"The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation."

Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

I think the military science fiction milieu provides a great tool for forecasting and predicting possible conflict futures.

It may be yet another tool to take this magnificent US 20th century fighting machine and make it a peer combat competitor in the 21st century.

Speculative fiction provides a means to extrapolate what possible war futures are peering over the horizon.

Books:

Military Fiction

Eric Frank Russell The Wasp

Karl Marlantes Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

James Jones From Here to Eternity

James Gould Cozzens Guard of Honor

Anton Myrer Once an Eagle

Paul Avallone Tattoo Zoo

Military Science Fiction

Michael Z. Williamson The Weapon (Freehold Series)

Joe Haldeman The Forever War (The Forever War Series)

Robert A. Heinlein Starship Troopers

Kali Altsoba Invasion!: The Orion War

Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven Legacy of Beowulf

Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven Footfall

Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling West of Honor (CoDominium Future History Book 1)

Craig Dilouie Tooth and Nail

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

A continued discussion of the NATO debacle.

It is time for America to completely reassess alliances and partnership around the world starting with NATO and then working its way down the list of useless and toxic relationships and promises to commit American blood and treasure to flashpoints planet-wide. The sheer insanity of EU/SSR behavior and the total inadequacy of NATO as a military organization across the entire martial spectrum.

NATO insisted after the wall 1989-91 fell that the NATO blob would NOT expand eastward.

It did.

America should take a non-interventionist pause and get its internal house in order before standing astride the world again and lighting fires that never go away and continuously make things worse.

Stop the madness.

First part here: Ep 009 "Fixing Fight Club: Just Say No to NATO: Part One"

References:

Winning The Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air And Missile Defenses

The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of Age

Nyet Means Nyet (William Burns 2008)

Pat Buchanan Where Does NATO Enlargement End?

DoS Cable: NATO ENLARGEMENT: RUSSIAN ASSERTIONS REGARDING THE TWO-PLUS-FOUR AGREEMENT ON GERMAN UNIFICATION

Navy Matters Get the US Out of NATO

Books:

Edward Bernays Propaganda

Sevim Dagdelen NATO: A Reckoning with the Atlantic Alliance

Matt Kennard The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire

Daniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

Scott Horton Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine

Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the Game

Mark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark Winning the Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air and Missile Defense

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

This episode examines what private military companies and campaigns look like.

I discuss traditional and emerging trends in private military warfare which tends to still take place in nation-state warfare. While combat support and combat service support billets have been filled with private military entities for all know history, the emergence of larger and larger forces of private kinetic and trigger puller entities has gotten larger over time.

References:

'The last supper': How a 1993 Pentagon dinner reshaped the defense industry...

Erik Prince at Hillsdale: "The Future of Dynamic Warfare"

Sean McFate Mercenaries and War: Understanding Private Armies Today

The mercenary boom: How private military contractors are redefining modern warfare

International Stability Operations Association

Eeben Barlow Executive Outcomes: Against all Odds

Al J. Venter War Dog: Fighting Other People's Wars

***

HR Kedward In Search of the Maquis: Rural Resistance in Southern France, 1942-1944

George Millar Maquis: An Englishman in the French Resistance

Ian Wellsted SAS with the Maquis: In Action with the French Resistance, June–September 1944

Stephen Biddle Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords, and Militias

Anyone attending the Special Operations Forces Week festivities in Tampa on 5-8 May 2025?

If so, we should arrange a rendezvous.

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

I am taking a brief pause to reassess and re-calibrate the direction of my two podcasts.

Take the time to do the same.

Despite what you may think, the US conventional forces are in terminal collapse and completely unprepared for 21st century peer conflict.

Keep reading, taking care of your family and friends and always question both authority and obedience.

References:

Sun Tzu The Art of War

Carl von Clausewitz On War

Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

The age of the infantry is over after a thousands-year long reign in human warfare and conflict.

The next 75 years in the 21st century will put paid to an august and enduring institution in human conflict.

The combination of salvo competition, reduced costs of combat UAS munitions, targeting of exquisite platforms, intelligence/reconnaissance/surveillance (ISR) ubiquity, and anti-fragility/fragility are some of the factors informing this demise.

