German military ex-
perimented with combined mechanized and horse cavalry configurations.
Some officers maintained that cavalry could maneuver in terrain that was
inaccessible to armored units, while allowing that mechanized forces
could move more rapidly in open terrain and along roads.92

The 1932 Maneuvers

These concepts were tested in the 1932 maneuvers, which pitted an at-
tack by Red (Polish) forces against Blue (German) forces and saw a sub-
stantial increase in the size of motorized formations and the scope of
their operations.93 Every major participating unit was motorized to some
degree. The Red cavalry corps included dummy tanks, trucks, motorcy-
cles, and armored cars—capabilities far more advanced than anything
Poland had at that time. Red’s plan was “to attack Blue forces fighting on
the Oder [River] deep in the flank and rear.”94
The exercise found the horse cavalry unable to keep up with the mo-
torized reconnaissance detachments.95 The maneuvers’ high point found
a motorized cavalry corps attempting to cross the Oder River from the
east. The corps’s diverse mix of horse cavalry and motorized forces
proved a nightmare. Germany’s president (and former field marshal) Paul
von Hindenburg, on hand to witness the exercise, declared, “In war, only
what is simple can succeed. I visited the staff of the Cavalry Corps. What
I saw there was not simple.”96 The maneuvers’ findings were so striking
that although the cavalry had been among the most conservative of the
Army’s branches, a significant portion of its leadership began to embrace
motorization.97 Indeed, roughly 40 percent of the early Panzer Troop of-
ficers were from the cavalry. Far stiffer opposition came from the artil-
lery, which struggled to adapt to operating on a mobile battlefield.98
The exercises also saw the Germans fitting their command “tanks”
with radios. First-rate radio communication was integral to fast-paced
operations and deep penetrations, and communications network schemes
were among the Army’s most widely discussed topics relating to the
proper organization and employment of mobile forces.99 The previous
276 Part 2

year’s British maneuvers provided the first demonstration of tank forma-

tions controlled by a master radio transmitter, and the Germans were
anxious to keep pace.100 By the time Germany invaded Poland, all Ger-
man tanks were equipped with radio receivers. Limitations on industrial
output limited the number of tanks with radio transmitters, with priority
going to command vehicles.
As the historian Robert Citino has observed, “What proved to be the
correct application of armor—employing tanks as part of an all-mechanized
combined-arms force—was something that the Germans had figured out
by 1932 . . . with dummy tanks, at a time when the country was officially
disarmed.”101 To be sure, the proper mix of elements for mechanized forma-
tions, and the variety of these formations, would remain a matter of great
debate for some time to come. For advocates of mechanized warfare like
Guderian, however, the fall 1932 exercises, with their faux mechanized and
motorized formations, “cheered us no end.”102
For Lutz and Guderian, the 1932 British maneuvers offered further
encouragement. The British employed tanks capable of ranges approach-
ing 150 miles and of advancing nearly 100 miles a day.103 Nevertheless,
Germany’s military leaders proceeded at a measured pace. When the new
Army field manual, Truppenführung, was issued, it accepted the concept of
employing tanks on a large scale but primarily as an adjunct to infantry-
dominated maneuvers rather than in independent operations.104
Following the 1932 maneuvers, Guderian challenged General Lud-
wig Beck, chief of the Truppenamt (and who later became chief of the
re-created General Staff), to accelerate the fielding of panzer divisions.
Beck had chaired the committee that updated the Truppenführung. De-
spite Guderian being far junior in rank to Beck, the general and the
Army as a whole were remarkably tolerant of men like Guderian, who “at
one time or another antagonized virtually every senior officer in the
army.” Yet not only did Guderian survive despite his abrasive personality;
he flourished.105
Although Beck would hear Guderian out, he was more cautious than
his subordinate when it came to assessing the potential of massed armor
operating independently deep in the enemy’s rear areas. Thus, their dif-
ferences were primarily over the pace of change, not its direction. As
Guderian recalled, when he told Beck that wireless would enable com-
mand over even fast-moving formations, the general remained skeptical,
declaring, “No, no, I don’t want to have anything to do with you people.
You move too fast for me.”106
 Out of the Trenches 277

Hitler Quickens the Pace

The pace toward Blitzkrieg-style operations quickened following Hitler’s
rise to power in January 1933. Despite the Versailles Treaty restrictions,
the Panzer I began to enter production, and Lutz approved plans for the
Panzer II. The maneuvers that year included a cavalry division with a
motorized battalion of two panzer companies and two motorcycle com-
panies, along with a fully motorized supply train. The infantry division
participating in the exercise had a motorized/mechanized element that
included panzers, antitank guns, and (as with the cavalry division) a fully
motorized logistics component.107
The pace quickened further still following Hitler’s renouncing of the
Versailles Treaty and the onset of rapid German rearmament in 1935.
Lutz, now a major general, was assigned as head of the newly established
Panzer Troops Command but lost Guderian when he took over com-
mand of one of the newly formed panzer divisions. (Guderian’s successor,
Friedrich von Paulus, later commanded the ill-fated Sixth Army at
Stalingrad.)108
Still, the German military’s vision exceeded what its forces could do
in practice. But the gap was closing. In June, before Germany even had a
single operational panzer division, General Beck conducted a General
Staff planning exercise involving a panzer corps.109 Although the exercise
involved a counterattack against Czech forces with three panzer divi-
sions, they remained under the infantry’s command, to the frustration of
Guderian and his fellow armor enthusiasts.110
Guderian, however, found an important ally in Hitler. When the
führer visited Kummersdorf in early 1934 on an inspection, Guderian
seized the opportunity to demonstrate the kind of equipment that would
constitute a panzer division—including tanks, motorcycles, and recon-
naissance cars. Following the demonstration, Hitler declared, “That’s
what I need! That’s what I want to have.”111 Although he did not say why
he wanted this type of equipment or in what quantity, Hitler also had his
own vision of the next war, one not terribly dissimilar to von Seeckt’s.
Shortly after coming to power, Hitler declared, “The next war will be
quite different from the last world war. Infantry attacks and mass forma-
tions are obsolete. Interlocked frontal struggles lasting for years on petri-
fied fronts will not return.”112 It’s also clear he understood what
Guderian was proposing. Hitler’s shortcomings as a military strategist
were exposed over time, but his knowledge of military weapons and
278 Part 2

systems, especially their characteristics and capabilities, was widely ac-

knowledged as remarkable.113

The Panzer Force

In August 1935, the first exercise of a prototype panzer division was con-
ducted on Lüneburg Heath, near Munster. The results were impressive.
At one point, Army commander in chief General von Fritsch directed
the panzer division to shift ninety degrees to face an enemy that had sud-
denly appeared on its flank. Although specialized training had been
sparse and radio equipment had not been fully issued, the division exe-
cuted the maneuver in less than ninety minutes.114 The four-week exer-
cise convinced von Fritsch of mechanized forces’ great potential and that
the best defense against massed armor attack was the tank itself.115
The first panzer maneuvers continued to draw on contemporary
British exercises. The 1934 British maneuvers saw its Army’s experimen-
tal mobile division combining a four-battalion tank brigade with a mo-
torized infantry brigade and motorized engineers, reconnaissance, and
communications elements—almost exactly the same structure employed
by the Wehrmacht in creating the first panzer divisions a year later.116 It
was quickly becoming clear, however, that the Germans no longer
needed tutoring from the British, or any other military, in the art of
mechanized warfare.
In October 1935, two months after maneuvers involving a prototype,
the Wehrmacht established three panzer divisions. Reflecting General
Beck’s “go-slow” approach, he specified three roles for the new divisions:
supporting infantry attacks, antitank defense, and “independent opera-
tional use together with other motorized forces (at present panzer divi-
sion).”117 Beck’s inclusion of the third task was very much in tune with
what the panzer enthusiasts had been advocating.
The first panzer divisions were composed of a tank brigade and a
motorized infantry brigade, which were also similar in organization to
France’s light mechanized division. There were also, however, important
differences. Unlike the French, the Germans emphasized combined
arms: there was a complete range of supporting arms for the panzers: a
motorized artillery regiment, antitank battalion, and pioneer company
(later expanded to a battalion). Contrary to French doctrine, the
Wehrmacht called for concentrating mechanized forces for mobile
operations.118
 Out of the Trenches 279

Following the panzers’ encouraging performance at Lüneburg,

mechanized-force enthusiasts within the Wehrmacht began to campaign
for establishing a panzer corps, made up of several panzer divisions.119
Yet the proper mix of combined arms for the panzer division, let alone a
panzer corps, had yet to be established. German armored-warfare advo-
cates, like their British counterparts, initially held that panzer divisions
should place overwhelming emphasis on armor. In fact, the first panzer
division boasted 561 tanks.120
This suited panzer advocates like Guderian.121 Field exercises, how-
ever, revealed the division to be overly “tank heavy,” and steps were taken
to increase the division’s infantry and support elements, including logis-
tics and engineer units, to better balance its structure.122 By the time of
Germany’s invasion of Poland, the panzer division’s tank strength had
been reduced to between 220 and 320, and the ratio of panzer companies
to infantry companies was changed from 16 to 9 to 12 to 12.123
In summary, the devastating combined-arms formation at the core of
Blitzkrieg owed much to the insights derived from the German military’s
field exercises and to the Army’s traditional emphasis on combined-arms
cooperation. As the Wehrmacht migrated toward its panzer force, it de-
viated from the British path, which yielded tank-heavy, infantry-poor
“unbalanced” divisions, lacking in supporting arms.124
The Wehrmacht also proved remarkably willing to experiment with
other force structures in developing its mechanized forces. Although
Guderian thought almost exclusively of panzer divisions, Beck placed
greater priority on experimenting with a range of formations, including
motorized infantry regiments that, he believed, could be combined rap-
idly into task forces tailored to the mission at hand. Beck also planned to
create four fully motorized infantry divisions to work with the panzers.
Here he encountered opposition from the chief of the General Army Of-
fice (Allgemeines Heeresamt), Colonel Fritz Fromm, who was responsi-
ble for carrying out the general’s decision. Fromm argued that Beck’s
idea of partially motorizing infantry divisions (the motorized regiments)
made no sense. Fromm was supported by Guderian and Lutz, who were
concerned that mixed formations would slow the mechanized units, rob-
bing them of a key source of advantage.
Fromm’s criticism took hold. Unfortunately for panzer advocates,
however, it led to the fielding of light divisions composed of two motor-
ized rifle regiments, a reconnaissance regiment, an artillery regiment,
and a panzer battalion.125 General Guderian strongly objected to the
280 Part 2

latter’s formation, arguing that their reconnaissance function could be

better carried out by the Luftwaffe. But by September 1939, four light
divisions were in the force. (The Polish campaign, however, later
proved Guderian right, and the light divisions were converted to panzer
divisions.)
The panzer divisions came into their own in the week-long 1937 fall
maneuvers, which took place on the North German Plain. They were by
far the largest held in Germany since the Great War. Eight infantry divi-
sions took part, along with the Third Panzer Division and the First Pan-
zer Division’s First Panzer Brigade, some 800 tanks in all.126
The Third Panzer’s attack plan involved employing its infantry bri-
gade to engage enemy troops defending a bridgehead, while the divi-
sion’s panzer brigade struck the left flank of the defending force. The
panzers, it was hoped, would make a breakthrough and advance into the
enemy’s rear. The division’s action was part of a larger, corps-size assault
planned along a twenty-five-mile front. The attack demonstrated every-
thing the Wehrmacht’s most ardent panzer advocates could have hoped
for. After a sixty-mile approach march, the division went into the attack,
forcing the enemy to commit its reserves. The following day, the Third
Panzer broke through the enemy front and penetrated deep into its rear.
The enemy position quickly became untenable, and the issue was essen-
tially decided only four days into the planned seven-day exercise.127
Overseeing the maneuvers was General Franz Halder, who succeeded
Beck as chief of the General Staff a year later. He came away stunned by
the “fluid mobility” in the Third Panzer’s operations, which were success-
fully coordinated with the Luftwaffe. General Beck, hardly an opponent
of the panzer arm, was so taken aback by what he was seeing that he
lodged a protest with the umpires, something unheard of since before the
Great War. Although the division was ordered removed from further
play, Beck acknowledged that it had “solved the problem allotted to it,
through a well-planned, swift, and energetic use of its means.”128 Most
importantly, Hitler, who observed the maneuvers, was impressed.129
Guderian, for his part, continued to promote his vision by placing
articles in military journals, where he argued that the means for revers-
ing the Great War’s Western Front stalemate were at hand:

The chances of an offensive based on the timetable of artillery

and infantry co-operation are . . . even slighter today than they
were in the last war. Everything is therefore dependent on this:
 Out of the Trenches 281

to be able to move faster than has hitherto been done: to keep

moving despite the enemy’s defensive fire and thus to make it
harder for him to build up fresh defensive positions: and finally
to carry the attack deep into the enemy’s defenses. . . .
As a result of surprise achieved, the March Offensive of 1918
was outstandingly successful, despite the fact that no new types
of weapons were employed. If, in addition to the normal meth-
ods of achieving surprise, new weapons are also employed, then
the effects of surprise will be greatly increased; but the new
weapons are not a prerequisite to those effects. We believe that by
attacking with tanks we can achieve a higher rate of movement than
has been hitherto obtainable, and—what is perhaps even more impor-
tant—that we can keep moving once a breakthrough has been made.130

Three additional “exercises” in the late 1930s also proved important in

refining panzer operations. Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938
provided an opportunity to deploy some of the new panzer formations,
including the entire Second Panzer Division and several panzer regi-
ments, as part of the occupation force. During the movement, the divi-
sion covered more than 400 miles in less than two days, while the SS
Liebstandarte Regiment covered over 600 miles in the same period, even
though the operation had been hastily improvised.131 However, the Sec-
ond Panzer Division had to abandon 30 percent of its tanks along the
way, owing to problems ranging from engine difficulties and gearbox or
tread damage to navigation problems (such as sliding off slick roads).
Guderian recalled, “The most important weakness to make itself felt was
the insufficiency of maintenance facilities, particularly for the tanks. This
weakness had already been apparent during the autumn maneuvers of
1937. Proposals to remedy this state of affairs had, however, not yet been
fulfilled by March of 1938. This mistake was never made again.”132 Many
other tanks had to halt their advance due to a lack of fuel.133 The experi-
ence gained employing mechanized forces in the occupation of Austria,
combined with Wehrmacht operations associated with occupying the
Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia in September 1938 and March 1939,
respectively, resulted in greater emphasis on fuel supplies and field main-
tenance, which paid dividends when war began the following year.134
Wehrmacht field exercises continued right up to Germany’s invasion
of Poland in September 1939, which interrupted planning for major ex-
ercises that would have, for the first time, employed a panzer corps of
282 Part 2

five divisions. The lessons learned in these exercises were quickly incor-
porated into military training programs. By 1938, courses at the Kreigs­
akademie were being given on the principles of panzer-force operations.
Panzers, students were instructed, should be employed “in mass and in
great depth.” Their mission was “penetration or breakthrough, envelop-
ing the flank or encircling deep to attack from the rear.” Officers were
cautioned, “it is false to restrict the mobility of the [panzer] unit to that
of the infantry.”135
That same year, the position of Chef der Schnellen Truppen (chief of
fast troops) was established and charged with overseeing the doctrinal
development and training of all mechanized troops. Guderian was as-
signed the job and gave priority to developing radio networks, which he
saw as central to coordinating fast-moving panzer formations.136

Joint Air-Land Operations

Breaking the stalemate at the operational level that had dominated the
Western Front during the Great War required more than combined-
arms mechanized and motorized ground formations. A high level of co-
operation and integration between these ground formations was needed.
Toward this end, the Luftwaffe and Army developed a partnership, with
mechanized air-land operations given priority.137 Luftwaffe commanders
instructed their officers “to participate as much as possible in the com-
mand post exercises and wargames of the other services.”138 In 1935,
General Wever directed, “Army training exercises should be used as
much as possible as Luftwaffe exercises in order to deepen our under-
standing of inter-service cooperation.”139
In fact, the German military’s air arm proved crucial in resolving sev-
eral challenges associated with the Wehrmacht’s concept of mobile war-
fare. One involved developing and maintaining an accurate picture of the
situation in a dynamic war of movement. Rapidly advancing panzer
forces would need situation awareness, and the Luftwaffe created a force
of specialized reconnaissance aircraft to function as “aerial scouts.”140
Then there was the fire-support problem. With most of the Wehrmacht’s
artillery being horse-drawn, the Luftwaffe’s ability to provide close air
support for the advancing panzers could prove critical to sustaining their
momentum. These “reconnaissance-strike” operations could also warn
the panzer spearheads of possible attacks on their flanks, while defending
against them as well.
 Out of the Trenches 283

In 1936, the Luftwaffe and the Army participated in a five-day set of

maneuvers. One entailed coordinating Luftwaffe operations with the
newly formed panzer units. It found aircraft “bombing” bridges along
the Main River near Frankfurt, crippling the movement of “enemy”
mechanized forces. The Luftwaffe, under Generals Albert Kesselring and
Hans-Jürgen Stumpf, participated in the fall 1937 maneuvers, which en-
compassed most of the Luftwaffe’s operational force, including seventeen
bomber groups, six flak regiments, seven fighter groups, and a Stuka
dive-bomber group. During the exercise, a fighter group was placed in
direct support of a panzer division, and for the first time in an exercise,
the Luftwaffe conducted an airborne drop of paratroopers to seize a key
bridge.141
By the summer of 1939, additional large-scale field exercises had
clearly demonstrated the potential of airborne forces to contribute sig-
nificantly to the Wehrmacht’s vision of mobile warfare.142 Consequently,
the Twenty-Second Infantry Division was designated an air-landing divi-
sion focusing on glider operations. The paratroop forces formed the Sev-
enth Airborne Division. German glider troops went on to win fame for
their capture of the Belgian fortress of Eban Emael during the campaign
against France and the Low Countries in the spring of 1940, and Ger-
man airborne troops proved crucial the following year in seizing the
Mediterranean island of Crete.
The Spanish Civil War, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, was fought
between the Nationalists, under the leadership of the fascist General
Francisco Franco, and the Republicans, who supported the left-leaning
Second Spanish Republic. Both sides received support from external
powers, with Germany and Italy providing most of Franco’s support,
while the Republicans were aided primarily by Soviet Russia.
The war, won by the Nationalists, offered the Wehrmacht an oppor-
tunity to field-test, albeit in a limited way, the doctrine and equipment
associated with its vision of mechanized air-land operations. As it turned
out, the Germans learned little of value in the war with respect to ar-
mored warfare. The Luftwaffe fared better, deploying some 5,000 men
and roughly 100 aircraft in Spain from late 1936 until the war’s end in
1939. This force, known as the Condor Legion, included bombers, fight-
ers, ground-support planes, and naval aircraft. Condor Legion aircraft
conducted strategic bombing, interdiction, attacks on naval vessels, close
air support, and air-superiority missions, learning to shift between them
literally on the fly. Toward the war’s end, German pilots developed a
284 Part 2

strong competence in supporting highly mobile ground forces on the

move. By the time Germany invaded Poland, more than 19,000 Luft-
waffe airmen had rotated through Europe’s best “training center,” gain-
ing invaluable experience in modern air warfare.143
The success of close-air-support operations in Spain saw Luftwaffe
leaders incorporating these lessons in numerous maneuvers with the
Army. Particular emphasis was given to supporting ground units con-
ducting river crossings and in meeting engagements, a skill that pro-
duced enormous dividends in May 1940.144
When Germany went to war in the late summer of 1939, the Luft-
waffe was “the best-prepared air force in the world.”145 It had more
veterans of modern air warfare than any other European air force. Luft-
waffe pilots were more experienced in fundamental navigation and flying
skills, as well as in night flying and bad-weather navigation, than their ri-
vals. Most important for the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe had become the
world’s best-trained force for close-air-support operations.146 When the
Condor Legion returned in 1939, it was reformed as the VIII Air Corps
under General von Richthofen. It soon distinguished itself both in the
Polish campaign of 1939 and during the campaign against the Low
Countries and France the following year.147

Blitzkrieg
Poland 1939
Germany’s attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, which triggered war
with France and Great Britain, offered the first test of the Wehrmacht’s
mechanized air-land operational concept. The German Army began the
campaign with roughly 3,000 tanks, nearly all of which were obsolete
Panzer I types, with only about 100 Panzer IIIs and 200 Panzer IVs. But
the panzers incorporated the latest communications system, and many of
the logistical problems that plagued them during the occupation of Aus-
tria had been fixed. The campaign produced a rapid German victory,
with most Polish resistance collapsing by midmonth.
During the campaign, Guderian, now commanding the XIX Panzer
Corps consisting of the Third Panzer Division and the Second and Twen-
tieth Motorized Divisions, gave Hitler a tour of his sector. Observing
some shattered Polish artillery, Hitler asked Guderian, “Our dive-bombers
did that?” To which Guderian replied, “No! Our panzers!”—and, he might
have mentioned, at the cost of only 150 killed in action.148
 Out of the Trenches 285

The close-air-support tactics that had been developed in the Spanish

Civil War, such as attacking in waves and maintaining constant pressure
on the enemy at the key point of decision, had a devastating effect on
Polish morale. Richthofen’s VIII Air Corps, with roughly half the Luft-
waffe’s Stuka dive-bombers and a ground-attack group, formed a “Close
Battle Division” supporting the German Tenth Army, which possessed
the greatest concentration of mechanized forces and had been designated
the offensive’s schwerpunkt (principal focus). The Tenth Army’s com-
mander, General Walther von Reichenau, observed that the Close Battle
Division had “led to the decision [victory] on the battlefield.”149
The campaign in Poland won over some senior-officer skeptics, such
as General Gerd von Rundstedt, to the mechanized air-land war of
movement that soon became known as “Blitzkrieg.”150 Many observers,
however, both in the Wehrmacht and in foreign militaries, argued that
Germany and Soviet Russia—which invaded Poland from the east on
September 17—had the odds stacked overwhelmingly in their favor. The
Poles were seen less as worthy adversaries than as victims.

France 1940
The German campaign in Poland was a striking success, but it was
widely believed that the Wehrmacht’s true test would come against the
French Army, still counted by many observers as the world’s finest. After
a winter of inaction on the Western Front, the Germans opened the
campaign season in April with rapid victories over Denmark and Nor-
way, setting the stage for a showdown with the Allies: France and Great
Britain.
The Wehrmacht’s evolving plan for the campaign in the west—Plan
Yellow—reveal an increased willingness to rely on its new methods of war-
fare. Two days after Poland surrendered on September 27, Halder noted
in his diary, “Techniques of Polish campaign no recipe for the West. No
good against a well-knit Army.”151 Early German plans called for Army
Group B under General Fedor von Bock to conduct the main attack,
sweeping through the Low Countries into France—a pale, unambitious
revival of the 1914 Schlieffen Plan that failed in its objective of effecting a
quick knockout blow to the Allies. Supporting von Bock’s attack would be
Army Group A, under von Rundstedt, located to the south from Aachen to
the northern terminus of France’s Maginot Line fortifications along its
border with Luxembourg. Anticipating the German axis of attack through
286 Part 2

Belgium and the Netherlands, the Allies’ Plan D called for rushing three
French armies and most of the British Expeditionary Force forward to a
line between Breda and the Dyle river to prevent the loss of Antwerp and
Rotterdam, while keeping the fighting away from French soil.152
Over the next six months, the plan changed radically, thanks to a
combination of war games, debate among senior Army officers, and Hit-
ler’s personal involvement. When presented with Plan Yellow on Octo-
ber 22, 1939, Hitler, unimpressed, asked Generals Halder and Walther
von Brauchitsch if an attack on the southern Meuse in Army Group A’s
sector could cut off and annihilate the main enemy forces to the north.
The area was dominated by the Ardennes Forest, which appeared to pose
an imposing barrier to the rapid movement of large forces, especially
mechanized and motorized units. Confronted by Hitler’s idea, the gener-
als went back to reconsider their plans.153
Coincidentally, only a few weeks later, von Rundstedt’s chief of staff,
Lieutenant General Erich von Manstein, and Guderian discussed mass-
ing a panzer attack against the Allies through the Ardennes Forest to ef-
fect a breakthrough and trap the main Allied armies in Belgium. The
next two months found Halder and von Rundstedt warming to the
idea.154 During a meeting at General Staff headquarters in mid-Decem-
ber, Halder pointed to the Ardennes Forest on a map, declaring, “Here is
the weak point. Here we have to go through!” In January 1940, von
Rundstedt conducted a war game to test the idea, but with infantry, not
tanks, leading the way.155
On February 7, von Rundstedt conducted another war game to ex-
plore von Manstein’s plan, this time employing a panzer and a motorized
corps to attack and cross the Meuse River at Sedan. When Guderian in-
sisted on attempting a crossing without the infantry divisions, von Rund-
stedt opposed the idea as too risky. Still, the game was sufficiently
encouraging to keep von Manstein’s concept on the table.156
Ten days later, Hitler met with von Manstein for a “routine” break-
fast with new corps commanders. In fact, Hitler had heard of von Man-
stein’s plan, and it piqued his interest. After the breakfast, Hitler invited
the general to stay behind and describe his plan. Hitler was impressed,
and their discussion extended into midafternoon. The next day, Hitler
presented the plan—now “his” plan—to Halder and von Brauchitsch,
with instructions to act on it. The generals, already moving toward von
Manstein’s approach, began to work out the details.
 Out of the Trenches 287

The revised plan called for shifting all the panzers, save one division
assigned to von Bock’s Army Group B for invading the Netherlands and
two others ticketed for the assault on Belgium, to Army Group A and the
Ardennes operation. Along with them went most of the Army’s best
tanks.157 In the process, Halder created the equivalent of what would be-
come a panzer army. It had two panzer corps but, out of deference to the
infantry, was designated “Group Kleist,” after its commander, General
Ewald von Kleist, a cavalry veteran. Since the final version of Plan Yellow
was designed to cut off the main French and British armies from their
logistics support as a scythe cuts stalks of grain, it was popularly known
as the “sickle-cut” plan.158
When the German offensive in the west opened on May 10, 1940, it
was far from clear that the plan, relying heavily as it did on deception
and surprise, would succeed. If the French discovered the panzer forces
snaking through the Ardennes, they would be highly vulnerable to attack
from the air while the French thickened their defenses along the planned
breakthrough point along the Meuse.
Indeed, a general examination of the German and Allied forces op-
posing each other seemed, if anything, to favor the latter. Although esti-
mates vary, the Germans possessed some 2,700 tanks in their ten panzer
divisions, most of which were the obsolete Panzer I. The Allies counted
some 3,500 tanks in their inventories (roughly 3,000 French and 200
British, along with some Belgian, Dutch, and Polish systems).159 The Al-
lies’ tank forces, however, without exception included a larger proportion
of models designed for infantry support, not independent mobile offen-
sive warfare.160
The French tanks were heavier than those of the Germans. The lat-
est French tanks, the Somua S35 and the heavy Char B, had twice the
armor of the Panzer IVs and a superior anti-armor gun.161 Reflecting the
French military’s vision of a conflict characterized by positional warfare
and attrition, their tank designs emphasized firepower and armor protec-
tion more so than their German counterparts did. Heavy armor and
large guns meant adding more weight. The German approach, empha-
sizing rapid concentration of combat power and deeply penetrating
breakthrough forces, accorded priority to speed and range.162 The Ger-
man panzers’ range advantage was even more pronounced considering
how the Wehrmacht had extended their effective range though improve-
ments in logistics, such as mobile maintenance and fuel support units.
288 Part 2

The Germans also enjoyed an advantage in the air. Although esti-

mates vary considerably, it appears that the Luftwaffe and the Allies each
had roughly 1,000 fighters, but the Allies’ 400 bombers were numerically
inferior to the Germans’ 1,100. The Luftwaffe also had the VIII Air
Corps and 325 dive-bombers, for which the Allies had no equivalent.163
Germany’s offensive began in the Low Countries, with the Luftwaffe
dropping the Seventh Airborne Division into western Holland to seize a
key airfield and bridges between Rotterdam and The Hague. The para-
troopers, reinforced by glider troops of the Twenty-Second Air Landing
Division, cut off Dutch forces planning to retreat within their “Fortress
Holland” defense line. That same day, German glider troops landed atop
the key Belgian fortress of Eban Emael, quickly capturing it and opening
the way for the rapidly advancing panzers. The French and their British
allies assumed that the German attack into the Low Countries repre-
sented the enemy’s main line of advance. Thus, in less than forty-eight
hours, the French committed their three light mechanized divisions—
those with the fastest tanks—against the advancing German forces.
The real action, however, came on the Meuse. As planned, the Ger-
mans were concentrating for their main attack along a narrow front to
the south, between Liege and Sedan. Four critical days passed before the
French began to comprehend the true situation. Von Rundstedt’s Army
Group A used its clear advantage in close air support to conduct persis-
tent Ju-87 (Stuka) dive-bombing attacks on French forces attempting to
block the German Army’s crossing of the Meuse River at Sedan. During
the critical phase of the operation, on May 13, more than a thousand
Luftwaffe aircraft kept French forces under constant attack throughout
the day. The French actually took few losses, but their morale was shat-
tered, and they proved unable to provide accurate artillery fire against
the German forces crossing the river.164
The panzer spearhead was under the command of General Gude-
rian, who recounted, “Instead of coolly determining just how serious the
danger was around Sedan and coordinating attacks from both north and
south of the area against the German bridgeheads, the French High
Command dissipated its armored divisions in several hasty and ill-
coordinated attacks.”165 He later recalled, “I was surprised that the
French long-range artillery in the Maginot Line and its westerly exten-
sion had not laid down heavier fire and caused us more trouble during
our advance. At this moment, as I looked at the ground we had come
over, the success of our attack struck me as almost a miracle.”166
 Out of the Trenches 289

Guderian’s description of the breakthrough at Sedan as bordering on

miraculous is understandable. Given the French Army’s reputation as
one of the world’s best—if not the best—and the terrain in and around
the Ardennes, which was hardly conducive to demonstrating Blitzkrieg-
style operations, the relative ease of the breakthrough must have seemed
extremely unlikely, especially against the backdrop of Western Front op-
erations in the Great War.
But Guderian also recounted that, once he crossed the Meuse, he en-
countered one of his best commanders, Lieutenant Colonel Hermann
Balck, along with his staff. Balck cheerfully greeted his commander, say-
ing, “Joy riding in canoes on the Meuse is forbidden!” Guderian recalled
that he had used those words during one of the training exercises in
preparation for the operation, since at the time, his young officers’ atti-
tudes had struck him as being overly confident. “I now realized,” Gude-
rian recalled, “that they judged the situation correctly.”167
Indeed, the speed at which the German military could adjust on the
fly far surpassed that of the French. When the Germans were preparing
to attempt the Meuse crossing, there was insufficient time to write and
disseminate the complex orders for the Army and the Luftwaffe to inte-
grate their actions. Guderian’s chief of staff, realizing that the situation
closely resembled that of a recent war game, took the game orders and
crossed out “1000” (10:00 a.m.) and wrote “1600” (4:00 p.m.) in its
place.168 It worked.
In Paris, panic began to set in. On May 13, President Paul Reynaud
told Churchill, appointed Britain’s prime minister only three days earlier,
“We have been defeated. We are beaten; we have lost the battle. . . . The
front is broken near Sedan; they are pouring through in great numbers
with tanks and armored cars.” Recalling the storm-troop Michel Offen-
sive of 1918 that soon lost momentum, Churchill told the French presi-
dent not to worry: “After five or six days they will have to halt for
supplies, and the opportunity for counter-attack is presented. I learned
all this from the lips of Marshal Foch himself.”169
But this was not 1918. The German military had spent a generation
working to avoid a repetition of that failed offensive. And they had suc-
ceeded.
Having moved beyond the Ardennes and breached the Meuse, the
German panzers could operate in the open, using their speed and range
to create an irreparable rupture in the Allies’ defenses. The panzer forces,
in fact, advanced so rapidly that they soon became separated from the
290 Part 2

nonmotorized forces. Concerned over the prospect that the panzers might
be attacked on their vulnerable flanks, von Rundstedt ordered von Kleist to
slow his advance to allow the infantry forces to catch up. Upon hearing the
orders, Guderian, furious, threatened to resign. General von Richthofen
weighed in, pledging that his VIII Air Corps could secure the panzer spear-
head’s flanks, in effect substituting air power for infantry and artillery sup-
port. Von Rundstedt reluctantly agreed. The VIII Air Corps was directed to
“follow Panzer Group von Kleist to the sea.” Making good on von Richt­­­
hofen’s promise, Luftwaffe fighter and dive-bomber aircraft units were de-
ployed with remarkable speed to support the rapidly advancing panzers,
blunting several French Army attempts to mount a counterattack.170
To ensure continuous close air support, when necessary, maintenance
personnel, aviation fuel, spare parts, and ammunition were airlifted into
newly established forward operating air bases by Ju-52 transport aircraft.
Thanks to insights derived from frequent prewar maneuvers and opera-
tions in Spain, the Luftwaffe had fielded some 117 motorized columns
capable of moving with the Army’s mechanized units. These mobile air-
field-construction companies and engineer units established austere for-
ward air bases or converted captured airfields into operational bases in a
matter of hours, enabling the Luftwaffe to maintain the high sortie rates
needed to support the fast-moving armored columns.171 Robert Citino
has noted, “This campaign marked the true birth of ‘Air-Land battle.’ ”172
Only three days after Churchill’s talk with Reynaud, the Allies’ rapidly
deteriorating position was becoming clear. So, too, was a growing recogni-
tion that the Wehrmacht was breaking new ground in military operations.
Speaking to a joint session of Congress, President Franklin Roosevelt re-
ferred to the German methods, noting, “The element of surprise which
has ever been an important tactic in warfare has become the more danger-
ous because of the amazing speed with which modern equipment can
reach and attack the enemy’s country.”173 As the panzers continued their
race to the Channel, Churchill’s eyes were opened. On May 24, the frus-
trated prime minister messaged General Hastings Ismay, his chief staff of-
ficer and adviser, remarking, “Apparently the Germans can go anywhere
and do anything, and their tanks can act in twos and threes all over our
rear, and even when they are located, they are not attacked. Also our tanks
recoil before their field guns, but our field guns do not like to take on their
tanks.”174 Years later, Churchill recalled, “I was shocked by the utter failure
to grapple with the German armour which, with a few thousand vehicles,
was encompassing the entire destruction of mighty armies.”175
 Out of the Trenches 291

The panzers reached Abbeville on May 20, cutting off the main Brit-
ish and French armies, pinning them against the English Channel at
Dunkirk. On May 28, Belgium surrendered. That day, Guderian was
given command of a two-corps panzer group—Panzer Group Guderian
—a panzer army in all but name. Although much of the British Expedi-
tionary Force and some French troops were successfully evacuated to
Great Britain, the Allies had suffered a devastating defeat. Having dis-
patched the cream of the Allies’ armies in less than a month, the Wehr­
macht turned south and breached the French defenses in short order.
Paris was taken on June 14, and an armistice confirming France’s defeat
was signed on June 22. What had proved impossible to accomplish in
four long years of static warfare a generation earlier had been accom-
plished in six short weeks in the spring of 1940.
The casualties suffered during the campaign reflected the magnitude
of Germany’s victory. The French suffered roughly 90,000 killed and
200,000 wounded, with 1.9 million prisoners taken. Total British, Belgian,
and Dutch casualties were 68,111, 23,350, and 9,779, respectively. Ger-
man losses were 27,074 killed, 111,034 wounded, and 18,384 missing.176
In evaluating the success of the campaign in France, General Wilhelm
Ritter von Thoma of Germany cited the close cooperation of the panzer
forces with the Luftwaffe, the massed use of armor, and the ability of
mechanized forces to penetrate quickly and deeply into the enemy’s rear
areas. He found it noteworthy that although the panzer divisions had
enough fuel to advance 90–120 miles, their range could be supplemented
by various means, including resupply by air.177 As for the enemy’s armored
forces, von Thoma concluded, “The French tanks were better than ours,
and as numerous—but they were too slow. It was by speed, in exploiting
surprise, that we beat the French.”178 Forced to choose between a “thick
skin” (heavy armor protection) and “a fast runner” (speed), he said that
Germany’s panzer leaders would “always” choose the latter. Von Thoma’s
critique was echoed by General Günther Blumentritt, who believed that
the German victory owed less to armor plate and firepower than to speed,
range, and superior coordination, concluding, “Above all, German tank
troops were more mobile, quicker and better at in-fighting, and able while
in movement to turn wherever required by their leader. This, the French at
that time were unable to do. They still fought more in the tradition of the
First World War. They were not up to date either in leadership [in their
concepts of modern warfare] or wireless control.”179 Indeed, during the
campaign, Guderian carried out impromptu experiments with a captured
292 Part 2

French Char B tank and found its front armor invulnerable to German
tank guns. By comparison, German tank armor was perilously thin.180
It took several years before other militaries could match what the
Germans had wrought. Not until 1942 was the Royal Air Force (RAF)
able to provide the kind of close air support that the Luftwaffe had been
flying since 1939. The U.S. Army Air Forces did not catch up until the lat-
ter half of 1943.181 It took U.S., British, and Soviet mechanized forces even
longer to close the gap. The Allies ultimately prevailed not by mastering
this new form of warfare better than the Germans but by sheer weight of
numbers and the progressively inept generalship of Corporal Hitler.

Conclusion
When did the German military truly acquire the ability to wage combined-
arms mechanized air-land warfare that became Blitzkrieg? The question
remains a matter of debate. For most of the period between the world
wars, there was an awareness on the part of a significant element in the
German officer corps that the new tools of war, especially those enabled by
advances in mechanization, aviation, and radio, could transform war’s char-
acter, land warfare in particular. Most of the senior officer corps, men like
General Beck, accepted that mechanized forces would exert a significant
influence on future wars. In the absence of a clear confirmation on the bat-
tlefield, however, relatively few officers were willing to assert that these
forces would trigger a military revolution. As an impatient General Gude-
rian wrote in 1937,

Military literature is replete with statements that indicate that

many people believe we may embark on a new war with the
weapons of 1914, or at best with those available in 1918. Many
authorities consider themselves forward-looking when they
bring themselves to admit the value of the new weapons which
appeared towards the end of the war—as auxiliaries of the old
ones. This is a narrow and negative concept. Fundamentally,
these men are unable to break free of the memories of positional
warfare, which they persist in viewing as the combat of the fu-
ture, and they are incapable of summoning up the necessary act
of will to stake everything on rapid decision. In particular, they
are blind to the prospects that are opened by a full exploitation
of the internal combustion engine. “It is a love of comfort, not to
 Out of the Trenches 293

say sluggishness, that characterizes those who protest against

revolutionary innovations that happen to demand fresh efforts in
the way of intellect, physical striving and resolution.” Hence, we
encounter the outright assertion that motorized and mechanized
weapons represent nothing revolutionary or new, and dismissive
comments on the lines that their “single” chance of success came
and went in 1918, that they have had their day, and that one may
content oneself with standing on the defensive.182

Nevertheless a critical mass of the German officer corps existed, suffi-

cient in size and stature to pursue and sustain disruptive innovation.
The German military’s path to Blitzkrieg was messy. Given the diffi-
culties involved in handicapping the prospective value of rapidly emerg-
ing military technologies, the uncertainties associated with predicting
the future geopolitical environment, and the paths that potential military
competitors would take in attempting to develop and exploit new sources
of advantage, it is hardly surprising that the German military’s path
proved bumpy.
Yet thanks to von Seeckt and his acolytes, the Reichswehr established
a vision of future warfare and identified the operational challenges it had
to solve. Of critical importance, von Seeckt’s vision fit within the Ger-
man Army’s tradition of waging wars of maneuver and annihilation,
rather than the wars of position associated with a strategy of attrition.
From an institutional perspective, the idea of mobile, mechanized air-
land operations was a very easy fit for the German military, especially as
the Luftwaffe’s leadership was populated with former Army officers.
The German military also benefited from some good fortune. Al-
though the Versailles Treaty made developing equipment and testing op-
erational concepts difficult, through disarmament the German military
avoided being saddled with rapidly obsolescing tanks and aircraft, as
were the Allied militaries following World War I. It had neither to spend
scarce resources maintaining such equipment nor to feel compelled to
incorporate it into its doctrine. Being disarmed also meant that the
Reichswehr could avoid large production runs of equipment that would
soon become outdated. Simply put, the Versailles Treaty minimized the
amount of baggage the German military had to carry along its journey,
lessening the drag effect on the path toward Blitzkrieg.
Ironically, Germany’s wartime enemies provided insight and encour-
agement to pursue von Seeckt’s vision. British military writings nurtured
294 Part 2

German thinking, and British field exercises gave men like Lutz and
Guderian growing confidence in their ideas. Soviet Russia aided the
Reichswehr in producing, testing, and evaluating the new equipment
needed to realize its vision, as well as the opportunity to train with it.
Interestingly, while the German military benefited from the actions
of other great-power militaries, the Luftwaffe avoided the infatuation
with strategic aerial bombardment that captured the minds of their
counterparts in the United States and Great Britain. Although this
yielded the “wrong” German air force for the Battle of Britain, it pro-
duced the “right” Luftwaffe for Blitzkrieg operations.183 This again
points out the situational character of disruptive military innovation: the
importance of developing a vision that focuses on the right operational
problem (or problems) at the proper scale.
When did the German Army become convinced that it had wrought
a revolutionary new form of warfare? It was not until after the spring
1940 campaign that the officer corps as a whole accepted highly mobile,
mechanized ground forces as the centerpiece of land warfare.184 Even
following the Wehrmacht’s rapid victory over Poland, initial efforts at
Plan Yellow assumed that the Polish campaign’s success was a one-off
against a weak adversary that could not be replicated against a major-
power army. But given time, the General Staff came around to the ideas
of von Manstein, Guderian, and Hitler. In the Polish campaign, the pan-
zer corps operated under the control of the infantry armies. The panzer
divisions were not concentrated for an operationally decisive campaign
along a single axis of attack. Still, their performance greatly impressed
the Wehrmacht’s senior leadership.185 Given the torpid response by the
other major military organizations to German operations in Poland, it
seems that widespread acceptance in military circles that a fundamental
shift in the character of land warfare had occurred had to await the pre-
cipitous collapse of the celebrated French Army.
The German military’s development of Blitzkrieg represented a
major, or disruptive, innovation in warfare. The Reichswehr (and, later,
the Wehrmacht) focused primarily on the challenge of fighting a war
with Poland, France, or Czechoslovakia, alone or in combination. Blitz-
krieg, as practiced by the German military, was well suited for these con-
tingencies. But Blitzkrieg had limits, in both form and scale.
Following the fall of France, Germany’s mechanized air-land force
was ill-suited to address the operational challenge posed by a defiant
Great Britain, an island nation. Indeed, Germany’s attempt to pave the
 Out of the Trenches 295

way for an amphibious assault on the island through a strategic bombing

campaign revealed serious shortcomings in the Luftwaffe’s capabilities in
that emerging form of warfare.
There is also the matter of scale. In the fall of 1939, Germany almost
certainly lacked sufficient capability to wage the kind of war against
France that proved so effective against its smaller rival, Poland.186 By
1940, however, Germany had progressed sufficiently to conduct an en-
hanced form of Blitzkrieg operations and on a scale sufficient to defeat
the Allied forces on the Western Front. The Wehrmacht, however, never
achieved the necessary scale in its mechanized air-land forces to defeat
Soviet Russia in a short campaign, as it had against Poland and France.
The German economy was incapable of providing the aircraft, vehicles,
and fuel in the quantities necessary to wage war against Russia and the
United States.187
That being said, the Germany military’s introduction of mechanized
air-land warfare enabled it to win a series of stunning victories in the
war’s initial campaigns. In fairness to the German military, however, it
must also be pointed out that for most of the interwar period, the secu-
rity problem set before it was the threat posed by France and Poland. It
was only late in the day, after Hitler’s rise, that Britain came to be seen as
an enemy. And it was Hitler who expanded Germany’s military ambitions
to include warring with the globe’s two emerging superpowers: Soviet
Russia and the United States.
As Sir Michael Howard concludes, “The Germans were almost
unique in 1939–40 in that they appreciated with the minimum of practi-
cal experience . . . the full implications which the new technological de-
velopments held for military science and embodied them in their
equipment and their doctrine. . . . Usually everybody starts even and ev-
erybody starts wrong.”188 Simply put, Blitzkrieg represents a remarkable
feat of disruptive military innovation. Perhaps Citino puts it best, observ-
ing that the Germans “are still responsible for the greatest battlefield
revolution in the history of modern warfare. . . . This was a new style of
warfare, . . . fast-paced and furious, and it left Germany’s slower-moving
adversaries stunned. It changed the face of warfare forever, and its princi-
ples are used today by all modern armies.”189
 chapter eight
Twilight of the Battle Line

To affirm that the aeroplane is going to “revolutionize” naval

warfare of the future is to be guilty of the wildest exaggeration.

—scientific american, 1910

A fleet whose carriers give it command of the air over the enemy
fleet can defeat the latter. . . . The fast carrier is the capital ship
of the future.

—admiral william sims, 1925

In the closing days of World War I, the U.S. Navy had plans for a
major expansion of the fleet. Top priority was given to increasing the
number of battleships, widely viewed as the principal measure of naval
power. Nearly a quarter of a century later, in December 1941, the Navy
entered World War II against the Axis powers still viewing itself as a
“battleship navy.” The U.S. fleet at that time also included seven aircraft
carriers, a relatively new type of warship. In fact, the first U.S. purpose-
built carrier—Ranger—had only joined the fleet seven years earlier.
Yet during the course of the war, the United States Navy employed a
new type of sea power so revolutionary, and so devastatingly effective,

296
 Twilight of the Battle Line 297

that the powerful Imperial Japanese Navy was, in the span of less than
three years, swept from the Pacific. The core element of this new form of
sea power was the U.S. carrier task force. Surface warships protected the
carriers, while a revolutionary system of mobile supply bases enabled
them to stay at sea for extended periods of time.1
When the war ended in September 1945, the Navy counted twenty-
eight large “fast” carriers and seventy-one smaller carrier types in the
fleet; the Navy’s aviation arm had more than 41,000 planes. The fleet in-
cluded fewer than a dozen battleships, and none were being built. So
swift was the change from the battleship to the carrier that when the bat-
tleships damaged in Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor were repaired, they
were sent back to sea as part of carrier task forces.2 The United States
Navy, which came out of World War I viewing itself, along with the
Royal Navy and Imperial Japanese Navy, as one of the world’s major
naval forces, now stood alone with far and away the world’s most power-
ful fleet.

A Revolutionary Vision
Barely a decade after the Wright brothers conducted the first heavier-
than-air flight, in August 1913, the U.S. Navy’s General Board recom-
mended to the secretary of the Navy that “the organization of an
efficient naval air service should be immediately taken in hand and
pushed to fulfillment.”3 Established in 1900, the General Board served as
the Navy secretary’s advisory group. The original members included the
Navy’s senior admiral, the chief of the bureau of navigation, the chief in-
telligence officer, the president of the Naval War College, and three rela-
tively junior officers. Over time, the board’s composition changed, most
notably to include the Marine Corps’ commandant. Given its members’
expertise, most issues regarding Navy policy and strategy, along with
ship design and emerging technologies, were referred to the General
Board for study and comment, and its recommendations carried great
weight.4
By 1916, Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels envisioned naval aircraft
enhancing the fleet’s scouting ability as well as the battle line’s gunnery.
More expansively, he envisioned the Navy’s nascent air arm engaging in
“offensive operations against enemy aircraft and possibly against ships or
stations.” Two years later, the board recommended that airplanes be car-
ried on scout ships, cruisers, and battle cruisers.5 Here, as was often the
298 Part 2

case, the Navy was following in the wake of Britain’s Royal Navy, which
had long stood as the world’s preeminent naval power. In 1918, the Brit-
ish launched the Argus, the prototype of future carriers. Operations
aboard the Argus revealed that the British had largely solved two of the
three basic challenges for employing carriers in the fleet: launching and
recovering aircraft at sea. The third challenge, conducting large-scale
sustained combat air operations at sea, was more formidable.6 Although
the U.S. Navy initially followed in the British footsteps, it soon diverted
down its own path.
At the end of World War I, many U.S. naval officers were willing to
concede that naval aviation could be useful for scouting the enemy to en-
sure the battleship “line of battle” was positioned to bring maximum fire
against an enemy battle fleet. Moreover, by spotting the fall of the battle
line’s shots, aircraft could enhance naval gunfire accuracy by radioing ad-
justments to the battleships. To prevent enemy aircraft from performing
similar functions, naval officers accepted that friendly aircraft would also
be useful in screening enemy scout aircraft away from the fleet and in
neutralizing enemy spotter aircraft. All this would enhance the battle-
ship’s effectiveness. In this vision of future fleet operations, the battleship
remained the principal arbiter—the “capital ship”—of war at sea.
There was also a small minority of officers who believed that aircraft
employed in fleet operations could revolutionize war at sea. These vi-
sionaries believed that all warships—regardless of their size, armor, and
armament—would, over time, be vulnerable to attack by aircraft. When
this came to pass, they asserted, it would drastically change the speed and
range at which naval actions would be fought. From the beginning, these
officers saw in the carrier the successor to the battleship and its ances-
tors, which had exercised a centuries-old domination of fleet engage-
ments. To the carrier aircrafts’ missions of reconnaissance, observation,
and air defense, which in themselves would significantly alter war at sea,
naval aviation enthusiasts added a game-changing operation: strikes by
naval aircraft at extended ranges and of sufficient magnitude to disable
an enemy fleet’s capital ships.
Some of these visionaries were inspired by the Royal Navy’s early
carrier operations. The most prominent of these men was Rear Admiral
William S. Sims, who had commanded U.S. naval forces in Europe dur-
ing the war. In 1925, Sims declared, “A small, high-speed carrier alone
can destroy or disable a battleship alone. . . . A fleet whose carriers give it
 Twilight of the Battle Line 299

command of the air over the enemy fleet can defeat the latter.”7 He con-
cluded, “The fast carrier is the capital ship of the future.” The admiral, a
member of the General Board, went on to presciently define a fast car-
rier as “an airplane carrier of thirty-five knots and carrying one hundred
planes.”8
Sims’s vision was shared by few of his colleagues. Naval aircraft in
World War I were small and fragile, capable of flying only short dis-
tances, and could not communicate effectively with ships at extended
ranges. Their bomb loads were minuscule compared with the firepower
generated by a single battleship’s broadside. Compounding the problem,
aircraft were incapable of accurately delivering their modest payload.
Following the Armistice in 1918, the Navy was confronted with a
range of options for establishing its aviation arm, which included air-
ships, seaplanes, land-based aircraft, planes carried on existing surface
combatants, and planes carried on ships specifically designed for that
purpose: aircraft carriers.9
Two principal schools of thought emerged. Admiral William S. Ben-
son, the chief of naval operations (CNO), belonged to the traditionalist
school, believing that naval aviation could, at best, be useful in scouting
and perhaps in spotting gunfire. Members of the aviation “enthusiast”
school were split in their views, with the majority visualizing naval avia-
tion principally as a key auxiliary to the battle line. Others could envision
aviation becoming a central element in fleet operations but saw several
major barriers that had to be overcome before naval aviation could real-
ize its full potential. Most reflected the views of Captain Ernest J. King,
who believed that unless aircraft technology continued to advance rap-
idly, it would not progress beyond its role as the “eyes of the fleet.”10
Benson viewed Sims and the other air enthusiasts with deep skepticism,
remarking, “The Navy doesn’t need airplanes. Aviation is just a lot of
noise.”11 Benson opposed Sims’s recommendation that battleships be
equipped with aircraft. More ominously, the CNO’s postwar reorganization
plan called for abolishing the naval aviation office and placing its functions
under the Naval Operations Planning and Materiel divisions. A special
committee convened by Benson recommended that a decision on con-
structing a carrier (the Navy had none) be put off.12 Several factors, how-
ever, both internal and external to the Navy, undermined Benson’s plans.
The first was the Royal Navy. Great Britain had established a com-
manding lead in carrier technology and planned to continue exploring the
300 Part 2

potential of naval air forces in fleet operations. For the U.S. Navy, which
aspired to achieve parity with, if not superiority over, the British fleet,
there was a strong institutional incentive to stay abreast with the Royal
Navy in all aspects of naval warfare. This made the Royal Navy’s interest
in both naval aviation and carriers difficult for the Americans to ignore.
The second factor was the Navy’s own embryonic testing of naval air
power. Support for a carrier of some sort received a boost in March
1919, when the battleship Texas conducted a main-battery gunnery exer-
cise at long range employing air spotting. Although the spotting was
done by an untrained observer, the results were “many times better than
was done by ship’s spotters.” Highly impressed with the results, the cap-
tain of the Texas, N. C. Twining, declared, “The Fleet that neglects avia-
tion development will be at an enormous disadvantage in an engagement
with a modern enemy fleet.”13 Suddenly, both spotter and fighter planes
assumed a new importance, as did the carrier, for it alone seemed able to
provide aircraft in sufficient numbers to support a major fleet engage-
ment on the high seas.
The General Board conducted a series of confidential hearings from
January to June 1919 to assess the potential role of aviation in maritime
operations. At one session, Commander Kenneth Whiting, who had
been in charge of the first U.S. naval air station in Britain during the war,
told the board, “If the war had gone on a little longer, the bombing of
Kiel, Cuxhaven and Wilhelmshaven would have been done from airplane
carriers. The [British carrier] Furious was equipped with airplanes and
made an attack on Tondern, as she steamed up and down the North Sea
without hindrance.”14 Whiting declared that the increase in gunfire ef-
fectiveness with air spotting was likely to be as great as 200 percent.15
Testimony like Whiting’s led the General Board to find that “to en-
able the United States to meet on at least equal terms any possible
enemy . . . fleet aviation must be developed to the fullest extent. Aircraft
have become an essential arm of the fleet. A Naval air service must be es-
tablished, capable of accompanying and operating with the fleet in all
waters of the globe. Great Britain has already accomplished this.”16
The General Board also recommended that “airplane carriers for the
fleet be provided in the proportion of one carrier to each squadron of
capital ships.” Despite the board’s recommendation, Admiral Benson told
Navy Secretary Daniels that he was “not yet prepared to admit the ne-
cessity for Spotting Planes and Short Distance Reconnaissance Planes
for the fighting ships of the fleet.”17 Benson, however, was overruled.
 Twilight of the Battle Line 301

Soon after, a third event convinced even the Navy’s traditionalists to em-
brace aviation.
In November 1920, the Navy conducted a closely guarded aerial
bombing test against the obsolete battleship Indiana. Owing to the classi-
fied nature of the tests (they were intended to inform future ship de-
signs), no results were announced. The Navy was therefore stunned to
see photographs of the stricken Indiana in the Illustrated London News.18
Army Air Corps Brigadier General William “Billy” Mitchell, a strong
supporter of air power’s potential (and whom many suspected of leaking
the photos), promptly declared to Congress, “We can tell you definitively
now that we can either destroy or sink any ship in existence today.”19
Mitchell’s views had clout. He was a genuine war hero. He was the
first American to fly over German lines and was the first awarded
France’s Croix de Guerre for bravery. Although Mitchell’s claims would
prove wildly exaggerated, the general had a gift for attracting attention.
His exploitation of the Indiana test results was seen as a threat by the
Navy, which began to close ranks against a common peril: the United
States Army. Retired Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, a strong supporter
of aviation—naval aviation—urged the service to develop its air arm, em-
ploying the most colorful terms, declaring, “For the sake of the U.S.N.
and the U.S. [of] America—let’s get a Bureau of Aeronautics—as p.d.q.
[pretty damned quick] as possible. . . . If we don’t get that Bureau next
session, Gen’l Mitchell and a whole horde of politicians will get an ‘Air
Ministry’ established, and the U.S. Navy will find itself lying in the street
. . . and the procession marching over it.”20
The challenge posed to naval aviation by Mitchell in the early 1920s
was real and unprecedented. Not only did Mitchell lay claim to the tradi-
tional naval function of first line of homeland defense, which he argued
could be better performed by aircraft, but he also proposed that an inde-
pendent air service be put in charge of aircraft carriers on the grounds
that these were, properly considered, “aircraft transports.”21 As the battle
lines between the Navy and Mitchell were drawn, the fight shifted to
Congress. Congressman Fred C. Hicks, of the House Naval Affairs
Committee, became an ardent supporter of an independent naval avia-
tion arm, as did Senator William Borah. When General Mitchell suc-
ceeded in having an amendment inserted in a House appropriations bill
for the Army in 1920 that would have put that service in control of “all
aerial operations from the land bases,” Secretary Daniels successfully
mobilized members of Congress to oppose it.22
302 Part 2

Although the Navy warded off Mitchell’s initial challenge, his ideas
continued to gain currency. He secured permission for a highly publi-
cized Army bomber attack on the former German battleship Ostfriesland
in July 1921, to which he invited senior political and military leaders. The
experiment was a success, in that the ship was sunk. But the test parame-
ters were heavily skewed in favor of the attacking aircraft. The ship’s po-
sition was known in advance. It also was at anchor, which precluded it
from conducting evasive maneuvers. It had no escorting air defense ships,
so there was no simulated anti-aircraft fire. Naval observers discounted
the significance of Mitchell’s stunt, but the fact that aircraft had sent a
battleship to the bottom meant that he reaped a public-relations windfall
with the U.S. public and the Congress.
Despite the Navy’s outrage, Mitchell’s well-publicized views proved
useful to the service’s air enthusiasts. Like Mitchell, these men believed
in the potential of air power to transform war at sea, but they sought to
realize that potential within their service, not apart from it. In February
1921, Admiral Benson, concerned over General Mitchell’s criticisms,
finally agreed to establish a bureau for naval aviation. The Bureau of
Aeronautics—“BuAer”—the Navy’s first new bureau in sixty years, was
established in August, with Rear Admiral William A. Moffett as its chief.
Now the Navy had a vision for naval aviation and a home for it as well.
Shortly thereafter, the General Board recommended the construction of
three mammoth 39,000-ton carriers.23
Although a growing number of naval officers believed an air arm
could be an asset, there was great uncertainty as to what form it would
ultimately take, how important it would be, and whether the vision of its
most ardent supporters would be realized. Moreover, while aviation
technology was proceeding at a rapid rate in the early 1920s, it was im-
possible to know how much more progress could be made or how soon.
In 1923, the General Board consulted experts in aeronautics, including
Massachusetts Institute of Technology president S. W. Stratton, Johns
Hopkins physicist J. S. Ames, and E. P. Warner, who chaired the Aerody-
namic Department at MIT, along with leading members of the National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), among them W. F. Du-
rand of Stanford University; George W. Lewis, NACA’s research direc-
tor; and Rear Admiral David Taylor, NACA’s secretary. These experts
forecast that “present maximum performance of heavier-than-air craft
may be increased about thirty per cent by future developments extending
over an indefinite period of years. All of them consider it most unwise to
 Twilight of the Battle Line 303

base a policy of national defense on the expectation much beyond pres-

ent performance.”24
By the early 1930s, aviation had far surpassed their estimates.

The Navy’s Trinity

The Navy’s aviation enthusiasts needed more than a vision. They needed
a sense of the operational problems or challenges that the Navy would
probably face in the event of war to inform them as to how a naval air
arm should be developed. Although the Royal Navy was considered the
gold standard among the world’s navies, the U.S. Navy viewed the Impe-
rial Japanese Navy (IJN) as its principal rival. After World War I, Japan
acquired several former German island chains in the Central Pacific, in-
cluding the Marshalls, Carolines, and Marianas. In a war with Japan,
these islands would stand as barriers to any U.S. naval advance across the
Pacific. The Navy’s war plan in the event of conflict with Japan, Plan Or-
ange, called for the U.S. fleet to transit the Pacific Ocean and wage a de-
cisive naval engagement with Japan’s battle fleet in its home waters.
Although the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 would give the U.S.
Navy a five-to-three advantage over the IJN in battleship tonnage, sev-
eral factors worked to even the balance. First, the Navy could not en-
tirely ignore the Atlantic Ocean, while the Japanese could focus their
efforts almost exclusively on the Pacific. Moreover, raids by Japanese
naval forces, such as destroyers and submarines armed with torpedoes,
could be expected to whittle away at the U.S. fleet’s strength during its
long voyage across the Pacific. The fleet would also have to guard against
strikes by Japanese land-based aircraft.
Given a disarmed Germany in Europe and good relations with Brit-
ain and France, the Navy directed the bulk of its energies to Plan Or-
ange. As the Washington Naval Treaty precluded constructing air bases
in the Western Pacific, the Navy realized it would have to bring its
own air power with it to suppress the enemy’s fleet air arm and shore-
based air forces. This would probably require large numbers of carrier-
based aircraft.25 However, the precise role of the carriers, and of naval
aviation itself, remained a source of increasingly contentious debate right
up to the great Pacific naval battles in 1942.
Identifying a vision of future naval warfare, as well as a problem to
measure progress against in achieving the vision, was a major step for-
ward in naval aviation’s development. But advocates of a revolution
304 Part 2

needed to determine whether advances in aviation technology would

support their vision. They also needed access to the industrial and
human resources necessary to sustain their vision. The answer to these
challenges was found in the interrelationship between the Naval War
College, the Navy’s fleet exercises (called “problems”), and the Bureau of
Aeronautics.

The War College

The first element of the Navy trinity was the analysis and war gaming
undertaken at the Naval War College. In April 1919, Rear Admiral Sims
returned from Britain to his position as president of the War College in
Newport, Rhode Island. Sims informed the students that war gaming
would be a major part of their education. Although Sims had gained no-
toriety for his work in battleship gunnery, he was forward-thinking and,
having been exposed to the Royal Navy’s investment in naval aviation,
could envision aviation’s potential threat to the battleship. He directed
the college’s war games to include aircraft and aircraft carriers—even
though the Navy had no such ships. The games were designed to facili-
tate a systematic and rigorous examination of how air power might influ-
ence war at sea.26
Sims’s ideas met with Bradley Fiske’s warm approval. Fiske was the
Navy’s last admiral to hold the post of “Aide for Naval Operations,”
which he relinquished in 1915, when he was succeeded by Admiral
Benson as the first chief of naval operations. Like Sims, Fiske had a well-
deserved reputation as a bright, innovative thinker, credited with invent-
ing an early version of the telescopic range finder and working out the
practical aspects of aircraft torpedo bombers less than a decade after the
Wright brothers’ first flight. When Fiske heard of Sims’s war-game ini-
tiative, he wrote the admiral, telling him, “I think your idea of having
two fleets fight each other, which are exactly alike in all respects, except
that whereas one fleet has sixteen battleships and the other fleet has six-
teen aeroplane and torpedo-plane carriers, is bully.”27
Sims kept the retired admiral informed of the games’ progress and in-
vited him to share his insights and suggestions, something Fiske was more
than willing to do. On one occasion, Fiske told Sims, “I also believe that
the aeroplane carrier is a more powerful ship than the present battleship—
or that it will be just as soon as we have worked out a few details in the
way of launching torpedoes, and landing on the decks of ships or in the
 Twilight of the Battle Line 305

water. The torpedo plane carrier is a capital ship.” Sims asked Fiske if he
would trade the “airplane carrier of the future for the battleship of the
present.” Fiske responded, “Yes:—I think a 35-knot torpedo plane carrier
(able to shoot 20 torpedo planes 200 miles) would be a ‘capital ship’—a
more ‘capital ship’ than the [battleship] New Mexico.” Sims concurred, tell-
ing Fiske, “If I had my way, I would arrest the building of great battleships
and put money into development of these new devices [aircraft carriers]
and not wait to see what other countries are doing.”28
As for the games themselves, they generated important insights for
Navy theorists, planners, and practitioners, exerting strong influence on
carrier design and aircraft type and mix. They showed that it was critical
to maximize the number of aircraft the fleet could operate. This led to
efforts to increase the number of aircraft on carriers and to compress the
operating cycle for launching and recovering aircraft.29

“BuAer”
The Navy trinity’s second element was the Bureau of Aeronautics. Its
head, Rear Admiral Moffett, like Sims, was a product of the surface fleet,
commanding the battleship Mississippi before returning to Washington to
take charge of the Navy’s newest bureau. Earlier in his career, Moffett
had established an aviator training program during World War I while
commanding the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Sims provided
the intellectual fuel that sustained the Navy along its path toward the
fast carrier task force, and Moffett added BuAer’s own, while providing
bureaucratic and political support, especially through his forceful advo-
cacy in the highest circles of the executive and legislative branches of the
government.
Moffett saw BuAer as a think tank of sorts for naval aviation, as well
as a school for the service’s future aviation leaders. Moffett was a superb
bureaucrat and consummate public-relations chief. His ability to culti-
vate the nation’s political leaders’ support of naval aviation was remark-
able. As one observer noted, “Moffett has tackled the subject with almost
fanatical zeal, supported by the whole nation from the president down-
wards.”30 The admiral’s ceaseless efforts to win key congressional leaders’
support are reflected in a note he penned at Christmastime 1931 to Con-
gressman Carl Vinson, the new chairman of the House Naval Affairs
Committee. Moffett wrote, “Upon my return from the flight of the [Air-
ship] Akron over your district . . . the thought occurred to me . . . that the
306 Part 2

people were all your friends and how fortunate they are to have you rep-
resent them in Congress. . . . I have had the honor and pleasure of know-
ing you a great many years, and feel they are to be congratulated.”31
Vinson would prove an indispensable ally to the Navy in general—and
naval aviation in particular—during the crucial decade of the 1930s.
By the late 1920s, Moffett had been head of BuAer for two consecu-
tive terms spanning seven years. He knew that third terms for bureau
chiefs were almost unheard of. Still, he set out to be reappointed, in part
because he feared that the progress being made in naval aviation, al-
though hard-won, remained tenuous. As BuAer’s chief, Moffett become
so expert at working the levers of power in Washington that there was
strong bureaucratic opposition within the Navy to retaining him as
BuAer’s director. Undaunted, Moffett initiated a letter-writing campaign,
whose message was that the Navy planned to reassign him, as the “Navy
does not appreciate Aviation and its importance, and the majority still
consider battleships and surface vessels of infinitely greater impor-
tance.”32 Soon President Herbert Hoover was receiving letters from key
congressional and business leaders supporting Moffett’s reappointment.
Hoover asked the Navy for nominations for director of BuAer. The
task for responding went to Rear Admiral Richard H. “Reddy” Leigh, the
head of the Navy’s Bureau of Navigation (BuNav) and a Moffett rival.
Leigh submitted three names to the White House, omitting Moffett’s.
The list was returned, with a letter asking for additional nominees. Leigh
resubmitted a longer list, with Moffett’s name still absent. Once again,
the list was shipped back to Leigh, requesting still more nominees. At
this point, articles were appearing in the press supporting Moffett’s reap-
pointment. Finally, Leigh submitted a list of all officers eligible to fill the
billet, with Moffett’s name at the very bottom. At last, Leigh received the
president’s reply: “Approved for Admiral Moffett.”33
Moffett’s early years at BuAer found him beating back Billy Mitch-
ell’s attempts to place naval aviation under a single Air Corps. Mitchell’s
star, however, was dimming. By early 1925, his insubordination led the
Army to reject his request to be reappointed as assistant chief of staff of
the Air Service and to assign him to San Antonio, Texas, as air officer to
an Army corps, where he reverted to his permanent rank of colonel.
Following the crash of a Navy dirigible in September 1925, however,
Mitchell publicly accused both the Army and the Navy leadership of ne-
glecting aviation and thereby encouraging such disasters. He was brought
before a court-martial for his remarks, but President Calvin Coolidge
 Twilight of the Battle Line 307

appointed an air policy board, chaired by Dwight Morrow, to study Mitch-

ell’s accusations. The board rejected Mitchell’s proposal for a separate air
force, recommending instead that the Army’s Air Service be rechristened
the Air Corps and that the War Department appoint an assistant secretary
of war for air affairs. The congressional legislation that followed—the Air
Corps Act of 1926—accepted the board’s recommendations, including es-
tablishing the office of assistant secretary of the Navy (aeronautics),
thereby giving naval aviators a voice in senior civilian circles.34 More im-
portant, it required that all commanding officers of aircraft carriers, sea-
plane tenders, and naval air stations be qualified aviators.35 This opened a
path to senior positions for the young pioneers of naval aviation—men
such as future admirals John H. Towers and Marc A. Mitscher. As for
Mitchell, his court-martial found him guilty and, on December 17, 1925,
suspended him from active duty for five years. Mitchell resigned instead.

Fleet Problems
In 1921, as Admiral Sims was beginning the war-gaming exercises at the
Naval War College and BuAer was being established, the Navy’s War
Plans Division began to assume the presence of aircraft carriers in the
fleet. It was the Navy’s series of fleet problems, however, that offered the
most visible, and thus perhaps the most compelling, argument for naval
aviation.
The War College, BuAer, and the fleet formed a mutually supporting
trinity. BuAer, through its association with industry and organizations
like NACA, kept apprised of developments in aviation technology. The
Naval War College tapped into BuAer for projections of future aviation
capabilities and employed these projections in its war games. Insights
from the college’s war games were funneled into the fleet problems,
whose results were studied by BuAer and the War College, creating a
virtuous cycle.
The fleet problems brought together the Navy’s chain of command
under conditions that came as close as practicable to war itself. During
the course of twenty-one fleet problems, conducted from the early 1920s
until Pearl Harbor, the fleet explored a range of challenges at the strate-
gic and operational levels of war. The exercises also offered an opportu-
nity to identify and resolve tactical-level matters.
The initial steps were modest. Following the Ostfriesland experiment,
Admiral Moffett saw the need to get significant numbers of aircraft
308 Part 2

operating with the fleet as soon as possible. With respect to carriers,

he asserted, “We need no less than eight big ones, because a Navy
today without aircraft protection and the search-patrol, scouting-patrol,
and shot spotting facilities which aviation provides, is fatally weak
when it puts to sea. . . . There is no argument against this statement. It is
axiomatic.”36
In March 1922, Captain Henry Mustin, BuAer’s assistant chief, ap-
peared before the General Board and, reflecting current realities, testi-
fied, “Our whole aviation program is laid out on the basis that the
battleship is the dominant factor in naval warfare, provided it is properly
supported by aircraft.” Mustin’s concept of contemporary battle fleet op-
erations saw aircraft acting as spotters. But to do that, the Navy had to
have control of the air. And control of the air meant destroying the ene-
my’s naval air arm—and perhaps its aircraft-carrying ships as well. This
required maximizing the fleet’s aircraft complement. “Consequently,”
Mustin noted, “we put on all the combat planes we can get aboard, after
leaving enough space for carrying the necessary spotting planes and a
number of torpedo planes for bombing and scout work.”37
The first fleet problem, held in the Pacific in 1923, employed two
battleships in the role of carriers. It wasn’t until Fleet Problem V in 1925
that the Navy’s first carrier, a converted collier, the Langley, appeared,
launching ten aircraft.38 As Navy planners examined the problems associ-
ated with a potential war against Japan, they were not happy at the pros-
pect of risking their battleships against what were anticipated to be
strong defense batteries arrayed along the coast of Japan’s new island
possessions. Moffett, sensing an opportunity, volunteered naval aviation
for the job of dealing with the island bases, declaring that “bombing air-
craft, protected by fighting aircraft, both necessarily operating from car-
riers, could do the job of reducing the defenses.”39 The fleet exercises
would be used to test the admiral’s assertions.
In 1925, a critical boost to the fortunes of naval aviation occurred
when Captain Joseph Reeves left the Naval War College, where he had
spent time as both a student and instructor, to become commander, air-
craft squadrons, battle fleet. Reeves, who possessed an insightful mind,
combined with strong leadership qualities, had commanded the battle-
ship North Dakota and, earlier in his career, coached the Naval Academy’s
football team to a 9-2-1 record in 1907, including a 6–0 win over Army.
His experience under Admiral Sims at Newport, however, persuaded him
to pursue naval aviation. Now commanding Langley, Reeves began to put
 Twilight of the Battle Line 309

into practice insights he had harvested from the War College’s war
games. They included the advantage accrued by conducting carrier air
strikes in “pulses” rather than “streams”—a “downpour” rather than a
“drizzle”—and the need to get as many aircraft aloft as possible and as
rapidly as possible.40
Toward that end, Reeves rejected existing carrier operational proce-
dures, which were based on Royal Navy carrier operations. The British
had only one aircraft on deck at a time, whether for takeoffs or landings.
When a plane landed, it was lowered to the hangar deck before the next
one was allowed to land. Reeves would not abide this torpid pace of car-
rier operations. He fitted the Langley with arresting gear to halt landing
aircraft on the deck and a crash barrier that would enable aircraft to re-
main parked on the flight deck, rather than being lowered below deck.
Thus, when a plane landed on the Langley, the crash barrier, which had
protected the planes in the “deck park” located forward, was lowered.
The plane was moved forward behind the crash barrier, which was then
raised as the next incoming aircraft landed. This dramatically increased
aircraft operational cycle rates. From the beginning, U.S. carriers typi-
cally parked the majority of their aircraft on the flight deck, using the
hangars below primarily for maintenance and repair activities.41
Repelling an enemy air attack was included as part of Fleet Problem
VI, set for February 1926. When Reeves took command, it took fifty-two
minutes to land Langley’s ten aircraft. By August, aircraft were being
recovered at a rate of roughly ninety seconds each. Reeves soon had
the ship launching ten of its fourteen aircraft in less than two minutes.
Three days later, seven planes were launched in forty-one seconds.42
During the fleet problem, the Langley provided the “Blue Fleet” to which
it was assigned a scouting advantage over the “enemy” “Black Fleet,”
which relied on floatplanes stationed on battleships and cruisers. The
Langley also demonstrated its worth operating as part of a new circular
tactical formation, which would prove immensely valuable for the fast
carrier task force in the Pacific War.43 On August 9, Langley’s aircraft
made 127 landings in a single day, demonstrating its ability to conduct
sustained air operations. Thanks to the crash barrier and deck park,
Reeves was able to double the ship’s air complement to twenty-eight
planes.44
Reeves’s experiments aboard the Langley convinced the Navy that
carriers would have to be constructed with an offset island superstruc-
ture, through which boiler-stack gases could pass. Other innovations saw
310 Part 2

the use of a landing signal officer to guide arriving aircraft and indirect
deck lighting to facilitate night operations.45 A carrier’s elevator would be
positioned on the port side, enabling aircraft to be raised and lowered so
as to minimize interference with flight-deck operations. When Fleet
Problem VII was conducted in the Caribbean in 1927, the Langley was
classified as a combatant ship. Yet, despite these encouraging develop-
ments, it was not yet clear that carriers would form the backbone of
naval aviation. Indeed, until the carriers Saratoga and Lexington were
commissioned late that year, barely one-third of the Navy’s air squadrons
were associated with carriers.46
While offering encouragement to naval aviation enthusiasts, the Na-
vy’s early fleet problems also put paid to Billy Mitchell’s extravagant
claims regarding air power’s current capabilities. Despite the publicity
given to the sinking of the Ostfriesland, accurate horizontal bombing
against a maneuvering ship protected by anti-aircraft fires proved highly
challenging. Reeves considered the Navy’s bombsight for horizontal
bombing “a marvel of uncertainty and inaccuracy.”47 In July 1924, the
Royal Navy undertook a similar test with the radio-controlled battleship
Agamemnon. More than 100 bombs were dropped on the ship without
the air attackers scoring a single hit. More discouragement for aviation
enthusiasts came from trials of anti-aircraft guns, which scored 75 per-
cent hits on aerial targets above 4,000 feet, suggesting that an aircraft at-
tacking a battleship would probably not survive to drop its bomb, and if
it did, the bomb would miss anyway.48 The General Board discussed
these trials at length, concluding that battleships armed with anti-aircraft
guns would make the already inaccurate aerial bombing even more so.
It appeared that the only way for carrier-based aircraft to attack sur-
face combatants effectively was with torpedoes—but the torpedoes of the
time were barely faster than the ships at which they were fired. Owing to
the short range of aircraft-borne torpedoes, they had to be released close
to their target, making aircraft highly vulnerable to a ship’s anti-aircraft
defenses. Torpedoes also had a tendency to fail. Finally, early carrier air-
craft could not lift torpedoes powerful enough to sink large warships.49
Undaunted, the Navy continued to experiment with aircraft bomb-
ing tactics. This paid dividends when, on October 22, 1926, Lieutenant
Commander Frank D. Wagner led a flight of Curtiss F6C Hawks in a
simulated attack on ships steaming toward San Diego. With Wagner’s
aircraft commencing their nearly vertical dives at an altitude of 12,000
feet, they achieved total surprise over the defenders, even though the
 Twilight of the Battle Line 311

fleet had been forewarned that it would be subjected to an air attack. The
surprise was so complete and the effectiveness of the dive-bombing tech-
nique so impressive that Admiral Charles F. Hughes, commander-in-
chief of the U.S. Fleet, declared that such an attack would succeed over
any defense.50
Wagner’s combination of a steep dive attack employing machine-gun
fire and relatively light bombs proved far more effective than torpedo-
plane attacks.51 In exercises conducted in the fall of 1926, aircraft con-
ducting dive-bombing attacks achieved “staggering” results. Of the 311
bombs dropped, 44.5 percent were scored as direct hits. Even more im-
pressive, experienced pilots flying newer aircraft—the Curtiss F6C
Hawks and Boeing FB-5s—achieved direct hits at a 67 percent rate. The
aircraft, however, were only capable of carrying twenty-five-pound
bombs, so they presented no threat to the battleship.52
Naval aviation enthusiasts took comfort from continuing rapid ad-
vances in aviation engine technology, which meant that aircraft would fly
ever farther and carry ever heavier bombs. Two years after Wagner’s dem-
onstration, the fleet had aircraft capable of carrying 300-pound bombs,
and 500-pound bomb payloads were considered well within the realm of
possibility. That year found BuAer drawing up plans for an experimental
plane dubbed a “diving bomber.” Although the heaviest bombs employed
in dive-bombing to that time topped out at 100 pounds, carrier designs
called for the aircraft to deliver ordnance in the 1,000-pound range.53
Fleet exercises in May and June 1931 off the coast of San Diego indicated
that although carrier torpedo bombers would encounter heavy losses
from battleship anti-aircraft batteries, dive-bombers could attack at far
less risk.54 This further tilted the scales in favor of dive-bombing for car-
rier strike operations. Nevertheless, the Navy, reluctant to put all its eggs
in one basket, continued to pursue its horizontal- and torpedo-bombing
options.

