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The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare
For generations of Americans, our country has been the world's dominant military power. How the US military fights, and the systems and weapons that it fights with, have been uncontested. That old reality, however, is rapidly deteriorating. America's traditional sources of power are eroding amid the emergence of new technologies and the growing military threat posed by rivals such as China. America is at grave risk of losing a future war.
As Christian Brose reveals in this urgent wake-up call, the future will be defined by artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and other emerging technologies that are revolutionizing global industries and are now poised to overturn the model of American defense. This fascinating, if disturbing, book confronts the existential risks on the horizon, charting a way for America's military to adapt and succeed with new thinking as well as new technology. America must build a battle network of systems that enables people to rapidly understand threats, make decisions, and take military actions, the process known as "the kill chain." Examining threats from China, Russia, and elsewhere, The Kill Chain offers hope and, ultimately, insights on how America can apply advanced technologies to prevent war, deter aggression, and maintain peace
As Christian Brose reveals in this urgent wake-up call, the future will be defined by artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and other emerging technologies that are revolutionizing global industries and are now poised to overturn the model of American defense. This fascinating, if disturbing, book confronts the existential risks on the horizon, charting a way for America's military to adapt and succeed with new thinking as well as new technology. America must build a battle network of systems that enables people to rapidly understand threats, make decisions, and take military actions, the process known as "the kill chain." Examining threats from China, Russia, and elsewhere, The Kill Chain offers hope and, ultimately, insights on how America can apply advanced technologies to prevent war, deter aggression, and maintain peace
287 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 21, 2020
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June 26, 2022
“The kill chain is a term that nearly everyone in the US military knows but few outside the military have ever heard of. It is, at the deepest level, what militaries do and have always done throughout the history of warfare. The kill chain is a process that occurs on the battlefield or wherever militaries compete. It involves three steps: The first is gaining understanding about what is happening. The second is making a decision about what to do. And the third is taking action that creates an effect to achieve an objective. And though that may involve killing, more often the result is all kinds of non-violent and non-lethal actions that are essential to prevailing in war or military contests short of war…”
- Christian Brose, The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare
In the introduction to The Kill Chain, author Christian Brose – a former policy advisor to the late Senator John McCain, now with the Aspen Institute – paints a terrifying picture of a war between the United States and China. Though he is vague about the context, he is detailed about the particulars, listing all the ways that America’s hugely expensive military would be dismantled.
Cyberattacks would cripple logistics, making it difficult for US forces to mobilize. Communications and global positioning satellites would be jammed, blinded, or blown from orbit. Waves of missiles would plaster Japan and Guam and other forward bases. Marines attempting to make amphibious landings would die offshore, screaming and burning and drowning, as their $3 billion landing ships were Swiss-cheesed. American aircraft carriers, legacy systems costing roughly $13 billion apiece, would be slaughtered by hypersonic missiles. Meanwhile, the hugely expensive F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would never get into the fight at all, because the tankers needed to refuel them would be shot down mercilessly.
Far from the triumphs celebrated in Top Gun: Maverick, the shiny, fully-funded US Navy would be reduced to a smoldering ruin. An American president would then have to decide: surrender and retreat, leaving the Pacific to China, or take things to the next level, escalating to a city-for-city bloodbath with ballistic missiles crisscrossing the heavens.
***
Brose’s scenario operates under a lot of assumptions, one of them being that China’s brand-new systems would work flawlessly in practice, though – as we have seen in the Ukraine – war in practice is different than war in theory. Additionally, his hypothetical ignores any response from America’s $700 billion military, even though any attempt by China to project force via its massive surface fleet would face the same obstacles.
Still, he makes his point.
Anyone who saw the damage done to the USS Cole by two men and a skiff knows that the United States has vulnerabilities. Unlike al-Qaida, however, China has seemingly unlimited resources, and they’re willing to use them to create a dominant military force, one that has been engineered to exploit America’s military forces, mostly comprised of a small number of technologically “superior” and wildly costly platforms.
The Kill Chain is unapologetically a warning, and Brose can be forgiven if he exaggerates some aspects in order to give his ultimate point more impact.
Unfortunately, Brose’s message is obscured by prosaic literary issues encompassing everything from editing to structure to word choice.
***
The framework of The Kill Chain is hard to describe, other than to say Brose does not seem to have thought about it very deeply. The material is packed into a random assortment of chapters that seldom flow together. Some of them discuss Chinese capabilities, while others discuss American weaknesses. There is an entirely unnecessary – and ill-fitting – chapter about the use of lethal autonomous drones, and another, far more instructive chapter on how military budgets work (and how they fail to work effectively).
The most striking thing about The Kill Chain is its repetitiveness. It’s not that Brose says the same thing in different ways, it’s that he often says the same thing in the exact same ways, word-for-word. The roughly 250-pages here could have been halved without losing any substance.
***
I have no doubts that Brose is very good at his current job, and was probably very good at his old one as well. But writing is its own discipline. Being an expert on defense technologies does not necessarily equip you to publish a mainstream book on the subject.
More than anything else, The Kill Chain reads like a dumbed-down position paper. It is a summary filled with buzzwords and jargon – including rampant overuse of the title phrase – but little detail or explanation. Brose bandies his trade terms about with reckless abandon, but they are so imprecisely employed as to be nearly meaningless. When Brose talks about “platforms” or “systems” or “sensors,” he rarely deigns to provide a practical definition or example. That is, he mostly skips any discussion of actual, specific ordinance that he thinks the US needs but doesn’t have, or has but doesn’t need.
In The Kill Chain, abstraction is a feature, not a bug.
***
Relatedly, The Kill Chain suffers from a lack of case studies or real world applications. When Brose attempts to illustrate what he’s saying, the book clicks into place. For instance, Brose convincingly describes the shortcomings of aircraft carriers and the Joint Stars program. At one point, in decrying the lack of artificial intelligence, Brose recalls watching a soldier in a tactical deployment monitoring twelve different instant-messenger conversations, manually pushing intelligence from one group to the next. This kind of scene-setting is memorable, vivid, and readable.
Typically, though, Brose is frustratingly nonconcrete, preferring theoretical references to an undefined “technology” rather than getting into specifics.
***
In keeping with the theme of vagueness-as-a-virtue, Brose’s prescriptions are pretty broad. Instead of a small number of expensive systems, he wants a large number of inexpensive ones. In practice, this means unmanned vehicles, especially drone swarms, which can overwhelm an enemy’s defenses, and are also expendable (or “attritable,” as Brose likes to say). Brose rightly argues for better “networks,” contending that soldiers have smarter technology in their daily lives than at work. He also calls for a ready arsenal of hypersonic missiles.
Getting to this place, Brose concedes, is going to be difficult. There are entrenched interests, a lack of incentives, too few defense companies, a terrible relationship between the military and cutting-edge tech corporations, and a political system that is verging on total collapse (and which has gotten worse since Brose published this in 2020).
***
Despite all the talk of military hardware and software, I’m most impressed with Brose’s recognition that we are already in a changed world, though most Americans have not yet recognized it. This lack of recognition comes from flawed assumptions based on a superficial understanding of two abnormal periods in history.
First, there is China’s “century of humiliation,” stretching from 1839 to 1949. During this period, China was bullied, colonized, and embroiled in bloody civil wars. Because of this, many are conditioned to see China as a victim. As Brose points out, that’s not how they see themselves. China’s history stretches back thousands of years, and during most of those years, they were a formidable force. Xi Jinping isn’t trying to capture the top spot in world affairs, he’s trying to reclaim it. For him, a dominant China represents the natural order.
Second, there is America’s brief, 30-year reign as a hyperpower. Throughout recorded history, the world has been multipolar, with a bunch of strong nations or empires operating in their own spheres, their influence bounded by others. After World War II, the multipolar world became bipolar, with the US and the Soviet Union supreme. When the USSR collapsed, America got to be alone at the top, free to do what it wanted, for better and for worse.
This anomalous window has closed, and we’re back in a multipolar world of a handful of powerful nations, with China the new heavyweight. As Brose points out, there’s nothing that can realistically be done to counter this. Instead, he argues for a new humility, which includes forging better ties with allies, stricter definitions about what constitutes a critical mission, and a focus on national defense, rather than force projection.