There is no longer near peer competition and there is only peer competition, you will never hear me utter the former phase again. A hybrid of technology and the nature of sensor & effector synchronization has driven cost and opportunity so far down, it is now a rational calculation to destroy individual infantrymen and small units in detail.

For the first time in conflict history, the infantry on the battlefield will be targeted in a cost-effective fashion that will annihilate them on any field they step on in any climate at any time on the planet. The difference now is that wholesale elimination of infantry forces is nearly available to every combatant force on Earth.

And it will simply become more refined and deadly with time.

It's time for some severe self-reflection and reassessment to question the efficacy and utility of the infantry mode of combat. This Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) needs to be faced immediately.

This is an existential crisis for combat arms in the West.

Tick tock.

***

Please take the time to listen to my twelve-part series, Fixing Fight Club, here at WarNotes.

Despite what you may think, the US conventional forces are in terminal collapse and completely unprepared for 21st century peer conflict.

References:

The Infantry Rifle and Platoon Squad: The Official U.S. Army Field Manual FM 3-21.8 (FM 7-8), 28 March 2007

Ranger Handbook: TC 3-21.76, April 2017 Edition

Erwin Rommel Infantry Attack

Siegfried Sassoon Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

Paul Avallone Tattoo Zoo: A Novel of the Afghan War

Karl Marlantes Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

Carl von Clausewitz On War

Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

After nearly twelve hours of a blistering and unapologetic critique of the American military, I wanted to post a conclusion where I can tie a bow on the jeremiad and offer some cogent and abbreviated recommendations on the road forward.

In this new venture, I wanted to expand my portfolio of investigation and elucidation on war in the broader scope. I wanted to leave the more arcane and less well-known milieu of the other warfare to examine conventional war and the emerging tableau of near-peer and peer fighting that I am dead certain will raise its bloody hand in this century because humans simply can't help themselves.

I think theWarNotes series has been a comprehensive survey of how to fix the broken, shattered and most expensive paper tiger in the history of the world, the US military complex.

I have purposely not done an episode on either Space Force or the special operations forces complex in the US and allied armories that is near and dear to my heart; there is plenty of other larger items to attend to for now.

I have painted a dim and shabby picture of the state of American and western arms in this series and taken a deep dive in the succeeding episodes of what America can do to create a more effective military in the remainder o the 21st century; maybe the defense intellectuals and personnel at the Pentagon and the halls of western military power can pause to reassess, re-frame and find a more realistic means to exercise martial power.

Despite what you may think, the US conventional forces are in terminal collapse and completely unprepared for 21st century peer conflict.

I'll offer some more recommendations and a path forward.

References:

Sun Tzu The Art of War

Carl von Clausewitz On War

Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

The US Air Force is at a turning point in 21st century warfare and in danger of whistling past the graveyard if they fail to take notice and action on the emerging Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMA).

The era of manned combat aircraft is coming to a close.

The era of manned bombers with gravity bombs is over.

The era of fixed site nuclear missiles is in great peril.

The era of hyper-velocity missiles whether high parabola of IRBM/ICBM or Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) glide vehicles.

If the pilot mafia doesn't do something about what is coming, the result will be cataclysmic.

The Pentagon will not do the right thing, regretfully.

References:

A Concise History of the U.S. Air Force

Jeffrey J. Smith Tomorrow's Air Force: Tracing the Past, Shaping the Future

David Hambling Swarm Troopers: How Small Drones Will Conquer the World

Garrett Graff Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us Die

Paul Ozorak Underground Structures of the Cold War: The World Below

Daniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the Game

Mark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark Winning the Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air and Missile Defense

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition and missiles will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the US Navy is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces go toe toe with regional hegemons in the East or West.

Let’s anticipate the disasters now that are the Spanish in the English Channel in 1588, the British Royal Navy at Jutland in 1916, and the discovery in WWII all these battleships were not really capital ships, or had adequate armaments, yet their political dimensions compel not only their continuous construction but are the most devastating when lost.