The Washington Naval Treaty

The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 exerted significant influence on
naval aviation. The treaty limited, by a fixed ratio, the amount of tonnage
that each of the major naval powers—Great Britain, the United States,
Japan, France, and Italy—could have in certain warship categories, in-
cluding battleships and aircraft carriers, at roughly 5 to 5 to 3 to 1.75 to
1.75, respectively. Aggregate carrier tonnage was set at 135,000 tons for
312 Part 2

the U.S. and Royal Navies and 81,000 tons for the Imperial Japanese
Navy. The treaty banned Britain, Japan, and the United States from con-
structing new fortifications or naval bases in the Pacific Ocean. This pro-
vision was widely viewed as benefiting Japan, given its location in the
Western Pacific and the relative paucity of U.S. and British bases in the
region.
The British proposed, and the United States and Japan accepted, al-
lowing each country to convert two battle cruisers to aircraft carriers.
Two U.S. ships under construction were designated for conversion. Sara-
toga joined the fleet in November 1927, followed by Lexington a month
later. Each displaced 33,000 tons and had speeds in excess of thirty-three
knots.55 To reach the treaty carrier tonnage limits, the Navy’s plans called
for launching three 23,000-ton carriers over the following three years.
Congress, however, provided no funds for new carriers between 1924
and 1928.
Moffett was skeptical of building such large carriers. BuAer’s princi-
pal measure of merit for carrier design was the size of its flight deck.
Moffett used it in arguing for small carriers in a report to the General
Board on June 20, 1927, noting, “there is a far greater flight deck area
available on a large number of small ships than a small number of large
ships.”56 He concluded, “It appears that 14,000 tons approaches the
upper limit of displacement which should be considered for carriers of
the future.”57 In recommending carriers less than half the size of Saratoga
and Lexington, the admiral argued, “Your whole air force would be more
mobile. You could have the air force in a greater number of places.”58
This, Moffett believed, would provide the fleet with operational flexibil-
ity. Small carriers’ aircraft could patrol a larger area, a major asset in the
broad expanses of the Pacific. Relying on a few large carriers like Sara-
toga and Lexington risked putting too many of the fleet’s aircraft eggs in a
small number of baskets. Simply put, the two large converted cruisers
were almost exactly the type of carrier that the Navy studies and experi-
ments at that time were telling Moffett he should not want. Ironically,
they were the kind of carrier the Navy would need fifteen years later in
the Pacific War.
Although the Navy fretted that the Saratoga and Lexington consumed
an excessive amount of the 135,000-ton treaty limit on carriers, had the
Washington Treaty not been in place the steeply rising unit cost of bat-
tleships and battle cruisers would probably have produced a crowding-
out effect on funding for carrier construction.59 Indeed, when limits on
 Twilight of the Battle Line 313

total tonnage were abandoned in 1936, the Navy concentrated primarily

on battleships.60
Looking for ways to boost the fleet’s air arm within the treaty’s con-
straints, Moffett began to explore a hybrid ship: the flying-deck cruiser.
It was a bad idea whose time had come. As early as 1925, war games con-
ducted at the Naval War College were evaluating the General Board’s
desire “to consider whether or not it is feasible to combine the qualities
of a scout cruiser and an aircraft carrier in a new type of ship.” Following
the games, the president of the Naval War College reported, diplomati-
cally, that “it would appear unwise to attempt to develop a vessel which
will combine the two qualities of a cruiser and an airplane carrier.”61 The
General Board shelved the concept.
Nevertheless, the flying-deck cruiser concept refused to go away.
Confronted with new arms-limitations talks scheduled for 1930 in Lon-
don and the Navy’s strong desire to achieve carrier parity with the Royal
Navy, Moffett had BuAer develop a design for a ship carrying eight cata-
pult-launched floatplanes.62 The idea gained traction when it became
clear that the London negotiations would not increase carrier tonnage
allocations. Thanks in large part to Moffett’s persistence, the London
agreement permitted 25 percent of each navy’s cruisers to be fitted with
flight decks.63
Armed with this agreement, in May 1930, Moffett recommended
constructing five small 13,800-ton carriers and eight 10,000-ton flying-
deck cruisers armed with 6-inch guns. The General Board, however, re-
mained cool to the idea. To advance the flying-deck cruiser, Moffett ran
experiments on the Saratoga in which aircraft used only that portion of
the deck that would exist on a flying-deck cruiser. The tests were suc-
cessful. The CNO, Admiral Pratt, warmed to the idea, and the General
Board finally concurred with including the ship in the construction plan
for fiscal year 1932.64
The preliminary design was completed in July 1931. Per Moffett’s
recommendation, it called for a 10,000-ton ship with a complement of
twenty-four aircraft and nine 6-inch guns mounted in three forward tur-
rets. The design was accepted. But Congress, faced with an economic
crisis brought on by the Great Depression, refused to appropriate funds
for construction, despite the vigorous efforts of Representative Carl
Vinson, who chaired the House Naval Affairs Committee. Indeed, the
Depression found the Navy struggling to win funds for the carrier ton-
nage permitted under the treaty. The fleet would have to make do with
314 Part 2

its three converted ships before its first purpose-built carrier, Ranger, ar-
rived in 1934.
Moffett and Vinson’s loss proved the Navy’s gain. The Naval War
College’s assessments and General Board’s misgivings proved correct.
The flying-deck cruiser was neither a good cruiser nor a good carrier. It
would have led the Navy down a dead end as aviation technology contin-
ued to mature. Aircraft were rapidly becoming too large and heavy to
operate off the short deck of a 10,000-ton cruiser-carrier hybrid. In fact,
advances were coming so quickly that even BuAer soon soured on the
concept and allowed it to slip silently beneath the Navy’s programmatic
waves.
The “unwanted” Saratoga and Lexington proved well suited for ac-
commodating the rapid advances in aviation, while offering higher sus-
tained speed and better survivability than the flying-deck cruiser. And
their large aircraft capacity gave the Navy freedom to mix several types
of aircraft in substantial numbers. This would pay big dividends during
two significant shifts in maritime warfare that occurred in rapid succes-
sion beginning in the late 1930s.65
As noted, the Washington Naval Treaty also created a major problem
for the Navy, which had counted on establishing major forward bases on
Guam, the Marianas, and the Philippines to prosecute a successful war
against Japan. Without these bases, the Navy would have to bring its
own air power across the Pacific, while also developing the capability to
seize advanced bases to support its extended operations. Captain Frank
Schofield, a member of the General Board, explained the enormous
significance of this provision in an address at the Army War College in
September 1923:

Sea Power is not made of ships, or of ships and men, but of ships
and men and bases far and wide. Ships without outlying bases are
almost helpless—will be helpless unless they conquer bases and
yet the Treaty took from us every possibility of an outlying base
in the Pacific except one [Hawaii]; we gave our new capital ships
and our right to build bases for a better international feeling—
but no one gave us anything. Manifestly the provisions of
the Treaty presented a naval problem of the first magnitude that de-
manded immediate solution. A new policy had to be formulated
which would make the best possible use of the new conditions.66
[emphasis added]
 Twilight of the Battle Line 315

Simply put, the Navy needed a fleet capable of operating at long range
and, at least initially, independent of support from forward bases.
Of course, the Washington Treaty constrained all great-power navies,
only some more than others. On balance, the treaty exerted a positive—
albeit serendipitous—effect on the Navy’s development of the fast carrier
task force. By banning battleship construction and allocating 135,000
tons for carriers, it not only permitted carrier construction but incentiv-
ized it. When the treaty collapsed in the late 1930s, the Navy had the
20,000-ton Yorktown-class carriers entering service and a design for the
31,000-ton Essex class nearly ready.67 By allowing for the conversion of
cruisers to carriers, the treaty encouraged the Navy to build large carri-
ers, the kind that would be needed for the coming war. By also providing
a ceiling on carrier tonnage, the treaty also ensured that there would be
little excess baggage in the fleet in the form of small, obsolete carriers,
such as the Langley and, later, the Ranger, or new battleships whose value
was depreciating rapidly, to slow the final sprint to a radically different
means of conducting war at sea.

Two Steps Forward . . . One Step Back

In April 1927, the Navy convened a board under Rear Admiral Mont-
gomery Meigs Taylor to examine carrier policy for the fleet. The board
included many naval aviation proponents, including Moffett, Captains
Reeves and Harry Yarnell, and Lieutenant Commander Marc Mitscher.
Given its composition, it’s hardly surprising that the Taylor Board rec-
ommended giving priority to developing the Navy’s air arm, including
experimentation, noting that “the only way in which more satisfactory
answers can be had is by trial along definite lines with the Fleet.” The
board, recognizing the growing potential of carriers, found them neces-
sary for “service of the battle line to furnish fighting airplanes for its pro-
tection and a landing place for reservicing its airplanes; thus leaving
other carriers free for scouting and offensive operations at a distance
from the battle line too great to adequately serve it.”68
Recognizing the impressive potential of dive-bombing as a means
of attack, the Taylor Board recommended that dive-bombers be given
priority in aircraft production. The General Board endorsed these
views in November 1927, while presciently declaring that new carriers
should be designed to maximize their aircraft capacity, drawing on in-
sights from the war gaming at Newport and the fleet problems involving
316 Part 2

the Langley.69 By the late 1920s, Navy planners were assigning new mis-
sions, including long-range patrolling and raids on enemy bases, to the
recently commissioned Saratoga and Lexington.70
The Navy’s vigorous exercise program continued, with Langley par-
ticipating in several small exercises off the coast of the Hawaiian Islands
during the spring of 1928 to test the carrier’s proficiency in these new
missions. On the evening of May 16, Langley, along with several other
ships, steamed out of Pearl Harbor. Just before dawn the following
morning, Langley launched its entire complement of thirty-five planes
within seven minutes. Arriving over Honolulu at daybreak, the aircraft
caught the Army’s air component at Wheeler field by surprise, even
though the Army had been forewarned. Having had to maneuver so close
to the island to conduct its attack, however, the Langley itself was spotted
by land-based torpedo planes, which attacked the vulnerable ship.71
Looking back over the decade since the end of World War I, it was
clear that much progress had been made in the Navy’s understanding
and development of aviation. The carrier was now widely accepted as an
important part of the fleet. But the battleship and the line of battle
reigned supreme, and for good reason. Entering the 1930s, aircraft were
still severely limited in their range and bomb payloads. Thus, carriers
had to steam dangerously close to an enemy fleet before launching their
aircraft and then loiter forward to recover those returning from their
strike missions. To many observers, this level of carrier vulnerability
was too great to sustain an argument for independent carrier strike
operations.
The commissioning of the Saratoga and Lexington with their huge air
wings moved Admiral Charles F. Hughes, the U.S. fleet commander, to
assert that the fleet needed to rethink how it operated its air force, since
“the advantages of suppressing an enemy air offensive before it has
launched may have a far reaching effect upon the engagement of main
forces.”72 The admiral’s views ended up being put to the test in January
1929 during Fleet Problem IX, the first in which both sides had carriers.
The problem was conducted off Central America. During the exer-
cise, Vice Admiral William V. Pratt (who had recently served as president
of the Naval War College) authorized Rear Admiral Reeves, command-
ing Saratoga, to execute a high-speed run toward the Panama Canal.
Reeves “attacked” the canal with a seventy-plane strike force launched
140 miles from the target. The attackers, arriving at 7:00 a.m., achieved
complete surprise, “striking” the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel Locks
 Twilight of the Battle Line 317

before moving on to hit the Army’s air base.73 Charles A. Lindbergh, a

colonel in the Army Air Corps Reserve, was aboard the Saratoga and took
part in the flight operations.74
The attack succeeded despite the presence of an “enemy” fleet,
which included the Lexington. During the Saratoga’s approach to the
Panama Canal, however, it was spotted by an “enemy” cruiser, the De-
troit. Soon after Saratoga had launched its aircraft, it was engaged by bat-
tleships from the “enemy” fleet and by planes from the Lexington and
ruled sunk. Admiral Henry V. Wiley, the fleet’s commander in chief, not-
ing the Saratoga’s fate, concluded that there was “no analysis of Fleet
Problem IX fairly made which fails to point to the battleship as the final
arbiter of Naval destiny.”75 Wiley had a point. So long as carriers lacked
aircraft with extended range, such an attack would expose them to great
risk of destruction by the enemy fleet.
Yet others, like Admiral Pratt, took a different lesson, viewing the
Saratoga strike not as snapshot in time but rather as a reflection of naval
aviation’s potential. Pratt called Reeves’s raid “the most brilliantly con-
ceived and most effectively executed naval operation” in U.S. history.
Pratt declared, “I believe that when we learn more of the possibilities of
the carrier we will come to an acceptance of Admiral Reeves’ plan which
provides for a very powerful and mobile force, . . . the nucleus of which is
the carrier.” Pratt flew his flag from the Saratoga on the return cruise, he
said, “partly as a badge of distinction, but most because I want to know
what makes the aircraft squadrons tick.”76 The CNO, Admiral Hughes,
was also impressed. When questioned by a congressional committee on
the high expense of carrier operations, the admiral declared that the two
new carriers would be “the last ships he would remove from the active
list.”77 Upon becoming CNO in 1930, Pratt stressed that carriers be
placed on the offensive in war games and fleet exercises.
Fleet Problem IX also marked another step in the ascendency of
dive-bombing at the expense of torpedo bombers. Torpedo planes were
already handicapped by their relatively large size, reducing the number
of aircraft a carrier could hold. More importantly, when torpedo bomb-
ers pressed their attacks, they had to maintain a straight and level atti-
tude as they approached their target. Their fixed course exposed them to
fighter-interceptors and shipborne anti-aircraft defenses. Dive-bombers
operating at high altitudes were more difficult to spot, and their steep
dive to their target made them a tougher target for a ship’s anti-aircraft
gunners. Thus, Fleet Problem X found only a single torpedo squadron
318 Part 2

out of nineteen participating in the exercise. By 1936, Fleet Problem

XVII included only 12 torpedo planes out of 253 carrier-based aircraft.78
Fleet Problems X and XI, conducted in March and April 1930, re-
spectively, provided the Navy with two crucial insights. First, carrier air
operations were offense-dominant; and second, the battle line that lost
air superiority operated at a severe and perhaps fatal disadvantage.
They also confirmed Fleet Problem IX’s findings regarding the carrier’s
vulnerabilities.
Fleet Problem X, conducted in the Caribbean, found Admiral Louis
McCoy Nulton, commanding the Blue Fleet, tethering his carriers, Sara-
toga and Langley, to the main body. Vice Admiral William C. Cole, com-
manding the Black Fleet, pursued a different strategy, directing the
Lexington to operate independently of the battle line and, in combination
with his land-based aircraft, to attack the Blue Fleet. Cole’s strike force
dive-bombed Nulton’s carriers, putting both flight decks out of action.
They then proceeded to attack the Blue Fleet’s battleships, dropping
thirty-pound “bombs” on the West Virginia, California, and New Mexico.79
Admiral Nulton cried foul, claiming that had his air scouts located
the Black Fleet first, the situation would have been reversed. Admiral
Pratt rejected Nulton’s claim, pointing out that Nulton’s employment of
his air arm as cover for his battleships precluded their use in scouting
and offensive operations.80 In Fleet Problem XI, conducted a month
later, the Saratoga located and delivered a quick knockout blow to the
Lexington. The exercises convinced many naval aviators that in carrier
operations, it was better to “give” than “receive”—to locate and attack
the enemy carriers before they could return the favor. Based on the expe-
rience in the fleet problems, Vice Admiral Cole, a member of the battle-
ship admirals’ “Gun Club,” called for establishing permanent carrier
“task forces” consisting of a carrier, a division of four heavy cruisers, and
a squadron of eight destroyers—the forerunner of the fast carrier task
forces that would dominate the coming Pacific War.81
The two fleet problems showed senior Navy leaders that the carriers’
unarmored flight decks could be quickly put out of action, even by light
bombers. Technology had yet to yield solutions for mounting an effective
defense in the form of radar, long-range radio, and proximity fusing for
anti-aircraft shells. Hence, it appeared that carrier operations would be
relentlessly offensive-dominant: the first carrier whose aircraft spotted
their adversaries’ carriers and executed an attack seemed certain to reap
an enormous advantage. In the critique following the conclusion of the
 Twilight of the Battle Line 319

two problems, Rear Admiral Henry V. Butler, commander of the Aircraft

Squadrons, Scouting Force, noted that the opposing fleets were “like
blindfolded men armed with daggers in a ring, if the bandage over the
eyes of one is removed, the other [is] doomed.”82 Foreshadowing what
occurred at Midway more than a decade later, Butler declared that the
key to success was to be the first to locate and attack the enemy’s carrier
force while its planes were still on the deck.
Fleet Problem XII took place in January 1931, with the General
Board on hand to observe. Blue Force, organized along the lines of Ad-
miral Cole’s “task force,” included Saratoga and Lexington, along with de-
stroyers and cruisers. It was given the mission of stopping an invading
Black Force of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, accompanied by
Langley. Blue split its force into two carrier groups, attempting to locate
and sink the transport ships carrying the landing force. Blue failed in its
efforts, and Black successfully executed the landing. Once again, due to
limitations on aircraft range, the carriers had to steam to within forty to
seventy-five miles of their target before launching an air strike, making
them highly vulnerable to ships screening the enemy’s main battle force.
Navy leaders felt that, given these circumstances, the carriers must con-
tinue to operate with the support of the battle line.83 Admiral Reeves, ar-
guably the Navy’s leading practitioner of carrier operations, demurred,
noting, “There is a grave possibility that these lessons may be incorrectly
interpreted and that the strength and power of certain weapons may be
incorrectly estimated.” But the damage had been done. Admiral Pratt de-
clared, “The battleship is the backbone of the Fleet. No clearer demon-
stration of the value of the battleship to the Fleet could be shown that
was done in this problem.”84
Armed with the insights from Fleet Problems X and XI, Admiral
Moffett reevaluated the issue of carrier size. Three variants were exam-
ined: 13,800 tons, 18,400 tons, and 20,700 tons. The assessments con-
cluded that carriers in the 13,800-ton Ranger class, then building, lacked
protection against the growing threat of dive-bombing attacks. In May,
Moffett reported that an 18,400-ton carrier’s greater displacement would
permit greater armor protection and compartmentalization, along with
increased speed and a larger air wing. Admiral Pratt, however, favored
the symmetry of two carriers in each class provided by Saratoga and Lex-
ington and preferred constructing two 20,000-ton carriers and a 15,000-
ton carrier (as a sister to Ranger).85 Moffett, eager to secure support for
more carriers, went along, as did the General Board.
320 Part 2

Secretary of the Navy Charles Adams, however, intervened. Noting

the fine performance of Saratoga and Lexington in the fleet problems,
Adams directed the General Board to review the carrier-size issue once
again and consider ships in the 25,000-ton range that could accommo-
date 8-inch guns. Moffett strenuously opposed this, particularly given the
treaty tonnage limits and the fact that such heavy guns would seriously
reduce the ship’s complement of aircraft. Noting that the fleet problems
showed that carrier warfare depended first and foremost on locating and
attacking the enemy’s carriers, he argued that this required planes, not
guns. In presenting his views, the admiral looked beyond current carrier
operations, declaring, “We can hardly visualize today the potential power
of aircraft, not so much for scouting and spotting, but for bombing and
torpedoing. It may readily be the deciding factor in a war.”86
Moffett and the General Board prevailed. Congress authorized the
two 20,000-ton carriers; but the Depression meant budget cuts, and no
funds were appropriated for that purpose. The two carriers were com-
missioned in 1937 and 1938, as Yorktown and Enterprise. The smaller car-
rier, Hornet, joined the fleet in 1941.

The Emergence of Naval Aviation

On Sunday morning, February 7, 1932, 152 aircraft under the command
of Rear Admiral Harry Yarnell, operating from Saratoga and Lexington,
successfully executed a surprise attack on Army air bases and facilities at
Pearl Harbor as part of Grand Joint Army-Navy Exercise Number 4.87
This time, the Navy’s aviation advocates found themselves challenged by
the U.S. Army, whose base commanders, embarrassed over being taken
by surprise, contested the carrier raid’s effectiveness. They claimed that
their planes had critically damaged the carriers, even though Yarnell’s
aircraft had conducted two bombing runs on the Army’s aircraft sitting
on the runways. The Army also protested the “legality” of Yarnell attack-
ing on a Sunday.88
Fleet Problem XIII, following on the heels of Yarnell’s Pearl Harbor
attack, involved two fleets. The Blue Fleet deployed from Hawaii with
the mission of supporting an expeditionary force moving against three
unfortified atolls along the U.S. Pacific Coast. The Black Fleet was given
the mission of defending the atolls. Yarnell commanded the Blue Fleet’s
air component, including the Saratoga and land-based aircraft in Hawaii.
The carriers Lexington and Langley were assigned to the Black Fleet.
 Twilight of the Battle Line 321

Both Yarnell and his Black Fleet counterpart, Captain Ernest King,
focused on neutralizing the other’s air power. The Saratoga and Lexington
launched strikes on each other, with each inflicting some damage. King
then received permission from his senior, Admiral William H. Standley,
to operate the Lexington independently of his battle force. King kept the
Lexington out of Saratoga’s engagement range until just the right mo-
ment. Then he launched a forty-nine-plane raid on the Saratoga, crip-
pling it.
King’s attack was praised by the U.S. fleet commander, Admiral
Frank H. Schofield. In Captains King’s and Towers’s presentation of their
insights from the fleet problem, both asserted that the Navy would re-
quire six to eight carriers for an offensive across the Pacific. Towers
wrote Moffett that Fleet Problem XIII was “the most valuable fleet exer-
cise carried out in recent years.”89 The offensive-dominant character of
carrier air operations was now widely accepted. In a speech on October
27 at the Curtiss aircraft plant in Buffalo, Captain Arthur B. Cook, assis-
tant chief of BuAer, declared, “the only effective way to stop the attack of
bombing planes is to seek out and destroy the ships on which they are
based.” Only aircraft operating from carriers could accomplish this,
Cook argued. “The airplane is today one of the most formidable weap-
ons in sea warfare, the aircraft of no less importance than the battleship,
cruiser, submarine, and destroyer.”90
Only three days before Cook’s presentation, Commander Hugh
Douglas, the Naval War College faculty’s only aviator, gave a lecture on
air tactics in which he accurately foresaw the decisive engagement of the
Battle of Midway, some nine years hence. Douglas had recently finished
completing a two-year tour of duty as the Saratoga’s executive officer.
During Fleet Problem XIII, his ship had been put out of action by King’s
aircraft. Douglas told the students, “In case an enemy carrier is encoun-
tered with planes on deck, a successful dive-bombing attack by even a
small number of planes may greatly influence future operations.”91
Fleet Problem XIV, conducted in February 1933, found the Black
(“enemy”) Fleet, with the Saratoga and Lexington and an escorting force,
directed “to inflict maximum damage on the pearl harbor naval base in
order to destroy or reduce its effectiveness.”92 The fleet, however, by-
passed Hawaii in favor of strikes on the U.S. West Coast. The Black
Fleet commander, Admiral Frank H. Clark (a nonaviator), split his force
into three groups, with the northern group organized around the Lexing-
ton and the southern group around the Saratoga. When aircraft from the
322 Part 2

Lexington sighted a Blue (“U.S.”) submarine, Clark believed it was a scout

for Blue’s surface fleet and directed his cruisers to form a battle line, an-
ticipating an engagement. In so doing, he stripped the Lexington of its
surface-screening force. As it was preparing for a dawn aircraft launch,
two Blue battleships emerged from the darkness, one on each side. The
Lexington was quickly ruled out of action (ironically by none other than
Admiral Reeves), without having launched a single aircraft. The Saratoga
began launching its strikes against shore-based targets but was attacked
and put out of commission by attacks from the Langley and other Blue
Fleet aircraft. Once again, the fleet problems found the carriers steaming
forward to launch and recover their short-legged strike aircraft. And
once again, they were caught, “shelled,” and sunk by enemy surface
ships.93
In the critique that followed Fleet Problem XIV, Admiral Clark was
“most severely criticized” for his handling of the carriers. Instead of em-
ploying the carriers on raids against installations ashore in violation of
the time-honored dictum “a ship’s a fool to fight a fort,” many senior
naval officers felt that the admiral should have focused on neutralizing
the enemy fleet’s air arm.94
As aircraft range and payloads continued to increase in the 1930s,
concerns began to mount that the “picket line” of destroyers that had
been counted on to provide warning of air attack had become inadequate
to the task, given that aircraft could fly above the clouds and at high
speed. Absent effective early warning, it became clear that only a success-
ful aerial first strike against the enemy’s carrier force could ensure the
survival of friendly carriers. The fleet with the carrier force that struck
first was almost always the winner in the fleet problems of the 1930s.95
By 1935, a member of the General Board asserted that in any war with
Japan, the struggle between carrier air forces—not the engagement be-
tween the battle lines—would decide command of the sea.96
Because the battle fleet was far easier to spot than a carrier at a dis-
tance from the air and because a fast carrier’s speed exceeded that of the
fleet, carrier commanders began to press more forcefully to operate in-
dependent of the fleet. This found the naval aviation community’s rela-
tions with the Gun Club growing increasingly testy. It was suggested
that with the new carriers Yorktown and Enterprise about to join the fleet,
the smaller Ranger could support the battle force, freeing the larger car-
riers to operate independently.97 Some senior Navy aviators tossed fuel
on the fire, arguing that the battle fleet should be employed principally
 Twilight of the Battle Line 323

to protect the carriers. The implication, well understood by the Gun

Club, was that the carrier had eclipsed the battleship as the principal ar-
biter of sea control.
The growing tension between the aviators and the Gun Club flared
into the open during Fleet Problem XVIII. Conducted in April and May
1937, it involved 152 ships and 496 aircraft in simulating a war with
Japan.98 The White Fleet was tasked with defending the Hawaiian Is-
lands against an attacking Black Fleet. The latter fleet included Saratoga,
Lexington, and Langley. The White Fleet was given Ranger. Among those
who were commanding the carrier air forces were Vice Admiral Ernest
King, Vice Admiral Frederick Horne, Captain Aubrey Fitch, and Captain
William Halsey. The exercise saw White Fleet flying boats conducting
long-range patrol missions from the atolls between Pearl Harbor and
Midway and attacks made on Black Fleet troop convoys heading to seize
Midway. Aircraft from the Ranger attacked Saratoga and Lexington, whose
air wings responded in kind. Aircraft from all three carriers conducted
dive-bombing attacks using 500-pound and 1,000-pound “bombs” on
warships of all types.
The fleet problem brought to a boil the debate over the proper em-
ployment of carriers. Admiral Claude C. Bloch, the Black Fleet com-
mander, felt that the carriers were best employed in formation with the
battle line, receiving protection from the surface combatants’ anti-
aircraft guns. The aviators hotly disputed Bloch’s contention, pointing
out that command of the air must be achieved before the opposing battle
lines engaged. Vice Admiral Horne, the most senior naval aviator, argued
that carriers must have freedom of movement, independent of the battle
line, using evasive maneuvers at high speed to survive. Horne warned,
“Once an enemy carrier is within striking distance of our fleet, no secu-
rity remains until it—its squadrons—or both, are destroyed, and our car-
riers, if with the Main Body are at a tremendous disadvantage [in this
effort to avoid detection].”99
Bloch rejected Horne’s argument and restricted the carriers to flying
patrols over the main body and covering the fleet’s landing force. Horne
proved correct; enemy aircraft were able to locate Bloch’s carriers without
much difficulty. The Langley was sunk, while Saratoga and Lexington were
heavily damaged.100 After the exercise, Horne circulated a paper calling
for independent carrier operations. Bloch had him recall all copies.
The tension did not abate. Not long after, an argument ensued when
a battleship commander accused Admiral King of essentially fighting a
324 Part 2

private war apart from the fleet, rather than providing him with air sup-
port. King, who became the chief of naval operations shortly after Pearl
Harbor, was somewhat of a reformist. As a young lieutenant in 1909, he
published a prize-winning article in the Naval Institute Proceedings criti-
cizing the Navy’s culture of “clinging on to things that are old because
they are old,” calling it “a drag to progress.” King also highly valued mili-
tary education, serving a tour as head of the Naval Postgraduate School,
and advocated expanding the Naval War College and requiring all offi-
cers eligible for senior rank to attend it. In 1928, King switched to avia-
tion, earned his pilot’s wings, and became one of the first aviators to
make admiral. He was tough and blunt. One of his daughters described
him as “the most even-tempered man in the Navy. He was always in a
rage.”101 Simply put, King never suffered those whom he considered
fools (and they were many) gladly. Thus, King shot back at his Gun Club
counterpart, informing him that until he, King, won the war for air supe-
riority, he could not ensure the survival of his carriers and that without
the carriers, the battle line would be bereft of air cover, scouts, and gun-
nery support.102
At the General Board hearings in October 1937 called to discuss the
fiscal year 1939 aircraft procurement program, Admiral Arthur B. Cook,
now BuAer’s chief, testified that carriers were clearly offensive systems.
While conceding the point, most Gun Club members pointed out that
even though carrier aircraft could seriously damage a battleship, they
could not sink a battleship; thus, battleships remained the fleet’s capital
ship. Nevertheless, Captain Royal Ingersoll, the director of the Navy’s
War Plans division, testified that strikes by carrier aircraft would be im-
portant in slowing the speed of the faster Japanese battle line. This was
essential if the slower U.S. battleships were to win a fleet engagement.103
Fleet Problem XIX, conducted in March 1938, was designed to help
resolve the growing dispute over the carrier’s role. King, now the Navy’s
carrier commander, saw the exercise as an opportunity to correct what he
felt was a serious misuse of the carrier force in Fleet Problem XVIII.
The scenario divided the fleet into two opposing forces, White and
Black, with the latter seeking to establish a base on White’s coast follow-
ing the destruction of the White Fleet. Black split its forces into two bat-
tleship groups, each accompanied by one of the two carriers in the force,
Saratoga and Lexington. King objected to separating the carriers but
failed to alter the scenario. Ranger, along with some land-based aircraft,
was assigned to the White Fleet.
 Twilight of the Battle Line 325

Aircraft from Ranger located and attacked Lexington, which was put
out of commission that evening by nearly forty White land-based patrol
bombers, which also dropped flares to expose Black’s battle line to gun-
fire from the White Fleet. Saratoga, as King had feared, was too distant
to support the Lexington. The exercise reaffirmed several earlier insights,
including the danger posed by land-based air forces and the offensive-
dominant character of carrier warfare. It did not, however, do much to
resolve the dispute over carrier doctrine.
The second phase of Fleet Problem XIX tested Hawaii’s defenses.
Here things went better for King. The forces were again configured in
two fleets. The Blue Fleet was directed to execute an amphibious landing
against a Red Force on Hawaii. Red defenses included Army Air Corps
planes and Navy patrol bombers. King, allowed to devise his own tactics,
had both Saratoga and Ranger at his disposal with the Blue Fleet. He di-
rected Saratoga to maneuver northwest of Oahu to launch a predawn at-
tack on the island. Just before dawn on March 29, Saratoga launched a
surprise attack on the Army’s Hickam and Wheeler air fields and the
Pearl Harbor Naval Air Station. As was the case with Admiral Yarnell’s
carrier force six years earlier, King demonstrated Pearl Harbor’s vulnera-
bility to carrier air attack.
The third and final phase of Fleet Problem XIX found the force
again divided into two fleets. The Purple Fleet prepared to launch at-
tacks on the Green Fleet’s base, located at San Francisco. Assigned to the
Purple Fleet, King formed Saratoga and Lexington into an independent
strike force. Breaking off from the battle force, King maneuvered the
carriers into position where he could begin launching air strikes on
Green’s base. Following the strikes, the carriers rejoined the Purple
Fleet’s main body, where their scouting aircraft located the Green Fleet.
King’s carriers then launched strikes against the Green Fleet’s cruisers,
destroyers, and submarines. As the exercise terminated, there was general
agreement that the carriers had performed well. Still, the debate over
proper carrier doctrine persisted.104

Radio and Radar: The Great Enablers

The introduction of radar was a key factor in the emergence of the fast
carrier task force and was probably the Navy’s most important techno-
logical advantage in the Pacific War. Radar was arguably the best means
of providing early warning of an enemy air attack.105 “In combination
326 Part 2

with the installation of the combat information center aboard U.S. war-
ships, radar improved fleet air defense enormously, particularly in vector-
ing combat air patrols toward inbound Japanese air strikes.”106
The Navy began to research radar during the 1930s. By the fall of
1933, the Navy understood radar’s potential to enhance search opera-
tions and fire control; however, it lacked high-power vacuum tubes for
the kinds of radar needed. Firms like RCA and General Electric had no
need for them and were not interested in funding work in this area. Rear
Admiral King, who had succeeded Moffett as head of BuAer following
the latter’s death in the crash of the airship Akron, came up with the
money to fund the radar work at the Navy Research Laboratory.107 By
1936, the Navy Research Laboratory was conducting successful demon-
strations of radar equipment aboard ships. Early in 1938, a search radar
was installed on a battleship and subjected to exhaustive testing during
fleet maneuvers in the Caribbean the following year. The tests were a
success, with approaching aircraft being detected at ranges out to fifty
miles.108 The Navy began to mount search radars on all carriers and on
many surface combatants. Progress was also being made on fire-control
radar.
Breakthroughs in radar technology continued apace. By July 1941,
fleet exercises revealed that carrier formations equipped with radar—able
to detect approaching enemy aircraft at a considerable distance—were
potentially capable of tipping the balance in carrier air warfare in favor
of the defense. Radar was also emerging as an indispensable navigation
tool.109 No less an authority than Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz,
commander of U.S. naval forces in the Pacific during the war, considered
radar as revolutionary for naval warfare as the steam engine had been a
century before.110

On the Cusp of a Revolution

In 1939, the Navy reorganized its carrier force into Carrier Division 1
(Saratoga and Lexington) and Carrier Division 2 (the newly commissioned
Yorktown and Enterprise).111 When Admiral John Towers, now BuAer’s di-
rector, appeared before the General Board in July of that year, he de-
clared that the carriers must be allowed to operate independent of the
battle line, noting, “I am convinced that carriers must be considered, not
as individual vessels, but as part of a striking force” consisting of two car-
riers, four heavy cruisers, and four destroyers.112
 Twilight of the Battle Line 327

Towers abandoned small carriers. The collapse of the Washington

Naval Treaty regime had removed the ceiling on carrier tonnage. In any
event, modern aircraft required bigger carriers from which to operate. In
his appearances before the General Board in 1939 and 1940, Towers rec-
ommended future carriers to be constructed at least as big as the recently
commissioned Yorktown and Enterprise, with comparable speed (thirty-
three knots) and aircraft capacity (a seventy-two-plane minimum). He
also advocated increasing the carriers’ fuel capacity to extend their cruis-
ing range.113
The General Board concurred. By January 1940, plans for the Essex
class of carriers had been formed. The carrier would displace 27,000 tons
and emphasize speed (thirty-three knots) and aircraft numbers (up to
ninety) over armament (an armored flight deck was rejected) and gunfire
support, which was to be provided by its escort ships.114

Budgets and Industry

Despite the enthusiasm of naval aviation’s advocates, there were good
reasons for the Navy leadership to doubt aviation’s military potential, es-
pecially given the technological uncertainties involved. Extensive experi-
mentation was one way to reduce these uncertainties. Another way was
to learn from the British, who had led the way into the era of naval avia-
tion. Designers in the Navy’s Bureau of Construction and Repair bene-
fited from access to the Royal Navy’s carrier plans, enabling them to
begin with a state-of-the-art design.115
Like other major warships, carriers had fairly long construction lead
times. Even though the United States could construct warships relatively
quickly, it could not match the rate at which advances in aviation technol-
ogy were progressing. So the Navy was forced to make some educated
guesses. Ranger was designed before Fleet Problem IX was held, and York-
town and Enterprise were designed before the Ranger was commissioned.
The first carrier class with a design based on extensive fleet-exercise ex-
perience was the Essex class.116
During the decade following the Washington Naval Treaty, the
United States built roughly half the warship tonnage that Japan did and
generally less than most other major naval powers.117 Still, the Navy was
relatively generous toward its infant aviation branch. Between 1922 and
1925, naval aviation’s budget remained fixed at $14.5 million, even while
the overall Navy budget was declining by some 25 percent. From 1923
328 Part 2

to 1929, the naval air arm grew by more than 6,500 personnel, excluding
the crews of the manpower-intensive Saratoga and Lexington, while over-
all Navy personnel strength declined by more than 1,000.118
Budgets became tighter during the Great Depression. Admiral Mof-
fett, who in 1930 was pressing for more carriers, was able to get but one
(the Ranger) authorized by Congress. Even then, the nation’s deepening
financial crisis delayed its being laid down.119 In 1931, the General Board
wanted to build the fleet up to the full limit permitted by the Washing-
ton Naval Treaty; at the same time, many members of Congress favored
decommissioning some battleships and carriers as an economy measure.
(A number of naval aviators brassily argued that, if reductions should
occur, the battleships should be the first to go!)120 Fortunately, enough
carriers were in the fleet to enable their effective use in the fleet prob-
lems, while the industrial base remained strong enough to begin produc-
ing carriers in ever greater numbers as the war clouds grew close in the
late 1930s.
Congress authorized constructing only three “from the keel up” car-
riers in the twenty years following World War I, which coincided with
the Navy’s period of greatest experimentation with naval aviation.121 This
had some deleterious effects. Yet it also helped the Navy to avoid locking
in to a class of carriers before the rapid advances in aviation technology
had begun to level off and before the character of the threat to the
United States had clearly manifested itself. By enabling the Navy to
build and experiment with carriers, Congress serendipitously helped to
ensure that, in the late 1930s, when the danger of war was growing rap-
idly, the United States could quickly expand carrier production.
The Navy proved very effective at “time-based competition.” The
service, through a combination of design and luck, positioned itself to
transform very quickly into a radically different kind of fighting force.
Importantly, the Navy did not have to build carriers in large numbers to
bring about a revolution in warfare at sea. Before Pearl Harbor, the Navy
had constructed only eight carriers. Of those eight, only five—Saratoga,
Lexington, Yorktown, Enterprise, and Hornet—approximated in size the
workhorse Essex-class carriers that started joining the fleet in 1943. Put
another way, a relatively small perturbation in the Navy’s capital ship
program yielded “revolutionary” results.
Following the carrier-dominated fleet engagements at Coral Sea and
Midway in early 1942, the Navy moved aggressively to alter its ship-
building priorities. Battleships were the principal casualty. The Iowa class
 Twilight of the Battle Line 329

was terminated at four of the six planned ships, and the Montana class
was canceled. Sixteen fleet or fast carriers (CVs) were commissioned dur-
ing the war, along with seventy-nine light (CVL) and escort (CVE) carri-
ers. Not every ship type suffered the battleship’s fate. Between 1941 and
1945, the number of submarines and destroyers in the fleet more than
doubled, a feat nearly matched by the cruiser force.122
Of course, the carriers needed modern aircraft in large numbers.
This required a capable aviation industrial base. During the 1920s and
1930s, aviation was—if not in its infancy—still very much in its adoles-
cent stage. It was a technology marked by rapid change and not a few
surprises. The Navy had experience designing ships, but it needed an in-
dustrial base that could provide it with aircraft and that could surge pro-
duction when needed to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding carrier
force.
The aviation industry that formed a key element in the United
States’ “arsenal of democracy” took decades to develop. In 1916, Secre-
tary of the Navy Daniels suggested the Navy build its own aircraft fac-
tory to provide the fleet with prototype aircraft in small numbers for
experimenting that private industry could not provide profitably. A plant
for this purpose was built at the Philadelphia Naval Yard in 1917.
The plant also helped the Navy validate the commercial aviation indus-
try’s claims with respect to its costs, production schedules, and technical
competence.123
Although naval aviation benefited little in its early years from the
emergence of civil aviation, NACA did, over time, promote what today is
referred to as dual-use technology. Innovations such as aerodynamic
streamlining, supercharged piston engines for operating at higher alti-
tudes, and internally pressured cabins were developed under NACA aus-
pices with financial and engineering support from the Army and Navy.124
The budget reductions following World War I were ameliorated to
some extent by the Navy’s recognition that accelerating aviation technol-
ogy meant that existing aircraft represented a rapidly depreciating asset.
The General Board acknowledged this in a June 1919 memo, declaring
that “construction [of aircraft] should be kept as low as possible, . . . but
for experimental and developmental work, a liberal appropriation should
be included in each yearly program.” With the postwar drawdown, the
Navy’s requirement for aircraft dropped to just 156 planes in 1921,
stressing the infant commercial aircraft industry, which depended heavily
on the government for business.125 Adding insult to injury, commercial
330 Part 2

firms had to face competition from the Navy’s own Naval Aircraft
Factory, which had emerged as one of the country’s largest aircraft
manufacturers.
In January 1922, Admiral Moffett resolved the problem, instructing
the Naval Aircraft Factory to concentrate primarily on research, develop-
ment, testing, and evaluation of experimental aircraft models. The factory
would continue to produce aircraft, but only in limited numbers to pro-
vide a cost baseline for comparison with commercial manufacturers.126
Some aviation firms argued that their competitive advantage in de-
sign and innovation would be diluted by the Navy’s retaining a compe-
tence in this area.127 Indeed, BuAer’s large design and engineering staff
would remain a bone of contention with private industry throughout the
interwar period. In any event, for the new arrangement to succeed, Con-
gress needed to provide the funding necessary to make it work. Moffett
argued that keeping the fledgling commercial industry alive and innova-
tive was essential since, should war occur, “there would be a tremendous
urge to get what we need in the shortest possible time.”128 Nevertheless,
the Navy’s inventory of combat aircraft fell by more than 50 percent in
the seven years following World War I.
Moffett testified before the Morrow Board, “the best thing that
could be done for the aircraft industry would be for the Government to
have a building program in aviation . . . so that the industry would know
just what we would get not only this year and next year but for several
years.” He noted, “It is extremely difficult for aircraft manufacturers to
carry out an orderly and economic procedure” without “a continuing
construction policy.”129
Moffett lobbied for his aircraft program with key members of Con-
gress and with Morrow himself.130 His efforts paid off. The Morrow
Board report, released in December 1925, recommended that Congress
authorize 1,000 modern aircraft to support naval aviation. The adminis-
tration announced its support, and Moffett and his staff actually drafted
the aircraft authorization bill.131 With all the pieces in place, in 1926
Congress authorized a five-year, 1,000-aircraft naval aviation procure-
ment program.
The Navy reached its goal of 1,000 modern (albeit rapidly obsolesc-
ing) aircraft during the summer of 1930, a year ahead of schedule. Given
the relatively high number of aircraft authorized, the Navy explored
a range of aircraft types that Moffett wanted for experimenting. The
instructions to the Taylor Board, which was charged with reviewing
 Twilight of the Battle Line 331

aircraft types, stated, “It is necessary to assume certain risks in the pur-
chase of new equipment, and be willing to assume these risks if we expect
to advance.”132
Naval aviation funding suffered as the Great Depression, triggered
by the stock-market crash of October 1929, stretched through the 1930s.
The Navy’s aviation budget for fiscal year 1934, submitted in April 1932,
called for $29.8 million, a reduction of $3 million from the previous year.
By the time the Bureau of the Budget signed off, however, it was cut to
less than $22 million.133
The tight Depression-era budgets had an unintended salutary effect.
If the Navy’s aircraft procurement budget was quite limited, so too was
its ability to accumulate a large inventory of aircraft depreciating precip-
itously in value given the rapid progress in aviation technology. The Na-
vy’s leaders appeared to realize this and avoided locking in to large buys
of a single type of aircraft. As late as October 1937, the General Board
heard the director of the Navy’s War Plans Division arguing against
large production runs of carrier aircraft on the grounds that these be-
came “obsolete quickly.”134 Thus, from 1932 to 1938, the Navy’s inven-
tory of combat aircraft remained essentially stagnant in number. Yet it
was anything but stagnant in aircraft types. During this six-year period
alone, the Navy introduced eleven new kinds of combat aircraft: two
bombers, one fighter-bomber, five fighters, two scout bombers, and one
torpedo bomber. Rather than invest scarce resources in maintaining a
large inventory of rapidly obsolescing aircraft, the Navy emphasized
keeping pace with technology.
Fortunately for the Navy, Congress passed the Vinson-Trammell Act
of 1934, also known as the Naval Parity Act, authorizing the Navy to
build the fleet to Washington Naval “treaty strength.” Motivated primar-
ily as a means for pulling the United States out of the Great Depression,
it also helped restore the aviation industry’s health by funding the con-
struction of more than 1,000 naval aircraft over five years.135
The pace of events accelerated with Japan’s invasion of China in
1937. Following the Washington Naval Treaty’s collapse, in 1938 Con-
gress passed the Naval Expansion Act, providing for a 20 percent in-
crease in battle fleet ship tonnage.136 Germany invaded Poland in
September 1939, precipitating war with Great Britain and France. Fol-
lowing the stunning collapse of France in June 1940, Congress moved to
enhance U.S. defenses, increasing the ceiling on naval aircraft to 4,500, a
50 percent boost above the level set just a few years earlier. Soon after, a
332 Part 2

third Vinson Act passed, increasing the ceiling to 10,000. In July, Con-
gress passed the Two Ocean Bill, raising the limit to 15,000 aircraft.137
As the war in Europe took a turn for the worse and U.S.-Japan rela-
tions became increasingly strained, the United States’ industrial base re-
sponded to the Navy’s needs. From 1940 to 1944, the numbers of naval
aircraft, on average, doubled each year, for an overall increase of nearly
2,000 percent.138
In summary, given the uncertainties and limitations the Navy faced,
it adopted a hedging investment strategy. It created a “balanced” fleet in
which the option remained open to expand the battle line by ramping up
construction of substantially better battleships of the Iowa and Montana
class or to move relatively quickly to increase the number of fast carriers
with the Essex class. By not accumulating a large inventory of rapidly ob-
solescing aircraft in the 1930s, the Navy could shift more quickly to pro-
duce the modern war-winning air arm of the early 1940s.

Pilots
For the Navy to sustain the development of its aviation arm, it needed to
attract and maintain sufficient numbers of capable officers as pilots. Dur-
ing naval aviation’s infancy in the 1920s, the Navy’s officer corps was
dominated by graduates of the United States Naval Academy. More than
80 percent of Annapolis graduates first went to sea in battleships, the
command of which was almost a prerequisite for making admiral.139 The
naval-aviation visionaries were able to expand their numbers in large part
by demonstrating to the Gun Club admirals that aircraft were necessary
for the battle fleet’s tactical and operational effectiveness.140 This they
did, thanks to experiments like that with the battleship Texas and spot-
ting. Naval-aviation enthusiasts also benefited from the claims made by
General Mitchell and his supporters, and from the Navy’s desire to keep
pace with the Royal Navy, which had pioneered carrier aviation.
Thanks in part to BuAer’s advocacy and findings like that of the Mor-
row Board, talented officers, among them Moffett, King, and Reeves, saw
naval aviation as important and as a means of advancing their careers.
Still others, like Sims and Fiske, were simply enamored of air power’s po-
tential. Then there was flying itself, which had captured the imagination
of many Americans in the 1920s and ’30s. Many young men jumped at
the chance to fly, despite the significant risks involved. As Lindbergh and
other aviation pioneers showed, flying was the exciting thing to do.
 Twilight of the Battle Line 333

Still, developing and sustaining the manpower needed for developing

naval aviation remained a struggle from the founding of the Bureau of
Aeronautics right up until the eve of World War II. On November 19,
1921, only four months after becoming BuAer’s head, Moffett declared,
“The lack of trained naval aviators is now a serious consideration and
one which requires immediate action if the efficiency of Naval Aviation
is not to be impaired.”141 Three years later, with the Navy having failed
to address the shortfall, a board was established to address the problem.
Headed by Captain Alfred W. Johnson, the Johnson Board issued its
findings in April 1925, calling for increasing the Navy’s aviation training
program, centered at Pensacola, Florida, and detailing additional officers
into the program.142
Although the secretary of the Navy approved these recommenda-
tions, Moffett found himself in a fight with admirals who feared that offi-
cers who pursued aviation might become (if they were not already
becoming) too detached from their primary professional development as
“seafaring” officers. The ink was barely dry on the Johnson Board’s rec-
ommendations when Rear Admiral William R. Shoemaker, the chief of
the Bureau of Navigation with responsibility for personnel matters, in-
cluding training and promotion, put forth a counterplan. Its premise was
that naval aviators were no more specialized than other officers and
should therefore do their share of sea duty before taking on aviation as-
signments. Aviator shortages, Shoemaker argued, could be eliminated by
using enlisted pilots.143 He also proposed that flight pay be drastically re-
duced or eliminated, as an economy measure. Moffett felt that Shoemak-
er’s proposal, if implemented, would see aviator numbers “dwindle to a
handful” and that “morale and efficiency would materially suffer.” Simply
put, “it would wreck Naval Aviation.”144
The dispute went to the heart of an ongoing dispute over the BuAer’s
autonomy. Moffett felt that if naval aviation was to rest on a secure foun-
dation, he had to wrest at least de facto authority over the training and
assignment of officers and men from the Bureau of Navigation.145
With relations between the Aeronautics and Navigation bureaus grow-
ing increasingly strained, a board was convened to consider the personnel
question. Its chair was Rear Admiral Montgomery Meigs Taylor.146 The
board’s report, released on January 20, 1926, sought a middle ground be-
tween the two contending bureaus. It recommended that Annapolis gradu-
ates serve two years of sea duty before aviation training but that they have
only one additional year of sea duty before being eligible for promotion to
334 Part 2

the rank of commander. It also recommended that, owing to the shortage

of aviators in senior grades, line captains who were not aviators could be
detailed to the command of aircraft carriers. If need be, such officers could
be put through an abbreviated flight-training program.147
The report’s efforts at compromise satisfied neither Moffett nor
Shoemaker.148 The matter came to a head when Shoemaker attempted to
get Congress to pass legislation calling for the transfer of all naval con-
structors (designers) to line duties, effectively removing them from their
area of specialization and depriving BuAer of their expertise. Moffett ap-
pealed directly to Navy secretary Curtis D. Wilbur, arguing that the bill
went against the Morrow Board’s recommendations and that “important
questions of design must be handled by whole-time or permanent spe-
cialists.”149 Nowhere was the tension between the two bureaus more
acute than with respect to aeronautical engineer officers. Moffett felt
that they were indispensable to naval aviation’s success. Without them,
the service could not guarantee that advances in aviation technology
would be properly exploited. He argued that “to build up a group of suit-
ably qualified technical officers, they must be trained, must be encour-
aged through the recognition of their work, must be clothed with the
requisite authority, and must be protected against discrimination on ac-
count of their specialization.”150
Wilbur opposed Shoemaker’s proposed legislation. A compromise
was reached with Shoemaker’s successor, Rear Admiral Leigh. Thirty-
three naval constructors and one line officer restricted to engineering
duty were assigned to BuAer on a permanent basis, with additional spe-
cialists to be assigned as necessary. In 1930, the position of aeronautical
engineering duty officer was created, allowing technical specialists to
pursue career paths in aviation while bypassing the time-consuming sea
duty required of line officers. Moffett had won a major victory. BuAer
also scored another success as pilot classes at Pensacola were increased
by 20 percent, and Annapolis graduates had their sea duty deferred until
after they completed flight training.151
Cooperation between the two bureaus continued to improve. By
1931, BuNav was requiring all unrestricted line officers to pass a rigor-
ous examination on the uses of naval aviation and on aircraft characteris-
tics as a prerequisite to promotion to captain.152 Still, if naval officers
were required to understand aviation, naval aviators were required to be
naval officers. This meant being experienced in fleet operations.
 Twilight of the Battle Line 335

Although BuAer succeeded in developing a new career path for naval

aviators and associated specialists, the pilot shortage continued through
the 1930s. Finally, in June 1939, Congress passed legislation authorizing
a civilian pilot-training program under the new Civil Aeronautics Au-
thority (CAA). The goal, conceived by the head of the CAA, Robert H.
Hinckley, was to produce 20,000 college-age pilots. The Navy strongly
supported the program.153 To facilitate the expansion, the Navy also
made a conscious decision to increase the production of training aircraft
at the expense of combat aircraft.154
These efforts paid dividends. Following the Battles of the Coral Sea
and Midway, both the Americans and the Japanese faced the problem of
replacing pilot losses and dealing with pilots suffering from severe fatigue.
While the Japanese had no reserve of highly qualified aviators, the Ameri-
cans not only were able to maintain a supply of qualified pilots but also
sent their most experienced pilots back to the United States to train new
pilots. As the war progressed, a large share of the U.S. carriers’ success
came from their pilots’ skill and experience advantages over their Japanese
adversaries. In brief, the Navy established a major source of competitive
advantage relative to the Japanese through its pilot-training program. The
defeat of Japan’s carrier forces in the Pacific was won “through superiority
in numbers—not in planes but in experienced pilots.”155

Technological Change and Uncertainty

From the mid-1920s to the late 1930s, the range of naval attack aircraft in-
creased from around 400–500 miles to between 800 and 1,200 miles,
roughly a 100 percent increase in little over a decade.156 More horsepower
and improved aircraft designs meant that larger bomb loads could be car-
ried, over greater distances. Around 1930, maximum bomb loads had leaped
from a few hundred pounds a decade earlier to 1,000-pounds.157 By the mid-
1930s, aircraft capable of delivering 1,500-pound payloads were entering
the fleet. When the Yorktown and Enterprise were being commissioned in the
late 1930s, the Navy was introducing aircraft with 2,000-pound payloads.158
The combination of rapidly increasing aircraft range and payloads
meant a carrier no longer had to steam close to an enemy fleet to launch
an attack, while its aircraft had the potential to sink any ship afloat.
When the technique of dive-bombing was combined with large payloads,
dive-bombers became true ship killers. These aircraft were compact
336 Part 2

enough to be carried in substantial numbers on carriers. Exercises

showed that once a dive-bomber had reached its seventy-degree dive, it
was extremely difficult for a defending fighter to shoot it down.159 The
rapid progression of naval aviation found Admiral Yarnell writing to Rear
Admiral Charles P. Snyder, president of the Naval War College, declar-
ing, “New weapons are going to have a great influence on the character
and outcome of the next war, and the nation which recognizes their pos-
sibilities and is prepared to use them in the most efficient manner will
have a great advantage.”160
Yet, despite the rapid progress in aviation, in 1939, a pamphlet issued
by the Naval War College rejected “the idea that aviation alone can
achieve decisive results against well-organized military or naval
forces.”161 This was understandable. Aircraft had never sunk a battleship
in combat. Tests had been conducted on the uncompleted battleship
Washington, scheduled to be scrapped in accordance with the Washing-
ton Naval Treaty. Aircraft flying at 4,000 feet employing a 1,440-pound
shell and a 2,000-pound bomb failed to penetrate its deck armor. Three
additional bomb runs failed to sink the ship, which had to be sent to the
bottom by the Texas—a battleship. There was also the matter of a battle
line’s anti-aircraft defenses, which played no role in the Indiana and Ost-
friesland tests and which had improved markedly since the early 1920s. In
1939, the British Admiralty expressed high confidence in its ships’ ability
to withstand aerial attack, declaring, “Our modern ships can produce a
volume of defensive fire, both long range and short range, of . . . a nature
that will drive aircraft to such a height that the efficiency and accuracy of
their attacking weapons will be seriously impaired. . . . Tests in peacetime
as to the probable number of hits by attacking aircraft in war time are,
therefore, apt to be illusory.”162
Advances in radar-directed anti-aircraft guns also looked promising,
and early warning radar, it was believed, would also aid the defense.163
Moreover, carriers had shown very limited ability to conduct operations
at night and in bad weather. Gun Club members argued that they could
defend against torpedo attacks, whether delivered by aircraft or surface
combatants, by armoring or adding impact-absorbing blisters to their
ship hulls. It also was not clear how the carriers would replace their air-
craft losses as they progressed farther across the Pacific toward Japan. Fi-
nally, critics noted that carrier aircraft were markedly inferior in speed
and rate of climb to their land-based counterparts. Wouldn’t it be prefer-
able, they argued, to emphasize shore-based air forces?
 Twilight of the Battle Line 337

Then there was firepower, not firepower as a function of range but

in volume—the battle line’s salvo. As late as 1940, the Naval War College
was informing its students that “it takes 108 planes to carry as many
large torpedoes as one squadron of destroyers and 1,200 to carry as many
large bombs or large projectiles as one battleship.”164
Given the Navy leaders’ responsibilities for the nation’s security and
the welfare of their sailors, they could not be faulted, in the absence of a
confirming event, for refusing to accept that carriers had displaced the
battleship.

Baptism by Fire: The Carrier as Capital Ship

World War II presented the ultimate test of carrier aviation. It came just
as technology, in the form of rapid advances in aviation, radar, and radio
communications, had matured to the point where the operations antici-
pated by the Navy’s aviation visionaries were not only possible but criti-
cal to winning the war against Japan.
Still, in the war’s early days, the carrier’s emerging dominance was
far from clear. In 1940, two German warships caught the British carrier
Glorious in the North Sea off Norway and sank it. Carrier-based aircraft
did not figure prominently, let alone decisively, in British naval opera-
tions opposing the German invasion of Norway that same year. Naval
aviation issued a wake-up call, however, in November 1940, when the
Royal Navy carrier Illustrious launched an air strike against the Italian
fleet at its harbor in Taranto. Twenty-one attacking aircraft severely
damaged three battleships, putting a cruiser out of commission, damag-
ing two destroyers, and sinking two supply ships. Remarkable as the at-
tack was, the battleships were not sunk, even though they were immobile
and weakly defended.
Other naval engagements in the European theater of war gave fur-
ther hints of what was to come. In March 1941, aircraft from the British
carrier Formidable drove off the Italian naval forces at the Battle of Cape
Matapan, and in May 1941, the Royal Navy carrier Ark Royal played a
significant role in the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in the
Atlantic.
Still, at the time of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s surprise attack
on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the definitive case for carriers as
the new capital ship had yet to be made. Admiral Husband E. Kimmel,
the commander in chief at Pearl Harbor, viewed carriers as auxiliaries to
338 Part 2

the battle line. In fact, the senior air expert on Kimmel’s forty-man staff
held the modest rank of commander.165 Yet in the months following the
attack, the aircraft carrier established itself as the Navy’s dominant
weapon, not so much because Gun Club diehards experienced an epiph-
any but rather because the Navy, now greatly inferior in battleships to
the Japanese battle fleet, was limited to hit-and-run raids best conducted
by carriers, which were faster and consumed less fuel.166
The Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway in May and June 1942, re-
spectively, confirmed that a transformation in naval warfare had occurred
and that the United States Navy was well positioned to exploit it. The
Coral Sea engagement was the first in history where the two fleets never
achieved visual sight of each other. One month later, the Battle of Mid-
way was dominated by carrier aircraft. Again, the opposing fleets did not
come within sight of each other. Much as in the fleet problems of the
1930s, both sides’ attacking aircraft sought out the other’s carriers as
their principal target, with U.S. aviators finding their targets first. In six
minutes, dive-bombers from Yorktown and Enterprise destroyed three Jap-
anese carrier flight decks with their entire aircraft complement. The Na-
vy’s decisive victory was confirmed by Japan’s overall loss of four carriers.
As Bernard Brodie observed at the time, “A great change had indeed
fallen over the aspect of war at sea. The advent of the attack airplane was
at least as revolutionary as anything which had occurred since the intro-
duction of steam on the warship. It was clear that not only the tactics but
also the whole strategy of naval warfare had been thrown off their foun-
dations, and that, whatever new readjustments were made, the situation
would never again be as it was. The airplane was bound to remain an in-
strument which would command first attention in any naval battle or
campaign of the future.”167
The Navy changed its shipbuilding priorities accordingly. After Pearl
Harbor, the General Board wanted to increase the number of carriers
but opposed converting light cruiser hulls into light or escort carriers
and proposed a building program that would lay down only nine addi-
tional carriers through 1944.168 In May, however, Admiral King, now
chief of naval operations, unilaterally modified the General Board’s rec-
ommendations, indefinitely deferring five battleships and replacing them
with five carriers and ten cruisers.169 Shortly after the Battle of Midway,
Congressman Carl Vinson submitted a bill authorizing construction of
1.9 million tons of carriers, cruisers, and destroyers—but no additional
battleships. When the chief of the Bureau of Ships testified in hearings
 Twilight of the Battle Line 339

on the bill, he concurred with Vinson’s priorities. To some degree the bill
reflected the shortage of battleship armor, but it also acknowledged the
battleship’s eclipse by the carrier as the centerpiece of the fleet.170 In late
July, King informed the chairman of the General Board that submarines
would be granted first priority for construction, with battleships slipping
to sixth. Only four of the planned six Iowa-class battleships ended up
being built, and the Montana-class battleships were canceled in July
1943.171
The Navy’s transformation of fleet operations in response to the emer-
gence of the carrier as the new capital ship was so profound that by war’s
end, no major category of warship except mine craft was employed tacti-
cally for the purpose for which it had been built.172 Just as dramatic were
King’s personnel decisions. He ruled that the aviation admiral command-
ing a task force would be the officer in tactical command, even if he were
junior to the surface-force commander. He followed, on September 1, by
creating the position of commander, aircraft, Pacific Fleet.173 Aviators con-
stituted nearly two-thirds of the forty officers promoted to rear admiral
between November 1942 and August 1943. Admiral Towers was made
Nimitz’s deputy, making Towers, an aviator, his logical successor. As Clark
Reynolds observed, Towers’s appointment meant that “naval aviation
would at last gain control of the navy.”174

From Offense to Defense

Since neither the IJN nor the U.S. Navy had succeeded in establishing a
clear lead in aircraft range, the crucial determinants of success in early
carrier battles centered on the carrier task forces’ scouting effectiveness
and effective striking power. Early carrier operations favored the offense.
To be detected and attacked was to run a high risk of being destroyed.175
Thus, a premium was placed on stealth, deception, and dispersed forces
(so as not to lose more than one carrier from one sighting). The domi-
nance of the offense was also reflected in carrier air-wing composition.
In 1942, roughly 75 percent of a U.S. carrier’s air wing were attack air-
craft. The U.S. fleets engaged at Coral Sea and Midway did have radar,
but it was not used efficiently enough to facilitate interceptions far
enough from the fleet to avert serious damage to U.S. carriers. Therefore
the advantage remained with the offense, and the battles played out simi-
lar to the fleet problems in the years immediately preceding the attack
on Pearl Harbor.176
340 Part 2

By late 1942, however, carrier defenses were rapidly improving,

thanks to extended-range communications, radar, and anti-aircraft guns.
Radar and long-range radio enabled the carrier task force to receive early
warning of an attack and to mass and coordinate task-force (now made
up of three or four carriers) defenses. It was no longer critical to attack
first, and the Navy restructured its carrier air-wing mix to approximately
65 percent fighter-interceptor aircraft. Whereas the measure of effective-
ness in carrier engagements in 1942 had been the number of carriers
sunk, it now became the number of naval aircraft destroyed.177

Carrier Limitations
In the carrier’s role as the new capital ship, it also showed its limitations,
as had the battleship before it. Carrier aircraft had become the chief
naval weapon during the daylight hours. But when the sun set, they lost
most of their effectiveness, and surface-combatant engagements re-
mained the norm.178 Indeed, carrier forces were quite vulnerable to sur-
face ships at night. Following the U.S. carriers’ devastating success
against the Japanese carriers at Midway, they withdrew during the night,
while Japanese surface ships pressed forward in an attempt to catch the
carriers before they departed the area.179 Although the carrier had clearly
displaced the battleship, the latter did not suffer the horse cavalry’s fate,
at least not right away. The battleship dominated a number of maritime
engagements. Apart from the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, the annihi-
lation of a Japanese convoy and escort force by U.S. Army Air Force
bombers in the Bismarck Sea, and the cruiser and battleship actions off
Guadalcanal between November 12 and 15, 1942, there were seventeen
named battles between Japanese and U.S. naval forces during the first
two years of the war. Only four were carrier battles.180
Battleships were hardly sitting ducks against carrier-based aircraft,
particularly once they were fitted with anti-aircraft batteries and oper-
ated as part of a carrier task force. Battleships in the latter part of the war
typically had a defensive effectiveness against aircraft perhaps several or-
ders of magnitude as great as those in the former period.181 In the Battle
of Santa Cruz in November 1942, one of the newly commissioned U.S.
battleships shot down thirty-two Japanese planes in less than thirty-two
minutes, while taking only one bomb hit that did little damage.182 The
fact that it proved difficult to sink a battleship in the open sea purely by
employing carrier aircraft must have provided some solace to members
 Twilight of the Battle Line 341

of the Gun Club who recalled General Mitchell’s boasts two decades
earlier.183
Still, there could be no doubt as to the carrier’s status as the fleet’s
new capital ship, reflected not only in the Navy’s budgets and organiza-
tion but also in its operations. They reached their pinnacle in the war
with the U.S. Navy’s fast carrier task force, which became capable of
launching round-the-clock offensive air operations and sustaining itself
for long periods in combat zones thanks to its mobile fleet train. By
1944, the U.S. Pacific Fleet had established a mobile service squadron of
five major units comprising hundreds of ships positioned at strategic
points in the Pacific. Logistics Support Group ships would rendezvous
with carrier task-force combatants, providing them with fuel, munitions,
and provisions. In so doing, the Logistics Support Groups emerged as a
critical factor in the carrier task force’s effectiveness.184

Although battleships still played a significant role in the war, they now
operated without air forces at their peril. By the time the Japanese super-
battleships Musashi and Yamato were sunk by U.S. air strikes in 1944 and
1945, respectively, “the destructive power of numerous U.S. Navy carrier
aircraft and the combined weight of bombs and torpedoes they could
hurl against any surface target would have obliterated the ships planned
by any naval architects of the 1930s.”185 The long era of the battle line
was over. The age of the carrier had arrived.
 chapter nine
From Mass to Precision

The objective of our precision-guided weapon systems is to give

us the following capabilities: to be able to see all high-value
targets on the battlefield at any time, to be able to make a direct
hit on any target we can see, and to be able to destroy any target
we can hit.

—william j. perry

We’re going to dramatically change our approach, simply because

it’s wrong. We’re now going to make defense roll-back and taking
the SAMs out our first order of business. No more trying to fly
past SAM sites to get to other targets. That can’t be done.

—general wilbur (“bill”) creech

In 1944, the united states was waging a global war against the Axis
powers, Germany and Japan. During that summer, forty-seven U.S.
Army Air Corps B-29 bombers operating from bases in China launched
a raid against the Yawata steel works in Japan. Only one plane hit the

342
 From Mass to Precision 343

target area. And only one of the 376 bombs dropped by that B-29 hit
anything of value, a powerhouse nearly three-quarters of a mile from the
raid’s target, a success rate of roughly 0.25 percent.1
The U.S. bombing effort was not faring much better in Europe.
That fall, only 7 percent of the bombs dropped by the Eighth Air Force
landed within 1,000 feet of their target or “aim point.” Thus, a raiding
force of 108 B-17 bombers armed with 648 bombs had a 96 percent
chance of two bombs hitting their aim point.2
Until the war’s final months, and particularly in Europe, the bombers
found themselves confronting formidable integrated air defense systems
(IADS) consisting of enemy radars, fighter-interceptors, anti-aircraft
guns, and electronic jamming and counter-jamming. To counter these
defenses, the Army Air Corps typically employed large numbers of
fighter escorts to suppress ground-based air defenses and ward off enemy
interceptors, while employing various kinds of electronic warfare. Even
then, losses were often high, at times approaching prohibitive levels.3 For
nearly half a century following the bomber offensives in World War II,
the U.S. Air Force (hereafter the “Air Force”) and the air forces of other
significant military powers confronted the formidable problem of defeat-
ing ever improving enemy air defenses.
In early 1991, however, over the skies of Iraq, in the course of several
days, a handful of U.S. fighter-bomber aircraft armed with two bombs
each succeeded in dismantling one of the world’s most formidable inte-
grated air defense systems. At the same time, U.S. and allied aircraft
swept the skies of an enemy air force flying modern interceptor aircraft.
Having achieved the air superiority that eluded it for most of the war in
Europe and during wars in Korea and Southeast Asia, the Air Force went
on to wreck the better part of Iraq’s army in one of history’s most lop-
sided campaigns.
How did this remarkable change in air warfare come about? Waging
a successful air campaign in the face of a well-armed and determined foe
is a demanding proposition, requiring the offensive force to overcome a
series of challenges. To begin, the attacking force must successfully navi-
gate its way to the target and return to a friendly base. Second, it must
overcome enemy defenses without incurring unacceptable losses. Finally,
having reached the target area, the attacking aircraft must employ its
weapons with sufficient accuracy to destroy its assigned targets. If the air
offensive force fails in any of these tasks, the campaign is likely to fail
as well. Major air campaigns following World War II through the Yom
344 Part 2

Kippur War found that the offense could be successful, but only by sus-
taining ever higher costs.

From World War II to Vietnam: 1945–1965

The two decades between the Allied victory in World War II and the di-
rect U.S. intervention in the Second Indochina War found the Air Force
focused on the threat posed by Soviet air power during a period of sig-
nificant growth in aviation technology.
Germany fielded by far the most formidable integrated air defenses
encountered by U.S. air forces in World War II. Employing a combina-
tion of fighter-interceptors, electronic warfare, and anti-aircraft artillery,
the Germans at times pushed U.S. air losses close to prohibitive levels.
The IADS problem was far more manageable during the Korean
War, where Chinese and North Korean air defense coverage was local-
ized rather than integrated. Chinese defenses were concentrated primar-
ily along the Yalu River, while Russians piloted some interceptor aircraft.
Faced with a watered-down version of the German threat, the Air Force
stuck to what had worked before: individual bomber raids against dis-
crete targets involving the temporary suppression of local enemy air de-
fenses.4

Air-to-Air Combat
From the onset of combat between aircraft in World War I up until the
late twentieth century, success in air warfare was closely linked to leverag-
ing a pilot’s experience into an advantage in situation awareness (SA), de-
fined as “accurate representations of where all the friendly and enemy
aircraft in or near the combat arena are, what they are doing, and where
they are likely to be in the immediate future.”5 Superior SA gave pilots an
edge in maneuvering into a favorable attack position and surprising their
enemy. Once that was achieved, a pilot only had to have that aircraft in
his engagement envelope in order to get a kill. If the pilot failed to
achieve surprise, he needed to engage in a far more difficult competition
in outmaneuvering the enemy to achieve and maintain a firing position.
From World War I through much of the Vietnam War, pilots relied
on their vision to identify the enemy, using machine guns and automatic
cannon as their principal weapons. As an air-to-air “sensor,” the human
eye has an effective range of about two nautical miles at roughly two
 From Mass to Precision 345

degrees wide. This was sufficient, as an aircraft’s gun range only expanded
from about 50 meters to roughly 500 meters by the mid-1960s.6
Surprise, enabled primarily through superior situation awareness, re-
mained central to successful air combat through the Vietnam War. Ace
pilots who fought in the two world wars strongly agreed that keeping a
sharp lookout, frequently altering course to eliminate their own blind
spots, and turning to meet an enemy attack rather than attempting to
dive away were keys to their success. Their fundamental rule was to
avoid combat in situations where surprise had not been achieved, as this
was seen as a high-risk proposition. Ace pilots sought to achieve surprise.
World War II German aces Erich Hartmann (352 kills) and Gerd
Barkhorn (302 kills) pursued what they called “ambush tactics” similar to
those that American aces Richard Bong (40 kills) and Tommy McGuire
(38 kills) were employing in the Pacific.7 These tactics mimicked those of
World War I ace pilots like the Royal Air Force’s Mick Mannock and
Germany’s Oswald Boelcke.8 Ambush tactics emphasized gaining greater
altitude, which could be converted into speed, either to attack or to avoid
combat. Pilots would approach the enemy from “up sun” (in front of the
sun) to preclude being detected by the enemy pilot or approach from an
enemy’s “blind spot,” such as from behind. Finally, they would open fire
at short range to maximize hits.9
In the spring of 1944, the U.S. Eighth Fighter Command in England
published a study that found that its most successful pilots emphasized
ambush tactics. One pilot declared, “few pilots are shot down by enemies
they see.” Another noted, “90 percent of all fighters shot down never saw
the guy who hit them.” Similarly, the German fighter pilot Hartmann
was “sure that eighty percent” of his kills never knew he was there until
he opened fire.10
Pilot experience also had a significant effect on bombing accuracy.
One U.S. study found that a large portion of the hits obtained were
achieved by relatively few pilots, while the rest were, in the words of one
pilot, “lucky to hit Germany.”11 With bombing accuracy so poor, air
forces began to search for a way to enhance weapon accuracy.

Guided Weapons
Work on guided weapons, or precision-guided munitions (PGMs), began
in earnest during World War II. An early U.S. effort, code-named Aph-
rodite, involved transforming aging bombers into robot attack aircraft
346 Part 2

using a range of technologies, including radio control and television im-

aging, to guide them and their 20,000-pound bomb payloads to the tar-
get. A few weeks after the D-Day invasion, General James Doolittle,
commanding the U.S. Eighth Air Force in Great Britain, ordered the
Third Bombardment Division to employ its “robot bombers” against
German V-1 rocket sites in the Pas de Calais region of France.12 Al-
though the attacks showed the feasibility of using remotely guided air-
craft, they failed to inflict significant damage on their assigned targets,
owing primarily to German air defenses, problems associated with
weather, and equipment malfunctions.13
Subsequent raids were similarly unsuccessful, and General Tooey
Spaatz ordered the project terminated, directing that the remaining
bombers be used to attack large-area industrial targets to offset the air-
craft’s accuracy limitations. Aphrodite, which began with the objective of
achieving a precision-targeting capability, ended up with its bombers
being employed as a terror weapon.14
The Army Air Corps was also working on Azon, a radio-guided, azi-
muth-only (Azon) glide bomb. Encouraging tests in early 1943 led to a
request for 1,000 Azons. Beginning in 1944, Azons were employed in
Western Europe, the Mediterranean, and Burma. Despite a few notable
successes, including against the Avisio Viaduct near the Brenner Pass in
Northern Italy in May 1944 and against rail bridges in Southeast Asia,
Azon suffered from serious weather restrictions and reliability prob-
lems.15
German efforts to field guided weapons were more successful. On
September 9, 1943, a year before the U.S. Army Air Corps began to em-
ploy guided weapons, a Luftwaffe bomber dropped a Fritz-X radio-
guided bomb on the Italian battleship Roma as it steamed in the
Mediterranean Sea, sinking it. The Germans followed up two months
later, with a bomber launching an anti-ship missile, sinking a troop trans-
port with the loss of nearly 1,200 American soldiers. That same month,
the Germans scored another success when a Fritz-X guided bomb se-
verely damaged the light cruiser Savannah and the British battleship War-
spite in the Mediterranean.16 Germany’s ally, Japan, had its own “guided”
bomb in the kamikazes, with pilots sacrificing themselves to maneuver
their payload to its target. After making their first appearance in the fall
of 1944, roughly 2,800 kamikazes sank 34 U.S. Navy ships while damag-
ing 368 others and killing nearly 5,000 U.S. sailors. Despite being de-
tected by U.S. radar and confronting swarms of fighter-interceptors and a
 From Mass to Precision 347

wall of anti-aircraft fire, one in seven kamikazes hit a ship, and over 8
percent of these hits resulted in the ship’s sinking.17
World War II showed glimmers of guided weapons’ potential. To-
ward this end, in 1948, the newly established United States Air Force es-
tablished the First Experimental Guided Missiles Group at Eglin Air
Force Base in Florida. By year’s end, the group was experimenting with
four radio-controlled guided weapons.18
Work on perfecting the Azon continued with Razon (range and azi-
muth only). As its name suggests, Razon could be guided in both range
and azimuth. Development began in 1942, and extensive testing in 1946.
In early 1950, the Air Force began to deliver specially equipped aircraft
and a supply of Razon tail assemblies to the Nineteenth Air Bombard-
ment Group on Okinawa.19
When the United States went to war in Korea following North
Korea’s attack on South Korea on June 25, 1950, the need for weapons
that could reliably destroy key fixed targets, such as bridges, remained as
acute as it had been in World War II. Despite the use of increasingly so-
phisticated computer-assisted systems, CEPs for unguided bombs were
around 500 feet.20 Once again, the Air Force turned to guided weapons—
in this case, Razon—to boost accuracy.
The first Razon missions over Korea were unsuccessful, primarily
owing to bomb malfunctions and the inexperience of crew and bomb-
maintenance teams. Despite its name, Razon was far more accurate in az-
imuth than in range. This made it attractive for use against long, narrow
targets, like bridges, and Razon was employed almost exclusively against
these types of targets. The results were modest. From September through
the end of 1950, 489 Razons were dropped on Korean bridges, destroy-
ing fifteen, a success rate of 3 percent.21
The Air Force introduced another guided weapon, Tarzon, more
than twelve times the size of the 1,000-pound Razon, over North Korea
on December 14, 1950, and employed it through April 1951. Tarzon pro-
duced some impressive results, knocking out bridges and scoring a direct
hit on a hydroelectric station. Of the twenty-eight bombs employed, six
hit their targets, a success rate slightly above 20 percent. The weapon re-
quired daylight and clear weather, which rendered the bombers carrying
them more vulnerable to fighter-interceptors. It also suffered from reli-
ability problems and high maintenance costs. Most worrisome, however,
was Tarzon’s propensity to detonate inadvertently upon release from its
aircraft, a feature that hardly endeared it to aircrews. The weapon was
348 Part 2

withdrawn from service in April, and the program was terminated in Au-
gust 1951.22
With the signing of an armistice in July 1953, combat operations on
the Korean Peninsula ended. Although guided weapons showed some
promise, one expert spoke for many in declaring, “guided missiles, even
in three-to-five years, . . . still will be very complicated, partly vulnerable
and not as accurate as they should be.” Nevertheless, weapons like Razon
and Tarzon had shown enough promise to encourage their supporters.
The commandant of the Air War College declared that fielding reliable
and effective guided weapons “is one of the most dynamic problems fac-
ing the military forces today” and that once this was accomplished, “they
will fundamentally change the whole war concept, tactically as well as
strategically.”23 By the late 1950s, two critical technologies—the laser and
integrated semiconductor circuits—were emerging. In time, they would
make the commandant’s vision a reality.