Of course, it’s an open question as to whether America’s unstable democracy can maintain national coherence, much less undergo a huge shift in foreign and military policy. By the time we get done fighting each other, the issue may already have been decided for us.
- Christian Brose, The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare
In the introduction to The Kill Chain, author Christian Brose – a former policy advisor to the late Senator John McCain, now with the Aspen Institute – paints a terrifying picture of a war between the United States and China. Though he is vague about the context, he is detailed about the particulars, listing all the ways that America’s hugely expensive military would be dismantled.
Cyberattacks would cripple logistics, making it difficult for US forces to mobilize. Communications and global positioning satellites would be jammed, blinded, or blown from orbit. Waves of missiles would plaster Japan and Guam and other forward bases. Marines attempting to make amphibious landings would die offshore, screaming and burning and drowning, as their $3 billion landing ships were Swiss-cheesed. American aircraft carriers, legacy systems costing roughly $13 billion apiece, would be slaughtered by hypersonic missiles. Meanwhile, the hugely expensive F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would never get into the fight at all, because the tankers needed to refuel them would be shot down mercilessly.
Far from the triumphs celebrated in Top Gun: Maverick, the shiny, fully-funded US Navy would be reduced to a smoldering ruin. An American president would then have to decide: surrender and retreat, leaving the Pacific to China, or take things to the next level, escalating to a city-for-city bloodbath with ballistic missiles crisscrossing the heavens.
***
Brose’s scenario operates under a lot of assumptions, one of them being that China’s brand-new systems would work flawlessly in practice, though – as we have seen in the Ukraine – war in practice is different than war in theory. Additionally, his hypothetical ignores any response from America’s $700 billion military, even though any attempt by China to project force via its massive surface fleet would face the same obstacles.
Still, he makes his point.
Anyone who saw the damage done to the USS Cole by two men and a skiff knows that the United States has vulnerabilities. Unlike al-Qaida, however, China has seemingly unlimited resources, and they’re willing to use them to create a dominant military force, one that has been engineered to exploit America’s military forces, mostly comprised of a small number of technologically “superior” and wildly costly platforms.
The Kill Chain is unapologetically a warning, and Brose can be forgiven if he exaggerates some aspects in order to give his ultimate point more impact.
Unfortunately, Brose’s message is obscured by prosaic literary issues encompassing everything from editing to structure to word choice.
***
The framework of The Kill Chain is hard to describe, other than to say Brose does not seem to have thought about it very deeply. The material is packed into a random assortment of chapters that seldom flow together. Some of them discuss Chinese capabilities, while others discuss American weaknesses. There is an entirely unnecessary – and ill-fitting – chapter about the use of lethal autonomous drones, and another, far more instructive chapter on how military budgets work (and how they fail to work effectively).
The most striking thing about The Kill Chain is its repetitiveness. It’s not that Brose says the same thing in different ways, it’s that he often says the same thing in the exact same ways, word-for-word. The roughly 250-pages here could have been halved without losing any substance.
***
I have no doubts that Brose is very good at his current job, and was probably very good at his old one as well. But writing is its own discipline. Being an expert on defense technologies does not necessarily equip you to publish a mainstream book on the subject.
More than anything else, The Kill Chain reads like a dumbed-down position paper. It is a summary filled with buzzwords and jargon – including rampant overuse of the title phrase – but little detail or explanation. Brose bandies his trade terms about with reckless abandon, but they are so imprecisely employed as to be nearly meaningless. When Brose talks about “platforms” or “systems” or “sensors,” he rarely deigns to provide a practical definition or example. That is, he mostly skips any discussion of actual, specific ordinance that he thinks the US needs but doesn’t have, or has but doesn’t need.
In The Kill Chain, abstraction is a feature, not a bug.
***
Relatedly, The Kill Chain suffers from a lack of case studies or real world applications. When Brose attempts to illustrate what he’s saying, the book clicks into place. For instance, Brose convincingly describes the shortcomings of aircraft carriers and the Joint Stars program. At one point, in decrying the lack of artificial intelligence, Brose recalls watching a soldier in a tactical deployment monitoring twelve different instant-messenger conversations, manually pushing intelligence from one group to the next. This kind of scene-setting is memorable, vivid, and readable.
Typically, though, Brose is frustratingly nonconcrete, preferring theoretical references to an undefined “technology” rather than getting into specifics.
***
In keeping with the theme of vagueness-as-a-virtue, Brose’s prescriptions are pretty broad. Instead of a small number of expensive systems, he wants a large number of inexpensive ones. In practice, this means unmanned vehicles, especially drone swarms, which can overwhelm an enemy’s defenses, and are also expendable (or “attritable,” as Brose likes to say). Brose rightly argues for better “networks,” contending that soldiers have smarter technology in their daily lives than at work. He also calls for a ready arsenal of hypersonic missiles.
Getting to this place, Brose concedes, is going to be difficult. There are entrenched interests, a lack of incentives, too few defense companies, a terrible relationship between the military and cutting-edge tech corporations, and a political system that is verging on total collapse (and which has gotten worse since Brose published this in 2020).
***
Despite all the talk of military hardware and software, I’m most impressed with Brose’s recognition that we are already in a changed world, though most Americans have not yet recognized it. This lack of recognition comes from flawed assumptions based on a superficial understanding of two abnormal periods in history.
First, there is China’s “century of humiliation,” stretching from 1839 to 1949. During this period, China was bullied, colonized, and embroiled in bloody civil wars. Because of this, many are conditioned to see China as a victim. As Brose points out, that’s not how they see themselves. China’s history stretches back thousands of years, and during most of those years, they were a formidable force. Xi Jinping isn’t trying to capture the top spot in world affairs, he’s trying to reclaim it. For him, a dominant China represents the natural order.
Second, there is America’s brief, 30-year reign as a hyperpower. Throughout recorded history, the world has been multipolar, with a bunch of strong nations or empires operating in their own spheres, their influence bounded by others. After World War II, the multipolar world became bipolar, with the US and the Soviet Union supreme. When the USSR collapsed, America got to be alone at the top, free to do what it wanted, for better and for worse.
This anomalous window has closed, and we’re back in a multipolar world of a handful of powerful nations, with China the new heavyweight. As Brose points out, there’s nothing that can realistically be done to counter this. Instead, he argues for a new humility, which includes forging better ties with allies, stricter definitions about what constitutes a critical mission, and a focus on national defense, rather than force projection.
Of course, it’s an open question as to whether America’s unstable democracy can maintain national coherence, much less undergo a huge shift in foreign and military policy. By the time we get done fighting each other, the issue may already have been decided for us.
June 12, 2020
The premise of Brose's book, as laid out in the introduction, is fundamentally absurd. Brose presents a deliberately alarmist view of the Chinese military threat by making several unstated assumptions about Chinese and American capabilities, their ability to employ those capabilities, and how an unstated hypothetical conflict would play out. Brose asks the reader to assume that the US could potentially lose in a conflict with China in the near future. To make this assumption, Brose assumes, without stating, that China's weapons and war plans would work without fault in destroying American naval ships and military bases, that US counterattacks against Chinese weapons with cruise missiles and stealth fighters would completely fail to halt or roll back Chinese advances, and that US and allied defenses would collapse. He also assumes that anecdotes about US military computer networks not working somehow do not apply to China and that China, a country that has not fought a modern war, would somehow do everything right while the US, with commanders experienced at fighting several different wars, would not have equipment that worked. Another major fault is that Brose suggests that Chinese hypersonic weapons are ready when they are certainly years away and that the US cannot counter such weapons, even though such a program might be so highly classified that even alluding to it would be inappropriate.
Brose brings in several worn-out tropes into his book. He suggests that China aims to "win without fighting," as stated in Sun Tzu, which would seem to suggest that the US would rather fight China when it could possibly achieve its goals without fighting. Brose suggests that the American public and Congress are not as informed about China's military threat as the Chinese Communist Party, but one suspects that the average Chinese citizen and the average politburo member would be as equally uninformed about military weapons and capabilities as their American counterparts. The idea that Congress is uninformed is simply wrong as the Department of Defense publishes an annual unclassified overview of Chinese military weapons and capabilities, a topic also touched on the the annual US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He also tries to talk around China's actual military capabilities, but he could have referenced IISS's annual report The Military Balance to give the reader an accurate view of how US and China stack up against each other. If any Congressional leader is uninformed on the nuances of the US/China military balance, it is likely because they are busy tending to matters of more importance to their constituencies.
