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

This book will grab your attention, keep you spell bound and scare the heck out of you. The author was the Chief of Staff under Senator McCain for the Senate Armed Services Committee. This book is about new technology in the defense field and our inability to deal with it.The new technology comes in many forms. There now are missiles that fly 2 or 3 times faster than what is available now. The missiles can reach out many many thousands of miles more, enough to hit America from the other side of the world. Now computers are recently coming out on the market which are smaller and 2 or 3 times faster than previous computers. All of that combines to radically speed up the decision time for war operations. The author calls it the kill chain.The change doesn't stop there. The tactics used by our competitors has radically changed warfare. The examples the author uses comes from Russia. He reviews their invasion of "Little Green Men" in the Ukraine turned warfare upside down. They infiltrated troops into the land. Then they merged with dissent forces already in the country. Then the war stars, but on a small scale. Before you know it Russia grabbed Crimea and neutralized a huge slice of the Ukraine. That was the first time since WWII where borders changed.The last part of the book is the most scary. He relies on his experience in Congress. He cites several examples to show where the bureaucracy is incapable of change. The pressures of on going operations, turf wars, political desires to protect home based companies all have immobilized the bureaucracy. He also cites the case of the Army trying to get a new side arm. It took 17 million to test an off the shelf pistol. The case showed how fear of risk has layered on level after level of control and check. Those levels of course adds costs. That was just one weapons program. Can you imagine what the cost is as you expand that out to really big ticket things like carriers. It leads to the Pentagon to continue buying weapons it doesn't need and use tactics which really come out of WWII. As the Pentagon games go on the world's armies change. I think his point about the bureaucracy caught in a never ending loop also might explain other troubles across the globe.That leads to the scary part. Is the country ready for the future? Will it defend the nation for the future? If it isn't 9/11 might be a match strike in comparison.

This was a well-researched and well written book that was very informative.

Thought provoking and great insights but with a few material omissions.As others have noted this is an extremely thought provoking book. Perhaps the most disturbing is the discussion of war gaming a war with China and in most every Chinese initiated war China wins. A close runner-up was the lack of widespread commitment of other senate members to be as fully informed as possible on the military side of military affairs including budgets for specific projects.It's hard to document the claim that two issues were serious omissions but I think there were.There are seemingly minor details that are important Robert McNamara worked for Ford not GM. This is important for decisions at Ford by McNamara's accolates took Ford down to one of its smallest market share of the postwar years. McNamara gave Ford the Falcon , his successors brought out the Mustang. His arrogance cost billions and thousands of lives.McCain recognized the political folly of the initial "leased" Boeing Replacement Tanker Program but that is not discussed. Neither is the continuing debacle of the program, felony convictions/pleas of top Boeing execs and the Pentagon's civilian chief of procurement all associated with the ill-fated tanker program. Declared a near emergency need at the turn of the century, twenty later the tankers can not perform the mission and tens of billions over budget.To put the Tanker Program debacle in perspective, In July 1962 the US achieved its first orbital space flight and its first Moon landing 7 years later. In contrast the replacement tanker program has been in process Boeing was awarded the contract in 2002 , 19 years later and the tankers are not fully operational. Along the way both Boeing and a top civilian dod official did some hard time on felony corruption convictions/pleas.The author notes that in the event of an outbreak of war between the US and China the US ships must get far offshore to have even a chance of survival, well beyond the range of existing carrier based aircraft to attack Chinese forces. The lack of tankers, short range attack aircraft and light loads prevents the Navy from going deep inland.Part of the problem is that the Navy was induced to scrap the long range, extremely deadly F-14B and F-14X and replace them with the slower, shorter range , less carrying capacity F-18s (also made by Boeing) . The Navy had available at the time the F-14X upgrade program which would have converted the F-14 to an even more deadly fighter / bomber and equipped them with a follow-on to the Phoenix missiles, so badly needed to defend the fleet against airborne launched cruise missiles. In addition there were further upgrades in the works to give the Phoenix missiles extremely valuable capabilities. A further indication of the suspicious pattern is that DOD required that all F-14 tooling and parts be destroyed. The claim was made that the F-14s were maintenance hogs. Partly true but largely fixed with the F-14X digital conversion and new engines. While the maintenance hours per flight hour were problematical, when looked at in the big picture they were a rounding error in the 6,000 or so sailors in the Battle Group working 10-15 hour days and the thousands onshore supporting the effort.Does this matter, well yesterday the Chinese ran a practice attack on a US carrier as about 15 aircraft approached within 250 nautical miles of the carrier. Most certainly within range to launch enough hypersonic cruise missiles to virtually assure the carrier would be taken out of action or sent to the bottom of the ocean. As the author notes today's strategy requires that the carriers flee the area and standoff about 1,000 miles. Faster, much longer range F-14x aircraft with the next generation Phoenix would significantly reduce this threat. They would also do the same against large Russian aircraft carrying many cruise missiles.The F-35s will help overcome this deficiency but until they are fully operational and our Naval tanker capabilities redeveloped US capabilities are seriously compromised.The author makes many great observations regarding deficiencies in procurement management, in the Pentagon , Congress and White House.Examples discussed include the Army's failed attempt to acquire a new pistol. The 500 page request for proposals and flawed competition would be a joke were in not for the fact that the taxpayers precious dollars were wasted in the failed effort.An illustration of how perverted the situation has become was illustrated today with a note the the US Air Force had issued an RFP for a "modesty curtain" to be installed on our ancient B-52's because there were now female personnel flying missions. This is a need that should be solvable by a few individuals over a bottle of wine who would probably come up with better ideas, reviewed by an engineer on Monday and perhaps fabricated in one of the base shops.As others have noted it was USAF Col John Boyd who revolutionized the air to air combat, was shunned by top Brass while at the Pentagon and left to his own devices prepared his famous day long lecture on Winning and Loosing Wars that in turn helped rewrite the USMC land battle doctrine. Most all of this work done out of sight of his "leaders" .The author might have also given credit to leaders like Admiral Tom Connolly who sacrificed his career to save Naval aviation from the terminally flawed F-111B as an example of the character and courage needed in the Pentagon, Congress and the White House today and into the future.The author's descriptions of the challenges posed by an aggressive and expansive China should be taken to heart by every American. Unless we stop treating military procurement as a Chicago like spoils system and manage both what we buy and what we pay for it we are inviting Chinese military challenges and placing an even greater financial millstone around the necks of American taxpayers and their future generations.Overall , not perfect but a very important must read