SAC Über TAC

Following World War II, the newly established Air Force consisted of
three commands. Bombers were assigned to the Strategic Air Command
(SAC), which was responsible for strategic bombing and aerial reconnais-
sance. Tactical Air Command (TAC) consisted mainly of fighters for
nonnuclear operations and bomber escort missions. The Air Defense
Command (ADC) was tasked with providing early warning of a Soviet
nuclear-armed bomber attack and provided with interceptor aircraft to
defeat it.
From the start, TAC lived in SAC’s shadow, struggling for money
and manpower. General Elwood Quesada, TAC’s first commander, be-
came so disillusioned with his command’s red-headed-stepchild status
that he requested to be reassigned, telling his pilots to abandon the com-
mand and fly bombers.24 The Eisenhower administration’s “New Look”
defense strategy, with its heavy emphasis on deterring Soviet aggression
with SAC’s rapidly expanding nuclear strike capability, put TAC even
further in the background.
General Curtis LeMay, who had commanded U.S. bomber forces in
the Pacific during World War II, led SAC from 1948 to 1957. LeMay
made it a priority to populate the Air Staff with “bomber guys” who
had little experience with “air superiority” or air-to-air combat. Their
focus was on delivering a nuclear payload on what would probably be a
 From Mass to Precision 349

one-time (and perhaps even one-way) mission. When he departed SAC,

LeMay became the Air Force’s vice chief of staff. There he was put off
disbanding TAC only by the Army’s threat to develop its own tactical air
force.25 By the late 1950s, Air Force doctrine focused its fighter force on
defending against enemy bombers or flying offensive tactical nuclear
strike missions at low level to avoid enemy radars. With aircraft armed
with nuclear weapons, bombing accuracy became far less important, as
did air-to-air combat training.
In 1961, the Air Force had become so dominated by bomber gener-
als that one of its own, General Walter C. Sweeney, Jr., was assigned as
TAC’s commander. Sweeney had flown B-29s under LeMay and served
as SAC’s first head of planning. The general chose a young fighter pilot,
Major Wilbur Creech, as his aide-de-camp.
Sweeney increased TAC’s training focus on air-to-air combat and
close air support, while emphasizing reducing the command’s accident
rate.26 Air Force leaders were so concerned about training safety that
commanders could be relieved if an aircraft was lost due to accident.
Since the easiest way to lose an aircraft was during realistic air-to-air
combat training, TAC commanders prioritized safety over training.
Sweeney proved no exception. Yet General of the Air Force Henry
“Hap” Arnold, who headed the Army Air Forces during World War II,
warned that an obsession with safety exacted its own price:

If our only interest was flying safety in the United States, we

would have every man fly a primary trainer on sunny days, and
we could cut the accident record to almost zero. If we stopped
flying and put the airplanes in hangars, we would have no acci-
dents at all. But war is not fought that way. From the outset, the
Army Air Forces have taught the men at home the maneuvers
that they would execute in combat abroad. In these maneuvers a
few are bound to be injured or killed, but the overwhelming pro-
portion of the men are better prepared to defeat the enemy.27

Vietnam
The absence of quality training was exposed in the growing U.S. involve-
ment in the Second Indochina War. In early 1965, Major General Gor-
don M. Graham, an ace pilot in World War II, now the Tactical Air
350 Part 2

Command’s director of operations, led a team to South Vietnam to “de-

termine why jet losses occurred in a relatively unsophisticated environ-
ment.” The “Graham Report” recommended that TAC’s training
methods should not be changed but that the commanders in the theater
of war should deal with the problem. General Sweeney, now suffering
from pancreatic cancer, disagreed, as did many pilots serving in Vietnam,
who argued that training back in the United States should resemble the
combat environment where they were being sent.28

Square Pegs in Round Holes

As operations in Southeast Asia heated up in the spring of 1965, the Air
Force’s SAC-dominated leadership realized that the air war was being
dominated by TAC pilots, who were running the risks—and gaining the
recognition—associated with combat. If this continued, more TAC offi-
cers would be getting combat commands, where success virtually guaran-
teed promotions at the SAC officers’ expense. It was decided that, to
spread the “burden” of the war, no aircrew member would be forced to
fly a second, nonvoluntary combat tour until everyone—including the
bomber pilots—had flown their first.
Unlike other major-power air forces (and the U.S. Navy), the Air
Force did not separate pilots in flying school. Whereas other air forces
sent the best pilots in flying school to fighter and attack aircraft, the
bomber-dominated Air Force rejected the idea that fighter pilots were
more skillful than bomber pilots. The Air Force believed that any pilot
was a “universal pilot” capable of flying any type of aircraft. Despite the
“universal” tag, once assigned to SAC’s bombers, few pilots moved to
fighters. The “universally assignable” SAC pilots were put in a Replace-
ment Training Unit to learn how to fly combat fighters. Making matters
worse, the training time for qualifying new fighter pilots was cut from
twenty-six weeks to six. The consequences were disastrous; SAC pilots
who had flown nothing but bombers their entire careers found them-
selves suddenly flying small fighters, with predictably poor results.29

The Wrong Kit: Aircraft and Missile Design

In the decade following the Korean War, TAC’s focus on intercepting
Soviet nuclear-armed bombers and executing high-speed penetration
missions to deliver weapons saw its aircraft typically feature high wing
 From Mass to Precision 351

loadings ill-suited for the maneuvering needed to prevail in air-to-air

combat or survive against modern ground-based air defenses.30 Fighter-
aircraft training manuals, like that for the F-100 Super Sabre, declared
that “nuclear training will in every instance take precedence over non-
nuclear familiarization and qualification.”31
As the administration of President Lyndon Johnson began to deploy
ground-combat troops to Vietnam in the spring of 1965, the air threat in
Southeast Asia intensified. In April, Hanoi’s Vietnamese People’s Air
Force (VPAF) committed its MiG-15 and MiG-17 fighters to contest
U.S. air operations over North Vietnam. On April 4, 1965, MiG-17s en-
gaged Air Force fighters, downing two F-105s.32 The fight for command
of the air was under way.
The Air Force anticipated that its guided air-to-air missiles (AAMs)
would give it an advantage over the VPAF. Similar missiles were first
used in combat in September 1958 by Taiwanese aircraft armed with the
U.S. Navy’s AIM-9B Sidewinder missiles against People’s Liberation
Army Air Force (PLAAF) MiG-17s. In addition to the Sidewinders, work
was proceeding on the AIM-7 Sparrow missile. Tests on these missiles
suggested that the Air Force and Navy could expect success rates of 65
and 71 percent, respectively.33 Both missiles, however, were designed
with defeating lumbering Soviet nuclear-armed bombers in mind, not
the relatively small, highly maneuverable fighter aircraft being flown by
the North Vietnamese.
The first sustained use of AAMs occurred in 1965 with Rolling
Thunder, the air campaign against North Vietnam. Air Force and Navy
pilots employing Sidewinders found themselves pursuing tactics similar
to those used in the Korean War and World War II, seeking to maneuver
their aircraft into a rearward-projecting cone behind the enemy, in this
case so that the missile’s passive infrared (IR) seeker could detect the heat
emanating from the enemy aircraft’s jet engine.34 Although the Side-
winder was an improvement over machine guns and cannons for aerial
combat, it still limited the pilot to within-visual-range engagements and
even then almost exclusively in daylight and in clear weather. The Spar-
row III was the first air-to-air guided missile capable of engaging enemy
aircraft beyond short range and from “all aspects” (from any direction:
head-on, from the side, or from the rear). The Sparrow missiles achieved
a kill rate of 8 percent, while the Sidewinders fared little better, at
15 percent—both far below their “advertised” performance.35 Both mis-
siles suffered from the challenges of maintaining them in the tropical
352 Part 2

Southeast Asian climate. And there were technical shortcomings. For ex-
ample, the missiles’ electronics contained fragile vacuum tubes.36
As U.S. forces surged into Southeast Asia in the spring of 1965,
enemy ground air defense capabilities improved dramatically. Respond-
ing to the U.S. effort, the Soviets started to deploy SA-2 surface-to-air
missile (SAM) battalions to North Vietnam in April, primarily around
Hanoi. On July 24, two SA-2 missiles engaged a flight of four F-4s, tak-
ing down one of them. Three days later, the Air Force conducted a large-
scale raid on two SA-2 battalions located outside the Hanoi perimeter.
The 100-plane strike package included forty-six F-105s supported by
fifty-six other aircraft. With the SAMs threatening medium-altitude op-
erations, the F-105s countered by employing very low-level fight profiles
on their way to the target and during ordnance delivery and egress from
the target area. The result was a disaster. Six F-105s were shot down by
anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) batteries providing low-level coverage
around the SA-2 sites.37
With both medium- and low-altitude operations producing unac-
ceptable results, the Air Force and VPAF engaged in a series of moves
and counter-moves, each seeking to gain an edge in the competition.38
Of particular note, the Air Force introduced specialized F-105G “Wild
Weasel” electronic warfare (EW) aircraft to warn aircraft of SAM
launches. The Wild Weasels also conducted suppression attacks against
active SA-2 sites, employing bombs and anti-radiation missiles. Later the
Wild Weasels were equipped with jamming pods to interfere with the
SA-2’s target tracking and missile guidance.39
Generally speaking, Wild Weasels sought to induce North Vietnam-
ese SA-2 units to turn on their radars to target U.S. aircraft. Once this
occurred, the F-105Gs could trace the SA-2 radar waves back to their
source, revealing the SAM site’s position and facilitating an attack by
U.S. aircraft, which were equipped with Shrike anti-radiation missiles
(ARMs) designed to home in on the SA-2’s radar emissions.
Despite the F-105Gs’ impressive capabilities, they suffered heavy
losses. The first Wild Weasels were deployed to Korat, Thailand, in May
1966. By mid-August, all but one of the eleven aircraft had been lost.
The Air Force was also suffering from “virtual attrition,” as the Wild
Weasels further increased the ratio of support to attack aircraft. Efforts
to maintain U.S. offensive air operations over North Vietnam at accept-
able aircraft loss rates led to strike packages involving eighty aircraft or
more, with only 15 to 20 percent of the planes actually dropping bombs.
 From Mass to Precision 353

Still, the Wild Weasels performed sufficiently well that the Air Force
converted eighty more F-105Fs to F-105Gs in 1966 and 1967.40
The game of cat-and-mouse continued between the Air Force and
People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) air defense crews. The Shrike ARM
proved difficult to employ effectively, as it required a distinctive maneu-
ver in order to lock or “cage” its sensor on the SA-2’s radar, and it only
maintained its lock on the target radar if that radar was emitting; other-
wise it would fly off course. The SA-2 crews quickly caught on and
began to employ their radars intermittently. When their radar screens
showed the Shrike’s distinct caging maneuver, the SA-2 crews turned off
their radars. To counter this move, the Wild Weasels began to carry un-
guided Zuni rockets. The F-105Gs would simulate the Shrike caging
maneuver before launching a Zuni to deceive the SA-2 crews into shut-
ting off their radars, taking them effectively out of action, at least for a
time. The PAVN crews eventually caught on and developed a method to
share data among their radars. This enabled the SA-2s to engage the
Wild Weasels while minimizing the risk of being attacked. By 1968, the
Air Force had developed yet another counter, deploying the Navy’s
AGM-78 Standard ARM, which was capable of continuing to the target’s
radar even after it ceased emitting.41

Guided Weapons
The Air Force made significant advances during the Vietnam War in de-
veloping and fielding guided weapons, thanks in part to progress in
solid-state electronics and laser technology. Success also stemmed from
actions taken by officers outside normal Air Force channels.
The Navy was the first to introduce a guided weapon, the AGM-12
“Bullpup” air-to-surface missile, which was also adopted by the Air Force.
As with earlier attempts at fielding guided weapons during World War II
and Korea, the Bullpup was disappointing. Its radio guidance system
proved unreliable and vulnerable to jamming. The weapon also suffered
from the restrictive flight parameters required to ensure its accurate
delivery.42
Even when successfully employed, the Bullpup’s warhead was typi-
cally too small to be effective against hardened targets. Their most dis-
couraging use occurred on April 3, 1965, when seventy-nine F-105s
attacked the Thanh Hoa Bridge in North Vietnam with Bullpups and
more than six hundred 750-pound bombs, along with some 300 rockets
354 Part 2

and missiles. The Bullpups that were successfully guided “bounced” off
the bridge. Those that detonated produced little damage. The unguided
bombs failed as well. Five U.S. aircraft were lost in the attack. Over the
next three years, another 869 missions were flown against the bridge,
with similar results, at the cost of eleven aircraft.43
Another Navy guided bomb, the AGM-62 Walleye, was employed by
the Air Force beginning in August 1967. Walleye represented a leap for-
ward from earlier radio-controlled munitions, such as Razon, Tarzon, and
Bullpup, and as such was classified by the Air Force as a “second genera-
tion” weapon. Its most distinguishing characteristic was its electro-optical
television guidance system, enabling the Walleye to acquire and autono-
mously home in on a target. The Walleye produced impressive initial re-
sults, as twenty-two bombs destroyed fourteen targets without a single
aircraft being lost.44
When the Walleye was assigned more challenging missions in Octo-
ber 1967, however, its shortcomings were revealed. The Walleye’s TV
guidance system was susceptible to failing when dealing with camou-
flage, smokescreens, dust, or high-contrast decoy targets, resulting in a
“rash of unsatisfactory launches and attempts to launch.”45 The Walleye,
however, was highly effective against high-contrast targets, such as
bridges, and the Air Force continued to employ Walleyes against such
targets, especially where conventional modes of attack had failed.46
In 1958, two years before the first working laser was successfully
demonstrated, the Limited War Panel of the Air Force’s Woods Hole
Summer Study Group discussed using laser beams to guide air-to-
ground munitions. The Air Force’s growing interest in laser guidance
stemmed from increasing concerns that advances in ground-based air
defenses—especially radar-guided SAMs—were occurring at a rate that
would lead to high and perhaps unacceptable losses of aircrews and air-
craft employing unguided weapons in a war with the Soviet Union.47
The Air Force’s efforts received important, if unsolicited, support
from the Army’s Missile Command (MICOM) at Redstone Arsenal in
Huntsville, Alabama, and from one of its own, Colonel Joe Davis at Eglin
Air Force Base (AFB) in Florida. Between 1962 and 1965, work at Red-
stone produced a pulsed laser generator and a detector that could identify
a spot of laser light projected from the generator at considerable distance.
Two MICOM engineers involved in the work began to share their find-
ings with Davis, who became an advocate for laser guidance. Thanks in
part to his efforts, in the spring of 1965 the Air Force began to explore
 From Mass to Precision 355

how laser illumination could lead to a workable guided bomb. The effort
was headed by the Air Force’s Limited War Office, at Wright-Patterson
AFB, Ohio, with a supporting detachment at Eglin. The office’s objective
was to identify and acquire technology that promised immediate im-
provements in Air Force combat operations in Southeast Asia.48
Texas Instruments, given the task of developing a prototype, relied
heavily on existing technologies. Apart from the seeker head and the
laser designator, almost every component in the laser-guided bomb used
“proven technology,” including the 750-pound M-117 bomb. Four guid-
ance elements were attached to the bomb: the seeker head, guidance
electronics, control assembly, and fins. Testing began at Eglin in May
1966.49
Over the next nine months, ten tests were conducted. The laser-
guided bomb (LGB) had the potential, in Pentagon parlance, to be a
“game-changing” weapon. In late 1966, Davis began to lobby key Air
Force leaders for support. One particular target was Major General Andy
Evans, the officer at the Pentagon responsible for research and develop-
ment. As the tests continued showing promising results, Davis brought
Texas Instruments representatives to Washington to brief Evans on the
results. The general was won over, surmounting a key hurdle for getting
the program both adopted and accelerated.
Yet the Limited War Office wanted Texas Instruments, which had
produced by far the best weapon design, to stand down for a year to give
another design team, headed by North American Aeronautics, an oppor-
tunity to catch up, in order to conduct another head-to-head competi-
tion. Realizing the absurdity of this approach, Davis also took the
unorthodox step of arranging a “generals board” of eight high-ranking
general officers from around the world, along with the recently retired
Air Force chief of staff, Curtis LeMay.50 Upon reviewing the test results,
the board sent a memo to the chief of staff voicing strong support for
moving forward aggressively with the program using the Texas Instru-
ments design. Responsibility for the program was transferred from the
Limited War Office to a newly created organization called the Pave Way
Task Force.51 Thanks to Davis’s end run around the Air Force bureau-
cracy, the program moved forward quickly, and the LGB was ready for
flight testing seven months later and for combat operations in Vietnam
in early 1968.
The first LGB was used in combat on May 23, 1968. Half of the bombs
scored direct hits. Aircrews flying the LGB missions were enthusiastic.
356 Part 2

Paveway was appreciated by airmen, not only for its accuracy but for its
simplicity. Any aircraft capable of dropping a general-purpose bomb could
drop the laser-guided version of the same bomb. The use of laser guidance
removed most requirements for accuracy from the delivery pilot, which was
not the case with respect to dive-bombing. The Paveway I also had a very
generous release point. Aircraft dropping a laser-guided bomb could deploy
it from beyond an enemy’s primary air defenses, thus further reducing the
likelihood of incurring losses from enemy defenses. Moreover, at the
bomb’s recommended release altitude of 12,000 feet, the “basket” into
which the bomb had to be dropped had a diameter of roughly one mile,
making it “all but impossible to miss.”52
Air Force acquisition managers declared that “the capability . . . to
vastly improve bombing impact accuracy was emphatically demon-
strated,” thereby dramatically reducing sortie requirements, aircraft attri-
tion, aircrew losses, and operational and maintenance costs. As with most
new weapons, however, problems emerged. With continued employ-
ment, the weapon’s performance became less impressive. The LGB’s
success rate declined, and its CEP expanded to seventy-five feet.53 It ap-
peared that Paveway would, like its predecessors, fail to match the hype
around its development.
Fortunately, a second Paveway weapon, the laser-guided Mark 84,
was ready for deployment. The Mark 84 was employed with the M-117
bomb in August and September, recording an unprecedented CEP of
just twenty feet, with 25 percent of the weapons scoring direct hits. By
comparison, manual dive-bombing by F-105s employing unguided
M117 bombs between 1965 and 1968 produced CEPs of roughly 500
feet. In 1969, the Paveway results were even better. The Air Force em-
ployed 1,601 LGBs, with 61 percent scoring direct hits, and with 85 per-
cent of the bombs landing within ten feet, which was within the weapon’s
lethal radius.54
Concurrently, the Air Force began to field an electro-optically
guided (or “TV-guided”) bomb called Pave Way II, which provided a
“fire-and-forget” capability to succeed the Walleye. Nicknamed “Hobo,”
for “homing bomb,” it was more capable and accurate than Walleye and
cost less.55
Toward the end of the Vietnam War, the Air Force started to pro-
duce an anti-armor guided weapon, the AGM-65A Maverick, a TV-
guided, rocket-powered missile. Early versions achieved excellent results
in conditions of good visibility. Half of the first twenty-two weapons
 From Mass to Precision 357

tested achieved direct hits, with only six missing their target by more
than ten feet. With an eye toward the Soviet threat, the Air Force began
to develop an infrared version to improve the Maverick’s ability to oper-
ate effectively in the poor visibility conditions that often prevailed in in
Central Europe.56

Relearning Old Lessons

On November 1, 1968, a few days before the U.S. presidential election,
President Johnson announced that the Rolling Thunder air campaign
would be suspended, a condition imposed by North Vietnam for enter-
ing peace negotiations. Intense air operations over North Vietnam were
resumed, albeit briefly, in 1972. After the war, the Air Force did a de-
tailed assessment of 112 air-combat engagements between December
1971 and January 1973 in which an aircraft was shot down. It revealed
that in more than 80 percent of the engagements, the downed aircraft’s
crew was unaware of the impending attack.57 Simply put, aerial combat
found the Air Force and Navy relearning what had been established in
the two world wars and Korea: pilot experience, translated into situation
awareness, remained the dominant factor in determining success.

Pilot Training
The overall kill ratio for Air Force and Navy pilots against enemy air-
craft was 2.4 to 1, which was far worse than the Air Force’s kill ratio dur-
ing the Korean War (4.7 to 1 in 1950–52 and 13.9 to 1 in 1952–53).
Between August 1967 and February 1968, U.S. fighters suffered an ad-
verse kill ratio against the MiG-21, with eighteen U.S. aircraft lost for
only five MiG-21s downed. Combat reports suggested that the Air
Force’s poor performance was even worse than the data suggested, as
they found “little evidence that the MiG pilots ever developed real air
combat maneuvering skills beyond attacking from behind and executing
hard turns for both offensive and defensive maneuvers.”58
As the surprisingly poor air-to-air-combat results piled up, in late
1967, the Navy undertook a rigorous assessment of the problem.59 The
effort, led by Captain Frank W. Ault, focused primarily on technical
problems with the AIM-7 air-to-air missile. Yet it was the section on pilot
tactics and training that triggered a training revolution in the Navy. It
found that the service had not developed appropriate tactics to maximize
358 Part 2

the missile’s effectiveness, which meant that pilots were not being trained
to employ proper tactics. Solving this problem, the report found, re-
quired establishing a Navy Fighter Weapons School with an “Adversary
Squadron” to fly against Navy pilots, with an eye toward providing them
with realistic training.
In October 1969, the Navy established the school at Miramar Naval
Air Station in California. It soon became known as “Top Gun,” empha-
sizing dissimilar air combat training (DACT), with Navy pilots going up
against aircraft similar to those being used by the enemy. In this case,
Top Gun instructors flew the A-4 “Skyhawk,” a small, highly maneuver-
able attack aircraft similar to the VPAF’s MiG-17, the Navy’s main rival
in the skies over North Vietnam.60
Unlike the Navy, following Rolling Thunder, the Air Force training
reverted to emphasizing avoiding accidents. The air-to-air combat train-
ing conducted typically found F-4s operating against F-4s, denying Air
Force pilots experience in identifying and engaging the smaller Soviet-
made aircraft employed by the VPAF.61 More than any other man, Gen-
eral William W. “Spike” Momyer was responsible for this lamentable
state of affairs. He had a fighter-bomber pedigree, including a stint as
TAC’s head of plans from 1958 to 1961. In July 1966, Momyer took
command of the Seventh Air Force, which ran Air Force operations from
bases in South Vietnam during Rolling Thunder. Momyer departed in
August 1968 to head TAC, having witnessed firsthand the Air Force’s
disappointing combat performance. Hopes were high that the new com-
mander would take the kind of action under way in the Navy.
He did not.
Momyer could not bring himself to admit that things had not gone
well under his command, so he never pressed TAC to conduct DACT.
He thought that the Air Force kill ratio in Vietnam from 1963 to 1968
was a “very acceptable” 2 to 1 and that the reason for the lower kill ratio
was due to “political and technological factors . . . with political con-
straints perhaps being the most significant factor.”62 Yet Air Force pilots
in the Korean War had also operated under some similar political con-
straints and flew aircraft that were, in many ways, no more advanced
than the MiGs they fought. Yet the Air Force pilots shot down roughly
six Russian-piloted aircraft for every U.S. pilot lost, and their kill ratio
against Chinese and Korean pilots was 25–30 to 1. Aware that DACT
training would probably increase accidents, Momyer actually cut back on
air-to-air training.63
 From Mass to Precision 359

Many Air Force leaders also remained prisoners of SAC’s longstand-

ing dominance, which focused efforts at the level of the individual raid,
rather than conducting a broader campaign to suppress the North Viet-
namese air defense system.64 Simply put, the Air Force was focusing on
the tactical level rather than the operational level of war.

Linebacker
Following the North Vietnamese Army’s overt invasion of South Viet-
nam on March 30, 1972, known as the Easter Offensive, the air war over
North Vietnam resumed. North Vietnam’s air defenses by this time en-
compassed more than 200 radar installations, along with 300 SAM and
several thousand AAA sites. The North Vietnamese supplemented these
defenses with MiG-21 interceptors and large numbers of SAM decoys.
The Soviets were also providing the North Vietnamese with enhanced
SA-2 missiles.65
Linebacker revealed the value of Navy’s new approach to pilot train-
ing. The first air strikes on Hanoi saw Navy F-4s down eight MiGs with-
out a loss, while Air Force pilots shot down three MiGs at the cost of
two F-4s. Following the three-year gap in operations since Rolling
Thunder, the Air Force had difficulty coordinating complex strike pack-
ages against North Vietnam’s IADS, as they had not been trained to do
so. By the end of July, the MiGs enjoyed a 2-to-1 kill ratio in their favor.
Air Force leaders in Washington came under pressure from President
Richard Nixon, who as commander in chief had released them from
many of the restrictions under which they operated in Rolling Thunder.
A frustrated Nixon told his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger,
that he was “disgusted” with the Air Force’s performance. Meanwhile the
Air Force’s top brass found itself sitting in weekly Pentagon briefings
with senior civilian officials where their service’s performance paled in
comparison to the Navy’s, with the admirals praising Top Gun.66
Things came to a head when one of the Air Force’s best pilots, Lieu-
tenant Colonel William Kirk, told the chief of staff, General John D.
Ryan, that the service’s pilots were so poorly trained that he believed
only 10 percent could pass a written test on the basics of air combat.
Ryan told Kirk to devise a test and administer it to pilots in the field—
and not to tell Momyer. More than 200 pilots took the test. The average
score was ten correct answers out of twenty-five questions. Only around
10 percent of the pilots passed the test. Momyer, having learned of the
360 Part 2

test, tried to recover by recommending that TAC form an Aggressor

Squadron. Ryan gave the OK. But both Ryan and Momyer were set to
retire soon, and except for the promise of an Aggressor Squadron, there
was little change to training.67
On the bright side, the Air Force’s Linebacker I campaign saw
guided weapons employed to devastating effect. Aircraft armed with
LGBs destroyed six major bridges in North Vietnam in a single day, in-
cluding the key Paul Doumer Bridge. Laser-guided bombs also proved
highly effective in blunting the North Vietnamese Army’s invasion, being
credited with more than 20 percent of all enemy tank kills. A month
later, Air Force Secretary Robert C. Seamans, Jr., declared in his
“Policy Letter for Commanders,” “The unprecedented accuracy of laser-
guided or TV-guided ‘smart’ bombs and airborne sensors now being
used by U.S. aircraft is making interdiction far more effective than
before.”68
Seeking to conclude a peace agreement with Hanoi, on October 23,
President Nixon ordered a bombing pause above the twentieth parallel,
ending Linebacker I. This exempted most of North Vietnam from attack,
save for a portion of its southern “panhandle.” When negotiations
stalled, the United States resumed the air campaign, called Linebacker
II, in late December 1972. It produced the most intense air combat of
the war, involving strikes by the U.S. Strategic Air Command’s B-52
bombers. Air Force losses to North Vietnamese air interceptors and
ground-based air defenses were considerable. On the first night of the
Linebacker II raids, on December 18, 1972, the Air Force lost three
B-52s, while two others were damaged. On the campaign’s second night,
no B-52s were lost. On the third night, however, of the ninety-nine
B-52s employed, eight were shot down. Fortunately for the Air Force,
the attacks’ intensity had led to the depletion of North Vietnamese SA-2
missile stocks, and losses declined dramatically thereafter.69
The Navy’s commitment to realistic combat training paid huge divi-
dends. Prior to Top Gun, the Navy’s kill ratio was 2.42 to 1. Afterward,
from 1970 to 1973, it went to 13 to 1. Navy aviators began to speak of
the Vietnam air war as having two phases: “before Top Gun and after
Top Gun.” In contrast to the Navy’s dramatic improvement in air-to-air
combat, the Air Force’s kill ratio, which had been 2.25 to 1 during Roll-
ing Thunder, declined to 1.92 to 1.70 And unlike what occurred with the
North Vietnamese SAMs in Linebacker II, the Air Force could not count
on Soviet forces in Europe running out of interceptor missiles.
 From Mass to Precision 361

The Yom Kippur War

The 1970s found the Soviet Union upgrading its air defense forces, includ-
ing improvements to its SA-2 SAMs. It also enhanced its low-altitude de-
fenses, introducing the SA-3 SAM, the SA-4 and SA-6 mobile SAMs, the
SA-7 man-portable SAM, and the ZSU-23-4 mobile AAA system. New
fighter-interceptors, including the MiG-23, MiG-25, and Su-15, appeared.
The enhanced Soviet capabilities were on display when, on October
6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched attacks on Israel along the Suez Canal
and Golan Heights, respectively. Despite suffering initial setbacks, the
Israeli Defense Force (IDF) recovered quickly and launched successful
counteroffensives, reclaiming all lost territory and advancing into Syria
and across the Suez Canal into Egypt. Both sides suffered heavy losses in
the fighting, which ended with a cease-fire on October 25.
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) performed well in air-to-air combat. The
IAF also effectively employed the Maverick missile, destroying forty
tanks with forty-nine Mavericks in the Sinai Desert. Of note, the IAF
scored seventy-nine of its declared air-combat victories with missiles,
nearly matching the eighty-three achieved with guns. The IAF, however,
had problems with the Arab IADS. The low-altitude Soviet-built Egyp-
tian SAM system’s aircraft were particularly effective, with the SA-6s tak-
ing down the majority of the ninety-seven IAF aircraft lost during the
war—over a third of the entire IAF.71
Shortly after the cease-fire went into effect, the Air Force chief of
staff, General George S. Brown, directed that a study be undertaken to
address the Soviet IADS threat in Europe. The result was Pave Strike,
the umbrella term for eleven promising projects given special research-
and-development management support.72
The war confirmed many of the Air Force’s “lessons” from its recent
experience in Southeast Asia. Foremost, perhaps, was that although a
successful offensive air campaign could be waged against a modern
IADS, doing so was difficult and costly. Neither the SA-2s in Southeast
Asia nor the SA-2, SA-3, and SA-6 systems in the Middle East, even in
combination with increasingly sophisticated AAA systems, succeeded in
pushing U.S. or Israeli air forces into a defense-dominant posture. For
the most part, U.S. and allied air forces were able to devise tactics and
technologies to suppress, roll back, destroy, or otherwise defeat Russian-
built SAMs and anti-aircraft guns while preserving the ability to deliver
unguided or guided munitions using composite strike packages.
362 Part 2

But even though the SA-2s in North Vietnam had rendered mid-
altitude air operations a risky proposition in Vietnam, the low-altitude
SAMs and advanced AAA systems employed by the Arab states in the
Yom Kippur War were making low-attack profiles an increasingly haz-
ardous undertaking. For attacking air forces, it was becoming a case of
choose your poison. Moreover, the direct costs of these operations in the
form of friendly aircraft and crews shot down, as well as the indirect
costs—the growing percentage of support aircraft required for strike
packages—were mounting. In a war with the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact in
Central Europe, if U.S. aircraft loss rates mirrored those incurred by the
IAF, NATO’s air forces would be eviscerated in a matter of weeks. Based
on the IAF’s experience, it seemed that ground-based air defenses, not
enemy interceptor aircraft, were the primary threat.73
On NATO’s Central Front, the Soviet IADS combined MiGs, which
by most counts outnumbered NATO fighters by 2 to 1, and overlapping
SAM systems whose coverage extended from very low altitudes to high
altitudes. Advanced AAA systems complemented the SAMs and MiGs.
One major weakness of the Russian IADS, however, was its centralized
command and control, which depended heavily on ground-based radars
to provide its MiGs and SAMs with the location of NATO aircraft. The
Air Force hoped to avoid detection by operating at very low altitudes,
flying under Russian radar coverage, thereby denying the tracking infor-
mation needed by the SAMs and MiGs. There was also the European
weather to consider. For more than 50 percent of the year, the ceiling in
Central Europe was below 3,000 feet and the visibility less than three
miles. Fighter pilots had to see the targets in order to hit them. In Eu-
rope, that meant going in under the weather. And since LGBs did not
perform well at low altitudes, it would be up to the pilot to put the
bombs on target.74
Not everyone, though, was in favor of training fighter forces for low-
altitude combat. The skeptics pointed out that this had been tried by the
F-105s in Vietnam, and AAA had forced aircraft back to higher altitudes.
Low-altitude advocates retorted that the Soviet SAM threat at medium
altitude was far worse than the AAA and low-altitude SAMs. The skep-
tics countered by arguing that low-altitude flight profiles were dangerous
and that identifying targets at low altitude was too difficult. The
“go-low” advocates responded that training to improve pilot proficiency
while perfecting tactics would produce success.75 And so the debate
continued.
 From Mass to Precision 363

To sum up, beginning in the late 1960s, guided weapons were

emerging as a major asset in offensive air operations. Historically, the
vast majority of unguided bombs had missed their aim points by hun-
dreds of feet. Employing massed fires was the only way to compensate
for such inaccuracy. This meant sending large numbers of sorties to de-
liver ever larger numbers of unguided munitions against a target. This
began to change with LGBs, which typically landed within twenty-five
feet of their aim points. Although initial estimates predicted that 30 per-
cent of the weapons would malfunction, in 1969 only about 15 percent
failed.76
Still, first-generation LGBs had significant limitations. Clouds,
smoke, atmospheric haze, and darkness made successful employment dif-
ficult, even impossible. Initially two aircraft were required to employ
LGBs. Both planes had to remain within line of sight of the target, with
the aircraft doing the laser designation loitering over the target, flying a
predictable flight path, making it an easier target for air defenses.
Despite the post-Vietnam congressional cuts to the U.S. defense
budget that created a “hollow” military and a readiness crisis in the late
1970s, the Air Force kept Paveway alive, while continuing to develop a
TV-contrast tracking system like the type used in the Hobos. By Octo-
ber 1978, the Air Force had stockpiled more than 30,000 guidance kits.77

Red Flag
The origins of the Air Force’s Dissimilar Air Combat Training and Red
Flag were at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, the largest military-
controlled range in the United States. In 1949, the Air Force established
its Aircraft Gunnery School at Nellis to capture and exploit the lessons
and experiences that fighter pilots had learned in World War II. After the
Korean War, the school was renamed the Fighter Weapons School, with
the mission of providing a “doctorate in flying fighters.”78 Following the
Air Force’s embarrassing performance in the Linebacker campaigns, a
growing number of Air Force pilots believed that the service had to
make major improvements in pilot training. In 1970, Major Roger Wells,
a Fighter Weapons School instructor, began to develop a threat briefing
on Soviet fighter tactics, which was well received at the school and later
at TAC bases around the world.79
Israeli Air Force pilots proved willing to share their combat experi-
ence with their American counterparts. In early 1972, two experienced
364 Part 2

Israeli F-4 pilots, Asher Snir, one of the IAF’s best, and Eytan Ben-
Eliyahu (a future IAF commander), arrived at Nellis to take the Fighter
Weapons School Instructor’s Course. It quickly became obvious that
only the best Fighter Weapons School instructors were good enough
to fly with them. Snir found the course “not demanding.” He and Ben-
Eliyahu warned the Americans, “know your enemy” and “fly in training
the way you will fly in combat.”80 One of Snir’s instructors at Nellis,
Richard M. “Moody” Suter, was a warm, gregarious individual and an
outstanding pilot, with 232 combat missions under his belt. Suter took
Snir’s comments to heart.81
General Momyer established the Sixty-Fourth Fighter Weapons
(Aggressor) Squadron at Nellis in October 1972. The Aggressors, em-
ploying Soviet fighter tactics, initially flew the T-38 Talon trainer and
then the F-5E Tiger II, a better match for the MiG-21. Later, captured
MiG aircraft would be flown by Aggressor pilots.82 The change in the
training environment was striking. One Air Force pilot, future chief of
staff John Jumper, on confronting the MiG-21’s speed and maneuver-
ability, asked himself, “Why can’t I think?”

Suter’s Vision
Suter, however, saw this as a modest first step toward his emerging vision
of large-scale exercises with aircrews employing live bombs and missiles
while being confronted by realistic enemy air and surface-to-air missile
threats. When Suter was assigned to Air Staff’s Tactics Division at the
Pentagon, he began working with a fellow officer, Chuck Horner (who
later commanded the air campaign in the First Gulf War), in refining the
concept that over time became Exercise Red Flag. His analysis also ben-
efited from Project Red Baron, a detailed set of Air Force assessments
examining air-to-air combat in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.83
Red Baron confirmed, once again, that situation awareness is a critical
factor in air-to-air combat success and that a fighter pilot’s chance of sur-
vival in a combat environment increased dramatically after his tenth mis-
sion, validating Suter’s belief in DACT.
Suter slowly built support, beginning with a briefing that he tried out
on fellow staff officers, refining it until it was ready to be presented to
one- and two-star generals. Their feedback enabled Suter to further pol-
ish his pitch. He put the Soviet Union’s red flag on the briefing cover,
and soon it was being referred to as the “Red Flag” briefing. Suter took
 From Mass to Precision 365

his briefing to Nellis, where the Aggressor Squadron and the Fighter
Weapons School commanders confirmed that they could execute the Red
Flag concept. Word of Suter’s training concept was spreading, and the Air
Force chief of staff, David C. Jones, requested that Suter brief him.
Suter’s presentation was designed to deflect any reason for scupper-
ing Red Flag. He told Jones that Red Flag’s cost would be minimal, since
the electronic threat simulators and target hulks on various Air Force
gunnery ranges could be consolidated at Nellis. The Aggressors were al-
ready based at Nellis. They would cost nothing extra. The Nellis range
was already in use. Funding could be shifted to Red Flag from less effec-
tive exercises. Suter pointed out that the Air Force could claim it was
promoting “jointness”—interservice cooperation—since other services
could participate with their personnel and equipment. The Army had al-
ready expressed interest. Jones liked the concept and ordered Suter to
brief General Robert A. Dixon, Momyer’s successor at TAC.84

The Tidewater Alligator

Known as the “Tidewater Alligator,” Dixon was “tough, demanding, and
suffering no fools.” Dixon was also respected for his sharp mind. He had
flown fighters in World War II and again in Korea. After an assignment
with SAC, in 1969 Dixon was sent to South Vietnam as the Seventh Air
Force’s deputy commander, flying thirty-six combat missions. Dixon was
keenly interested in pilot training. When he found that many of the in-
structors at Nellis were more interested in “harassing and hazing” the
students than in teaching them, a new group was brought in to replace
them.85
In May 1975, a team of five Israeli pilots toured several Air Force
bases and flew with U.S. pilots. Once again, they were not impressed,
finding TAC’s emphasis on flying safety a major barrier to improving
training. Dixon agreed, comparing TAC training to doing “calisthenics—
the same thing every day in a very unreal atmosphere—and betraying the
purpose of training and betraying the crews.”86
Two months later, Suter briefed Dixon, telling him that Red Flag
would provide aircrews with a realistic “first ten missions” in preparing
for a war against the Soviets in Europe. Red Flag, said Suter, would em-
ploy full “strike packages”—a mix of fighters, bombers, tankers, electronic
warfare and reconnaissance aircraft, even search-and-rescue helicopters—
against an enemy Aggressor force employing advanced radar systems,
366 Part 2

integrated missile and AAA, along with dissimilar interceptors using So-
viet tactics. Dixon liked Suter’s pitch and approved Red Flag on the spot,
while informing General Jones that this would require waiving the low-
level flight and speed restrictions.87
The first Red Flag exercise was conducted in November 1975. Prior-
ity was given to making the training as realistic as possible. Soon Blue
Flag exercises were being conducted so that air commanders and their
staffs could master the “combined arms” planning required to conduct
successful air operations.88
Red Flag was an immediate success. Other Air Force commands
were soon requesting to participate. Strategic Air Command B-52s
began to fly from their bases, “launching” cruise missiles to take out
enemy defenses, then returning home. The Military Airlift Command
(MAC) cargo aircraft joined, conducting cargo drops while attempting to
evade the Aggressor forces. Tankers engaged in refueling both friendly
and Aggressor aircraft, while search-and-rescue aircraft were found pick-
ing up crewmen who were “shot down” behind enemy lines. Forward air
controllers (FACs) started directing close-air-support strikes in support
of ground forces. The Navy and Marine Corps began to participate in
the exercises, along with U.S. allies. A typical Red Flag exercise con-
ducted in May 1977 included nineteen different types of aircraft, and 141
aircraft in all, flying more than 2,000 sorties.89
Given the scale and fidelity of Red Flag training, accidents were in-
evitable. Dixon took the heat, arguing that the realistic training at Nellis
would save many more lives in combat. The general found that he could
win over skeptics from Congress and the media by taking them out to
observe Red Flag firsthand. It also helped that the accident rate began to
drop. Still, 1979 found the Air Force suffering 2.8 accidents per 100,000
flying hours. For TAC, it was 6.3. In the cauldron of Red Flag, the figure
was 21.8.90 By the time Dixon left command in 1978, the Air Force lead-
ership, to its credit, had established high-fidelity pilot training, not mini-
mizing accidents, as its top priority.
Dixon was determined not to have his work undone after departing
TAC. During his time in command, the general worked the Air Force per-
sonnel system to increase the number of general-officer slots at TAC, in-
cluding two three-star-general billets for his subordinate commands, Ninth
Air Force and Twelfth Air Force. Dixon admitted that he could run TAC
without either of these numbered Air Forces but wanted to create more
senior Air Force leaders with TAC backgrounds. He actively looked for
 From Mass to Precision 367

opportunities to advance the careers of promising young officers, and the

Air Staff at the Pentagon was populated by increasing numbers of fighter
pilots. Dixon’s own TAC staff produced a future chief of staff and a vice
chief of staff, as well as several other high-ranking Air Force generals.91

The Vision
The three decades following World War II witnessed major changes in
air warfare. The offense-defense competition continued, with both sides
employing increasingly effective means to gain the upper hand, including
jet aircraft, advanced forms of electronic warfare, and missiles. Neither
side, however, was able to gain a clear advantage. To paraphrase the Brit-
ish prime minister Stanley Baldwin, the strike aircraft could always get
through, but often only at high cost. Perhaps the most notable advance
was the United States’ introduction of reliable and effective laser- and
electro-optical guided weapons.
More broadly speaking, impressive advances were being made in
solid-state electronics, which, along with fantastic gains in computational
capabilities, triggered the information technology (IT) revolution. These
technological advances, combined with the lessons emerging from the
Vietnam and Middle East wars, led some military and civilian defense
leaders to envision how they might be combined to bring about a disrup-
tive shift in the character of air warfare.
By the mid-1970s, Soviet Russia’s rapidly expanding nuclear forces
had achieved a rough parity with those of the United States. The loss of
the United States’ nuclear trump card found the U.S. defense establish-
ment searching for ways to enhance its conventional defenses in Europe.
One effort saw the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
and the Defense Nuclear Agency bringing together a panel of experts to
examine the problem. Its report, the Long-Range Research and Develop-
ment Planning Program (LRRDPP, pronounced “lar-DEPP”), was issued
in February 1975. It recommended that the country’s senior leaders con-
sider exploiting the potential of nonnuclear weapons with “near zero miss”
accuracy, which were believed to be “technically feasible and militarily ef-
fective.” The report noted that “the effect of this capability would be to
deter limited aggression in the first place, since the credibility of a United
States response with this type of [precision-guided weapon] attack would
be much higher than that of a United States [nuclear] response in which
millions of civilians would be killed.”92
368 Part 2

Interest in the potential of guided weapons was not limited to the

LRRDPP study. A year after its publication, a Defense Science Board
Summer Study was tasked with examining a range of emerging technolo-
gies, including those that might enhance guided weapons, along with ra-
dars, missiles, sensors, and data fusion. The task force believed that these
systems could be combined into an integrated target acquisition and
strike system—a kind of “reconnaissance-strike complex”—and recom-
mended this be done.
When the administration of President Jimmy Carter assumed office
in January 1977, the Pentagon’s under secretary of defense for research
and engineering, William J. Perry, in testifying before Congress, offered
a vision of how these technologies could transform warfare:

Precision-guided weapons, I believe, have the potential of revo-

lutionizing warfare. More importantly, if we effectively exploit
the lead we have in this field, we can greatly enhance our ability
to deter war without having to compete tank for tank, missile for
missile with the Soviet Union. We will effectively shift the com-
petition to a technological area where we have a fundamental
long-term advantage. . . . The objective of our precision guided
weapon systems is to give us the following capabilities: to be able
to see all high-value targets on the battlefield at any time; to be
able to make a direct hit on any target we can see, and to be able
to destroy any target we can hit.93

Perry was convinced that, given the magnitude and scope of the enter-
prise he had in mind, it would take time and persistent, focused manage-
ment by senior Defense Department leaders to succeed. He was
supported by Defense Secretary Harold Brown, who named Perry’s ap-
proach the “Offset Strategy,” as its objective was to offset the United
States’ loss of its nuclear advantage.

Stealth
Perry also became interested in another promising IT-driven develop-
ment: “stealth,” which involves reducing the infrared, visual, acoustic,
and radar signatures emitted by aircraft. At the time, the only successful
effort at fielding an aircraft with a significantly reduced radar cross-
section was the U.S. SR-71 “Blackbird” spy plane, which entered service
 From Mass to Precision 369

in 1966. The Blackbird was produced by Lockheed’s “Skunk Works,”

which specialized in advanced aircraft design and production.
In 1974, Chuck Myers, the director of Air Warfare Programs in the
Pentagon’s Research and Engineering Office, shared an idea that he
called the “Harvey Concept” with Robert Moore, the deputy director
of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office.94 Myers advocated fielding a
low-observable (stealth) combat aircraft, noting that it could greatly
reduce the need for supporting jamming aircraft, which had led to the
virtual attrition of strike packages.95 Serendipitously, Malcolm Currie,
the Defense Department’s director of research and engineering, circu-
lated a memo declaring his dissatisfaction with the Pentagon’s lack of
innovation and inviting suggestions to remedy the shortfall. Moore nom-
inated Myers’s “Harvey” idea, calling it “High Stealth Aircraft,” and it
was adopted.96
Given the radical aircraft design implied in Moore’s proposal, a full-
scale flight demonstration of a stealth plane would be needed to convince
likely skeptics, particularly the Air Force leadership, whose support
would be needed for full-scale production. If the demonstration were a
success, the Air Force would need to rethink what mattered most in air-
craft performance. Designing an aircraft involves making trade-offs be-
tween different desirable attributes. In the case of the High Stealth
Aircraft, achieving a radically reduced radar cross-section meant sacrific-
ing speed and maneuverability, thereby greatly reducing its air-to-air-
combat potential. To avoid visual detection, the aircraft would have to fly
at night, counter to typical Air Force practice. Finally, in an environment
of defense cutbacks, any stealth aircraft would find itself competing
for scarce funding against the Air Force’s preferred Advanced Combat
(F-16) Fighter program.97
Currie had good working relationships with the Air Force leader-
ship, including General Jones and General Alton Slay, the Air Force’s
R&D director. Although the generals were skeptical regarding the pros-
pects for a stealth strike fighter, Currie won their support—with the pro-
viso that funding for stealth not come from the Air Force’s existing
programs, especially the F-16.98
The program called for producing two one-quarter-scale stealthy
manned aircraft demonstrators. In January 1975, McDonnell Douglas
and Northrop were awarded contracts to design a stealthy manned air-
craft. Lockheed would eventually join them.99 Lockheed won the compe-
tition and was awarded a contract for two demonstrator aircraft. In 1976,
370 Part 2

lead responsibility for the program, code-named Have Blue, was trans-
ferred to the Air Force Special Projects Office.
The two demonstrators were built in roughly one year, with the first
flight test occurring in April 1977. There followed a period of extensive—
and successful—testing. The moment of truth came in August 1979, when
the Have Blue aircraft participated in a classified exercise at Nellis. A Ma-
rine Corps Hawk SAM unit’s radars were placed on the range and in-
structed to track an incoming aircraft. Although the Hawk unit was told
the target aircraft’s flight path in advance, and thus where to focus its ra-
dars, the Have Blue aircraft passed undetected.100
Encouraged by these results, Perry wanted to incorporate stealth
combat aircraft into the Offset Strategy. Secretary Brown agreed. Perry
went to Jones and Slay, and they OK’d fielding a wing (seventy-five
planes) of stealth tactical fighter-bombers—again, as long as the funding
did not come out of the Air Force’s budget. Perry set an aggressive initial
operating capability date of only four years, skipping the normal develop-
ment and prototyping phases. Finally, seeking to steal the greatest possi-
ble march on the Soviets, the acquisition program, code-named Senior
Trend, was designated a highly classified “black” program. In November
1978, Lockheed received a contract to begin full-scale engineering devel-
opment of a stealth aircraft, which would become the F-117. The first
F-117 was delivered, on schedule, in 1981.101

Barriers to Change (I)

Following Vietnam, Air Force leaders expanded their service’s inventory
of guided weapons, but their efforts were rarely enthusiastic. Although
LGB performance in Vietnam demonstrated dramatic enhancements in
weapon accuracy, it was nearly two more decades before the Air Force
fully exploited guided weapons’ potential. The primary reason for the
long delay was the Air Force’s increasingly influential tactical-fighter
mafia.102
General John W. Vogt had commanded the Seventh Air Force during
Linebacker I and II. In June 1974, Vogt assumed command of U.S. Air
Forces in Europe. Given the impressive role LGBs played in Linebacker I,
Vogt seemed a likely candidate to endorse the vision of precision-strike
warfare that emerged from the LRRDPP and Defense Science Board
studies and that was adopted by Harold Brown and Bill Perry. Instead,
Vogt emphasized guided weapons’ limitations:
 From Mass to Precision 371

They [LGBs] aren’t very good when the weather is bad. The
weather is bad most of the time in Europe so immediately you’ve
got a severe limitation on their use over here. During Linebacker
II, for example, there was only one eight-hour period during that
entire eleven-day period that we were able to use those laser
guided weapons. The weather wasn’t adequate during all the pe-
riods of that particular operation. And I would think that the per-
centages would even be worse . . . [in Europe] because, as you
know, for nine months of the year we either have darkness or ex-
tremely bad weather. Lasers simply aren’t the answer in that kind
of environment nor are the electro-optical precision-guided
weapons which the Air Force is buying in great quantities.103

Vogt’s concerns regarding operational conditions in Central Europe had

merit, but they were not balanced by any energetic efforts to overcome
them. He also did not emphasize planning to make maximum use of
LGBs in the event of war.104
Air Force pilots believed that they could solve the bombing-accuracy
challenge through a combination of the “smart-jet, dumb-bomb” philos-
ophy and the F-16, the first tactical fighter with an automated bombing
system. The system purportedly enabled unguided bombs to be delivered
with accuracy comparable to that achieved by highly skilled pilots. This
led many Air Force leaders like Vogt to conclude that “dumb bombs”
could be employed with sufficient accuracy and at far lower cost than
LGBs. This thinking also supported the Air Force’s preference to buy
aircraft rather than guided weapons. After all, pilots wanted to command
fighter squadrons and wings, not PGM depots. Employing LGBs and
electro-optical bombs required far less pilot skill, thereby threatening to
“devalue the manual dive-bombing skills that had long been at the heart
of social status in Air Force [fighter] units.” The Air Force, however, ap-
peared to discount the fact that the F-16’s bombing system depended on
executing its bomb-release maneuver at relatively low altitudes, where it
would encounter the same kind of AAA and SAM batteries that had in-
flicted such high losses on U.S. and Israeli aircraft in Southeast Asia and
the Middle East, respectively.105
Despite Have Blue’s impressive performance in the skies over Nellis
and its rapid progression from design to production, stealth aircraft
received only grudging support from the Air Force leadership. Chuck
Myers, the director of Air Warfare Programs, won support for his
372 Part 2

“Harvey” concept, not from the Air Force but from DARPA. When the
Defense Department’s director of research and engineering, Malcolm
Currie, was searching for innovative ideas, it was DARPA that came for-
ward with the idea for stealth, not the Air Force. And when Bill Perry ap-
proached the Air Force leadership to win support for stealth aircraft, he
got it—but conditionally.

Creech
General Dixon was succeeded at TAC by General Wilbur (“Bill”)
Creech, a strong supporter of the realistic training embodied in the Red
Flag exercises. But Creech also had a different vision of air operations
and how new ways of fighting, enabled by new capabilities, could pro-
duce a disruptive boost in the Air Force’s effectiveness. As TAC’s com-
mander, he intended to put his ideas to the test.
Starting his career in World War II as an enlisted man in the Army,
Creech transferred to the newly formed Air Force in 1948, entering pilot
school. By the late 1960s, Creech was serving in Southeast Asia as a dep-
uty wing commander, flying 177 combat missions. By all accounts, he
was an excellent pilot. There he became convinced that the Air Force
idea of flying low to avoid IADS was a mistake and began to look for
ways of suppressing enemy air defenses (SEAD) as part of an overall
campaign. After a tour in Europe, he served as vice commander of the
Air Force’s Systems Command’s Aeronautics Systems Division, and then
as commander of its Electronic Systems Division. The latter assignment
gave Creech an appreciation for electronic warfare’s potential. Promoted
to full general, Creech assumed command of TAC in April 1978, a posi-
tion he held for an unprecedented six years.106

The Vision
When Creech arrived at TAC, he found that the Air Force’s doctrine had
stagnated. Although during the Vietnam War tactical fighters had been
employed in strategic bombing operations and strategic bombers like the
B-52 conducted close-air-support “tactical” missions, Air Force doctrine
still viewed aircraft as linked to distinct missions, as they were in World
War II. Creech’s envisioned an “all day, all night, all weather, precision,
standoff, interoperable force.” Creech was close to General Jones, having
served as his director of operations when Jones commanded the United
 From Mass to Precision 373

States Air Forces in Europe. When Jones left as Air Force chief of staff to
chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he was succeeded by General Lew Allen, Jr.
Creech and Allen soon established an “unwritten understanding” giving
Creech a strong voice in procurement matters pertaining to TAC.107
Shortly after taking command, Creech called a Warfighter Confer-
ence of his senior commanders. The conference, viewed in retrospect as
a seminal event in the Air Force’s history, saw Creech outlining his vision
of air power and calling on his commanders to work with him in adopt-
ing a new and very different way of meeting the challenge of increasingly
sophisticated enemy air defenses.
Creech began by noting the operational problems posed by Soviet
IADS and those of their proxies. Live exercises and operational analyses
showed that the Air Force’s strike operations could not be sustained
against Soviet IADS without incurring unacceptable losses. These find-
ings supported what the general was hearing from Israeli pilots, who de-
scribed how attempting to fly below the Soviet-made IADS coverage was
an exercise in futility. Creech told his commanders that the Air Force
was suffering from “go-low disease.” His experiences in Vietnam con-
vinced him of two things: first, that a different way had to be found to
address the IADS threat; and second, that the Air Force needed to think
more expansively beyond tactics and simply “blowing by” the SAM
threat on their way to and from a target. It needed to focus instead on
the operational or campaign level of war.108
On this second point, Creech declared that air defenses had to be
rolled back and suppressed on a broad level, rather than avoided or dealt
with tactically within the context of a single-strike mission. Once the ene-
my’s air defense system was suppressed, he said, air operations could be
conducted at higher, more survivable altitudes, where guided munitions
could be employed most effectively. For the first time in the Air Force’s
history, Creech said, destroying the enemy’s air defense network was a pre-
requisite to waging an air campaign: “Our basic concept of operations rests
on the fact that we must penetrate enemy defenses. To do that, we will roll
back those defenses using a combination of disruptive defense suppression
and selective destruction with both standoff and overflight weapons.”109
A summary of Creech’s closing remarks at the conference’s conclu-
sion is worth citing at length:

We’re going to dramatically change our approach, simply be-

cause it’s wrong. We’re now going to make defense roll-back and
374 Part 2

taking the SAMs out our first order of business. No more trying
to fly past SAM sites to get to other targets. That can’t be done.
Taking them out can be done, and it will be easy if we go about it
right. We need to get up out of the weeds as soon as possible to
avoid the AAA, a far more formidable threat. . . . Our fixation on
low-altitude ingress, egress, and delivery and the systems and
munitions that fit solely that approach is over.110

Looking back at the session, one participant, Larry D. Welch, a future Air
Force chief of staff then serving on Creech’s staff at TAC, recalled, “By
the end of the conference, there was full agreement that low-level tactics
might be necessary for a time but that we needed to get out of that mode
as early as possible. Perhaps even more important for the subsequent evo-
lution of both systems and tactics, there was a much greater appreciation
for the potential of new tactical thinking . . . and the right munitions with
precision guidance—all clearly within our technology capabilities.”111
Over the next six years, Creech went about putting his vision into
practice. There was resistance from the “go-low” crowd. Some argued
that the war could be lost during the time it would take to dismantle the
enemy’s IADS. Others feared that Creech was looking for a way to avoid
flying low in order to reduce Red Flag’s accident rate. The general grad-
ually identified the principal sources of resistance and either fired them
or reassigned them where they would not threaten his initiatives.112
The results of his efforts are perhaps best judged by two senior Air
Force leaders. General Jones ranked Creech “with Curtis E. LeMay as
one of the two most influential men in [his] long Air Force experi-
ence.”113 More than twenty years after Jones stepped down as Air Force
chief of staff, his successor, General John Jumper, declared, “No single
officer has had greater influence on the Air Force in recent times than
General Bill Creech. He transformed the way the Air Force conducts
warfare.”114

Many Flags
Creech’s efforts centered around Red Flag. The general believed that Tac-
tical Air Command exhibited a “propensity to put a ‘realistic training’ tag
on unrealistic wartime strategy and tactics.” He directed that Red Flag stop
flying every mission as if it were “the first mission on the first second
on the first day of a war.” For example, the exercises failed to incorporate
 From Mass to Precision 375

“kill removal,” in which each side’s losses were removed from play, after
being either shot down or destroyed on the ground. Thus, every day was
“Groundhog Day.”115 The threat was always at its highest, and the air wing
was always fully ready. Under these conditions, pilots were compelled to
fly every mission at low altitudes. Structured this way, the exercises made it
impossible to explore Creech’s concept for a campaign whose objective
was to take down the enemy’s IADS. So Creech directed that Red Flag ex-
ercises be run to reflect the first two weeks of a war rather than repeating
the first day of a war every day for two weeks. This enabled Red Flag exer-
cises to focus on rolling back enemy air defenses, followed by shifting to
higher, more survivable altitudes once this was accomplished.116
Problems identified at the Warfighter Conference were addressed.
For example, before Creech arrived, each wing commander whose unit ar-
rived for a Red Flag exercise designed his training regimen. General
Welch recalled that the wing commanders did this “with no formal benefit
of others’ experiences at Red Flag”: “We saw the same mistakes over and
over with each set of participants starting without much benefit of the les-
sons from prior experiences.”117 This was corrected through “Blue Flag.”
Indeed, Creech continued Dixon’s practice of expanding the “flags”
at Nellis. He institutionalized “Blue Flag” exercises, where commanders
and their staff crafted air-attack plans and simulated target lists, which
were provided to the incoming wing for the next Red Flag. Black Flag
trained aircraft maintenance crews, while Checkered Flag familiarized
nonoperational units with the overall plan and their role in supporting it.
Ultimately eighteen exercises emerged from Red Flag, as the focus
shifted from the tactical to the operational level of war.
Creech added the “blue forces command element” to Red Flag,
where the commander and his staff oversaw all aspects of the air effort,
directing each friendly-force fighter. It made no difference if a Navy or
an Air Force aircraft accomplished a mission. Air power in any form was
air power. As a brigadier general, Chuck Horner had his own turn as a
“blue force commander,” an experience that would pay off during his
command of air operations during the First Gulf War.118
Creech saw electronic warfare playing a prominent role in future air
operations, so he instituted Green Flag, combining Air Force intelli-
gence, jamming, and electronic warfare platforms to support the air cam-
paign against the Aggressor force IADS. Similar to Red Flag, Green Flag
exercises ran six weeks, compelling participants to focus on an extended
campaign to defeat or degrade advanced Soviet IADS.119 By the time
376 Part 2

Creech departed TAC in 1984, Red Flag exercises typically included

more than 250 aircraft and in some cases exceeded 400. By 1983, annual
Aggressor training sorties at Red Flag had increased from roughly 4,300
in 1977 to 13,733, while unit-to-unit DACT training increased over the
same time period to 20,612 sorties.120

An Enduring Legacy
Through these “Color Flag Exercises,” Creech forced the Air Force to
raise its eyes from the tactical level of war to the operational level as the
best way to wage offensive air campaigns successfully and at an accept-
able cost. When he stepped down as TAC’s commander, the key elements
of the SEAD campaign that dominated the start of major future U.S. air
campaigns were in place.121
Like Dixon, Creech worked at developing a cadre of future Air
Force leaders, men who he felt shared his vision and methods. His im-
mediate successors at TAC, Generals Jerome F. O’Malley (1984–85) and
Robert D. Russ (1985–91), continued to emphasize the realistic training
exercises that Creech had either instituted or enhanced. All of the six Air
Force chiefs of staff who served from 1986 through 2002 were either a
TAC wing commander or on Creech’s staff during the time he headed
the Tactical Air Command.122 The Air Force shift from a bomber-centric
service to a fighter-dominated service was complete.

Lifting All Boats: The Air Force and the Reagan Buildup
The inauguration of President Ronald Reagan in January 1981 was fol-
lowed by a major U.S. defense buildup lasting into the middle of the de-
cade. The influx of resources enabled the Pentagon to avoid some
difficult choices on defense priorities, providing funding for programs
that, for a variety of reasons, might have been crowded out in an austere
fiscal environment. This enabled the Air Force to pursue the B-1 and
B-2 bomber and F-15 and F-16 fighter programs. There was room in the
budget for capabilities reflecting the visions of men like Bill Perry and
Bill Creech, including investments in guided weapons, precision naviga-
tion, night operations, and electronic warfare. All would play key roles
when the Air Force went to war early in the next decade.
The Reagan buildup saw the Air Force improving its arsenal of
precision-guided weapons under the Paveway III series.123 One, the
 From Mass to Precision 377

GBU-15 (GBU stands for “guided bomb unit”), combined television

guidance and an imaging infrared system to produce a glide bomb with
significantly greater standoff range than previous LGBs. It entered ser-
vice in 1983.124 The weapon could be dropped or lofted from outside the
target basket, maneuvering to the target by means of an autopilot, then
locating the laser designator spot using its scanning seeker. The GBU-24
and GBU-27 were developed for use with the BLU-109, a 2,000-pound
weapon designed to destroy “hard” targets, like underground bunkers.125
The Air Force wanted Paveway III weapons released from very low
altitudes to conform to the service’s “go-low” survivability tactics. This
required incorporating an autopilot so the weapon could maneuver itself
to a position from where its laser sensor could see laser energy reflected
from the target. This accommodation proved difficult and costly, and in
1985, Air Force secretary Vern Orr terminated the program after procur-
ing only a small fraction of the originally planned kits.126
When Red Flag began, the Air Force lacked aircraft capable of pene-
trating enemy defenses and jamming enemy radar systems, a key feature
of Creech’s rollback concept. During the first Green Flag exercise, 72
percent of the sorties became ineffective when confronting a sophisti-
cated jamming threat. To continue training, the Aggressor force would
stop jamming. Creech told the Aggressors to keep jamming: “We always
jam in Red Flag, but we stop when it starts to hurt because our purpose
is to train. We jam just a few seconds to make sure people know about
the jamming. [At Green Flag,] I said, ‘You jam, jam, jam, jam, jam unre-
lentingly. People abort, it does not matter. Jam, jam, jam.’ And it has had
a profound effect.”127
When the Navy demonstrated the effectiveness of its EA-6 jammers
during Red Flag exercises, the Air Force began to adapt its F-111 me-
dium bomber to a jammer version, the EF-111. The program was made
part of the Air Force’s Pave Strike initiative, and Creech made the EF-
111 the Tactical Air Force’s top equipment priority.128
The Air Force also began to field an improved version of the Wild
Weasel. As part of the Pave Strike program, the F-4Gs were equipped
with the APR-38A ECM suite, enabling them to employ multiple jam-
ming techniques against several radars simultaneously, and armed with
the AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM). The super-
sonic HARM could be reprogrammed in flight, enabling it to strike un-
foreseen (or “pop-up”) targets. The HARM was also capable of staying
on target even after the target’s radar stopped emitting.129
378 Part 2

Creech backed employing C-130 cargo planes as EC-130H “Com-

pass Call” communications-jamming aircraft, declaring, “When it [Com-
pass Call] . . . [turns] on all those jammers, he [the enemy] won’t be able
to talk MiG-to-MiG, MiG-to-ground, ground-to-MiG, and we can even
jam some of his [surface-to-air missile] links. . . . We sometimes call [the
Airborne Warning and Control System] the force multiplier; Compass
Call is the world’s greatest force subtractor.”130

Air-to-Air Combat
The Air Force was also looking to exploit advances in sensors to enhance
its air-to-air missiles. Success here boosted efforts to shift to beyond-
visual-range (BVR) engagements.
The AIM-7F Sparrow air-to-air missile, first deployed in 1976, had
more than double the range of the Vietnam-era AIM-7Es. Its solid-state
electronics offered greatly enhanced reliability over the vacuum tubes
used in earlier versions. The follow-on AIM-7M, which came into ser-
vice in 1982, improved the missile’s range and effectiveness.131 The 1980s
also found the Air Force and Navy upgrading the AIM-9L Sidewinder
missile, which was now capable of attacking a target aircraft from any di-
rection, known as an “all-aspect” capability.132
When the Cold War ended, both U.S. and Soviet air forces had
fighters capable of detecting and targeting enemy aircraft at ranges out
to forty nautical miles or greater. Enemy aircraft could be targeted effec-
tively even when flying at low altitudes in ground clutter, a capability
known as “look down/shoot down.” This greatly expanded the potential
for BVR engagements by eliminating the “low-altitude sanctuary” due to
the limitations of earlier fighter radars. It also confirmed Creech’s view
that the Air Force’s “go-low” tactics were a losing proposition.133
In 1981, Creech pointed out, “This country has a decided technologi-
cal edge and the technology is mature and workable and reliable enough to
give us the capability to fight at night, and it provides certain advantages if
we can deliver lethal firepower at night.” Shortly after Creech took com-
mand at TAC, Red Flag exercises began to incorporate night operations at
least twice every year. Chuck Horner recalled Creech’s determination to
have the Tactical Air Forces become proficient in night operations, noting
that aircrews “didn’t like night flying (at best an emergency procedure) and
were not very good at it. . . . He acknowledged we had a long way to go,
but he made us start anyway with what little capability we had.”134
 From Mass to Precision 379

Creech became a big supporter of the LANTIRN (Low-Altitude

Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night), being described by some
people as “the lone champion for LANTIRN.” As its name suggests,
LANTIRN provided an alternative to targeting visually or by radar.135
The Air Force also fielded Pave Tack, a laser-targeting system for F-4s
and F-111s and a modified version for the F-117. Similar to LANTIRN,
Pave Tack enabled nighttime target acquisition using IR imaging and au-
tomatic target tracking through its laser illuminator. Simply put, Pave
Tack and LANTIRN gave Creech what he was seeking: an enhanced
ability to fight at night.136

A Nascent Battle Network

By the mid-1980s, the Air Force was making significant strides in devel-
oping the foundation for a disruptive shift in the character of air warfare.
Stealth aircraft offered the promise of penetrating enemy IADS with high
confidence (if only at night). Improved radars, sensors, and air-to-air mis-
siles were combining to shift the character of air combat to beyond-
visual-range air-to-air engagements, leveraging the U.S. IT advantage
over the Soviets. Advances in electronic warfare were increasing the odds
of strike aircraft reaching their targets, and once there, advanced guided
munitions were boosting the changes of engaging the target successfully.
Creech’s vision also called for conducting operations over a wide
area, both day and night, involving the integration and coordination of
these systems and capabilities. This required enhancements in navigation
and force integration through what became known as a “battle network.”
Arguably the first integrated battle network was fielded by Great Brit-
ain in the late 1930s. It featured a system of early warning Chain Home
radar transmitters and receivers linked to a central command center—
Fighter Command—in London. The Royal Air Force utilized the net-
work in defending Britain against Germany’s Luftwaffe during the Battle
of Britain in the summer and autumn of 1940. Thanks to its battle net-
work, Fighter Command was able to launch its interceptor aircraft only
when a Luftwaffe raid was approaching Britain, while also dispatching
them to the proper intercept point.
The emergence of a battle network was also enabled by enhanced
navigation. The 1950s and 1960s saw improvements in inertial guidance,
improving ballistic missiles’ accuracy; still, their CEPs were measured in
kilometers. By the 1970s, IT-enabled advances in autonomous terrain
380 Part 2

contour matching significantly boosted cruise missiles’ accuracy.137 The

greatest advance, however, came with the fielding of Navstar—more
popularly known as the Global Positioning System, or simply GPS.138
GPS was decades in the making. In the early 1970s, the Air Force
and Navy were pursuing their own navigation programs. The Navy,
seeking improved submarine-launched ballistic missile accuracy, was
working on its Timation satellite research program. In April 1973, it was
combined with a similar Air Force project, 621B, into the Navstar Global
Positioning System. Its objective was to develop a comprehensive, all-
weather system capable of providing three-dimensional position, veloc-
ity, and timing accuracy.139 The United States completed deploying the
twenty-four-satellite GPS in 1993—the first navigational system offering
worldwide precision. Although unforeseen at the time, GPS emerged as
a key factor in enabling the disruptive shift in air warfare revealed in the
First Gulf War.140
The same year the Navstar program was formed, the Air Force began
full-scale development of the E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System
(AWACS), with the first aircraft entering the Air Force four years later.
The AWACS’s look-down radar provided a 360-degree view of its operat-
ing area, making it capable of detecting and tracking aircraft, both friendly
and hostile, operating at low altitudes—including those flying in ground
clutter. Operating as part of a battle network, the AWACS shares its infor-
mation with others in the network, while directing fighter-interceptors
to engage enemy aircraft, thereby becoming a “third wingman” for fighter
pilots.141
Having fielded AWACS, the Air Force began to work on the E-8
Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS). The JSTARS
offered members of the emerging battle network accurate real-time loca-
tion and targeting information on moving enemy ground-combat vehic-
ular traffic. To “thicken” the network, the TR-1 reconnaissance aircraft
(an upgraded U-2) was introduced to provide a deep battlefield surveil-
lance and data-link capability.142

Friend or Foe?
The Air Force’s efforts to use early IR and radar-homing missiles to fight
beyond visual range were hampered by the challenge of distinguishing be-
tween friendly and enemy aircraft. Aircraft electronic identification, friend
or foe (IFF) equipment was first employed on aircraft in World War II and
 From Mass to Precision 381

was standard on nearly every combat aircraft during the Vietnam War.
The IFF equipment, however, suffered from a high failure rate.143 This un-
derstandably made Air Force and Navy aircrews reluctant to engage be-
yond visual range. Concerns ran so high that some commanders required
pilots to have visual identification of the target aircraft before it could be
engaged. Consequently, there were only two confirmed BVR kills by U.S.
aircrews during Vietnam War. Solving the IFF problem became essential
to exploiting the ability to engage the enemy at extended ranges.
Once again, the Israelis provided help. In the 1967 Middle East war,
the Israelis recovered Soviet SRO-2 IFF transponders from downed
MiGs. They shared the equipment with the Air Force, which began a co-
vert program code-named Combat Tree, which involved building a U.S.
SRO-2 interrogator system (the AN/APX-81). By 1971, the system was
being mounted on Air Force fighters, enabling them to trigger a MiG’s
IFF response or to receive a MiG’s replies to interrogations by its own
ground-controlled intercept radars. Aircraft equipped with the Combat
Tree system could identify enemy aircraft at ranges up to sixty nautical
miles, or three times the distance that an F-4 could detect (but not posi-
tively identify) planes with its radar.144
The Air Force also developed the AN/ASX-1 Target Identification
System Electro-Optical (TISEO), which combined a stabilized telescope
with an attached TV camera that displayed images on the U.S. fighter’s
radarscope. Deployed on the F-4E, the TISEO enabled aircrews to iden-
tify large aircraft fifty to eighty nautical miles distant and fighter-size air-
craft at distances of ten nautical miles or more. Still, long-standing pilot
fears associated with “friendly fire” remained.145 But as advances in IFF
systems continued and as more effective command-and-control systems
entered the force, pilots gradually gained the confidence necessary to ex-
ploit the Air Force’s enhanced scouting capabilities. It soon produced a
dramatic shift in the character of air-to-air combat.

Air War in the Middle East

Mole Cricket 19
On June 9, 1982, the largest single air battle since World War II occurred
over the Bekaa Valley along Lebanon’s central plain. The combatants
were the IAF and Syria’s air force and ground-based IADS. Code-named
Mole Cricket 19 by the Israelis, the operation saw the IAF employing a
382 Part 2

mix of aircraft to suppress the Syrian defenses—in effect, a mini-SEAD

campaign along the lines of what Creech had been advocating.
The Syrian force included nineteen SA-6 sites (the “19” in “Mole
Cricket 19”), along with some SA-2 and SA-3 sites, supported by MiG-
21 and MiG-23 interceptors. Against this threat, the IAF employed a
squadron of Mastiff and Scout remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs, or
drones). The Mastiffs acted as bait, simulating an attack by IAF fighters
to get the Syrian SAMs to turn on their radars. As the SAMs fired at the
RPVs, IAF fighters launched anti-radiation missiles at the sites, decimat-
ing the Syrian air defenses. In roughly ten minutes, seventeen of the
nineteen SA-6 SAM sites and several SA-2 and SA-3 sites were de-
stroyed. The remaining sites were taken out the following day. Some
fifty-seven SA-6s were fired. All missed.
Scout and Mastiff RPVs also provided real-time video surveillance of
Syrian fighters taxiing on their runways prior to takeoff. The informa-
tion was relayed to several Israeli E-2C surveillance aircraft, as well as a
Boeing 707 electronic intelligence aircraft and numerous ground and
airborne jammers. The E-2Cs picked up the Syrian fighters on radar as
they became airborne and relayed intercept information to IAF fighters.
The Israelis began jamming the Syrian MiGs, disrupting communica-
tions with their ground-controlled intercept stations. The IAF’s inte-
grated operation, combined with the superior situation awareness of its
experienced pilots, resulted in eighty-five Syrian aircraft being destroyed
in the air without a single Israeli loss.146
Despite the IAF’s impressive performance, both the IDF and many
defense analysts argued that the Bekaa Valley engagements were in many
ways unique. For example, the Syrian SA-6s were located in fixed posi-
tions that were well known in advance by Israeli intelligence. The opera-
tion was also extremely limited in duration, offering little opportunity
for the two sides to undertake efforts aimed at offsetting the other’s tac-
tics. Nevertheless, one of the United States’ foremost experts on modern
air warfare concluded, “Dramatic proof of what the new technology
could accomplish if skillfully wielded was offered by the crisply executed
Israeli air operation.”147

Lebanon
On December 4, 1983, eighteen months after the Israeli strikes in the
Bekaa Valley, U.S. warplanes attacked Syrian anti-aircraft sites in Lebanon.
 From Mass to Precision 383

The strikes, launched from Navy carriers in the Eastern Mediterranean,

were in retaliation for Syrian anti-aircraft fire against a U.S. reconnais-
sance aircraft supporting the U.S. Marine Corps peacekeeping force in
Lebanon.
The attack, marked by confused planning and poor execution, was a
debacle. One of the carriers involved, Kennedy, was about to depart for
the Suez Canal and had already stowed its bombs when the strike order
was received. Despite Kennedy’s low operational state, and over the task
force commander’s objections, the time set for the attack was moved up
from 11:00 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. This meant that the pilots would be attack-
ing into the sun. Moreover, the other carrier involved, Independence, had
loaded its strike aircraft with the wrong bombs, which had to be swapped
out.
Consequently, not all aircraft could be rearmed in time for the strike.
The Navy succeeded in launching twenty-eight aircraft, with stragglers
attempting to catch up with those already flying to the target. Following
tactics that were abandoned as ineffective during the Vietnam War, the
Navy saw two of its planes shot down, while only a few Syrian sites were
hit.148 Although the strikes were a Navy operation, the poor showing
could not help but raise concerns over U.S. air power in general. Fortu-
nately, both the Air Force and the Navy took the lessons from the failed
raid to heart, along with those from Mole Cricket 19.

El Dorado Canyon
In April 1986, Air Force and Navy aircraft conducted strikes against
Libya in an operation code-named El Dorado Canyon. The operation
followed an attack by Libyan agents against a nightclub in West Berlin
that resulted in a U.S. serviceman’s death.
Drawing on lessons learned from the Israeli operations in the Bekaa
Valley four years before and from training at Red Flag, plans called for
conducting the operation at night and employing guided weapons. The
joint strike package was divided into two groups; one would hit targets
around Tripoli, the other those around Benghazi. The Air Force em-
ployed eighteen F-111Fs based at Lakenheath, England, while the Navy
provided aircraft specialized for SEAD to strike the Tripoli defenses.
(The Navy had full responsibility for the Benghazi part of the operation.)
Both packages included jamming electronic intelligence and surveillance
aircraft, along with fighter escorts.149
384 Part 2

Although the ground-based air defenses around Tripoli and Beng-

hazi “were as dense and overlaid as anything that the Soviet forces main-
tained in Eastern Europe,” only one U.S. aircraft, an F-111, was lost.
Libyan air defense operators turning on their radars found themselves
targeted by HARMs fired from Navy F-18s and A-7s. The strikes them-
selves, employing LGBs and radar-guided bombs, were highly effec-
tive.150 Although small in scale and limited to a single day, El Dorado
Canyon, like Mole Cricket 19, revealed important concepts and capabili-
ties that would, five years hence, introduce the age of precision warfare.

Barriers to Change (II)

Attempts at disruptive innovation typically trigger significant opposition,
often from the organization that is its prospective beneficiary. This was
true of the Air Force. As with the service leadership’s lukewarm reception
to stealth, the efforts of men like Moody Suter, Bob Dixon, and Bill
Creech were received skeptically by some people in the Air Force and
opposed entirely by others. There was also resistance from without,
however, most formidably by the Defense Reform Movement (DRM).
The movement began in the 1970s. James Fallows, Washington edi-
tor of the Atlantic Monthly, met John Boyd, a former Air Force pilot and
defense consultant advocating, among other things, buying large num-
bers of low-tech systems as opposed to the high-tech aircraft and systems
being pursued by the Air Force. Boyd introduced Fallows to fellow critic
Pierre Sprey, along with Chuck Spinney, a former Air Force officer
working as a civilian analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
William Lind, who served as a staffer for Senator Robert Taft (R-Ohio)
and, later, Senator Gary Hart (D-Colorado), was also a core member of
the movement.
In articles and presentations, the group depicted the Air Force lead-
ership as fools, knaves, or both. The image that Fallows painted of DRM
members was one of courageous patriots exposing the unholy cabal of
military brass and defense contractors who persisted in buying expensive,
high-tech weapons rather than large numbers of inexpensive, easy to
maintain, reliable weapons that would eliminate the Soviet quantitative
advantage. This, they argued, would yield a more effective military while
also saving money at the same time.
The group’s influence grew along with the Reagan defense buildup.
In 1981, Congress established the Military Reform Caucus, made up of
 From Mass to Precision 385

more than ninety senators and representatives, split roughly equally

along party lines.151 The caucus attracted men like Senators William
Cohen (R-Maine) and Sam Nunn (D-Georgia), along with Congressmen
Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia), Dick Cheney (R-Wyoming), and Thomas
Downey (D-New York).
The DRM’s views placed the group at odds with the vision espoused
by General Creech and like-minded Air Force officers. In reviewing the
fiscal year 1984 defense budget, Senator Gary Hart advocated canceling
production of the F-15 fighter and using the funds to procure greater
numbers of less-sophisticated F-16s. Hart also called for dropping a
Creech priority, the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AM-
RAAM). Arguing that deep interdiction operations were ineffective, the
senator recommended eliminating all weapons with a “deep combat” ori-
entation. Finally, asserting that night-combat operations, as well as those
in poor weather, were conceptually flawed, Hart advocated canceling two
other Creech favorites, LANTIRN and the Maverick missile. Hart and
Lind summarized these ideas in America Can Win: The Case for Military
Reform.152 They were joined by another reform group member, Steven
Canby, who claimed that the Air Force was relying excessively on SEAD
operations and precision munitions. He argued that the medium-altitude
“window” for air strikes that Creech was seeking to open would remain
closed. In Atlantic Monthly articles and the book National Defense, Fallows
continued to push the group’s agenda.153
In this war of ideas, the Air Force found a strong ally in the IAF and
its commander, General David Ivry. With Creech’s encouragement, Ivry
went out of his way to tell visiting congressmen and other influential
Americans how critical U.S. high-technology capabilities were to the
IAF’s success. He was particularly critical of the reformers’ criticism of
long-range aircraft. Sprey, for example, had asserted, “There’s no faster
way to kill the performance of a fighter than to ask for too much range.”
But the IAF needed range for deep-strike operations and “persistence”—
the ability to extend operations at shorter ranges. During IDF exercises,
F-15s would engage Mirage and F-4 fighters. When the F-15’s “rivals”
ran out of fuel, another group replaced them, while, thanks to their extra
fuel capacity, the F-15s stayed aloft to engage the second group. On June
7, 1981, eight IAF F-16s and six F-15 escorts flew a 1,300-mile round-
trip mission—a mission that would not have been possible with the
DRM’s short-range air force—and destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at
Osirak near Baghdad. The IAF’s operations in the Bekaa Valley a year
386 Part 2

later relied even more for their success on the kinds of high-tech capabil-
ities that many DRM members discounted.154
To the reformers’ great frustration, the Air Force was able to deflect
most of their ideas. Yet the service’s leaders often demonstrated a reluc-
tance to consider how they might introduce new concepts and novel
capabilities to boost air power’s effectiveness. Creech recalled, “In at-
tending quarterly four-star executive sessions at ‘Corona Conferences’
over a span of six-and-a-half years, I cannot recall a single instance where
the chief of staff and the assembled four-stars, addressing a huge range of
issues, ever once talked about doctrine.”155
The same might be said of the Air Force’s thinking on guided weap-
ons. Despite the verdict of RAND analysts that LGB performance was
“spectacularly good” in the 1972 Linebacker campaigns, and although
major improvements in guided weapons had been achieved since the war,
the Air Force went to war in January 1991 with only a small fraction of
its force capable of employing them. When war did come, the Air Force
was the fortunate beneficiary of efforts by officers like Dixon, Creech,
and Suter. It also owed much to forward-thinking civilians like Harold
Brown and William Perry, who saw the enormous potential that emerg-
ing technologies—and the IT revolution in particular—had to transform
air warfare. Still others believed that new capabilities, when employed
with existing capabilities in new ways, could enable dramatically different
kinds of operations that would revolutionize air warfare. Among those in
this latter group were Lieutenant General Chuck Horner, Colonel John
Warden III, and Lieutenant Colonel David Deptula.