Other factors that Brose assumes away are that the US would find casualties unacceptable but that somehow China would be willing to sacrifice an untold number of its citizens. This may be a fair assumption, but Brose should have stated it. It is also fundamentally strange for Brose to suggest how proud he is of his ten years of work, and then suggest that he completely failed to keep America safe from the biggest threat facing it. Lastly, Brose seems to know nothing about foundational international security theory. He suggests that the US must have an overwhelming unilateral capability to defeat China on the other side of the planet, but does not recognize that this would almost certainly create a security dilemma or an arms race that would increase the risk of conflict. He also does not acknowledge, despite his experience, that decisions about force levels are fundamentally decisions about money. The US could have no military and draft one as needed, a military that could defeat any threat, or a military somewhere in between. The US will almost certainly maintain a standing military, but it is absurd to think that the US would invest the trillions of dollars it would need to have a standing force ready do defeat China. Logically, the US has to accept some level of risk, a point that Brose does not address in, essentially, making the point that the US has accepted too much risk, even though he has no clue how the US would pay to buy down that risk. Finally, if the US could buy down that risk through diplomacy, alliances, or economic means, would not both sides be better off by not investing in military forces and instead investing in infrastructure or in improving the standards of living of their poorest citizens? While these issues are not the point of Brose's book, it is inappropriate not to address them directly.
Additionally, the idea of "the kill chain" is not as dramatic as Brose imagines it. For millennia military commanders have identified enemy forces, decided what to do about it, and then done it. The fundamental concept does not change whether one is using their eyes and human sources of information, or if they are using the internet, satellites, and wireless communications.
Brose's take on Russia and China is fundamentally flawed throughout his book. Brose continually assumes that the most alarming reports of Russian and Chinese military capabilities are accurate while ignoring the fact that US military capabilities and war plans to counter Chinese and Russian weapons are highly classified. Brose also completely ignores that US decisions not to intervene in Ukraine and the South China Sea in 2014 were purely political decisions. The US could have intervened, but there was no political will within the US Congress, the public, or its allies in Eastern Europe or Asia. Naturally, both China and Russia pushed the limits of what they could get away with, with Russia shooting down an airliner and China militarizing the South China Sea. That the US let these actions happen is fundamentally not a question of military capability, but of political will.
Brose also makes a fundamentally serious and dangerous flaw in the political theory underpinning his narrative. Brose portrays Russian and Chinese actions to modernize military forces by deploying capabilities the US fielded, in some cases, decades ago and develop weapons that are decades away from being fielded as fundamentally unstable. Moreover, Russia and China have displayed no intentions to project force, other than nuclear weapons, around the world, but instead seek to assert a level of influence near their borders not unlike that which the US asserts of Central and South America and not completely unlike the way the US used military force in the late 19th and early 20th century to assure that security. With an undergraduate degree in political science, presumably having taken fundamentals of international relations as an 18 or 19 year old, it is incredulous that Brose would characterize US military abilities to project any type of force (air, ground, naval, and space) worldwide as inherently stable and Russian and Chinese efforts to catch up and modernize forces to protect more closely held national interests on their borders as inherently unstable, and then implying that the US needs to overhaul its defense program by spending untold sums of money to offset those efforts. If Brose is looking at the world through a realist lens as a struggle for power, which he is calling on the US to do, then it is completely natural for an adversary of the US to recognize the US's ability to project force and threaten its national interests and to take measures to defend those interests. Brose's alarmist prose seems to suggest that Americans should be shocked and outraged at Chinese and Russian military efforts, but a freshman in college would not pass class without being able to tell you that this is the natural course of events from a realist viewpoint. Political science also shows us that there are serious risks in security dilemmas and arms races, and that the way out of them is for both sides to recognize that the costs and risks of maintaining large standing forces are not with the losses both sides would suffer in an armed conflict. Conterintuitively, both sides are better off when the arms race ends.
The true tragedy of Brose's book is that he is correct about many things. Chinese and Russian military modernization efforts do pose a threat to US national interests. However, in sensationalizing the threat and trying to convince the public and policy makers to address the threat Brose undermines his own case by making it easy to dismiss his alarmist concerns. If the US is going to have to spend trillions of dollars to modernize the military at the expense of investing in infrastructure, healthcare, and jobs, why not spend substantially less and invest in diplomacy and allies to merely avoid conflict while ceding some ground to Russia and China in the interest of avoiding an all-out war? The problem is that neither approach, full-scale investment or a full-scale hedging strategy, would likely be effective. One side invites conflict, the other invites salami-slicing tactics that gradually change international order over many years. Instead, the US needs strategic thinkers, like Brose, to provide clear, rational views that address economic, political, and military considerations in determining the amount of force to employ. Fortunately, the US strategy is largely there, and could be modernized. To hedge against Russia and China the US should modernize its military to the extent politically and economically practical while establishing trade-deals and military alliances that bring us closer to like-minded countries. Unfortunately, free trade and alliances management have been neglected over the past three years and were considered controversial even before that.
There are so many more ways that this book is terrible that it is best to just state a few more points:
- Brose may be right about many of his points, but he makes so many suggestions without direct evidence that it is impossible to know which ideas are supported, and which are not.
- Brose skirts around politics, but does not address the Republican Party's, for whom he presumably worked as a senior aid to John McCain, abandonment of credibility on national security issues. From the war in Iraq and the lack of support for Afghanistan to the Republican's Party's high approval rating for Trump as he antagonized allies and failed to confront Russia, Brose does not address how far the Republican Party is from addressing the key issues he highlights.
- Brose provides essentially no evidence to back up claim after claim about national security matters.
- Brose does not recognize that his book will almost certainly be cited by hawks in China who want to prove that the US seeks to achieve massive military superiority over China as they pursue advanced military equipment.
- Brose does not recognize at any point that the bulk of Chinese and Russian forces are very similar, but not as advanced, as current US forces, or that the most capable Russian and Chinese forces he cites as threats are inherently defensive missiles. Chinese fifth-generation fighters will have the same fueling problems as US fighters, and China doesn't even have a large refueling fleet with decades of experience. The same arguments he makes about the weaknesses of US forces could be made, only even stronger, by Chinese generals and admirals.
- Brose betrays no sense of political science theory or ability to comprehend how China would, from a realist point of view, see the United States. Brose suggests that the US needs to have a realist view towards the military threat from China, but seems to think that China will see a much more capable military threat from the US and simply decide not to respond, going against decades of Chinese military modernization.
etc.
I suspect that the average reader would be better off researching the issues presented in this book and thinking about them for themselves. The reports stated above are an excellent place to start and this book skipped. The true tragedy is that in making his valid point that the US must figure out a military strategy to confront China he ignores theory, logic, and common sense. It may be the case that the US can avoid conflict with China by following Brose's advice, but he could have made his point in a balanced way. More likely is that, ironically, following Brose's advice will make conflict with China or Russia more likely.
Brose brings in several worn-out tropes into his book. He suggests that China aims to "win without fighting," as stated in Sun Tzu, which would seem to suggest that the US would rather fight China when it could possibly achieve its goals without fighting. Brose suggests that the American public and Congress are not as informed about China's military threat as the Chinese Communist Party, but one suspects that the average Chinese citizen and the average politburo member would be as equally uninformed about military weapons and capabilities as their American counterparts. The idea that Congress is uninformed is simply wrong as the Department of Defense publishes an annual unclassified overview of Chinese military weapons and capabilities, a topic also touched on the the annual US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He also tries to talk around China's actual military capabilities, but he could have referenced IISS's annual report The Military Balance to give the reader an accurate view of how US and China stack up against each other. If any Congressional leader is uninformed on the nuances of the US/China military balance, it is likely because they are busy tending to matters of more importance to their constituencies.
