Liberal Arts Blog — “The Coming Revolution In Military Tech” (WSJ)
Liberal Arts Blog — Wednesday is the Joy of Science, Engineering, and Technology Day
Today’s Topic — “The Coming Revolution in Military Tech” (WSJ)
What do you know about changes in military technology that the rest of us probably don’t but perhaps should? Today, excerpts from an interview in the Wall Street Journal with the President and chief strategy officer of Anduril Systems, Dr. Christian Brose.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
“AMERICANS CHEERED EARLIER THIS SUMMER WHEN UKRAINE MANAGED TO SNEAK INEXPENSIVE DRONES DEEP INTO RUSSIA AND USE THEM TO DESTROY STRATEGIC BOMBERS.”
1. “Likewise when Israel began its campaign against Iran by taking out air defenses against drones.”
2. “New technology is changing the geometry of the battlefield, which gives a leg up for lesser powers — which could also pose threats to the U.S.”
3. “Is America prepared for the new way of war?”
NB: “At every level, I think, our conception of military power and the industrial base that we’ve been optimizing to build it, is just systematically wrong.”
“CHINA IS UNDERTAKING THE WORLD’S MOST SIGNIFICANT MILITARY BUILDUP SINCE WORLD WAR II, PRINCIPALLY SEEKING THE ABILITY TO DEFEAT US FORCES.”
1. “American defense spending. is stuck at a historic low of 3% of gross domestic product — proof that free societies struggle to prepare for threats that aren’t immediate.”
2. “America needs military power that is “mass-producible, that is adaptable, that is scalable and that is fundamentally replaceable when, God forbid, the war doesn’t end in the first 100 hours or the first month, but drags on for months and years.”
3. What should US military spending as a percentage of GDP be? why? Whose opinion would you trust? why?
“CONSIDER THE FIGHTER JET” — is there the remotest chance that the average citizen can keep up with the pace of military technological change?
1. “Each new generation of planes is more expensive than the last, and ‘we have fewer of them.’ Mr. Brose says.”
2. “He cracks the old joke that in the future ‘we will have precisely one airplane, and all the military services will take turns using it.’”
3. “The US still needs bombers and fighter jets. But, boy, do we need to augment that with this additional set of capabilities.”
NB: “American destroyers spent months using million-dollar missiles to swat down cheap drones from Houthi terrorists. It was the world’s most expensive game of whack-a-mole, with the US “on the wrong side of the cost-exchange ratio.”
“Mr. Brose suggests he ‘cold come up with 25 programs’ across the force ‘that can and should exist today, that are not limited because of money, that are not limited because of technology.’” and that don’t require a new Pentagon procurement process. “It’s fundamentally imagination and will.”
Opinion | Christian Brose on the Coming Revolution in Military Tech
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
A LINK TO THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED BY THEME:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENT BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to science, engineering, or technology.
Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in your life related to science and engineering.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or to cement in your mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.