I am a life-long Democrat, supposed to bristle at the very idea of military spending. Brose's book convinced me the problem is not how much we spend, but what we're spending it on. "Kill chain" is military-speak for the three phases of combat -- figuring out what's going on, deciding what to do about it, and taking effective action. Brose spells out how technology changed all three phases while the Defense Department and its minders in Congress weren't paying attention. The result has been to significantly undermine our military preparedness and, more importantly, the ultimate goal of deterrence. For all the money we're spending, Brose shows how it's mostly on the wrong things, i.e., large, expensive platforms that are only incremental improvements over prior systems designed for different times. He shows how the military-industrial complex, abetted by a Congress invested in the status quo, is arming our military with technology inferior to what you'd find in a modern automobile. The development of the Internet may have been kick-started by the defense department back in the 1960s, but the information revolution that followed largely left the U.S. military behind. Meanwhile, potential adversaries are compensating for relatively lower defense budgets by exploiting emerging technologies that could change the character of war, raising multiple ethical, geo-political, and governance issues. The Kill Chain is compelling, scary, and must-reading for our political leaders and all intelligent voters.

Great book.Well written in a simple and clear way for all the audience.I really like the heads up on the current real threat...that is not the China arms or technology race..but the people (governments) guided by lobby and lazy-mind leaders not able to think out of the old-fashioned path...Only negative aspect: The details on the US burocracy and politics are sometime too many.I really enjoyed it

著者が書いているように、ここ数十年間、軍事的に弱い敵とばかり戦ってきたためにアメリカ軍は装備の近代化で中国・ロシアに遅れをとってしまった。その遅れを取り戻すための時間は少なくなりつつある中で、それでも最新技術を織り込んだ近代化を進めつつ、アメリカにとってコアな国益に絞って取り組むべきであるというのは米国にとっては真っ当な考え方であるが、こうした環境の中で日本は大丈夫なのだろうかと心配になります。装備の近代化の遅れの理由の一つとして後段で述べられている硬直的で官僚的な組織という下りは、日本だけではないのだなと思いました。それにしても、こうした本の著者ですら「中国３千年の歴史」といった中国政府によるプロパガンダに騙されているというのは驚きでした。その歴史を考えれば中国が大国になりたがるのは必然だといった書きぶりには唖然としました。でも、これはこの本のごく僅かな一部で、書籍全体としては大いに参考になりました。

As a cybersecurity professional in a tech and innovation organization, I found this book to be extremely interesting and well written. It actually gave me all sorts of ideas about how to advance our organization’s innovation program.