Other factors that Brose assumes away are that the US would find casualties unacceptable but that somehow China would be willing to sacrifice an untold number of its citizens. This may be a fair assumption, but Brose should have stated it. It is also fundamentally strange for Brose to suggest how proud he is of his ten years of work, and then suggest that he completely failed to keep America safe from the biggest threat facing it. Lastly, Brose seems to know nothing about foundational international security theory. He suggests that the US must have an overwhelming unilateral capability to defeat China on the other side of the planet, but does not recognize that this would almost certainly create a security dilemma or an arms race that would increase the risk of conflict. He also does not acknowledge, despite his experience, that decisions about force levels are fundamentally decisions about money. The US could have no military and draft one as needed, a military that could defeat any threat, or a military somewhere in between. The US will almost certainly maintain a standing military, but it is absurd to think that the US would invest the trillions of dollars it would need to have a standing force ready do defeat China. Logically, the US has to accept some level of risk, a point that Brose does not address in, essentially, making the point that the US has accepted too much risk, even though he has no clue how the US would pay to buy down that risk. Finally, if the US could buy down that risk through diplomacy, alliances, or economic means, would not both sides be better off by not investing in military forces and instead investing in infrastructure or in improving the standards of living of their poorest citizens? While these issues are not the point of Brose's book, it is inappropriate not to address them directly.
Additionally, the idea of "the kill chain" is not as dramatic as Brose imagines it. For millennia military commanders have identified enemy forces, decided what to do about it, and then done it. The fundamental concept does not change whether one is using their eyes and human sources of information, or if they are using the internet, satellites, and wireless communications.
Brose's take on Russia and China is fundamentally flawed throughout his book. Brose continually assumes that the most alarming reports of Russian and Chinese military capabilities are accurate while ignoring the fact that US military capabilities and war plans to counter Chinese and Russian weapons are highly classified. Brose also completely ignores that US decisions not to intervene in Ukraine and the South China Sea in 2014 were purely political decisions. The US could have intervened, but there was no political will within the US Congress, the public, or its allies in Eastern Europe or Asia. Naturally, both China and Russia pushed the limits of what they could get away with, with Russia shooting down an airliner and China militarizing the South China Sea. That the US let these actions happen is fundamentally not a question of military capability, but of political will.
Brose also makes a fundamentally serious and dangerous flaw in the political theory underpinning his narrative. Brose portrays Russian and Chinese actions to modernize military forces by deploying capabilities the US fielded, in some cases, decades ago and develop weapons that are decades away from being fielded as fundamentally unstable. Moreover, Russia and China have displayed no intentions to project force, other than nuclear weapons, around the world, but instead seek to assert a level of influence near their borders not unlike that which the US asserts of Central and South America and not completely unlike the way the US used military force in the late 19th and early 20th century to assure that security. With an undergraduate degree in political science, presumably having taken fundamentals of international relations as an 18 or 19 year old, it is incredulous that Brose would characterize US military abilities to project any type of force (air, ground, naval, and space) worldwide as inherently stable and Russian and Chinese efforts to catch up and modernize forces to protect more closely held national interests on their borders as inherently unstable, and then implying that the US needs to overhaul its defense program by spending untold sums of money to offset those efforts. If Brose is looking at the world through a realist lens as a struggle for power, which he is calling on the US to do, then it is completely natural for an adversary of the US to recognize the US's ability to project force and threaten its national interests and to take measures to defend those interests. Brose's alarmist prose seems to suggest that Americans should be shocked and outraged at Chinese and Russian military efforts, but a freshman in college would not pass class without being able to tell you that this is the natural course of events from a realist viewpoint. Political science also shows us that there are serious risks in security dilemmas and arms races, and that the way out of them is for both sides to recognize that the costs and risks of maintaining large standing forces are not with the losses both sides would suffer in an armed conflict. Conterintuitively, both sides are better off when the arms race ends.
The true tragedy of Brose's book is that he is correct about many things. Chinese and Russian military modernization efforts do pose a threat to US national interests. However, in sensationalizing the threat and trying to convince the public and policy makers to address the threat Brose undermines his own case by making it easy to dismiss his alarmist concerns. If the US is going to have to spend trillions of dollars to modernize the military at the expense of investing in infrastructure, healthcare, and jobs, why not spend substantially less and invest in diplomacy and allies to merely avoid conflict while ceding some ground to Russia and China in the interest of avoiding an all-out war? The problem is that neither approach, full-scale investment or a full-scale hedging strategy, would likely be effective. One side invites conflict, the other invites salami-slicing tactics that gradually change international order over many years. Instead, the US needs strategic thinkers, like Brose, to provide clear, rational views that address economic, political, and military considerations in determining the amount of force to employ. Fortunately, the US strategy is largely there, and could be modernized. To hedge against Russia and China the US should modernize its military to the extent politically and economically practical while establishing trade-deals and military alliances that bring us closer to like-minded countries. Unfortunately, free trade and alliances management have been neglected over the past three years and were considered controversial even before that.
There are so many more ways that this book is terrible that it is best to just state a few more points:
- Brose may be right about many of his points, but he makes so many suggestions without direct evidence that it is impossible to know which ideas are supported, and which are not.
- Brose skirts around politics, but does not address the Republican Party's, for whom he presumably worked as a senior aid to John McCain, abandonment of credibility on national security issues. From the war in Iraq and the lack of support for Afghanistan to the Republican's Party's high approval rating for Trump as he antagonized allies and failed to confront Russia, Brose does not address how far the Republican Party is from addressing the key issues he highlights.
- Brose provides essentially no evidence to back up claim after claim about national security matters.
- Brose does not recognize that his book will almost certainly be cited by hawks in China who want to prove that the US seeks to achieve massive military superiority over China as they pursue advanced military equipment.
- Brose does not recognize at any point that the bulk of Chinese and Russian forces are very similar, but not as advanced, as current US forces, or that the most capable Russian and Chinese forces he cites as threats are inherently defensive missiles. Chinese fifth-generation fighters will have the same fueling problems as US fighters, and China doesn't even have a large refueling fleet with decades of experience. The same arguments he makes about the weaknesses of US forces could be made, only even stronger, by Chinese generals and admirals.
- Brose betrays no sense of political science theory or ability to comprehend how China would, from a realist point of view, see the United States. Brose suggests that the US needs to have a realist view towards the military threat from China, but seems to think that China will see a much more capable military threat from the US and simply decide not to respond, going against decades of Chinese military modernization.
etc.
I suspect that the average reader would be better off researching the issues presented in this book and thinking about them for themselves. The reports stated above are an excellent place to start and this book skipped. The true tragedy is that in making his valid point that the US must figure out a military strategy to confront China he ignores theory, logic, and common sense. It may be the case that the US can avoid conflict with China by following Brose's advice, but he could have made his point in a balanced way. More likely is that, ironically, following Brose's advice will make conflict with China or Russia more likely.
July 30, 2023
The Kill Chain: How Emerging Technologies Threaten America's Military Dominance by Christian Brose is a book I deeply appreciate, but find myself reluctant to fully agree with. The Kill Chain has a thesis: we are unprepared to fight the next war, with military budget allocations and the defense industry anchored to the past, and unwilling to engage in the type of experimentation and innovation necessary to generate the technologies and best practices needed for the next wars.
He takes on the role of Cassandra, and dramatically emphasizes the capabilities of China and Russia. He wants to bridge Silicon Valley and the Defense establishment, he wants defense to embrace technology, and he believes the military-industrial-congressional complex of the Iron Triangle is holding us back. The solution, or at least one of the key solutions, is to alter the incentivization structure to allow for smaller firms to engage in experimental development and be allowed to thrive when successful, rather than the firm consolidation and perpetuation of programs of record and older platforms.
I agree with about 80% of what the man says, but there are a couple of things that concern me. I'm not really sure what Brose wants us to be engaged in for the world we're heading into. This book is about making sure that we are capable of competing, but I don't really get the exact mechanisms of competition. Chapter 10 explores some of this, but there's no cohesive vision of a future here. Rather, its just making sure we can fight, and fight continuously, to maintain deterrence and ward off aggressive challengers into the future. There's an overemphasis on incentives leading to change, a de-emphasis on the role of organizational culture, and I'm not sure there's a solid plan here to challenge the Iron Triangle. Towards the end, he seems to advocate making modern tech worth its while, which just seems like a recipe to repeat past inertia, and is unlikely to be very disruptive to the system.
There's a bit too much of an emphasis on tech as a panacea, and I heard him speak a little while ago where he said that its almost impossible to over-correct on tech given how much its lost out recently. That feels like a potentially dangerous attitude.
As a result, this is pretty much a policy advocacy piece. One that I'm sympathetic towards, but perhaps a little weary of completely embracing.
