I find many of your commentators to be themselves terrifically knowledgeable about various of your subjects. My own personal field was in no way related to the practicalities of warfare so I am unable to comment intelligently except to offer praise to you and your various commentators.
Wooden drones... yeah, Australia is *definitely* gonna win the next world war.
Not even being the slightest bit sarcastic. Just wait until insurgents everywhere work out how to build these from kits. Talk about the democratization of warfare! Then throw in the ability to quietly loiter somewhere until a target coordinate makes it through jamming...
The cost/benefit on wooden drones compared to F-35s has got to be astounding for most jobs.
These cardboard drones, held together with rubber bands (!), have got me terrified. They're immensely useful in Ukraine, but, as you say, terrorists can shut down every means of transportation with these (so far) undetectable drones.
At US$80 million for an F-35 and way, way less for a cardboard drone, suddenly an F-35 is a vulnerability, not an asset.
On a more serious note, I have started to wonder how the US Secret Service can ever begin to cope with this threat. Is every political rally going to be accompanied with local area jamming? How far away can a drone pick a face out of a crowd before diving in for the kill?
And it isn't as if any government will ever be able to regulate all the relevant technologies. There will just have to be drones on duty to detect and neutralize other drones, I guess.
Nightmare scenario. I'd leap past jamming electronics into some way to turn off motors. Or, maybe a focused EMP to burn out everything, if that's possible.
But, as we're seeing Kyiv, it's debris falling that's now killing people.
Mick, thank you once again for such a highly analytical and well presented argument in one aspect of adaptation and learning. It is really fascinating to observe the intersection of Clausewitz’s “war as politics by other means” with technology and innovation 200 years later. If one could draw a ven diagram of tech, innovation, necessity to minimize causalities, maximize available resources, political goals the intersection of those is where AFU lives and operates today. Your thinking and articulation needs to be high priority course work for all military officers and NCOs going forward regardless of their role.
And yet again, Sir, outstanding.
I find many of your commentators to be themselves terrifically knowledgeable about various of your subjects. My own personal field was in no way related to the practicalities of warfare so I am unable to comment intelligently except to offer praise to you and your various commentators.
Good on all of you!
Thank you!
Wooden drones... yeah, Australia is *definitely* gonna win the next world war.
Not even being the slightest bit sarcastic. Just wait until insurgents everywhere work out how to build these from kits. Talk about the democratization of warfare! Then throw in the ability to quietly loiter somewhere until a target coordinate makes it through jamming...
The cost/benefit on wooden drones compared to F-35s has got to be astounding for most jobs.
These cardboard drones, held together with rubber bands (!), have got me terrified. They're immensely useful in Ukraine, but, as you say, terrorists can shut down every means of transportation with these (so far) undetectable drones.
At US$80 million for an F-35 and way, way less for a cardboard drone, suddenly an F-35 is a vulnerability, not an asset.
Yup. Exactly. Nerds win again!
On a more serious note, I have started to wonder how the US Secret Service can ever begin to cope with this threat. Is every political rally going to be accompanied with local area jamming? How far away can a drone pick a face out of a crowd before diving in for the kill?
And it isn't as if any government will ever be able to regulate all the relevant technologies. There will just have to be drones on duty to detect and neutralize other drones, I guess.
Nightmare scenario. I'd leap past jamming electronics into some way to turn off motors. Or, maybe a focused EMP to burn out everything, if that's possible.
But, as we're seeing Kyiv, it's debris falling that's now killing people.
Mick, thank you once again for such a highly analytical and well presented argument in one aspect of adaptation and learning. It is really fascinating to observe the intersection of Clausewitz’s “war as politics by other means” with technology and innovation 200 years later. If one could draw a ven diagram of tech, innovation, necessity to minimize causalities, maximize available resources, political goals the intersection of those is where AFU lives and operates today. Your thinking and articulation needs to be high priority course work for all military officers and NCOs going forward regardless of their role.
Btw. congratulations on your fine piece "How Ukraine Can Win a Long War The West Needs a Strategy for After the Counteroffensive" in Foreign Affairs.