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Exploring changes in the practice of war while the fundamental nature and principles of war are unchanging. Includes mercenaries, PMSC, Hybrid Warfare, revolution in military affairs. For in-depth information see my blog at blog.ctmayer.net
Episodes
Wednesday Feb 04, 2026
Wednesday Feb 04, 2026
The inevitable never happens. It is the unexpected always.
-- J.M. Keynes 1938
Almost everyone plays with predicting the future. Persons who speak with presumed authority and say that some outlandish thing is inevitable often get a lot of media attention. The more media attention, the more people come to think that the outlandish thing really is inevitable. In warfare, I have lived through the inevitability of guerilla warfare as the model for all future warfare; the inevitable demise armored warfare, the transformation of maneuver warfare; counter-insurgency warfare as the inevitable future war form; and more recently, that drones will so dominate the battlefield, that all previous forms of warfighting will be obsolete. In my opinion, inevitability has a rather bad track record. From time to time in these podcasts, I will revisit some of these predictions and see which of these were inevitable and which were overcome by reality.
The information in these podcasts is solely my own opinion and do not represent the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, or any other organization I am or have ever been associated with.
Certified 100% natural intelligence. No artificial intelligence was used in making this podcast.
References:
- Pournelle, J., The Mercenary, (1977, republished 1986, ISBN 9780671655945)
- Recompiled with other works of the series and published as:
- Pournelle, J. and Stirling, M., The Prince (2002) (ISBN 0-7434-3556-7)
- Heinlein, R., Starship Troopers, (1959) ISBN 978-0450044496
Music: Kiilstofte, P. Mercenaries, Machinamasound (Licensed)
3 months ago
This is one of those areas where I may be too close to things. The US military has been working on and with drones and counter-drone technology since the late 1990’s. I remember even then being shown palm sized reconnaissance drones and working with others about drone swarms and counter-drone technology and tactics. Then, of course, there has been our own use or misuse of drones in Afghanistan and elsewhere. So what I see in Ukraine is evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, combined with inherent weaknesses of the Russian armed forces. Remember that the situation there became static/WW1 style warfare even before drones became ubiquitous. Drones, like early tanks in WW1, were thought to be able to break the trench war stalemate. Also like the tanks in WW1, they have had real combat effectiveness, but have not managed to break the stalemate. I do not insist that drones might not become a key enabler of a revolution in military affairs, but like balloons in the Civil War and tanks and airplanes in WW1, it just isn’t revolutionary...YET. What really scares me is the inevitable advent of AI. Stand by for a future podcast on that! BTW: Making boots on the ground anachronistic has been the drum beat of the US Air Force and the RAF since Billy Mitchell and ”Bomber” Harris.
3 months ago
At the level of warfare in Ukraine, no one can seriously claim drones have NOT revolutionized warfare. Maybe the USA has immunized itself for the moment (by throwing throwing lots & lots & LOTS of money at the problem) so that we can counter the robots enough to stick with the 20th century style of warfare that we’ve perfected. Maybe the need for boots-on-the-ground & swabbies on the decks is kind of a quaint anachronism...