That said, I learned a ton and there are some chapters that are must-reads as far as I'm concerned for an aspiring defense policy specialist.
I also recommend it for any educated voting citizen of the republic.
91/100
He takes on the role of Cassandra, and dramatically emphasizes the capabilities of China and Russia. He wants to bridge Silicon Valley and the Defense establishment, he wants defense to embrace technology, and he believes the military-industrial-congressional complex of the Iron Triangle is holding us back. The solution, or at least one of the key solutions, is to alter the incentivization structure to allow for smaller firms to engage in experimental development and be allowed to thrive when successful, rather than the firm consolidation and perpetuation of programs of record and older platforms.
I agree with about 80% of what the man says, but there are a couple of things that concern me. I'm not really sure what Brose wants us to be engaged in for the world we're heading into. This book is about making sure that we are capable of competing, but I don't really get the exact mechanisms of competition. Chapter 10 explores some of this, but there's no cohesive vision of a future here. Rather, its just making sure we can fight, and fight continuously, to maintain deterrence and ward off aggressive challengers into the future. There's an overemphasis on incentives leading to change, a de-emphasis on the role of organizational culture, and I'm not sure there's a solid plan here to challenge the Iron Triangle. Towards the end, he seems to advocate making modern tech worth its while, which just seems like a recipe to repeat past inertia, and is unlikely to be very disruptive to the system.
There's a bit too much of an emphasis on tech as a panacea, and I heard him speak a little while ago where he said that its almost impossible to over-correct on tech given how much its lost out recently. That feels like a potentially dangerous attitude.
As a result, this is pretty much a policy advocacy piece. One that I'm sympathetic towards, but perhaps a little weary of completely embracing.
That said, I learned a ton and there are some chapters that are must-reads as far as I'm concerned for an aspiring defense policy specialist.
I also recommend it for any educated voting citizen of the republic.
91/100
April 24, 2020
The Kill Chain is a convincing wakeup call that the military-congressional-industrial complex is so broken that the very survival of America as Americans know it is at risk unless mammoth changes are made in how the Department of Defense defines, identifies, procures and deploys emerging technology, a problem that is as much about organizational change as it is about technological change.
America’s complacent mindset stems from its decades-long military dominance and lack of serious retribution for its “business as usual” approach to warfare: the U.S. fights offensively, projecting its combat power directly onto enemy territory via large, manned platforms (tanks, fighter jets, etc) and remaining there for as long as desired. The speed with which the U.S. defeated Iraq in the Gulf War only affirmed the success and immutability of a strategy dependent on massed brute force and an inferior enemy whose territory could be occupied without repercussions to the homeland.
Such an approach is infeasible with the information revolution and emerging technologies that will favor defense over offense, including sensors, networked systems, machine learning, hypersonic weapons and additive manufacturing. Unfortunately, some of this technology is only “emerging” for the U.S. defense community, as it exists commercially in many of our quotidian apps. Tanks and battleships will become targets that precision strike weapons can easily identify and severely damage, if not destroy. Brose writes, “Rather than large numbers of people operating small numbers of heavily manned machines, the future force should consist of smaller numbers of people operating much larger numbers of highly intelligent unmanned machines.” The U.S. also requires a serious shift in favor of software over hardware and a focus on moving limited amounts of data through highly decentralized networks.
Brose addresses the most common counter argument: The U.S. leads the world in military spend by a significant amount - why can’t a percentage of the nearly $700bn+ annual budget go towards investing in this force of the future? Ah, if only it were so simple. Much of this budget is already reserved for programs of record, like expensive legacy platforms. Of the budget that is not reserved, Pentagon planners must determine how to spend it nearly two years in advance. (Note the absurdist element in asking budgeters to purchase their innovative, future capabilities based on what exists in the present). But fear not, if the Pentagon wants to change where some of its spend is allocated in a given year, towards say, emerging technologies, a generous 0.009% of the budget is available. Add to this a system that favors the few incumbent defense contractors, a Congress that tends to prioritize the interests of its constituents over the national interest, and career bureaucrats who get promoted for not opposing the status quo, and what remains is an environment that is de facto hostile to emerging technology.
Brose goes to pains to illustrate that China is all the motivation Americans should need to recognize the necessity of change. China is not just an adversary or even another great power; on its current trajectory, it will be a peer to the U.S., a concept more foreign to most Americans than China itself. China’s military budget increased by 900% since observing the U.S. swiftly defeat Iraq in the Golf War. China has specifically invested in undermining the U.S.’s offensive strategy by increasing its missile arsenal, building out small but significant outposts in the South China Sea, and more generally tracking to become the global leader in AI. Should the U.S. face China in a more direct conflict, it will not have the luxury of moving the required ships, carriers, weapons and supplies from U.S. bases to forward positions over the weeks and months before it is ready to fight, as these will quite literally become target practice for the enemy.
The cynical will note Brose works for Anduril, a defense technology startup developing autonomous machines, and a company with a specific interest in competing against the defense primes so entrenched in Washington. But Brose is hardly the first person to sound the alarm for change. Chuck Hagel and Ash Carter were the first secretaries of defense to take the controversial stand that America’s advantage was eroding. James Mattis kept this argument alive with the influential 2018 National Defense Strategy. Most convincingly that Brose’s thesis transcends any existing corporate interests is his decades long career as a public servant, where he held positions as staff director of the senate armed services committee and policy advisor to John McCain. The Kill Chain’s motivation is pragmatic, not ideological.
America’s complacent mindset stems from its decades-long military dominance and lack of serious retribution for its “business as usual” approach to warfare: the U.S. fights offensively, projecting its combat power directly onto enemy territory via large, manned platforms (tanks, fighter jets, etc) and remaining there for as long as desired. The speed with which the U.S. defeated Iraq in the Gulf War only affirmed the success and immutability of a strategy dependent on massed brute force and an inferior enemy whose territory could be occupied without repercussions to the homeland.
Such an approach is infeasible with the information revolution and emerging technologies that will favor defense over offense, including sensors, networked systems, machine learning, hypersonic weapons and additive manufacturing. Unfortunately, some of this technology is only “emerging” for the U.S. defense community, as it exists commercially in many of our quotidian apps. Tanks and battleships will become targets that precision strike weapons can easily identify and severely damage, if not destroy. Brose writes, “Rather than large numbers of people operating small numbers of heavily manned machines, the future force should consist of smaller numbers of people operating much larger numbers of highly intelligent unmanned machines.” The U.S. also requires a serious shift in favor of software over hardware and a focus on moving limited amounts of data through highly decentralized networks.
Brose addresses the most common counter argument: The U.S. leads the world in military spend by a significant amount - why can’t a percentage of the nearly $700bn+ annual budget go towards investing in this force of the future? Ah, if only it were so simple. Much of this budget is already reserved for programs of record, like expensive legacy platforms. Of the budget that is not reserved, Pentagon planners must determine how to spend it nearly two years in advance. (Note the absurdist element in asking budgeters to purchase their innovative, future capabilities based on what exists in the present). But fear not, if the Pentagon wants to change where some of its spend is allocated in a given year, towards say, emerging technologies, a generous 0.009% of the budget is available. Add to this a system that favors the few incumbent defense contractors, a Congress that tends to prioritize the interests of its constituents over the national interest, and career bureaucrats who get promoted for not opposing the status quo, and what remains is an environment that is de facto hostile to emerging technology.
Brose goes to pains to illustrate that China is all the motivation Americans should need to recognize the necessity of change. China is not just an adversary or even another great power; on its current trajectory, it will be a peer to the U.S., a concept more foreign to most Americans than China itself. China’s military budget increased by 900% since observing the U.S. swiftly defeat Iraq in the Golf War. China has specifically invested in undermining the U.S.’s offensive strategy by increasing its missile arsenal, building out small but significant outposts in the South China Sea, and more generally tracking to become the global leader in AI. Should the U.S. face China in a more direct conflict, it will not have the luxury of moving the required ships, carriers, weapons and supplies from U.S. bases to forward positions over the weeks and months before it is ready to fight, as these will quite literally become target practice for the enemy.
