'People, ideas, machines' IV: The Kill Chain

Innovation & procurement... Why Pentagon/MoD are high-friction-high-latency-low-performance?... RMA/'military-technical revolution'... Why successes get cancelled... A2/AD... Russia... China...

‘People, ideas, machines — in that order!’ What Colonel Boyd shouted in the Pentagon for years…

Introduction

Below are notes on The Kill Chain (TKC) and some comments on similar issues re Whitehall. This book was read by me and others involved in the Integrated Review in 2020.

Previous in this series:

• (I) Rosen’s book on: what causes military innovation, how does it really work?

• Previous on nuclear, (II) here and (III) here (incomplete).

Two charts illustrate very deep long-term problems in military organisations, thinking and procurement — and an inability of the political parties nominally in charge of these bureaucracies to change direction — in America, UK and the EU.

Building has got incredibly slow

Building has got incredibly expensive

Bombers were similar but have started coming off this curve

Obviously we cannot stay on these exponential curves. Ludicrous as Pentagon and MoD procurement have been for decades, they can’t aim for a single trillion dollar plane taking 50 years to build...

• How will we jump off?

• What will we do instead?