The First Gulf War

At midnight on August 2, 1990, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, quickly
overwhelming its defenders. By midday, nearly all resistance had ended.
President George H. W. Bush called on Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein,
to withdraw his forces. When Hussein refused, the United States began
to assemble a military coalition and deploy forces to the Middle East to
evict the Iraqis.
General Norman Schwarzkopf, commanding the U.S. Central Com-
mand, was in charge of overall U.S. operations for what became Opera-
tion Desert Storm (the First Gulf War). Schwarzkopf’s senior airman,
“Chuck” Horner, had responsibility for the air campaign but initially had
little in the way of forces. Schwarzkopf and the Joint Chiefs of Staff
 From Mass to Precision 387

chairman, General Colin Powell, agreed that air-campaign plans should

be developed in case the Iraqis mounted an offensive into Saudi Arabia
before U.S. ground forces could arrive in strength. On August 8,
Schwarz­­­kopf reached out to the Air Force for support in developing the
campaign. The task ultimately went to Colonel John A. Warden III, who
headed an Air Staff directorate, “Warfighting Concepts,” more popularly
known as “Checkmate.”

Instant Thunder
Warden was one of the Air Force’s leading thinkers. In his book The Air
Campaign: Planning for Combat, Warden presented a model for air opera-
tions consisting of five concentric rings describing the enemy state as a
system, with its leadership at the core.156 He argued that by conducting
air strikes against properly selected targets, air power could cripple, rela-
tively quickly, an enemy’s capacity to make war, by decapitating its lead-
ership, fracturing its ability to control its population, reducing its ability
to wage war, or some combination thereof. Drawing on his five-ring
model, Warden and his team developed a plan they named Instant Thun-
der. It called for prosecuting an aggressive air campaign primarily against
the Iraqi leadership. Warden believed that his plan, properly executed,
could produce a victory in a week or so.157
To some people, however, Warden’s concept appeared little more
than a sophisticated version of arguments dating back to Giulio Douhet
and Billy Mitchell on air power’s ability to defeat an enemy quickly by
destroying or neutralizing its center(s) of gravity. When the concept was
briefed to General Powell, he declared, “I can’t recommend only the
strategic air campaign to the president.” Nevertheless, Warden and
one of the Air Force’s brightest young thinkers, Lieutenant Colonel
David A. Deptula, found themselves on a plane to Saudi Arabia to brief
Horner.158
Horner, for his part, believed that “the best thing to do was to fight a
ground war of maneuver and use airpower to cut the [Iraqi Army’s] sus-
tainment since [the Iraqis] were vulnerable there.” As the general put it,
he intended to “build a hose and point it where the ground commander
sees that it’s needed.”159
Warden briefed Instant Thunder to Horner on August 20. Again,
Warden asserted that the war could be won with air power in six to nine
days. As with Powell, Warden immediately ran into resistance from
388 Part 2

Horner.160 The next day, Warden found himself on a plane back to

Washington, excluded from further work on the air campaign.
Horner, however, found some of Warden’s ideas attractive. During
the briefing, Horner suggested that he was thinking holistically about
the coming air campaign, telling Warden, “Let’s not use the terms strate-
gic and tactical. Targets are targets.” And even though he rejected Instant
Thunder, Horner found value in the targeting information embedded in
it. Most importantly, Horner asked several of Warden’s assistants to re-
main and assist in the planning effort. All but one—Deptula—would
soon depart. The young lieutenant colonel (and later lieutenant general)
emerged as one of Horner’s key planners in Central Command Air
Forces’ Special Planning Group, whose location became popularly
known as the “Black Hole.”161 The next few months saw the Black Hole
planners developing an air-campaign plan unlike any before it, drawing
primarily on the technological, training, and organizational innovations
that had emerged over the previous two decades, as well as the opera-
tional concepts that appeared in nascent form during General Creech’s
tenure at TAC.

Iraq’s IADS
Iraq’s air defenses were formidable, even when compared to those the Air
Force had encountered over Vietnam. The Iraqi IADS included four air
defense sectors providing the country with overlapping SAM and anti-
aircraft artillery coverage. The Iraqi Air Force, among the world’s larg-
est, boasted late-generation French and Soviet fighters, including three
squadrons of advanced MiG-29 fighters. Each air defense sector had an
operations center linked to subordinate operations centers, along with a
network of more than 100 acquisition and tracking radars. The IADS
hub was in Baghdad, which, after Moscow, had the world’s highest con-
centration of air defenses.162
On paper, the balance of forces between the U.S.-led coalition and
Iraq was heavily in favor of the former. Still, the balance had also been in
the United States’ favor in the Vietnam War and in brief operations like
the 1983 strike in Lebanon. And even though Israel prevailed in the Yom
Kippur War, it paid a fearful price. Saddam Hussein appeared to be bet-
ting that, like the North Vietnamese, if he could inflict heavy casualties
on the coalition and drag the war on for months, he could ultimately
prevail.
 From Mass to Precision 389

A Black Hole Breakthrough

There were some people at TAC who thought that they should plan the
air campaign, and so they developed one. Their plan recalled Rolling
Thunder, emphasizing various levels of escalation—the opposite of In-
stant Thunder. Perhaps with an eye toward Horner’s concern over the
lack of U.S. ground forces in the Middle East, the plan prioritized de-
stroying Saddam’s forces in Kuwait. This was consistent with the Air-
Land Battle concept that the Air Force and Army had developed for a
war in Europe, calling for air operations to focus primarily on defeating
Warsaw Pact ground forces. TAC’s plan also seemed to discount the po-
tential of stealth aircraft and PGMs, defaulting to the Vietnam-era ap-
proach of massing numerous supporting aircraft to support strike aircraft
attempting to penetrate enemy IADS to attack discrete targets.163
Fortunately, forward-thinking airmen gave Air Force leaders an al-
ternative: waging a new kind of broad-based campaign with SEAD as its
initial objective. In fact, the air campaign plan crafted in the Black Hole
was not the product of Air Force doctrine. Rather, it was designed to
combine stealth, guided weapons, and other advanced capabilities within
the context of the Red Flag high-fidelity training to create a new and
devastatingly effective form of air operations.164
Prior to the First Gulf War, few Air Force planners envisioned a sin-
gle aircraft taking out multiple targets in a single sortie or a strike air-
craft operating alone, without clusters of escort aircraft, against advanced
air defenses. Sitting in the Black Hole, however, Deptula focused his
planning around the handful of stealth F-117s at his disposal, each armed
with two guided weapons, designating them as the air campaign’s spear-
head. Combining stealth and precision would enable the Air Force to ac-
celerate the SEAD campaign, compressing Creech’s “roll-back” concept
to something approaching Warden’s “instant” success timeline. Once the
SEAD phase of the air campaign was accomplished, the skies over Iraq
would be clear for all coalition air forces to conduct the full range of air-
warfare missions nearly simultaneously. The plan also incorporated ad-
vances in command and control, navigation, and unmanned systems.
Horner thus received an alternative to the Air Force’s “go-low, smart-jet,
dumb-bomb” single-strike package mind-set for employing air power.165
To Horner’s credit, he adopted it.
In its final form, the air campaign was made up of four distinct phases.
Phase I, lasting roughly seven days, emphasized Creech’s SEAD campaign
390 Part 2

concept, focusing on Iraq’s IADS. Phase II, planned to last three days, had
air forces concentrating on suppressing Iraqi air defenses in the Kuwait
Theater of Operations. Phase III, anticipated to last roughly a month,
gave priority to inflicting attrition on the Iraqi army and isolating it from
its sources of support. This would pave the way for the coalition ground
offensive. Phase IV envisioned coalition air forces performing a range of
missions during the coalition’s ground-force offensive.

Desert Storm
The air campaign began the night of January 17, 1991, with the daunting
objective of neutralizing Iraq’s IADS within twenty-four hours. Led by a
combination of Air Force reconnaissance systems, precision munitions,
and stealthy F-117s, the mission was accomplished in the war’s first eight
hours.
The stealth F-117s, each armed with two PGMs, were assigned to
strike high-value targets in and around Baghdad, including critical Iraqi
communications and air defense nodes. The air campaign’s initial hours
also included a key deception operation code-named Scathe Mean.
Shortly after the F-117A’s guided-weapon attacks on Baghdad, a wave of
long-range, radio-controlled, aerial drones and air-launched decoys ar-
rived over the city. The drones simulated the electronic radar signatures
of various coalition aircraft, inducing Iraqi air defense units to activate
their radars, thereby revealing their position, whereupon they were
promptly attacked with HARMS launched from F-4G Wild Weasels.166
Operations were coordinated by the U.S. military’s nascent battle net-
work, including GPS, as well as AWACS and JSTARS aircraft. After the
first night, Iraqi air defense sectors were forced into autonomous opera-
tions. Hardened SAM and interceptor operations centers were neutral-
ized within four days.167
With the SEAD mission accomplished, coalition aircraft were able
to operate effectively at acceptable risk at medium and high altitudes.
The Air Force then began to employ a wide range of aircraft to suppress
any remaining Iraqi early warning and ground-controlled intercept radar
sites, command-and-control nodes, SAM sites, and air bases. Thanks to
superior training, tactics, and equipment, Air Force losses were substan-
tially lower than those suffered by allied air forces that persisted in “go-
low” tactics. The Royal Air Force quickly lost 10 percent of its seventy
Tornadoes supporting the coalition. The French Air Force, also “going
 From Mass to Precision 391

low,” saw two separate flights suffer serious damage early on. In forty-
three days of intense day and night combat, the Air Force lost thirteen
fighters, by far the lowest loss rate of any coalition air force. The Royal
Air Force’s Tornado had a loss rate of roughly ten per 1,000 sorties,
eleven times that of the F-15E, which flew similar missions.168
General Horner’s air operations center created a daily air tasking
order, including every coalition aircraft flying over the area of operations.
This enabled Horner to exercise overall control—unity of command—
over the air campaign, a critical factor given its scale and scope.169 Horner
also benefited from the technological advances made in the two decades
since Vietnam. Space-based systems provided accurate and timely weather
forecasts. GPS satellites proved indispensable as navigational aids in guid-
ing many coalition aircraft to their targets. This support was especially
key at night and during the first week of the campaign, when air opera-
tions were hampered by poor weather over much of Iraq and Kuwait.170
Elsewhere on the air campaign’s first night, thirteen B-52s, navigat-
ing with their forward-looking infrared sensors and GPS, flew at alti-
tudes less than 400 feet to attack five Iraqi forward-operating airfields.
According to a B-52G radar navigator, “[The GPS’s] super-accurate nav-
igation data kept our systems reliable as we crossed Iraq with our radars
off, and the final radar aiming on our bomb runs needed little or no ad-
justment by the bombardier.”171
The Air Force’s U-2R/TR-1 reconnaissance aircraft relied on its
GPS-assisted radar to locate targets and transmit their precise coordinates
to an AWACS orbiting over Saudi airspace. The AWACS forwarded this
near-real-time intelligence information to B-52s via coded messages, en-
abling the bombers to fly directly to their targets. More broadly speaking,
GPS also allowed coalition air forces to update their inertial navigation
systems, thereby improving the accuracy of their attacks with unguided
weapons by an order of magnitude against fixed targets.172 The AWACS
proved capable of detecting enemy aircraft flying at low altitudes at dis-
tances more than 200 nautical miles and identifying Iraqi aircraft during
their takeoff runs, enabling them to be tagged as hostile and the informa-
tion provided to coalition pilots. The U.S. network of airborne sensors,
weapons, and command, control, and communications links gave coalition
aircrews an enormous advantage in situation awareness, alleviating much
of the resistance pilots had exhibited in earlier conflicts with respect to
BVR engagements.173 The improvements in navigation, including the use
of LANTIRN, combined with enhanced command and control, enabled
392 Part 2

the Air Force to operate effectively at night. Indeed, the F-117 operated
solely at night.174
This nascent U.S. battle network provided coalition commanders
with inter- and intratheater communications links, secure data transmis-
sion, weather information, ballistic missile early warning, surveillance
and reconnaissance imagery, and signals intelligence. Looking back on
the role that GPS and satellite-based communications played in coalition
operations, Air Force chief of staff General Merrill A. McPeak declared
it “the first space war.”175

The Payoff
Coalition air forces rapidly eliminated Iraq’s air force as a significant
threat. Thirty-three Iraqi fixed-wing aircraft were downed during the war,
at a loss of a single Navy F/A-18. This 16.5-to-1 exchange represented an
enormous improvement over the roughly 2-to-1 rate achieved in the Viet-
nam War. Although many combat-experienced Iraqi pilots were flying
modern Soviet fighters, they proved no match for Air Force aircrews
drawing on their training at Red Flag. Every coalition air-combat victory
was achieved with advanced IR-guided Sidewinder and radar-guided
Sparrow missiles. The Sparrows employed by Air Force aircrews were
more than six times more reliable in 1991 than they had been during the
Rolling Thunder campaign and roughly five times more reliable than
those used during Linebacker I and II. Overall, air-to-air missiles in the
First Gulf War were approximately three times more likely to achieve a
kill than those employed during the Vietnam War.176
During the war’s first three days, Iraqi pilots employed tactics that
would have been recognized by North Vietnamese pilots two decades
before. In 82 percent of coalition air engagements against Iraqi fixed-
wing aircraft, AWACS provided target information and identification
well before U.S. fighters had even detected enemy aircraft.177 The Air
Force’s superior target identification and enhanced air-to-air missiles en-
abled U.S. aircrews to attack Iraqi aircraft beyond visual range and gave
them the confidence to do so. During the war, sixteen of thirty-three en-
gagements, or 48 percent, between fixed-wing aircraft occurred BVR.
The war revealed that an aircrew’s SA was no longer primarily limited to
what they could physically see but rather what they received from infor-
mation provided by other sources, such as the AWACS.178
 From Mass to Precision 393

The Air Force’s performance in BVR air-to-air combat discredited yet

another Defense Reform Movement pillar: its emphasis on close-in, high-
maneuver engagements. In the First Gulf War, no Air Force aircraft were
downed in air-to-air engagements. Air Force crews shot down 37 Iraqi air-
craft. Only three engagements involved any maneuvering. More than 250
enemy aircraft were destroyed on the ground, including those in shelters,
by the hard-target penetrating guided weapons developed during the
1980s, which DRM members generally opposed. With their hardened shel-
ters no longer affording protection, 148 Iraqi pilots took their aircraft to
Iran. Thus, ground attack—not air combat and especially not maneuvering
air combat—posed the greatest danger to Iraq’s air force. The trend away
from the maneuvering dogfight has continued since the First Gulf War.179

Stealth and Precision

As then–major general David Deptula, one of the key figures in planning
the Desert Storm air campaign, concluded, “Prior to 1991, two separate,
leap-ahead military technologies had matured enough to offer an order-
of-magnitude breakthrough. The first was low-observable (i.e., stealth)
technology, and the second was the development of precision-guided
munitions.”180
The F-117 stealth aircraft carrying two LGBs was a—and arguably
the—crucial factor in the astounding success achieved in the SEAD cam-
paign. The F-117s attacked the most heavily defended targets in Iraq,
against more advanced versions of the Soviet-built IADS that were so ef-
fective in the Vietnam and Yom Kippur Wars. Although F-117s flew only
2 percent of the sorties during the air campaign, they struck approxi-
mately 40 percent of the strategic targets, achieving a success rate of
roughly 80 percent.181 According to Lieutenant General Horner’s direc-
tor of campaign plans, Brigadier General Buster C. Glosson, “One need
only look back to our raids on Schweinfurt, Germany, in World War II
to see how dramatically precision weapons have enhanced our capabili-
ties over the last 50 years. Two raids of 300 B-17 bombers could not
achieve with 3,000 bombs what two F-117s can do with only four.”182
As Glosson noted, the F-117s were clearly a terrific “force multi-
plier.” Their stealth and ability to employ guided weapons eliminated the
need to generate the large strike-force packages that characterized ear-
lier wars. During Operation Desert Storm, a typical nonstealth strike
394 Part 2

package employed thirty-eight Air Force, Navy, Marine, and Saudi air-
craft, with only eight (21 percent) being strike aircraft: roughly the same
ratio of strike to support aircraft employed during the final stages of the
Vietnam War.183 During the First Gulf War, the U.S. military—primarily
the Air Force—dropped more than 9,500 LGBs—more than double the
number released over North Vietnam from 1968 to 1972.184 Some
17,000 guided weapons of all types were employed in the First Gulf War,
but they constituted only 8 percent of the total bombs expended. Yet
they produced more than 75 percent of the serious damage inflicted on
Iraqi targets.185 A 1993 Defense Science Board study concluded that air
operation’s effectiveness had increased by an order of magnitude in the
First Gulf War, noting that “for many target types, a ton of PGMs typi-
cally replaced 12–20 tons of unguided munitions on a tonnage per target
kill basis as well as saving as much as 35–40 tons of fuel per ton of PGMs
delivered.”186
As for the weapons themselves, some—the Paveway LGBs, Walleye,
Maverick, Hellfire, and Shrike—had their roots in the Vietnam War and
its immediate aftermath. By far the majority of guided weapons em-
ployed in Operation Desert Storm were LGBs and Mavericks. Never-
theless, the improvements in guided weapons were significant. For exam-
ple, during the Vietnam War, Paveway I LGBs enabled the Air Force to
take down bridges that had withstood repeated attacks. In Operation
Desert Storm, Paveway II and III munitions with BLU-109/B “penetra-
tor” warheads breached hardened aircraft shelters that were purportedly
invulnerable to conventional bombing. And the 500-pound GBU-12
guided weapon with the Mark-82 warhead took out individual Iraqi
tanks, even when they were sheltered in sand revetments.187
Although consigned to the outer ring in Warden’s Instant Thunder
concept, air attacks devastated Iraq’s army. For example, prior to the be-
ginning of the ground offensive, on the night of February 9, 40 F-111Fs
armed with guided weapons destroyed more than 100 Iraqi armored ve-
hicles. Four days later, during the night of February 13–14, 46 F-111Fs
dropped 184 GBU-12 LGBs, destroying another 132 armored fighting
vehicles, a 72 percent kill rate. Overall, during the war, Air Force F-
111Fs destroyed 920 Iraqi armored fighting vehicles, out of an estimated
total of 6,100, making them a leader in the “tank plinking” air campaign
preceding the coalition’s ground offensive.188
The success of the F-111s and F-15s put to rest still another Defense
Reform Movement assertion: that the advanced aircraft favored by the
 From Mass to Precision 395

Air Force were too sophisticated and expensive to perform reliably in

combat. At the onset of the air campaign, the F-15s and F-111Fs had
95.8 percent and 98.4 percent fully mission-capable rates, respectively.
After some six weeks of combat, the rates had fallen to 93.8 percent and
93.9 percent, respectively, hardly a precipitous decline.189
The air campaign also witnessed a dramatic improvement in inter-
diction operations. In the Vietnam War, prior to the introduction of
LGBs, it often took hundreds of sorties to destroy a bridge. In Operation
Desert Storm, guided weapons destroyed forty-one of fifty-four key Iraqi
bridges and thirty-one pontoon bridges in approximately four weeks.
Postwar analysis revealed that Iraq’s ability to move supplies from Bagh-
dad to the Kuwaiti theater of operations dropped by more than 90 per-
cent, from a potential capacity of 216,000 metric tons per day prior to
the war to roughly 20,000 tons. The Air Force’s successful interdiction
campaign discredited Defense Reform Movement arguments, like those
of Senator Hart, that all weapons with a “deep combat” focus, such as
those employed in deep interdiction operations, should be canceled.190

The Big Picture

The air campaign in Operation Desert Storm reflected a disruptive shift
in air warfare’s character. Admittedly, Colonel Warden’s vision of a short,
decisive campaign lasting less than ten days proved an illusion. There
was little evidence to support Warden’s contention that the air cam-
paign’s infrastructure attacks against Baghdad and other targets north of
the Euphrates River by themselves would produce a coalition victory.191
The de facto Air Force doctrine that emerged in the First Gulf War
had several fathers, none more important than General Creech. The air
war was waged as a campaign. Creech’s vision of a SEAD campaign com-
bined with medium- and high-altitude operations was realized, the prod-
uct of forward-thinking airmen like Horner, Warden, and Deptula.
Thanks to the SEAD campaign, which fractured Iraq’s IADS, coalition
aircraft could minimize operating at low altitudes, rendering Iraqi AAA
relatively ineffective.192
Creech’s emphasis on night operations also paid enormous divi-
dends, as the air campaign’s key initial strikes and many thereafter were
conducted under cover of darkness. Indeed, after the First Gulf War, air-
men began to refer to “the first night” rather than “the first day” of an air
operation.193 Looking back, General Horner declared,
396 Part 2

It’s hard to sum up . . . our success in a single sentence, but one

of our commanders came as close as anyone could. A few days
after the war was over, I was visiting one of our bases. The wing
commander and I were visiting with the people who had per-
formed so brilliantly, basking in the glow of our success, and
reminiscing about the events that had contributed to it. As we
talked more and more about how it had all been put together the
wing commander turned to me and put it in these words: “You
know, General Horner, after all that General Creech did for us, we
couldn’t miss.”194

Major General John Corder, who had served as Central Command’s

deputy director of air operations during the war and who had adminis-
tered the infamous written test to TAC crews in 1972 that led to the Air
Force creating its Aggressor squadron at Nellis, called General Dixon
when he returned home. Corder told Dixon that the Air Force’s success
in the war was the result of what Dixon had done in instituting Red Flag
during his time as commander of TAC. Corder recalled that at the call’s
conclusion, the crusty Dixon was on the verge of tears.195
Air operations in the First Gulf War were closely studied by the U.S.
military’s Cold War rivals in Soviet Russia. The U.S. air campaign con-
firmed the vision of Soviet military theorists, including Marshal Ogar-
kov, that a “revolution in military affairs” was under way, with the
reconnaissance-strike complex at its core. They concluded that “a new
line in non-nuclear means of armed struggle had been developed,” one
based on the “intellectualization” of weapons.196 In an assessment of U.S.
air operations, the Soviet Air Force chief declared, “It should be noted
that the conception of unification of automated control systems, commu-
nications, monitoring, reconnaissance, and electronic combat assets of
varied nationality into a single whole and access to a global operational
control system was fully realized in practice.” Another Russian military
theorist concluded that, regarding air operations, “the scale of its em-
ployment rose to the operational-strategic level. This indubitably is an
important innovation.”197
The Russian military theorists might also have noted that the air cam-
paign in Operation Desert Storm reflected, in some sense, an incomplete
air-power revolution. Although most of the elements of “reconnaissance-
strike complexes”—guided-weapons battle networks—were on display, they
were not sufficiently integrated to enable the Air Force to identify fleeting,
 From Mass to Precision 397

or “time-sensitive,” targets and strike them effectively. Over the next two
decades, the U.S. military, and the U.S. Air Force in particular, would make
significant progress in meeting this challenge, albeit in “benign” or rela-
tively “uncontested” air environments.
The LGBs employed in the First Gulf War were limited to employ-
ment in clear weather, while other guided weapons relied on IR signa-
tures or radar emissions to identify a target. By the end of the 1990s, new
guided weapons were fielded, notably the Joint Direct Attack Munition
(JDAM) and the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW). As “seekerless” guided
weapons, the JDAM (“Jay-dam”) and JSOW (“Jay-sow”) use GPS for in-
ertial guidance and to provide the target’s coordinates. These guided
weapons cost less than similar guided weapons and, unlike LGBs, can be
employed through clouds, smoke, or other forms of obscuration and at
night. They do not require target designation (as with a laser), so, once
they are dropped, aircrews can move on to other missions or employ ad-
ditional weapons. Both JDAMs and JSOWs are also capable of receiving
GPS updates after launch. In brief, they give aircrews an all-weather
“launch-and-leave” capability.198
New air-to-air guided weapons were fielded, enhancing the Air
Force’s effectiveness in air-to-air combat. The AMRAAM gave aircrews a
major boost in performance over the Sparrow. Both had roughly the
same range, but unlike the Sparrow, the AMRAAM is a “fire-and-forget”
weapon, enabling its aircrew to engage in evasive maneuvers or to move
on to perform additional tasks. The AMRAAM also weighs far less than
the Sparrow while having a higher speed, giving the enemy less time to
react and engage in defensive maneuvers.199
Significant advances in what have come to be known as “battle net-
works” occurred following the First Gulf War. Experience in the war
suggested that compressing the engagement cycle or “kill chain” would
become increasingly important, especially against time-sensitive targets,
such as a mobile missile launcher fleeing the site of a launch.200 During
Operation Desert Storm, it typically took about seventy-two hours to
compile the air tasking order that determined the targets that would be
attacked. The process of identifying targets, executing attacks against
them, and assessing the attacks’ success typically spanned several days.
Eight years later, during the Air Force’s participation in Operation
Allied Force against Serbian forces in Yugoslavia, progress had clearly
been made. The average “sensor-to-shooter” cycle was reduced from the
three days it took to create the air tasking order to about three to four
398 Part 2

hours. Tomahawk targeting time was reduced to less than two hours. By
the time of the Second Gulf War (Operation Iraqi Freedom) in 2003,
further refinements to the U.S. battle networks had been made. Ten
types of scout drones were employed, and in unprecedented numbers.
They joined U.S. manned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
(ISR) assets, including U-2, JSTARS, and AWACS aircraft. Many coali-
tion strike aircraft were able to monitor the movement of Iraqi forces by
using radar images transmitted directly to them from these ISR aircraft,
even in sandstorms. The drones occasionally executed strike missions,
continuing a role they first played in Afghanistan, with Predator UAVs
firing Hellfire antitank missiles against Iraqi targets.201
To move scouting data quickly to strike elements, the Air Force es-
tablished a Time-Sensitive Targeting Cell (TSTC) at Prince Sultan Air
Base in Saudi Arabia. The air attack on the Ba’ath Party headquarters,
where General Ali Hassan al-Majid, the dreaded cousin of Saddam Hus-
sein known as “Chemical Ali,” was reported to be located, was executed
in less than half an hour from the time the general was spotted heading
into his villa by a British special operations soldier. The information was
relayed to the TSTC, which cued an F-16 strike aircraft that destroyed
the villa using PGMs. In some instances, the TSTC put bombs on target
within twenty minutes of being alerted by intelligence. In all, coalition
air forces struck nearly 700 targets based on “dynamic retargeting” and
executed more than 150 missions against time-sensitive targets, such as
Iraqi leaders and suspected weapons of mass destruction.202

For nearly half a century following the bomber offensives in World War II,
the U.S. Air Force and the air forces of other significant military powers
confronted the problem of overcoming ever improving enemy air defenses.
Losses were often high and at times bordered on unsustainable.
In early 1991, however, over the skies of Iraq, in the course of several
days, an air campaign, led by a handful of U.S. fighter-bomber aircraft
armed with two bombs each, succeeded in dismantling one of the world’s
most formidable integrated air defense systems. At the same time, U.S.
and allied aircraft swept the skies of an enemy air force flying modern in-
terceptor aircraft. With the Air Force having achieved the air superiority
that eluded it over North Vietnam twenty years earlier, it went on to
wreck the better part of the Iraqi Army in one of the most lopsided cam-
paigns in the history of war.
 From Mass to Precision 399

The First Gulf War revealed a disruptive shift in the character of air
warfare. New capabilities, including guided weapons, stealth aircraft, and
advanced means of navigation and communication, were combined into
a nascent guided-weapons battle network. These capabilities were em-
ployed in a campaign based on an innovative operational concept, the
brainchild of Air Force leaders—and thinkers—that spanned from senior
generals to midlevel officers. The campaign’s execution benefited enor-
mously from a revolution in training that enabled aircrews to gain the
kind of competence that previously could only be acquired through ex-
tended combat. By several measures of merit, the air campaign con-
ducted in Operation Desert Storm yielded orders of magnitude or
greater improvements in operational effectiveness. As Russian military
theorists concluded, the “revolution in military affairs” they had foreseen
was now a reality.
 chapter ten
Echoes of History

Victory will smile upon those who anticipate changes in the

character of war, not upon those who wait to adapt themselves
after changes occur.

—general giulio douhet

He who will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.

—sir francis bacon

Senior defense policy makers want to know how their country stands
in key areas of the military competition. They are particularly interested
in knowing when they face disruptive shifts in the competition and how
to exploit them to their advantage. Part 1 of this study argues that we are
in such a period of disruptive change. Not only is the precision-warfare
regime reaching its mature phase, but it appears to be overlapping with
the onset of a new military revolution. It seems that we can discern, if
only dimly, the new regime’s characteristics.
The preceding four chapters describe how military organizations en-
gaged in disruptive innovation to trigger a military revolution and, along
with it, a large and rapid shift in the military balance in their favor. If

400
 Echoes of History 401

policy makers accept that they are in a period of disruptive change in

warfare, they need to know how well their military and the militaries of
their rivals are positioned to exploit the next big thing (or things) in war-
fare. Although a detailed assessment of this question is beyond the scope
of this inquiry, it’s possible to provide some preliminary thoughts on the
matter.
By examining the histories presented in the previous chapters, it’s
possible to identify characteristics common to the four military organiza-
tions that succeeded in pursuing disruptive innovation and that led the
way in navigating the shift in warfare from one regime to another. Two
general observations emerge. First, despite the term “military revolu-
tion,” disruptive innovation did not yield results overnight. The path that
each military organization took was long, typically taking a decade or
two to traverse. That being said, when the new warfare regime emerged,
it typically caught other militaries—and even the military organization
that introduced it—somewhat by surprise.
Second, the process that each of the four militaries followed was in-
variably messy and bumpy, neither straight nor smooth. Detours and set-
backs were common. It was often a case of two steps forward, one step
back. The role that chance, or luck, played in each history was often sig-
nificant.
A closer inspection of the four histories finds that those military or-
ganizations that led the way toward realizing a quantum leap in military
effectiveness share certain characteristics. The balance of this chapter is
devoted to describing these characteristics and their possible implica-
tions for the current military competition.

A Guiding Vision
Each of the four military organizations profiled in the histories had a
guiding vision of the new warfare regime. This vision addressed two
questions of fundamental importance: What are we trying to do? and
How can we accomplish this in a far more effective way than we can at
present? The vision is relatively brief and unambiguous, serving to focus
and inform the organization’s efforts.
In the Royal Navy’s case, Admiral Fisher argued that the existing
naval-warfare regime, centered on battleships and the simple line of bat-
tle, was doomed unless (and perhaps even if) major changes were made.
Fisher declared, “The battleship of the olden days was necessary because
402 Part 2

it was the one and only vessel that nothing could sink except another
battleship. Now every battleship is open to attack by fast torpedo-craft
and submarines.”1 Consequently, Fisher argued, “There is good ground
for enquiry whether naval supremacy of a country can any longer be as-
sessed by its battleships.”2
The admiral’s vision of future war at sea was clear and unambiguous:
for the surface fleet, he wanted ships with superior speed and long-range
strike capabilities to operate effectively beyond the enemy’s rapidly
growing torpedo range. Fisher also envisioned submarines armed with
torpedoes performing a new mission: flotilla defense. The fleet’s actions
would be coordinated by a global command-and-control network.
In the case of the German military and Blitzkrieg, General von
Seeckt’s vision was succinct: “The goal of modern strategy will be to
achieve a decision with highly mobile, highly capable forces, before the
masses have begun to move.”3 Simply put, von Seeckt envisioned over-
turning the positional, attrition warfare that prevailed on the Western
Front in World War I with “highly mobile” and “highly capable” forces
(which eventually became the elite panzer units combined with air sup-
port) capable of not only penetrating the enemy front but also rupturing
it “before the masses have begun to move,” or counter-concentrate to
stop them. Over time, leaders like General Guderian added clarity to the
vision, stating, “We believe that by attacking with tanks we can achieve a
higher rate of movement than has been hitherto obtainable, and—what is per-
haps even more important—that we can keep moving once a breakthrough has
been made.”4
The U.S. Navy was blessed with its own visionaries in the years be-
tween the world wars. One was Admiral Sims, who, nearly a decade be-
fore the United States launched its first purpose-built carrier, asserted,
“A small, high-speed carrier alone can destroy or disable a battleship
alone. . . . A fleet whose carriers give it command of the air over the
enemy fleet can defeat the latter. [Consequently], the fast carrier is the
capital ship of the future.”5 Sims’s vision was shared by Admiral Moffett,
who proclaimed, “We can hardly visualize today the potential power of
aircraft, not so much for scouting and spotting, but for bombing and tor-
pedoing. It may readily be the deciding factor in a war.”6
The U.S. Air Force’s leading visionary was General Creech. The
general was convinced that a different way had to be found to address
the integrated air defense system (IADS) threat that had inflicted such
high casualties on the U.S. Air Force and Navy during the Vietnam War
 Echoes of History 403

and on the Israeli Air Force in the Yom Kippur War that followed.
Creech’s vision was of an all-day, all-night, all-weather, precision, stand-
off, integrated force that would wage a campaign whose goal was to sup-
press enemy air defenses, not “fly past” them.7
In summary, in each case where a military organization led the way
to a disruptive shift in the competition, it enjoyed the benefit of a clear
vision of the envisioned end state—what it was trying to do and how it
would go about accomplishing it.

Extended Tenure and Institutionalization

In each of the four cases examined, the senior leaders most associated
with disruptive innovation enjoyed what in today’s U.S. military would
be considered an unusually long tenure. This makes intuitive sense, as
large-scale innovation takes an extended period to bring about.
Admiral Fisher served as first sea lord from 1904 to 1910 and then
again from 1914 to 1915, roughly eight years over a twelve-year span.
Rear Admiral Moffett, arguably the key figure in the development of
U.S. naval aviation, served as head of the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics
for an astounding twelve years, from its inception in 1921 until 1933.8
(His tenure would have been even longer had he not perished in an air-
ship crash.) Similarly, General von Seeckt, head of the German Army
from 1920 to 1926, would have served longer save for a political scandal
that erupted when he invited the grandson of Germany’s former em-
peror to observe maneuvers. Perhaps most remarkable is General
Creech, who headed the Air Force’s Tactical Air Command for six years,
from 1978 to 1984.
Each of these leaders cultivated acolytes and advanced their careers.
Fisher established what became known as the “Fishpond.” He declared,
“Favouritism was the secret of our efficiency in the old days and got us
young Admirals. . . . ‘Buggins’s turn’ has been our ruin and will be disastrous
hereafter!”9 Among the Fishpond members was John Jellicoe, who com-
manded Britain’s Grand Fleet at Jutland, and officers like Rear Admiral
Reginald Bacon, whom Fisher described as the “cleverest man in the
Navy.”10 Fisher’s efforts are well expressed by his declaration, “I have in
my drawer letters from 24 Captains and Commanders, the very pick of
the service, in favor of the scheme. I prefer these 24 opinions of the com-
ing admirals, who are going to command our fleets and administer the
Admiralty, to any 24 admirals now existing but who are passing away.”11
404 Part 2

Admiral Moffett succeeded in ensuring that all aviators were officers

and that certain commands, such as those of naval air stations and air-
craft carriers, were reserved for pilots. The BuAer staff provided slots for
aviators and a place for them to gain experience. During the 1920s, fu-
ture Navy admirals such as Mitscher and Towers found a home in BuAer.
The chief of naval operations during World War II, Fleet Admiral Ernest
King, whom Moffett convinced to transfer to naval aviation, succeeded
Moffett as head of BuAer in 1933.
General von Seeckt’s crucial contribution came early in his tenure. It
was then that the decision was made to prioritize keeping General Staff
officers—the “brains” of Germany’s Army—on active duty rather than
those officers who had gained extensive operational experience during
the Great War. This aided von Seeckt’s efforts to keep the Army focused
on future possibilities, rather than past experiences.
Whether by luck or design, a remarkable number of Air Force future
leaders worked for General Creech during his tenure as head of the Tac-
tical Air Command. All six of the Air Force chiefs of staff who served
from 1986 through 2001 were either a wing commander or on Creech’s
staff during the time he headed the Tactical Air Command. Over time,
twenty-one of the officers Creech had a hand in developing rose to the
rank of full general.12

Technologies Are a Key Enabler

In each of the four cases, disruptive innovation was either driven or en-
abled by significant advances in military-related technologies. In some in-
stances, it was a case of “technological push”—new technologies emerged,
leaving militaries to figure out how to best exploit them. There were ex-
amples of “technological pull,” where militaries were actively—at times
desperately—seeking out technologies that would enable them to exploit
big opportunities that they had identified but lacked the means to exploit.
During Fisher’s tenure as first sea lord, maturing torpedo technology
and the ability of submarines to operate at progressively greater ranges
made the Royal Navy’s close blockade operations an increasingly risky, if
not suicidal, proposition. Fisher sought to leverage this technological
“push” to his benefit through flotilla defense of the British Isles. Other
advances, such as those in metallurgy, wireless, turbine engines, and pro-
pulsion—shifting from coal to oil as the fleet’s fuel—were crucial to Fish-
er’s Scheme in three ways: first, in making possible his fast, all-big-gun
 Echoes of History 405

line of battle to move engagement beyond torpedo range; second, in cre-

ating a different way of employing capital ships in the form of the flying
wing of fast battle cruisers; and third, by enabling a radical shift in the
Royal Navy’s basing posture to enhance imperial defense and protection
against commerce raiders. Absent the advances being made with these
technologies, Fisher’s Scheme would have been far more difficult to real-
ize, if it were possible at all.
During the period between the world wars, both the German Army
and Luftwaffe and the U.S. Navy benefited greatly from the introduction
of mechanization, aviation, radio, and, especially in the Navy’s case, radar.
Regarding the Wehrmacht, the automotive industry’s maturation made it
possible to field armored vehicles with the necessary speed and range to
restore mobility at the operational level of war. Modern aircraft proved
essential in providing rapidly advancing ground forces with scouting in-
formation on threats to their flanks, as well as a highly mobile form of
artillery “close air support.” Radio proved indispensable for maintaining
command and control over highly dispersed forces on the move.
The U.S. Navy found itself leveraging these same technologies, al-
though in a very different way. Advances in aviation technology were funda-
mental to the shift from a battleship-centered fleet to one organized around
the carrier as its capital ship and the fast carrier task force as the successor
to the line of battle. Long-range radio and radar further transformed war at
sea by providing the carrier task force with early warning of approaching
enemy aircraft and a means to coordinate friendly aircraft operations over
extended ranges. This enabled the Navy to shift from an offense-dominant
regime, in which it was crucial to locate and sink the enemy’s carriers, to a
defense-dominant regime centered on early warning of enemy air attacks
and employing fighter-interceptors and anti-aircraft-artillery escort ships to
defeat them.
In the quarter century prior to the First Gulf War, the U.S. Air
Force’s dramatic change in the character of air operations found it rely-
ing heavily on advances in technology, especially those emerging from
the IT revolution, which was just then gathering momentum. The intro-
duction of solid-state electronics, enhanced sensors, and laser technology
in the late 1960s made effective guided weapons possible. The IT revolu-
tion also proved crucial in fielding stealth aircraft, as well as the GPS sat-
ellite constellation and advanced scouting and command-and-control
systems, such as AWACS and JSTARS, that provided aircrews with an
enormous boost in situation awareness.
406 Part 2

New and Novel Operational Concepts

Operational concepts provide the basis for planning at the theater or
campaign level of war, including describing how forces will operate to
achieve strategic goals. As such, they offer possible solutions to existing
and emerging military challenges. Dramatic shifts in the character of
military competitions, such as those described in the four histories, find
the most successful military organizations developing and refining oper-
ational concepts that are very different from those that dominate the ex-
isting warfare regime. These concepts informed and guided analysis, war
gaming, field and fleet exercises, and experiments and were in turn in-
formed by them. In this way, they shaped a military’s doctrine, as well as
its size, force mix, organization, structure, and investment priorities.
In each instance, innovative operational concepts enabled the mili-
taries to realize far more effective ways of competing at the campaign
level of war. They also directly or indirectly created “winners” and “los-
ers” with respect to particular capabilities, systems, force types, and
structures, as well as among the organization’s subcultures. Indeed, the
“losing” subcultures often presented a major barrier to efforts at disrup-
tive innovation, as was the case with Admiral Beresford and the Syndi-
cate of Discontent, General Reinhardt, the U.S. Navy’s “Gun Club,” and
the U.S. Air Force’s bomber-pilot-dominated leadership.
For Admiral Fisher, flotilla defense offered a new way of defending
the British Isles. His concept of employing a global surveillance and in-
telligence network with a mobile “flying wing” of fast, heavily armed bat-
tle cruisers enabled the Royal Navy to transform the fleet’s global
posture. Fisher’s best-known operational concept saw the fleet operating
as a “combined arms” battle force with “flotilla craft” as its screening
force, and all-big-gun battleships and battle cruisers firing at long range
to gain an advantage over the enemy battle line and offset the threat
posed by the enemy’s torpedo-armed destroyers and submarines.
The German Army confronted the unsolved problem that emerged
on the Western Front during World War I: restoring mobility at the
operational level of war to avoid losing a war of attrition. To this end,
forward-thinking German Army leaders, in conjunction with the Luft-
waffe, developed an operational concept in line with the military’s tradi-
tion of emphasizing maneuver over positional warfare. Leveraging
advances in aviation, mechanization, and radios, the Germans developed
a form of mechanized air-land warfare operations known as Blitzkrieg,
 Echoes of History 407

enabling the Germans to accomplish in six weeks in the spring of 1940

what they could not achieve in four years during the First World War
and to dominate land warfare in Europe for nearly three years.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy was engaged in efforts to address the
problem of conducting a campaign extending across the Pacific Ocean to
Japan’s home waters, where it envisioned fighting a decisive battle
against the Imperial Japanese Navy. Lacking advanced bases, Navy lead-
ers knew that the fleet would need to bring its own air power and logis-
tics with it, while maintaining extended sea lines of communication. The
Americans exploited advances in aviation and radio, as well as radar, in
developing the fast carrier task force that, in the months following the
attack on Pearl Harbor, rendered the line of battle obsolete, with the car-
rier emerging as the fleet’s new capital ship.
In the 1960s and ’70s, modern air forces like those of the Americans
and Israelis confronted the growing challenge of rapidly improving
IADS. Both the U.S. and Israeli air forces persisted in conducting offen-
sive air operations, but at a high cost in actual and virtual attrition, even
against minor powers like North Vietnam and Egypt.
General Creech and like-minded officers envisioned a campaign to
suppress the enemy’s IADS, rather than trying to bypass it. In addition to
introducing high-fidelity training, the Air Force drew on the IT revolu-
tion that proved essential to advances in guided weapons, fielding stealth
aircraft, conducting effective night operations, and achieving advanced
situation awareness. The combination of capabilities that emerged
from this effort enabled Creech’s vision to become a reality in the First
Gulf War.

Different Measures of Effectiveness

New problems at the operational level of war and the novel operational
concepts and capabilities developed to overcome them found militaries
adopting new measures of effectiveness (MOEs). Admiral Fisher’s
Scheme introduced a new concept for the fleet’s global posture. Prior to
Fisher, a key metric in assessing imperial defense was the number of ships
in squadrons on distant stations, in places like Asia and North America.
Fisher’s transformation of the Royal Navy’s posture discounted ship num-
bers. Indeed, more than 150 obsolete ships were withdrawn from service.
Instead, he emphasized near-real-time information provided by the Ad-
miralty’s global communications network, enabled by undersea cables and
408 Part 2

wireless, and the number of modern, fast battle cruisers capable of rapidly
deploying to threatened spots around the globe.
For Fisher to realize his concept of battle fleet engagement, he
markedly increased the emphasis on ship speed and engagement range,
sacrificing armor to get it. The admiral was especially keen on his battle
line enjoying an advantage of speed over its rivals, declaring, “There is
no question whatever that the first desideratum in every type of fighting
vessel is speed. . . . It is absolutely impossible to exaggerate the supreme
importance of speed.”13
Fisher’s concept of flotilla defense measured its effectiveness in terms
of submarines and destroyers armed with torpedoes rather than a surface
fleet defending Britain’s shores. Here we find Fisher again sacrificing
armor (as well as speed and firepower) to exploit the submarine’s greatest
advantage: stealth.
Similarly, the German Army emphasized new MOEs in abandoning
the positional, firepower-heavy attrition warfare that dominated the
Western Front during the Great War and moving toward mechanized
air-land operations. In designing mechanized forces, the Germans em-
phasized tank speed and operational range over firepower and armor
protection. As Guderian described it, “The chances of an offensive based on
the timetable of artillery and infantry co-operation are . . . even slighter today
than they were in the last war. Everything is therefore dependent on this: to be
able to move faster than has hitherto been done: to keep moving despite the ene-
my’s defensive fire and thus to make it harder for him to build up fresh defen-
sive positions: and finally to carry the attack deep into the enemy’s defenses.”14
This contrasted starkly with French tank design, which was wedded to a
war-fighting concept closely aligned to positional warfare and thus gave
priority to armor and armament. Not surprisingly, the German concept
of a highly mobile war of maneuver required greater emphasis on com-
mand and control, so MOEs like the percentage of tanks equipped with
radio transmitters and receivers became increasingly important. This is
not to say that the German Army was happy with its weakly armed Pan-
zer Is and IIs, only to note that when it came to setting priorities, speed
and range generally trumped firepower and armor plate.
Dramatically altered MOEs also characterized the U.S. Navy’s shift
from a battleship-centric to a carrier-centric fleet. The Gun Club em-
phasized the weight of a broadside that could be fired at the maximum
range of the largest guns. As long as this measure of merit prevailed, the
battleships would always compare favorably with carriers.
 Echoes of History 409

Those naval officers who envisioned the carrier as the capital ship
advocated different metrics. Like Fisher and the Germans, American
naval visionaries were willing to trade armor and firepower for speed and
range. Toward this end, U.S. carriers dispensed with armor-plated decks.
American naval air enthusiasts valued the carrier air wing’s extended-
range fires over the battle line’s volume fires. A carrier could only deliver
a fraction of the firepower inherent in the line of battle, they admitted,
but it could do so at a range ten times greater. During the 1930s, when it
was clear that carrier warfare was “offense dominant” and that the key to
success was to find and sink the enemy’s carrier before it found yours, the
Navy emphasized scouting to find the enemy carriers and sinking them,
over armor-plated decks and onboard anti-aircraft defenses. Conse-
quently, the Navy sought to maximize the number of aircraft and their
launch and recovery speed on its carriers.
The First Gulf War yielded a major shift in several key MOEs used
by the Air Force to determine military effectiveness. For example, the
growing dominance of beyond-visual-range engagements required less
in the way of aircraft maneuverability and speed in a dogfight and more
ability in scouting—detecting an enemy aircraft at the moment it enters
a friendly aircraft’s missile range. As scouting (and defeating the enemy’s
scouting) became more important, so did stealth.
The combination of stealth and guided weapons produced a shift
away from large-strike packages, where a large majority of aircraft
were in support roles, and toward small numbers of stealthy aircraft
armed with guided weapons. The MOE for these operations shifted
from the number of aircraft that could be assigned to strike a target to
the number of guided weapons employed on stealth aircraft. Similarly,
the measure of bomb tonnage dropped gave way to bomb accuracy.
This can be seen by the rapidly growing percentage of guided weapons
relative to unguided bombs employed in Air Force operations following
the First Gulf War. Precision-guided munitions constituted less than
10 percent of the munitions employed by the U.S. aircraft in the First
Gulf War. This figure grew to roughly 30 percent in the 1999 Balkan
War, exceeded 50 percent in air operations in Afghanistan in 2001–2
(Operation Enduring Freedom), and surpassed 60 percent in the Second
Gulf War.15
Scouting in the form of situation awareness remained crucial to ef-
fective air operations, but in a different way. The shift away from visual
engagements to BVR engagements was made possible by linking an
410 Part 2

aircraft (including its radar and sensors) into a battle network and arming
it with increasingly reliable extended-range air-to-air missiles.

Exercises and Experimentation

Professional analysis, simulations, and war games, although important in
their own right, can only go so far in identifying, developing, and validat-
ing new concepts of operation and new military system requirements.
They lack the detailed level of resolution (and “friction”) realized from
well designed and executed field exercises and fleet maneuvers. This is
critical because, in war, the devil is often in the details, and Murphy’s
Law is often the order of the day.
For example, war games conducted at the Naval War College in the
early 1920s identified the importance of maximizing the number of air-
craft on a carrier, as well as aircraft sortie rates. It was not, however, until
the Langley was launched and participated in exercises that the Navy
could determine precisely how this goal was to be achieved (or, indeed,
whether it could be achieved at all). Under Captain Joseph Reeves, the
Langley conducted a series of exercises and experiments that led to such
innovations as crash barriers and the deck park, enabling the ship to
more than double its aircraft complement while dramatically increasing
its sortie rate.16 Similarly, the German military’s exercises and operations,
including those during the Spanish Civil War and as part of the occupa-
tion of Austria and Czechoslovakia, enabled it to identify panzer divi-
sions’ fuel and spare-parts requirements more accurately and how the
Luftwaffe could best function as a highly mobile source of reconnais-
sance and strike support for Germany’s ground forces. The Royal Navy’s
fleet exercises in the years prior to World War I revealed the limitations
of its torpedo-boat destroyers in defeating enemy torpedo boats in close
blockade operations. They also identified significant problems associated
with the long-range gunnery accuracy that was crucial to Fisher’s vision
of battle fleet engagements. General Creech’s Red Flag exercises showed
just how much the Air Force had to learn with respect to conducting a
suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) campaign in general and
under conditions of aggressive enemy jamming in particular.
Field and fleet exercises also helped to vet and refine operational
concepts. The U.S. Navy’s series of fleet problems enabled it to develop
the principles of the fast carrier task force, making possible its prompt
introduction following the attack on Pearl Harbor. This also proved the
 Echoes of History 411

case with the Air Force’s Red Flag exercises and those conducted by the
German Army and Luftwaffe. Red Flag aided the Air Force in develop-
ing, almost on the fly, the innovative air campaign for Operation Desert
Storm. In the German military’s case, field exercises facilitated the blend-
ing of combined arms in panzer divisions and their integration with the
Luftwaffe. The Royal Navy’s exercises were crucial to its shift from close
blockade to distant blockade operations that proved successful against
Germany.
Field and fleet exercises were indispensable in each military’s main-
taining an awareness of significant shifts in the character of military
competition that sometimes occur during periods of revolutionary
change but that are not themselves revolutionary. This was the case with
the U.S. Navy and Air Force. The U.S. Navy’s fleet problems and experi-
ments identified several such shifts. Tests on the battleship Texas in 1919
showed that aircraft acting as spotters greatly enhanced the battle line’s
gunnery at extended ranges. Ten years later, Fleet Problem IX revealed
that carriers could function as an independent strike force by conducting
raids, even though they still had not displaced the battle line as the arbi-
ter of sea control. In the absence of fleet exercises and experiments, it is
doubtful the Navy would have either identified these shifts in the mili-
tary competition or adapted to them as quickly and as well as it did.
Similarly, the U.S. Air Force benefited considerably from its experi-
ence and that of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) in several wars—the ultimate
“field exercises.” The Vietnam War showed that guided weapons could
enable the existing form of air operations—large-strike packages focused
on individual missions at the tactical level of warfare—to be executed
more effectively. The IAF’s operation in the Bekaa Valley demonstrated
the boost in effectiveness that a nascent battle network employing un-
manned aircraft could provide.
One reason why disruptive military innovation typically requires a
decade or more to bring about is that it typically must overcome individ-
ual and institutional resistance. Properly structured field exercises and
fleet maneuvers, involving actual forces in an environment that is as close
to combat as possible, are arguably unsurpassed in their ability to gener-
ate support, and even enthusiasm, within the officer corps for new opera-
tional concepts. The Saratoga’s raid on the Panama Canal in Fleet
Problem IX and the Third Panzer Division’s performance in the German
Army’s 1937 North German Plain maneuvers convinced many officers
who witnessed these exercises—in a way that no war game or simulation
412 Part 2

could have—that they were on to something special and that a new and
far more effective way of conducting military operations was possible.17
The same can be said regarding the effect on the officer corps that oc-
curred following “real-world” operations like the German Condor Le-
gion’s operations during the Spanish Civil War, the IAF’s brief campaign
against Syrian forces in the Bekaa Valley, and the U.S. air strikes in Op-
eration El Dorado Canyon and its Red Flag exercises.

Investment Strategies: Options and Hedges

For navies that believe they are in a period of disruptive change, Admiral
Fisher offers excellent guidance: “The first essential is to divest our
minds totally of the idea that a single ship type as now built is neces-
sary.”18 To various degrees, through serendipity or design, each of the
four military organizations examined pursued investment strategies em-
phasizing hedging against the uncertainties inherent in a highly dynamic
competitive environment, in part by creating options in potentially revo-
lutionary capabilities that could be exercised quickly if they proved out.
To the maximum extent possible, a hedging strategy avoids locking
in, via large production runs, to current or emerging military systems.
With respect to the latter, it is important to recognize the dangers of
“false starts” and “dead ends,” as well as the value of “wildcatting.” False
starts occur when systems or capabilities are purchased in quantity be-
fore they have reached the point where they prove themselves. Dead
ends are those systems and capabilities that may appear attractive but
never fulfill their promise within the planning horizon. Wildcatting pri-
oritizes exploring a wide range of potentially attractive systems and capa-
bilities that have the potential to advance disruptive innovation.
Thus, wildcatting expands opportunities for exploring new opera-
tional concepts in field and fleet exercises, enabling military organiza-
tions to buy options, or insurance, against an uncertain future, thereby
reducing risk. This boosts a military’s feedback from exercises, reducing
the danger of locking in to current systems that may depreciate rapidly
following a disruptive shift in the military competition. Wildcatting also
helps to avoid investing in false starts or dead ends.
Two of the four military organizations examined here avoided lock-
ing in to large production runs of major military systems that would
greatly depreciate in value or that visionaries believed would enable a
major boost in combat effectiveness. In the case of the U.S. Navy and
 Echoes of History 413

German Army, this was facilitated by treaty obligations. The Washington

Naval Treaty prohibited the construction of battleships and placed a rel-
atively low ceiling on carrier tonnage. With respect to naval aviation, the
U.S. Navy consciously tried to limit its purchase of large numbers of air-
craft, since the rapid advances being made in aviation technology en-
sured that they would become quickly outdated. The Versailles Treaty
produced a similar effect by banning the German military from possess-
ing tanks and aircraft.
In the Royal Navy’s case, given that it confronted a very dynamic and
ongoing competition for maritime supremacy, it needed to maintain a
powerful active fleet while it worked to exploit the opportunities Fisher
believed would sustain Britain’s maritime dominance. Still, where possi-
ble, Fisher avoided large production runs, particularly with respect to
battleships. Indeed, Dreadnought was the only ship of its class. Although
construction of battleships and battle cruisers was necessary in light of
improvements in rival fleets, the numbers in each successive ship class
were relatively small.
In the U.S. Navy’s case, arms control and the Great Depression
helped keep it from investing heavily in the Ranger class of carriers,
which proved a false start—the right kind of ship but the wrong ship
design for the kind of war that would be waged in the Pacific. Moffett’s
flying-deck cruisers were dead-end ships that, despite the admiral’s affec-
tion for them, fortunately were never built. The same can be said of the
Navy’s airships. As for the German military, it enjoyed the “benefit” of
more than fifteen years of disarmament that precluded significant pro-
duction runs of aircraft and tanks.
The Royal Navy suffered a major false start in its torpedo-boat de-
stroyers. These ships were specifically designed to defeat the threat
posed by torpedo boats that emerged in the mid-1880s. Four classes of
torpedo-boat destroyers were launched and began to enter the fleet in
1892.19 Fleet maneuvers revealed these ships as unable to accomplish the
mission for which they were designed. Over time, larger versions of the
ships, now simply called “destroyers,” proved their value, although in
convoy missions that were very different from those originally envi-
sioned for their ancestors.
The U.S. Air Force, like the Royal Navy, had to account for the on-
going improvements in Soviet Russia’s military capabilities, and hence
the large production runs necessary to maintain a great power’s modern
air arm were unavoidable. It did, however, make a substantial investment
414 Part 2

in wildcatting, although Air Force leaders generally had to be coaxed

into investing in stealth aircraft and guided munitions, which were pur-
chased in relatively small numbers.
In summary, all four military organizations devoted considerable re-
sources to creating options that enabled them to move with relative
speed to exploit a discontinuous shift in the character of warfare. In the
Royal Navy’s case, this manifested itself in several ways, including its in-
vestment in destroyers, submarines, battle cruisers, and the new-age bat-
tleships heralded by Dreadnought.
Despite the limits imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty and se-
vere fiscal austerity, in the decade prior to World War II, the U.S. Navy
introduced four different carrier classes into the fleet, the converted
“Sara-Lex” cruisers (the Lexington class at 33,000 tons), the Ranger
(13,800 tons), the Yorktown class (roughly 20,000 tons), and the Wasp
(14,900 tons). The Navy also hedged against the uncertainties associated
with the development of air power, investing in various types of attack
aircraft, including those designed for horizontal- and dive-bombing at-
tacks, as well as torpedo bombers.
The German Army developed four types of tanks in the short period
between the onset of rearmament in 1935 and 1939, while also exploring
a variety of ground formations to determine the ideal mix of combat and
combat-support arms for waging mechanized warfare. They included the
panzer division, motorized (panzer grenadier) division, light divisions, an
airborne division, and glider-troop formations.
In the two decades preceding the First Gulf War, the U.S. Air Force
fielded the basic elements of its battle network and missiles that would en-
able a shift to BVR air-to-air engagements, while enhancing its counter-
scouting efforts by fielding a wing of stealth aircraft. It also created a
major alternative to its “smart pilot, dumb bomb” strike arm in the form
of precision-guided munitions.

Time-Based Competition: The First- and

Second-Move Advantage
Like manpower, money, and matériel, time can play an important role in
determining military advantage. The ability to compete based on time
involves employing time more efficiently and effectively than one’s rivals.
Militaries that develop a world-class competence in time-based competi-
tion are more agile than their rivals. They introduce new capabilities
 Echoes of History 415

more rapidly and alter their force structure and doctrine more quickly
than their competitors. The ability to compete based on time is espe-
cially advantageous during periods of disruptive change, which require a
far greater degree of adaptation than is the case in periods of evolution-
ary change.
Since time is a resource, employing it effectively can reduce the risk
associated with a military organization’s strategy when it comes to in-
vestment priorities. The faster a military can introduce new capabilities
into the force, the less need it has to field a large standing military. This
is particularly important in periods of disruptive change, when existing
military capital stock is prone to depreciate at an accelerated rate.
Of course, the troops that operate military systems must be familiar
with them in order to maximize their effectiveness. The same can be said
of the need to train them to execute a military’s doctrine—especially one
based on innovative operational concepts. The histories examined in this
study, however, suggest that this does not require a lengthy period of time
to achieve. Within the span of five years, the German Army went from its
Versailles Treaty disarmed state to conducting sophisticated mechanized
air-land operations in two large-scale campaigns resulting in decisive vic-
tories. Within five years, the U.S. Navy, which until the late 1930s had a
carrier force made up of a converted collier, two converted cruisers, and
one undersized purpose-built carrier, found itself operating more than
eighty carriers of all types while waging a fundamentally new type of war
at sea on the way to destroying the formidable Imperial Japanese Navy.
Military organizations enjoying a superior position in time-based
competition are well placed to adopt strategies based on exploiting the
first- and second-move advantage. As the term suggests, the first-move
advantage involves shifting to a new, more effective way of competing
before rivals can react and keep pace. The second-move advantage finds
a military organization confronting a situation where a rival has begun
fielding new capabilities, forces, and operational concepts with an eye to-
ward effecting a disruptive shift in the competition in its favor. If the lag-
ging military enjoys an advantage in time-based competition, it can use it
to catch up—and surpass—the rival that is seeking to exploit the first-
move advantage.
The benefits associated with the second-move advantage are several.
For one, it allows the “second mover” to see with relative clarity the
“first mover’s” plans for gaining a competitive advantage. This reduces
considerably the uncertainty confronting the second mover. Another
416 Part 2

benefit accruing to the second mover occurs in situations where it enjoys

a dominant position in the existing competition and thus has no need to
introduce new capabilities that would lead to the premature depreciation
of a considerable portion of its existing military capital stock.
The four militaries in this study, to varying degrees, employed time-
based competition to their advantage. The Royal Navy case provides
perhaps the best example. Recall that for much of the nineteenth century
the Admiralty leveraged its command of money and Britain’s large and
technically advanced industrial base to pursue a strategy of the second-
move advantage. This saw Britain’s principal naval rival at that time,
France, seeking and failing to exploit the first-move advantage by intro-
ducing steam propulsion in its warships and then ironclad ships. The
British produced a militarily significant number of the new type of war-
ships more quickly than the French, even though La Marine Nationale
had moved first.
Enjoying an advantage in time-based competition also enables a mil-
itary organization to pursue a strategy of the first move, which Admiral
Fisher did most famously by constructing Dreadnought. This all-big-gun,
turbine-engine battleship effectively “wrecked” the German Navy’s con-
struction program. Fisher explained his strategy this way: “Put off to the
very last hour the ship (big or little) that you mean to build (or perhaps
not build her at all!). You see all your rival’s plans fully developed, their
vessels started beyond recall, and then in each individual answer to each
such rival vessel you plunge with a design 50 per cent. better! knowing
that your rapid shipbuilding and command of money will enable you to
have your vessel fit to fight as soon if not sooner than the rival vessel.”20
Once the Germans began to build dreadnoughts, Fisher was “plunging”
yet again with fast battle cruisers.
The German Army and Luftwaffe serendipitously found themselves
enjoying a second-move advantage in that, being disarmed for most of the
interwar period, they were able to see the investment priorities of Germa-
ny’s principal rivals. Similarly, the U.S. Navy had the good fortune of fol-
lowing in the Royal Navy’s wake after World War I, when the British had
a monopoly on aircraft carriers.21 This represented a near-term advantage
for the Royal Navy, but it proved ephemeral. Aviation technology was ad-
vancing at breakneck speed, and the Royal Navy’s carriers were depreciat-
ing in value at an accelerated rate. Moreover, tight budgets, combined
with a desire to get full value out of the newly constructed carriers, found
British political leaders reluctant to update the class. The U.S. Navy, on
 Echoes of History 417

the other hand, was better able to keep pace with advances in naval avia-
tion owing to its late arrival to the competition.
The U.S. Air Force offers perhaps the best example of a military or-
ganization pursuing the first-move advantage. The U.S. military under
Defense Secretary Harold Brown explicitly sought to leverage the coun-
try’s competitive IT advantage over Soviet Russia in pursuing its Offset
Strategy, developing stealth and battle-management aircraft, guided
weapons, advanced sensors, and a space-based navigation and positioning
system. In combination, they enabled the Air Force in particular, and the
U.S. military more broadly, to exploit the first-move advantage and gain
a dramatic boost in effectiveness.

Little Things Mean a Lot

The shift from one warfare regime to another often occurs after a rela-
tively small shift in a military’s structure and equipment. Put another
way, the phenomenon is highly nonlinear: even a relatively small per-
centage of the total force capable of waging the new form of warfare can
achieve levels of effectiveness far greater than much larger forces fight-
ing within the construct of the passing regime.
With the possible exception of the Royal Navy, each of the militaries
examined in the case studies brought about a disruptive shift in the mili-
tary balance with a small shift in the composition of its capital stock. For
example, only 12 percent of the German Army that defeated the com-
bined Belgian, British, Dutch, and French forces in a campaign lasting
but six weeks was mechanized or motorized.22 In late 1941, the U.S.
Navy included 352 major combatants, of which only 7 were aircraft car-
riers.23 During the First Gulf War, the U.S. Air Force’s fifty-nine F-117
Nighthawks represented only 2.5 percent of combat aircraft in the the-
ater. Moreover, during the air campaign in Operation Desert Storm, less
than 10 percent of the bombs dropped by the Air Force were guided
weapons, yet they produced more than 75 percent of the damage in-
flicted on Iraqi targets.24
The phenomenon is less apparent with respect to the Royal Navy
and the so-called Dreadnought revolution. That being said, the construc-
tion of a single ship, Dreadnought, had a profound effect on the maritime
competition. Once it appeared, it became clear that pre-dreadnought
battleships were greatly inferior in speed, range, and long-range fires.
A line of battle made from pre-dreadnought battleships risked being
418 Part 2

hopelessly outclassed by only a handful of dreadnoughts. The subma-

rine’s emergence enabled Germany to introduce a new form of blockade.
At the war’s start, of the 334 combatants in the Imperial German Navy,
less than 10 percent, only 31, were submarines.25

The Incomplete Revolution

In all of the instances when a military organization’s disruptive innova-
tion produced a dramatic boost in its effectiveness, significant parts of its
authors’ vision of future warfare remained unfulfilled. In the case of the
Royal Navy, for instance, Fisher’s vision, combining uniform big guns,
and hence long-range fires, with an advantage in speed to set and main-
tain a favorable engagement range, assumed that the problem of range-
finding would be solved. This proved wrong. At Jutland, the Grand
Fleet’s gunnery was generally poor. Moreover, the weather in the North
Sea, where the fleet would be most likely to engage the German High
Seas Fleet, was often cloudy, creating additional problems for ships
counting on being able to engage the enemy accurately at very long
range. In a sense, the war came a bit too early for Fisher’s vision to be
fully realized. In 1919, only three years after Jutland, rudimentary tests
involving U.S. aircraft acting as spotters for the battleship Texas dramati-
cally increased the ship’s gunnery accuracy. That being said, perhaps the
greatest affirmation of Fisher’s vision came from Britain’s rivals. After the
launch of the Dreadnought, all the major navies shifted to producing
the New Model capital ship. Indeed, from then on, “battleships” were
often referred to as “dreadnoughts.” Fisher’s vision of the submarine’s
fundamental reshaping of the maritime competition also proved correct,
although not exactly in the way he anticipated.
As with Fisher’s transformed fleet, Germany’s Blitzkrieg force proved
incomplete in at least one important respect. The problem resided in the
lack of motorized or mechanized infantry in the form of panzer grena-
dier divisions. Their absence in sufficient numbers found German ar-
mored units unable, at times, to exploit fully the breakthroughs made in
the enemy lines. In France, for example, following the breakthrough of
Guderian’s XIX Panzer Corps at Sedan, the armored force risked being
halted owing to concerns that further advances without infantry support
would pose unacceptable risks to its flanks.26 The problem was again
confronted, with a far less happy outcome for the Germans, in the first
month of the Barbarossa campaign in Russia. By mid-July 1941, only
 Echoes of History 419

three weeks into the campaign, Army Group Center’s two panzer groups
(later “armies”) had advanced to Smolensk, roughly halfway from the in-
vasion’s jump-off point and Moscow. Those Russian forces not already
destroyed or captured were mostly in disarray. But as Alan Clark notes,
“The extent to which the Panzer armies of [Generals] Hoth and Gude-
rian were outrunning their supporting infantry was a constant source of
worry to OKH [Oberkommando des Heeres, the German Army’s high
command]. The Germans were very short of motorized infantry units,
and those that they had operated close up with the tanks as part of the
armoured spearhead. . . . During the last week in July, both at OKH and
OKW [Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the armed forces’ high com-
mand], opinions were united in the view that the advance of Army
Group Center should be slowed down.”27
The U.S. Navy’s carriers also had limitations. Carrier aircraft domi-
nated the daylight hours, but at night, surface-combatant engagements
were the norm.28 Following the devastating success of U.S. flattops
against Japanese carriers in the Battle of Midway, they withdrew during
the night, while Japanese surface ships pressed ahead, attempting to en-
gage them.29 Although the carrier had clearly displaced the battleship as
the capital ship, the latter did not quickly go the way of the horse cavalry.
In several maritime engagements during World War II, the battleship
dominated.
The U.S. Air Force’s introduction of precision warfare in the First
Gulf War also had its limitations. The stealthy F-117 aircraft only oper-
ated at night. Their laser-guided bombs were generally ineffective in
poor weather, including conditions involving smoke and cloud cover.
Furthermore, in early 1991, GPS coverage was limited, and there were
times when it was unavailable. Finally, the Air Force’s ability to strike
mobile or “time-sensitive” targets in near real time was exceedingly
modest.
In summary, although war provides the ultimate validation of the vi-
sion of a dramatically new and more effective form of military operation,
it typically also reveals gaps in the vision that remain to be addressed.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Our four militaries that were engaged in disruptive innovation were fo-
cused on addressing specific problems, or challenges, at the operational
level of war. These problems were overcome thanks to these militaries’
420 Part 2

ability to identify, develop, and exploit major new sources of competitive

advantage. That being said, the new forms of warfare that emerged,
though remarkably effective in certain aspects of the overall competition,
were considerably less effective in other situations. These limitations ap-
pear in form and scale: either the form of military challenge was materi-
ally different from the one that was the focus of disruptive innovation, or
the magnitude of the challenge was so great that the new form of warfare
could not be executed at the necessary scale to address it successfully.
For example, Blitzkrieg proved enormously successful in defeating
Poland and France in short campaigns. Having succeeded in these, the
German military was confronted with a challenge quite different in form
from the one for which it was designed—conducting a seaborne invasion
of the British Isles. When, in 1941, Hitler declared war on the Soviet
Union, the Wehrmacht faced forces roughly similar in form to those it
had encountered earlier in Poland and France. Yet despite their great
success against the Soviets, the German armed forces lacked the size to
defeat a modern military on the scale the Russians could field or to exer-
cise effective control over an area an order of magnitude greater than
that of Poland or France.
Similarly, owing to the enormous size and industrial might of the
U.S. Navy, it hardly lacked the ability to compete at any scale the Axis
powers presented. Nevertheless, although the fast carrier task forces
dominated surface-fleet operations—especially during daylight—they
were far from ideal for solving the problem being posed by Germany’s
submarine force, which was waging a commerce-raiding campaign popu-
larly known as the Battle of the Atlantic.
The Royal Navy under Fisher succeeded in transforming the battle
fleet into a far more powerful force than it had been in the pre-dreadnought
era, thereby succeeding in accomplishing its principal mission: keeping the
Kaiser’s surface fleet at bay. That said, Fisher’s New Model battleships, bat-
tle cruisers, and flotilla defense force did not solve the problem posed by the
emergence of a new form of commerce raiding in the form of Germany’s
submarine force.
The U.S. Air Force represents an interesting case in that other
militaries—the People’s Liberation Army, in particular—are only now
fielding many of the capabilities associated with the precision-warfare
revolution. The threat emerging from the PLA, for example, is substan-
tially different from that presented by Iraq in the First Gulf War or
the Soviets during the Cold War. The Chinese fielding of anti-access/
 Echoes of History 421

area-denial forces is shifting the form of the air competition, from one in
which the Air Force could count on assured access to the theater of oper-
ations to one in which access is now highly contested, in large part from
the threat of air and missile attack on forward U.S. air bases. Moreover,
the PLA Air Force can compete on a far greater scale than any rival the
U.S. Air Force has encountered since the Cold War. The U.S. Air
Force—along with the rest of the U.S. military—is only now beginning
to confront the problems posed by the emergence of a mature precision-
warfare regime.
To sum up, each of the four militaries examined here was the first to
engage in disruptive innovation to realize a major boost in its competi-
tive advantage in a particular aspect of the military competition. This rein-
forces the importance of military organizations’ need to focus on
addressing the questions, What is it we are trying to do? and What is the
particular challenge at the operational level of war that we are trying to
address?

Serendipity
In reviewing the four histories presented in this study, one is struck by
the role that chance, or good fortune, plays in successful disruptive inno-
vation. Serendipity seems to have its greatest effect with respect to the
individuals who lead the effort. In the German military’s case, it seems
unlikely that its progression toward Blitzkrieg would have proceeded as
quickly or effectively as it did if General Reinhardt rather than General
von Seeckt had led the Reichswehr. The same might be said of Admirals
Fisher and Moffett and of Generals Creech and Dixon and their respec-
tive military organizations.
At times, exogenous factors precluded a military organization from
pursuing an ill-advised course of action. Although viewed as an unwel-
come development by many U.S. naval officers, the Washington Navy
Treaty prevented the United States from building battleships at the ex-
pense of carrier construction. On the other hand, the treaty limits also en-
couraged Moffett to argue for dead-end systems like flying-deck cruisers
and constructing false-start carriers like Ranger. In this case, however, the
Great Depression’s austere budgets precluded Moffett from pursuing his
plans. Similarly, the Versailles Treaty prevented the German military from
aggressively pursuing von Seeckt’s agenda in the 1920s. So when Ger-
many began to rearm in the mid-1930s, the Wehrmacht was not burdened
422 Part 2

with the expense of maintaining and operating (or even disposing of)
large quantities of outdated or rapidly obsolescing tanks and planes.
Outsiders nudged the U.S. Air Force toward disruptive innovation.
William Perry’s support for stealth aircraft and guided weapons and the
OK he received from Secretary of Defense Harold Brown were crucial
to creating the new form of air operations that the Air Force introduced
in Operation Desert Storm. During Admiral Fisher’s tenure as first sea
lord, he benefited greatly from the backing provided by King Edward
VII and, following his retirement, by the first lord of the Admiralty, Win-
ston Churchill. German Army panzer enthusiasts, Guderian in particular,
profited significantly from Hitler’s support. Congressman Carl Vinson,
chairing Congress’s Naval Affairs Committee, backed a series of bills in
the years leading up to Pearl Harbor that were crucial in maintaining
naval aviation’s momentum.
Although each military was aided significantly by good fortune, as
Branch Rickey once observed, “Luck is the residue of design.” The role
played by luck was not insignificant, but it was one element of many that
led to success. Those other elements were often the product of conscious
design.

Speed, Range, and Scouting

The assessment of the four militaries reveals a general, but not uniform, em-
phasis on increased engagement range and platform speed at the expense
of physical protection (armor) and, in some instances, firepower (arma-
ment). These militaries also generally favored range and accuracy in fires
relative to volume fires (“firepower”). In the Royal Navy’s case, the all-big-
gun capital ship favored by Fisher prized speed and extended-range gun-
fire, sacrificing ship armor and rapid-fire guns to obtain it. The German
Army’s vision of mobile warfare found it emphasizing speed and range in
its tanks, again sacrificing armor and armament, especially relative to the
French Army’s tanks. In a similar vein, the U.S. Navy discounted its carri-
ers’ active and passive ship defenses—guns and armor-plated decks—to in-
crease their speed and expand the number of aircraft they could carry.
Obviously, when compared to a battleship, the carrier itself sacrificed fire-
power in favor of being able to execute air strikes at high speed over ex-
tended distances. The First Gulf War found the U.S. Air Force boosting
its emphasis on precision accuracy. The F-117s, however, were signifi-
cantly slower than their F-15 and F-16 counterparts, a shortcoming that
 Echoes of History 423

was offset to a considerable extent by their stealth. The Nighthawks were

valued for the enormous advantage they offered in winning the scouting
competition, which partially offset the need for speed.
With advances in engagement speed and modern communications,
scouting grew in importance. Fisher relied on his global communications
network to provide information on rival fleet movements and to enable
his fast battle cruisers to arrive quickly where needed to address threats
to the empire. In the German military’s case, its operations—particularly
in addressing concerns over flank protection following breakthrough
operations—relied on the Luftwaffe for scouting support and on radios
to move information among the panzer forces. For the U.S. Navy’s car-
rier forces, especially early in the Pacific War, scouting was crucial. In the
offense-dominant regime that characterized the war’s first eighteen
months or so, finding Japan’s carriers before they discovered their U.S.
counterparts was the key to success. In this context, it’s easy to see why
the Navy was willing to sacrifice defensive armor and armament to aug-
ment its carrier air wing: the more aircraft, the greater the number avail-
able for scouting.30 The introduction of long-range radio and radar into
the fleet provided it with significant scouting advantages. Regarding the
U.S. Air Force, establishing and maintaining situation awareness through
various scouting means, especially the nascent battle network that in-
cluded systems like GPS, AWACS, and JSTARS, was essential. Stealth
aircraft proved crucial in defeating the enemy’s scouting efforts.