The cynical will note Brose works for Anduril, a defense technology startup developing autonomous machines, and a company with a specific interest in competing against the defense primes so entrenched in Washington. But Brose is hardly the first person to sound the alarm for change. Chuck Hagel and Ash Carter were the first secretaries of defense to take the controversial stand that America’s advantage was eroding. James Mattis kept this argument alive with the influential 2018 National Defense Strategy. Most convincingly that Brose’s thesis transcends any existing corporate interests is his decades long career as a public servant, where he held positions as staff director of the senate armed services committee and policy advisor to John McCain. The Kill Chain’s motivation is pragmatic, not ideological.
January 12, 2022
Must Read
Very well written. Vital to anyone wishing to understand why we spend on defense - and how defense dollars are allocated. Change we must.
Very well written. Vital to anyone wishing to understand why we spend on defense - and how defense dollars are allocated. Change we must.
May 24, 2024
A must read for anyone in the defense, national security, policy, and military -space. Prose - the former Senate Armed Service Committee Staff Director for the late Senator McCain and current Head of Strategy at Anduril Industries and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - outlines a compelling vision of future war, its inherent risks, what got us here, and what will get us there. If the 2018 National Defense Strategy, drafted at the direction and oversight of then Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, is the skeleton - Brose's work is the muscle. Great power competition requires leadership...real leadership. Leaders that set priorities, make hard decisions, drive the military industrial complex, and persuade the massive US government geopolitical machine toward preparing for the realities of the 21st century landscape. The Kill Chain is the most compelling book on future war I have read in the last three + years and perhaps the most comprehensive vision of a way forward.
June 12, 2021
First of all, as other reviews have mentioned, this book shouldn't have been made into a book to being with. The author is extremely repetitive and it is clear he spent time trying to put "meat-on-the-bones" for a fairly straightforward thesis. This could easily be a magazine article or a 20-minute TED Talk.
The bigger problem with the book is that it reads like something you'd give to a Congressional budget committee member in order to coerce different spending on defense. While I agree with the overarching premise as to what the author is getting at, he uses WAY to much hyperbole, pessimism for "blue" capabilities, and optimism for "red" capabilities (China in this case). Additionally, the America v. China scenario he presents is extremely myopic and focuses only on the military aspect of a future conflict.
I would not recommend this book.
The bigger problem with the book is that it reads like something you'd give to a Congressional budget committee member in order to coerce different spending on defense. While I agree with the overarching premise as to what the author is getting at, he uses WAY to much hyperbole, pessimism for "blue" capabilities, and optimism for "red" capabilities (China in this case). Additionally, the America v. China scenario he presents is extremely myopic and focuses only on the military aspect of a future conflict.
I would not recommend this book.
December 8, 2020
This is an exceptionally important book. I thought I understood the issues but was both enlightened and disturbed by many of the examples cited by the author. I believe this book should be mandatory reading for anyone in the government/military who wants to challenge their own views about U.S. military dominance in the next decade.
The author has a political agenda, which he readily admits to. Even though some of the examples are a bit repetitive and I don't agree with all his recommendations, this is still one of the most enlightening books I have read. You will not soon forget it and you'll almost certainly read future headlines with a broader perspective. You might also want to learn Mandarin before it's too late!
The author has a political agenda, which he readily admits to. Even though some of the examples are a bit repetitive and I don't agree with all his recommendations, this is still one of the most enlightening books I have read. You will not soon forget it and you'll almost certainly read future headlines with a broader perspective. You might also want to learn Mandarin before it's too late!
December 4, 2020
Best book I've read on systemic issues in the contemporary U.S. military. Anyone who works in or has interest in U.S. military/foreign policy should read this. I think Brose over-exaggerates the effects of future technology implementation (or at least thinks those effects will happen much sooner than I do), but his assessment of the strategic and operational problems facing the American military from both within and without are a solid 5/5.
The fact that this is #1 on Berger's reading list gives me some faith.
The fact that this is #1 on Berger's reading list gives me some faith.
May 23, 2021
This book is foundational reading for all young military officers, congressional staffers, and defense industry leaders. Mr. Brose systematically lays out the failings of United States defense policy since the end of the Gulf War, helping would-be leaders understand the problem confronting us in the 21st century. More problem statement than comprehensive solution (though he offers a vision for the future with his last chapter), this book can help all stake holders get on the same page and salvage America's position in the world.
February 23, 2023
This book is fascinating! Brose confronts the obstacles the US military must face in order to be successful in upcoming operations to include those other than war and all out war. Although the future is abstract to many, Brose writes about it in a way that feels real and imminent. He provides realistic solutions to large problems and leaves the reader with a sense of hope. This book left me thinking about the future of our military in a different but more realistic way.
This is a must read book!
This is a must read book!
November 16, 2022
Every American should read this. Every. Single. One.
June 3, 2020
In the beginning we learn what "kill chain" means. By the end, we wish never to read the phrase again, as it is repeated every few paragraphs.
My sense is that Brose knows his stuff. I found his warnings, prognostications and recommendations all compelling. But the writing style used in this book is underwhelming. Understood this is a work of non-fiction, but that doesn't mean it has to be written in the most deadly dull mode available. It is a call to action, thus should have much more energy to it.
That said, if you're not already worried about China's growing military might or you don't see the need for AI in warfare, this book may change your mind about both topics.
My sense is that Brose knows his stuff. I found his warnings, prognostications and recommendations all compelling. But the writing style used in this book is underwhelming. Understood this is a work of non-fiction, but that doesn't mean it has to be written in the most deadly dull mode available. It is a call to action, thus should have much more energy to it.
That said, if you're not already worried about China's growing military might or you don't see the need for AI in warfare, this book may change your mind about both topics.
October 9, 2020
This should be required reading for anyone involved in defense R&D
January 1, 2021
An important perspective on the state of defense tech- must read for every individual working in this industry.
October 12, 2021
4.5 but five stars for Megan.
December 19, 2021
Such a very interesting new book. The US Military's falling behind on application of new tech capabilities might have major geopolitical consequences, very soon. But I doubt this administration will notice it as a problem. Just one more major issue for our gov't to be clueless about.
September 5, 2023
Highly eye-opening. Incredible insights into how we got into our current predicament and what must be done to resolve it.
June 30, 2020
There is an uncommon deal of good sense in this book. It raves about new technology yet recognises that much of AI's contribution will be supplemental. It bemoans the failures of Congress yet realises this is due to incentives and structures as otherwise good people try and serve their country. It seeks a much stronger US military, yet directly urges pulling back core strategic aims to be more achievable and considered.
The central argument of the book is relatively simple. Military combat requires linking sensors to shooters via a communications network. When you can 'understand-decide-act' and achieve a result, that means you have 'closed the kill chain'. Brose worries the US has too few exquisite platforms that cant talk to each other, that small and quick networked systems need to play a much larger role and that the Defence leadership and Congress for understandable reasons are not doing nearly enough to fix this.
Much of this argument will be well known, but there's a degree of care here that is often missing in similar books. For all that strategy is about war and politics, most authors can only really speak capably about war or politics. Both may be touched on, but often one side receives far less nuance and care. This may be merely idiosyncratic for historians, but can be fatal to the impact of current affairs books. The Kill Chain stands out for its sense of balance. Beyond any one argument or section, you get the sense that Brose - who worked for John McCain for several years - both loved working in Congress and yet actually read the dense technical military reports that think tanks like RAND and the Pentagon sent his way.
No doubt experts will push back on elements of the argument. Even from my vantage point (more on the politics side), I know that thinking in terms of networks rather than platforms is at the heart of the 5th generation approach. The F-35 is far more impressive for how it can coordinate other systems to achieve a military effect than its own individual capacity. Brose may be right to argue the US needs much much more of that approach, but I'm not sure it's as far from recognition or implementation as he sometimes implies.
What really elevated this book in my eyes was the willingness to push beyond seeking a technological fix. As Brose notes, the US lacks neither money, capacity or technology. The big flaw is strategic. In a -far too brief section- Brose argues the US needs to abandon its preferred offence-dominated strategy, and seek not to impose its will, but simply deny and deter China (and others) from dominance over US interests or key allies. This is a radical idea in US circles, and one which receives far too little serious thought in my view (some of the restaint school of thought accept it, though not all).