The aircraft carrier has been a signature component of US naval power and prestige for more than a century. The utility has continued to diminish since the end of WWII. The tremendous disadvantage of putting so much manpower and treasure into these single use leviathan systems in the modern world of distributed missile and PGM systems, emerging near-peer & peer adversaries and concentration of power in vulnerable systems is a recipe for future disaster.

The US Navy surface fleet is in tatters and shattered by readiness, maintenance and armament issues that are critical indicators of a navy totally unprepared.

More on the carrier dilemma in Chasing Ghosts Episode #034 and Dispatch #006.

References:

Gregory Vistica Fall from Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy

Michael Junge Crimes of Command: in the United States Navy, 1945-2015

Gerry Doyle Carrier Killer: China's Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in the early 21st Century

David Lee Russell Early U.S. Navy Carrier Raids, February-April 1942: Five Operations That Tested a New Dimension of American Air Power

Jeff Vandenengel Questioning the Carrier: Opportunities in Fleet Design for the U.S. Navy

Jeff Vandenengel interview on Midrats with CDR Salamander

Ivan Gogin Fighting ships of the PEOPLE LIBERATION ARMY NAVY 1949 - 2023

Jerry Hendrix Retreat From Range: The Rise and Fall of Carrier Aviation

My Substack

Write me at [email protected]

***Just discovered there was an another audio synchronization problem that truncated from 59:00 to 50:00; it is now fixed.***

It is time for America to completely reassess alliances and partnership around the world starting with NATO and then working its way down the list of useless and toxic relationships and promises to commit American blood and treasure to flashpoints planet-wide.

NATO insisted after the wall 1989-91 fell that the NATO blob would NOT expand eastward.

It did.

America should take a non-interventionist pause and get its internal house in order before standing astride the world again and lighting fires that never go away and continuously make things worse.

Stop the madness.

References:

Winning The Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air And Missile Defenses

The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of Age

Nyet Means Nyet (William Burns 2008)

Pat Buchanan Where Does NATO Enlargement End?

DoS Cable: NATO ENLARGEMENT: RUSSIAN ASSERTIONS REGARDING THE TWO-PLUS-FOUR AGREEMENT ON GERMAN UNIFICATION

Navy Matters Get the US Out of NATO

Books:

Sevim Dagdelen NATO: A Reckoning with the Atlantic Alliance

Matt Kennard The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire

Daniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

Scott Horton Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine

Nassim Taleb Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, Skin in the Game

Mark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark Winning the Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air and Missile Defense

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

My Substack

Email at [email protected]

***Just discovered there was an audio synchronization problem that truncated from 1:11 to 0:50; it is now fixed.***

I take the time to discuss some of the conventional ramifications of modern warfare and book & article recommendations that have given me a deeper and more nuanced understanding of why wars begin and end as they do.

Robotics, autonomous targeting and hyper-velocity munitions are democratizing the battle field in a way heretofore unimagined. Drones are the new "low tech" answer to the First World's exquisite military platform that are over priced and have the same provenance of battleships planet-wide in January 1942.

The electronic emissions environment in future conflicts will be a two-way street that will put any active acquisition sensors and attached effectors in the hazard if they emit and remain in one place.

Autonomous targeting will become more and more relevant as the speed of munitions increases and the salvo competition costs are driven down.

Hyper-velocity munitions are here to stay.

The US Army and all land forces in the allied nations in the first world are in for a dramatic wake-up call.

The life of the light infantryman will change significantly since for the first time in human history, the cost of hunting individual soldiers and small groups of soldiers in an effective fashion has reached a cost in concert with technology.

"Quantity has a quality all of its own." - Thomas A. Callaghan Jr.

** I cover these issues in detail on my Chasing Ghosts podcast in Episodes 19, 24, 33-34, 47-48 and 53-54. **

References:

The 2024 Army Force Structure Transformation Initiative (CRS)

A Retrospective on RMA, 2000-2020.

The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of Age

Army Futures Command Concept for Fires 2028

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Lester Grau & Charles K. Bartles The Russian Way of War: Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Ground Forces

Georgii Samoilovich Isserson G.S. Isserson and the War of the Future: Key Writings of a Soviet Military Theorist

Sun Tzu The Art of War

Carl von Clausewitz On War

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America

My Substack

Email at [email protected].