Notes

Anything you can do. How important is innovation to winning wars? Matthew A. Tattar, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College, thinks it’s less important than conventional wisdom would have it. To win wars, military leaders often think they have to innovate as early as possible once the fighting starts—and as often as possible as it progresses. This idea is reflected, for example, in many of the breathless reports from the battlefields of Ukraine on the race for the latest drone technology. Tech, of course, is crucial in combat. But in Innovation and Adaptation in War, Tattar makes the case that militaries imitate and learn to counter new technology so swiftly that the benefits of being the first to have it evaporate before long. By now, for instance, both Ukraine and Russia have drones—and both sides know how to counter them. Adapting, not innovating, is what matters most. … See Michael Bluhm, “Welcome to the machine.”

—Gustav Jönsson