For those who care about how the sausage actually gets made, the final chapters are a useful - if lightly done - assessment of how and why Congress, the Pentagon and America's corporate industry seem to amount to much less than the sum of their parts for delivering military capacity. Brose in particular identifies a defence industry that is too concentrated in a handful of companies and with the most advanced American companies out in Silicon Valley unsure whether real profits are there to be made. Congress is too concerned with local electorate benefits and unsure of how to manage the Military. Meanwhile the Military is badly hamstrung by Congress (such as the lack of clear budgets and space for risk taking, while also being risk-adverse itself and unsure of how much change it is willing to accept. Combined these three groups produce a military budget that continues to spend vast amounts replicating previous investments but can't really innovate or change.
This is still a current affairs book. It moves across a lot of territory quickly, and I'd have liked more on the strategic side and the hard costs there, over the benefits of a new tactical/technical approach. But this is an important book that is rightly receiving strong attention. Recommended.
The central argument of the book is relatively simple. Military combat requires linking sensors to shooters via a communications network. When you can 'understand-decide-act' and achieve a result, that means you have 'closed the kill chain'. Brose worries the US has too few exquisite platforms that cant talk to each other, that small and quick networked systems need to play a much larger role and that the Defence leadership and Congress for understandable reasons are not doing nearly enough to fix this.
Much of this argument will be well known, but there's a degree of care here that is often missing in similar books. For all that strategy is about war and politics, most authors can only really speak capably about war or politics. Both may be touched on, but often one side receives far less nuance and care. This may be merely idiosyncratic for historians, but can be fatal to the impact of current affairs books. The Kill Chain stands out for its sense of balance. Beyond any one argument or section, you get the sense that Brose - who worked for John McCain for several years - both loved working in Congress and yet actually read the dense technical military reports that think tanks like RAND and the Pentagon sent his way.
No doubt experts will push back on elements of the argument. Even from my vantage point (more on the politics side), I know that thinking in terms of networks rather than platforms is at the heart of the 5th generation approach. The F-35 is far more impressive for how it can coordinate other systems to achieve a military effect than its own individual capacity. Brose may be right to argue the US needs much much more of that approach, but I'm not sure it's as far from recognition or implementation as he sometimes implies.
What really elevated this book in my eyes was the willingness to push beyond seeking a technological fix. As Brose notes, the US lacks neither money, capacity or technology. The big flaw is strategic. In a -far too brief section- Brose argues the US needs to abandon its preferred offence-dominated strategy, and seek not to impose its will, but simply deny and deter China (and others) from dominance over US interests or key allies. This is a radical idea in US circles, and one which receives far too little serious thought in my view (some of the restaint school of thought accept it, though not all).
For those who care about how the sausage actually gets made, the final chapters are a useful - if lightly done - assessment of how and why Congress, the Pentagon and America's corporate industry seem to amount to much less than the sum of their parts for delivering military capacity. Brose in particular identifies a defence industry that is too concentrated in a handful of companies and with the most advanced American companies out in Silicon Valley unsure whether real profits are there to be made. Congress is too concerned with local electorate benefits and unsure of how to manage the Military. Meanwhile the Military is badly hamstrung by Congress (such as the lack of clear budgets and space for risk taking, while also being risk-adverse itself and unsure of how much change it is willing to accept. Combined these three groups produce a military budget that continues to spend vast amounts replicating previous investments but can't really innovate or change.
This is still a current affairs book. It moves across a lot of territory quickly, and I'd have liked more on the strategic side and the hard costs there, over the benefits of a new tactical/technical approach. But this is an important book that is rightly receiving strong attention. Recommended.
June 7, 2020
A good book, written by a former Senate Armed Services Committee staffer, providing an overview of many of the issuers confronting the modern US National Security establishment. The book lays out what the author sees as the major strategic threats facing the US into the future and then discusses the major changes which have taken place in the methods of warfare over the past decades. He then proceeds with a long explanation of how current US policy and practices are unable to reconcile the two and ends with presenting potential solutions. Many of the opinions expressed by the author have been well-discussed in recent years, to include the “rise of China,” the stagnation of the US defense industry, the over-politicization of defense acquisition, and the failure of the military services to adequately adapt to changing technology. Thus, I don’t think the book broke any new ground in presenting those topics. But his ideas for solutions, perhaps better described as marginal changes which could have long term positive effects, are interesting and should provide useful food for thought. Admittedly, I think the author underplays the uphill battle needed to fully enact even those limited reforms. A reader looking for an apologia, or at the least an insider’s admittance of being remotely associated with “the problem,” will be disappointed. From the beginning the author makes it clear who the good groups are and who are the ones that need to reform. He is polite and never disdainful, but there is little in the way of introspection. But, all that being said, this book does provide a good summary of many of the issues, across the diverse fields of technology, politics, policy, culture, and private business, which need to be confronted to reform defense and bring more efficiency to meeting the threats the author sees as most dangerous to America. Definitely recommended for those wanting an introductory understanding to national security politics, and are able to sort out the implicit biases which lurk between the sentences.
September 11, 2021
Certainly the best book of its kind that I have read. As a military member, the main premise of the book resonates with the problems I/we see every day within our military. He not only takes the words right out of my cynical mouth, but gives suggestions on how to counter these problems, which is necessary if he wants anyone to take the book seriously and as anything more than a collection of complaints.
The few criticisms I've seen against this book are that the author makes absurd assumptions on the ability of China to win in a war against America despite not having recent (read, not since the 70s) combat experience and their likelihood to also make mistakes throughout wartime execution. While quoting Sun Tsu may be overdone, the author is not wrong in his points regarding both China's long game as well as the specifics they are employing to quickly outstrip us. One of those is that to the average American and even to many many military members who don't routinely get exposed to "the big picture," the idea of America not militarily dominating can't come close to being accepted, which is a big problem because it leads to the culture that continues to stagnate change. Additionally, the author isn't arguing that China would execute flawlessly, but that the US is being technologically outstripped in a systemic way and isn't living up to its potential.
Listen...just read it, okay? It's good, and you'll learn something, and then you'll be able to decide for yourself.
The few criticisms I've seen against this book are that the author makes absurd assumptions on the ability of China to win in a war against America despite not having recent (read, not since the 70s) combat experience and their likelihood to also make mistakes throughout wartime execution. While quoting Sun Tsu may be overdone, the author is not wrong in his points regarding both China's long game as well as the specifics they are employing to quickly outstrip us. One of those is that to the average American and even to many many military members who don't routinely get exposed to "the big picture," the idea of America not militarily dominating can't come close to being accepted, which is a big problem because it leads to the culture that continues to stagnate change. Additionally, the author isn't arguing that China would execute flawlessly, but that the US is being technologically outstripped in a systemic way and isn't living up to its potential.
Listen...just read it, okay? It's good, and you'll learn something, and then you'll be able to decide for yourself.
November 13, 2020
Exactly which problem is this book adressing? The legacy of John McCain, the military-industrial-congressional complex, the building your military for the last war, the military potential of China - all of the above?
Th book contains several insightful pieces of analysis, but fails to consolidate them in a convincing and succinct narrative and proposal.
Th book contains several insightful pieces of analysis, but fails to consolidate them in a convincing and succinct narrative and proposal.
March 13, 2022
This book does a tremendous job at explaining why change in the U.S. military is so necessary in the era of great power competition. Not only is this a great read for those who are familiar with the challenges of national security, but also great for voters who desire to be better educated on the topic.
May 27, 2020
A must-read for every DoD employee, Service-member, and Congressional staffer.
March 24, 2021
Provocative, smart, and scary.
June 10, 2021
Must read for any military officer to have an actual conversation on the state of affairs.
December 16, 2022
First five chapters are alarmist and meh. Rest of book is great.
January 30, 2022
Brose presents helpful commentary and insight into a pressing issue that plagues America’s military of today; namely, that our military is only concerned with our dominance of today (and yesterday) and is not properly focused on closing the kill chain which would entail due focus on developing technologies of the future. With a call-to-arms for American citizens, military, and congressional representatives to awaken from their 30-year preeminent and exceptionalism slumber, Brose sees advanced technologies and entering the digital era as America’s way back into military dominance, or at worst, successful “defense without dominance” in relation to China’s growing military prowess.
In conversation with this proposed solution, I see Joshua Mitchell’s caution of “going digital” with military operations as a sober-minded response and indeed worthy critique of this arms race to the future. In his “American Awakening”, Mitchell explains the dangers of turning supplements into substitutes, noting how America’s military is but one instance of a pervasive tendency in American citizens (and humanity on the whole) to turn what is sick and only in need of a supplement for restored health into a wholly diseased and feverish state, dependent on the supplement-turned-substitute where without the substitute, the soul (of both nation and individual) will surely die. Seeing America’s military as dependent on the digital technologies as “digital substitutism,” Mitchell notes that such dependence is at the cost military competence.