Organizational Innovation
As described above, there is a significant number of common features
characterizing military organizations that led the way in effecting a mili-
tary revolution through disruptive innovation. Still, it’s important to un-
derstand that these characteristics are not definitive, only suggestive. The
militaries examined in this study are small in number, in part because
military revolutions are relatively rare phenomena. That said, there are
others that could be examined to confirm or challenge these findings. For
example, between the world wars, the Imperial Japanese Navy engaged in
disruptive innovation, creating the carrier air arm that proved a formida-
ble match for the U.S. Navy’s fast carrier task forces. During the same pe-
riod, the U.S. Army Air Force and British Royal Air Force created
strategic aerial-bombardment forces, enabling for the first time large-
scale, prompt, direct attacks on an enemy’s population and industry, even
424 Part 2

before its ground and naval forces were defeated. It’s possible that an ex-
amination of these militaries’ success at disruptive innovation could yield
significantly different findings or confirm those reached in Part 2 of this
book.
On a more encouraging note, the characteristics derived from the
four militaries examined here do correlate remarkably well to those iden-
tified as resident in business organizations that have successfully pursued
disruptive innovation. Although military and business organizations have
important differences, corporations, like their military counterparts, are
constantly on the lookout for new sources of competitive advantage,
even as they maintain a vigilant eye on products, services, and other
sources of advantage that risk becoming wasting assets.31
For example, in the 1970s, the Boston Consulting Group developed
a two-by-two matrix that classifies a corporation’s assets. Although it is
rather simplistic, the matrix offers a useful framework for thinking about
a business’s products and competitive advantages. The matrix is defined
on its two sides by increases in levels of market share and by market
growth rate. A firm’s “Stars” are those that have great potential to pro-
vide a major source of advantage (and profit) but have yet to realize that
potential. They are roughly analogous, for example, to the U.S. Navy’s
carrier force in the 1920s and ’30s and the U.S. Air Force’s stealth air-
craft and precision munitions during the 1980s. “Cash Cows” are assets
that enjoy large market share and generate substantial profits in mature,
stable markets. They might be compared to the military systems or capa-
bilities that dominate an existing form of warfare.
A business’s “Question Marks” are assets that are in areas of high
market growth but have a weak competitive position and are behind in
the race to exploit the emerging market. The comparison here to mili-
tary competitions is tenuous. A useful comparison might be to militaries
pursuing the second-move advantage: they are “behind in the race,” but
in the case of an emerging “market” in a new form of warfare, they can-
not abandon the race the way a corporation can, save in situations where
a better alternative exists. Finally, there are the “Dogs,” assets that enjoy
low market share in stable, mature markets. In terms of disruptive mili-
tary innovation, these might be classified as “wasting assets”—systems
and capabilities that offer little in the way of competitive advantage and
that need to be divested so that the resources sustaining them can be bet-
ter employed elsewhere. Fisher’s scrapping of more than 150 ships that
were deemed obsolete provides an example.
 Echoes of History 425

In a period of disruptive innovation, some Question Marks will

eventually become Stars, dominating new warfare “markets” and estab-
lishing themselves as Cash Cows. Question Marks that fail to pan out—
such as the Royal Navy’s torpedo-boat destroyers and the U.S. Navy’s
airships—will become Dogs and be divested. Cash Cows like the battle-
ships during the dreadnought era up until World War II eventually
ended up as Dogs. The churn is constant. As Michael Porter notes, “A
nation’s competitiveness depends on the capacity of its industry to inno-
vate and upgrade.”32 George Stalk concurs, finding that “the best com-
petitors, the most successful ones, know how to keep moving and always
stay on the cutting edge.”33
As with disruptive military innovation, firms in free-market econo-
mies have found advancing a vision of the new competitive environment
essential to successful innovation. John Kotter found in his study of the
corporate sector that, for disruptive innovation to occur, a vision is
needed: “In every successful transformation that I have seen, the guiding
coalition develops a picture of the future that is relatively easy to com-
municate and appeals to customers, stockholders, and employees. . . .
Without a sensible vision, a transformation effort can easily dissolve into
a list of confusing and incompatible projects that can take the organiza-
tion in the wrong direction or nowhere at all.” Kotter discovered that “in
failed transformations, you often find plenty of plans and directives and
programs, but no vision.”34
Kotter’s findings are supported in the pathbreaking work on disrup-
tive innovation of Joseph Bower and Clayton Christensen. They con-
firmed the importance of having a vision of how the competitive
environment might change dramatically, concluding that “managers of
companies that have championed disruptive technologies in emerging
markets look at the world quite differently.” Those leaders who prove
unable to exploit the “next big thing . . . fail—not because they make the
wrong decisions, but because they make the right decisions for circum-
stances that are about to become history.”35
As with our four militaries, disruptive change in the corporate sector
does not occur overnight, and it also encounters resistance, both internal
and external. Porter’s research on the competitive advantage of nations
finds that “with few exceptions, innovation is the result of unusual effort.
The company that successfully implements a new or better way of com-
peting pursues its approach with dogged determination, often in the face
of harsh criticism and tough obstacles.”36 Kotter echoes Porter, concluding
426 Part 2

that “the most general lesson to be learned . . . is that the change process
goes through a series of phases that, in total, usually require a considerable
length of time.”37
Similar to military organizations that succeed in effecting disruptive
change, those in the private sector that succeed look to exploit a new way
of doing business. For militaries, this means new operational concepts, or
ways of operating. As Porter puts it, “Some innovations create competi-
tive advantage by perceiving an entirely new market opportunity or by
serving a market segment that others have ignored. When competitors
are slow to respond, such innovation yields competitive advantage.”38
Disruptive military innovation leads to a new “market opportunity”
through new forms of warfare, such as the Royal Navy’s concept of flo-
tilla defense (and the German Navy’s strategic submarine blockade), the
German military’s mechanized air-land operations, the U.S. Navy’s fast
carrier strike task force, and the U.S. Air Force’s “reconnaissance-strike”
operations. Not surprisingly, innovation in the modern business world
typically involves using emerging technologies in novel ways. As Porter
describes it, companies “approach innovation in its broadest sense, in-
cluding both new technologies and new ways of doing things.”39
The experience with field exercises of the four militaries in this study
finds support from some of the nation’s top business-school academics
researching organizational innovation. Bower and Christensen found,
“Because disruptive technologies frequently signal the emergence of new
markets or market segments, managers must create information about
such markets—who the customers will be, which dimensions of product
performance will matter most to which customers, and what the right
price points will be. Managers can create this kind of information only
by experimenting rapidly, interactively, and inexpensively with both the
product and the market.”40 In military terminology, “product” appears in
the form of doctrine and capabilities and how they are applied. Address-
ing a “market” refers to either an operational challenge against which
these capabilities are directed or an opportunity to introduce a new and
far more effective way of operating—creating a new “market.”
Experiments conducted by the four military organizations presented
in this study helped refine their operational concepts, while also building
support within the officer corps for the new vision of warfare. Kotter
found a similar phenomenon in the corporate sector. Similar to the en-
thusiasm generated by the German Army’s field exercise on the North
German Plain in the fall of 1937, the U.S. Air Force’s Red Flag exercises
 Echoes of History 427

under General Creech, or the Saratoga’s strike on the Panama Canal in

Fleet Problem IX, Kotter discovered that, in the corporate sector, “most
people won’t go on the long march unless they see compelling evidence
within 12 to 24 months that the journey is producing expected results.
Without short-term wins, too many people give up or actively join the
ranks of those people who have been resisting change.”41
Our four militaries that successfully pursued disruptive innovation
were characterized by visionary leaders receiving extended tenure. These
leaders typically cultivated acolytes to carry the vision of disruptive change
beyond the leader’s tenure. Research on the corporate sector comes to a
similar conclusion. Kotter notes that effecting “transformational” change
requires “taking sufficient time to make sure that the next generation of
top management really does personify the new approach.” Echoing Fish-
er’s admonition against following “Buggins’s turn,” Kotter finds that “if the
requirements for promotion don’t change, renewal rarely lasts. One bad
succession decision at the top of an organization can undermine a decade
of hard work. . . . [Disruptive innovation] typically goes nowhere until
enough real leaders are promoted or hired into senior-level jobs.”42
Regarding measures of effectiveness, Bower and Christensen’s find-
ings are worth summarizing at length:

Disruptive technologies introduce a very different package of at-

tributes from the one mainstream customers historically value,
and they often perform far worse along one or two dimensions
that are particularly important to customers. As a rule, main-
stream customers are reluctant to use a disruptive product in ap-
plications they know and understand. At first, then, disruptive
technologies tend to be used and valued only in new markets or
new applications; in fact, they generally make possible the emer-
gence of new markets. . . .
Many of the disruptive technologies we studied never sur-
passed the capability of the old technology. It is the trajectory of
the disruptive technology compared with that of the market that
is significant.43

So it is with our four militaries. In each instance, the new “tools” of war
underperformed established systems that dominated the existing warfare
regime. Fisher’s submarine flotilla defense boats lacked just about every-
thing that was valued in a modern battleship, including speed, firepower,
428 Part 2

and range. What they had was stealth. The German Army’s panzer for-
mations lacked the firepower of the artillery, the “king of battle” on the
Great War’s Western Front. What the panzers had, which seemed of
minor significance in static, positional warfare, was speed and range. The
air wing that flew off the decks of the Enterprise at Midway could not
dream of matching the firepower of a battleship or its ability to take a
hit. What it offered was greatly superior range and speed, which could
bring about a disruptive shift in war at sea if carrier aircraft could sink
battleships. In the First Gulf War, the U.S. Air Force’s F-117 stealth air-
craft lacked the speed and maneuverability associated with modern jet
strike aircraft. What the Nighthawk offered was stealth and the ability to
employ precision-guided munitions—two attributes that appeared mar-
ginal to many pilots trained to survive by outmaneuvering their oppo-
nents and achieving “pickle barrel” accuracy through a combination of
computer support and pilot skill.44
This dynamic highlights the importance of placing a military capabil-
ity within the context of a vision of the new competitive environment and
its new operational concept to assess its true value. It’s important for se-
nior leaders to have these “disruptive MOEs” in mind as they proceed. As
Bower and Christensen conclude, “Disruptive technologies tend to stall
early in strategic reviews because managers either ask the wrong questions
or ask the wrong people the right questions.”45 In other words, short-
sighted leaders frame the discussion of MOEs in terms of the current
competitive environment, rather than the environment that will exist. For
leaders who fall into this trap, carriers remain locked into their role of en-
hancing the battle line’s effectiveness, tanks are consigned to support in-
fantry operations, and stealth aircraft are assigned to strike packages.

The histories of our four militaries that led the way in bringing about a
military revolution yield valuable insights for contemporary military or-
ganizations anticipating discontinuous shifts in warfare. That being said,
the findings are not definitive. At best, they are highly suggestive. We are
well served by remembering Richard Feynman’s injunctions that, even in
the hard sciences such as physics, the “laws” stated in textbooks are really
approximations and always subject to revision. So it is, too, with the
study of war and organizational behavior. Still, as conditional as these
findings are, they are arguably more useful than simply “awaiting events”
or “muddling through.”
 chapter eleven
Where Do We Stand?

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
said Alice to the Cheshire Cat. “That depends a good deal on
where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

—lewis carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

How many types of ships do we want? This is quite easy to answer if

we make up our minds how we are going to fight! Who has made
up his mind? How many of our admirals have got minds?

—admiral of the fleet john “jackie” fisher

Senior u.s. national security policy makers need to know how the
U.S. military stacks up against rival militaries in the balance of power.
The Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA) is charged with provid-
ing this analysis. It typically does so in one of two ways. One kind of as-
sessment focuses on the balance in key regions where the United States
has vital interests, such as in the Western Pacific and in Europe. The sec-
ond kind examines so-called functional balances, such as the state of the
competition in space, in the undersea, and in strategic forces. There
are, however, some assessments that do not fit neatly into either bin. For
429
430 Part 2

example, during the Cold War, ONA produced comparative assessments

of U.S. and Soviet military training and of the economic burden of gen-
erating and maintaining military forces. Thus, it would come as no sur-
prise were it to address the U.S. military’s relative competence with
respect to disruptive military innovation.
As the level of effort involved in crafting a net assessment has been
compared to undertaking a doctoral dissertation, a thorough treatment
of this important issue lies well beyond the bounds of this book. That
being said, it’s possible to use the metrics identified in the preceding
chapter to present some general observations regarding the U.S. mili-
tary’s ability to engage in innovation on a grand scale. Of course, its posi-
tion must be judged not in absolute terms but in relation to the
competence of its rivals.

What Are We Trying to Do?

Not long after the Military-Technical Revolution assessment was completed
in 1992, Andrew Marshall sent me on the road to get reaction from some
colleagues whose views he regarded highly. One such venture found me
briefing a group that included one of the titans of political science, Sam
Huntington. Following my presentation, Huntington, who had read my
book on the U.S. Army’s unsuccessful effort to adapt to wage counterinsur-
gency effectively during the Vietnam War, asked, “So, Andy, tell me: If we
had developed this military-technical revolution at the time of Vietnam,
would it have made a difference?” Huntington’s point was well put. Indeed,
Marshall would typically begin discussion on new work by asking, “What is
it we are trying to do?” As Chapter 10 notes, and as Huntington was kindly
pointing out, success in disruptive military innovation is highly dependent
on the challenge that a military sets for itself. What is it trying to accom-
plish? Simply put, success in one attempt at disruptive innovation does not
provide an advantage in all circumstances. Consequently identifying the
right challenge against which to focus a military’s efforts at disruptive inno-
vation is critical. The more accurately and precisely you can define it, the
greater the chances that you will be able to address it successfully.
Each of the four military organizations examined in this book ad-
dressed this fundamental question: What key challenges do we confront
at the operational (or theater) level of war? In each case, the question was
posed during a major shift in the character of warfare.
 Where Do We Stand? 431

Absent a clear statement of the problem, it’s difficult to establish the

“virtuous cycle” of analysis, war-gaming, field exercises, and interaction
with industry important to disruptive innovation. Recall that the opera-
tional challenge informs thinking about operational concepts, which
identifies the kinds of war games and exercises that should be conducted
to subject the concept to testing and evaluation. The results are used to
adapt the concept and its associated performance metrics, while also in-
forming defense policy, resource, and program priorities. Absent a clear
statement of the operational challenge and an operational concept that
describes how it will be addressed, it truly is a case of “if you don’t know
where you want to go, any road will get you there.”

Operational Challenges
When it comes to operational challenges, the U.S. military operates at a
disadvantage. Recent administrations have been silent on the operational
challenges for which the U.S. military should prepare, complicating its
efforts to develop operational concepts. The most recent National De-
fense Strategy does not even define the term.1 As used here, “operational
challenges” are compelling real-world problems posed by adversaries at the op-
erational (or campaign) level of war.
During the Cold War, for example, Central Europe was the location
of the key regional military competition between NATO and the Soviet-
led Warsaw Pact. Consequently, the U.S. military’s principal operational
challenge involved defending NATO’s Central European frontiers against a
numerically superior foe (Soviet Russia and its Warsaw Pact allies) in a high-
intensity conflict environment while avoiding employing nuclear weapons. This
clear statement of the problem enabled the U.S. military, over the course
of the forty-year standoff between the two superpowers, to develop a se-
ries of operational concepts that informed the crafting of military doc-
trine. These concepts were adapted and, at times, even abandoned, as
circumstances required.
Given the current geopolitical environment, a contemporary set of core
operational challenges for the U.S. military might include the following:

• Deterring and, if necessary, defending the U.S. homeland and its

treaty allies from catastrophic strategic attack, including by weapons
of mass destruction, as well as by advanced conventional and cyber
432 Part 2

weapons (i.e., against technically advanced, numerically comparable

enemies).
• Deterring and, if necessary, defending U.S. allies and security part-
ners in the Indo-Pacific region, especially those along the first is-
land chain, from Chinese aggression and coercion (i.e., against a
technically advanced, locally numerically superior enemy) without
resorting to the use of nuclear weapons.
• Deterring and, if necessary, defending NATO’s Eastern European
frontiers from Russian aggression and coercion (i.e., against a
technically advanced, locally numerically superior enemy) without
resorting to the use of nuclear weapons.
• Deterring and, if necessary, defending against attempts to sever
lines of communication via the global commons linking the
United States to key overseas theaters of operation and key trad-
ing partners/resources (i.e., against technically advanced, numeri-
cally comparable enemies) without resorting to the use of nuclear
weapons.

There should be no more than five or six core operational challenges—

not every challenge can be a “core” challenge. Even these challenges
should be prioritized to inform choices regarding resource allocation.

New and Innovative Operational Concepts

Operational concepts provide the conceptual basis for planning at the
theater or campaign level of war, including describing how joint and
combined forces will operate to achieve strategic goals. Put simply, they
offer possible solutions to core operational challenges, both existing and
emerging. Periods of dramatic change in the character of military com-
petition, such as those described in the histories of disruptive military in-
novation in this book, find the most successful military organizations
developing and refining new and innovative operational concepts. Prop-
erly applied, operational concepts inform (and are informed by) military
planning, war gaming, field exercises, and experiments. In combination,
these efforts inform military doctrine, the military’s size and structure,
and its investment priorities. In each history examined in Part 2 of this
book, the pathbreaking military organization leveraged emerging tech-
nologies embedded in new military systems and capabilities to identify,
develop, and refine operational concepts that provided them with far
 Where Do We Stand? 433

more effective ways of meeting the challenges posed by their rivals at the
campaign level of war.
At present, the U.S. military, lacking a clear statement of the princi-
pal operational challenges it confronts at the theater level of war, is ill
positioned to develop operational concepts capable of effecting a quan-
tum boost in its effectiveness. The causes of this omission are difficult to
discern. After all, the United States has identified its principal great-
power rivals. Senior policy makers on both sides of the political divide
know the key military theaters of operation. Yet the U.S. Joint Staff and
military services are proceeding with concept development at a pace and
level of abstraction that are both unnecessary and unhelpful.

A Lack of Practice?
Part of the problem may be that the U.S. political leadership and mili-
tary are out of practice. The decade following the Cold War found the
United States enjoying a dominant advantage over any existing or pro-
spective major-power rival. There were no pressing major conventional-
war operational challenges against which U.S. military planners could
focus their efforts. The emphasis was on planning for “major regional
contingencies,” “major theater wars,” and “major combat operations”—
synonyms for war against minor powers like Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.
Evidence of this is found in the emphasis at the time on planning based
on “capabilities” (as opposed to “threats”).2
Moreover, after the U.S. military’s phenomenal success in the First
Gulf War, it understandably, if not wisely, adopted an attitude of “if it
isn’t broke, why fix it?” General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff during the war, remarked that it was tailor-made for what
the U.S. military had done to prepare for the kind of operational chal-
lenge posed by the Soviets in Europe. The war, he said, “was that Cold
War battle that didn’t come, without trees and mountains. We got a nice
desert, and we got a very, very incompetent enemy to work against.”3
The Second Gulf War found the U.S. military arguably winning an even
more lopsided victory, this time with an enhanced version of the war-
fighting concepts that had succeeded spectacularly twelve years earlier.
Following the 9/11 attacks, U.S. military planning priorities shifted
to addressing the challenges posed by radical Islamist terrorist organiza-
tions and insurgents, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here the
services found themselves playing a game of catch-up following nearly
434 Part 2

three decades of benign neglect of counterinsurgency warfare.4 Yet at the

same time the U.S. military was becoming absorbed by irregular wars in
Central Asia and the Middle East, both China and Russia were begin-
ning to stir. The lack of resources to challenge U.S. military dominance
that had plagued them for much of the 1990s was greatly alleviated by
rapid economic growth in the case of the former and a surge in oil prices
with regard to the latter. Their common objective was to end the Ameri-
cans’ dominance of the precision-warfare regime.
The signs were clear for those who were willing to see them, and I
played a role in efforts to develop a new operational concept to meet the
challenge posed by China to the military balance in the Western Pacific
Theater of Operations (WPTO). The Center for Strategic and Budget-
ary Assessments (CSBA), a Washington public-policy institute (com-
monly known as a “think tank”) where I was serving as president at the
time, took on the task. The result was presented in two publications,
Why AirSea Battle? and AirSea Battle: A Point-of-Departure Operational
Concept.5 To our surprise, and encouragement, the Pentagon soon estab-
lished an Air-Sea Battle Office with a similar goal in mind.

Joint Forces Command, R.I.P.

Not long after, in 2011, Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) was disestab-
lished.6 The command was formed in 1999 with the mission of leading
the military’s innovation efforts. For all its warts, “Jiff-Com” as it was
called, was the only four-star command charged with developing joint
concepts of operation for the U.S. military. Now the task was assigned
not to a command but to the Joint Staff’s J-7 (Joint Force Development)
element. Joint concepts would now be fostered through a deliberative,
consensus-based process.7 The requirement for consensus has been le-
thal to the enterprise, as new operational concepts directly or indirectly
create classes of “winners” and “losers” with respect to particular capabil-
ities, force types, and structures, as well as within the subcultures of the
military service in question. With innovative concepts, these effects are
magnified. Mandating consensus is a sure way for those who envision
themselves as “losers” in the new way of war to block change. As one se-
nior officer involved in the effort observed, the process was designed to
produce “tapioca” (pudding) as each service moved to defend its pro-
grams and budgets against any concept that risked compromising them.
 Where Do We Stand? 435

CSBA’s AirSea Battle concept, similar to the Cold War–era opera-

tional concepts noted earlier, focused on a specific operational problem—
in this case, defending the WPTO, particularly along the first island
chain, against Chinese aggression and coercion. The Defense Depart-
ment’s Air-Sea Battle concept, however, was abstract. Rather than focus-
ing on an operational challenge, it attempted to address the full spectrum
of conflict, up to but not including nuclear warfare, but in no particular
geographic theater and against no specific adversary.8
In 2015, the Defense Department closed the Air-Sea Battle Office,
folding it into the Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global
Commons (JAM-GC, pronounced “Jam, Gee-Cee”) effort. The Penta-
gon stated that the change was needed because “the missing part of the
Air-Sea Battle concept was the land portion, basically how the land
forces could be used to allow U.S. forces to gain access to a contested
area.”9

Archipelagic Defense
Once again, the Joint Staff found itself playing catch-up. The previous
year, the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, responding to concerns
from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy) over the lack of
progress being made by the military with its Air-Sea Battle concept, ap-
proached me about leading a “Summer Study”: a two-week effort bring-
ing together a small team of experts to focus on an issue of strategic
importance to the department’s leadership.10 The task: develop a prelimi-
nary operational concept for the WPTO that leveraged the military’s full
capabilities, including those of the Army and Marine Corps. Our work
yielded a basic concept of operations, which my colleague Jim Thomas
christened “Archipelagic Defense.”
The journal Foreign Affairs published my summary of Archipelagic
Defense in early 2015.11 Shortly thereafter, at the invitation of the Japa-
nese government, I traveled to Japan to give a series of briefings on the
concept to senior government and military leaders. The Japanese en-
couraged me to elaborate on Archipelagic Defense, and in 2017, my de-
tailed version of the concept, which drew on the Summer Study effort,
was published.12 Shortly thereafter, in March 2018, again at the Japanese
government’s request, I traveled to Tokyo and gave the keynote address
at the “Group of Five Strategic Dialogue.”13 I was one of only two
nonmilitary participants, the other being Japan’s deputy national security
436 Part 2

adviser, Nobukatsu Kanehara. The U.S. military was not invited to brief
on its JAM-GC concept.
The attention given to Archipelagic Defense led to a series of brief-
ings with senior U.S. defense officials and military leaders, who were en-
gaged in preparing the National Defense Strategy. Secretary of Defense
James Mattis retasked the military with “developing operational concepts
to sharpen our competitive advantages and enhance our lethality.”14

More Heat than Light

Throughout the Trump administration, however, the military still expe-
rienced difficulty making progress on this front. Perhaps not surpris-
ingly, the congressional Commission on the National Defense Strategy
was highly critical of the Defense Department’s inability to develop such
concepts, noting, “DOD [Department of Defense] and the White House
have not yet articulated clear operational concepts for achieving U.S. se-
curity objectives in the face of ongoing competition and potential mili-
tary confrontation with China and Russia. . . . We found that DOD
struggled to link objectives to operational concepts to capabilities to pro-
grams and resources. This deficit in analytical capability, expertise, and
processes is intolerable in an organization responsible for such complex,
expensive, and important tasks, and it must be remedied.”15 The frustra-
tion with the lack of progress extended to the strategic studies commu-
nity. One highly regarded expert, Colonel (Retired) David Johnson,
explained why the U.S. military’s efforts were floundering:

A key strength of . . . AirLand Battle was that [it was] . . . de-

signed to solve one problem: the defense of Western Europe
against the Warsaw Pact. This enabled the Army and the Air
Force to focus their concept- and capability-development efforts
on a known enemy, in a specific place, with understood weapons.
By contrast, the various multi-domain concepts now under de-
velopment are generic. They focus on domains rather than ad-
versaries. . . . Absent JFCOM [Joint Forces Command], it is not
surprising that there is no joint force [operational] concept,
much less a common lexicon, for multi-domain concepts. In-
stead, there are multiple competing concepts: Multi-Domain
Battle, Multi-Domain Operations, Multi-Domain Command
and Control, and Multi-Domain Maneuver, and more are likely
 Where Do We Stand? 437

in the offing as the services vie to solve challenges posed by Rus-

sia and China in ways that are in keeping with their respective
service institutional ethos.16

Following Secretary Mattis’s departure in December 2018, the U.S.

military began yet another effort at developing operational concepts.
The newly appointed defense secretary, Mark Esper, directed the four
services and the Joint Staff to create a “Joint Warfighting Concept for
All-Domain Operations.” According to the vice chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, General John Hyten, the effort built on former Joint
Chiefs chairman General Joseph Dunford’s ideas on “global force man-
agement” and “global fires” (weapons that could be launched from outside
a theater of war to generate effects within it). The new Joint Chiefs
chairman, General Mark Milley, added four new elements: global plans
(planning for rapid crisis response); global operations short of fires (op-
erations in the so-called gray zone between peace and open war); global
messaging integration (the use of both words and actions to reassure al-
lies and deter adversaries); and global integration of deterrence (the use
of all means, not just nuclear, to deter adversaries from undertaking ag-
gression).
All-Domain Operations was also viewed by some people as an evolu-
tion of “Multi-Domain Battle” and “Multi-Domain Operations.” Work
on another concept, Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2),
was undertaken for the purpose of enabling All-Domain Operations.17
In July 2020, General Milley requested that each of the services take
on a piece of the effort to develop the Joint Warfighting Concept. The
Army took contested logistics; the Air Force, JADC2; the Navy, joint
fires. No service volunteered to lead the effort on information advantage,
so it was assigned to the Joint Staff.18 Each of these concepts contains
different key assumptions while focusing on a different aspect of military
operations, making the task of combining them into a coherent whole
challenging, to say the least. As with previous failed efforts, the Joint
Warfighting Concept is not focused on a real-world military challenge,
and suffers from relying too heavily on the services and paying insuffi-
cient attention to how their disparate efforts will be fused into a holistic
war-fighting concept.19
There have been a few bright spots. Admiral Philip Davidson, then
head of Indo-Pacific Command, proposed developing an “Indo-Pacific
Warfighting Concept” focused on the real-world operational problem
438 Part 2

that confronted his command: deterring and, if necessary, defeating Chi-

nese aggression against U.S. allies and security partners in the WPTO.
Realizing the need to create a process characterized by a virtuous cycle,
Davidson envisioned testing and refining the concept through a “joint
network of training ranges.” In an implicit criticism of the ongoing Joint
Staff efforts, the admiral declared that any “new warfighting concept
must deliver a similar sense of assurance to our allies and partners today
that AirLand Battle provided to NATO member states in Europe in the
70s and 80s.”20 The admiral, however, retired in May 2021 as the Penta-
gon’s effort to develop operational concepts was undergoing yet another
change.
When the Biden administration entered office in January 2021, the
military once again hit the now well-worn reset button as the new secre-
tary of defense, General (Retired) Lloyd Austin III, signed off on a new
version of the JWC. In July, a new concept, “Expanded Maneuver,” was
introduced. As described by General Hyten, the concept is designed to
expand maneuver “in space and time. In every area that an adversary can
move, you have to figure out how to fill that space in time, before they
can move.” This requires figuring out, “how do I aggregate my capabili-
ties to provide significant effect, and then how do I disaggregate to sur-
vive any kind of threat?”21
The concept is composed of four “functional battle areas”: “con-
tested logistics,” “joint fires,” “all-domain command and control,” and
“information advantage.” The change was apparently motivated by the
military leadership’s inexplicably belated realization that access to space
and cyberspace would be heavily contested in a war with another great
power. As General Hyten described it, U.S. forces were being defeated in
war games because “we had basically attempted [i.e., ‘assumed’] an ‘infor-
mation dominance’ structure where information was ubiquitous to our
forces just like it was in the first Gulf War, and just like it has been for
the last 20 years.”22
As with previous attempts, the U.S. military’s current efforts shy
away from focusing on a real-world problem at the campaign level of
warfare, where important factors such as geography, force mobilization,
and the absence (or presence) of allies are taken into account. As General
Hyten described it, the Joint Warfighting Concept should be viewed as
an “aspirational” document whose planning horizon extends thirty years
into the future, rather than an operational concept designed to address
any of today’s existing and emerging key operational challenges.23
 Where Do We Stand? 439

In the Absence of a Compelling Concept

The lack of U.S. operational concepts focused on real-world contingen-
cies works to undermine other key factors supporting disruptive innova-
tion. For example, take the Western Pacific Theater of Operations. The
absence of a clear operational challenge, such as defending the first is-
land chain from Chinese aggression, makes establishing a “virtuous
cycle” difficult, if not impossible.
At the risk of stating the obvious, it makes a difference whether the
Pentagon’s Joint Warfighting Concept is intended to deter and defeat
the Russian or the Chinese military; whether it will be executed in East-
ern Europe or the Western Pacific. One only has to look at U.S. opera-
tions in these two theaters during World War II to see the great variance
in fighting methods. Patton’s highly mechanized Third Army, which
proved central to U.S. operations in Western Europe that led to Germa-
ny’s defeat, had no equivalent in the Pacific—not because the Americans
could not field such a force but because it would have been of marginal
effectiveness. Similarly, the U.S. Navy’s fast carrier task forces that domi-
nated war in the Central Pacific were not replicated for the Battle of the
Atlantic, for the simple reason that they would have been far less effec-
tive than the combination of convoy escorts, light carriers, and land-
based aircraft employed to defeat the German submarine threat.
As this study’s histories reveal, new operational challenges and the
novel operational concepts that new technologies and capabilities enable
typically lead to changes in key measures of effectiveness. This is espe-
cially true in situations where technological advances enable militaries to
field new and different military capabilities. For example, today the U.S.
Navy sees itself serving as a maneuver force in the WPTO. Depending
on how the Navy’s thinking develops, the range of its weapons—aircraft
and missiles—could become an increasingly important MOE relative to,
say, the number of ships in the fleet.24
Until the U.S. military devises a concept for how it is going to fight,
it also risks making poor investment choices, a luxury it can ill afford
when confronted with two great military-power rivals in a period of rap-
idly growing domestic public debt. Absent an operational concept that
takes into account the major changes that are occurring in war’s charac-
ter, the Pentagon risks operating off “program momentum”: simply con-
tinuing to field capabilities that are moving through the production
pipeline. Yet these programs were initiated years, and in some cases well
440 Part 2

over a decade, ago, when the United States’ geopolitical situation was far
more favorable, and the threats it confronted far less advanced, than
those of today.
Which capabilities merit continued production? Which should be
canceled? Which should be retained as hedges? Absent a decision on
how the U.S. military plans to address real-world operational challenges
and to create a “virtuous cycle” for testing and refining new operational
concepts, answering these questions becomes far more difficult than it
need be.

Speed—and the Lack Thereof

There is also the matter of time. The more quickly a military can intro-
duce new capabilities into the force, the less need it has to field these ca-
pabilities in large numbers as a hedge against uncertainty, thereby saving
material resources. As our histories show, the ability to field new systems
and capabilities rapidly is particularly important in periods when existing
military capital stock is prone to depreciate at an accelerated rate, as is
characteristic in periods of disruptive change in the military competition.
The U.S. military’s ability to compete based on time, once a formi-
dable source of competitive advantage, has eroded precipitously. As Gen-
eral Hyten candidly admitted, “I’m very concerned that our nation has
lost the ability to go fast. And we have adversaries now, and we see proof
in those adversaries that they’re going faster than we are. . . . Slow, ex-
pensive, that’s the way it is [for us]. . . . I’m criticizing the entire process.
. . . The entire process is broken.”25 The general’s concerns are well
founded. Not only is the U.S. military slow to field new capabilities, but
it has also compiled an unenviable record of spending tens of billions of
dollars on “failure to launch” systems that have stumbled through their
development process only to be canceled for being impractical, far over
their initial cost projections, or both.26

Hello, I Must Be Going

Shortly after assuming command of Joint Forces Command in Novem-
ber 2007, General James Mattis asked my colleague Barry Watts and me
to conduct an independent assessment of the command. Having been a
member of the 1997 National Defense Panel, whose recommendation
 Where Do We Stand? 441

led to JFCOM’s creation, and having served as a long-standing member

of the command’s Transformation Advisory Group, I was familiar with
JFCOM’s operations. As it turned out, we discovered what General Mat-
tis had suspected: the command was suffering from numerous problems.
One particularly acute problem concerned the disconnect between
the length of time it typically takes to bring about disruptive change—
typically a decade or longer—and the length of the JFCOM commander’s
tour, which averaged less than two years. As one senior member of the
command put it, “It takes a year to figure out the job. By the time you’re
here eighteen months, you’re a lame duck.” In each of the four histories
examined in this study, senior leaders closely associated with disruptive
innovation typically served in their billets substantially longer than two
years. Earlier successful attempts at disruptive innovation by the U.S.
military found senior leaders like Creech, Moffett, and Admiral Hyman
Rickover enjoying extended tenure lasting at least six years and, in Mof-
fett’s and Rickover’s cases, much longer. Yet Mattis was probably going to
have two years to accomplish a task that history suggests requires at least
three times as long just to generate and sustain momentum.
My recommendation to Mattis was that the JFCOM commander
should have the opportunity to serve two consecutive three-year terms,
six years in all. Assuming that the commander’s tenure proved successful,
he would then be assigned a four-year term as vice chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff to ensure that the groundwork laid in the previous six
years was brought to fruition. Although it was clear to me that some-
thing along these lines was needed, I also knew that the chances of my
recommendation being adopted were slim. Apparently so did Mattis.
Rather than maintain the fiction that Joint Forces Command was suc-
ceeding in its mission, he recommended it be disbanded, which it was,
three years later.
Today the U.S. military continues to rotate senior civilian and mili-
tary leaders in and out of positions at a rapid rate, for terms lasting as
long as four years but typically less. This may be appropriate in some
cases. But the findings of this study indicate that there must be excep-
tions. Disruptive U.S. military innovation will occur, if it occurs at all,
over a significantly longer period. To maintain a foolish consistency in
the tour lengths of senior officers responsible for pursuing disruptive in-
novation is to ignore the American military’s own history as well as the
experience of other successful military organizations.
442 Part 2

Exercises and Experimentation

Field exercises focused on testing and refining innovative operational
concepts designed to address real-world contingencies, and the experi-
ments they make possible, play a critical role in enabling large-scale mili-
tary innovation. Each of the military organizations examined in the four
histories here derived significant benefits from these activities, which
proved indispensable assets in identifying key measures of effectiveness
and determining investment (and divestment) priorities.
Joint Forces Command was established to promote these kinds of
exercises and experiments. Following the 9/11 attacks, however, such ex-
ercises were all but forgotten as the command shifted to supporting
forces preparing for operations against enemies as part of the so-called
Global War on Terror. JFCOM priorities also took a backseat to “shap-
ing” activities, in which exercises were designed primarily to promote
goodwill with active and prospective security partners. As Admiral Da-
vidson pointed out, even today, a decade after JFCOM’s demise, despite
the major reduction in U.S. forces dedicated to counter-terror and coun-
terinsurgency operations over the past ten years and even given the rise
of great-power rivals, a regular series of joint exercises focusing on refin-
ing innovative operational concepts addressing real-world operational
challenges has yet to be established.

Closing Thoughts
This study yields four significant findings with respect to the U.S. mili-
tary in particular and the current military competition generally. These
findings are suggestive, not definitive, which is another way of saying
that the range of significant variables influencing military affairs is so
great as to preclude the authoritative conclusions reached in the hard
sciences—although Richard Feynman would no doubt warn us that even
findings in the hard sciences can still be rather soft in spots.
First, the world is in a period of disruptive change in the character of
warfare, or what has come to be known as a military revolution. This is
primarily the result of geopolitical and military-technical change. The
return of China and Russia as active, revisionist great military powers
finds the military competition escalating to a level not seen since the
Cold War. Simultaneously, the advance of a range of new military-related
technologies that can be employed by themselves, or more likely in
 Where Do We Stand? 443

combination, through new war-fighting concepts of operation, offer the

promise of waging war far more effectively than ever before. This situa-
tion finds the U.S. military especially challenged. It has spent most of the
past three decades focusing on waging war against minor powers, such as
Iraq, Libya, and Serbia, and on counterinsurgency and counter-terror
campaigns against nonstate groups while its great-power rivals, China
and Russia, have devoted intense effort to offsetting the United States’
dominant position in precision warfare. Their efforts have paid off: the
Americans no longer enjoy a near monopoly in this form of warfare.
Therefore, the U.S. military must address how to adjust to the maturing
Precision-Warfare Revolution while figuring out how to meet the chal-
lenge of an overlapping emerging revolution.
Second, under these conditions of radical change in the competitive
environment, the need to engage in disruptive innovation is both com-
pelling and profound. This is because, as our histories show, militaries
that succeed in leading the way into a new and far more effective way of
waging war during periods of military revolution can gain an enormous
advantage over their rivals. Correspondingly, those that fail to keep pace
can find themselves operating at a severe disadvantage.
Third, analysis of military organizations that succeeded in engaging
in acts of disruptive innovation during periods of revolutionary change
in warfare reveals a number of common attributes. These characteristics
exhibit similarities to those exhibited by highly innovative organizations
in the business world. At a minimum, military organizations attempting
disruptive innovation would benefit from examining how well they em-
body these attributes.
Finally, we have a preliminary assessment of the U.S. military’s ef-
forts at disruptive innovation. It finds that, from the “Revolution in Mili-
tary Affairs” and efforts at “transformation” in the decade following the
Soviet Union’s collapse, to the rise and fall of Joint Forces Command, to
the repeated attempts to develop operational concepts over the past de-
cade, the United States’ armed forces exhibit few, if any, of the character-
istics of military organizations that succeed in this endeavor.
This page intentionally left blank
 Notes

Introduction
1. The U.S. Defense Department defines “general war” as “armed conflict be-
tween major powers in which the total resources of the belligerents are em-
ployed, and the national survival of a major belligerent is in jeopardy.” U.S.
Department of Defense, “Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms,”
Joint Publication 1-02, April 12, 2001 (amended through June 9, 2004), 219.
2. John Newhouse, War and Peace in the Nuclear Age (New York: Vintage,
1988), 184.

Chapter One. Come the Revolution

1. U.S. General Accounting Office, “Operation Desert Storm: Problems with
Air Force Medical Readiness,” December 1993, 3; “Potential War Casualties
Put at 100,000; Fewer U.S. Troops Would Be Killed or Wounded than Iraqi
Soldiers, Military Experts Predict,” Los Angeles Times, September 5, 1990,
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-09-05/news/mn-776_1_military-experts.
2. As employed in this study, the term “battle network” refers to a military orga-
nization’s command and control (C2) systems and capabilities (to which are
often added “communications and computers,” giving us “C4”). Battle net-
works coordinate and integrate the actions of their military’s “scouting” and
strike forces. Scouting forces comprise a military’s intelligence, surveillance,
and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities used to ascertain knowledge of the
enemy. Counter-scouting is those actions taken to defeat scouting. These
three elements combine to form a “reconnaissance-strike complex.” Captain
(Retired) Wayne P. Hughes, Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat (Annapolis, Md.:
Naval Institute Press, 2000), 11–12, 175–76; Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., and
Barry D. Watts, The Last Warrior (New York: Basic, 2015), 193–226; Marshal
V. D. Sokolovsky, chief ed., Soviet Military Strategy, trans. Harriet Fast Scott,

445
446 Notes to Pages 9–12

3rd ed. (New York: Crane, 1975), 227; Marshal N. V. Ogarkov, “The Defense
of Socialism: Experience of History and the Present Day,” Red Star, May 9,
1984, trans. U.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS).
3. U.S. Air Force, “U.S. Manned Aircraft Combat Losses, 1990–2002,” Air
Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell Air Force Base, December 9,
2002, 1. A “sortie” is a single mission flown by a single aircraft.
4. The use of the phrase “character of warfare” is instructive. Through the ages
and across military revolutions, war’s nature has remained immutable.
5. Interview with Marshal of the Soviet Union N. V. Ogarkov, chief of the
General Staff, “The Defense of Socialism: Experience of History and the
Present Day,” Krasnaya Zvezda, May 9, 1984, 2–3, quoted in Barry D. Watts,
Six Decades of Guided Munitions and Battle Networks: Progress and Prospects
(Washington, D.C.: CSBA, 2007), 25.
6. Dominic A. Paolucci, Summary Report of the Long Range Research and Devel-
opment Planning Program (Falls Church, Va.: Lulejian and Associates, Febru-
ary 7, 1975), 45, quoted in Barry D. Watts, Nuclear-Conventional Firebreaks
and the Nuclear Taboo (Washington, D.C.: CSBA, 2013), 17.
7. Patrick J. Garrity, “Why the Gulf War Still Matters: Foreign Perspectives
on the War and the Future of International Security,” Center for National
Security Studies, July 1994, xvi, 59–60; Defense Intelligence Agency, “Soviet
Analysis of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm,” trans.
LN 006-92, October 28, 1991, 32.
8. A. W. Marshall, Memorandum for Fred Ikle, “Future Security Environment
Workshop Group: Some Themes for Special Papers and Some Concerns,”
September 21, 1987; Krepinevich and Watts, Last Warrior, 193–226.
9. “Anti-access” refers to “those actions and capabilities, usually long range, de-
signed to prevent an opposing force from entering an operational area,”
while “area-denial” refers to “those actions and capabilities, usually of
shorter range, designed to limit an opposing force’s freedom of action
within an operational area.” U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Operational
Access Concept (JOAC), version 1.0 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of
Defense, 2012), 1; Andrew F. Krepinevich, The Military-Technical Revolution:
A Preliminary Assessment (Washington, D.C.: CSBA, 2002), 30, 44; Roger
Cliff, Mark Burles, Michael S. Chase, Derek Eaton, and Kevin L. Pollpeter,
Entering the Dragon’s Lair (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2007), 1. The term
“system of systems” was originally used to describe the emergence of battle
networks that brought together weapon systems that were the product of
“systems integration,” which combines large numbers of different compo-
nents. Systems integration was generally limited to military powers with an
advanced industrial base. Thus, a “system of systems” described the linking
together of individual integrated systems into systems architectures.
10. Shortly after I departed Marshall’s staff in the summer of 1993, he dropped
the term “military-technical revolution” in favor of another Russian term,
“revolution in military affairs.” This stemmed from his concerns that U.S.
 Notes to Pages 13–16 447

senior officials and military leaders would not give sufficient attention to the
need for organizational and doctrinal innovation—which the assessment
found to be critical to success—but would emphasize technology. Despite
the shift from “MTR” to “RMA,” Marshall’s fears were realized.
11. Krepinevich, Military-Technical Revolution, 32, 34. This is a reprint of the
original work produced by the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment in July
1992. Two more fully developed assessments with the same title were pro-
duced, which have not been published, one in July 1993 and the other in
November 1993.
12. Bernard Brodie and Fawn M. Brodie, From Crossbow to H-Bomb (Blooming-
ton: Indiana University Press, 1962), 213–15; Thomas Wildenberg, Destined
for Glory (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1998), 169–70; Ronald H.
Spector, Eagle Against the Sun (New York: Free Press, 1985), 148, 174; An-
drew F. Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Press, 1986), 115–27.
13. See Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise
of the West, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). See
also Krepinevich, Military-Technical Revolution, 32, 34; and Andrew F.
Krepinevich, “Cavalry to Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolutions,”
National Interest, Fall 1994, 30–42.
14. Encyclopaedia Britannica, s.v. “Revolution: Politics,” https://www.britannica.
com/topic/revolution-politics.
15. Robert Forster and Jack P. Greene, introduction to Preconditions of Revolution
in Early Modern Europe, ed. Forster and Greene (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1970), 1. The contributors to this edited work could only
identify two instances in early modern Europe that fit the definition of “rev-
olution”: the Netherlands in the 1570s and England in the 1640s. Quoted in
Geoffrey Parker, “In Defense of The Military Revolution,” in The Military
Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Eu-
rope, ed. Clifford J. Rogers (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1994), 339, 357.
16. For a discussion of the characteristics of the term “revolution” in scientific
and political revolutions, see Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Rev-
olutions, 4th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 92–94.
17. Richard P. Feynman, Six Easy Pieces (New York: Basic, 2011), 3.
18. Ibid., 2.
19. Ibid., 10.
20. Joseph L. Bower and Clayton M. Christensen, “Disruptive Technologies:
Catching the Wave,” Harvard Business Review, January–February 1995, 43.
21. Ibid., 48.
22. Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma (New York: HarperBusi-
ness Essentials, 2003).
23. Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany
Between the World Wars (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984); Ste-
phen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
448 Notes to Pages 16–25

Press, 1991); Williamson Murray, America and the Future of War (Stanford,
Calif.: Hoover Institute Press, 2017).
24. Michael Roberts, “The Military Revolution, 1560–1660,” in Rogers, Military
Revolution Debate, 13, 19.
25. Parker, Military Revolution, 9–10; Parker, “In Defense of The Military Revolu-
tion,” 345–46.
26. Parker, Military Revolution, 4.
27. Jeremy Black, European Warfare: 1660–1815 (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1995); Black, “A Military Revolution? A 1660–1792 Perspective,” in
Rogers, Military Revolution Debate, 95–116. Other scholars have still differ-
ent interpretations of what occurred during the period between 1500 and
1815. See, for example, Rogers, Military Revolution Debate. Of note, these
scholars’ “revolutions” spanned from 100 years (in Rogers’s case) to three
centuries (as posited by Parker).
28. Parker, Military Revolution, 146.
29. Krepinevich, Military-Technical Revolution, 45–49.
30. Andrew. F. Krepinevich, Jr., “The Pentagon’s Wasting Assets,” Foreign Af-
fairs, July–August 2009, 18–33.

Chapter Two. The Shape of Things to Come

1. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., “The Stealth Battleship,” Issues in Science & Tech-
nology 15, no. 3 (Spring 1999), https://issues.org/p_krepinevich.
2. The U.S. Navy did convert four Trident boats into cruise-missile carriers, or
“SSGNs.” Of course, the carriers and submarines would be moving targets.
My simple example did not address, among other factors, the cruise missile’s
ability (or lack thereof) to track its carrier target all the way through to
striking it.
3. Dierk Walter, “A Military Revolution? Prussian Military Reforms Before the
Wars of German Unification,” Institutt for Frosvarsstudier, February 2001, 20.
4. Ibid., 14.
5. Michael Howard, War in European History (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009), 97.
6. Walter, “Military Revolution?,” 13–14.
7. Howard, War in European History, 97–98; Brodie and Brodie, Crossbow to H-
Bomb, 130–31.
8. William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1982), 248–49.
9. Brodie and Brodie, Crossbow to H-Bomb, 132; McNeill, Pursuit of Power, 231;
James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1988), 473.
10. Brodie and Brodie, Crossbow to H-Bomb, 132, 135; “Civil War Technology,”
History.com, August 21, 2018, https://www.history.com/topics/american-
civil-war/civil-war-technology.
 Notes to Pages 25–28 449

11. Shelby Foote, The Civil War: Red River to Appomattox (New York: Vintage,
1974), 872.
12. Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones, How the North Won (Urbana: Univer-
sity of Illinois Press, 1991), 584, 597, 674.
13. Howard, War in European History, 102–3.
14. Brodie and Brodie, Crossbow to H-Bomb, 152; Ernest R. May, Strange Victory:
Hitler’s Conquest of France (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000), 118–20, 395–
96, 435–36.
15. May, Strange Victory, 120; Walter, “Military Revolution?,” 20; Brodie and
Brodie, Crossbow to H-Bomb, 139.
16. Howard, War in European History, 106.
17. Ibid., 103–4.
18. Paul Kennedy, “Britain in the First World War,” in Military Effectiveness, vol.
1, The First World War, ed. Alan R. Millett and Williamson Murray (Boston:
Unwin Hyman, 1988), 49, 51, 54, 56; Timothy K. Nenninger, “American
Military Effectiveness in the First World War,” ibid., 140.
19. Brodie and Brodie, Crossbow to H-Bomb, 109.
20. Ibid., 137. At Fredericksburg, Union casualties were greater than 13,000,
while the Confederates suffered fewer than 5,000. Pickett’s Charge resulted
in more than 5,000 Confederate casualties, against roughly 1,500 for the
Union. Earl J. Hess, Pickett’s Charge: The Last Attack at Gettysburg (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 333–35; McPherson, Battle
Cry of Freedom, 572.
21. Consider a simple thought experiment involving two armies of 10,000 men
each. Army A is armed with repeating muskets, giving it a high rate of fire,
while Army B is equipped with rifled muskets, translating to an advantage in
range and accuracy. The Spencer repeating rifle could be fired seven times
in thirty seconds before reloading, while the Dreyse needle gun could be
fired five to seven times per minute. An experienced soldier could fire a
musket about three rounds a minute. A reasonable assumption finds Army A
enjoying a five-to-one rate-of-fire (volume fires) advantage over Army B’s ri-
fled muskets. But Army A’s smoothbore rapid-fire muskets are effective at
only 100 yards, while Army B’s rifled muskets can engage effectively at 500
yards. Thus Army A needs to close to within 100 yards of Army B before it
reaches its effective engagement range, while Army B can begin engaging
Army A at 500 yards. An average soldier took roughly twenty-five seconds to
reload a muzzle loader, and troops advancing at quick-time could cover
roughly 80 yards during that time interval. Thus, in the time it would take
Army A’s troops to cover 400 yards, Army B’s troops could get off five or six
shots (at 500, 420, 340, 260, 180, and perhaps 100 yards) before Army A
could engage effectively. Given the rate-of-fire disparity, for Army B to have
an advantage in effective fires at the point where Army A reaches its effec-
tive fire range of 100 yards, it would have to outnumber Army A by more
than five to one. This means Army A would have had to suffer 80 percent
450 Notes to Pages 29–30

casualties, reducing its effective strength to 2,000. What would Army B need
to do to accomplish this? Again, assuming Army B’s 10,000 troops get off
between five and six rounds (let’s split the difference and say five and a half)
before Army A closes to its effective engagement range, they would have
fired 55,000 rounds, needing 8,000 hits, a success rate of less than 15 per-
cent, or roughly one out of every six rifled bullets fired. Could Army B’s ri-
flemen have accomplished this? It depends on myriad factors, such as
terrain, visibility, training, and leadership. An Army B composed of well-
trained marksmen, ably led and confronting an enemy advancing on open
ground in broad daylight, would stand a much better chance than an Army
B populated by ill-trained and poorly led recruits, positioned in a forest, and
confronting Army A’s advance on a foggy morn. Of course, we’d have to look
at Army A’s training and leadership as well. There’s also the issue of Army B’s
mobility. On the defensive, it’s possible it could extend its range advantage
by forming into three ranks and volley firing, with one rank firing, another
moving back, and a third reloading. This might enable it to fire another vol-
ley or two before Army A could close to its effective range. (Alternatively, if
Army A assumed the defense, Army B could move within its engagement
range while staying beyond Army A’s effective range and firing away.) What
about artillery? The three-inch Parrott gun was the most widely used rifled
gun during the Civil War. In addition to being rifled, it enjoyed a 250-yard
range advantage over the twelve-pound Napoleon, the war’s most popular
smoothbore cannon. Still, artillery accuracy at very long range remained
poor, and guns could not easily advance close to enemy lines, lest gunners
come within range of enemy sharpshooters. As was often the case in the
Great War, preliminary and assault bombardment in the Civil War could
not carry the day for the offense, although artillery could greatly aid the de-
fense. As Bernard and Fawn Brodie conclude, ultimately “the rifle and
trench ruled Civil War battlefields as thoroughly as the machine-gun and
trench rule those of World War I.” Brodie and Brodie, Crossbow to H-Bomb,
105; McNeill, Pursuit of Power, 245; McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 474–
77; James C. Hazlett, Edwin Olmstead, and M. Hume Parks, Field Artillery
Weapons of the American Civil War (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1983); Phillip M. Cole, Civil War Artillery at Gettysburg (Cambridge, Mass.:
Da Capo, 2002), 298.
22. Howard, War in European History, 123.
23. Brodie and Brodie, Crossbow to H-Bomb, 162.
24. Arthur Herman, To Rule the Waves (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 459.
25. Jon Tetsuro Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology and
British Naval Policy, 1889–1914 (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 41.
26. Ibid., 50.
27. Fisher, in fact, preferred battle cruisers to battleships, as they traded armor
for speed and long-range fires to an even greater degree than dreadnoughts.
The Lion-class battlecruisers commissioned in 1912 boosted armament from
 Notes to Pages 30–35 451

12-inch guns to 13.5-inch guns, nearly doubling the shell weight that could
be fired in a single broadside, while steaming at twenty-seven knots. Its
armor belt, however, was but nine inches.
28. Karl Lautenschläger, “The Dreadnought Revolution Reconsidered,” in
Naval History: The Sixth Symposium of the U.S. Naval War College, ed. Daniel
M. Masterson (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1987), 129; Geoffrey
Penn, Infighting Admirals (Yorkshire, U.K.: Leo Cooper, 2000), 138; Robert
K. Massie, Dreadnought (New York: Random House, 1991), 469.
29. Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, The Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, 2 vols.
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1929), 1:255.
30. Edwin Gray, The Devil’s Device (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press,
1975), 178, 182, 259, 264; Bernard Brodie, Sea Power in the Machine Age
(New York: Greenwood, 1969), 298.
31. Brodie, Sea Power, 277; Edwyn Gray, The Devil’s Device (Annapolis, Md.:
Naval Institute Press, 1991), 178–79, 182, 259–60.
32. Nicholas A. Lambert, Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution (Columbia: Univer-
sity of South Carolina Press, 1999), 79.
33. Roger Parkinson, Dreadnought: The Ship That Changed the World (London: I.
B. Tauris, 2015), 84–85.
34. Sumida, Naval Supremacy, 153; Brodie and Brodie, Crossbow to H-Bomb, 188.
35. Nicholas Lambert, “Dreadnought—The Revolution That Never Was,” un-
published paper, 2002, 1–2.
36. Brodie, Sea Power, 96.
37. Martin Gilbert, The First World War (New York: Henry Holt, 1994), 102,
127, 431; Anthony Wells, “Naval Intelligence and Decision Making in an
Era of Technical Change,” in Technical Change and British Naval Policy, 1860–
1939, ed. Bryan Ranft (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977), 125.
38. General Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader, trans. Constantine Fitzgibbon
(Costa Mesa, Calif.: Noontide, 1990), 39, 41.
39. Robert M. Citino, Quest for Decisive Victory (Lawrence: University Press of
Kansas, 2002), 244.
40. Ronald Spector, “The Military Effectiveness of U.S. Forces: 1919–1939,” in
Military Effectiveness, vol. 2, The Interwar Period, ed. Allan R. Millett and
Williamson Murray (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988), 84.
41. Roy A. Grosnick, Dictionary of American Naval Squadrons, vol. 1 (Washing-
ton, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1995), 453–
508.
42. John T. Correll, “Daylight Precision Bombing,” Air Force Magazine, October
2008, 62.
43. Difficulty in obtaining data on the kamikazes has produced some signifi-
cantly differing estimates regarding their operation and performance. For
example, a postwar assessment concluded that roughly one-third of all kami-
kaze fighters who left their bases succeeded in hitting a ship—a success rate
seven to ten times that of a conventional sortie but also more than twice the
452 Notes to Pages 35–40

rate cited in other assessments. Ronald H. Spector, At War, at Sea (New

York: Viking, 2001), 312.
44. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, “V-2 Missile,” accessed
February 19, 2022, https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/v-2-missile/
nasm_A19600342000.
45. Howard, War in European History, 127.
46. Andrew Roberts, Masters and Commanders (New York: HarperCollins, 2009),
92–93.
47. Philip Ball, Beyond Weird (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 6.
48. Bernard Brodie, “Implications for Military Policy,” in The Absolute Weapon,
ed. Brodie (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946), 76.
49. President John F. Kennedy, “Radio and Television Report to the American
People on the Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba,” October 22, 1962, John F.
Kennedy Presidential Library, https://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/
sUVmCh-sB0moLfrBcaHaSg.aspx.
50. Frank C. Carlucci, Annual Report to the Congress, FY 1990 (Washington,
D.C.: GPO, January 17, 1989), 77; U.S. Department of Energy, “Megaton-
nage of U.S. Nuclear Arsenal,” September 2021; Natural Resources Defense
Council and Committee on International Security and Arms Control, The
Future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy (Washington, D.C.: National Academy
Press, 1997), 109.
51. William Robert Johnson, “Megaton Weapons,” Johnston’s Archive, April 6,
2009, http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/multimeg.html.
52. Paul G. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions: Constructing a Bomb
More Potent than the A-bomb” (Ph.D. diss., Lehigh University, 2002), 87.
53. Ibid., 163, 165; Barry D. Watts, The Evolution of Precision Strike (Washington,
D.C.: CSBA, 2013), 183–84.
54. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 203; Watts, Precision Strike, 183–
84; Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), 160; David R. Mets, “The Long
Search for Surgical Strike: Precision Munitions and the Revolution in Mili-
tary Affairs,” CADRE Paper Number 12, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., Air
University Press, October 2001, 36.
55. Tom Bowman, “Strike Team Advances Precision, Pace of War,” Baltimore
Sun, April 20, 2003, 1A; Lieutenant General T. Michael Moseley, “Opera-
tion Iraqi Freedom—By the Numbers,” U.S. Air Forces Central Command,
Assessment and Analysis Division, April 30, 2003, 9.
56. Douglas Jehl, “Digital Links Are Giving Old Weapons New Power,” New
York Times, April 7, 2003, 2.
57. John Stillion, Trends in Air-to-Air Combat: Implications for Future Air Superi-
ority (Washington, D.C.: CSBA, 2015), i, 57.
58. Ibid., 28–29; Watts, Precision Strike, 144.
59. Stillion, Air-to-Air Combat, ii.
60. Lambeth, American Air Power, 125.
 Notes to Pages 40–47 453

61. Chris Rohlfs and Ryan Sullivan, “The MRAP Boondoggle,” Foreign Affairs,
July 26, 2012, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/print/node/1070487; Christo-
pher Lamb and Sally Scudder, “Why the MRAP Is Worth the Money,”
Foreign Affairs, August 23, 2012, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/
afghanistan/2012-08-23/why-mrap-worth-money; “Mine Resistant Ambush
Protected Program,” GlobalSecurity.org, last modified August 8, 2016,
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/mrap.htm; Natalya
Anfilofyeva, “Majority of U.S. MRAPs to Be Scrapped or Stored,” CSBA,
January 5, 2014, https://csbaonline.org/about/news/majority-of-us-mraps-
to-be-scrapped-or-stored.
62. Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., “Milley’s Future Tank: Railguns, Robotics & Ultra-
Light Armor,” Breaking Defense, July 27, 2017, https://breakingdefense
.com/2017/07/railguns-robotics-ultra-light-armor-general-milleys-future-
tank.
63. Megan Eckstein, “New Marine Corps Cuts Will Slash All Tanks, Many
Heavy Weapons as Focus Shifts to Lighter, Littoral Forces,” U.S. Naval
Institute, March 23, 2020, https://news.usni.org/2020/03/23/new-marine-
corps-cuts-will-slash-all-tanks-many-heavy-weapons-as-focus-shifts-to-
lighter-littoral-forces.

Chapter Three. The Mature Precision-Warfare Regime

1. Krepinevich, Military-Technical Revolution, 15.
2. Ibid., 12.
3. Ibid., 22. China’s People’s Liberation Army has adopted the term “informa-
tion dominance” in its writings. The PLA believes it must be achieved to en-
able air and sea dominance, which are necessary to support offensive
operations. Lectures on the Command of Joint Campaigns (Military Science
Press, 2013), 165, cited in Elsa B. Kania and John K. Costello, “The Strate-
gic Support Force and the Future of Chinese Information Operations,”
Cyber Defense Review, Spring 2018, 117.
4. Krepinevich, Military-Technical Revolution, 22.
5. Ibid., 32.
6. Andrew F. Krepinevich, “The Military-Technical Revolution: A Preliminary
Assessment,” unpublished paper, July 1993, III-24.
7. Edmund J. Burke, Kristen Gunness, Cortez A. Cooper III, and Mark Cozad,
People’s Liberation Army Operational Concepts (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND,
2020), 11.
8. Space is overwhelmingly used as a domain in which to exploit capabilities in
the electromagnetic and cyber domains.
9. Burke et al., PLA Operational Concepts, 11.
10. Ibid., 7, 13.
11. Ibid., 7; Roger Cliff, John Fei, Jeff Hagen, Elizabeth Hague, Eric Heginbo-
tham, and John Stillion, Shaking the Heavens and Splitting the Earth: Chinese
454 Notes to Pages 48–52

Air Force Employment Concepts in the 21st Century (Santa Monica, Calif.:
RAND, 2011), 61–64.
12. U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2020 Report to
Congress of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (Wash-
ington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 2020), 393–94.
PLA strategists view the cyber domain as particularly critical to power pro-
jection, and China’s dominance of global telecommunications infrastructure
could bolster that capability. Defense Intelligence Agency, China Military
Power: Modernizing a Force to Fight and Win (Defense Intelligence Agency,
2019), 43, www.dia. mil/Military-Power-Publications; Cliff et al., Shaking the
Heavens, 60–61; Todd Harrison, Kaitlyn Johnson, and Thomas G. Roberts,
“Space Threat 2018: China Assessment,” Aerospace Security Project, Center
for Strategic and International Studies, April 12, 2018, https://aerospace
.csis.org/space-threat-2018-china; Burke et al., PLA Operational Concepts, 8.
13. Kevin L. Pollpeter, Michael S. Chase, and Eric Heginbotham, Strategic Sup-
port Force and Its Implications for Chinese Military Space Operations (Santa
Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2017), 2, 32, 35, https://www.rand.org/pubs/
research_reports/RR2058.html; Burke et al., PLA Operational Concepts, 13.
See also Robert O. Work and Greg Grant, Beating Americans at Their Own
Game (Washington, D.C.: Center for a New American Security, 2019), 8.
14. Burke et al., PLA Operational Concepts, 7, 10; Cliff et al., Shaking the Heavens,
61–62; Scott W. Harold, Defeat, Not Merely Compete (Santa Monica, Calif.:
RAND, 2018), 35; Michael S. Chase, testimony for the U.S.-China Eco-
nomic and Security Review Commission, Hearing on China’s Military Reforms
and Modernization: Implications for the United States, February 15, 2018, 6.
15. Cliff et al., Shaking the Heavens, 56–60.
16. U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments
Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Depart-
ment of Defense, 2020), 161; Burke et al., PLA Operational Concepts, 21–22.
17. U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments,
161.
18. “Finlandization” refers to a situation in which a powerful state indirectly
controls the foreign policy of a smaller neighboring country or group of
countries, while allowing them to maintain their nominal independence.
The term was coined in reference to the Soviet Union’s control over Fin-
land’s foreign policies during the Cold War.
19. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., Archipelagic Defense: The Japan-U.S. Alliance and
Preserving Peace and Stability in the Western Pacific (Tokyo: Sasakawa Peace
Foundation, 2017), 62–99.
20. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., and Eric Lindsey, The Road Ahead: Future Chal-
lenges and Their Implications for Ground Vehicle Modernization (Washington,
D.C.: CSBA, 2012), 17, 33.
21. The nuclear competition, as it has since the advent of this form of warfare in
1945, seems certain to continue favoring the offense for the foreseeable future.
 Notes to Pages 54–56 455

22. David Axe, “The U.S. Navy Wants a New Guided-Missile Submarine,” Na-
tional Interest, November 27, 2017, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-
buzz/the-us-navy-wants-new-guided-missile-submarine-23372.
23. An aircraft’s range is a function of several factors, including its payload
and flight profile. Its range can also be extended through in-flight refueling
from tanker aircraft. The Vietnam-era A-6’s combat mission radius was
roughly 890 miles carrying a 2,080-pound payload with two external fuel
tanks. The F-18 Super Hornet aircraft on today’s carriers has a range of
roughly 500 miles, while the F-18 Advanced Super Hornet’s range, with
its external conformal fuel tanks, is estimated at approximately 800 miles.
“A-6 Intruder,” GlobalSecurity.org, last modified July 7, 2011, https://www
.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/a-6.htm. Kyle Mizokami, “The
F/A-18 Super Hornet Is About to Fly Farther than Ever Before,” Popular
Mechanics, February 16, 2018, https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/
aviation/a18211702/fa-18-super-hornet-longer-legs-fuel-tanks-range. The
Navy’s new F-35C aircraft is listed as having a combat range of 615 miles.
Sydney J. Friedberg, “F-35C & Ford Carriers—A Wrong Turn for Navy:
CNAS,” Breaking Defense, October 19, 2015, https://breakingdefense
.com/2015/10/f-35c-a-wrong-turn-for-navy-cnas.
24. Krepinevich, Military-Technical Revolution, 14.
25. Ibid., 23.
26. Ibid., 14.
27. Ibid., 23.
28. Gregory Falco, “Our Satellites Are Prime Targets for a Cyberattack.
And Things Could Get Worse,” Washington Post, May 7, 2019, https://www
.washingtonpost.com/opinions/our-satellites-are-prime-targets-for-a-
cyberattack-and-things-could-get-worse/2019/05/07/31c85438-7041-11e9-
8be0-ca575670e91c_story.html?utm_term=.be33f7bec97f. See also Alyssa
Newcomb, “Hacked in Space: Are Satellites the Next Cybersecurity Battle-
ground?,” NBC News, October 3, 2016, https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/
hacking-in-america/hacked-space-are-satellites-next-cybersecurity-
battleground-n658231.
29. Tony Girard, “The Attack-Counterattack Game,” Aerospace and Defense
Technology, April 1, 2014, https://www.aerodefensetech.com/component/
content/article/adt/features/articles/19412.
30. For a detailed discussion of this topic, see Stephen Budiansky, Blackett’s War
(New York: Vintage, 2013).
31. Even fixed assets, such as forward air bases, may benefit from significantly
diminishing the enemy’s scouting forces. See, for example, the discussion in
Krepinevich, Archipelagic Defense, 80–84.
32. The U.S. Navy’s Haystack and UPTIDE exercises in the 1950s and ’60s
were predicated on the belief that such “gaps” could be created and ex-
ploited. Robert G. Angevine, “Hiding in Plain Sight: The U.S. Navy and
Dispersed Operations Under EMCON, 1956–1972,” Naval War College
456 Notes to Pages 56–64

Review, Spring 2011. See also Operations Evaluation Group, “OEG Report
77: The Sixth Fleet Concept and Analysis of Haystack Operations,” January
24, 1958.
33. The Doolittle Raid, conducted on April 18, 1942, was the culmination of a
series of raids by U.S. carrier forces. The U.S. carrier Hornet steamed within
Japan’s inner maritime defenses to a position roughly 650 miles away from
the homeland and launched sixteen Army Air Corps bombers for an attack
on Tokyo. Intensive U.S. scouting preceded the U.S. strike to ensure that
Japanese scouting forces had not uncovered the operation. Submarines were
sent deep into Japanese waters, while the carrier Enterprise sent scout air-
craft out to determine if the U.S. task force had been spotted. Enterprise and
Hornet detected several “enemy surface craft” as they approached the attack
launch point. Upon sighting one within visual range, the attack was immedi-
ately launched—roughly 250 miles away from the planned launch point.
George W. Baer, The U.S. Navy: One Hundred Years of Sea Power (Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993), 216–17; Lisle A. Rose, Power at Sea:
The Breaking Storm, 1919–1945 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press,
2007), 200, 250–51; Norman Polmar, Aircraft Carriers (Dulles, Va.: Potomac,
2006), 205–6, 209; James G. Roche and Barry D. Watts, “Choosing Analytic
Measures,” Journal of Strategic Studies 14, no. 2 (1991): 184–89.
34. The bombers’ range far exceeded that of their naval counterparts. Interest-
ingly, the Japanese “picket line” of scout ships did succeed in warning of the
approaching attack; however, the Japanese air defense command assumed
that the strike would be conducted by naval aircraft and, based on the re-
ported sightings and shorter range of naval carrier–based strike aircraft, be-
lieved the attack would occur one or two days later than it did. Polmar,
Aircraft Carriers, 206. Only a few months earlier, at Pearl Harbor, the U.S.
side suffered from a similar problem with respect to interpreting scouting
information. Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stan-
ford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962).
35. Krepinevich, Military-Technical Revolution, 26.
36. “U.S. Combat Pilots on Speed,” ABC News, December 20, 2002, https://
abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123778&page=1.
37. There are arguably eight domains in which warfare occurs. The land, sea
surface, undersea, electromagnetic, and air domains featured prominently in
World War II. Since then, three additional domains—space, the seabed, and
cyberspace—have become major military competition venues. The expan-
sion from five domains to eight since 1945 represents a 60 percent increase.
38. Andrew Roberts, The Storm of War (New York: HarperCollins, 2011), 463.
39. The enemy might choose to employ relatively novel forms of scouting, such
as spies providing information via the internet or cell phones. This assumes
that friendly forces have not taken effective countermeasures and that it is
still possible to communicate via cellular transmissions and the internet in
the midst of an intense electronic combat to gain information superiority.
 Notes to Pages 65–68 457

40. For a more detailed discussion of the “shell-game” concept in a conflict be-
tween the United States and its allies in the Western Pacific and China, see
Krepinevich, Archipelagic Defense, 82–83.
41. One of the first acts of war by Great Britain against Germany in 1914 was to
cut its overseas telecommunications cables. On August 5, 1914, the Royal
Post Office Cable Ship Alert cut the five German Atlantic submarine tele-
graph cables. Jonathan Reed Winkler, Nexus: Strategic Communications and
American Security in World War I (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 2008), 5–6, 10.
42. Joshua T. White, “China’s Indian Ocean Ambitions: Investment, Influence,
and Military Advantage,” Brookings Institution, June 2020, 1, 4–7, 10–11.
43. This is one reason that Germany proved much less vulnerable to blockade
in World War II than it did in World War I, when the Allied blockade con-
tributed significantly to its defeat. During the first twenty-two months of
World War II, the Germans could rely on the Soviet Union for raw materi-
als, which greatly reduced the effectiveness of the British blockade. In
World War I, Russia was an active ally of Britain from the beginning.
44. For a detailed treatment of the potential complexities associated with exe-
cuting a blockade against a neutral major power, see Nicholas A. Lambert,
Planning Armageddon (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012).
Generally speaking, a land blockade can be pursued along the same general
lines as a maritime blockade, imposing similar costs on the enemy. Friendly
forces would probably impose a distant land blockade in their own rear area
or where they enjoy a local advantage, enabling them to employ less expen-
sive, shorter-range scouting and strike systems. To contest this distant block-
ade, the enemy would probably be compelled to deploy a relatively high
percentage of its scarce long-range scouting and strike forces.
45. For a discussion of this issue, see Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., Protracted
Great Power War (Washington, D.C.: Center for a New American Security,
2020).
46. Estimates place Chinese losses at roughly 19,000 combat casualties, and
29,000 noncombat casualties, with the latter being attributed primarily to
weather and lack of food. The historian Yan Xue of the People’s Liberation
Army National Defense University states that the Chinese Ninth Army was
out of action for three months following the engagement. Patrick C. Roe,
The Dragon Strikes: China and the Korean War, June–December 1950 (Novato,
Calif.: Presidio, 2000), 394; Yan Xue, First Confrontation: Reviews and Reflec-
tions on the History of War to Resist America and Aid Korea (Beijing: Chinese
Radio and Television Publishing House, 1990), 59. See also Roy Appleman,
Escaping the Trap: The US Army X Corps in Northeast Korea, 1950 (College
Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1990). In taking Berlin, Soviet casual-
ties were estimated at roughly 80,000 killed or missing and 280,000 sick or
wounded. Grigori F. Krivosheev, ed., Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in
the Twentieth Century (London: Greenhill, 1997), 157.
458 Notes to Pages 68–73

47. Krepinevich, Army and Vietnam, 238, 248. The U.S. forces suffered roughly
1,500 killed in action. The U.S. command asserted that the Communists
had lost some 32,000 to 37,000 killed and 6,000 captured.
48. Lieutenant General N. Korenevskiy, “The Role of Space Weapons in a Fu-
ture War,” U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, December 1961, 6, https://www
.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP33-02415A000500190011-3.pdf
(originally published by the Russian military journal Voyennaya Msyl (Military
Thought).
49. Ibid., 8.
50. Ibid., 9.
51. Ibid., 12. The general anticipated that the Americans might engage in a race
to the moon to create military bases there that would “preclude the possibil-
ity to destroying the U.S. military might in case of surprise attack.” Earlier
that year, President Kennedy had established the goal of sending a man to
the moon and returning him safely before the end of the decade.
52. Ibid., 21.
53. Paul Tullus, “The World Economy Runs on GPS. It Needs a Backup Plan,”
Bloomberg Business Week, July 25, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
features/2018-07-25/the-world-economy-runs-on-gps-it-needs-a-backup-
plan.
54. William J. Broad, “How Space Became the Next ‘Great Power’ Contest Be-
tween the U.S. and China,” New York Times, January 24, 2021, https://www.
nytimes.com/2021/01/24/us/politics/trump-biden-pentagon-space-missiles-
satellite.html; “Nanosats Are Go!,” Economist, June 5, 2014, https://www.
economist.com/technology-quarterly/2014/06/07/nanosats-are-go.
55. Nanosats Database, accessed February 19, 2022, https://www.nanosats.eu;
Michael Sheetz, “SpaceX Is Manufacturing 120 Starlink Internet Satel­lites per
Month,” SpaceNews, August 10, 2020, https://spacenews.com/u-s-military-
space-architecture-to-bring-in-commercial-systems-small-satellites; Jonathan
O’Callaghan, “SpaceX Launches Rocket with 143 Satellites—The Most
Ever Flown on a Single Mission,” Forbes, Jan 24, 2021, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2021/01/24/spacex-launches-rocket-with-
143-satellites--the-most-ever-flown-on-a-single-mission/?sh=387291be27fd;
Amy Thompson, “SpaceX Launches 60 Starlink Satellites on Record-Setting
Used Rocket, Nails Landing,” Space.com, February 4, 2021, https://www.space.
com/spacex-starlink-18-satellites-launch-rocket-landing. Iridium, which had
held the record for the largest commercial satellite constellation, was manu-
facturing roughly six satellites per month at peak production. Even accounting
for the fact that each Starlink is smaller than an Iridium satellite, SpaceX’s
build rate is twenty times as fast. A Starlink satellite weighs roughly 575
pounds.
56. Microsatellites are those weighing about 100 kilograms, or around 225
pounds, while nanosatellites weigh only a few kilograms, or less than 10
pounds. “Nanosats Are Go!”; Mike Wall, “Rocket Lab Launches 13 CubeSats
 Notes to Pages 74–76 459

on 1st Mission for NASA,” Space.com, December 16, 2018, https://www.space

.com/42714-rocket-lab-launches-cubesats-nasa.html; “Orbital Ecosystem,”
Economist, June 15, 2019, 71–72; Anna Esher, “Inside Planet Labs’ New Satel-
lite Manufacturing Site,” TechCrunch, September 14, 2018, https://
techcrunch.com/2018/09/14/inside-planet-labs-new-satellite-manufacturing-
site; Josef S. Koller, “The Future of Ubiquitous, Realtime Intelligence: A
GEOINT Singularity,” Aerospace Corporation Center for Space Policy and
Strategy, August 2019, 3.
57. Robert Cardillo, remarks at GEOINT 2017, https://www.nga.mil/Media
Room/SpeechesRemarks/Pages/GEOINT-2017-Symposium.aspx, cited in
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of GEOINT Report,” February 2018, 45, https://www.researchgate.net/
publication/322962399_Discipline-Based_Education_Research_A_new_
approach_to_teaching_and_learning_in_geospatial_intelligence_in_the_
United_States_Geospatial_Intelligence_Foundation_2018_STATE_AND_
FUTURE_OF_GEOINT_REPORT.
58. Koller, “Future of Ubiquitous, Realtime Intelligence,” 4; “Orbital Ecosys-
tem,” 72.
59. Jim Vinoski, “Space Truckin’: Thanks to D-Orbit, It’s Not Just a Great Old
Deep Purple Song Anymore,” Forbes, June 10, 2021, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/jimvinoski/2021/06/10/space-truckin-thanks-to-d-orbit-its-not-
just-a-great-old-deep-purple-song-anymore/?sh=1d4f9aa113c0.
60. Air University Assessment Team, “Fast Space: Leveraging Ultra Low-Cost
Space Access for 21st Century Challenges,” U.S. Air University, January 13,
2017, A-2; Katie Hunt, “Mission to Clean Up Space Junk with Magnets
Set for Launch,” CNN Business, April 1, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/
2021/03/19/business/space-junk-mission-astroscale-scn/index.html.
61. Harry W. Jones, “The Recent Large Reduction in Space Launch Cost,”
paper presented at the 48th International Conference on Environmental
Systems, July 12, 2018, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
62. Eric Berger, “Russia Appears to Have Surrendered to SpaceX in the Global
Launch Market,” Ars Technica, April 18, 2018, https://arstechnica.com/
science/2018/04/russia-appears-to-have-surrendered-to-spacex-in-the-
global-launch-market; Charlie Campbell, “From Satellites to the Moon and
Mars, China Is Quickly Becoming a Space Superpower,” Time, July 17,
2019, https://time.com/5623537/china-space.
63. U.S. Department of Defense, “Final Report on Organizational and Manage-
ment Structure for the National Security Space Components of the Depart-
ment of Defense,” August 9, 2018, 4. “Dazzling” involves the use of directed
radiation to temporarily disable (or “blind”) a target, which is usually some
sort of sensor, including human vision.
64. Namrata Goswami, “China’s Grand Strategy in Space: To Establish Com-
pelling Standards of Behavior,” Space Review, August 5, 2019, http://www.
thespacereview.com/article/3773/1.
460 Notes to Pages 76–78

65. Michael R. Gordon, “Russia Tests an Anti-Satellite Weapon, U.S. Officials

Say,” Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-
tests-an-anti-satellite-weapon-u-s-officials-say-11595545670; Christian Dav-
enport, “The Battlefield 22,000 Miles Above Earth,” Wilson Quarterly, Winter
2019, https://wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/the-new-landscape-in-space/the-
battlefield-22-000-miles-above-earth.
66. “Using the Force,” Economist, July 20, 2019.
67. Broad, “Next ‘Great Power’ Contest.”
68. Olivia Beavers, “Rising Concerns over Hackers Using Satellites to Target
U.S.,” The Hill, June 26, 2018, https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/
394037-satellites-become-latest-tool-for-hackers-targeting-businesses-
consumers.
69. Tullus, “World Economy Runs on GPS.”
70. “Finland’s GPS Was Disrupted During NATO War Games and Russian
Could Be Responsible,” Reuters.com, November 11, 2018, https://www
.reuters.com/article/us-finland-russia-defence-idUSKCN1NG0TG.
71. U.S. Department of Defense, “Final Report on Organizational and Manage-
ment Structure,” 4–5.
72. Patrick M. Shanahan, “Remarks by Acting Secretary Shanahan at the 35th
Space Symposium, Colorado Springs, Colorado,” April 9, 2019, available at
https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/1809882/
remarks-by-acting-secretary-shanahan-at-the-35th-space-symposium-
colorado-sprin/source/GovDelivery.
73. Most of this jamming involved truckers and various types of cab drivers try-
ing to conceal their locations from their employers, presumably to take
breaks.
74. “Using the Force,” 19; Tullus, “World Economy Runs on GPS.” Fortu-
nately, every plane landed safely, with the pilots manually “eyeballing” their
approaches. One wonders what would have happened had the weather pre-
cluded this method.
75. Tulles, “World Economy Runs on GPS.”
76. For example, see “Tactical High-Energy Laser (THEL),” Jane’s Land Warfare
Platforms, August 14, 2012; “Northrop Grumman Skyguard,” Jane’s Electro-
Optic Systems, September 3, 2010; “Skyguard (Laser Air Defence),” Jane’s
Land Warfare Platforms, March 10, 2015; “HEL MD Laser Continues Test-
ing, Moves Towards 60 kW System,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, September 10,
2014; U.S. Air Force, “Starfire Optical Range at Kirtland Air Force Base,”
fact sheet, March 9, 2009. See U.S. Office of Naval Research, “Navy Solid
State Laser Program Overview,” February 22, 2013. See also “Northrop
Grumman Mid-InfraRed Advanced Chemical Laser (MIRACL),” Jane’s
Electro-Optic Systems, September 21, 2010; and “Ship-Based Laser,” Jane’s
Strategic Weapon Systems, July 25, 2014, cited in Eric Heginbotham et al., The
U.S.-China Military Scorecard (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2015), 235–36.
 Notes to Pages 78–87 461

77. Valerie Insinna, “The US Air Force’s X-37B Spaceplane Lands After Spend-
ing Two Years in Space,” Defense News, October 28, 2019, https://www
.defensenews.com/space/2019/10/28/the-air-forces-x-37b-spaceplane-
finally-landed-after-spending-two-years-in-space; U.S. Air Force, “X-37B
Orbital Test Vehicle,” fact sheet, August 7, 2020, https://www.af.mil/About-
Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104539/x-37b-orbital-test-vehicle.
78. Mike Wall, “X-37B Military Space Plane’s Latest Mystery Mission Hits 700
Days,” Space.com, August 8, 2019, https://www.space.com/x-37b-military-
space-plane-otv5-700-days.html; Kyle Mizokami, “Here’s How the X-37B
Spaceplane ‘Disappears,’ ” Popular Mechanics, July 24, 2019, https://www.
popularmechanics.com/military/a28496447/x-37b-disappear.
79. Mizokami, “X-37B Spaceplane.”
80. Pratik Jakhar, “China Claims ‘Important Breakthrough’ in Space Mission
Shrouded in Mystery,” BBC.com, September 9, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/
news/science-environment-54076895; Andrew Jones, “China Carries Out
Secretive Launch of ‘Reusable Experimental Spacecraft,’ ” SpaceNews, Sep-
tember 4, 2020, https://spacenews.com/china-carries-out-secretive-launch-
of-reusable-experimental-spacecraft; Andrew Jones, “China Launches
Secretive Suborbital Vehicle for Reusable Space Transportation System,”
SpaceNews, July 16, 2021, https://spacenews.com/china-launches-secretive-
suborbital-vehicle-for-reusable-space-transportation-system.
81. Sandra Erwin, “Report: Nuclear Propulsion Would Help Military Satellites
Maneuver Out of Harm’s Way,” SpaceNews, January 14, 2022, https://
spacenews.com/report-nuclear-propulsion-would-help-military-satellites-
maneuver-out-of-harms-way.
82. Broad, “Next ‘Great Power’ Contest.”
83. Davenport, “Battlefield 22,000 Miles Above Earth.” The general was guilty
of an overstatement. Precision-guided munitions, such as laser-guided
bombs, were used effectively decades before GPS and do not require the
precision navigation and timing provided by that constellation, as do weap-
ons such as the U.S. Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM).
84. “Air Breaking,” Economist, March 9, 2019, 71.
85. Ibid., 72.
86. Krepinevich, Military-Technical Revolution, 23.