この本の目的は、30年前の冷戦終了を画期としてアメリカの軍事が弛緩しはじめ、その間にロシア以上に中国が、著しい経済成長とともに新しい軍事的脅威になってきたこと、その一方でアメリカの政府も軍も、その脅威に鈍感なまま時間が過ぎていることへの切実な警鐘である。おもな内容は下記である。⑴中国の軍事力は、いまやアメリカを凌ぎ、今すぐアメリカと戦争したら、アメリカは負ける可能性が高い。この重大な潜在的危機が、未だにひろく認識されていない。⑵その原因は、30年前冷戦が終わったとき、その時の潜在的敵国であったソ連が解体し、まだ中国は貧しく、アメリカに対抗する巨大パワーがなくなって、アメリカが世界のハイパー・パワーとして無敵になったと思い込み、それまでの緊張感を喪失して、それ以後必要な軍事開発を怠ってきたからである。⑶とくに、軍事技術に最新の先端技術を欠き、全体として金がかかるだけの旧式の軍装備となっている。重要な先端技術は軍事産業でなく、商用技術産業で発展・進歩している。⑷今後軍事改革を正しく遂行するためには、新技術だけでなく、軍事力全体について「考え方＝mind-set」を変えて、根本的に取り組むことが必要である。⑸これから軍事改革を進めるために、すでに桎梏となってしまった軍産複合体や政治機構の抜本的改革をして、冷戦初期の活力を再現することが必要である。　アメリカの軍事が、現実にどのような問題を抱えて、また悩んでいるか、はじめて理解できた部分が多々あったという意味で、この本は非常に参考になった。日本人の私としても、この問題は決して他人ごとではない。あらためて、私自身を含めて「平和ボケ」を自覚した。　私個人としては(5)の部分の政治的・事務的手続きの問題、つまりこの書の11～12章は、アメリカの内部事情がほとんどであり、あまり興味がわかなかった。　文章としては、英語は比較的簡明で論旨も明瞭で読みにくくはないが、本の全体構成としては重複や冗長がかなりあり、もっと整理して著述することができたように思った。

An overview for a lay audience of how US plans and fights conflicts. If this is the best thinking available, I am not optimistic that after 70 years of debating the military-industrial complex and the obstacles it presents to building much less executing a coherent military strategy, things will change. Here is the underlying issue largely unaddressed by this book: the US and its military undertake every day something neither the Russians, Chinese nor any other country need worry about: the policing of every corner of the earth. How many Chinese and Russian military bases do you find dispersed around the world? The fact that China is able to concentrate forces around its neighborhood, while selectively building a base here and there (Djibouti eg) while the US funnels billions in personal and material to sustain hard emplacements, gives it a great advantage. Once defense policy focuses, as Brose suggests, on defending the homeland, begins to pull back from a global posture rather than deployment of bases within China's missile ranges which are sitting ducks and will be wiped out quickly, and deep sixes the assumption that we'll somehow counter Chinese technology while protecting hard forward-deployed assets then we'll make progress. Yes, China can cripple and disable our space hardware, just as we can theirs I hope. And as we've seen in Ukraine Russia's putative (as it were) capabilities in Syria, described in the book, do not seem in evidence leading one to think perhaps the great leap forward in Russian technology and doctrine isn't all it's cracked up to be. And what, exactly, is China's goal? To replace the US Navy with their own so they can zip around the world's oceans controlling - what - shipping? I don't think so. And once China has knocked out communications, military capabilities, and military hardware in a matter of days or weeks, what then? Do they move to Washington DC and occupy the Federal Reserve? Are their manufacturing and supply chain capabilities better able to ship cheap tee shirts for the internment camp prisoners across the US they'll presumably capture? While "The Kill Chain" is an arresting title this is a book largely about inside the beltway thinking and one cannot hope, and Brose alludes to this, that the same gang that got us into this mess will now get us out of this mess. The reports and analyses have been done, filed, presented, and noted, yet the same situation obtains while, according to Brose and others, China just goes flat out in leaps and bounds ahead of the US. Perhaps a more profound analysis of China's actual capabilities would inform US strategy (see Rush Doshi, The Long Game). Brose opens a few windows to invite fresh thinking but I'm not persuaded there is much of a solution offered here to reorient the mind-boggling bureaucracy that is the US military. Fortunately, Russia and China probably suffer from similar bureaucratic rigidity. I hope Brose will write an addendum after analyzing Russian behavior in Ukraine. Good read, though.