The Big Five - 3 May edition
A weekly guide to new readings on modern war and adapting to win
In this week’s Big Five, I have included a variety of pieces.
There is an excellent article from Sir Lawrence Freedman who explores why we ignore tactical excellence at our peril. There is also a good examination of the U.S. administration’s options to tackle China over its large scale provision of dual use technologies to Russia over the past two years.
I have also included a couple of interesting articles about technology, and how these might have an impact on the future of warfare.
As always, if you only have time to read one article, the first one is my pick of the week.
1. Why Tactics Matters
The latest piece from Sir Lawrence Freedman’s excellent substack, Comment is Freed, examines the importance of tactical excellent in war. This was a topic I also explored in my book, War Transformed, with the key message being that ‘if you can’t win battles, you have little hope winning a war’. Sir Lawrence echoes this approach when he writes that “there is something a bit precious about the idea of the strategist with his or her long-term vision not getting sullied by the immediate demands of tactics. In practice strategists with extraordinary insights and brilliant, bold visions will achieve little if they are unable to get their organisations to embrace their approach.” An excellent piece, you can read it here.
2. Digital Engineering Weapons More Rapidly
Another great piece from Patrick Tucker at DefenseOne exploring technologies which are likley to have a major impact on the future of warfare. This time, it isn’t a battlefield technology but something potentially even more vital - digital engineering. Essentially, this is about automating more elements of the engineering process in the production of weapons as well as other defence materiel, speeding up the entire process. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out. You can read the article here.
3. Interesting Times for AUKUS Technology Sharing
Recently, the U.S. State Department declined to certify that Australian and the United Kingdom possessed comparable arms control practices. This meant that the two nations are not currently eligible for some key defense trade exemptions. The most importance of these exemptions relate to the AUKUS Pillar One future nuclear submarine project but it may have implications for Pillar Two projects as well. While it is early days, the AUKUS project clearly is in for some rough waters ahead. Read the full article here.
4. Nuclear Weapons and AI Might Be a Bad Combination
I found this to be a fascinating piece. In essence, it suggests placing limits on the application of AI in military institutions, and that the highest stakes decisions, and nothing is more high stakes than the decision to use nuclear weapons, should be made by humans. As the authors note: "LLMs can be useful, but their actions are also difficult to predict, and they can make dangerous, escalatory calls. The military must therefore place limits on these technologies when they are used to make high-stakes decisions, particularly in combat situations." You can read the full article here.
5. U.S. Options to Deter Chinese Assistance to Russia
A couple of years ago, the current U.S. administration warned the Chinese not to assist the Russians in their brutal invasion of Ukraine. Two years on, it appears that the Chinese have significantly stepped up the provision of dual use technology to Russia. In this piece, the author examines the options open to the current President of the United States to deter Chinese assistance to Russia, noting the Obama administrations failure to enforce its red lines over Syrian chemical weapons use. You can read the article here.