Chapter Four. Disruptive Technologies

1. During my service in the Army, I was assigned to the Office of Net Assess-
ment from 1989 to 1993. I have served as a consultant for ONA since 1995.
2. Greg Allen and Taniel Chan, “Artificial Intelligence and National Security,”
Belfer Center, Harvard University, July 2017, 7.
3. Miles Brundage, Shahar Avin, et al., “The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelli-
gence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation,” University of Oxford,
462 Notes to Pages 88–89

University of Cambridge, the Center for a New American Security, and the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, February 2018, 9.
4. Eric Schmidt, “Remarks at the Techonomy Conference in Lake Tahoe,”
TechCrunch, August 4, 2010, http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/04/schmidt-
data.
5. National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC),
“NSTAC Report to the President on Big Data Analytics,” May 11, 2016,
ES-1.
6. NSTAC, “NSTAC Report to the President on the Internet of Things,”
November 19, 2014, 1, https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/
NSTAC%20Report%20to%20the%20President%20on%20the%20Internet
%20of%20Things%20Nov%202014%20%28updat%20%20%20.pdf.
7. Gartner Inc., “Gartner Says 6.4 Billion Connected ‘Things’ Will Be in Use in
2016, Up 30 Percent from 2015,” November 10, 2015, http://www.gartner
.com/newsroom/id/3165317; Juniper Research, “ ‘Internet of Things’ Con-
nected Devices to Almost Triple to Over 38 Billion Units by 2020,” July 28,
2015, http://www.juniperresearch.com/press/press-releases/iot-connected-
devices-to-triple-to-38-bn-by-2020; Sagar Bhat, Omkar Bhat, and Pradyumma
Gokhale, “Applications of IoT and IoT: Vision 2020,” International Advanced
Research Journal in Science, Engineering and Technology, January 2018, 36.
8. James Somers, “How the Artificial-Intelligence Program AlphaZero Mas-
tered Its Games,” New Yorker, December 28, 2018, https://www.newyorker
.com/science/elements/how-the-artificial-intelligence-program-alphazero-
mastered-its-games; Larry Greenemeier, “AI Versus AI: Self-Taught Al-
phaGo Zero Vanquishes Its Predecessor,” Scientific American, October 18,
2017, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-versus-ai-self-taught-
alphago-zero-vanquishes-its-predecessor.
9. Cade Metz, “Hold ’Em or Fold ’Em? This A.I. Bluffs with the Best,” New
York Times, July 11, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/science/
poker-robot-ai-artificial-intelligence.html.
10. Zachary Kallenborn, “The Race Is On: Assessing the U.S.-China Artificial
Intelligence Competition,” Modern War Institute, April 16, 2019, https://
mwi.usma.edu/race-assessing-us-china-artificial-intelligence-competition.
11. Peter Sondergaard, “Remarks at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo,” Gartner,
October 2011, http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1824919. See also
NSTAC, “Big Data Analytics,” 10.
12. Defense Science Board, “Summer Study on Autonomy,” Office of the Under
Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, June 2016,
4–5. Definitions for intelligent system, autonomy, automation, robots, and agents
can be found in L. G. Shattuck, “Transitioning to Autonomy: A Human Sys-
tems Integration Perspective,” presentation at Transitioning to Autonomy:
Changes in the Role of Humans in Air Transportation, March 11, 2015, https://
human-factors.arc.nasa.gov/workshop/autonomy/download/presentations/
Shaddock%20.pdf.
 Notes to Pages 90–93 463

13. Jack Corrigan, “Three-Star General Wants AI in Every New Weapon Sys-
tem,” Nextgov, November 2, 2017, https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/
2017/11/three-star-general-wants-artificial-intelligence-every-new-weapon-
system/142225; Richard H. Schultz and General Richard D. Clarke, “Big
Data at War: Special Operations Forces, Project Maven, and Twenty-First
Century Warfare,” Modern Warfare Institute, August 25, 2020, https://mwi
.usma.edu/big-data-at-war-special-operations-forces-project-maven-and-
twenty-first-century-warfare.
14. Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 42; Dave Gershgorn, “The Era of Easily
Faked, AI-Generated Photos Is Quickly Emerging,” Quartz, October 30,
2017; https://qz.com/1115353/new-research-from-nvidia-shows-that-the-era-
of-easily-faked-ai-generated-photos-is-quickly-emerging.
15. National Reconnaissance Office, “Sentient Program,” https://www.nro.gov/
Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/051719/F-2018-00108_
C05113688.pdf; Edward Giest and Andrew J. Lohn, How Might Artificial Intel-
ligence Affect the Risk of Nuclear War? (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2018), 10.
16. Sarah Scoles, “Meet the U.S.’s Spy System of the Future—It’s Sentient,” For-
tuna’s Corner, July 31, 2019, https://fortunascorner.com/2019/08/01/meet-
the-u-s-s-spy-system-of-the-future-its-sentient.
17. Ibid.
18. Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 53.
19. Ibid.; Giest and Lohn, Nuclear War?, 10; Allen and Chan, “Artificial Intelli-
gence,” 24.
20. “The Fog of War May Confound Weapons That Think for Themselves,”
Economist, May 29, 2021, https://www.economist.com/science-and-technol
ogy/2021/05/26/the-fog-of-war-may-confound-weapons-that-think-for-
themselves.
21. “Russia Says 13 Drones Used in Attack on Its Air Base, Naval Facility in
Syria,” Radio Free Europe/RadioLiberty, January 8, 2018, https://www.rferl.
org/a/syria-russia-says-drones-used-attack-bases/28963399.html.
22. Spencer Jakab, “Saudi Oil Attack: This Is the Big One,” Wall Street Journal,
September 14, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-oil-attack-this-is-
the-big-one-11568480576; Dion Nissenbaum, Summer Said, and Jared
Malsin, “U.S. Tells Saudi Arabia Oil Attacks Were Launched from Iran,”
Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-
tells-saudi-arabia-oil-attacks-were-launched-from-iran-11568644126.
23. Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 83; Allen and Chan, “Artificial Intelli-
gence,” 16; Brundage et al., “Artificial Intelligence,” 19.
24. Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 83. See also John Arquilla and David
Ronfeldt, Swarming and the Future of Conflict (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND,
2000), https://www.rand.org/pubs/documented_briefings/DB311.html.
25. Brundage et al., “Artificial Intelligence,” 20.
26. General (Retired) John Allen and Amir Husain, “AI Will Change the Bal-
ance of Power,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, August 2018, https://www
464 Notes to Pages 93–96

.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2018/august/ai-will-change-balance-
power.
27. Seth J. Frantzman, “50 Iranian Drones Conduct Massive ‘Way to Jerusalem’
Exercise,” Jerusalem Post, March 14, 2019, https://www.jpost.com/Middle-
East/50-Iranian-drones-conduct-massive-way-to-Jerusalem-exercise-
report-583387.
28. Aaron Mehta, “Pentagon Launches 103 Unit Drone Swarm,” DefenseNews,
January 10, 2017, https://www.defensenews.com/air/2017/01/10/pentagon-
launches-103-unit-drone-swarm; Shawn Snow, “Pentagon Successfully Tests
World’s Largest Micro-Drone Swarm,” Military Times, January 9, 2017, https://
www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2017/01/09/pentagon-
successfully-tests-world-s-largest-micro-drone-swarm. “Self-healing” occurs
when the swarm reconfigures itself to account for the loss of one or more
members.
29. Joseph Trevithick, “USAF Wants to Network Its Precision Munitions
Together into a ‘Golden Horde’ Swarm,” The War Zone, June 26, 2019,
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28706/usaf-wants-to-network-its-
precision-munitions-together-into-a-golden-horde-swarm; Peter Suciu, “The
Air Force’s New Golden Horde Swarming Munitions: A Game Changer?,”
1945, June 10, 2021, https://www.19fortyfive.com/2021/06/the-air-forces-
new-golden-horde-swarming-munitions-a-game-changer.
30. Jeffrey Lin and P. W. Singer, “China Is Making 1,000-UAV Drone Swarms
Now,” Popular Science, January 8, 2018, https://www.popsci.com/china-
drone-swarms.
31. Ibid.
32. Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 85–86.
33. Joseph Hanacek, “The Perfect Can Wait: Good Solutions to the ‘Drone
Swarm’ Problem,” War on the Rocks, August 14, 2018, https://warontherocks.
com/2018/08/the-perfect-can-wait-good-solutions-to-the-drone-swarm-
problem.
34. Brundage et al., “Artificial Intelligence,” 18.
35. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., “Get Ready for the Democratization of Destruc-
tion,” Foreign Policy, February 15, 2011, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
2011/08/15/get-ready-for-the-democratization-of-destruction. Recent Rus-
sian military operations in Ukraine have been characterized by the wide-
spread use of unmanned aerial vehicles for operational intelligence and
tactical targeting. Russian artillery and multiple-rocket launchers employ
advanced munitions to strike targets identified by UAVs promptly. Such
strikes have reportedly produced the majority of all Ukrainian casualties,
while making it difficult for light infantry fighting vehicles to survive.
Consequently, special forces and irregular forces were often forming the
ground maneuver force, rather than “traditional” mechanized formations.
See Phillip A. Karber, “Lessons Learned” from the Russo-Ukrainian War: Per-
sonal Observations, draft (Vienna, Va.: Potomac Foundation, July 8, 2015),
 Notes to Page 96 465

https://prodev2go.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/rus-ukr-lessons-draft.pdf;
Mary Ellen Connell and Ryan Evans, Russia’s “Ambiguous Warfare” and Impli-
cations for the U.S. Marine Corps (Arlington, Va.: CNA, May 2015), https://
www.cna.org/CNA_files/PDF/DOP-2015-U-010447-Final.pdf; Can Kasa-
poglu, Russia’s Renewed Military Thinking: Non-Linear Warfare and Reflexive
Control, Research Paper 121 (Rome: NATO Defense College, November
2015); Peter Pomerantsev, “Brave New War,” Atlantic, December 29, 2015,
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/12/war-2015-china-
russia-isis/422085.
  In the course of the thirty-four-day Second Lebanon War, fought in the
summer of 2006 between Hezbollah and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF),
Hezbollah fought Israel, a larger, better-equipped enemy, to a standstill with
the aid of numerous guided defensive weapons. Hezbollah sustained the vol-
ume of its rocket fire during the course of the war, firing more than 4,000 of
its estimated 12,000 nonprecision rockets into Israel, including a salvo of
some 250 weapons in the war’s final hours. Matt Matthews, We Were Caught
Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War (Fort Leavenworth, Kan.: U.S.
Army Combined Arms Center Combat Studies Institute Press, 2007), 1, 38–
40, 43–56; Frank G. Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid
Wars (Arlington, Va.: Potomac Institute for Policy Analysis, December,
2007), 22; David E. Johnson, Military Capabilities for Hybrid War: Insights
from the Israel Defense Forces in Lebanon and Gaza (Santa Monica, Calif.:
RAND, 2010).
 In 2021, Colonial Pipeline, an American firm, was subjected to a ransom-
ware attack. The cyber attack disrupted supplies of gasoline, jet fuel, and
diesel along the East Coast of the United States, leading to widespread
shortages, which were resolved only after Colonial Pipeline paid the ransom
of $4.4 million in Bitcoin. Brian Fung and Geneva Sands, “Ransomware
Attackers Used Compromised Password to Access Colonial Pipeline Net-
work,” CNN.com, June 4, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/04/politics/
colonial-pipeline-ransomware-attack-password/index.html.
36. “Business Is Booming as Regulators Relax Drone Laws,” Economist, June
19, 2021, https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/06/17/
business-is-booming-as-regulators-relax-drone-laws.
37. Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 43.
38. Alan Phillips, “Drone Sales Numbers: Nobody Knows, So We Venture a
Guess,” Drone Life, April 16, 2015, https://dronelife.com/2015/04/16/drone-
sales-numbers-nobody-knows-so-we-venture-a-guess. See also Rob Lever,
“Drones Swoop into Electronics Show as Interest Surges,” YahooTech, Jan­
uary 7, 2015, https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/drones-swoop-electronics-show-
interest-surges-061549575.html.
39. James Adams, “How Drones Are Dramatically Changing Warfare,” Spectator,
September 15, 2019, https://spectator.us/drones-dramatically-changing-
warfare.
466 Notes to Pages 96–102

40. Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 43.

41. Brundage et al., “Artificial Intelligence,” 17.
42. Carlo Pinciroli, Adam Lee-Brown, and Giovanni Beltrame, “Buzz: A Novel
Programming Language for Heterogeneous Robot Swarms,” Robohub, Au-
gust 10, 2015, https://robohub.org/buzz-a-novel-programming-language-
for-heterogeneous-robot-swarms; Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 86.
43. Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 85.
44. Ibid., 86.
45. Ibid., 13.
46. Allen and Chan, “Artificial Intelligence,” 14.
47. “Trying to Restrain the Robots,” Economist, January 19, 2019, 23–24.
48. Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 27.
49. Brundage et al., “Artificial Intelligence,” 10.
50. Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 28; Allen and Chan, “Artificial Intelli-
gence,” 19.
51. Brundage et al., “Artificial Intelligence,” 19, 21; “The Methods and Menace
of the New Bank Robbers,” Economist, June 19, 2021, https://www.economist
.com/finance-and-economics/2021/06/16/the-methods-and-menace-of-the-
new-bank-robbers.
52. NSTAC, “Big Data,” 27–28.
53. Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 92.
54. Allen and Chan, “Artificial Intelligence,” 19.
55. NSTAC, “Big Data,” 33–34.
56. Kris Osborn, “DARPA Prototypes New AI-Enabled ‘Breakthrough’ Cyber-
attack ‘Hunting’ Technology,” Warrior Maven, December 18, 2018, https://
defensemaven.io/warriormaven/cyber/darpa-prototypes-new-ai-enabled-
breakthrough-cyberattack-hunting-technology-6yKXpdVGuUupUV-
xgIJ9cA.
57. Ibid. A denial-of-service attack involves an attacker rendering a computer or
network unavailable to its intended users, typically by flooding the targeted
machine with erroneous traffic that overloads the system. Denial-of-service
attacks have been used against online betting firms, which are particularly
attractive targets as they require timely access to their customers, who often
wait until just before a sporting event to place their bets. A successful attack
typically has the attacker communicating to the target an offer to cease the
attack in exchange for money. A distributed denial-of-service attack finds the
attacker mounting an attack from many different sources, often with “bot-
nets,” a kind of “zombie army” of computers that have been compromised
and used to flood the target’s system with email messages.
58. NSTAC, “Big Data,” 19.
59. Ibid., 11.
60. Ibid., 12.
61. Praveen Kopalle, “Why Amazon’s Anticipatory Shipping Is Pure Genius,”
Forbes, January 28, 2014, https://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2014/
 Notes to Pages 102–106 467

01/28/why-amazons-anticipatory-shipping-is-pure-genius. See also Defense

Science Board, “Autonomy,” 70.
62. Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 70. Walmart has similarly employed
enterprise inventory management for predictive supply-chain management.
Big-data analytics at Walmart Labs gather information from sources, includ-
ing online purchase transactions, the long-term online shopping records or
customer life cycles of online consumers, and information on industry
trends in e-commerce.
63. Ibid., 71; Justine Brown, “Forecasting the Unexpected: Home Improvement
Retailers and Emergency Response,” Inbound Logistics, July 29, 2014, https://
www.inboundlogistics.com/cms/article/forecasting-the-unexpected-home-
improvement-retailers-and-emergency-response. Ace Hardware employs a
similar approach to that of Home Depot.
64. Adam Stone, “Army Logistics Integrating New AI, Cloud Capabilities,”
C4ISRnet, September 7, 2017, https://www.c4isrnet.com/home/2017/09/07/
army-logistics-integrating-new-ai-cloud-capabilities.
65. Giest and Lohn, Nuclear War?, 1.
66. Andrew Ilachinski, “AI, Robots and Swarms: Issues, Questions and Recom-
mended Studies,” CNA, January 2017, vi–vii.
67. Sydney J. Friedberg, Jr., “Big Bad Data: Achilles’ Heel of Artificial Intelli-
gence,” Breaking Defense, November 13, 2018, https://breakingdefense.com
/2018/11/big-bad-data-achilles-heel-of-artificial-intelligence.
68. Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher, “The Coming
AI Metamorphosis,” Atlantic, August 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/
magazine/archive/2019/08/henry-kissinger-the-metamorphosis-ai/592771;
Sydney J. Friedberg, Jr., “War Without Fear: DepSecDef Work on How AI
Changes Conflict,” Breaking Defense, May 31, 2017, https://breakingdefense.
com/2017/05/killer-robots-arent-the-problem-its-unpredictable-ai.
69. Friedberg, “Big Bad Data.”
70. Brundage et al., “Artificial Intelligence,” 20.
71. The phrase “ghost in the machine” was coined by the British philosopher
Gilbert Ryle. His use of the phrase is in reference to the mind-body relation-
ship, calling a person’s mind the “ghost in the machine.” Computer program-
mers use the term when referring to a program that runs contrary to their
expectations. “Ghost in the Machine,” Grammarist, accessed February 19,
2022, https://grammarist.com/idiom/ghost-in-the-machine. See also Fried-
berg, “Big Bad Data.”
72. Defense Science Board, “Autonomy,” 14–15.
73. U.S. National Intelligence Council, Global Trends: Paradox of Progress (Wash-
ington, D.C.: Director of National Intelligence, 2017), 218.
74. In 1925, the Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev was the first to propose the
phenomenon of major cycles, or waves, of innovation, hence a “Kondratiev
Wave.” The five initial major economic cycles have been defined as the Indus-
trial Revolution; the age of steam and railways; the age of steel and electricity;
468 Notes to Pages 107–109

the age of oil, cars, and mass production; and the age of information and com-
munication. Each cycle ran between forty and sixty years. The sixth cycle is
postulated by some people as an increase in resource efficiency. This sixth wave
is anticipated to be driven by the internet of things, combined with new indus-
trial applications, business models, and services. Josef S. Koller, “The Future of
Ubiquitous, Realtime Intelligence: A GEOINT Singularity,” Aerospace Cor-
poration Center for Space Policy and Strategy, August 2019, 5. See also James
Bradford Moody and Bianca Nogrady, The Sixth Wave: How to Succeed in a
Resource-Limited World (Sydney: Random House Australia, 2010).
75. A. T. Kearney, “3D Printing: Ensuring Manufacturing Leadership in the
21st Century,” Hewlett Packard, 2017, 6, https://www8.hp.com/us/en/
images/3D_Printing___Ensuring_Manufacturing_Leadership_in_the_21st_
Century_tcm245_2547663_tcm245_2442804_tcm245-2547663.pdf.
76. Ibid.
77. Connor M. McNulty, Neyla Arnas, and Thomas A. Campbell, “Toward the
Printed World: Additive Manufacturing and Implications for National Secu-
rity,” Defense Horizons (Institute for National Strategic Studies, National De-
fense University), September 2012, 4.
78. Photo-polymerization is a technique that uses light (visible or ultraviolet) to
initiate and propagate a polymerization reaction to form a linear or cross-
linked polymer structure.
79. McNulty, Arnas, and Campbell, “Toward the Printed World,” 9.
80. Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin D. Forest, “The Future of Additive Manufac-
turing in Air Force Acquisition,” unpublished paper, Air War College,
March 22, 2017, 8.
81. U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), “Additive Manufacturing: Pursuing the
Promise,” August 2012, 1, https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/12/
f5/additive_manufacturing.pdf; McNulty, Arnas, and Campbell, “Toward the
Printed World,” 3; Trevor Johnston, Troy D. Smith, and J. Luke Irwin, Addi-
tive Manufacturing in 2040 (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2018), 5.
82. Maryne Dijkstra, Alexandra Krause, Layann Masri, Gordon McCambridge,
Jarrell Ng, Shi Bao Pek, Eun Sung Yang, and Yiting Zheng, “U.S. National
Strategy for Additive Manufacturing,” Jackson Institute for Global Affairs,
Yale University, 2014, 8; DoE, “Additive Manufacturing,” 1.
83. Richard, D’Aveni, “The 3-D Printing Revolution,” Harvard Business Review,
May 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/05/the-3-d-printing-revolution.
84. McNulty, Arnas, and Campbell, “Toward the Printed World,” 3; Johnston,
Smith, and Irwin, Additive Manufacturing, 5.
85. D’Aveni, “3-D Printing Revolution.”
86. Johnston, Smith, and Irwin, Additive Manufacturing, 11.
87. Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, “Top Ten Uses for Addi-
tive Manufacturing for Defense,” June 29, 2015, https://www.idga.org/military-
equipment-platforms/news/top-ten-uses-for-additive-manufacturing-for-defe.
 Notes to Pages 109–114 469

88. McNulty, Arnas, and Campbell, “Toward a Printed World,” 3; Johnston,

Smith, and Irwin, Additive Manufacturing, 5.
89. Johnston, Smith, and Irwin, Additive Manufacturing, 4.
90. Ibid., 12; Colonel Leslie D. Begley, “Increasing Capabilities and Improving
Readiness Through Additive Manufacturing Techniques,” unpublished
paper, U.S. Army War College, January 4, 2017, 7; Forest, “Future of Addi-
tive Manufacturing,” 14.
91. Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, “Top Ten Uses.”
92. Begley, “Increasing Capabilities,” 7.
93. McNulty, Arnas, and Campbell, “Toward a Printed World,” 5.
94. Dijkstra et al., “U.S. National Strategy,” 7.
95. Kearney, “3D Printing,” 9; Simon Véronneau, Geoffrey Torrington, and
Jakub P. Hlávka, 3D Printing: Downstream Production Transforming the Sup-
ply Chain (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2017), 17.
96. Begley, “Increasing Capabilities,” 10.
97. Ibid., 9.
98. Kearney, “3D Printing,” 24.
99. Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, “Top Ten Uses.”
100. Johnston, Smith, and Irwin, Additive Manufacturing, 12; ME5 Calvin Seah
Ser Thong and ME4 Choo Wei Wen, “3D Printing—Revolutionising Mil-
itary Operations,” Pointer (Singapore Armed Forces) 42, no. 2 (2016): 39,
https://www.mindef.gov.sg/oms/safti/pointer/documents/pdf/Vol42No2_4
%203D%20Printing.pdf.
101. Forest, “Future of Additive Manufacturing,” 18.
102. U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Inquiry into Counterfeit Electronic
Parts in the Department of Defense Supply Chain, United States Senate, 112th
Congress, S. Rep. No. 112-167, May 21, 2012.
103. U.S. National Intelligence Council, Global Trends, 180.
104. Seth Augenstein, “Rise of Synthetic Biology Means U.S. Government Un-
prepared for Biowarfare,” Laboratory Equipment, June 20, 2018, https://www.
laboratoryequipment.com/news/2018/06/rise-synthetic-biology-means-us-
government-unprepared-biowarfare (accessed July 19, 2019).
105. Seth Augenstein, “Scientists Synthesize Pox Virus, Unleashing Controversy,”
Laboratory Equipment, January 22, 2018, https://www.laboratoryequipment
.com/news/2018/01/scientists-synthesize-pox-virus-unleashing-controversy
(accessed July 19, 2019).
106. Ibid.
107. Royal Society, “Synthetic Biology,” accessed February 19, 2022, https://
royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/synthetic-biology.
108. “A Whole New World,” Technology Quarterly, Economist, April 6, 2019, 4, 6.
109. Zyg Dembek, “The Genie Is Out of the Lamp,” CBNW, January 2019, 53;
Patrick Tucker, “U.S. Army Making Synthetic Biology a Priority,” Defense
One, July 1, 2019, https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2019/07/us-
army-making-synthetic-biology-priority/158129/?oref=defenseone_today_nl.
470 Notes to Pages 115–118

110. Nucleases belong to a class of enzymes that cleave nucleic acids into nucle-
otides and other products. They are capable of effecting single- and
double-stranded breaks in their target molecules. In living organisms, nu-
cleases are needed for many aspects of DNA repair. Ribonucleases act only
on ribonucleic acids (RNA), and deoxyribonucleases act only on deoxyri-
bonucleic acids (DNA).
111. Marcy E. Gallo, John F. Sargent, Jr., Amanda K. Sarata, and Tadlock
Cowan, “Advanced Gene Editing: CRISPR-Cas9,” Congressional Research
Service, April 28, 2017, 2–3.
112. John Travis, “Making the Cut: CRISPR Genome-Editing Technology
Shows Its Power,” Science, December 2015, 1456.
113. Gallo et al., “Advanced Gene Editing,” 12.
114. Ibid., 20. For the origins of the “Green Revolution” and Charles Borlaug,
the man most responsible for triggering it, see Charles C. Mann, The Wiz-
ard and the Prophet (New York: Knopf, 2018), 95–155.
115. A “cultivar” is a group of plants selected for their desirable characteristics
that are maintained during propagation. For example, trees cultivated in
the forestry industry are selected with an eye toward their yield of com-
mercial timber.
116. Yanpeng Wang, Xi Cheng, Qiwei Shan, et al., “Simultaneous Editing of
Three Homoeoalleles in Hexaploid Bread Wheat Confers Heritable Resis-
tance to Powdery Mildew,” Nature Biotechnology, July 20, 2014, 947–51.
117. Keith Edmisten, “CRISPR Is Coming to Agriculture—With Big Implica-
tions for Food, Farmers, Consumers, and Nature,” NC State Extension,
January 28, 2016.
118. More broadly speaking, transgenesis is the process by which genetic mate-
rial from one species or breed is transferred to another.
119. Rob Stein, “CRISPR Bacon: Chinese Scientists Create Genetically Modi-
fied Low-Fat Pigs,” NPR.org, October 23, 2017, https://www.npr.org/
sections/thesalt/2017/10/23/559060166/crispr-bacon-chinese-scientists-
create-genetically-modified-low-fat-pigs; Gallo et al., “Advanced Gene
Editing,” 21.
120. Stella K. Vasiliou and Eleftherios P. Diamandis, moderators, “CRISPR-
Cas9 System: Opportunities and Concerns,” Clinical Chemistry, August
22, 2016, http://hwmaint.clinchem.org/cgi/doi/10.1373/clinchem.2016.
263186.
121. Gallo et al., “Advanced Gene Editing,” 18–19.
122. Lon Augustenborg, “Genetics: An Emerging Global Threat,” Teneo, Janu-
ary 1, 2017, https://www.teneo.com/genetics-an-emerging-global-threat.
123. Robert H. Latiff, Future War: Preparing for the New Global Battlefield (New
York: Knopf, 2017), 33.
124. Antonio Regalado, “Chinese Scientists Are Creating CRISPR Babies,”
MIT Technology Review, November 25, 2018, https://www.technologyreview
.com/s/612458/exclusive-chinese-scientists-are-creating-crispr-babies;
 Notes to Pages 118–120 471

“Jump Start,” Economist, June 15, 2019, 73; “A Moment for Reflection,”
Economist, December 1, 2018, 70–71.
125. Tucker, “Synthetic Biology.”
126. Prashant Mali, Kevin M. Esvelt, and George M. Church, “Cas9 as a Versa-
tile Tool for Engineering Biology,” Nature Methods, October 2013, 962;
“Jump Start,” 73.
127. U.S. National Intelligence Council, Global Trends, 178. “Gene drives” are
genetic elements for which inheritance is favorably biased. U.S. National
Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS), Biodefense in the
Age of Synthetic Biology (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press,
2018), 18, https://doi.org/10.17226/24890.
128. Vladimír Pitschmann and Zdeněk Hon, “Military Importance of Natural
Toxins and Their Analogs,” Molecules 21 (April 28, 2016): 556.
129. Jerry Warner et al., “Analysis of the Threat of Genetically Modified Or-
ganisms for Biological Warfare,” Defense Technical Information Center,
2011, http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&i
dentifier=ADA547199; Spiez Laboratory, Spiez Convergence: Report on the
Second Workshop (Spiez, Switzerland: Swiss Federal Office for Civil Protec-
tion, 2016), 21–26; Erik Frinking, Tim Sweijs, Paul Sinning, Eva Bontje,
Christopher Frattina della Frattina, and Mercedes Abdalla, “The Increas-
ing Threat of Biological Weapons,” Hague Centre for Strategic Studies,
2016, 10.
130. U.S. National Intelligence Council, Global Trends, 53.
131. Dembek, “Genie,” 53.
132. Ibid.
133. “Improvised Weapons. Hell’s Kitchens,” Economist, May 21, 2016, http://
www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21699098-makeshift-
weapons-are-becoming-more-dangerous-highly-sophisticated.
134. Latiff, Future War, 32.
135. Upon reading this section of the manuscript while in draft form, my son
and namesake decided to check this out for himself. He found that he could
purchase a CRISPR kit for $159 online at http://www.the-odin.com/
diy-crispr-kit. Harvard University is offering a course online titled
“CRISPR: Gene-Editing Applications,” https://gs.harvardx.harvard.edu/
harvard-crispr-gene-editing-applications-online-short-course-sf/?ef_id=
c%3A318503670128_d%3Ac_n%3Ag_ti%3Akwd-317599818853_p%3A_k
%3A%2Bcrispr_m%3Ab_a%3A62703010079&gclid=Cj0KCQjwiILsBRCG
ARIsAHKQWLNeC70KN8wmkx-0wEZUV9eOxg79xkvZWYPoIgcspqFY-
s4f6v9yT9EaAhWpEALw_wcB.
136. Daniel M. Gerstein, “Can the Bioweapons Convention Survive Crispr?,”
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July 25, 2016, https://thebulletin.org/2016/
07/can-the-bioweapons-convention-survive-crispr.
137. Augustenborg, “Genetics.”
138. Vasiliou and Diamandis, “CRISPR-Cas9 System.”
472 Notes to Pages 120–126

139. Augustenborg, “Genetics”; Zeynep Tufekci, “Where Did the Coronavirus

Come From? What We Already Know Is Troubling,” New York Times, June
25, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/25/opinion/coronavirus-lab
.html.
140. Frinking et al., “Increasing Threat of Biological Weapons,” 8.
141. NAS, Biodefense, 86.
142. Ibid., 91.
143. Ibid., 86.
144. U.S. National Intelligence Council, Global Trends, 178.
145. NAS, Biodefense, 86, 89.
146. Flippa Lentzos, “How to Protect the World from Ultra-Targeted Biological
Weapons,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, December 7, 2020, https://thebulletin
.org/premium/2020-12/how-to-protect-the-world-from-ultra-targeted-
biological-weapons.
147. Matthew Harper, “Ilumina Promises to Sequence Human Genome for
$100—But Not Quite Yet,” Forbes, January 9, 2017, https://www.forbes
.com/sites/matthewherper/2017/01/09/illumina-promises-to-sequence-
human-genome-for-100-but-not-quite-yet/#6fd8c72d386d.
148. Alexandra Ossola, “Welcome to the Future, a Place Where Everyone
Knows Your Genetic Code,” Futurism, December 14, 2017, https://futurism
.com/genetic-privacy-hacking.
149. A report from Reuters finds that Chinese investment currently makes up
about 43 percent of the funds going into U.S. biotech start-ups, or over $5
billion a year. Tucker, “Synthetic Biology”; “Biotechnology Market Size
Worth $727.1 Billion By 2025,” Grand View Research, August 2017,
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/press-release/global-biotechnology-
market.
150. NAS, Biodefense, 11, 18.
151. “Gene Machines,” Economist, March 3, 2018, 71.
152. “Whole New World,” 8.
153. NAS, Biodefense, 91.
154. For a history of the Spanish influenza, see John M. Barry, The Great Influ-
enza (New York: Penguin, 2005).
155. Brooke Borel and Quanta Magazine, “When Evolution Fights Back
Against Genetic Engineering,” Atlantic, September 12, 2016, https://www.
theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/gene-drives/499574.
156. William Manchester and Paul Reid, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer
Churchill, vol. 3, Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965 (New York: Little,
Brown, 2012), 114.
157. Dave Deptula, “Hypersonic Weapons Could Transform Warfare. The
U.S. Is Behind,” Forbes, October 5, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
davedeptula/2018/10/05/faster-than-a-speeding-bullet/#353d7e905ca6;
“Speed Is the New Stealth,” Economist, June 1, 2013, https://www.economist
.com/technology-quarterly/2013/06/01/speed-is-the-new-stealth.
 Notes to Pages 126–129 473

158. R. Jeffrey Smith, “Hypersonic Missiles Are Unstoppable: And They’re

Starting a New Global Arms Race,” New York Times Magazine, June 19,
2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/magazine/hypersonic-missiles
.html; Jon Isaac, “The Navy’s Newest Nemesis: Hypersonic Weapons,”
Center for International Maritime Security, April 15, 2019, http://cimsec.
org/the-navys-newest-nemesis-hypersonic-weapons/40135; Eliot Gardner,
“Hypersonic Weapons: Can Anyone Stop Them?,” Air Force Technology, Oc-
tober 16, 2018, https://www.airforce-technology.com/features/hypersonic-
weapons-can-anyone-stop.
159. Eleanor Peake, “Hypersonic Missiles Are Coming to Change Warfare For-
ever,” Wired, October 29, 2017, https://www.wired.co.uk/article/this-is-
how-hypersonic-missiles-could-change-the-future-of-warfare; James Clad,
“China’s Hypersonic Weapons Leave U.S. Defenseless, for Now,” The Hill,
May 1, 2019, https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/441542-china-
hypersonic-weapons-leave-us-defenseless-for-now; Smith, “Hypersonic
Missiles Are Unstoppable.”
160. Smith, “Hypersonic Missiles Are Unstoppable.” Of course, a hypersonic
missile’s ability to disable or destroy a target will remain a function of the
weapon’s weight and shape and the target’s armor form and density, among
other things. Gardner, “Hypersonic Weapons.”
161. Isaac, “Navy’s Newest Nemesis.”
162. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General John
Hyten, then head of the U.S. Strategic Command, conceded, “We don’t
have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against
us, so our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad
and the nuclear capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat.” Aaron
Mehta, “Hypersonics ‘Highest Technical Priority’ for Pentagon R&D
Head,” Defense News, March 6, 2018, https://www.defensenews.com/
pentagon/2018/03/06/hypersonics-highest-technical-priority-for-pentagon-
rd-head; Rebecca Kheel, “Russia, China Eclipse U.S. in Hypersonic Mis-
siles, Prompting Fears,” The Hill, March 27, 2018, http://thehill.com/policy/
defense/380364-china-russia-eclipse-us-in-hypersonic-missiles-prompting-
fears.
163. Gardner, “Hypersonic Weapons”; Isaac, “Navy’s Newest Nemesis”; Joseph
Trevithick and Tyler Rogoway, “Air Force to Turn Navy Air Defense Bust-
ing Missile into High-Speed Critical Strike Weapon,” The War Zone, March
18, 2019, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27022/air-force-to-turn-
navy-air-defense-busting-missile-into-high-speed-critical-strike-weapon.
164. “Speed Is the New Stealth.”
165. Gardner, “Hypersonic Weapons”; Smith, “Hypersonic Missiles Are Un-
stoppable,” “Hypersonic Boom,” Economist, April 6, 2019, 68.
166. Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., “3D Printing Key to Hypersonic Weapons: Ray-
theon,” Breaking Defense, March 30, 2016, https://breakingdefense.com/
2016/03/3d-printing-key-to-hypersonic-weapons-raytheon.
474 Notes to Pages 130–134

167. “Hypersonic Boom,” 68.

168. Smith, “Hypersonic Missiles Are Unstoppable.”
169. Tom Simonite, “The Wired Guide to Quantum Computing,” Wired, August
24, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/wired-guide-to-quantum-computing.
170. “Here, There and Everywhere,” Technology Quarterly, Economist, March
11, 2017, 7–8. In simple terms, Shor’s algorithm solves the following prob-
lem: “For a given integer ‘N,’ find its prime factors.” Prime factors are the
prime numbers that, when multiplied together, make the original number
‘N.’ Cryptologists use prime factorization because it is very hard to identify
the prime factors of very large numbers, a problem that frustrates even
modern computers. For a detailed and highly technical treatment of this
issue, see Michael A. Nielsen and Isaac L. Chuang, Quantum Computation
and Quantum Information (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010);
and Phillip Kaye, Raymond Laflamme, and Michele Mosca, An Introduction
to Quantum Computing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
171. David Cardinal, “How Does Quantum Computing Work?,” Extreme Tech, Jan-
uary 30, 2019, https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/284306-how-quantum-
computing-works. See also “Qubits—Superimposition and Entanglement,”
accessed February 19, 2022, https://hego.redbrick.dcu.ie/technicalmanual/
node34.html.
172. Will Hurd, “Quantum Computing Is the Next Big Security Risk,” Wired,
December 7, 2017, https://www.wired.com/story/quantum-computing-is-
the-next-big-security-risk; Jack Nicas, “How Google’s Quantum Com-
puter Could Change the World,” Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2017,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-googles-quantum-computer-could-
change-the-world-1508158847.
173. Cardinal, “How Does Quantum Computing Work?”
174. Nicas, “Google’s Quantum Computer.”
175. Simonite, “Wired Guide to Quantum Computing.”
176. Ibid.
177. Nicas, “Google’s Quantum Computer.”
178. Simonite, “Wired Guide to Quantum Computing.”
179. George Musser, “Job One for Quantum Computers: Boost Artificial Intel-
ligence,” Wired, February 10, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/job-one-
for-quantum-computers-boost-artificial-intelligence.
180. Hurd, “Quantum Computing.”
181. Nicas, “Google’s Quantum Computer”; Mikhail Dyakonov, “The Case
Against Quantum Computing,” IEEE Spectrum, November 15, 2018,
https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/the-case-against-quantum-
computing.
182. Nicas, “Google’s Quantum Computer.”
183. Dyakonov, “Case Against Quantum Computing.”
184. Emily Grumbling and Mark Horowitz, eds., Quantum Computing: Progress
and Prospects (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2019), 21.
 Notes to Pages 134–138 475

185. Dyakonov, “Case Against Quantum Computing.”

186. Grumbling and Horowitz, Quantum Computing, 2–5.
187. Nicas, “Google’s Quantum Computer.”
188. Dyakonov, “Case Against Quantum Computing”; Grumbling and Horow-
itz, Quantum Computing, 3, 5.
189. Grumbling and Horowitz, Quantum Computing, 3–4.
190. Dyakonov, “Case Against Quantum Computing.”
191. Missouri’s nickname is the “Show Me State.” Schlesinger was reiterating
his skepticism and, in effect, telling me that he would need a lot more
“proof” than I was providing before he would get excited about directed-
energy weapons.
192. Annah Ahronheim, “Israel Unveils Breakthrough Laser to Intercept Mis-
siles, Aerial Threats,” Jerusalem Post, January 9, 2020, https://www.jpost.
com/Israel-News/Israels-Defense-Ministry-announces-breakthrough-in-
laser-technology-613568; Tyler Rogoway, “How the Once Elusive Dream
of Laser Weapons Suddenly Became a Reality,” The War Zone, November
25, 2020, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37775/how-the-once-
elusive-dream-of-laser-weapons-suddenly-became-a-reality; Andrew Feick­­­
ert, “U.S. Army Weapons-Related Directed Energy (DE) Programs:
Background and Potential Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research
Service, February 12, 2018, 5.
193. Andy Extance, “Military Technology: Laser Weapons Get Real,” Nature,
May 27, 2015, https://www.nature.com/news/military-technology-laser-
weapons-get-real-1.17613.
194. U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, “Challenges to Security in Space,” 2019,
20–21, https://www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/Military%20Power
%20Publications/Space_Threat_V14_020119_sm.pdf.
195. Bart Hendrickx, “Peresvet: A Russian Mobile Laser System to Dazzle
Enemy Satellites,” Space Review, June 15, 2020, https://www.thespacere-
view.com/article/3967/1; Chreis Zappone, “Space Lasers and the New Bat-
tlefield Emerging Under China’s Anti-Satellite Tactics,” Sydney Morning
Herald, August 9, 2021, https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/space-lasers-
and-the-new-battlefield-emerging-under-china-s-anti-satellite-tactics-
20210804-p58ft2.html.
196. Kris Osborn, “The U.S. Military Has a New Master Plan to Use Lasers in
a War,” National Interest, March 9, 2021, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/
buzz/us-military-has-new-master-plan-use-lasers-war-179699.
197. Liam Stoker, “Electromagnetic Pulse Weaponry: Boeing CHAMP Video and
Jammer Grenades,” Army-Technology.com, November 27, 2012, http://www.
army-technology.com/features/featureelectromagnetic-pulse-weaponry-
boeing-champ-jammer-grenades; Devin Coldewey, “Boeing’s New Missile
Takes Down Electronics Without Touching Them,” NBCNews.com, October
24, 2012, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/boeings-new-missile-
takes-down-electronics-without-touching-them-flna1C6663618.
476 Notes to Pages 138–145

198. David Axe, “How ‘Revolutionary’ Is CHAMP, New Air Force Microwave
Weapon?,” AOL Defense, November 28, 2012, http://defense.aol.com/
2012/11/28/how-revolutionary-is-champ-new-air-force-microwave-weapon;
Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., “ ‘A Golden Age for Collaboration’: On Lasers &
Microwaves: But Watch the Cheetos!,” Breaking Defense, July 7, 2020,
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/a-golden-age-for-collaboration-on-
lasers-microwaves-but-watch-the-cheetos.
199. Alex Hempel, “The SM-2, SM-3, SM-6, ESSM, and RAM: A Guide to
U.S. Naval Air Defense Missiles, WhiteFleet.net, August 5, 2016, https://
whitefleet.net/2016/08/05/sm-2-sm-3-sm-6-and-essm-a-guide-to-us-
naval-air-defense-missiles.
200. Ballistic missile warheads, which must be hardened to withstand the ex-
treme heat associated with reentering the atmosphere, pose yet another
problem for laser defenses.
201. Hughes, Fleet Tactics, 99–108.
202. Karl Kristian Steincke, Ogsaa en Tilvaerelse, vol. 4, Farvel Og Tak: Minder Og
Meninger (Copenhagen: Fremad, 1948), 227, https://quoteinvestigator.
com/2013/10/20/no-predict.

Chapter Five. W(h)ither Deterrence?

1. Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with History (New York: Viking, 2018), 361.
2. Bernard Brodie, “War in the Atomic Age,” in Brodie, Absolute Weapon, 62.
3. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., The Decline of Deterrence (Washington, D.C.:
Hudson Institute, 2019), 50–52.
4. A. Roberts, Churchill, 399.
5. Barack Obama, National Security Strategy, White House, February 2015, 7–8,
29.
6. Barack Obama, Sustaining Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century De-
fense, White House, January 3, 2012, 8, 10–13.
7. James Mattis, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, Department of
Defense, 2018, 1, 5.
8. Sebastian Roblin, “China Is Building Over 100 Missile Silos in the Desert—
Is It Playing a Nuclear ‘Shell Game’?,” National Interest, June 12, 2021,
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/china-building-over-100-missile-
silos-desert—-it-playing-nuclear-“shell-game”-189506; Bill Gertz, “China
Building Third Missile Field for Hundreds of New ICBMs,” Washington
Times, August 12, 2021, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/
12/china-engaged-breathtaking-nuclear-breakout-us-str. “Crisis stability” re-
fers to a situation where the potential for a decisive change in the security
fortunes of two or more rivals exists and yet even risk-tolerant decision-
makers view the anticipated costs of attacking as far outweighing the pro-
spective benefits. In simple terms, crisis stability means that even under
 Notes to Pages 145–148 477

circumstances where two rivals are playing for high stakes under intense
pressure, neither has an incentive to “shoot first.” Michael S. Gerson, “The
Origins of Strategic Stability: The United States and the Threat of Surprise
Attack,” in Strategic Stability: Contending Interpretations, ed. Elbridge A. Colby
and Michael S. Gerson (Carlisle, Pa.: U.S. Army War College Press, Febru-
ary 2013), 2, 26–27; Glenn A. Kent and David E. Thaler, First-Strike Stability:
A Methodology for Evaluating Strategic Forces (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND,
1989), v; Elbridge Colby, “Defining Strategic Stability: Reconciling Stability
and Deterrence,” in Colby and Gerson, Strategic Stability, 49.
9. W. J. Hennigan and John Walcott, “The U.S. Expects China Will Quickly
Double Its Nuclear Stockpile,” Time, May 29, 2019, https://time.
com/5597955/china-nuclear-weapons-intelligence; Liu Xuanzun, “China
Urged to Expand Nuclear Arsenal to Deter U.S. Warmongers,” Global
Times, May 8, 2020, https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1187775.shtml.
10. Dean Cheng, “Chinese Views on Deterrence,” Joint Forces Quarterly, First
Quarter, 2011, 92; Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1967), 69.
11. Watts, Six Decades, 25.
12. For a discussion of a general thermonuclear war’s prospective characteris-
tics, see Herman Kahn, Thinking About the Unthinkable in the 1980s (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1984).
13. Krepinevich, Decline of Deterrence, 20–23.
14. Ibid., 37–45.
15. Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake, Cyber War (New York: HarperCol-
lins, 2010), 7.
16. Evgeny Myasnikov, “Counterforce Potential of High-Precision Weapons,”
in Nuclear Disarmament: New Technology, Weapons and Treaties, ed. Alexei Ar-
batov and Vladimir Dvorkin (Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, 2009),
107; Alexei Arbatov, Gambit or Endgame? The New State of Arms Control
(Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2011), 9.
17. Arbatov, Gambit or Endgame?, 17, 21.
18. Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation (in Russian), 2014, http://
news.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/41d527556bec8deb3530.pdf, quoted in
Alexey Arbatov, “Nuclear Deterrence: A Guarantee or Threat to Strategic
Stability?,” Carnegie Moscow Center, March 22, 2019, https://carnegie.ru/
2019/03/22/nuclear-deterrence-guarantee-or-threat-to-strategic-stability-
pub-78663.
19. Russian doctrine also includes the possibility of launching a retaliatory
strike should it detect that a nuclear attack is under way against it, typically
referred to as “launch on warning.” The June 2020 policy document de-
scribes a number of circumstances under which Moscow might consider the
use of nuclear weapons, including when it has received “reliable data on a
launch of ballistic missiles attacking the territory of the Russian Federation
478 Notes to Pages 148–154

and/or its allies” and in response to the “use of nuclear weapons or other
types of weapons of mass destruction by an adversary against the Russian
Federation and/or its allies.” Russia also reserves the right to respond with
nuclear weapons following an “attack by [an] adversary against critical gov-
ernmental or military sites of the Russian Federation, disruption of which
would undermine nuclear forces’ response actions” and “aggression against
the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very
existence of the state is in jeopardy.” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Rus-
sian Federation, On Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation,
Moscow, June 2, 2020, paras. 4, 5, 10, and 19, https://www.mid.ru/en/web/
guest/foreign_policy/international_safety/disarmament/-/asset_publisher/
rp0fiUBmANaH/content/id/4152094, quoted in Amy F. Woolf, “Russia’s
Nuclear Weapons: Doctrine, Forces and Modernization,” Congressional
Research Service, July 20, 2020, 4–5. See also Woolf, “Russia’s Nuclear
Weapons,” 6–7; and Michael Kofman and Anya Loukianova Fink,
“Escalation Management and Nuclear Employment in Russian Military
Strategy,” War on the Rocks, June 23, 2020, https://warontherocks.com/
2020/06/escalation-management-and-nuclear-employment-in-russian-
military-strategy; Admiral Charles A. Richard, Testimony, Senate Commit-
tee on Armed Services, April 20, 2021, 10.
20. James Mattis, U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (Washington, D.C.: Office of the
Secretary of Defense, February 2018), xii, 8, https://media.defense.gov/2018/
Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-
FINAL-REPORT.pdf.
21. Mingda Qiu, “China’s Science of Military Strategy: Cross-Domain Con-
cepts in the 2013 Edition,” Cross Domain Deterrence Working Paper, Uni-
versity of California at San Diego, La Jolla, Calif., September 2015, 14.
22. Research Department of Military Strategy, Science of Military Strategy, 148,
quoted in Mingda Qiu, “China’s Science of Military Strategy,” 13.
23. Krepinevich, Decline of Deterrence, 50–52.
24. Nevil Shute, On the Beach (New York: William Morrow, 1957).
25. Martin Shubik, “Terrorism, Technology and the Socioeconomics of Death,”
Comparative Strategy 16, no. 4 (1997): 399–414.
26. “The Dark Knight (2008): Michael Caine: Alfred,” IMDb, accessed February
19, 2022, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/characters/nm0000323.
27. This is the basis for insurance. A risk-averse person accepts an expected
value that is less than that of the gamble in order to obtain a sure thing; that
is to say, the person pays a premium to avoid risk. Uncertainty exists when
the decision-makers do not know the possible outcome of their decision in
advance or the probabilities. On the other hand, risk exists when the deci-
sion-makers have some sense of the probabilities of potential outcomes in
advance. For example, before rolling a pair of dice, an individual knows the
odds of rolling snake eyes (two ones). (The odds are one in thirty-six.) In a
game of poker, the players are less certain of the outcome of a particular
 Notes to Pages 155–159 479

hand, but expert players have a sense of the range of the odds in choosing a
particular course of action. Richard E. Nisbett, Kaiping Peng, Incheol Choi,
and Ara Norenzayan, “Culture and Systems of Thought: Holistic Versus An-
alytic Cognition,” Psychological Review 108, no. 2 (2001): 291.
28. Herbert A. Simon, “A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice,” RAND P-365,
January 20, 1953; Herbert A. Simon, “Rational Choice and the Structure of
the Environment,” Psychological Review 63 (March 1956): 129–38. See also
Daniel Kahneman, “Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behav-
ioral Economics,” American Economic Review 93 (December 2003): 1449–75.
29. James March and Herbert Simon, with the collaboration of Harold Guetz-
kow, Organizations, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1993), 3–4.
30. Richard M. Cyert and James March, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm, 2nd ed.
(Cambridge: Blackwell, 1992), 120–22, 214–15.
31. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Gi-
roux, 2011), 334; Jack S. Levy, “Applications of Prospect Theory to Political
Science,” Synthese, May 2003, 217. Tversky and Kahneman also found that
individuals exhibit diminishing sensitivity to gains and losses (or anticipated
benefits and costs) and that decision-makers overweight low-probability
outcomes and underweight high-probability outcomes.
32. R. H. Thaler, “Toward a Positive Theory of Consumer Choice,” Journal of
Economic Behavior and Organization 1 (1980): 39–60.
33. Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow, 250, 256–57.
34. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 248.
35. The fact that one of those who seeks power obtains it does not necessarily
tell us anything about the winner’s skill. If ten contestants compete in a
“winner-take-all” game, one of them will necessarily emerge as the ultimate
winner, even if all ten are absolutely equal in skill.
36. Nisbett et al., “Culture,” 291.
37. Ethan Watters, “We Aren’t the World,” Pacific Standard Magazine, February
25, 2013, https://psmag.com/social-justice/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-
shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135.
38. Ibid.
39. Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd, Samuel Boyles, Colin Camerer, et al., “ ‘Eco-
nomic Man’ in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Behavioral Experiments in 15
Small-Scale Societies,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28 (2005): 7.
40. It may also be that in cases where Player A is risk seeking, A may make an
“unfair” offer to Player B, anticipating that B’s self-interest will lead B to ac-
cept the offer.
41. Donald Kagan, On the Origins of War (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 38–39,
204.
42. Alistair Horne, To Lose a Battle: France 1940 (New York: Penguin, 1990), 95.
43. William Taubman, Khrushchev (New York: Norton, 2003), 541, 546.
44. Ibid., 574, 576.
45. Evan Thomas, Ike’s Bluff (New York: Little, Brown, 2012), 105.
480 Notes to Pages 167–177

Chapter Six. Fisher’s Scheme

1. Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London: Ash-
field, 1976), 205.
2. Peter Padfield, Battleship (Edinburgh, U.K.: Birlinn, 2000), 154. Admiral
Richards served as First Sea Lord—the Royal Navy’s most senior officer—
from 1893 to 1899.
3. Ibid., 150–51.
4. Lambert, “Dreadnought,” 7.
5. Ibid., 9; Parkinson, Dreadnought, 5.
6. Padfield, Battleship, 11.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., 11–12.
9. Ibid., 62; Jan Morris, Fisher’s Face (New York: Random House, 1995), 89.
10. Padfield, Battleship, 61–62.
11. Spector, At War, at Sea, 34–35.
12. Ibid., 22–23; Morris, Fisher’s Face, 90.
13. Alan Cowpe, “The Royal Navy and the Whitehead Torpedo,” in Technical
Change and British Naval Policy, 1860–1939, ed. Bryan Ranft (London: Hod-
der and Stoughton, 1977), 23–25; Padfield, Battleship, 58.
14. Padfield, Battleship, 57, 109–10.
15. Cowpe, “Whitehead Torpedo,” 28–29.
16. Bryan Ranft, “The Protection of British Seaborne Trade and the Development
of Systematic Planning for War, 1860–1906,” in Ranft, Technical Change, 30.
17. Ibid., 28–29.
18. Ibid., 30–31.
19. Penn, Infighting Admirals, 45–46.
20. Cowpe, “Whitehead Torpedo,” 31.
21. Massie, Dreadnought, 501–8; Richard Freeman, The Great Edwardian Naval Feud
(Barnsley, U.K.: Pen and Sword Maritime, 2009), 12–15, 23–25, 29, 32–34.
22. Britain’s sea lord is the rough equivalent of the U.S. Secretary of the Navy. A
junior sea lord is a senior civilian serving under the sea lord.
23. Penn, Infighting Admirals, 41.
24. Freeman, Naval Feud, 37.
25. Penn, Infighting Admirals, 58.
26. Ibid., 44.
27. Reflecting the Navy’s offensive traditions, the admirals declared that “with
regard to furnishing convoys for protection of commerce, the days of con-
voy are past.” Cowpe, “Whitehead Torpedo,” 31; Penn, Infighting Admirals,
47; Parkinson, Dreadnought, 10.
28. C. J. Bartlett, Great Britain and Sea Power, 1815–1853 (Oxford, U.K.: Claren-
don, 1963), 23.
29. Aaron L. Friedberg, The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Decline,
1895–1905 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), 147.
 Notes to Pages 177–186 481

30. Sumida, Naval Supremacy, 14.

31. E. L. Woodward, Great Britain and the Royal Navy (Hamden, Conn.: Archon,
1964), 456; Friedberg, Weary Titan, 149–50.
32. Friedberg, Weary Titan, 149.
33. Ibid., 150.
34. Kennedy, British Naval Mastery, 222.
35. Padfield, Battleship, 145–46.
36. Spector, At War, at Sea, 25.
37. Shawn T. Grimes, Strategy and War Planning in the British Navy, 1887–1918
(Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell, 2012), 24.
38. Cowpe, “Whitehead Torpedo,” 32–33; Lord John Fisher, Fear God and Dread
Nought: The Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone,
vol. 1, The Making of an Admiral, 1854–1904, ed. Arthur Marder (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952), 100.
39. Grimes, Strategy, 24–25.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Arthur J. Marder, The Anatomy of British Sea Power (London: Frank Cass,
1964), 220. The four naval lords were renamed “sea lords” in 1904.
43. Parkinson, Dreadnought, 42.
44. Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 29; Penn, Infighting Admirals, 48.
45. Parkinson, Dreadnought, 22–23, 33.
46. Cowpe, “Whitehead Torpedo,” 32; Grimes, Strategy, 27–28; Penn, Infighting
Admirals, 51.
47. Grimes, Strategy, 28, 228–29; Cowpe, “Whitehead Torpedo,” 33.
48. Padfield, Battleship, 116–17, 119; Parkinson, Dreadnought, 44; Penn, Infight-
ing Admirals, 48.
49. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 27.
50. Gray, Devil’s Device, 152–54. The United States Navy purchased the rights
to use Obry’s gyroscope in 1896, with the Royal Navy following two years
later. By 1900, the Royal Navy’s entire inventory of over 4,000 torpedoes,
spread in squadrons spanning the globe, had been fitted with the gyroscope,
an indication of the Admiralty’s belief that Obry’s technology was, in today’s
military parlance, a game changer.
51. Lambert, “Dreadnought,” 27–28; Theodore Ropp, Development of a Modern
Navy: French Naval Policy, 1871–1904, ed. Stephen S. Roberts (Annapolis,
Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1987), 350–51.
52. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 22; Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 24–25;
Spector, At War, at Sea, 56–57.
53. Nicholas Lambert, “Economy or Empire? The Fleet Unit Concept and the
Quest for Collective Security in the Pacific, 1909–1914,” in Far Flung Lines,
ed. Greg Kennedy and Keith Neilson (London: Frank Cass, 1997), 56–57.
54. Lambert, “Dreadnought,” 14.
55. Grimes, Strategy, 28–29, 41.
482 Notes to Pages 186–196

56. Ibid., 30–32.

57. Ibid., 32–33.
58. Freeman, Naval Feud, 51–52.
59. Penn, Infighting Admirals, 58, 67; Massie, Dreadnought, 513–14.
60. Cowpe, “Whitehead Torpedo,” 34–35; Grimes, Strategy, 33–34.
61. Cowpe, “Whitehead Torpedo,” 34–35; Grimes, Strategy, 34.
62. Padfield, Battleship, 154.
63. Spector, At War, at Sea, 104.
64. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 48–49.
65. Ibid., 123.
66. Spector, At War, at Sea, 104.
67. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 79.
68. Ibid., 49–50. Arnold-Forster later served as Britain’s secretary of state for
war from 1903 to 1905.
69. Marder, Anatomy, 370–71, quoted in ibid., 64. The admiral was born in Aus-
tria and was related to Britain’s royal family. He joined the Royal Navy at
the age of fourteen. Battenberg had a distinguished Navy career, capped by
his service as first sea lord from 1912 to 1914.
70. Bacon, Fisher, 1:152, quoted in Penn, Infighting Admirals, 94–95.
71. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 67; Arthur J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to
Scapa Flow: The Road to War, 1904–1914 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute
Press, 2013), 334.
72. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 67.
73. Gray, Devil’s Device, 178–79, 182. The torpedo’s speed could be increased at
the expense of reduced range. Thus, to boost the speed to thirty-three knots
required a sacrifice in range to roughly 1,000 yards. Marder, Dreadnought, 329.
74. Bacon, Fisher, 1:247.
75. Whitehall is the road in London along which the center of the United
Kingdom’s government is located, so “Whitehall” is popularly used as a fig-
ure of speech in referring to the British government.
76. Friedberg, Weary Titan, 178–79.
77. Archive of William Waldegrave Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne, Oxford
Bodlesian Libraries, 142. Hereafter cited as “Selborne Papers.”
78. Friedberg, Weary Titan, 197.
79. There seemed to be an affinity among a number of officials in Admiralty for
an unofficial alliance with the United States Navy, or at least some kind of
intelligence sharing, so that both services could act in concert to maintain
free trade and the status quo in the Pacific. Padfield, Battleship, 139.
80. Friedberg, Weary Titan, 166.
81. Padfield, Battleship, 138–39.
82. Friedberg, Weary Titan, 175.
83. Selborne Papers, 161, quoted in ibid., 176.
84. Friedberg, Weary Titan, 191.
85. Kennedy, British Naval Mastery, 206.
 Notes to Pages 196–203 483

86. Padfield, Battleship, 156–57.

87. Ibid., 158–59.
88. A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848–1918 (Oxford: Ox-
ford University Press, 1971), 408–17.
89. Grimes, Strategy, 64.
90. Friedberg, Weary Titan, 97.
91. Ibid., 99, 106.
92. Parkinson, Dreadnought, 50; Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 497.
93. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 111, 113; Spector, At War, at Sea, 33.
94. Spector, At War, at Sea, 27–28.
95. Ibid., 55. Standing the notion of financial incentives on its head, at this
time roughly 1,000 men a year purchased their early discharge from the
Royal Navy by making a lump-sum payment to the Admiralty!
96. Lambert, “Dreadnought,” 27–28.
97. Spector, At War, at Sea, 44–45; Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 112. The intro-
duction of larger engines increased the demand for coal stokers. Indeed,
one major reason for the Royal Navy’s early shift to oil-fired engines was
to relieve some of the stress on manpower requirements.
98. The Royal Navy did not keep its entire fleet in full commission in peace-
time. Typically around one-third of its personnel were billeted ashore. Al-
most half of the “War Fleet” was in reserve. To develop its full “two-power
strength,” the Royal Navy had to mobilize the reserve. Lambert, Fisher’s
Revolution, 111.
99. Friedberg, Weary Titan, 89.
100. The first lord, a civilian member of the Cabinet, had ultimate authority
and responsibility for the Royal Navy. However, he did not have the au-
thority to make independent decisions; that power rested with the Board of
Admiralty itself. Thus, the first lord needed the support of his naval lords
to act. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 16.
101. Lord Hankey, The Supreme Command, 1914–1918, vol. 1 (London: Allen
and Unwin, 1961), 19, quoted in ibid., 75.
102. Freeman, Naval Feud, 52; Parkinson, Dreadnought, 46.
103. Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 30.
104. Morris, Fisher’s Face, 51, 53, 79.
105. Ibid., 66, 237; Penn, Infighting Admirals, 10.
106. Morris, Fisher’s Face, 66, 69.
107. Ibid., 82, 117; Herman, To Rule the Waves, 477.
108. Bacon, Fisher, 1:122.
109. John Fisher, The Papers of Admiral Sir John Fisher, ed. Lieutenant Com-
mander P. K. Kemp, 2 vols. (New York: Routledge, 1960), 1:20. Hereafter
cited as Fisher Papers.
110. Ibid, 40–41.
111. Ibid., 40.
112. Fisher, Fear God and Dread Nought, 1:156.
484 Notes to Pages 204–212

113. Ibid., 1:308.

114. Parkinson, Dreadnought, 50.
115. Sumida, Naval Supremacy, 51.
116. Ibid., 117.
117. Herman, To Rule the Waves, 480.
118. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 125.
119. Ibid., 122.
120. Ibid., 163.
121. Ruddock Mackay, “The Admiralty, the German Navy and the Redistribu-
tion of the British Fleet, 1904–1905,” Mariner’s Mirror, August 1970, 341.
122. Fisher Papers, 1:20.
123. Ibid., 1:191.
124. Ibid., 1:192.
125. Mackay, “Admiralty,” 342–43.
126. In February 1905, Selborne also announced cutbacks in Britain’s dockyards
at Halifax and Esquimalt in Canada, Jamaica in the Caribbean, and Trinco-
malee in South Asia.
127. Kennedy, British Naval Mastery, 217; Mackay, “Admiralty,” 345.
128. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 100; Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 35.
129. Fisher, Fear God and Dread Nought, 2:23.
130. Fisher Papers, 1:196.
131. The introduction of the Scheme in 1905 and the subsequent scrapping of
154 old ships were later calculated to have freed up no fewer than 950 offi-
cers and 11,000 men for other assignments. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 112.
132. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 115; Penn, Infighting Admirals, 114; Philip
Towle, “The Evaluation of the Experience of the Russo-Japanese War,” in
Ranft, Technical Change, 76–77.
133. Lambert, “Dreadnought,” 1–2.
134. Lambert, “Economy or Empire?,” 62.
135. British cable companies carried about 80 percent of cable traffic outside of
Europe. Lambert, “Dreadnought,” 11.
136. Ibid., 18–19.
137. Lambert, “Economy or Empire?,” 57–58.
138. Fisher Papers, 1:30–31.
139. Parkinson, Dreadnought, 84–85.
140. Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., “Choosing Among Technologies in the Anglo-
German Naval Arms Competition, 1898–1915,” in Naval History: The Sev-
enth Symposium of the U.S. Naval Academy, ed. William Cogar (Wilmington,
Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1988), 128.
141. Jon Tetsuro Sumida, “British Capital Ship Design and Fire Control in the
Dreadnought Era: Sir John Fisher, Arthur Hungerford Pollen, and the
Battle Cruiser,” Journal of Modern History 51 (June 1979): 226–27; Sumida,
Naval Supremacy, 259.
142. Penn, Infighting Admirals, 138; Massie, Dreadnought, 469.
 Notes to Pages 212–219 485

143. Penn, Infighting Admirals, 135.

144. Sumida, “British Capital Ship Design,” 210; Parkinson, Dreadnought, 82.
145. Fairbanks, “Choosing Among Technologies,” 127; Keith Neilson, “ ‘The
British Empire Floats on the British Navy’: British Naval Policy, Belliger-
ent Rights, and Disarmament, 1902–1909,” in Arms Limitations and Disar-
mament: Restraints on War, 1899–1939, ed. B. J. C. McKercher (Westport,
Conn.: Praeger, 1992), 24.
146. Massie, Dreadnought, 495; Sumida, Naval Supremacy, 158.
147. Sumida, “British Capital Ship Design,” 220–21. A ship’s speed is reduced as
its bottom becomes dirty, such as with accumulated barnacles; thus the
need for a significant margin in ship speed to offset the drag effect of a
dirty bottom.
148. Sumida, Naval Supremacy, 162.
149. Lambert, “Economy or Empire?,” 61–62.
150. Britain’s “Welsh Cardiff” coal was preferred by most major navies. More-
over, Britain had already incurred substantial sunk costs in developing the
world’s best network of coaling stations. Finally, coal had its tactical advan-
tages, as it was inert under the action of explosives and actually acted to re-
duce their impact.
151. Massie, Dreadnought, 784; CDR Erik Dahl, “The Limits of Technological
Innovation: The Change from Coal to Oil Under Churchill,” unpublished
paper, 2002, 1–4.
152. Dahl, “Limits of Technological Innovation,” 16.
153. Ibid., 4.
154. Ibid., 8–9. Government ownership of a private company was highly un-
usual but was sanctioned in rare instances in order to secure a strategic ad-
vantage. For example, the government had purchased shares in the Suez
Canal in the mid-nineteenth century.
155. Ibid., 13–14.
156. Sumida, Naval Supremacy, 261.
157. Ibid.; Herman, To Rule the Waves, 479; Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 78.
158. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 136.
159. Sumida, Naval Supremacy, 153.
160. Ibid., 135, 149–50, 251; Morris, Fisher’s Face, 202; Parkinson, Dreadnought,
170–73.
161. Fisher Papers, 2:106; Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 53.
162. Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 53, 59; Penn, Infighting Admirals, 201–2;
Grimes, Strategy, 61.
163. Holger H. Herwig, “The German Reaction to the Dreadnought Revolu-
tion,” International History Review 13 (May 1991): 282.
164. Padfield, Battleship, 189; Morris, Fisher’s Face, 186.
165. Massie, Dreadnought, 485; Herwig, “German Reaction,” 277, 279–80.
166. Fisher Papers, 2:279. While Fisher hoped to upset Germany’s shipbuilding
plans, there is no evidence that he knew of the problems it would pose
486 Notes to Pages 219–229

Tirpitz with respect to the Kiel Canal. The canal was widened and finally
completed, at great cost, in August 1914.
167. Massie, Dreadnought, 486; Herwig, “German Reaction,” 278.
168. Fisher, Fear God and Dread Nought, 2:431.
169. Massie, Dreadnought, 520.
170. Bacon, Fisher, 2:98; Morris, Fisher’s Face, 190.
171. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 8. Indeed, Fisher was constantly being
tempted by his industry friends, who offered him huge salaries if he would
forsake the Navy and enter the private sector.
172. The four major firms were Vickers, Armstrong-Whitworth, the Fairfield
Shipbuilding Company, and John Brown & Co. Ltd.
173. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 24, 147. Interestingly, this relationship sur-
vived Fisher’s tenure on through World War I.
174. Ibid., 132.
175. Privately, senior Admiralty officials admitted (though not to politicians)
that the process of calculating naval balance was “one of extreme complex-
ity.” In public, however, the Navy maintained that in future naval engage-
ments “only dreadnoughts would matter.” Ibid., 135–36.
176. Fisher, Fear God and Dread Nought, 2:141.
177. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 142.
178. Ibid., 148.
179. Parkinson, Dreadnought, 103.
180. Sumida, Naval Supremacy, 113.
181. Spector, At War, at Sea, 21.
182. Parkinson, Dreadnought, 76; Padfield, Battleship, 181–82; Towle, “Russo-
Japanese War,” 72.
183. Towle, “Russo-Japanese War,” 71.
184. Gray, Devil’s Device, 167–70, 172.
185. Ibid., 68; Padfield, Battleship, 171; Cowpe, “Whitehead Torpedo,” 66;
Towle, “Russo-Japanese War,” 66.
186. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 83–85; Robert K. Massie, Castles of Steel (New
York: Random House, 2003), 124.
187. Grimes, Strategy, 37.
188. Herman, To Rule the Waves, 480.
189. Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 46.
190. Ranft, “Protection,” 20–21.
191. Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 71–75; Grimes, Strategy, 86.
192. The designations “A” and “A1” reflect France’s status, either as a neutral (A)
or an active ally (A1) in a war between Britain and Germany. Grimes, Strat-
egy, 89–90.
193. Ibid., 99.
194. Ibid.
195. Ibid., 99, 127–28.
196. Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 4–5.
 Notes to Pages 229–235 487

197. Ibid., 75–77.

198. During one inquiry session, Fisher wrote a colleague, “I am here wasting
my time considering an invasion of England by Germany under the incon-
ceivable conditions of the ‘bolt from the blue’ school.” Lambert, Fisher’s
Revolution, 172, 180.
199. Ibid.
200. Ibid., 180.
201. Fisher, Fear God and Dread Nought, 1:412, 172, 181. However, Fisher’s be-
havior at the CID meetings, which he was required to attend, was far from
perfect. The admiral refused to hide his disdain for the proceedings and
used the meetings as an opportunity to catch up on his correspondence.
202. Grimes, Strategy, 118
203. Ibid., 115, 118, 121.
204. Shawn T. Grimes, “War Planning and Strategic Development in the Royal
Navy, 1887–1918” (Ph.D. diss., King’s College, University of London,
2003), 151–52. Plans W4, W5, and W6 posited a war between Britain and a
U.S.-German alliance.
205. Grimes, Strategy, 126.
206. Morris, Fisher’s Face, 97.
207. Grimes, Strategy, 101–2.
208. Ibid., 134; Freeman, Naval Feud, 168.
209. Sumida, Naval Supremacy, 193, 195–96. During the same period, expendi-
tures on social welfare increased by roughly 900 percent. This, however,
did not raise total social-welfare spending to match that on the Army and
Navy. Unknown to the British, the German government’s budget woes
were comparatively greater.
210. William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, vol. 1, Visions
of Glory, 1874–1932 (New York: Little, Brown, 1983), 407.
211. Marder, Dreadnought, 21–22.
212. Morris, Fisher’s Face, 161.
213. Marder, Anatomy, 65, 78.
214. Grimes, Strategy, 143.
215. Fairbanks, “Choosing Among Technologies,” 139.
216. Massie, Dreadnought, 520.
217. Freeman, Naval Feud, 114. Fisher described his meeting with Beresford as
follows:
I had three hours with Beresford yesterday and all is settled and the
Admiralty don’t give in one inch to his demands; but I had as a prelim-
inary to agree to three things:
Lord Charles Beresford is a greater man than Nelson.
No one knows anything about naval war except Lord Charles
Beresford.
The Admiralty haven’t done a single d——d thing right.
488 Notes to Pages 236–243

218. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 188.

219. Ibid., 193; Grimes, Strategy, 151.
220. Penn, Infighting Admirals, 218.
221. Bacon, Fisher, 2:53; Morris, Fisher’s Face, 178.
222. National Archives (NA), Beresford Enquiry, CAB, 10, quoted in Lambert,
Fisher’s Revolution, 191; Freeman, Naval Feud, 190, 192.
223. Grimes, Strategy, 150–51.
224. NA, Beresford Enquiry, 51, quoted in Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 191–92;
Marder, Dreadnought, 196.
225. Freeman, Naval Feud, 206.
226. Penn, Infighting Admirals, 17.
227. Bacon, Fisher, 2:103; Freedman, Naval Feud, 215–16; Grimes, Strategy, 152;
Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 194.
228. Freeman, Naval Feud, 219–20; Penn, Infighting Admirals, 225.
229. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 194.
230. Fisher, Fear God and Dread Nought, 2:262. As for the four committee mem-
bers, which included Asquith himself, Fisher wished them all hell “on earth
. . . instead of waiting.”
231. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 202.
232. Massie, Dreadnought, 541.
233. Ibid., 542.
234. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 195.
235. Lambert, “Economy or Empire?,” 62.
236. Neilson, “British Empire Floats,” 26.
237. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 78.
238. Grimes, Strategy, 158; Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 133.
239. Morris, Fisher’s Face, 229.
240. Wilson’s early retirement also resulted in his opposition to Churchill’s cre-
ation of a naval staff. Fisher also continued to promote members of the Fish-
pond to Churchill. He successfully advised Churchill to appoint Admiral John
Jellicoe—twenty-first in seniority among the Navy’s vice admirals—as second
in command of the Home Fleet, thereby giving him the experience and se-
niority necessary to assume command of the Royal Navy’s primary fleet when
war came. Jackie also proved a strong supporter of Admiral Battenberg, who
succeeded Bridgeman as first sea lord in 1912. Both of these successors to
Wilson lacked Fisher’s dynamism, which may explain why Jackie, who was
trying to work his will through Churchill, supported their appointment.
241. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 239, 244–45.
242. Kennedy, British Naval Mastery, 223–24.
243. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 248, 250–52. In referring to Churchill’s re-
treat, Fisher sadly noted to one colleague, “[He] can’t go quite as far as I
urge him, as his instruments [i.e., the other members of the Board of Ad-
miralty] are inadequate. They shiver on the brink and won’t take the great
plunge. He can’t well plunge alone.” (ibid., 248).
 Notes to Pages 243–251 489

244. Sumida, Naval Supremacy, 258–60.

245. Manchester, Last Lion, 1:441, 443.
246. Kennedy, British Naval Mastery, 226; Massie, Dreadnought, 825.
247. Manchester, Last Lion, 1:451. See also Massie, Dreadnought, 836.
248. John H. Maurer, “Churchill’s Naval Holiday: Arms Control and the Anglo-
German Naval Race 1912–1914,” Journal of Strategic Studies 15 (March
1992): 105.
249. Grimes, Strategy, 164.
250. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 207.
251. Ibid., 263.
252. Ibid., 263–64, 277–80; Grimes, Strategy, 176–77.
253. Grimes, Strategy, 179–80; Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 286.
254. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 284–87.
255. Sumida, Naval Supremacy, 263–64; Massie, Castles, 125; Lambert, Fisher’s
Revolution, 293; Spector, At War, at Sea, 105.
256. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 298–303.
257. Italy, the third member of the Triple Alliance, initially remained neutral. It
entered the war on the side of the Allies in 1915.
258. Spector, At War, at Sea, 108; John H. Maurer, “Imperial Germany’s Naval
Challenge and the Renewal of British Power,” in British World Policy and the
Projection of Global Power, c. 1830–1960, ed. T. G. Otte (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2019), 172; Gray, Devil’s Device, 188.
259. Grimes, Strategy, 196–97, 201; Herman, To Rule the Waves, 495.
260. Herman, To Rule the Waves, 498.
261. Grimes, Strategy, 189, 200–201, 204, 206.
262. Massie, Castles, 432, 441–43.
263. Sumida, “British Capital Ship Design,” 228; Sumida, Naval Supremacy, 289;
Massie, Castles, 417, 419.
264. The reader will recall that Churchill, Fisher, and members of the Fishpond
were attempting to move toward a homogeneous battle line and retire
older, slower battleships at the time that Tirpitz introduced his 1912 naval
bill. The German bill led to an increase in the Royal Navy’s battleship
force, and the older ships were retained.
265. Lord Ernie Chatfield, The Navy and Defence: An Autobiography (London:
William Heinemann, 1942), 143, quoted in Massie, Castles, 596.
266. During the same period, the Lion, Princess Royal, Tiger, New Zealand, and
Indefatigable scored a total of five hits. Sumida, “British Capital Ship De-
sign,” 229.
267. German pre-dreadnoughts were, as a rule, less well protected than their
Royal Navy counterparts. When the British launched Dreadnought, Ger-
many responded by imitating Fisher’s gambit, but only in the broadest
sense. To be sure, the German Navy built dreadnoughts and modern battle
cruisers. But Tirpitz set different priorities in making his design trade-offs.
First off, the German fleet did not value endurance as highly as the Royal
490 Notes to Pages 252–257

Navy; the British needed endurance to send ships long distances to protect
the outer reaches of the empire. The major shift in German design, how-
ever, was its according a far higher priority to ship protection. The share of
displacement devoted to armor rose from 33 percent in the Deutschland
class to 35 percent in the Nassau class, then to 37 percent in the Ostfriesland
class and to 40 percent in the Koenig class. If Fisher was betting on speed
and range to fight at a gentleman’s distance, the Imperial German Navy
cast its lot with the ability to take punishment and survive a brawl. Before
World War I, only Germany conducted systematic experiments on ship
protection. Not only would British warships prove more vulnerable to un-
derwater hits, but they were also less able to deal with flooding. The Queen
Elizabeth super-dreadnought, for example, could pump out 950 tons of
water per hour, while its German contemporary, the Bayern, could pump at
a rate nearly six times greater. Finally, the Germans had learned an impor-
tant lesson at the Dogger Bank engagement. There a shell had penetrated
Seydlitz’s aft turret, triggering powder in the turret to catch fire, flash
below, and kill everyone in two aft turret systems. The ship would have
blown up if its magazines had not been flooded to extinguish the flames.
The Germans installed antiflash protection on the hatches between han-
dling room and magazines—something Beatty’s ships lacked at Jutland.
Fairbanks, “Choosing Among Technologies,” 129–30, 132, 135; Massie,
Castles, 667.
268. Massie, Dreadnought, 781.
269. Parkinson, Dreadnought, 235, 237; Padfield, Battleship, 228, 240.
270. Marder, Dreadnought, 206.
271. Ibid., 13, 406; Freeman, Naval Feud, 235.