Mitchell quotes Tocqueville on China’s inability to be a global power: “Following in their father’s steps, they had forgotten the reasons that guided them. They still used the formula without asking why. They kept the tool but had no real skill to adapt or replace it.” (Tocqueville, 464).
Brose seeks to keep America as dominant, at least in the sphere of military dominance, in order to protect American ideals and the American way of life should China become a military equal or even surpass America in military power. By considering what Mitchell discusses, Brose’s solution to keep America on top will come at the cost of sacrificing competent warrior-citizens and, further, the very American ideals ordering the inner-life of each “competent liberal citizen.”.
Though Brose does well to articulate some key issues found within America’s military and overall defense mindset, the sacrifice of substituting military competence for advanced technologies may cost America nothing less than the soul of its nation.
In conversation with this proposed solution, I see Joshua Mitchell’s caution of “going digital” with military operations as a sober-minded response and indeed worthy critique of this arms race to the future. In his “American Awakening”, Mitchell explains the dangers of turning supplements into substitutes, noting how America’s military is but one instance of a pervasive tendency in American citizens (and humanity on the whole) to turn what is sick and only in need of a supplement for restored health into a wholly diseased and feverish state, dependent on the supplement-turned-substitute where without the substitute, the soul (of both nation and individual) will surely die. Seeing America’s military as dependent on the digital technologies as “digital substitutism,” Mitchell notes that such dependence is at the cost military competence.
Mitchell quotes Tocqueville on China’s inability to be a global power: “Following in their father’s steps, they had forgotten the reasons that guided them. They still used the formula without asking why. They kept the tool but had no real skill to adapt or replace it.” (Tocqueville, 464).
Brose seeks to keep America as dominant, at least in the sphere of military dominance, in order to protect American ideals and the American way of life should China become a military equal or even surpass America in military power. By considering what Mitchell discusses, Brose’s solution to keep America on top will come at the cost of sacrificing competent warrior-citizens and, further, the very American ideals ordering the inner-life of each “competent liberal citizen.”.
Though Brose does well to articulate some key issues found within America’s military and overall defense mindset, the sacrifice of substituting military competence for advanced technologies may cost America nothing less than the soul of its nation.
June 11, 2022
The Kill Chain : How Emerging Technologies Threaten America’s Military Dominance (2020) by Christian Brose describes how the author thinks that America’s armed forces and their procurement need to change in order to maintain a military dominance over China. Brose was an advisor to John McCain.
The Kill Chain is described as “a process that occurs on the battlefield or wherever militaries compete. It involves three steps: The first is gaining understanding about what is happening. The second is making a decision about what to do. And the third is taking action that creates an effect to achieve an objective.”
In the book Brose describes how the chain needs to be made quicker as automation and better sensors become more and more ubiquitous.
Brose sees US combat capabilities as having deteriorated due to the US fighting lesser adversaries and also because procurement has worsened. This is because procurement has become so bureaucratized and owned by the few remaining large defence companies that it is failing.
In the book Brose writes about how US carrier would be ineffective against China and that extremely expensive jets may well also be ineffective. Brose would instead like to see fleets of smaller, cheaper, networked unmanned vehicles. He states that the XQ-58 Valkyrie and the Orca AUV are models for the sorts of vehicles he thinks would be effective against China.
The book was written before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Brose’s assessments of Russian capability now look substantially overdone. It’s also questionable how capable China’s military is and if Brose’s assessment there is also accurate. No doubt China’s military is capable and is likely to be the second most capable force in the world after the US but it’s questionable how capable it really is. As Brose writes “Militaries are unlike civilian institutions in many ways, but a primary difference is that they lack routine sources of real-world feedback on their performance. ” .
Brose now works for a venture capital backed defence company. Amusingly he periodically complains in the book about the revolving door between defence policy and the defence industry in the US.
The Kill Chain is quite an interesting book because it shows what some people in the US defence establishment are thinking and hints at where US defence spending is likely to head.
The Kill Chain is described as “a process that occurs on the battlefield or wherever militaries compete. It involves three steps: The first is gaining understanding about what is happening. The second is making a decision about what to do. And the third is taking action that creates an effect to achieve an objective.”
In the book Brose describes how the chain needs to be made quicker as automation and better sensors become more and more ubiquitous.
Brose sees US combat capabilities as having deteriorated due to the US fighting lesser adversaries and also because procurement has worsened. This is because procurement has become so bureaucratized and owned by the few remaining large defence companies that it is failing.
In the book Brose writes about how US carrier would be ineffective against China and that extremely expensive jets may well also be ineffective. Brose would instead like to see fleets of smaller, cheaper, networked unmanned vehicles. He states that the XQ-58 Valkyrie and the Orca AUV are models for the sorts of vehicles he thinks would be effective against China.
The book was written before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Brose’s assessments of Russian capability now look substantially overdone. It’s also questionable how capable China’s military is and if Brose’s assessment there is also accurate. No doubt China’s military is capable and is likely to be the second most capable force in the world after the US but it’s questionable how capable it really is. As Brose writes “Militaries are unlike civilian institutions in many ways, but a primary difference is that they lack routine sources of real-world feedback on their performance. ” .
Brose now works for a venture capital backed defence company. Amusingly he periodically complains in the book about the revolving door between defence policy and the defence industry in the US.
The Kill Chain is quite an interesting book because it shows what some people in the US defence establishment are thinking and hints at where US defence spending is likely to head.
December 3, 2021
The author explained why the US leaders in both Congress and military have the mentality that the United States can deploy its power at any time, anywhere at its own will. The United States hasn't been seriously challenged by any country for a few decades since the end of the Cold War. And it is taken for granted that the United States enjoys a wide margin in terms of military dominance.
It is true that the US is still the most militarily advanced country, but the gap is being closed with the constant rise of China.
In the author's opinion, the US is so underprepared for the potential conflicts with China. It's significantly lagging behind China when it comes to developing new technologies. There are myriad factors contributing to that embarrassment, and one of them is the broken procurement system between Pentagon and the Congress. The Congress has to pass the funding budget for any project, and due to various reasons, which I don't want to bore you, the Congress tends to approve the less risky project (usually existing projects), resulting in rejection of riskier projects (typically development of new technologies). This broken system results in underfunding of promising projects which can keep the US ahead in technologies. Another reason the US military is not moving fast enough is because a lot of advanced technologies are controlled by giant commercial companies such as Google, Amazon, and etc. And when it comes to sharing technologies with the government, these folks typically don't have friendly relationships with Pentagon.
The author went into great length explaining how China's system gives it huge advantages when it comes to developing advanced technologies which require enormous investment.
Do I want to live in a world where China is much more powerful and militarily advanced than the US? Absolutely not. Since the rise of China is unstoppable, I am just hoping that the US can wake up to the reality and adapt to the world where the US is no longer the only one, and prevent its ass from being kicked.
It is true that the US is still the most militarily advanced country, but the gap is being closed with the constant rise of China.
In the author's opinion, the US is so underprepared for the potential conflicts with China. It's significantly lagging behind China when it comes to developing new technologies. There are myriad factors contributing to that embarrassment, and one of them is the broken procurement system between Pentagon and the Congress. The Congress has to pass the funding budget for any project, and due to various reasons, which I don't want to bore you, the Congress tends to approve the less risky project (usually existing projects), resulting in rejection of riskier projects (typically development of new technologies). This broken system results in underfunding of promising projects which can keep the US ahead in technologies. Another reason the US military is not moving fast enough is because a lot of advanced technologies are controlled by giant commercial companies such as Google, Amazon, and etc. And when it comes to sharing technologies with the government, these folks typically don't have friendly relationships with Pentagon.
The author went into great length explaining how China's system gives it huge advantages when it comes to developing advanced technologies which require enormous investment.
Do I want to live in a world where China is much more powerful and militarily advanced than the US? Absolutely not. Since the rise of China is unstoppable, I am just hoping that the US can wake up to the reality and adapt to the world where the US is no longer the only one, and prevent its ass from being kicked.
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