Chapter Seven. Out of the Trenches

1. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: The Gathering Storm (New
York: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), 6.
2. Although the term “Blitzkrieg” has become synonymous with the form of
mechanized air-land operations conducted by the German military in World
War II, the Germans themselves did not use the term, or invent it.
3. The term Reichswehr is translated as “Realm Defense.” It was renamed the
Wehrmacht (“Defense Force”) in 1935.
4. Kenneth Macksey, Guderian: Panzer General (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole,
2003), 19–20.
5. Bruce I. Gudmundson, Stormtroop Tactics (New York: Praeger, 1989), 139.
6. James S. Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg (Lawrence: University Press of Kan-
sas, 1992), 9.
7. Gudmundson, Stormtroop Tactics, 172.
8. Corum, Blitzkrieg, 16.
 Notes to Pages 257–260 491

9. Williamson Murray, “Armored Warfare: The British, French, and German

Experiences,” in Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, ed. Williamson
Murray and Allan R. Millett (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996),
36.
10. Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640–1945 (Oxford: Ox-
ford University Press, 1955), 96–97; James S. Corum, “A Comprehensive
Approach to Change,” in The Challenge of Change, ed. Harold R. Winton and
Dave R. Mets (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 38.
11. Hans von Seeckt, Gedanken eines Soldaten (Leipzig: von Hase and Koehler,
1935), 56, quoted in Robert M. Citino, The Evolution of Blitzkrieg Tactics:
Germany Defends Itself Against Poland, 1918–1933 (New York: Greenwood,
1987), 71; B. H. Liddell Hart, The German Generals Talk (New York: Harper-
Collins, 1948), 15; Horne, To Lose a Battle, 89.
12. Auftragstaktik (mission tactics) were developed by the Prussian army follow-
ing the Napoleonic Wars. Emphasis is placed on commanders giving their
subordinate a clearly defined mission and a time frame within which it must
be accomplished. The subordinate commander is given wide latitude as to
how he accomplishes the mission. Schwerpunkt refers to an operation’s prin-
cipal focus or weight of effort. Milan Vego, “Clausewitz’s Schwerpunkt: Mis-
translated from German—Misunderstood in English,” Military Review 87
(January–February 2007): 101–9.
13. Robert M. Citino, The Path to Blitzkrieg (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner,
1999), 43.
14. Von Seeckt, Gedanken eines Soldaten, 77, quoted in Citino, Evolution of Blitz-
krieg, 72.
15. Major Dakota L. Wood, “Breakthrough! The German Search for Mobility,”
unpublished paper, December 23, 1998, 9–10.
16. Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis, 1916–1918, part 2 (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927), 61–62, quoted in Carlo D’Este, Warlord
(New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 297.
17. Von Seeckt’s approach “was less democratic than Reinhardt’s vision, but von
Seeckt was correct in recognizing the organizational and technical abilities
of the General Staff as having first priority.” Corum, Blitzkrieg, 33–34. Von
Seeckt’s victory was won with the support of General Wilhelm Groener,
who had replaced General Erich Ludendorff, Germany’s de facto wartime
dictator, as the Army’s quartermaster general. (Ludendorff was a Reinhardt
supporter.)
18. Citino, Path to Blitzkrieg, 148.
19. William Deist, “The Rearmament of the Wehrmacht,” in Germany and the
Second World War, trans. P. S. Falla, Dean S. McMurry, and Ewald Osers (Ox-
ford, U.K.: Clarendon, 1990), 377–78.
20. Larry H. Addington, The Blitzkrieg Era and the German General Staff, 1865–
1941 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1971), 30–31.
21. Corum, “Change,” 64; Hart, German Generals Talk, 20.
492 Notes to Pages 261–265

22. Citino, Path to Blitzkrieg, 116.

23. Corum, Blitzkrieg, 45, 108, 187–88.
24. Citino, Path to Blitzkrieg, 154.
25. Craig, Prussian Army, 396; Corum, “Change,” 49.
26. Corum, “Change,” 40–41.
27. Horne, To Lose a Battle, 88.
28. Azar Gat, “British Influence and the Evolution of the Panzer Arm: Myth or
Reality? Part I,” War in History 4 (April 1997): 162–63.
29. Ibid., 160.
30. Murray, “Armored Warfare,” 39–40.
31. Gat, “British Influence, Part I,” 159.
32. Harold R. Winton, “Tanks, Votes, and Budgets: The Politics of Mechaniza-
tion and Armored Warfare in Britain, 1919–1939,” in Winton and Mets,
Challenge of Change, 80; Corum, “Change,” 56; Macksey, Guderian, 42.
33. Deist, “Wehrmacht,” 389, 391.
34. Corum, Blitzkrieg, 194.
35. Citino, Path to Blitzkrieg, 187, 189.
36. Following the 1932 British maneuvers, an article on the subject published in
the Militar-Wochenblatt opened with the following words: “The British army
undoubtedly stands today ahead of all armies in the field of mechanization.
. . . The frequent maneuvers of the armored formations at Salisbury are
today the object of curiosity for all men of cultivation. They are in fact the
highest school of mechanization.” Gat, “British Influence, Part I,” 167–68.
37. Ibid., 173.
38. David MacIsaac, “Voices from the Central Blue: The Air Power Theorists,”
in Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter
Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), 629–35.
39. Corum, Blitzkrieg, 145–46; James S. Corum, “The Luftwaffe’s Army Support
Doctrine, 1918–1941,” Journal of Military History 59 (January 1995): 53.
40. Williamson Murray, Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe, 1933–1945 (Maxwell
AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1983), 10–11.
41. James S. Corum, The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918–1940
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997), 52.
42. Murray, Strategy for Defeat, 5–6. Blomberg offered Hermann Goering, the
minister of aviation, a choice between Walther Wever and Erich von Man-
stein. Goering chose Wever, who proved a superb chief until his untimely
death in 1936, while von Manstein went on to achieve the rank of field mar-
shal and compile one of the most impressive records of any senior officer in
any military during World War II.
43. Luftwaffe Regulation 16, Command of the Air War, declared, “The mission of
the armed forces in war is to break the enemy will. The will of the nations is
most strongly embodied in its armed forces. Therefore, the destruction of
the enemy armed forces is the primary goal in war.” Corum, “Luftwaffe’s
Army Support Doctrine,” 57–58.
 Notes to Pages 265–271 493

44. Deist, “Wehrmacht,” 482–84.

45. Ibid.
46. Ibid., 489–90.
47. Ibid., 493.
48. Kesselring would be replaced after only a year by General Stumpf, who in
turn was replaced by Colonel Hans Jeschonnek in 1939.
49. General der Flieger Paul Deichmann, Spearhead for Blitzkrieg, ed. Alfred
Pierce (London: Greenhill, 1996), 41–42.
50. Ibid., 42.
51. Corum, Luftwaffe, 266–68.
52. Manfred Messerschmidt, “German Military Effectiveness Between 1919 and
1939,” in Millett and Murray, Military Effectiveness, vol. 2, 232.
53. Murray, Strategy for Defeat, 20.
54. Despite the shortcomings noted here, the German Air Ministry did pursue a
number of revolutionary systems. Development of the V-1 and V-2 rockets
began in the mid-1930s. The Heinkel Company developed the world’s first jet
engine in 1937. The jet-powered He-176 first flew at Peenemunde in 1939.
55. Horne, To Lose a Battle, 120–21.
56. Deist, “Wehrmacht,” 481.
57. Corum, Luftwaffe, 269–70.
58. W. Heineman, “The Development of the German Armoured Forces, 1918–
1940,” in Armoured Warfare, ed. J. Harris and F. H. Toase (New York: St.
Martin’s, 1990), 54.
59. The Waffenamt was established on November 8, 1919, as “Reichwaffe-
namt.” On May 5, 1922, the name was changed to “Heereswaffenamt”
(Army Ordnance Office).
60. Corum, Blitzkrieg, 85; Corum, “Change,” 66–67.
61. Corum, Blitzkrieg, 132–33. Corum notes, “The job of the unit armor officer
was not just another extra duty for motor officers. The high command or-
dered that the transfer of tank officers was to be avoided and that those who
had served a term as tank officer could serve for a second tour of duty in
that assignment.”
62. Ibid., 136.
63. Ibid., 190–95.
64. Ibid., 162, 167.
65. Ibid., 151.
66. Horne, To Lose a Battle, 121.
67. Deist, “Wehrmacht,” 445–47.
68. Ibid., 449.
69. Craig, Prussian Army, 406.
70. Ibid., 406–7.
71. Corum, “Change,” 48.
72. Corum, Blitzkrieg, 112, 118.
73. Craig, Prussian Army, 410.
494 Notes to Pages 271–276

74. Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won (New York: Norton, 1995), 224. Ger-
many also lacked a large tractor industry for producing tracked or half-
tracked vehicles, a secure source of oil, a large oil-refining industry, and a
robust mechanical-maintenance service industry. There apparently was no
system in place for converting Germany’s automobile industry to war pro-
duction. Even with the limited mechanization of the German Army, it was
continuously short of drivers and personnel for salvage and maintenance
units. R. L. DiNardo, Mechanized Juggernaut or Military Anachronism?
(New York: Greenwood, 1991), 7, 9–10.
75. Russell H. S. Stolfi, “Equipment for Victory in France in 1940,” History
Journal of the Historical Association 55 (February 1970): 6. The Panzer I’s
limitations were highlighted in the Polish campaign. Some 150 Panzer Is
were knocked out by the Poles.
76. Ibid., 7. Reflecting in part the Panzer II’s improved capabilities relative to
the Panzer I, the Panzer II remained in production until 1944.
77. Ibid.
78. Deist, “Wehrmacht,” 450.
79. Heineman, “Armoured Forces,” 60.
80. Stolfi, “Equipment,” 8; Werner Haupt, A History of the Panzer Troops (West
Chester, Pa.: Schiffer Military History, 1990), 45. The Germans also outfit-
ted fifteen infantry divisions with confiscated Czech equipment. Deist,
“Wehrmacht,” 451.
81. Overy, Why the Allies Won, 217.
82. DiNardo, Juggernaut or Anachronism?, 7, 9–10.
83. Corum, Luftwaffe, 84, 113.
84. Murray, Strategy for Defeat, 4.
85. Ibid., 7.
86. Corum, Blitzkrieg, 186.
87. Citino, Evolution of Blitzkrieg, 184.
88. Ibid.
89. Corum, Blitzkrieg, 185–89.
90. Heinz Guderian, Achtung—Panzer!, trans. Christopher Duffy (London:
Arms and Armour, 1992), 142.
91. Citino, Evolution of Blitzkrieg, 203.
92. Haupt, Panzer Troops, 70–71.
93. Citino, Evolution of Blitzkrieg, 184.
94. Ibid.
95. Ibid., 214.
96. Citino, Decisive Victory, 203–4.
97. Haupt, Panzer Troops, 70–71.
98. Macksey, Guderian, 62–63.
99. Haupt, Panzer Troops, 59; Macksey, Guderian, 50.
100. Citino, Decisive Victory, 191.
101. Citino, Path to Blitzkrieg, 252.
 Notes to Pages 276–281 495

102. Guderian, Achtung—Panzer!, 162.

103. Gat, “British Influence, Part I,” 167.
104. Heineman, “Armoured Forces,” 57–58.
105. David E. Johnson, Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1998), 10–11.
106. Guderian, Panzer Leader, 32.
107. Citino, Path to Blitzkrieg, 215, 252.
108. Haupt, Panzer Troops, 23, 29. The Army Motor Vehicle School in Berlin, es-
tablished in 1934, was soon transferred to a new barracks. Revealingly, it
was renamed “Cambrai Barracks” in 1935.
109. Murray, “Armored Warfare,” 40.
110. Azar Gat, “British Influence and the Evolution of the Panzer Arm: Myth or
Reality? Part II,” War in History 4 (July 1997): 318.
111. Macksey, Guderian, 58,
112. Horne, To Lose a Battle, 94.
113. A. Roberts, Storm, 50.
114. Heineman, “Armoured Forces,” 58.
115. Deist, “Wehrmacht,” 433.
116. Gat, “British Influence, Part II,” 334.
117. Deist, “Wehrmacht,” 435.
118. Citino, Path to Blitzkrieg, 231.
119. Heineman, “Armoured Forces,” 40.
120. Gat, “British Influence, Part II,” 335.
121. Heineman, “Armoured Forces,” 55; Guderian, Panzer Leader, 39–45.
122. Haupt, Panzer Troops, 72.
123. Corum, “Change,” 51.
124. Gat, “British Influence, Part II,” 334.
125. Deist, “Wehrmacht,” 436; Guderian, Panzer Leader, 36.
126. Citino, Path to Blitzkrieg, 239–40. Note that the 1935 maneuvers had taken
place before the panzer divisions had been created, while the 1936 maneu-
vers focused primarily on testing the quality of noncommissioned officers
and men in a rapidly expanding Army.
127. Citino, Decisive Victory, 208–10; Corum, “Change,” 51.
128. Citino, Evolution of Blitzkrieg, 241.
129. May, Strange Victory, 88, 235; Citino, Decisive Victory, 207–8.
130. Guderian, Panzer Leader, 39, 41.
131. Messerschmidt, “German Military Effectiveness,” 245.
132. Heineman, “Armoured Forces,” 40–41; Guderian, Panzer Leader, 54. Dur-
ing this period, the Army’s first three panzer divisions were still being
fleshed out with support troops (such as engineers) and equipment. On
November 10, 1938, the Wehrmacht activated two new panzer divisions
and four new panzer brigades.
133. Guderian, Panzer Leader, 54.
134. Ibid., 49–54.
496 Notes to Pages 282–288

135. Citino, Evolution of Blitzkrieg, 242–43.

136. Heineman, “Armoured Forces,” 59.
137. Corum, Luftwaffe, 245.
138. Corum, “Luftwaffe’s Army Support Doctrine,” 61.
139. Corum, “Change,” 76.
140. “Situation awareness,” broadly defined, is the capability of one’s forces to
possess accurate knowledge of the location of friendly and enemy forces in
or near the operational area, their activities, and where they are likely to be
in the immediate future.
141. Corum, Luftwaffe, 234–35.
142. Ibid., 238.
143. James S. Corum, “The Spanish Civil War: Lessons Learned and Not
Learned by the Great Powers,” Journal of Military History 62 (April 1998):
313–34; Citino, Decisive Victory, 243.
144. Corum, Luftwaffe, 247.
145. Citino, Decisive Victory, 249–50.
146. Corum, Luftwaffe, 220, 223.
147. Corum, “Spanish Civil War,” 326.
148. Macksey, Guderian, 80.
149. Corum, Luftwaffe, 223, 272, 274.
150. Williamson Murray, The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938–
1939 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 36.
151. Robert A. Doughty, The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940
(Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole, 1990), 13.
152. A. Roberts, Storm, 53; May, Strange Victory, 356.
153. Horne, To Lose a Battle, 187.
154. Macksey, Guderian, 98.
155. May, Strange Victory, 227.
156. Horne, To Lose a Battle, 204–5.
157. Ibid., 205–6.
158. May, Strange Victory, 233, 265.
159. The French possessed an even greater advantage in overall tank tonnage.
Prior to May 1940, France had produced roughly 61,650 tons of tanks,
whereas combined German and Czech production yielded only 36,650
tons. Simply put, the French Army’s tanks were heavier than those of their
German enemies. Stolfi, “Equipment,” 2, 9–11, 16.
160. Karl Hardach, The Political Economy of Germany in the Twentieth Century
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 76.
161. Macksey, Guderian, 100.
162. Stolfi, “Equipment,” 13. Interestingly, the panzer divisions had no clear ad-
vantage in speed over the French light mechanized divisions, of which
there were three, comprising some 240 tanks each.
163. Horne, To Lose a Battle, 233; A. Roberts, Storm, 54.
 Notes to Pages 288–297 497

164. Corum, Luftwaffe, 277.

165. Stolfi, “Equipment,” 20.
166. Guderian, Panzer Leader, 106.
167. Ibid., 102.
168. Macksey, Guderian, 105.
169. Horne, To Lose a Battle, 445–46.
170. Corum, Luftwaffe, 277.
171. Ibid., 249.
172. Citino, Decisive Victory, 257.
173. Doughty, Breaking Point, xvi.
174. Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour (New York: Houghton Mifflin,
1949), 70.
175. Ibid., 53.
176. Horne, To Lose a Battle, 666–67.
177. Hart, German Generals Talk, 95–96.
178. Ibid., 94.
179. Ibid., 143–44.
180. Macksey, Guderian, 122.
181. Corum, Luftwaffe, 286.
182. Guderian, Achtung—Panzer!, 24.
183. Corum, “Luftwaffe’s Army Support Doctrine,” 71–72, 76.
184. Murray, “Armored Warfare,” 43. Indeed, the famed German panzer com-
mander Erwin Rommel was not converted to this new form of warfare
until the French campaign.
185. Heineman, “Armoured Forces,” 61.
186. Addington, Blitzkrieg Era, 123.
187. Overy, Why the Allies Won, 215, 218, 224, 243.
188. Macksey, Guderian, 80–81.
189. Citino, Decisive Victory, 256, 283.

Chapter Eight. Twilight of the Battle Line

1. David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie, Kaigun (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Insti-
tute Press, 1997), 491.
2. Baer, U.S. Navy, 144.
3. Thomas C. Hone, Norman Friedman, and Mark D. Mandeles, American and
British Aircraft Carrier Development (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press,
1999), 17.
4. John T. Kuehn, Agents of Innovation: The General Board and the Design of the
Fleet That Defeated the Japanese Navy (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press,
2008), 11, 14, 18.
5. William M. McBride, Technological Change and the United States Navy, 1865–
1945 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 130–31.
498 Notes to Pages 298–305

6. Norman Friedman, “The Aircraft Carrier,” in The Eclipse of the Big Gun: The
Warship, 1906–45, ed. Robert Gardiner (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute
Press, 1992), 38.
7. Quoted in Clark G. Reynolds, The Fast Carriers (Annapolis, Md.: Naval In-
stitute Press, 1968), 1.
8. Ibid.; Charles M. Melhorn, Two-Block Fox (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute
Press, 1974), 30–31.
9. Admiral William Moffett, who became the first head of the Navy’s Bureau
of Aeronautics, actually proposed experimenting with aircraft deployed on
submarines. See William F. Trimble, Admiral William A. Moffett: Architect of
Naval Aviation (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994),
108.
10. Melhorn, Two-Block Fox, 33.
11. Trimble, Moffett, 71.
12. Melhorn, Two-Block Fox, 28–29, 33.
13. Ibid., 37.
14. Hone, Friedman, and Mandeles, Aircraft Carrier Development, 22–23.
15. Thomas C. Hone and Trent Hone, Battle Line: The United States Navy,
1919–1939 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 81. By 1935, the
Navy concluded that aerial spotting produced six times as many hits as spot-
ters placed in a ship’s top mast position.
16. Melhorn, Two-Block Fox, 26; Norman Friedman, Thomas C. Hone, and
Mark D. Mandeles, “The Introduction of Carrier Aviation into the U.S.
Navy and Royal Navy: Military-Technical Revolutions, Organizations, and
the Problems of Decision,” unpublished paper, May 12, 1994, 57.
17. Melhorn, Two-Block Fox, 26, 38.
18. Ibid., 60.
19. Ibid.
20. William M. McBride, “Challenging a Strategic Paradigm: Aviation and the
U.S. Navy Special Policy Board of 1924,” Journal of Strategic Studies 14 (Sep-
tember 1991): 75, quoted in Geoffrey Till, “Adopting the Aircraft Carrier,”
in Murray and Millett, Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, 209–10.
21. Spector, Eagle, 22.
22. Melhorn, Two-Block Fox, 56.
23. Hone, Friedman, and Mandeles, Aircraft Carrier Development, 29.
24. McBride, Technological Change, 144, 182.
25. Melhorn, Two-Block Fox, 88; Thomas C. Hone and Mark D. Mandeles, “In-
terwar Innovation in Three Navies: U.S. Navy, Royal Navy, Imperial Japa-
nese Navy,” Naval War College Review 40 (Spring 1987): 63–83.
26. Friedman, Hone, and Mandeles, “Carrier Aviation,” 22.
27. McBride, Technological Change, 135.
28. Ibid., 135–36.
29. Friedman, “Aircraft Carrier,” 39.
30. Till, “Aircraft Carrier,” 210–11.
 Notes to Pages 306–313 499

31. Hone, Friedman, and Mandeles, Aircraft Carrier Development, 166.

32. Trimble, Moffett, 193–95.
33. Ibid.
34. The office was abolished in 1932, a victim of the Depression.
35. Reynolds, Fast Carriers, 15.
36. Trimble, Moffett, 89.
37. Ibid., 101.
38. Reynolds, Fast Carriers, 17.
39. Ronald H. Spector, “Winning with Second Best Technology: Naval Aviation
in the Pacific, 1941–1944,” unpublished paper, n.d., 7.
40. Thomas Wildenberg, All the Factors of Victory (Dulles, Va.: Brassy’s, 2003),
128–29. Ironically, the collier Jupiter, which had been converted to the Lang-
ley, had been Reeves’s first command.
41. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, 323–24.
42. Wildenberg, Factors, 129.
43. Albert A. Nofi, To Train the Fleet for War (Newport, R.I.: U.S. Naval War
College Press, 2010), 86–87.
44. Friedman, “Aircraft Carrier,” 39; Wildenberg, Factors, 139; Clark G. Reyn-
olds, Admiral John H. Towers (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991),
205.
45. Trimble, Moffett, 107.
46. Baer, U.S. Navy, 140.
47. Wildenberg, Destined for Glory, 9.
48. McBride, Technological Change, 145.
49. Polmar, Aircraft Carriers, 67.
50. Wildenberg, Destined for Glory, 10; Reynolds, Fast Carriers, 17; Friedman,
Hone, and Mandeles, “Carrier Aviation,” 90, 188. While Wagner’s demon-
stration helped pave the way for carrier strike operations, Marine Corps avi-
ators pioneered dive-bombing in Haiti in 1919. See Trimble, Moffett, 209.
51. Friedman, Hone, and Mandeles, “Carrier Aviation,” 90; Wildenberg, Des-
tined for Glory, 100–102.
52. Wildenberg, Destined for Glory, 16.
53. Ibid., 70.
54. Trimble, Moffett, 210.
55. Ibid., 203.
56. Ibid., 212.
57. Ibid., 205.
58. Ibid., 206.
59. Friedman, “Aircraft Carrier,” 50.
60. Ibid., 50–52.
61. Hone, Friedman, and Mandeles, Aircraft Carrier Development, 37.
62. Trimble, Moffett, 210.
63. The treaty actually permitted flight decks to be incorporated on existing
capital ships and on destroyers and cruisers. But since the treaty also banned
500 Notes to Pages 313–320

the construction of new capital ships, and destroyers were too small to un-
dergo conversion, the net effect was solely on cruisers. Ibid., 220–21.
64. Ibid., 223.
65. Friedman, “Aircraft Carrier,” 50. This latter characteristic would be particu-
larly important as the Navy shifted its aircraft mix during the transition pe-
riod from an offensive-dominant mini-regime to a more defense-dominant
regime between 1942 and 1944.
66. Kuehn, Agents of Innovation, 38.
67. Friedman, Hone, and Mandeles, “Carrier Aviation,” 181; Polmar, Aircraft
Carrier, 74–75; Sebastian Roblin, “Why the Navy’s Essex-Class Carriers
Were So Good,” National Interest, April 9, 2020, https://nationalinterest.org/
blog/buzz/why-navys-essex-class-aircraft-carriers-were-so-good-142767.
68. Trimble, Moffett, 204; Reynolds, Fast Carriers, 16.
69. Trimble, Moffett, 204.
70. Edward S. Miller, War Plan Orange (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press,
1991), 348.
71. Wildenberg, Destined for Glory, 52.
72. Craig C. Felker, Testing American Sea Power: U.S. Navy Strategic Exercises,
1923–1940 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007), 49.
73. Saratoga carried 110 planes and 100 pilots, an enormous leap in capability
from the Langley’s few dozen aircraft. Fleet Problem IX, National Archives
Publication M964, “Report of the CINC, U.S. Fleet,” 23, 26, 71, cited in
Friedman, Hone, and Mandeles, “Carrier Aviation,” 94; Nofi, To Train the
Fleet, 113. The Saratoga’s exploit was partly the product of chance: it was de-
tached from the battleship force because the battleships’ destroyer screen
did not have sufficient fuel to keep up with it.
74. Nofi, To Train the Fleet, 110.
75. Reynolds, Fast Carriers, 17.
76. Ibid.; Robert L. O’Connell, Sacred Vessels: The Cult of the Battleship and the
Rise of the U.S. Navy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991), 285.
77. Nofi, To Train the Fleet, 117.
78. Felker, Testing, 51.
79. Ibid., 54.
80. Ibid., 56.
81. Hone and Hone, Battle Line, 74, 76; Nofi, To Train the Fleet, 134–35.
82. Wildenberg, Destined for Glory, 83–85.
83. Ibid., 92.
84. O’Connell, Sacred Vessels, 286.
85. Trimble, Moffett, 226–27.
86. Ibid., 228.
87. Pearl Harbor was also subjected to another “attack” by the Saratoga in 1938.
The Japanese war-gamed carrier-led attacks against Pearl Harbor as early as
autumn 1927. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, 473.
88. Reynolds, Towers, 237–38.
 Notes to Pages 321–328 501

89. Ibid., 238–39.

90. Wildenberg, Destined for Glory, 128.
91. Ibid., 127–28.
92. Reynolds, Towers, 238–39.
93. Hone, Friedman, and Mandeles, Aircraft Carrier Development, 135.
94. Reynolds, Towers, 245–47.
95. Hone, Friedman, and Mandeles, Aircraft Carrier Development, 50.
96. Ibid., 66.
97. Reynolds, Towers, 272.
98. Felker, Testing, 58.
99. Wildenberg, Destined for Glory, 163.
100. Reynolds, Fast Carriers, 18.
101. Ian W. Toll, Pacific Crucible (New York: Norton, 2012), 164, 167.
102. Friedman, “Aircraft Carrier,” 44.
103. Wildenberg, Destined for Glory, 158.
104. Reynolds, Towers, 276–79.
105. Hughes, Fleet Tactics, 87.
106. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, 508.
107. Hone and Hone, Battle Line, 135–36.
108. Ironically, the Japanese had initiated research on radar around the same
time as the Americans. However, “official indifference, haphazard mobili-
zation of scientific talent, and—as always—the absence of interservice co-
operation fatally delayed the practical military application of Japanese
radar research.” Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, 394, 411.
109. Hone, Friedman, and Mandeles, Aircraft Carrier Development, 67; Hughes,
Fleet Tactics, 116–17. For example, in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons,
U.S. air-search radar detected the Japanese approaching at eighty-eight
miles, allowing the Americans to put fighters in the air and to direct them
to intercept the enemy without fear of being surprised by enemy aircraft
arriving from another direction.
110. Miller, War Plan Orange, 350.
111. Ibid., 291.
112. Ibid., 292.
113. Ibid. The Navy was aware of the implications of fighting the Imperial Japa-
nese Navy in its home waters and at a great distance from its own bases
and began to experiment with underway refueling as early as 1936 and was
perfecting refueling techniques for large warships by the time of Pearl
Harbor. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, 393.
114. Reynolds, Towers, 292–93.
115. Norman Friedman, U.S. Aircraft Carriers: An Illustrated Design History (An-
napolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1983), 33.
116. Spector, Eagle, 23.
117. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, 353.
118. Hughes, Fleet Tactics, 86.
502 Notes to Pages 328–330

119. Reynolds, Towers, 227.

120. The argument put forth is reflected in the exchange at a General Board
session between Captain Towers and Admiral Meigs Taylor of the Navy’s
War Plans Division:
t owers: Don’t you think though that in view of the fact that air-
craft carriers are the newest type of vessels in the Fleet that they
should be continued?
taylor: At the expense of other ships?
towers: Yes, sir.
t aylor: I wouldn’t say so. . . . That is a statement that the most
important development in the fleet is aviation.
towers: I don’t think it is quite that.
taylor: Pretty nearly.
t owers: It is an important element to have experience with at
the present time because there is less history behind it.
General Board hearings, May 1, 1931, 152, quoted in ibid., 228.
121. Bureau of Ships, Navy Department, Ships Data U.S. Naval Vessels (Wash-
ington, D.C.: GPO, 1945), vol. 1, 75–113. The carrier Langley, a converted
collier, was commissioned in 1922.
122. Naval History and Heritage Command, “U.S. Ship Force Levels: 1886–
Present,” accessed February 19, 2022, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/
histories/ship-histories/us-ship-force-levels.html.
123. W. F. Trimble, Wings for the Navy: A History of the Naval Aircraft Factory,
1917–1956 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1990), 7–8, cited in
Friedman, Hone, and Mandeles, “Carrier Aviation,” 54–55.
124. One area where promising developments were not being exploited was the
turbojet, whose potential was understood as early as 1935. But Congress
would not provide funding for industry to do the necessary research and de-
velopment. I. B. Holley, Jr., “Jet Lag in the Army Air Corps,” in Military
Planning in the Twentieth Century, ed. H. R. Borowski (Washington, D.C.:
Office of Air Force History, 1986), 123–53, cited in Friedman, Hone, and
Mandeles, “Carrier Aviation,” 196–97. Torpedo production also suffered
from financial shortfalls and lack of attention. Between 1923 and 1940, the
Navy had but one source for its torpedoes. The contractor had no competi-
tion and little incentive to improve production standards. Torpedo testing
was not carried out under operational conditions. Production levels were
small, even in the late 1930s. The Navy would pay a terrible price during the
war for the failure to develop effective torpedoes. Baer, U.S. Navy, 138–39.
125. Trimble, Moffett, 112.
126. Ibid.
127. Ibid., 113.
128. Ibid., 116.
129. Ibid., 170.
 Notes to Pages 330–336 503

130. Ibid., 175–76.

131. Ibid., 178.
132. Reynolds, Towers, 226.
133. Trimble, Moffett, 249.
134. Friedman, Hone, and Mandeles, “Carrier Aviation,” 106.
135. Hone, Friedman, and Mandeles, Aircraft Carrier Development, 58.
136. Wildenberg, Destined for Glory, 162.
137. Ibid., 162–63.
138. Deputy Chief of Naval Operations and The Commander, Naval Air Sys-
tems Command, United States Naval Aviation, 1910–1980 (Washington,
D.C.: GPO, 1981), 381–82.
139. Friedman, Hone, and Mandeles, “Carrier Aviation,” 19.
140. Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern
Military (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), 76–80.
141. Trimble, Moffett, 135.
142. Ibid., 139–40.
143. Ibid., 140.
144. Ibid., 184, 186.
145. Ibid., 183.
146. There were two Taylor Boards on naval aviation. The first was established
in 1925 and reported out in January 1926. The second board was estab-
lished in April 1927, and its report was endorsed by the General Board in
November of that year. Wildenberg, Destined for Glory, 28–31.
147. Trimble, Moffett, 187.
148. Ibid., 188.
149. Ibid., 191.
150. Ibid., 190.
151. Ibid., 192, 199.
152. Friedman, Hone, and Mandeles, “Carrier Aviation,” 107.
153. Reynolds, Towers, 295.
154. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, 326. The Japanese did not institute a compara-
ble training program until 1941.
155. Spector, “Second Best Technology,” 30–31.
156. Roy A. Grosnick, Dictionary of American Naval Aviation Squadrons (Wash-
ington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1955), vol.
1, 453–508; Gordon Swanborough and Peter M. Bowens, United States
Navy Aircraft Since 1911 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1990).
157. Grosnick, Naval Aviation Squadrons, 453–508.
158. Ibid.; Swanborough and Bowens, Navy Aircraft, 103.
159. Interestingly, since the U.S. carriers Wasp and Ranger were both too small
to carry torpedo bombers, the development of dive-bombing was essential
if these ships were to emerge as major offensive strike platforms. Swanbor-
ough and Bowens, Navy Aircraft, 103–4; Wildenberg, Destined for Glory,
194. The Navy did not develop a radio-controlled drone aircraft that could
504 Notes to Pages 336–340

simulate a dive-bombing attack until October 1939. Tests with the drone
revealed that fleet defenses against this form of attack were “quite inade-
quate.” Hone, Friedman, and Mandeles, Aircraft Carrier Development, 164.
160. O’Connell, Sacred Vessels, 310.
161. Spector, Eagle, 22–23.
162. Brodie, Sea Power, 402, 405.
163. Thomas C. Hone and Mark Mandeles, “Managerial Style in the Interwar
Navy: A Reappraisal,” Naval War College Review 32 (September–October
1980): 95–96.
164. Ronald Spector, “The Military Effectiveness of the U.S. Armed Forces,
1919–1939,” in Millet and Murray, Military Effectiveness, vol. 2, 84.
165. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, 307.
166. Spector, “Second Best Technology,” 15.
167. Brodie, Sea Power, 410–11.
168. Joel R. Davidson, The Unsinkable Fleet (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute
Press, 1996), 34.
169. Ibid., 34, 60. When shipbuilding accelerated in 1940, the Navy’s planners
realized that armor-plate production capacity represented the critical bot-
tleneck in expanding the fleet. This led to lighter ships (which could be
built more quickly) being given greater priority at the expense of battleship
construction. In the end, the shortage may have proved serendipitous, ar-
resting as it did the production of the soon-to-be-displaced battleships and
providing modest boost to carrier construction.
170. Ibid., 36.
171. Ibid., 35; O’Connell, Sacred Vessels, 316; McBride, Technological Change, 185.
Interestingly, in the summer of 1942, President Roosevelt opposed build-
ing the large Midway-class (45,000-ton) carriers, arguing that the ships
would use too much steel and take too long to build. In December, the
president approved their construction after much Navy lobbying. Roos-
evelt, however, proved correct: none of the Midway-class carriers were
completed in time to see action in the war.
172. Hughes, Fleet Tactics, 94.
173. Friedman, Hone, and Mandeles, “Carrier Aviation,” 108–9. Before 1942,
the only other such command in the Navy had been that for battleships.
174. McBride, Technological Change, 206, 208.
175. In December 1941, the United States possessed seven fleet carriers: Sara-
toga, Lexington, Ranger, Yorktown, Enterprise, Wasp, and Hornet. A year later,
only one—Ranger—had not been sunk or seriously damaged.
176. Friedman, “Aircraft Carrier,” 47.
177. Hughes, Fleet Tactics, 102, 105.
178. Ibid., 118.
179. Hone, Friedman, and Mandeles, Aircraft Carrier Development, 162.
180. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, 503.
181. Brodie, Sea Power, 407, 417.
182. Ibid., 418–19.
 Notes to Pages 341–346 505

183. The British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk in December
1941 by Japanese land-based aircraft.
184. Hone, Friedman, and Mandeles, Aircraft Carrier Development, 69. The IJN’s
formation of the First Mobile Fleet in 1944 was a belated attempt to imi-
tate the Americans’ fast carrier task forces. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, 501.
185. Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, 380.

Chapter Nine. From Mass to Precision

1. Richard P. Hallion, “Precision Guided Munitions and the New Era of War-
fare,” APSC Paper Number 53, Air Power Studies Centre, Fairbairn, Austra-
lia, https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/docs/paper53.htm.
2. Ibid.
3. Adam R. Grissom, Caitlin Lee, and Karl P. Mueller, Innovation in the United
States Air Force: Evidence from Six Cases (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2016), 43.
4. Ibid., 44.
5. Watts, Precision Strike, 45–46; Stillion, Air-to-Air Combat, i.
6. Stillion, Air-to-Air Combat, i.
7. Barkhorn characterized maneuvering combat as a high-risk, low-payoff ac-
tivity and estimated that between 80 and 90 percent of his victories were
against unsuspecting targets.
8. Stillion, Air-to-Air Combat, 6.
9. Ibid.
10. Watts, Precision Strike, 48.
11. Lieutenant Colonel James C. Slife, “Creech Blue: Gen. Bill Creech and the
Reformation of the Tactical Air Forces, 1978–1984,” Air University Press,
October 2004, 77.
12. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 47–48.
13. Ibid.
14. Spaatz wanted “to leave in the minds of the Germans the threat of robot at-
tacks against cities [by attacking] an industrial objective in a large German
city as far inland as practicable.” General “Hap” Arnold, commander of the
U.S. Army Air Forces, wanted to go even further. In a November 23, 1944,
letter to General Spaatz, Arnold proposed, “turn them [the Aphrodite
bombers] loose to land all over Germany so that the Germans would be just
as much afraid of our war weary planes on account of not knowing just
where they were going to hit, as are the people in England from the [V-1]
buzz bombs and [V-2] rockets.” Ibid., 48–49, 57.
15. Ibid., 54–56.
16. Ibid., 58; Richard P. Hallion, “Precision Weapons, Power Projection and the
Revolution in Military Affairs,” unpublished paper, USAF Air Armament Sum-
mit, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, May 26, 1999, http://www.airforcehistory.
hq.af.mil/oldsite/Hallionpapers/precisionweaponspower.htm. Nevertheless, be-
tween December 1944 and March 1945, the Air Force’s Seventh Bombardment
506 Notes to Pages 347–350

Group employed 459 Azons, with roughly 15 percent achieving direct hits. The
Fritz-X had an estimated circular error probable (CEP) of fifteen feet and a 30
percent hit rate. CEP is defined as the radius of a circle within which 50 per-
cent of the weapons employed are expected to fall. Thus, an aircraft carrying a
bomb load of sixteen weapons with a CEP of 500 feet can—on average—expect
half of those weapons (eight) to fall within 500 feet of the target. Yet despite the
weapon’s impressive performance, the Luftwaffe discontinued using it after
1943. This may have stemmed from parochial concerns within the Luftwaffe
that the weapon could lead to a shift from fighter to bomber production or
from an Allied bombing raid that destroyed on the ground the only Luftwaffe
squadron capable of employing the Fritz-X.
17. Difficulty in obtaining data on the kamikazes has produced some signifi-
cantly differing estimates regarding their operation and performance. For
example, a postwar assessment concluded that roughly one-third of all kami-
kaze fighters who left their bases succeeded in hitting a ship—a success rate
seven to ten times that of a conventional sortie but also more than twice the
rate cited in other assessments. Spector, At War, at Sea, 312.
18. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 79–80. One of the four experi-
ments involving a “missile-like” weapon was a variant of the German V-1
“buzz bomb.”
19. Mary R. Self, “History of the Development of Guided Missiles, 1946–1950,”
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, December 1951, 32–34; Jacob Neufeld, “The
Development of Ballistic Missiles in the United States Air Force 1945–
1960,” Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force, Washington,
D.C., 1990, 11.
20. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 87.
21. Ibid., 88.
22. Ibid., 91, 93. The name “Tarzon” is a combination of “Tallboy” (a 12,500-
pound British-developed bomb) and “azimuth and range only.” Troops pro-
nounced it “Tarzan.”
23. Ibid., 97.
24. Brian Daniel Laslie, “Red Flag: How the Rise of ‘Realistic Training’ After Viet-
nam Changed the Air Force’s Way of War, 1975–1999” (Ph.D. diss., Kansas
State University, 2013), 48; Paul R. Schratz, Evolution of the American Military
Establishment Since World War II (Lexington, Va.: George C. Marshall Research
Foundation, 1978), 63; Marshall L. Michel III, “Revolt of the Majors: How the
Air Force Changed After Vietnam” (Ph.D. diss., Auburn University, 2006), 24.
25. Michel, “Revolt,” 24–25.
26. Laslie, “Red Flag,” 77–78.
27. Laslie, “Red Flag,” 49–50, 77–78; Michel, “Revolt,” 45, 194. See also Richard
P. Hallion, “A Troubling Past: Air Force Fighter Acquisition Since 1945,” Air
Power Journal 4 (Winter 1990): 54–64.
28. Laslie, “Red Flag,” 24–27.
29. Ibid., 14; Michel, “Revolt,” 58–59, 62–64.
 Notes to Pages 351–356 507

30. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 45–46.

31. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 104.
32. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 46–47.
33. Stillion, Air-to-Air Combat, 10.
34. Watts, Precision Strike, 128.
35. Watts, Precision Strike, 112; Stillion, Air-to-Air Combat, 10. The Sparrow and
Sidewinder may also have underperformed due to a lack of aircrew training
with the missile. Lambeth, American Air Power, 43. The Air Force inventory
also included the AIM-4 Falcon family of missiles. Like the Sparrow and
Sidewinder, these missiles were designed with defeating Soviet bombers in
mind. They were employed briefly to Southeast Asia but performed so
poorly that they were soon abandoned in favor on the Sidewinder.
36. Watts, Precision Strike, 12–13.
37. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 46–47. The SA-2 sites turned out to
be decoys.
38. In August, Air Force chief of staff General John McConnell formed the
Dempster Commission, named after its chairman, Brigadier General Ken-
neth Dempster, with the mission of “solving” the SA-2 problem. A Quick
Reaction Capability program was used to procure new equipment on accel-
erated timelines. The Electronic Countermeasure Commission recom-
mended that the Air Force procure Radar Homing and Warning Systems,
ECM pods, and Navy Shrike anti-radiation missiles, systems already devel-
oped by the Strategic Air Command and the Navy that could be provided
immediately to units in the field. The commission also recommended field-
ing what became known as the Wild Weasels. Ibid., 48–49.
39. Watts, Precision Strike, 6.
40. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 50; Gillespie, “Precision Guided Mu-
nitions,” 146.
41. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 50.
42. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 151.
43. Ibid., 29, 122, 152.
44. Ibid., 154, 156.
45. Ibid., 155–56.
46. Ibid., 157.
47. Watts, Precision Strike, 180.
48. Ibid., 181–82; Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 117.
49. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 132.
50. Ibid., 133.
51. “Pave” is an acronym for “precision avionics vectoring equipment,” which
became nicknamed “Pave Way” and eventually “Paveway” for describing the
entire family of laser-guided bombs. Ibid., 159–61; C. R. Anderegg, Sierra
Hotel: Flying Air Force Fighters in the Decade After Vietnam (Washington,
D.C.: United States Air Force History and Museums Program, 2001), 123.
52. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 169.
508 Notes to Pages 356–362

53. Ibid., 163; Anderegg, Sierra Hotel, 124.

54. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 163, 165; Watts, Precision Strike,
183–84.
55. The Air Force continued to make improvements as part of the “Pave” effort
through the end of its combat operations in Southeast Asia in 1973. Some im-
provements focused on making aircraft employing LGBs more survivable.
Pave Knife and its improved follow-on version, Pave Spike, led to the fielding
of a laser designating pod carried beneath the aircraft that enabled self-
designation, thereby reducing the number of aircraft required for a given mis-
sion. Pave Sword, which linked the designator to an IR targeting television
aboard an AC-130 gunship, made night operations possible. This innovation
robbed the enemy of its nighttime sanctuary while simultaneously exploiting
the cover of darkness. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 166, 173.
56. Ibid., 166; Slife, “Creech Blue,” 18.
57. Project Red Baron III: Air-to-Air Encounters in Southeast Asia (U), vol. 3, part 1,
Tactics, Command and Control, and Training (Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.: U.S.
Air Force Tactical Fighter Weapons Center, June 1974), 61, cited in Watts,
Six Decades, 45–46. The engagements analyzed all those occurring between
U.S. and enemy fighters in Southeast Asia from December 1971 through Jan-
uary 1973. In these 112 encounters, 75 MiGs and 37 U.S. aircraft were lost.
58. Lambeth, Air Power, 45–46.
59. During the final thirteen months of Rolling Thunder, from October 1967 to
October 1968, Navy pilots shot down nine MiGs against six losses, for a loss
ratio of 1.5 to 1. Watts, Precision Strike, 136, 155.
60. Michel, “Revolt,” 98–100.
61. Ibid., 103–4.
62. General William Momyer, USAF, Air Power in Three Wars: WWII, Korea,
Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program,
1978), 176–78.
63. Michel, “Revolt,” 106–7.
64. Ibid., 51.
65. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 51–52.
66. Michel, “Revolt,” 144–46.
67. Ibid., 147, 149, 154.
68. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 176.
69. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 52.
70. Lambeth, Air Power, 48.
71. Ibid., 53; Slife, “Creech Blue,” 18; Mets, “Search for Surgical Strike”; Lam-
beth, Air Power, 55–56; Stillion, Air-to-Air Combat, 16.
72. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 53; Slife, “Creech Blue,” 18.
73. Lambeth, Air Power, 69, 74.
74. Anderegg, Sierra Hotel, 127–28; Watts, Precision Strike, 7; Richard H. Van
Atta, Michael J. Lippitz, Jasper C. Lupo, Rob Mahoney, and Jack H. Nunn,
“Transformation and Transition: DARPA’s Role in Fostering an Emerging
 Notes to Pages 362–368 509

Revolution in Military Affairs: Volume 1—Overall Assessment,” IDA Paper

P-3698, Institute for Defense Analysis, April 2003, S-2.
75. Anderegg, Sierra Hotel, 61.
76. Watts, Precision Strike, 10, 184–85.
77. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 191; Anderegg, Sierra Hotel, 135;
Slife, “Creech Blue,” 18.
78. Today it is known as the United States Air Force Warfare Center.
79. Anderegg, Sierra Hotel, 73–74.
80. Michel, “Revolt,” 111–12.
81. Ibid., 112.
82. The MiGs were referred to as the “Red Eagles” and were assigned to the Air
Force’s 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron, which began flying at Nellis in
1977. The first MiG-21 was given to the United States by Israel in 1966 and
flown against Air Force and Navy aircraft in a program called HAVE
DONUT. In 1968, the Israelis provided two MiG-17s, which underwent sim-
ilar exercises, known as HAVE DRILL, which informed the Navy’s Top Gun
school. Maj. Ronald L. Rusing, USAF, “Prepare the Fighter-Red Flag/Com-
posite Force” (master’s thesis, U.S. Army Command and General Staff Col-
lege, Fort Leavenworth, Kan., 1980), 12; Anderegg, Sierra Hotel, 73–74; Steve
Davies, Red Eagles: America’s Secret MiGs (Oxford, U.K.: Osprey, 2008), 10.
83. Project Red Baron III, 61, cited in Watts, Six Decades, 46. There were three
Red Baron efforts. Project Red Baron I reported out in December 1966.
Red Baron II and III did so in 1973 and 1974, respectively.
84. Michel, “Revolt,” 211.
85. Laslie, “Red Flag,” 51; Anderegg, Sierra Hotel, 51–52.
86. Michel, “Revolt,” 196–97.
87. Ibid., 212–15.
88. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 19.
89. The U.S. Pacific air forces initiated their own version of Red Flag, which
they called “Cape Thunder,” at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. The Cana-
dian air forces started their version of Red Flag, named “Maple Flag,” in
1978. Anderegg, Sierra Hotel, 97, 116; Lambeth, Air Power, 62.
90. Maj. Ronald L. Rusing, “Prepare the Fighter Force–Red Flag Composite
Force,” unpublished paper, U.S. Command and General Staff College, Fort
Leavenworth, Kan., 1980, 24.
91. Michel, “Revolt,” 239.
92. The assessment was conducted by members from the government, private
industry, and academia. D. A. Paolucci, “Summary Report of the Long
Range Research and Development Planning Program (Draft),” DARPA and
Defense Nuclear Agency, February 7, 1975, iii, 1, 7–8, 45.
93. Testimony of William Perry to the U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on
Armed Services, Department of Defense Appropriations for FY77, Part 8: Research
and Development, February 28 and March 7, 9, 14, 16, 21, 1978, 76S181-68,
5598, cited in Van Atta et al., “Transformation and Transition,” 18.
510 Notes to Pages 369–376

94. The term “Harvey” came from the motion picture of the same name, about
a man whose friend is an invisible six-foot four-inch rabbit named Harvey.
95. Van Atta et al., “Transformation and Transition,” 11–12.
96. Ibid.
97. Ibid., 13.
98. Ibid.; Ian A. Maddock, “DARPA’s Stealth Revolution: Now You See Them
. . .,” DARPA, n.d., 152, https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=805141.
99. Lockheed had not been invited to compete because DARPA was unaware
of its work on the SR-71 aircraft. The Central Intelligence Agency allowed
Lockheed to discuss its experience in stealth design with DARPA’s director,
George Heilmeier, who agreed to allow Lockheed to participate in the
study under a one-dollar contract. Maddock, “DARPA’s Stealth Revolu-
tion,” 153.
100. Ibid., 153–54; Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos, Skunk Works (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1994), 3–6.
101. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 55; Van Atta et al., “Transformation
and Transition,” 11, 14; Maddock, “DARPA’s Stealth Revolution,” 154.
102. Watts, Precision Strike, 10.
103. Ibid., 196, 198.
104. Ibid., 194.
105. Ibid., 196–98. During the 1960s and most of the 1970s, the pilot in a
squadron who could consistently drop his bombs most accurately in evalu-
ations was accorded the highly sought status as the unit’s “top gun.”
106. United States Air Force, “Gen. Wilbur L. ‘Bill’ Creech: American Airmen,
Breaking Barriers Since 1947: 1970–1980 Generation,” accessed February 19,
2022, http://static.dma.mil/usaf/70/featuredHeros/GenWilburLCreech.html.
107. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 39–40, 56.
108. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 55.
109. Ibid., 28–29, 56.
110. Ibid., 30.
111. Ibid., 47.
112. Michel, “Revolt,” 278–79.
113. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 1.
114. United States Air Force, “Creech.”
115. The reference is to the motion picture of the same name, in which the
main character begins every day in the same circumstances as he did the
day before.
116. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 27–29; Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 56.
117. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 29.
118. Laslie, “Red Flag,” 101.
119. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 57; Lambeth, Air Power, 63.
120. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 52–53.
121. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 57.
122. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 10–11.
 Notes to Pages 376–381 511

123. The Paveway II LGBs entered production in mid-1976. Their principal ad-
vantages over the Paveway I LGBs came in the form of folding fins that ex-
panded the weapon’s release envelope, along with their ability to be employed
on a wide variety of U.S. and allied aircraft. Watts, Precision Strike, 190–91.
124. “Rockwell GBU-15(V)/B,” Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles, ac-
cessed February 19, 2022, http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-
112.html.
125. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 198, 200–202. The GBU-27 is a
GBU-24 adapted for use in the F-117 fighter.
126. GBU-27 production was eventually resumed for use with a hard-target kill
warhead. Watts, Precision Strike, 190–91.
127. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 54, 58.
128. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 54; Slife, “Creech Blue,” 57; An-
deregg, Sierra Hotel, 99.
129. Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 53–55.
130. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 57.
131. Stillion, Air-to-Air Combat, 19.
132. Ibid., 20.
133. Ibid., 22.
134. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 32, 51.
135. According to General Joseph Ralston, who served as vice chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and supreme allied commander of NATO, “LAN-
TIRN would have died many times without Creech.” Ibid., 32, 63; Watts,
Precision Strike, 95.
136. Watts, Precision Strike, 192.
137. Michael Russell Rip and James M. Hasik, The Precision Revolution: GPS and the
Future of Aerial Warfare (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002), 9, 66.
138. Ibid.; Watts, Precision Strike, 18.
139. Rip and Hasik, Precision Revolution, 12.
140. Ibid., 9. The Soviets deployed their Globalnaya Navigatsionaya Sputniko-
vaya Sistema (Global Navigation Satellite System, or GLONASS). The
first GLONASS satellites were launched in October 1982. The system was
not fully operational until 1995 but decayed soon after due to budget limi-
tations. It was fully restored in 2011.
141. U.S. Air Force, “E-3 Sentry (AWACS),” September 22, 2015, https://www.
af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104504/e-3-sentry-awacs.
142. Lambeth, Air Power, 79.
143. The IFF system works by sending out a coded signal from an aircraft’s
radar. When a friendly aircraft equipped with an IFF system receives the
signal, it responds with a coded signal of its own. If the challenged aircraft
has the proper code in its system, it will be identified as “friend” and not
“foe.” Ideally, this enables friendly aircraft to avoid being attacked by
friendly forces (“blue-on-blue” attacks or “friendly fire”). It also identifies
enemy aircraft, as they will not respond properly. Unfortunately, a friendly
512 Notes to Pages 381–387

aircraft could also be identified as a foe if its IFF system were knocked out
owing to battle damage or if it were simply out of order. The same would
occur if the pilot inserted the wrong IFF code into the system.
144. Stillion, Air-to-Air Combat, 17.
145. Ibid., 17–18.
146. Although roughly half of the MiG kills claimed by Israeli fighters were
achieved with Sparrow-equipped F-15s, the IAF insisted that its pilots
“took no shots . . . from beyond visual range.” Lambeth, Air Power, 93–94;
Watts, Precision Strike, 142.
147. Lambeth, Air Power, 92, 95.
148. Bernard Trainor, “ ’83 Strike on Lebanon: Hard Lessons for the U.S.” New
York Times, August 6, 1989, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/06/world/83-
strike-on-lebanon-hard-lessons-for-us.html; Lambeth, Air Power, 96–98.
149. John Pike, “Operation El Dorado Canyon,” GlobalSecurity.org, last modi-
fied May 7, 2011, https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/el_dorado_
canyon.htm; Lambeth, Air Power, 100–101.
150. Major Todd R. Phinney, “Airpower Versus Terrorism: Three Case Studies,”
unpublished paper, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, June 2003,
19–20.
151. Other organizations that sought to further the DRM’s objectives were
Business Executives for National Security, the Military Reform Institute,
and the Project on Military Procurement. Public-policy research institutes,
such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Heritage
Foundation, and the Hudson Institute, were also involved in the move-
ment. Peter W. Chiarelli and Raymond C. Gagnon, “The Politics of Mili-
tary Reform,” unpublished paper, U.S. Naval War College, June 1985, iv,
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a158220.pdf.
152. Gary Hart, “The Need for Military Reform,” Air University Review 36
(September–October 1985): 43–44.
153. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 69, 129–30.
154. Michel, “Revolt,” 367–68.
155. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 43, 46.
156. Warden’s five rings held that the center, most crucial ring comprised the
state’s leaders. This ring was encompassed by the outer four rings. Moving
out from the center, the second ring represented military production, in-
cluding factories producing war matériel. The third ring comprised key in-
frastructure, including railroads and power grids. The population was
included in the fourth ring. The fifth and outermost ring was the nation’s
armed forces. Warden argued that instead of attacking the enemy’s forces, air
power could be employed to attack the national leadership in the first ring,
something he and his supporters called “inside-out warfare.” Colonel Ed-
ward C. Mann III, Thunder and Lightning: Desert Storm and the Airpower De-
bates (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, April 1995), 35–36.
157. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 113–14; Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 63.
 Notes to Pages 387–392 513

158. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 113–14; Mann, Thunder and Lightning, 60–61, 63;
Abraham Jackson, “America’s Airman: David Deptula and the Airpower
Moment,” unpublished paper, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies,
Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., June 2011, 23.
159. Mann, Thunder and Lightning, 60–61.
160. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 114–15.
161. Ibid.
162. Lambeth, Air Power, 110; Mann, Thunder and Lightning, 18.
163. Laslie, “Red Flag,” 174–75.
164. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 116; Grissom, Lee, and Mueller, Innovation, 67–68;
Mann, Thunder and Lightning, 39, 46.
165. Watts, Precision Strike, 260.
166. Ibid., 152.
167. Lambeth, Air Power, 113.
168. Laslie, “Red Flag,” 211–12; Slife, “Creech Blue,” 129–30.
169. Mets, “Search for Surgical Strike,” 37.
170. Watts, Precision Strike, 143.
171. Ibid., 145–46.
172. Ibid., 145–46, 188.
173. Stillion, Air-to-Air Combat, 26, 28.
174. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 129–30.
175. Watts, Precision Strike, 8, 123.
176. Ibid., 144; Stillion, Air-to-Air Combat, 28–29. During 1965–73, of the 195
enemy aircraft downed by U.S. fighters, 56 (28.7 percent) were by AIM-7s.
During Operation Desert Storm, coalition fighters scored 38 air-to-air
kills, 26 (68.4 percent) with the AIM-7M.
177. Stillion, Air-to-Air Combat, 25, 28.
178. The growth in BVR engagements has enormous implications for air oper-
ations. As John Stillion notes,
This transformation may be steadily reducing the utility of some
attributes traditionally associated with fighter aircraft (e.g., ex-
treme speed and maneuverability) while increasing the value of at-
tributes not usually associated with fighter aircraft (e.g., sensor
and weapon payload as well as range). Aircraft performance attri-
butes essential for success in air-to-air combat during the gun and
early missile eras such as high speed, good acceleration, and ma-
neuverability are much less useful now that aircraft can be de-
tected and engaged from dozens of miles away. At the same time,
nontraditional attributes such as minimal radar and IR signature;
space, payload, and cooling capacity; power for large-aperture
long-range sensors; and very-long-range weapons seem to be of
increased importance.
Ibid., iii; see also Watts, Precision Strike, 144–45.
514 Notes to Pages 393–396

179. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 129–30.

180. Major General David A. Deptula, “Air Force Transformation: Past, Pres-
ent, and Future,” Aerospace Power Journal 15 (Fall 2001): 86.
181. Although the Gulf War Air Power Survey found that F-117 pilots hit their
aim points 80 percent of the time, the U.S. Government Accounting Office
argued that the F-117’s hit rate may have been as low as 55 percent. The
office arrived at the lower estimate based primarily on discounting pilot
claims regarding hits and poor cockpit video quality. As Barry Watts notes,
however, “even if the F-117’s hit rate was only 55 percent, this lower hit
rate would still appear to be more than sufficient to alter, fundamentally,
the conduct of future air operations.” Watts, Precision Strike, 8, 203–4. And,
indeed, following the Gulf War, the Air Force began to shift away from
“dumb” bombs to guided weapons in major air campaigns.
182. Mets, “Search for Surgical Strike,” 36.
183. Lambeth, Air Power, 155–56.
184. The Air Force dropped roughly 93 percent of all guided weapons employed
by U.S. air forces during the war, and approximately 80 percent of all
guided weapons used by Coalition air forces. British Royal Air Force Tor-
nado and Buccaneer aircraft, and French Air Force Jaguars also employed
LGBs. The remaining guided weapons used were primarily the Maverick
and the Hellfire missiles, as well as cruise missiles, anti-radiation missiles,
and small numbers of special weapons. Hallion, “New Era of Warfare,” 9.
185. Lambeth, Air Power, 160; Watts, Precision Strike, 8.
186. Lambeth, Air Power, 160; Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 203.
187. Watts, Precision Strike, 203.
188. Lambeth, Air Power, 125.
189. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 129–30.
190. Ibid.
191. Lambeth, Air Power, 268.
192. That being said, 71 percent of all coalition fixed-wing aircraft lost or
damaged in the First Gulf War were hit by AAA or short-range infrared
SAMs. Ibid., 120. As noted earlier, however, the coalition’s loss rate per sortie
was more than an order of magnitude lower than the Vietnam War loss
rate. The data also confirm Creech’s vision of the need to develop an opera-
tional concept that would enable the Air Force to move beyond its “go-low”
tactics.
193. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 136.
194. Ibid., 138.
195. Michel, “Revolt,” 398.
196. Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 196.
197. Soviet military leaders were also sensitive to what the First Gulf War im-
plied for the military balance vis-à-vis the United States and sought to dis-
count shortcomings in the Russian military equipment they had provided
to the Iraqis. Among the Iraqi military deficiencies they cited were “the
 Notes to Pages 397–398 515

lower level of training of command personnel, weak morale and psycho-

logical preparation of personnel, the unwieldy, poorly controllable, organi-
zation of strategic, operational, and tactical units, and the instability of
control and communications systems and of combat and logistics support.”
Defense Intelligence Agency, “Soviet Analysis of Operation Desert Storm
and Operation Desert Shield,” October 28, 1991, 75, 77. Nevertheless,
other Arab militaries, such as the Egyptian armed forces that exacted a
fearful toll on Israeli aircraft in the Yom Kippur War and the Syrian IADS
that downed several U.S. Navy aircraft during the December 1983 strike in
Lebanon, performed well when confronted by advanced air forces employ-
ing outdated tactics and unimaginative operational concepts.
198. Both the JDAM and JSOW are initially guided by an inertial measurement
unit that brings them very close to their aim point. They are also equipped
with a relatively simple GPS receiver that receives updates as they are fall-
ing toward their target. Mets, “Search for Surgical Strike,” 43. In 2009, the
Air Force and Navy introduced the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile
(JASSM), a stealthy 1,000-pound guided weapon that can be launched
around 200 miles from its target. For guidance, the JASSM combines GPS
cuing, inertial navigation, and a terminal IR seeker. An extended-range
JASSM (JASSM-ER) is projected to have a range of over 500 miles. Gil-
lespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 59, 209–10.
199. Mets, “Search for Surgical Strike,” 45, 113.
200. In 1991, the biggest obstacle to defeating Iraqi’s mobile Scud launchers was
not sensor-to-shooter cycle time per se but sensor limitations. Before the
war, the Air Force flew F-111Fs and F-15Es in exercises against an actual
Scud transporter-erector-launcher at night. The crews discovered that if
the missile was not erected, they had little luck finding the transporter-
erector-launcher using their onboard sensors, even when given the Scud’s
coordinates prior to takeoff. Operation Allied Force offers a better example
of the challenge of compressing engagement cycle times. When the Air
Force started going after Serbian ground equipment in Kosovo, the short-
est time lags between sensing and ordnance release were a few hours. Still,
this gave the Serbians enough time to relocate their equipment before U.S.
strike aircraft arrived.
201. Douglas Jehl, “Digital Links Are Giving Old Weapons New Power,” New
York Times, April 7, 2003, 2.
202. Tom Bowman, “Strike Team Advances Precision, Pace of War,” Baltimore
Sun, April 20, 2003, 1A. Al-Majid earned his nickname for ordering
poison-gas attacks against thousands of Kurds, including women and chil-
dren, in 1988. Despite the relatively prompt strike, the general survived the
attempt to kill him. He was finally captured in August 2003. According to
U.S. Central Command Air Forces, U.S. aircraft conducted 156 missions
against time-sensitive targets and 686 missions involving dynamic target-
ing. Moseley, “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” 9.
516 Notes to Pages 402–417

Chapter Ten. Echoes of History

1. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 107.
2. Ibid., 92.
3. Von Seeckt, Gedanken eines Soldaten, 77, quoted in Citino, Evolution of Blitz-
krieg, 72.
4. Heineman, “Armoured Forces,” 40–41.
5. Reynolds, Fast Carriers, 1.
6. Trimble, Moffett, 228.
7. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 30.
8. It bears noting that Vice Admiral Hyman Rickover, widely considered the
father of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered submarine force, held his position
as head of the Navy’s Reactors Branch from 1949 to 1982.
9. Lord John Fisher to Lord Selborne, January 13, 1901, in Fear God and Dread
Nought, vol. 1, 181. “Buggins’s turn” was a promotion system based on se-
niority rather than on merit.
10. Ruddock F. Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon, 1973), 297.
11. Massie, Dreadnought, 449–50.
12. Slife, “Creech Blue,” 111.
13. Fairbanks, “Choosing Among Technologies,” 128.
14. Heineman, “Armoured Forces,” 40–41.
15. Watts, Six Decades, 20.
16. Friedman, “Aircraft Carrier,” 39; Reynolds, Towers, 205.
17. The same tends to be true of transformation in other large, competitive or-
ganizations. John P. Kotter, “Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts
Fail,” Harvard Business Review 73 (March–April 1995): 59–67. Kotter empha-
sizes the importance of creating “short-term wins.” He notes, “Most people
won’t go on in the long march unless they see compelling evidence within
12 to 24 months that the [transformation] journey is producing expected re-
sults.” Similarly, field exercises can do much to convince the officer corps
that new warfare challenges are real and that there are innovative ways of
dealing with them.
18. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 92.
19. The four classes were the Grasshopper (three ships), Sharpshooter (thirteen
ships), Alarm (eleven ships), and Dryad (five ships), for a total of thirty-two
dead-end ships.
20. Lambert, Fisher’s Revolution, 246.
21. At the time of the Armistice, the Royal Navy had one carrier of the Argus
class and three carriers in the Glorious class.
22. Some 153 divisions were involved in the campaign, of which 18 were either
panzer or motorized divisions. “German Orders of Battle for the Campaign
in the West, May 1940,” WW2-Weapons.com, accessed February 19, 2022,
https://ww2-weapons.com/german-orders-of-battle-for-the-campaign-in-
the-west-may-1940.
 Notes to Pages 417–428 517

23. The U.S. fleet at the time comprised 17 battleships, 7 carriers, 18 heavy
cruisers, 19 light cruisers, 6 anti-aircraft cruisers, 171 destroyers, and 114
submarines. “U.S. Navy in Late 1941,” WW2-Weapons.com, accessed Febru-
ary 14, 2022, https://ww2-weapons.com/us-navy-in-late-1941.
24. Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to the President and the
Congress (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, February 1992), 138;
Gillespie, “Precision Guided Munitions,” 203; Lambeth, Air Power, 160;
Hallion, “New Era of Warfare,” 9.
25. P. G. Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (London: UCL Press, 1994),
7–20.
26. Doughty, Breaking Point, 247–49.
27. Alan Clark, Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict, 1941–1945 (New York:
Quill, 1965), 80–82.
28. Hughes, Fleet Tactics, 118.
29. Hone, Friedman, and Mandeles, Aircraft Carrier Development, 162.
30. Ibid., 125.
31. “BCG Matrix: Portfolio Analysis in Corporate Strategy,” Business-to-You, ac-
cessed February 14, 2022, https://www.business-to-you.com/bcg-matrix.
32. Michael E. Porter, “The Competitive Advantage of Nations,” Harvard Busi-
ness Review, March–April 1990, 73.
33. George Stalk, Jr., “Time—The Next Source of Competitive Advantage,”
Harvard Business Review, July–August 1988, 41.
34. Kotter, “Leading Change,” 63.
35. Bower and Christensen, “Disruptive Technologies,” 47, 53.
36. Porter, “Competitive Advantage,” 75.
37. Kotter, “Leading Change,” 59.
38. Porter, “Competitive Advantage,” 75.
39. Ibid.
40. Bower and Christensen, “Disruptive Technologies,” 50.
41. Kotter, “Leading Change,” 64.
42. Ibid., 60, 66.
43. Bower and Christensen, “Disruptive Technologies,” 44, 50.
44. The term “pickle barrel accuracy” originated in the 1930s when the U.S.
Army Air Corps developed the Norden Bombsight, which a pilot could use
to “drop a bomb in a pickle barrel at 30,000 feet.” As it turned out, during
World War II, the combination of trained bombardier and bombsight failed
to achieve anything close to the predicted results. Ironically, the bombsight
was used in dropping the atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, in a
situation where accuracy was of negligible importance. Christopher Kratzer,
“The Enigma of the Norden Bombsight,” Maxwell Air Force Base, January
20, 2012, https://www.maxwell.af.mil/News/Display/Article/420450/the-
enigma-of-the-norden-bombsight.
45. Bower and Christensen, “Disruptive Technologies,” 49.
518 Notes to Pages 431–435

Chapter Eleven. Where Do We Stand?

1. The reference here is to the National Defense Strategy summary document,
which is unclassified. James Mattis, Summary of the 2018 National Defense
Strategy of the United States of America, 2018, https://dod.defense.gov/
Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf.
The U.S. National Military Strategy is also silent on the subject. Joint Staff,
Description of the National Military Strategy, 2018, https://www.jcs.mil/
Portals/36/Documents/Publications/UNCLASS_2018_National_Military_
Strategy_Description.pdf.
2. H. H. Gaffney, “Capabilities-Based Planning in the Coming Global Security
Environment,” CNA Center for Strategic Studies, September 2004. See also
Colonel Michael W. Pietrucha, “Capability-Based Planning and the Death
of Military Strategy,” U.S. Naval Institute News, August 3, 2015, https://news.
usni.org/2015/08/05/essay-capability-based-planning-and-the-death-of-
military-strategy.
3. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin and General Colin Powell, “Department of
Defense Bottom-Up Review,” Department of Defense news conference,
September 1, 1993, Pentagon, Washington, D.C., quoted in Andrew F.
Krepinevich, Jr., Operation Iraqi Freedom: A First-Blush Assessment (Washing-
ton, D.C.: CSBA, 2003), 1.
4. Following the U.S. withdrawal from an active combat role in Indochina in
1973 and the fall of the Saigon regime in May 1975, the mood among
Americans was for “no more Vietnams.” This desire to avoid counterinsur-
gency warfare operations had bipartisan support, ranging from Defense Sec-
retary Caspar Weinberger’s “Six Tests” that should be satisfied before
committing U.S. forces to such conflicts to the requirement for “exit strate-
gies” that marked the debate over interventions in the developing world
during the Clinton administration.
5. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., Why AirSea Battle? (Washington, D.C.: CSBA,
2010); Jan van Tol, Mark Gunzinger, Andrew F. Krepinevich, and Jim
Thomas, AirSea Battle: A Point of Departure Operational Concept (Washington,
D.C.: CSBA, 2010).
6. As a member of the 1997 National Defense Panel, I was involved in the ne-
gotiations that led to Joint Forces Command being formed. From 2004 to
2011, I also served on its advisory board.
7. The process is described in Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruc-
tion 3010.02E, Guidance for Developing and Implementing Joint Concepts
(Washington, D.C.: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, August 17, 2016).
8. Air-Sea Battle Office, “Air-Sea Battle: Service Collaboration to Address
Anti-Access and Area Denial Challenges,” May 2013, i.
9. Sam LaGrone, “Pentagon Drops Air Sea Battle Name. Concept Lives On,”
USNI News, January 20, 2015, https://news.usni.org/2015/01/20/pentagon-
drops-air-sea-battle-name-concept-lives-on.
 Notes to Pages 435–437 519

10. Although the Summer Study lasts less than two weeks, a great deal of prepa-
ratory work is done prior to the event. A successful Summer Study finds the
chairperson arriving with what amounts to a rough draft of the final out-
brief, which is then subjected to rigorous scrutiny by the study members.
11. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., “How to Deter China: The Case for Archipe-
lagic Defense,” Foreign Affairs 94 (March–April 2015): 78–86.
12. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., Archipelagic Defense: The Japan-U.S. Alliance and
Preserving Peace and Stability in the Western Pacific (Tokyo: Sasakawa Peace
Foundation, 2017).
13. The Group of Five includes Australia, France, Great Britain, Japan, and the
United States. India was invited to participate but declined.
14. Mattis, National Defense Strategy, 3.
15. National Defense Strategy Commission, “Providing for the Common De-
fense,” U.S. Institute of Peace, x, 19. I served on the commission.
16. David E. Johnson, “Shared Problems: The Lessons of AirLand Battle and
the 31 Initiatives for Multi-Domain Battle,” Rand Perspective, August 2018, 6.
In critiquing the Army’s Multi-Domain Operations concept, one of the peo-
ple involved in crafting the AirLand Battle doctrine, Brigadier General (Re-
tired) Huba Wass de Czege, noted the absence of a “well-developed theory
of the problem” (e.g., What adversary are we trying to deter or defeat, in
what theater, and under what circumstances? What enemy advantages must
be overcome? What enemy weaknesses can be exploited?). He went on to
note the absence of a “theory of victory” (e.g., What is the operational con-
cept intended to accomplish against the enemy that has been identified? In
the case of AirLand Battle, the goal was to deter an attack on NATO by de-
feating Warsaw Pact armies, with emphasis on its front-line forces, whereas
the Multi-Domain concept is focused on a “generic” threat). Wass de Czege
also lamented the “use of vague language [that] confounds the reader’s un-
derstanding of the concept. For example, the frequent use of ill-defined
terms such as standoff and domain confuse the already thin logic of the con-
cept.” Huba Wass de Czege, Commentary of the U.S. Army in Multi-Domain
Operations in 2028 (Carlisle, Pa.: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies
Institute, April 2020), xix, xx, 16, 38–39.
17. Colin Clark, “Gen. Hyten on the New American War of War: All-Domain
Operations,” Breaking Defense, February 18, 2020, https://breakingdefense
.com/2020/02/gen-hyten-on-the-new-american-way-of-war-all-domain-
operations.
18. Theresa Hitchens, “JROC Struggles to Build ‘Information Advantage’ Re-
quirement,” Breaking Defense, September 17, 2020, https://breakingdefense.
com/2020/09/jroc-struggles-to-build-information-advantage-requirement.
19. Thomas C. Greenwood and Patrick J. Savage, “Concept for Joint Warfight-
ing,” Institute for Defense Analysis, Spring 2021, https://www.ida.org/
research-and-publications/publications/all/w/we/welch-award-2020-research-
notes-spring-2021.
520 Notes to Pages 438–440

20. Admiral Philip Davidson, “Transforming the Joint Force: A Warfighting

Concept for Great Power Competition,” speech, San Diego, Calif., March 3,
2020, https://www.pacom.mil/Media/Speeches-Testimony/Article/2101115/
transforming-the-joint-force-a-warfighting-concept-for-great-power-
competition; Paul McLeary, “Indo-Pacom Presses All Domain Ops: Sends
Plan to Hill Soon,” Breaking Defense, March 24, 2020, https://breakingdefense
.com/2020/03/indo-pacom-presses-all-domain-ops-sends-plan-to-hill-soon.
21. Theresa Hitchens, “The Joint Warfighting Concept Failed, Until It Focused
on Space and Cyber,” Breaking Defense, July 26, 2021, https://breakingdefense
.com/2021/07/the-joint-warfighting-concept-failed-until-it-focused-on-
space-and-cyber.
22. Ibid.
23. David Vergun, “DOD Focuses on Aspirational Challenges in Future Warf-
ighting,” DOD News, July 26, 2021, https://www.defense.gov/Explore/
News/Article/Article/2707633/dod-focuses-on-aspirational-challenges-in-
future-warfighting/source/GovDelivery; Jane Edwards, “Gen John Hyten
Advances Joint Warfighting Concept with 4 Strategic Directives,” Execu-
tiveGov, June 25, 2021, https://www.executivegov.com/2021/06/gen-john-
hyten-advances-joint-warfighting-concept-with-4-strategic-directives.
24. Generally speaking, greater weapon range would enable a naval combatant
to cover a greater area, offsetting the need for more ships armed with weap-
ons of lesser range. Weapons of greater range could also boost the value of
weapon speed as an MOE, especially when attacking mobile targets.
25. Tyler Rogoway, “You Have to Hear What Keeps the Head of U.S. Strategic
Command Up at Night,” The War Zone, September 22, 2017, https://www.
thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14564/you-have-to-hear-what-keeps-the-head-
of-u-s-strategic-command-up-at-night.
26. Among the systems that have been canceled over the past two decades are
the Joint Tactical Radio System; the Army’s Future Combat System, Cru-
sader artillery system, Comanche helicopter, and Ground Combat Vehicle;
the Navy’s CG(X) Cruiser and DDG-21 Destroyer (after only three were
produced as part of the Zumwalt class); the Air Force’s Airborne Laser and
Transformational Satellite Communications System; and the Marine Corps’
Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. Stephen Rodriguez, “Top 10 Failed De-
fense Programs of the RMA Era,” War on the Rocks, December 2, 2014,
https://warontherocks.com/2014/12/top-10-failed-defense-programs-of-
the-rma-era; Robert S. Dudney, “The 75 Percent Force,” Air Force Maga-
zine, March 1, 2009, https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0309edit.
 Index

Adams, Charles, 320 aircraft carriers, 32, 56; advantages of,

additive manufacturing (3D printing), 4, 34–35; and the carrier task force, 297,
20, 106–7, 139, 140; advantages of, 305, 309, 315, 318, 339, 325–26, 341,
107–9, 111, 112; as applied to military 405; design of, 315–16, 319–20, 327;
logistics, 102–3, 110–11, 112; earliest Essex-class carriers, 315, 327, 328; ex-
manifestation of, 107; limitations of, perimentation with, 328; fleet prob-
111–12; methods of, 107; military lems (exercises) involving, 307–11,
implications of, 109–11; savings 316–19, 320–25; innovations to, 309–
generated from, 110–11; software 10; limitations of, 340, 419; as the
used in, 112; as used by Amazon, Navy’s capital ship, 337–39, 341, 409;
102; as used for drone production, as part of a striking force, 326–27;
110; as used in satellite manufactur- radar as used by, 325–26, 339–40; role
ing, 110; as used in testing biological of, during World War II, 296–97,
weapons, 121; vulnerabilities of, 337–39; Yorktown-class carriers, 315
112, 140 Air Defense Command (ADC), 348
Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air air-land warfare: as practiced by the
Missile (AMRAAM), 385, 397 German military, 4, 17, 255, 264,
advanced persistent threats (APTs), 282–84, 290, 292–95; as practiced in
99–100 the Spanish Civil War, 283, 412
Aerojet Rocketdyne: additive manufac- airports: as vulnerable to electronic jam-
turing as used by, 109 ming, 77
Agamemnon (battleship), 310 air power: bombing tactics, 310–11; po-
Agincourt (battleship), 30 tential role in the U.S. Navy, 297–
AGM-78 Standard anti-radiation missile, 305; range of, 455n23; the U.S.
353 Navy’s testing of, 300; as used by the
Airborne Warning and Control System German military, 264–68. See also
(AWACS), 9, 380, 405; as employed naval aircraft
in the First Gulf War, 391 Air-Sea Battle Office (of the Pentagon),
Air Corps Act (1926), 307 434, 435

521
522 Index

Air Tasking Order (ATO), 39 75–76, 79–82; China’s use of, 48, 75–
air-to-air missiles (AAMs), 39–40; and 76, 77, 79; land-based, 77; and lasers,
beyond-visual-range engagements, 137; Russia’s use of, 76, 77; space junk
378–79; as used in the First Gulf War, as challenge for, 79–80; U.S. military’s
40; as used during the Vietnam War, use of, 77–78
351–52, 353–54 anti-submarine warfare (ASW), 64
air warfare: ambush tactics as used in, Aphrodite: as code name for guided
345; disruptive shifts in, 367–68, 379– weapons program, 345–46
80, 395–98; and electronic identifica- Arab states: defeat of, in the Six-Day
tion of friend or foe (IFF), 380–81, War, 156
511–12n143; in the First Gulf War, Arbatov, Alexi, 148
343, 388, 389–93; in the Middle East, Arbuthnot, Robert, 253
381–84; situation awareness as factor Ardennes Forest: German offensive in,
in, 344–45, 357, 364, 405; success in, 286–87
344; technological advances relating Argus (British carrier), 298
to, 367, 379–80, 386; in the Vietnam Ark Royal (British carrier), 337
War, 164, 351–53, 359–60; in World armistice. See Versailles Treaty
War II, 345; in the Yom Kippur War, armor, 23; and ironclad naval vessels,
361. See also naval aircraft; pilot train- 28–29; effectiveness of, 26; vulnera-
ing; U.S. Air Force bility of, 40
Allen, Lew, Jr., 373 Army Missile Command (MICOM),
Allies (in World War II): casualties suf- 354
fered by, 291; early defeats suffered Arnold, Henry “Hap,” 349, 505n14
by, 285–86, 291, 295 Arnold-Forster, Hugh Oakeley, 190
Allison, Graham, 142 artificial intelligence (AI), 4, 20, 87–90,
AlphaGo, 88, 89 92–93, 139, 140; barriers to imple-
AlphaGo Zero, 88 mentation of, 103–6; advanced persis-
Amazon: artificial intelligence and ma- tent threats generated by, 99–100;
chine learning as used by, 102 advances in, 88–90; autonomous
American Revolution, 14 decision-making enabled by, 89–90,
Ames, J. S., 302 99–100; future of, 106; military
anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) implications of, 90–93, 102–3, 106,
reconnaissance-strike complexes, 4, 140; risks associated with, 105, 106,
12, 125, 446n9; cyber strikes as aspect 140; as used by China, 49; as used in
of, 53; overlapping, 50, 52; and cyber attacks, 99–100; as used in
hypersonic weapons, 128; integrated cyber defense, 100–102; as used
response to, 69–70; as a twenty-first- in military logistics, 102–3; as used
century “no man’s land,” 50–51; as in scouting, 56, 61; as used in swarm
used by China, 19, 46–47, 49–50, 69. technology, 93–96; as used with
See also reconnaissance-strike com- satellites, 74
plexes; scouting; strike forces artificial stupidity, 104
anti-radiation missiles (ARMs), 352 Artillery Revolution, 16
anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities: as Asquith, Herbert Henry (H. H.), 221–
competition between adversaries, 22, 223; and CID investigation of
 Index 523

Fisher, 236, 237, 238–39; as prime Battenberg, Louis, 188, 246, 482n69,
minister, 232, 238–39, 242, 247, 250 488n240; on the deployment of sub-
Asquith, Violet, 242 marines, 190
Astroscale, 74 battle cruisers: as aspect of Fisher’s
Atlantic, Battle of the, 36, 420 Scheme, 203, 205, 206, 209, 210–14,
attrition strategies: downside of, 68, 69; 240–41; and Fisher’s plunging strat-
examples of, 68–69 egy, 218, 219–20, 223; speed and
Aube, Hyacinthe, 172–73, 174 range of, 211, 213–14; as used in
Auftragstaktik (mission tactics), 258, World War I, 250–51
491n12 battle damage assessment (BDA): chal-
Ault, Frank W., 357 lenges of, 57–58
Austin, Lloyd, 438 battle networks, 3, 39, 54, 445n2; ad-
Austria: Germany’s annexation of, 281 vances in, 397–98; importance of,
Austro-Hungarian Navy, 242 379–80
autonomous weapons, 89–90 battleships: aircraft carriers’ taking pre-
autonomy: and artificial intelligence, cedence over, 338–39; and challenges
89–90 to Britain’s maritime superiority, 179,
Azons (azimuth-only glide bombs), 346, 185, 212; defensive effectiveness of,
347, 506n16 340–41; eclipse of, 34, 35, 36, 164; in
fleet maneuvers, 174, 184; long-range
B-1 bombers, 376 gunnery capacity of, 31; as response
B-2 bombers, 376 to the threat of the Triple Alliance,
B-17 bombers, 343 243–44; role of, in World War II,
B-29 bombers, 343 340–41, 419; Royal Sovereign class of,
B-52 bombers: as employed in the 171, 183; speed as critical for, 29–30,
Vietnam War, 360 32; submarines as threat to, 189–90;
Bacon, Francis, 400 technological advances in, 29–30
Bacon, Reginald, 29, 191–92, 212, 226, Baylis, Françoise, 116–17
240, 246, 403; as supporter of Fisher’s Beatty, David, 251
Scheme, 240–41 Beck, Ludwig, 260, 272, 276, 277, 278,
Baker, Jim, 85, 86 280, 292
Balck, Hermann, 289 BeiDou Satellite System (BDS), 72
Baldwin, Stanley, 367 Ben-Eliyahu, Eytan, 364
Balfour, Arthur, 191, 200 Benson, William S.: as chief of naval op-
Balkan War (1998), 18 erations, 299, 300, 302
Ballard, George, 228, 237; and the Beresford, Charles, 182, 206, 220, 230,
Système Ballard, 186; war plans de- 406; as Fisher’s admirer, 200; as
veloped by, 228, 245 Fisher’s adversary, 217, 227–28, 235–
Ballard Committee: as the basis for 36; Fisher’s opinion of, 187–88; as
Fisher’s war plans, 228, 231 maverick reformer, 175–76; as mem-
ballistic missiles, 125; as used in World ber of Parliament, 176, 178
War II, 35 Beresford, John, 175
Barkhorn, Gerd, 345 Berlin, Germany: Red Army’s conquest
Barros, Richard, 99 of, 68
524 Index

Bernoulli, David, 154 blockades: examples of, 67, 457n44; im-

beyond-visual-range (BVR) engage- pact of, on neutral countries, 67; as
ments: and air-to-air combat, 39–40, form of economic warfare, 66–67;
378–79, 409–10, 513n178; in the First logistics problems associated with,
Gulf War, 391, 392 174–75; Royal Navy’s use of, 169,
Bezos, Jeff, 75 172, 174–75, 177, 181, 185–86, 192
BGI (Chinese company), 117 Blomberg, Werner von, 263, 265,
big data, 87–88 492n42
big-data analytics, 88, 92; and artificial Blue Flag exercises, 375
intelligence, 89, 104–5; as used in Blue Origin, 75
cyber defense, 101–2; at Walmart, Blumentritt, Günter, 291
467n62 Bock, Fedor von, 285, 287
biological weapons: additive manufactur- Boeing FB5s, 311
ing as used for, 121; challenges of Boeing Phantom Works, 138
manufacturing, 122–23; commercial- Boelcke, Oswald, 345
ization of, 120; deterrence of, 151; Boer War, 198, 200, 234
and fear of blowback, 124–25; manu- bombing accuracy, 35, 252, 310, 336,
facture of, 121; nanotechnology as 343, 345, 346, 360, 363, 371, 391,
applied to, 122; nonstate entities’ in- 514n181, 517n44; as concern during
terest in, 120; testing of, 121; as World War II, 345. See also laser-
threat, 113, 118–22. See also CRISPR- guided bombs
Cas9; gene editing Bong, Richard, 345
biosciences, 20 boost-glide vehicles (BGVs), 126, 128
biotechnology, 113–14; Chinese invest- Borah, William, 301
ment in, 472n149; commercialization Boston Consulting Group, 424
of, 123. See also biological weapons; Bower, Joseph, 15, 425, 427
CRISPR-Cas9; gene editing; syn- Boyd, John, 384
thetic biology Brauchitsch, Walther von, 261–62,
Bismarck (German battleship), 337 286
Black, Jeremy, 16 Brett, Reginald. See Esher, Lord
Blackbird spy plane, 368–69 Bridge, Cyprian, 180, 225
Black Flag exercises: as implemented by Bridgeman, Francis, 204, 236, 242,
Creech, 375 488n240
Black Hole (Air Force Special Planning Britain: economic challenges faced by,
Cell), 388, 389 197–98. See also Royal Navy
BlackSky, 92 Britain, Battle of, 68–69, 379
Blitzkrieg: as practiced by the German British military: amphibious operations
military, 4, 17, 164, 255, 260, 264, proposed by, 234–35; German mili-
268, 277, 279, 293–95, 490n2; limita- tary transformation modeled on,
tions of, 294–95, 420; and Germany’s 262–64; mechanization as used by,
invasion of Poland, 285. See also air- 492n36. See also Royal Navy
land warfare; German military Brodie, Bernard, 37, 143, 338, 450n21
Bloch, Claude C., 323 Brodie, Fawn, 450n21
Block, Steven, 120 Brown, George S., 361
 Index 525

Brown, Harold, 10, 86, 368, 370, 386, Castlereagh, Robert, 177
417, 422 catalytic war, 152–53
Bullpup air-to-surface missiles: as used Cawdor, Earl of, 205
in the Vietnam War, 353–54 Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer): Moffett Assessments (CSBA), 434–35
as head of, 302, 305–6, 307–8, 312, Chamberlain, Austen, 199
313, 314, 315, 319–20, 321, 328, 330, Charlie B. See Beresford, Charles
333, 334; and naval aviation, 302, Checkered Flag: as implemented by
305–7, 324, 326, 330; and plans for a Creech, 375
dive-bomber, 311; and tensions with Cheney, Dick, 385
the Bureau of Navigation, 333–35 China: A2/AD complex as used by, 19,
Bureau of Navigation (BuNav): and ten- 46–47, 49–50, 69; anti-satellite capa-
sions with the Bureau of Aeronautics, bilities of, 48, 75–76, 77, 79; expan-
333–35 sionist actions of, 156;
Bush, George H. W., 386 informationalized warfare as prac-
business organizations: as analogous to ticed by, 47–48; intelligentized war-
military organizations, 423–28; dis- fare as practiced by, 49; Japan as
ruptive innovation as applied to, 423– adversary of, 65; Japan’s invasion of,
28; and emerging technologies, 426, 331; as nuclear power, 17–18, 145–46;
427; and experimentation as analo- policy of, regarding nuclear deter-
gous to field exercises, 426–27; mea- rence, 148–49; present-day focus of,
sures of effectiveness in, 428; and new 3–4, 47–50; scouting competition as
operational concepts, 426–27; and re- viewed by, 52; space-based navigation
sistance to change, 425–26, 516n17 system used by, 72; space junk gener-
Butler, Henry V., 319 ated by, 79–80; swarm technology as
Buzz (open-source programming lan- developed by, 94–95; and tensions
guage), 97 over Taiwan, 18; as threat in space,
75–76; and U.S. response to the
C-130 cargo planes: as communications- PLA’s A2/AD complex, 49–50. See also
jamming aircraft, 378 People’s Liberation Army
Callaghan, George, 245, 246 Chinese Communist Party (CCP),
Campbell-Bannerman, Henry, 220, 222 48–49
Canada: the Royal Navy’s position on, Chow, Jerry, 133–34
194 Christensen, Clayton, 15, 425, 427
Canby, Steven, 385 Churchill, Winston, 125, 141, 201, 214–
Cape Matapan, Battle of, 337 15, 218, 234; on Beresford, 238; as
Cardillo, Robert, 74 first lord of the Admiralty, 233, 241–
Carlucci, Frank, 142 44, 245–47, 248, 256; as Fisher’s ally
carrier task force, 297, 305, 309, 315, and admirer, 241–42, 253, 422,
318, 339, 325–26, 341; radar as factor 488n240; Fisher’s disputes with, 249–
in, 325–26, 405. See also aircraft 50; and Fisher’s strategy of plunging,
carriers 219–20; on the German military, 290;
Carroll, Lewis, 429 as prime minister, 289; on war, 143,
Carter, Jimmy, 368 144; on World War I, 259
526 Index

circular error probable (CEP): as mea- counter-scouting measures, 23, 33, 55–
sure of a weapon’s accuracy, 23, 35, 56, 445n2. See also scouting
38–39; for unguided bombs, 347 Creech, Wilbur (“Bill”), 342, 384, 386,
Citino, Robert, 276, 290, 295 441; background of, 372; as head of
Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA), 335 the Tactical Air Command, 372–74,
Civil War, U.S.: impact of rifling on, 25; 403, 404; opposition to programs
and the sea battle between the supported by, 385; night fighting as
Monitor and the Virginia, 28; the tele- advocated by, 378–79, 395; and sup-
graph as used during, 24; trench war- pression of enemy air defenses
fare during, 25 (SEAD), 372, 373, 376, 395, 402–3,
Clark, Alan, 419 407; and transformation of the Air
Clark, Frank H., 321–22 Force, 372–76, 395–96
Clarke, George, 220 crisis stability, 476–77n8
code-breaking: quantum computing as CRISPR-Cas9, 86, 113, 114–16; applica-
used for, 132–33; as used in warfare, tions of, 116; commercialization of,
36 120; and facilitating of gene modifi-
Cohen, William, 22, 385 cation, 119; limitations of, 117; risks
Cold Harbor: Grant’s assault at, 25 associated with, 118–20, 124, 151. See
Cold War: decoys used during, 64; mili- also biological weapons; gene editing
tary strategy following the end of, cryptography: as applied in warfare, 32,
142–43; principal operational chal- 36; as used by the British in World
lenge during, 431; and threat of War I, 32
Soviet anti-ship missiles, 127 Cuban Missile Crisis, 157, 158–59
Cole, William C., 318 CubeSats, 73, 74, 81, 82
Colomb, John, 178 Currie, Malcolm, 369, 372
Combat Tree: program for identification Curtiss F6C Hawks, 310–11
of enemy aircraft, 381 Curtiss Helldiver fighter (U.S. Navy),
Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), 266
200–201; investigation of Fisher by, cyber defense: artificial intelligence as
236–40 applied in, 100–102
computer-aided design (CAD) software, Cyber Hunting at Scale (CHASE), 101
112 cyberspace: as domain for military com-
Condor Legion, 283–84, 412 petition, 47–48, 68, 152; as domain
Cook, Arthur B., 321, 324 for scouting activity, 56
Coolidge, Calvin, 306–7 cyber warfare, 139, 140; artificial intelli-
Coral Sea, Battle of the, 335, 338 gence as applied in, 99–102; against
Corbett, Julian, 228, 230 critical infrastructure, 151; and
Corder, John, 396 denial-of-service attacks, 466n57;
corporate sector. See business implications of, for nuclear deter-
organizations rence, 147, 153; by nonstate forces, 82
Corum, James, 267, 493n61 Cyert, Richard, 155
Counter-electronics High-powered
Microwave Advanced Missile Project Daniels, Josephus, 297, 300, 301, 329
(CHAMP), 138 Dark Knight, The (film), 153–54
 Index 527

Davidson, Philip, 442; and Chinese ag- Russian policy regarding, 148; and
gression in the Western Pacific shifting military balance, 150; shrink-
Theater of Operations, 437–38 ing attack timelines as factor in, 149–
Davis, Joe, 354–55 50; under the Trump administration,
decision-making, human: factors enter- 144. See also nuclear weapons
ing into, 154–59, 478–79n27 Deutscher, Isaac, 85
decoys: as employed in scouting, 55, Deutschland (German battleship), 219
63–64; as employed prior to the Dewar, Kenneth, 245
Normandy invasion, 64 digital range frequency memory
deep learning systems, 91 (DRFM), 55
DeepMind team (Google), 88 Dill, John, 264
Defense Advanced Research Projects directed-energy systems (lasers), 4, 20,
Agency (DARPA), 101, 126, 367, 369; 135, 136–38; barriers to implementa-
and stealth bombers, 372 tion of, 138–39; Chinese, 137; costs
defense budgets, U.S.: after the Soviet of, 138; Israeli, 137; Russian, 137
Union’s collapse, 18 disruptive innovation: and advances in
Defense Department (U.S.), 142–43, technologies, 404–5, 426, 427; in air
436–37 warfare, 367–68, 379–80, 395–98; an-
defense industrial base (DIB): artificial ticipation of, 3, 5; assessment of, as
intelligence as used by, 109 applied to modern warfare, 4–5, 443;
Defense Nuclear Agency, 367–68 Blitzkrieg as example of, 294–95, 420,
Defense Reform Movement (DRM), 421; and the challenge of deterring
393, 394–95; and resistance to Air war, 142; characteristics common to
Force efforts toward innovation, 384– military organizations that benefited
86, 512n151 from, 401; in the corporate world,
Dempster, Kenneth, 507n38 15–16, 423–28; exercises and experi-
Deptula, David, 386, 387, 388, 389, 393, mentation as part of, 410–12, 426–27;
395 and extended leader tenure, 403–4;
Desert Storm. See First Gulf War and the First Gulf War, 399; guiding
destruction, democratization of, 96–98, vision as critical for, 401–3, 425; in
140; and nonstate actors, 153–54; in historic perspective, 23; and the im-
the nuclear era, 144; and the use of pact of a small shift in structure and
biological weapons, 119–22 equipment, 417–18; and innovative
deterrence strategies, 143; and the chal- operational concepts, 406–7, 410,
lenge of developing, 154–59; Chinese 426–27; and limitations to the guid-
policy regarding, 148–49; and cyber- ing vision, 418–21; and military effec-
warfare, 147, 153; honor and fairness tiveness, 3, 6, 12–13, 401–7, 418;
as factors in, 158–59; human ongoing need for, 443; resistance to,
decision-making as a factor in, 154– 370–72, 384–86, 406, 411, 425–26; in
59; in a multipolar nuclear world, response to periods of military
145–46; as a multidimensional com- change, 22–23, 184; serendipity as
petition, 146–49; in the nuclear age, factor in, 421–22; situational charac-
143–45; under the Obama adminis- ter of, 294; strategic significance of,
tration, 144; objectives of, 144, 146; 4–5; strategies for advancing, 412–14;
528 Index

disruptive innovation (continued) shipbuilding program, 232–33; Queen

technological advances as factor in, 3, Elizabeth class of, 251–52
10–11, 13, 15, 38, 87–96, 139–40; and Dreyer, Frederick, 217
time as factor in military advantage, Dreyer system, 217, 251
414–17; trends in, 41, 42. See also Dreyse needle gun, 4
Fisher’s Scheme; German military; drones (remotely piloted vehicles):
military effectiveness; operational armed, 39; as employed by the Israeli
concepts, innovative; Royal Navy; Air Force, 382; as employed by non-
U.S. Air Force; U.S. Navy state actors, 96–98; as employed for
dissimilar air combat training (DACT): scouting, 51, 53, 59, 60, 66–67, 398;
at the Fighter Weapons School, 364; as employed in strike missions, 39, 53,
origins of, 363; at the Top Gun pilot 93–95, 398, 503–4n159; as employed
training school, 358; as used by the in swarming attacks, 92, 93–98; un-
U.S. Air Force, 376 dersea, 64, 95, 96
dive-bombing: early use of, 499n50, Dual Alliance. See French Navy; Russian
503n159; Luftwaffe’s use of, 266–67; Navy
U.S. Navy’s use of, 310–11, 335–36; Dunford, Joseph, 437
during World War II, 35 duPuy, Trevor, 8
Dixon, Robert A., 372, 384, 386, 396; Durand, W. F., 302
and Air Force pilot training, 365–66;
as head of the Tactical Air Command, Eban Emael, 26, 36, 283, 288
365–67 economic warfare: by means of a block-
DNA: genetically modified, 115–16; syn- ade, 66–67; as part of Fisher’s war
thesis of, 113–14, 118–19, 123–24. See plans, 229, 234–35, 249
also gene editing Edward VII, King, 176, 222, 242; and
DNA Foundry, 123 Fisher’s war plans, 228, 231, 422; as
Domain Expansion, Era of, 41 supporter of Fisher’s Scheme, 220
Domville, Compton, 188 EF-111 bomber, 377
Doolittle, James, 346 Eglin Air Force Base, 347, 354
Doolittle Raid, 56, 456n33 Ehang (drone manufacturer), 94
D-Orbit, 74 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 5, 85, 159
Douglas, Hugh, 321 Eisenhower administration: and focus on
Douhet, Giulio, 163, 264, 265, 266, 400 Soviet aggression, 348
Dowell, William, 175 Eismannsberger, Ludwig von, 34
Downey, Thomas, 385 El Dorado Canyon (code name for air
Dreadnought, HMS (battleship), 17, 29– strikes against Libya), 383–84, 412
30, 212–13, 214, 216, 226, 413, 414; electronic countermeasures (ECM), 35
construction of, 218–19, 220, 222; electronic emissions control (EMCON),
impact of, on maritime competition, 55
417–18; as model for other navies, electronic identification of friend or foe
418; as threat to Germany, 219, 416 (IFF): equipment developed for,
dreadnoughts, 29–30, 32, 222, 242, 246; 380–81, 511–12n143
developed by Britain’s enemies, 232, electronic jamming, 35; as domain for
233, 242; as part of the British competition between adversaries, 77
 Index 529

electronic warfare: advances in, 379; as fiber-optic communications: and laser

conducted by Wild Weasel aircraft, technologies, 136–37
352; as employed by China, 47; as Fighter Weapons School (U.S. Air
employed in scouting, 55–56; as Force), 363–64; Israeli Air Force
global threat, 76–77; and Green Flag Pilots at, 363–64
exercises, 375 firepower: evolution of, 26–28; range,
Elias, Darren, 89 speed, and accuracy of, 23, 32–33, 36,
Elswick Heater, 30, 191 38–39. See also strike forces
encrypted data: quantum computing as First Gulf War (Operation Desert
applied to, 133 Storm), 3, 8–9; air campaign during,
endowment effect, 155–56 343, 388, 389–96, 398, 399, 411; and
engagement sequence: compressing of, air-strike orders, 39; air-to-air mis-
39–40, 60–62, 91; and mobile targets, siles as employed in, 40, 392;
60–61, 91; and scouting, 58; sustain- American casualties associated with,
ing of, 92 9; and armor’s vulnerability, 40;
Entente Cordiale, 197, 221 Coalition ground force offensive in,
Enterprise (aircraft carrier), 320, 322, 326, 390; Coalition losses in, 390–91,
327, 328, 456n33 514n192; debate relating to strategy
epidemics: world health organizations’ in, 387–88; and disruptive shift in air
response to, 120 warfare, 395–98, 399, 422; drones as
Epstein, Joshua, 8 employed in, 390; GPS as employed
Esher, Lord (Reginald Brett), 201, 220, in, 391, 392; guided weapons as em-
230, 2325 ployed in, 393–95, 397, 417, 422,
Esper, Mark, 437 514n184; Instant Thunder proposed
Evans, Andy, 355 for, 387–88, 394; limitations to the
Excellent, HMS, 216 Air Force’s effectiveness during, 419;
Nighthawks as employed in, 417, 423,
F-15 fighter, 376 428; predictions relating to, 8; and
F-16 fighter, 376; bombing system of, Russian military equipment provided
371 to the Iraqis, 514–15n197; situation
F-105s: as employed during the Vietnam awareness in, 391–92; suppression of
War, 351, 352–53, 362 enemy air defenses as applied in, 389–
F-117s (stealth aircraft), 370, 428; as 90, 395. See also U.S. Air Force
employed in the First Gulf War, 390, First Industrial Revolution, 106–7
393–94, 419, 422–23, 428, 514n181 first-move advantage, 415; and the U.S.
factorization, 132–33 Air Force’s IT advantage over Russia,
fairness, perceptions of: and human 417
decision-making, 157–59 Fisher, John (“Jackie”), 21, 29, 43, 166,
Fallows, James, 384, 385 168, 429, 450–51n27, 485–86n166,
Feng Zhang, 118 488n243; as advocate for submarines,
Feynman, Richard, 14–15, 37, 134, 246–47; background of, 201; on
428 Reginald Bacon, 226; on Charles
fiber-optic cables: as used in wartime, 56, Beresford, 186–87, 188; as Beresford’s
66 adversary, 217, 227–28, 235–36,
530 Index

Fisher, John (“Jackie”) (continued) 218–19; and a shift to oil propulsion,

487n217; on Britain’s relationship 214–15; submarines’ role in, 204–5,
with the U.S., 193–94; Churchill as 210, 252, 418; supporters of, 220; tor-
ally of, 241–42, 422, 488n240; CID pedo flotillas as part of, 203, 204–5,
investigation of, 236–39; as com- 210, 252; wireless communication as
mander of the Mediterranean Fleet, aspect of, 208–10
200; as director of naval ordnance, Fishpond (disciples of Admiral Fisher):
182–84; and disputes with Churchill, members of, 204, 220, 226, 237, 239,
249–50; and falling out with 240–41, 242, 403, 403, 489n264,
Beresford, 227–28; fleet maneuvers 488n240, 489n264
directed by, 186–87; as first sea lord, Fiske, Bradley A., 301, 304–5, 332
192, 199, 202, 212, 218, 221, 223, Fitch, Aubrey, 323
403, 422; innovation as pursued by, fixed targets: as challenge for scouting
184, 192, 202–6, 406, 412; promoted forces, 59–60
to admiral, 228; resignation of, as first fleet redistribution: of the Royal Navy,
sea lord, 249, 250; and response to 206–8
torpedo boats, 182–84; retirement of, flotilla defense: Beresford’s objections to,
239; on the torpedo’s potential, 172; 229; flaws in, 248; maneuvers involv-
transformation of the Royal Navy, ing, 244–45; as part of Fisher’s
164, 200–202, 202–6, 210–14; on the Scheme, 191, 203, 205–6, 209, 210,
value of submarines, 190–91, 204–5; 230, 231, 235, 236, 240, 246, 253,
war plans developed by, 227–32. See 401–2, 404, 408, 427–28
also Fisher’s Scheme flying-deck cruiser: as hybrid design for
Fisher Revolution, 29–33, 164. See also U.S. Navy ships, 313–14
Fisher, John (“Jackie”); Fisher’s Foch, Ferdinand, 289; and the signing of
Scheme the Versailles Treaty, 254–55
Fisher’s Scheme, 202–6, 484n131; as af- Ford, Henry, 107
fected by challenges in the shipbuild- Formidable (British carrier), 337
ing industry, 220–21; battle cruisers forward arming and refueling points
as part of, 203, 210–14, 218–20, 240, (FARPS): as employed for scouting,
253; Beresford’s attacks on, 237–39; 67; vulnerabilities of, 97
challenges to, 233–34; criticism of, framing effect, 155
220, 234; fleet distribution as aspect France: German offensive in, 285–90
of, 206–8; flotilla defense as aspect of, Franco, Francisco, 283
191, 203, 205–6, 209, 210, 230, 231, Franco-Prussian War, 26
235, 236, 240, 242, 246, 253, 401–2, Fredericksburg: Union assault at, 25
404, 408, 427–28; global communica- French Army, 285; tanks as part of,
tions network as aspect of, 208–10; 496n159; during World War II,
gunnery as aspect of, 215–17, 418; 287–89
mines as adopted by, 217–18; opposi- French Navy: as ally of Britain, 193, 197,
tion to, 208; pillars of, 203; “plung- 243; cruisers developed by, 184–85;
ing” as part of, 203, 218–21, 223, 248, fleet maneuvers conducted by, 174,
253; a Reserve Fleet as part of, 207–8; 184; the German Navy as threat to,
second-move advantage as aspect of, 196; torpedo boats as used by, 174,
 Index 531

180; submarines as used by, 184, 188; mechanization of, 33–34, 164, 255,
warships developed by, 169–70 261, 266, 268, 269, 271–72, 273–76,
French Revolution (1789), 14 277, 278, 279, 292–93, 295, 405, 406–
Fritsch, Werner von, 260, 263 7, 415, 417, 494n74; and military
Fritz-X (radio-guided bomb), 346, equipment from other countries, 270;
506n16 officer training in, 269; panzers as
Fromm, Fritz, 279 critical to, 33–34, 269, 271–72, 277,
Fuller, J. F. C., 262 278–82, 294, 402, 411–12, 414, 428;
radio communication as used by,
Galileo (European space-based naviga- 275–76, 282, 405; rearmament of,
tion system), 72 under Hitler, 268–69, 270–71, 273,
Gates, Robert, 135 277; scouting as employed by, 423;
Gatling guns, 26 second-move advantage as used by,
GE Aviation: 3D printing as used by, 416; speed and range as priority for,
108–9 422; strategic bombing as employed
gene editing, 86, 114–16; applications of, by, 264, 266, 268; transformation of,
116; of human embryos, 117–18; mil- as modeled on the British military,
itary implications of, 116–25. See also 262–64; after the Versailles Treaty,
biological weapons; CRISPR-Cas9 255, 258, 262, 264, 268–69, 273, 293,
gene-drive research, 115–16 413, 415, 421; von Seeckt’s vision
General Board (U.S. Navy), 297; and the for, 259–60, 402, 421–22; war games
role of aviation in maritime opera- conducted by, 263, 274. See also
tions, 297, 300, 302. See also U.S. Luftwaffe; Wehrmacht; World
Navy War II
geography: as factor in strategic advan- German Navy: Dreadnought as threat to,
tage, 65 219; Royal Navy’s war plans directed
George V, King, 239 at, 228–32; shipbuilding plans of, 242,
German Air Service. See Luftwaffe 244; as threat to Britain, 66, 193,
German military: aircraft production 195–96, 242–44, 245, 490n267; torpe-
system of, 267; air-land warfare does as employed by, 191; U-boats as
(“Blitzkreig”) pursued by, 4, 17, 255, employed by, 249
264, 282–84, 290, 292–95, 406–7, Germany: commercial aviation in, 272–
415, 418–19, 421; air power as em- 73; and withdrawal from the League
ployed by, 264–68, 405; and of Nations, 268
Barbarossa campaign in Russia, 418– Gettysburg: Pickett’s Charge at, 25
19; disruptive innovation pursued by, Gingrich, Newt, 385
164, 294–95; field maneuvers con- Ginkgo Bioworks, 124
ducted by, 261–62, 273–76, 410, 411– Gladstone, William, 201
12; guided weapons as employed by, Global Positioning System (GPS), 9; de-
346; infiltration tactics used by, 255– velopment of, 380; as factor in dis-
56; internal reassessment of, 257–61; ruptive shift in air warfare, 380, 405;
and invasion of Russia, 418–19, 420; as global utility, 72; limitations of,
and lack of motorized infantry, 418– 419; as used in the First Gulf War,
19; measures of effectiveness for, 408; 391, 419; vulnerabilities of, 76–77
532 Index

GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite innovations in, 216–17; and long-

System), 72 range fires, 216
Glosson, Buster C., 39, 393 Gustave Zédé (French submarine), 184,
Goering, Hermann, 265, 492n42 189
Golden Horde, 94 gyroscope: as employed with torpedoes,
Goschen, George, 185 184, 191, 481n50
GPS. See Global Positioning System
Graham, Gordon M., 349–50 Haiyan, 96
Grant, Ulysses S., 25 Halder, Franz, 280, 285, 286, 287
Great War, the. See World War I Hall, W. H., 173
Greely, Henry T., 120 Halsey, William, 323
Green Flag exercises: as implemented by Hamilton, George, 177
Creech, 375, 377 Hamilton, R. Vesey, 175
Grey, Edward, 240 Hammerstein, Kurt von, 260
Groener, Wilhelm, 491n17 Hankey, Maurice, 200, 228
Guderian, Heinz, 33–34, 260, 262, 272, Hart, Gary, 384, 385, 395
274, 276, 277, 294, 402; as advocate Hartmann, Erich, 345
for panzer forces, 262, 276, 277, 279– Have Blue aircraft, 370, 371
82, 284, 419, 422; as Chief of Fast Havock (torpedo-boat destroyer), 183
Troops, 282; and Germany’s invasion He Jiankui, 117–18
of Poland, 284; on mechanized war- Hegel, Fritz, 261
fare, 292–93, 408; during World War Henrich, Joseph, 157–58
II, 286, 289, 290, 291–92 Heye, Wilhelm, 260
guided weapons, 514n184; Azons, 346; Hezbollah, 465n35
early U.S. efforts toward develop- Hicks, Fred C., 301
ment of, 345–46, 347, 363, 414; high-powered microwave (HPM)
emerging technologies as applied to, weapons, 80
368; as employed in the First Gulf High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles
War, 393–95, 397; as employed in the (HARMs), 377; as employed in air
Korean War, 347–48; as employed in strike against Libya, 384; as employed
U.S. air strikes against Libya, 383; as in the First Gulf War, 390
employed in the Vietnam War, 353– Hinckley, Robert H., 335
57; as employed in World War II, Hindenburg, Paul von, 275
346–47; further development of, Hiroshima: attack on, 37
397; German efforts relating to, Hitler, Adolf: air power as advocated by,
346; GPS as employed with, 397; 265–66; and Germany’s invasion of
kamikazes, 346–47, 451–52n43, Poland, 284; and Germany’s invasion
506n17; limitations of, 370–71; po- of Russia, 420; inept leadership of,
tential of, 367–68; Razons, 347; 292; military ambitions of, 294, 295;
Tarzons, 347–48 and rearming of Germany, 268–69,
Gun Club (U.S. Navy), 318, 323, 324, 270–71, 273, 277
336, 406, 408 Hobos (homing bombs), 363; as
gunnery: as aspect of Fisher’s Scheme, employed in the Vietnam War,
215–17; increased emphasis on, 31; 356
 Index 533

Home Depot: artificial intelligence as Independence (aircraft carrier), 383

used by, 103 Indiana (battleship): aerial bombing test
Hoover, Herbert, 306 against, 301
horizontal escalation: as defensive strat- Inflexible (battle cruiser), 250
egy, 65–66; and economic warfare, Inflexible (ironclad battleship), 29, 171,
66–67; examples of, 66–67; in new 182
domains, 68 information technologies (IT). See tech-
Horne, Frederick, 323 nologies, military-related
Horner, Chuck, 364, 375, 378; and the Ingersoll, Royal, 324
First Gulf War, 386–87, 389, 391, innovation: cycles of, 467–68n74. See also
393, 395 disruptive innovation
Hornet (aircraft carrier), 56, 320, 328, input problem: in quantum computing,
456n33 134
horsepox virus, 119 Inspektion der Kraftfahrtruppen
Hoth, Hermann, 419 (Inspectorate of Motor Transport
Howard, Michael, 27, 36, 295 Troops), 261
Hughes, Charles F., 311, 316, 317 Instant Thunder, 387–88
Huntington, Sam, 430 integrated air defense systems (IADS),
Hussein, Saddam, 157, 398; occupation 35, 402–3, 407; as employed by
of Kuwait by, 8–9, 386; and the First China, 48; as employed by the
Gulf War, 386–87, 388 Soviets, 361, 362, 373, 375; as em-
Hutier, Oskar von, 256 ployed by Syria, 147; encountered
hydrophones, 32 during the First Gulf War, 8, 343,
hypersonic cruise missiles (HCMs), 126 388; encountered during the Korean
hypersonic propulsion, 20, 125 War, 344; encountered during World
hypersonics, 125–26. See also hypersonic War II, 343; encountered during the
weapons Yom Kippur War, 361; German, 344
hypersonic vehicles, 125–26 intelligence, surveillance, and reconnais-
hypersonic weapons, 4, 86, 125–29, 139; sance (ISR), 23
barriers to implementation of, 129– Intelsat, 76
31; heat generated by, 129; and mari- internet of things (IoT), 87, 88; and arti-
time forces, 127–28; military ficial intelligence, 89
implications of, 126–29; and the Interwar Revolution. See Mechanization,
scouting competition, 130; speed of, Aviation, and Radar Revolution
127, 130; 3D printing as applied to, Invincible (battle cruiser), 198, 213, 250
129 Iraq: during the First Gulf War, 8–9,
Hyten, John, 437, 438, 440, 473n162 386–87; integrated air defense sys-
tems employed by, 388. See also First
ICBMs: in China, 145 Gulf War
Illustrious (British carrier), 337 Iridium, 458n55
Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). See Iron and Steam Revolution, 28–29
Japanese Navy Iron Dome, 93, 97
Imperiale, Michael, 113 ironclad warships, 28–29, 169, 170, 171,
improvised explosive devices (IEDs), 40 182
534 Index

Islamist extremist groups: as focus of the Global War on Terror, 442; indepen-
U.S. military, 18, 19 dent assessment of, 440–41
Ismay, Hastings, 290 Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOWs), 397,
Israel: and attack on Syrian nuclear reac- 515n198
tor, 147; and the Six-Day War (1967), Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar
156 System (JSTARS), 9, 380, 405
Israeli Air Force (IAF), 385; and the Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC), 437,
Bekaa Valley engagements, 381–82, 438; problems inherent in, 439
385–86, 411; in the Yom Kippur War, Jones, David C., 365, 366, 369, 370, 372–
361, 362 73, 374
Israeli Defense Force (IDF), 51, 465n35; Jumper, John, 364, 374
and the Yom Kippur War, 361
Italian Navy, 179, 242 Kagan, Donald, 158
Ivry, David, 385 Kahneman, Daniel, 155
kamikazes, 35, 346–47, 451–52n43,
jamming. See electronic jamming 506n17
Japan: China as adversary of, 65; China Kanehara, Nobukatsu, 436
invaded by, 331 Ke Jie, 88
Japanese Navy, 179, 185, 192–93, 194; Kelly, Jason, 124
aircraft carrier arm of, 423; battle- Kennedy, John F., 37, 71, 72, 159,
ships developed by, 212; and defeat of 458n51
the Russians at Tsushima, 197, 207, Kennedy (aircraft carrier), 383
221, 224–25; and disruptive innova- Kerr, Walter, 200
tion, 423, as principal rival of the U.S. Kesselring, Albert, 266, 283, 493n48
Navy, 303; torpedoes as used by, 225 Kessler Syndrome, 80
Japanese Self-Defense Force, 65 Khrushchev, Nikita, 157, 158–59
Jellicoe, John, 245, 403, 488n240 Kimmel, Husband E., 337–38
Jeschonnek, Hans, 493n48 King, Ernest J., 299, 321, 323–25, 332; as
Jeune École, 173, 174 chief of naval operations, 338, 339; as
Johnson, Alfred W., 333 head of the Bureau of Aeronautics,
Johnson, David: on the lack of an opera- 326
tional concept, 436–37 Kirk, William, 359
Johnson, Lyndon, 351, 357 Kissinger, Henry, 156, 359
Johnston, Joseph E., 25 Kitchener, Lord Horatio Herbert, 196
Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Kleist, Ewald von, 287, 290
(JASSM), 515 Kondratiev, Nikolai, 467n74
Joint Army-Navy Exercise, 320 Knauss, Robert, 265
Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver Knollys, Francis, 201
in the Global Commons (JAM-GC), Korean War: Chinese losses in, 457n46;
435 and Chinese offensive against U.S.
Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), forces at Chosin, 68; guided weapons
397, 515n198 as used during, 347–48
Joint Forces Command (JFCOM): dises- Korenevskiy, N., 71
tablishment of, 434, 441; and the Kosmotras (Russian satellite company), 73
 Index 535

Kotter, John, 516n17; on disruptive in- Lewis, George W., 302

novation in the corporate sector, Lexington (aircraft carrier), 312, 314, 316,
425–27 326, 328, 414; fleet problems involv-
Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr.: and inde- ing, 320–22, 323, 324–25
pendent assessment of the Joint Libya: U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft
Forces Command, 440–41; as mili- strikes against, 383–84
tary assistant to Weinberger, 142 Liddell Hart, Basil H., 262
Krupp (German manufacturer), 29, 171; Lind, William, 384
and armament subsidiaries abroad, Lindbergh, Charles A., 317, 332
270 Linebacker campaigns: guided
Kuwait: and the First Gulf War, 8–9, 389 weapons as employed in, 360; as
U.S. military response to North
La Gloire (French ironclad), 170 Vietnam’s invasion of South
Lambert, Nicholas, 164 Vietnam, 359, 360
Landauer, Rolf, 135 Lion (battle cruiser), 213–14
Langley (aircraft carrier), 308–9, 500n73; Lissa, Battle of, 28
fleet problems involving, 309–10, Lloyd George, David, 201, 220, 247; as
316, 320, 323, 410 chancellor of the exchequer, 242,
LANTIRN (Low-Altitude Navigation 243–44
and Targeting Infrared for Night): Locke, John, 154
Creech as supporter of, 379, 385; as Lockheed: stealth aircraft produced by,
employed in the First Gulf War, 391– 369–70
92, 511n135 Logistics Support Groups, 341
laser communications, 137–38 Long-Range Research and Development
laser-guided bombs (LGBs): as em- Planning Program (LRRDPP), 10,
ployed in the First Gulf War, 393–94, 367–68
397; as employed in the Vietnam Ludendorff, Erich, 491n17
War, 354–56, 360; limitations of, 363, Lufthansa (German airline), 265; as a re-
370–71, 419; performance of, 386 serve air force, 269
lasers: barriers to implementation of, Luftwaffe: air-land warfare involving,
138–39; beam coherency of, 138; as 282–85, 288, 291; during the Battle of
employed against satellites, 82; and Britain, 379; dive-bombers as em-
military communications, 137–38; ployed by, 266–67; as employed for
solid-state, 137; as weapons, 135–38 scouting, 423; and Hitler’s rearma-
League of Nations: Germany’s with- ment plans, 265, 268; limitations of,
drawal from, 268 267, 268; mission of, 492n43; rearm-
Lebanon: Bekaa Valley engagements ing of, 269; rebuilding efforts of, 265,
in, 381–82, 385–86; U.S. warplanes’ 266–68; reconnaissance aircraft de-
attack on Syrian anti-aircraft sites veloped by, 282; and strategic bomb-
in, 382–83. See also Second ing, 264, 266, 268
Lebanon War Lupis, Giovanni, 172
Leigh, Richard H. “Reddy,” 306, 334 Lutz, Oswald, 260, 261, 264, 276, 279,
LeMay, Curtis, 355; as head of the 294; as inspector of motorized forces,
Strategic Air Command, 348–49 274
536 Index

Machiguenga tribe, 157–58 Meuse River: German forces at, 288–89

machine guns, 26 Michel Offensive, 257, 289
machine learning, 87, 92, 101; as applied Microsoft, 132
to synthetic biology, 124. See also arti- microwave weaponry, 138
ficial intelligence Midway, Battle of: American advantage
Mackensen, August von, 256 in, 63; hypothetical scenarios relating
MAGIC, 36 to, 22, 128, 140, 321; pilot losses fol-
Maginot Line, 26, 33, 36, 258, 285 lowing, 335; U.S. Navy’s role in, 338,
Majid, Ali Hassan al- (“Chemical Ali”), 419
398, 515n202 Midway class carriers, 504n171
Mannock, Mick, 345 MiG-15s, 351
Manstein, Erich von, 286, 294, 492n42 MiG-17s, 351
Mao Zedong, 157 MiGs: as used by the U.S. Air Force,
March, James, 155 509n82
Marder, Arthur, 253 Milch, Erhard, 265, 267
Marjoribanks, Edward. See Tweedmouth, military advantage: time as major factor
Lord in, 414–17
Mark 84 laser-guided bomb: as em- Military Airlift Command (MAC): and
ployed in the Vietnam War, 356 Red Flag training approach, 366
Marshall, Andrew, 430; on military revo- Military-Civil Fusion (MCF)
lutions, 11–12, 17, 446–47n10 Development Strategy: as used by
Marye’s Heights: Union assault on, 25 China, 48–49
Mattis, James: as head of Joint Forces military effectiveness: and advances in
Command, 440–41; as secretary of technologies, 404–5, 407; and the
defense, 436, 437 Artillery Revolution, 16; and disrup-
Mavericks (TV-guided, rocket-powered tive innovation, 3, 6, 12–13, 401–7,
missiles), 356–57, 361; as employed in 418; and domain expansion, 41; and
the First Gulf War, 394 extended tenure for leaders, 403–4;
Maxar, 92 factors contributing to, 401–7; and
May, Andrew, 85 field and fleet exercises, 411; a guid-
McConnell, John, 507n38 ing vision as factor in, 401–3; and in-
McGuire, Tommy, 345 novative operational concepts, 38,
McKenna, Reginald, 220, 228, 240; 406–7, 410; measures of, 407–10,
and CID investigation of Fisher, 439; and the Precision-Warfare
236–37, 239; as first lord of the Revolution, 38; and rail transporta-
Admiralty, 232–33; and Fisher’s tion, 24, 27. See also disruptive
Scheme, 234 innovation
McPeak, Merrill A., 392 military logistics: additive manufacturing
Mechanization, Aviation, and Radar as applied to, 110–11; artificial intelli-
Revolution (Interwar Revolution), 23, gence as used in, 102–3
33–36. See also Blitzkrieg; German Military Reform Caucus (U.S.
military Congress), 384–85
metallurgy: as applied to naval vessels, military-related technologies. See tech-
28–29 nologies, military-related
 Index 537

military revolutions, 13–14, 15; descrip- Morrow, Dwight, 307, 330

tions of, 16–17; historical examples Morrow Board, 307, 330, 332, 334
of, 16. See also disruptive innovation; Morse, Samuel, 24
Fisher Revolution; Mechanization, Mottez, Lucian, 184
Aviation, and Radar Revolution; Musashi (Japanese battleship), 341
military-technical revolution; Musk, Elon, 75
Precision-Warfare Revolution; Mustin, Henry, 308
Railroad, Rifle, and Telegraph mutual assured destruction (MAD). See
Revolution deterrence strategies
military-technical revolution (MTR), Myers, Chuck, 369, 371–72
9–10, 20, 446–47n10; assessment of,
11–13, 17, 43–45, 46, 54–55, 57, 83– Nagasaki: attack on, 37
84, 86, 430 Napoleon, 27
Mill, John Stuart, 155 Napoleonic Wars, 174–75
Milley, Mark, 40; and the challenge of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space
developing operational concepts, 437 Administration), 74; 3D printing as
mine-resistant, ambush-protected used by, 109
(MRAP) armored vehicles, 40 National Advisory Committee for
mines: as employed by the Japanese Aeronautics (NACA), 302; and dual-
Navy, 225–26; as part of Fisher’s use technology, 329
Scheme, 217–18, 252 National Defense Strategy Commission,
Miniature Air-Launched Decoy 22, 44, 436
(MALD), 94 National Defense Strategy, 142
Minié, Claude, 25 National Institute of Standards and
Miramar Naval Air Station, 358 Technology (NIST), 87–88, 133
missile defense systems: space-based, 136 National Reconnaissance Office (NRO):
Mitchell, William “Billy,” 264, 301–2, Sentient program, 91–92
310, 332, 341; court-martial of, 306–7 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Mitscher, Marc A., 307, 315, 40 Organization), 142, 362, 431
mobile targets: as challenge for scouting Naval Aircraft Factory, 329, 330
forces, 60–61 naval aircraft: debate surrounding the
Moffett, William A., 332, 402, 413, 441; value of, 298–303, 321, 323–25; dive-
as head of the Bureau of Aeronautics, bombers, 310–11, 315, 317, 321, 335–
302, 305–6, 307–8, 312, 313, 314, 36, 338; limitations of, 336–37; range
315, 319–20, 321, 328, 330, 333, 334, and payloads of, 316, 335, 339; role
403, 404, 421 of, in naval fleet operations, 297–303;
Mole Cricket 19 (Israeli Air Force oper- as scouts, 298, 299; torpedo bombers,
ation), 381–82, 384; remotely piloted 304, 311, 317–18. See also aircraft car-
vehicles (RPVs) as used in, 382 riers; air power; Bureau of
Moltke, Helmuth von, 238 Aeronautics
Momyer, William W. “Spike,” 359–60; as naval aviators: and competitive advan-
head of the Tactical Air Command, 358 tage over adversaries, 335; shortages
Moore, Robert, 369, of, 333–34; and tensions between
Morris, Robert, 119 BuAer and BuNav, 332–35
538 Index

Naval Expansion Act (1938), 331 nucleases, 115, 470n110

Naval Parity Act (1934), 331 Nulton, Louis McCoy, 318
Naval Research Laboratory: radar as de- Nunn, Sam, 385
veloped by, 326
Naval War College, 337; war gaming at, Obry, Ludwig, 184, 191, 481n50
304–5, 307, 309, 410 Office of Net Assessment (ONA), 7, 11,
naval warfare: and the impact of the tor- 85, 429–30, 461n83
pedo, 172–75 Offset Strategy, 86; goal of, 11, 368
Navstar Global Positioning System. See Ogarkov, Nikolai, 7; predictions put
Global Positioning System forth by, 9–10
Nellis Air Force Base: Fighter Weapons O’Malley, Jerome F., 376
School at, 363–64; pilot training at, On the Beach (Shute), 152
364–67 operational challenges (for the U.S. mili-
Nelson, Horatio, 175 tary): concerning China and the
Neven, Harmut, 133 Western Pacific Theater of
Nighthawks: advantages of, 428; as em- Operations (WPTO), 434; during the
ployed in the First Gulf War, 417, Cold War, 431; in the current geopo-
423, 428 litical environment, 431–32
Nimitz, Chester W., 326, 339 operational concepts, innovative, 406–7;
9/11 attacks: and shifting military priori- in the corporate sector, 426; as devel-
ties, 433–34 oped by the PLA, 49; field and fleet
Nixon, Richard, 359, 360 exercises contributing to, 410–11,
Noel, Gerard, 186 442; importance of, 12–13, 430–31,
no-man’s-land: offensive operations in, 432–33; and military effectiveness, 38,
52–54; in the twenty-first century, 406–7, 410, 432–33; ongoing need
50–52, 68 for, 433–35, 436–38, 439–40; time as
nonstate forces: biotechnology in the factor affecting, 415, 440
hands of, 120, 152; cyber attacks by, Operation Allied Force, 39; against
82, 152; deterrence strategies for, 144, Serbian forces in Yugoslavia, 397–98
152; drones in the hands of, 96–98; optimism bias, 156–57
military capabilities of, 96–98, 153–54 Orbital Sciences, 73
North Vietnam. See Vietnam War Orr, Vern, 377
Nuclear Revolution, 37–38, 41–42 Ostfriesland (German battleship): aerial
nuclear weapons, 17; and advances in bombing test against, 302, 307–8, 310
conventional weapons, 146–49; Otterbach, Johannes, 133
China’s policy regarding the use of, Ottley, Charles, 197, 217, 218, 227, 229
148–49; destructive power of, 37–38,
41–42; deterrence strategies as ap- Padfield, Peter, 170
plied to, 143–45; as developed by the Palmer, William. See Selborne, Lord
U.S., 4, 38; proliferation of, 37, 145– panzers: as developed by the German
46, 454n21; Russia’s policy regarding military, 33–34, 269, 271–72, 276,
the use of, 148, 477–78n19; and the 277, 278–82, 294, 402, 411–12, 414;
Strategic Air Command, 348–49. See exercises involving, 278, 278–82; lim-
also deterrence strategies itations of, 418–19; and Germany’s
 Index 539

invasion of Poland, 284; during Planet (satellite company), 81, 92

World War II, 288–90, 291 plasmids, 123
Parker, Geoffrey, 16 plunging: as aspect of Fisher’s Scheme,
Patton, George S., 439 203, 218–21, 223, 248, 416
Paulus, Friedrich von, 277 Pluribus, 88–89
Pave (precision avionics vectoring equip- Poland: Germany’s invasion of, 284–85,
ment), 507n15, 508n55 294, 331
Pave Tack: and nighttime fighting ability, political revolution, 13–14
379 Pollen, Arthur, 216–17
Paveway laser-guided bombs, 356, 376– Pollen system, 216–17; as employed on
77, 507n51, 511n123 the Queen Mary, 251–52
Pave Way Task Force, 355, 507n51 polymerase chain reaction, 123
Pearl Harbor Naval Air Station: Porter, Michael, 425–26
Japanese attack on, 337–38; vulnera- Posture Statement (of the Defense
bility of, 325 Department), 142, 143
People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), 353 Powell, Colin: and the First Gulf War,
People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 19, 387–88, 433
453n3; and the A2/AD complex, 46– Pratt, William V., 313, 316, 317, 318, 319
47, 420–21; innovative operational precision-guided munitions (PGMs), 39,
concepts developed by, 49; and the 46, 51, 54, 461n83; and blurring of
precision-warfare revolution, 420–21; distinctions with nuclear weapons,
and The Science of Military Strategy, 146–47, 148, 149; as employed in the
47, 146, 148–49. See also China First Gulf War, 8–9, 409; swarm tech-
People’s Liberation Army Air Force nology as applied to, 94. See also
(PLAAF), 351 guided weapons
People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force precision-guided rockets, artillery, mor-
(PLARF), 63 tars, and missiles (G-RAMM), 51
People’s Liberation Army Strategic precision navigation and timing (PNT),
Support Force (PLASSF), 48 99
People’s War School: and strategy pro- precision-warfare regime, mature, 3–4, 5,
posed for the German military, 12, 44, 50–54, 60, 64, 68, 70, 82–84,
259–60 400; Americans’ dominance of, 434;
Peresvet laser system, 137 artificial intelligence as used in, 90;
Perry, William J., 10, 342, 368, 370, 372, and attrition strategies, 68–69; and
376, 386, 422 challenges to U.S. military domi-
phishing attacks, 100 nance, 18–19, 45–47; and China as
physics, laws of: as applied to everyday adversary, 47–50; deterrence strate-
problems, 14–15, 428 gies under, 141–42, 144, 146–47; and
Pickett’s Charge: at Gettysburg, 25 horizontal escalation, 65–68; and
pilot training: for Air Force pilots, 358– modern-day no-man’s-lands, 50–52,
59, 363–67, 374–76, 399; for Navy pi- 53, 68; the MTR assessment of, 44–
lots, 357–58, 359, 360 45, 46, 54–55, 57, 83–84; “new nor-
pilots. See naval aviators; pilot training mal” under, 52–54; scouting and
Plan Orange, 303 strike force competition as aspect of,
540 Index

precision-warfare regime (continued) rail transportation: impact of, on war-

36, 44–45, 52, 53–65; and space as fare, 24, 26, 27
domain for hostilities, 70–82, 151, Ralston, Joseph, 511n135
152; speculation regarding, 5, 19–20 rams: ships equipped with, 171
Precision-Warfare Revolution, 3, 5, 11, Ranger (aircraft carrier), 296, 322, 323,
17, 19, 20, 23, 38–41, 384, 443; attri- 324–25, 327, 413, 414, 503n159
butes of value in, 22, 38–41, 45; and ransomware attacks, 96
the People’s Liberation Army, 420– rationality: as applied to human
21; and the reconnaissance-strike decision-making, 154–55; bounded,
complex, 38, 39, 44; and weapon ac- 154–55
curacy, 38–39. See also precision- Razons, 347
warfare regime, mature Reagan, Ronald: defense buildup under,
Project Maven, 90 376–78
Project Red Baron, 364 reconnaissance aircraft, 380
prospect theory, 155 reconnaissance-strike complexes (RSC),
Putin, Vladimir, 89; and Russian policy 3, 4, 7, 9–10, 12, 23, 396–97; artificial
on nuclear deterrence, 148, 477– intelligence as applied to, 90, 91, 95;
78n19 China’s employment of, 47, 48–49;
dueling between, 64–65, 83–84; and
quantum computing (QC), 4, 131–32; as the engagement sequence, 39–40, 95;
applied to code-breaking, 132–33; as and the Precision-Warfare
applied to global warming, 132; bar- Revolution, 38, 39, 44–45, 83. See also
riers to implementation of, 133–34, anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) re-
135; high error rate of, 134; military connaissance-strike complexes;
implications of, 132–33, 135 scouting; space; strike forces
quantum entanglement, 131 Red Flag concept: Creech’s view of, 374–
qubits, 131, 132, 134–35. See also quan- 75, 376, 410; as factor in the First
tum computing Gulf War, 396; and U.S. Air Force
Queen Elizabeth (battleship), 30, 490n267 pilot training program, 364–66
Queen Mary (battle cruiser), 251 Reeves, Joseph, 315, 319, 322, 332; as
Quesada, Elwood, 348 commander of the Langley, 308–10,
410; as commander of the Saratoga,
radar: as employed by the U.S. Navy for 316–17
air defense, 325–26, 336, 339, 405, Reichenau, Walther von, 285
501n109; Japanese research on, Reichswehr. See German military
501n108 Reinhardt, Walther, 257–58, 259, 406,
radio communication: as employed by 421
the German military, 275–76; as remotely piloted vehicles. See drones
employed by the U.S. Navy, 405; as revolutions: definitions of, 13–14. See also
employed in World War I, 33–34 Fisher Revolution; Mechanization,
Railroad, Rifle, and Telegraph Aviation, and Radar Revolution;
Revolution, 4, 23–28; during the Civil Precision-Warfare Revolution;
War, 24–25; during World War I, Railroad, Rifle, and Telegraph
26–27 Revolution
 Index 541

Reynaud, Paul, 289 fleet maneuvers (1908), 232; fleet ma-

Reynolds, Clark, 339 neuvers (1910), 244; fleet maneuvers
Richards, Frederick, 168, 172, 175, 182, (1911), 245; fleet maneuvers (1913),
183, 220 245–46; and fleet redistribution, 206–
Richmond, Herbert, 249–50 8; flotilla defense as used by, 191, 203,
Richthofen, Wolfram von, 266, 284, 285, 205–6, 209, 210, 246, 253, 401–2,
290 404, 408; German Navy as threat to,
Rickey, Branch, 422 195–96, 215, 222, 231–32, 242–44,
Rickover, Hyman, 441, 516n8 245, 249, 418, 420; ironclad ships of,
rifling: impact of, on warfare, 25, 28, 28–29, 170, 182; and joint maneuvers
449–50n21 with the British army, 226–27;
Robeck, John de, 245 Landship Committee of, 256; man-
Roberts, Michael, 16 power shortages experienced by, 198–
Robinson, C. G., 226 99, 200, 243; measures of
robot bombers. See guided weapons effectiveness for, 407–8; in the
robotics, 20. See also artificial intelligence Mediterranean, 178–79; naval air
robots: as substitute for troops, 98–99 forces as employed by, 299–300;
Rolling Thunder (air campaign), 351, scouting as employed by, 423; sec-
357, 358, 389 ond-move advantage as strategy of,
Rommel, Erwin, 497n184 170, 218, 416; shipbuilding budget of,
Roosevelt, Franklin, 69, 290, 504n171 223, 232–33; size of, 166–67; speed
Royal Air Force: during the First Gulf and range as priority for, 422; subma-
War, 390, 391; during World War II, rines as threat to, 32, 185, 188, 189–
292, 379, 423–24 90, 231; submarines as employed by,
Royal Corps of Naval Constructors, 209, 210, 237; submarines’ value for,
182–83 166, 172, 190–91, 203–5, 244–45; su-
Royal Navy: blockades as used by, 169, periority of, 167, 168–69, 184; torpe-
172, 174–75, 177, 181, 185–86, 192, does and torpedo boats as concern
226; and the British Army, 234; and for, 30–31, 172–75, 180–81, 185, 203,
carrier plans shared with the U.S. 210, 216, 226; torpedoes as employed
Navy, 327; challenges to maritime su- by, 182–84, 204–5, 231–32, 247–48,
periority of, 179–80, 192–93, 194–95, 481n50; transformation of, 164, 167–
197–99, 222–23, 242–43; and cooper- 68, 240–41, 247–48, 252–53; Triple
ation with the French Navy, 243; in Alliance as threat to, 242–43; Two-
the Far East, 194, 195; fleet maneu- Power Standard as adopted by, 177–
vers (1888 and 1889), 174–75; fleet 80, 185, 193–94, 195, 199, 221–23,
maneuvers (1890), 180; fleet maneu- 232, 483n98; and the U.S. Navy, 193–
vers (1891) 180–81; fleet maneuvers 94; vulnerabilities of, 179–80; war
(1895–99), 185–86; fleet maneuvers plans developed for, 227–32; wireless
(1900), 186–88; fleet maneuvers telegraphy as employed by, 186. See
(1902), 188; fleet maneuvers (1904), also Fisher, John (“Jackie”); Fisher’s
226; fleet maneuvers (1905), 226–27; Scheme
fleet maneuvers (1906), 216, 227, 236; Royal Sovereign, 29; as class of battleship,
fleet maneuvers (1907), 231–32, 236; 171, 183
542 Index

Rozhestvensky, Zinovi, 224 Schweppenburg, Geyer von, 263–64

Rundstedt, Gerd von, 285, 286, 288, 290 Schwerpunkt (principal focus), 258,
Russ, Robert D., 376 491n12
Russia: anti-satellite capabilities of, 76, Scott, Percy, 187, 216, 240
77; after the collapse of the Soviet scouting: artificial intelligence as used in,
Union, 18; and the military-technical 90–91; and battle damage assessment,
revolution, 9–10, 11–13; as nuclear 57–58; in carrier battles, 339; China’s
power, 17–18, 145–46; policy of, re- focus on, 48; as competition between
garding nuclear deterrence, 148; adversaries, 36, 44–45, 52, 53–62,
present-day focus of, 3–4; space- 445n2; decoys and deception as em-
based navigation system employed ployed against, 55, 63–64, 90–91; de-
by, 72; U.S. concerns regarding, fined, 23; drones as employed for, 51,
148 53, 59, 60, 66–67, 398; as employed
Russian Navy, 170, 185, 194; defeat of, at by the U.S. Navy, 409; as employed
the hands of the Japanese, 197, 207, to maintain situation awareness, 423;
221; torpedo boats as employed by, and the engagement sequence, 58; ex-
173 ploiting an advantage in, 56–57; and
Russian Revolution (1917), 14 fixed targets, 59–60; importance of,
Russo-Japanese War, 197, 207, 224–26; 22, 27, 34–35, 36, 41, 423; and hyper-
lessons to be derived from, 224–25 sonic weapons, 127–28, 130; and in-
Ryan, John D., 359–60 formation superiority, 55; and mobile
targets, 60–61; naval aviation as use-
Salisbury, Robert, 176, 188 ful for, 298, 299; novel forms of,
Santa Cruz, Battle of, 340 456n39; satellites and anti-satellites
Saratoga (aircraft carrier), 312, 314, 326, as employed in, 55; space-based
328, 500n73; fleet problems involv- forces as employed for, 61–62; stealth
ing, 320–22, 323, 324–25, 411, as aspect of, 22, 32, 33, 38, 39, 40,
500n87; testing of, 316–17 53–54, 128, 339, 409, 414, 423; and
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 158 strike capability, 83; in support of
satellites: additive manufacturing as used blockades, 66–67; wireless technology
in the manufacture of, 110; artificial applied to, 32, 33
intelligence as used with, 74; as em- scramjets, 126, 129
ployed in war, 71; proliferation of, Scud launchers, Iraqi, 515n200
72–75; protection of, 81; as targets, Scylla (battle cruiser), 216
75–77; as used for navigation systems, seabed: as domain for military competi-
72; as used in scouting, 55; vulnera- tion, 41, 52, 62, 68, 83; military assets
bilities of, 70, 76, 79–80. See also anti- located on, 57, 59–60
satellite (ASAT) capabilities; space; Seamans, Robert C., Jr., 360
SPOT Second Gulf War (2003), 398, 433;
Scharre, Paul, 98 Time-Sensitive Targeting Cell as
Schlesinger, James, 135–36 used in, 39
Schlieffen Plan, 285 Second Industrial Revolution, 107
Schofield, Frank H., 314, 321 Second Lebanon War (2006), 51, 96,
Schwarzkopf, Norman, 386–87 465n35
 Index 543

second-move advantage: as aspect of German training facility in, 269;

Fisher’s Scheme, 218–19; benefits of, Germany’s military-related industrial
415–16; as strategy of the Royal activities in, 270–71; as nuclear
Navy, 170, 218 threat, 367–68; surface-to-air missiles
Sedol, Lee, 88 as used by, 361. See also Russia
Seeckt, Hans von, 254, 256, 265; as chief Spaatz, Tooey, 346, 505n14
of Germany’s armed forces, 257–62, space: commercialization of, 70, 72–75;
270, 403, 404, 421, 491n17; field ex- as domain for competition between
ercises ordered by, 273; military strat- adversaries, 47–48, 61, 68, 75–78, 79–
egy advocated by, 258–62, 293–94, 82, 151, 152; and the X-37B space
402 plane, 78; weaponization of, 21, 71–
Selborne, Lord (William Palmer): as first 72. See also Global Positioning
lord of the Admiralty, 191, 193, 194– System; satellites
95, 199, 200; as supporter of Fisher’s space junk: as hazard for satellites, 79–80
Scheme, 206–7, 208, 220, 234; on the space planes, 78
Two-Power Standard, 193, 195 SpaceX, 73, 74–75, 458n55
Sentient program (of the NRO), 91–92 Spanish Civil War, 283–84
Seven Weeks’ War (1866), 4 Sparrow III (air-to-air guided missile),
Sherman, William T., 25 351–52, 378; as employed in the First
Shiyan 7, 75–76 Gulf War, 392
Shoemaker, William R., 333, 334 Sparrow missiles, 351–52, 507n35
Shor, Peter, 131 spear phishing, 100
Shubik, Martin, 153 Spencer carbines, 25
Sidewinder missiles, 351–52, 378, Spinney, Chuck, 384
507n35; as employed in the First Spire (satellite company), 81
Gulf War, 392 spoofing: as counter-scouting measure,
Simon, Herbert: and the concept of 55
bounded rationality, 154–55 SPOT (Satellite Pour l’Observation de la
Simpkin, Richard E., 43 Terre), 70–71
Sims, William S., 296, 298–99, 305, 307, Spot Image, 70
332, 402; as president of the Naval Sprey, Pierre, 384, 385
War College, 304–5 Sputnik, 73
Six-Day War (1967), 156 Stalin, Josef, 157
Sixty-Fourth Fighter Weapons Stalk, George, 425
Squadron, 364 Standley, William H., 321
“Slaughterbots” (video), 98 stealth aircraft, 9, 11, 54, 368–70, 379, 414;
Slay, Alton, 369, 370 bombers, 54, 95, 128; as employed for
Smith, Adam, 154 scouting, 32, 39, 40, 51, 53–54, 128,
Snir, Asher, 364 339, 409, 414, 423; as employed in the
Snyder, Charles P., 336 First Gulf War, 393; flight tests of, 370;
Soviet Military Power, 70–71 resistance to, 370–72
Soviet Union: collapse of, 18, 143; ex- stealth warships, 22, 32, 33. See also
panding nuclear forces of, 367; submarines
German army’s invasion of, 272, 295; steam-powered warships, 169
544 Index

steam propulsion: as used in naval ves- surface-to-air missiles (SAMs): Creech

sels, 28, 169–70 on, 374; as employed by China, 48; as
Steinke, Karl Kristian, 140 employed in the Vietnam War, 352,
Stillion, John, 513n178 353, 359; radar-guided, 354
storm tactics: limitations of, 258–59 Suter, Richard M. “Moody,” 384, 386;
Strategic Air Command (SAC), 348–49; and Red Flag concept for pilot train-
and Linebacker II, 360; pilots as- ing, 364–66
signed to, 350; and Red Flag training swarming attacks: as defensive strategy,
approach, 366 97–98; enabled by artificial intelli-
Strategic Defense Initiative, 136 gence, 93–98; as used by anti-ship
Stratton, S. W., 302 mines, 95; as used by nonstate forces,
strike assets: as fixed targets, 59 96–98
strike capabilities: as competition be- Sweeney, Walter C., Jr., 349, 350
tween adversaries, 53–54, 62–65; Symantec, 76
gaining an advantage in, 63–64 Syndicate of Discontent, 176, 206, 208,
strike forces: depletion of, 62–63, 65, 67; 228, 235, 406
and scouting, 53–54, 83, 60–61; speed synthetic aperture radars (SARs), 73,
and range as critical for, 23, 32–33, 76–77
36, 3–89, 45, 50–51, 53, 60–62, 125– synthetic biology, 4, 113–14, 118, 121,
26. See also hypersonic weapons 123, 151
Stulpnagel, Joachim von, 260 Syrian air force: in combat with the
Stumpf, Hans-Jürgen, 266, 283, Israeli Air Force, 381–82; integrated
493n48 air defense system as employed by,
submarines: armed with torpedoes, 30– 515n197
31, 33, 140, 172, 184, 185, 189–90; as Syrian anti-aircraft sites: U.S. warplanes’
cruise missile carriers, 22; Fisher as attack on, 382–83
advocate for, 190–91, 204–5, 252; Syrian nuclear reactor: Israeli attack on,
Fisher’s assessment of, 189–91, 203–5; 147
fleet maneuvers involving, 226; system of systems, 12, 446n9
French, 184, 188–89; German, 31,
244, 418, 420; Japanese, 30–31; nu- Tactical Air Command (TAC), 348, 349–
clear-powered, 64; Royal Navy’s use 50; Creech as head of, 372–74; Dixon
of, 166, 189–91, 203–5, 210, 226, as head of, 365; Momyer as head of,
244–45; stealth of, 36. See also flotilla 358
defense Tactical Boost Glide, 126
subtractive manufacturing (SM), 108, Taft, Robert, 384, 385
112 Taiwan, 18, 19
Sueter, Murray, 225 tanks: early versions of, 27; as developed
Sun-Tzu, 49 and employed by the German mili-
superposition, 131, 134–35 tary, 261–64, 270, 271–72; as em-
suppression of enemy air defenses ployed in World War I, 33–34, 256,
(SEAD), 372, 373, 376, 402–3; as em- 257, 259; as represented in German
ployed in the First Gulf War, 389–90; field maneuvers, 273. See also
and Red Flag exercises, 410 panzers
 Index 545

Target Identification System Electro- Togo, Heihachiro, 224–26

Optical (TISEO), 381 Top Gun Navy pilot training school,
Tarzons, 347–48 358, 359, 360
Taylor, David, 302 torpedoes/torpedo-boat destroyers, 136;
Taylor, Montgomery Meigs, 315, 333 as employed in the Russo-Japanese
Taylor Boards, 503n146; and carrier pol- War, 225; fleet maneuvers involving,
icy recommendations, 315, 330 174, 180–81, 185–86, 188; gyroscopes
technologies, military-related: advances employed with, 184, 191; impact and
in, 4, 5, 9–10, 18–19, 20, 86–87, 139– potential of, 172–75, 182; production
40, 404–5; and a disruptive shift in of, 502n124; range and speed of, 172,
the character of warfare, 10–11, 38, 173, 191; the Royal Navy’s employ-
86, 367, 404–5, 407, 442–43; during ment of, 182–84, 204–5, 231–32,
the Fisher Revolution, 29–33, 404–5; 247–48; submarines armed with, 30–
and the military-technical revolution, 31, 33, 140, 172, 184, 185
9–10; and the Precision-Warfare Towers, John H., 307, 321, 339, 404; as
Revolution, 38; the U.S.’s growing head of the Bureau of Aeronautics,
advantage in, 10–11; and wireless 326–27
communication, 31–32, 33. See also transgenesis, 116, 470n118
additive manufacturing; artificial in- trench warfare, 25–26; in World War I,
telligence; biological weapons; 255
directed-energy systems; electronic Triple Alliance: as Britain’s adversary,
identification of friend or foe; GPS; 242–43. See also Austro-Hungarian
hypersonic weapons; quantum Navy; German Navy; Italian Navy
computing Truppenamt (Troop Office), 258, 263,
telegraph: impact of, on warfare, 24, 27, 268
28 Tschischwitz, Erich von, 261
Tengyun (space plane), 78 Tsushima, Battle of, 191, 197, 207, 221,
Terra (satellite), 76 224–25
Tet Offensive, 68 TUBSAT (German satellite), 73
Texas (battleship), 300, 411, 418 Tversky, Amos, 155
Texas Instruments, 355 Tweedmouth, Lord (Edward
Thaler, Richard, 155 Marjoribanks), 220, 232, 235; and
Third Industrial Revolution, 107 Fisher’s Scheme, 234
Thoma, Wilhelm Ritter von, 291 Twining, N. C., 300
Thomas, Jim, 435 Two Ocean Bill, 332
Three Admirals’ Report, 176–80 Two-Power Standard, 177–80, 185, 199,
3D printing. See additive manufacturing 232; Fisher’s leveraging of, 221–23;
Thrip, 76 public debate surrounding, 178–79,
Timation satellite research program, 380 221–23; shift in, 193–94, 195
Time-Sensitive Targeting Cell (TSTC),
39, 398 Ukraine: Russian military operations in,
Tirpitz, Alfred von, 196, 213, 219, 242, 464n35
265, 485–86n166, 489n264, 489– United States: automotive industry as
90n267 compared with that of Germany, 271
546 Index

U.S. Air Force: and air warfare in the sophistication, 49–50; the Royal
Vietnam War, 164, 351–53, 359–60; Navy’s position on, 194–95. See also
barriers to change in, 370–72; battle Defense Department (U.S.); deter-
network as employed by, 409; and rence strategies; First Gulf War;
beyond-visual-range engagements, precision-warfare regime, mature;
39–40, 378–79, 391, 392, 409; buildup U.S. Air Force; U.S. Navy; Vietnam
of, under Reagan, 376–78; China’s War; World War I; World War II
PLA Air Force as rival of, 421; U.S. Navy, 18, 192; aircraft carriers built
Creech’s vision for, 402–3, 374–76; by, 312–13, 414; and aircraft carrier
and disruptive innovation, 422; and force, 296–97, 315–16, 319–25, 326–
First Experimental Guided Missiles 27, 337–39, 405, 409, 415, 417, 419;
Group, 347; first-move advantage as aircraft bombing tactics used by, 310–
pursued by, 417; focus of training in, 11, 336; aircraft factory built by, 329,
349–50; guided weapons as employed 330; and assessment of aviation’s role
by, 393–9, 397, 409; jammers as em- in wartime, 336–37; aviation’s poten-
ployed by, 377; laser-guided bombs tial as part of, 297–99, 303–5, 315–16,
developed by, 354–56; Maverick de- 317, 320–25, 414; aviation budget for,
veloped by, 356–57; measures of ef- 327–32; and aviator recruitment and
fectiveness for, 409–10; in the nuclear training, 332–35; battleships of, 30,
age, 348–49, 350–51; Pave Strike pro- 212, 296, 340–41; carrier task force as
gram, 377; pilot training for, 358–60, used by, 407; combat aircraft devel-
363–66, 374–76, 399; precision- oped by, 331; and constraints im-
guided munitions as employed by, posed by the Washington Naval
409; under Reagan, 376–78; Red Flag Treaty, 303, 312, 314–15, 413, 421;
exercises conducted by, 364–66, 374– debate surrounding aviation’s role in,
75, 376, 410, 411; resistance to 298–303, 321, 323–25; dive-bombers
change within, 384–86; successes of, as employed by, 310–11, 315, 317,
against Iraq, 343; suppression of 321, 335–36, 338; fleet problems con-
enemy defenses as goal of, 372, 373, ducted by, 307–11, 410–11; Fleet
376, 395, 402–3, 407; swarm technol- Problem I, 308; Fleet Problem V,
ogy as used by, 94; technological ad- 308; Fleet Problem VI, 309; Fleet
vances as critical for, 405; three Problem VII, 310; Fleet Problem IX,
commands of, 348–49. See also air 316–17, 318, 411; Fleet Problem X,
warfare; First Gulf War; stealth 317–19; Fleet Problem XI, 318–19;
aircraft Fleet Problem XII, 319; Fleet
U.S. Army Air Corps: and success rate Problem XIII, 320–21; Fleet Problem
of bombers during World War II, XIV, 321–22; Fleet Problem XVIII,
342–43 323–24; Fleet Problem XIX, 324–25;
U.S. Army Air Force: during World War flying-deck cruiser proposed for,
II, 292, 423–24 313–14; Laser Weapon System of,
U.S. military: assessment of, in relation 137; measures of effectiveness for,
to rival militaries, 429–30, 442–43; 408–9; and Operation Linebacker,
dominance of, 17–19, 194; response 359–60; pilots needed for, 332–35;
of, to China’s growing military pilot training developed by, 357–58,
 Index 547

359, 360; radar as employed by, 325– Vitgeft, Wilgelm, 224

26; scouting as crucial for, 423; Vogt, John W., 370
second-move advantage as used by, Volckheim, Ernst, 261
416–17; shipbuilding priorities of, Voltaire, 21
328–29, 504n169; Sidewinder missiles
as employed by, 351; speed and ca- Waffenamt, 269
pacity for aircraft carriers as priority Wagner, Frank C., 310–11, 499n50
for, 422; swarm technology as em- Walker, Baldwin, 170
ployed by, 93–94; 3D printing as used Walker, John Brisben, 141
by, 110; torpedo bombers as part of, Walleye guided bomb: as employed in
304, 311, 317–18; and vulnerability to the Vietnam War, 354
hypersonic weapons, 127; and war war: and the challenge of deterrence in
gaming of naval aviation, 304–5; dur- the modern era, 141–42, 154–59; do-
ing World War II, 296–97. See also mains for, 456n37; in a shifting geo-
Bureau of Aeronautics political environment, 145–46, 159.
U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School, 358 See also Cold War; deterrence strate-
U.S. Special Operations Forces: in gies; First Gulf War; Vietnam War;
Afghanistan after 9/11, 51 World War I; World War II
Udet, Ernst, 266–67 Warden, John A., III, 386, 387–88, 389,
Ultimatum Game, 157–58 395, 512n156
ULTRA, 36 warfare: disruptive shifts in, 3, 6, 9, 12–
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), 9, 96 13, 22, 294–95; domain expansion of,
unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), 41, 68, 150–52; general trends in, 5,
96 41–42, 84; growing speed as trend in,
149–50, 152; railroads as factor in, 24,
Vauban, Sébastien Le Prestre de, 26 27; wireless communication as used
Versailles Treaty: constraints imposed by, in, 31–32, 33, 208–10. See also air war-
255, 258, 262, 264, 268–69, 273, 293, fare; Fisher Revolution; Fisher’s
413, 421–22; Hitler’s defiance of, 257, Scheme; Iron and Steam Revolution;
268, 269, 277 Mechanization, Aviation, and Radar
Victoria, Queen: diamond jubilee cele- Revolution; Precision-Warfare
bration honoring, 166–67 Revolution; Railroad, Rifle, and
Vietnamese People’s Air Force (VPAF): Telegraph Revolution
and the U.S. Air Force, 351, 352 Warfighter Conference, 373–74, 375
Vietnam War: air warfare in, 164, 349– Warner, E. P., 302
53, 359–60; anti-aircraft artillery as war plans: Beresford’s objections to, 229;
employed in, 352, 359; guided weap- developed for the Royal Navy, 227–32
ons as employed in, 352–57, 411; Warrior (British ironclad), 170
MiG fighters as employed in, 351; Tet warships: oil-powered, 214–15; refueling
Offensive during, 68 of, 501n113; steam-powered, 169;
Vinson, Carl: as chairman of the House technological advances in, 169–71. See
Naval Affairs Committee, 305–6, also aircraft carriers; battle cruisers;
313–14, 338–39, 422 ironclad warships; Royal Navy; stealth
Vinson-Trammell Act (1934), 331 warships; submarines; U.S. Navy
548 Index

Washington, George, 197 submarines, 244–45; and Fisher’s re-

Washington Naval Treaty (1922), 311– forms, 241, 238; on the problem with
15; constraints associated with, 303, submarines, 189; retirement of, 242
312, 314–15, 413; and carrier tonnage Wilson, Heather, 78
allotted to the major naval powers, wireless communication: as aspect of
311–13, 315 Fisher’s Scheme, 208–10; as em-
Wasp (aircraft carrier), 414, 503n159 ployed in warfare, 31–32, 33
Wass de Czege, Huba, 519n16 Work, Robert, 114
Watson (IBM supercomputer): as em- World War I: armistice following, 254–
ployed in military logistics, 103 55; battle cruisers as employed in,
Watts, Barry, 440–41, 514n181 250–51; Churchill’s speculation re-
weapons. See autonomous weapons; bio- garding, 259; cryptography as used in,
logical weapons; hypersonic weapons; 32; distant blockade as used in, 249–
guided weapons; nuclear weapons 50; firepower during, 26–27, 33–34;
Wehrmacht: Allies’ response to, 285–86; horizontal escalation as used in, 66;
air offensive launched by, 288; naval aircraft during, 299; radio com-
Austrian army’s integration into, 272; munications as used in, 33–34; the
casualties suffered by, 291; Hitler’s in- Railroad, Rifle, and Telegraph
volvement with, 286; and invasion of Revolution during, 26–27; Royal
Russia, 420; mechanization under, Navy’s preparation for, 247–48; sub-
271–72, 273–76, 277, 278; and plans marines as employed in, 248–49;
for the campaign in the west (Plan tanks as employed in, 33–34, 256,
Yellow), 285–87, 294. See also air-land 257, 259; trench warfare during, 33,
warfare; German military; panzers 255
Weinberger, Caspar, 71, 142, 518n4 World War II: aircraft carriers as used in,
Welch, Larry D., 374, 375 296–97, 337–39; ballistic missiles em-
Wells, Roger, 363 ployed in, 35; battleships employed
Western Pacific Theater of Operations in, 340–41, 419; bomber offensives in,
(WPTO), 434, 439; Archipelagic 342–43; defense of the Philippines,
Defense of, 435–36; operational con- 69; early days of, 285–92; German
cept for, 435–36; as zone of conflict in advantages in, 287–88; and German
the twenty-first century, 50–51 attack through the Ardennes Forest,
Wever, Walther, 266, 282, 492n42 286–87; and German offensive in the
Whitehead, Robert, 136, 172 west, 285–87; Germany’s invasion
Wilbur, Curtis D., 334 of Poland, 284–85, 331; horizontal
Wild Weasel aircraft, 377, 507n38; as escalation as used in, 66; panzers em-
employed in the First Gulf War, 390; ployed in, 288–90, 291; and scouting
as employed in the Vietnam War, in the Pacific War, 423; tank forces
352–53 employed in, 287; as test of carrier
Wiley, Henry V., 317 aviation, 337–39
Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 195–96, 244 Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, 355
Wilson, Arthur, 186, 226, 230, 231, 232,
235, 239, 488n240; as advocate for X-37B space plane, 78, 82, 126
 Index 549

Yamato (Japanese battleship), 341 361, 362; surface-to-air missiles as

Yarnell, Harry, 315, 320–21, 336 employed in, 361, 362
Yellow Sea, Battle of the, 224, Yorktown (aircraft carrier), 320, 322, 326,
225 327, 328, 414
Yom Kippur War (1973), 8, 388,
515n197; anti-aircraft artillery as em- zones of conflict: in the modern world,
ployed in, 361, 362; MiGs as used in, 50–52