Technology and the Art of War
- tonymarshall065
- Dec 4
- 5 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Introduction
Throughout history, technology has repeatedly redefined the art of war. In World War I, over 235,000 mines were deployed, protecting coasts and forcing ships into predictable (and thus easily ambushed) routes and denying them access to key ports. The introduction of tanks and heavy use of chemical warfare also transformed engagements on land, shaping and reshaping both tactics and strategies as new technologies entered the battlefield. World War II was similarly impacted by radar, rockets and – ultimately – the atomic bomb.
Modern warfare is impacted by technology at an increasing rate, forcing world powers to constantly shift strategies and, on occasion, to sideline billions of dollars of equipment. Some of the key technologies impacting battle strategies today are AI, unmanned systems, and the energy solutions that power them. Our country’s ability to create winning capabilities on these three fronts are critical to maintaining our military’s superiority to keep America and its allies’ enemies at bay.
Autonomous Systems
Autonomous systems/drones have had a major impact on the war in Ukraine. The use of inexpensive drones to target Russia’s Black Sea Fleet forced Russia to relocate many of its operations from its primary naval base in Sevastopol, Crimea to ports further east, only to soon be under attack in their new location by more advanced long-distance models (the Houthis have made similar use of them in the Middle East, striking targets over 1,000 miles away). Drones have had a similar effect on land, with models costing as little as $500 destroying tanks costing over $1 million. Swarms of relatively inexpensive drones have proven capable of attacking heavily protected facilities by simply overwhelming their defenses. These new realities are rewriting the economics of warfare.
In addition to their ability to attack on air, land and sea, drones provide valuable real-time surveillance and reconnaissance, tracking enemy movements with live video and thermal imaging and capturing signals intelligence from mobile phones, radio communications, etc. The real-time nature and richness of this data is redefining intelligence operations.
Vignette: Drones have become a cornerstone of modern warfare in the Russia-Ukraine conflict! Ukraine produced 2 million drones in 2024, using over 1,000 drones per day in frontline operations. Overall, drones have accounted for up to 70% of the damage and destruction of Russian equipment in the war.
Artificial Intelligence
Every intelligence company I’ve worked with (or at) is leveraging AI to enhance its analytical capabilities. While many are still figuring out how to best apply this powerful new capability, AI is already fully capable of rapidly processing and integrating data from multiple sources to detect threats, identify targets, and provide insights for decision-making. In addition to providing more powerful and comprehensive insights, the implementation of generative AI is enabling users to simply ask questions of these systems in plain English, expanding its use beyond trained analysts.
In the field, AI is capable of powering autonomous weapons including drones, ships, and fighter jets in ways that human operators cannot. Perhaps one of the clearest examples of this is the use of drone swarms capable of sharing data and making adjustments in real-time to overwhelm defenses and achieve complex tasks. AI-driven warfare can move at such a rapid pace that some fear the necessity to remove real-time human insight could lead to unplanned escalation.
Vignette: Despite the use of names like “drone” or “unmanned aerial vehicles”, human pilots have historically controlled drones – though from a base rather than a cockpit. Unsurprisingly, this has led to rapid development of increasingly sophisticated jamming technology to sever the connection between the remote pilot and the drone. This, in turn, has led to the use of fiber-optic tethered links – basically a thin fiberoptic line connecting the drone to the operator. While this overcomes jamming, it introduces new issues like limiting the range of drone strikes. A likely solution to jamming is the deployment of fully autonomous, AI-piloted drones. Russia has already deployed fully automomous drones, while Ukrainian defenses continue to test and deploy increasingly automated models as we progress toward a future where autonomous systems increasingly make tactical decisions without oversight from military commanders.
Advanced Energy Systems
Electricity powers the world economy by enabling manufacturing, transportation, and nearly all key facets of business. This is also true in military applications, with specific value placed on portable, high-output energy sources. Energy is a key factor in drones, affecting both range and power. For instance, hydrogen fuel cell-powered drones are proving capable of flying 3-5 times longer than conventional drones and can power advanced autonomy software. Nuclear-powered drones are expected to be capable of weeks or months of continuous flight, with projects underway including NASA’s Dragonfly mission which intends to send a nuclear-powered drone to Saturn’s moon Titan. Small modular reactors (SMRs) are being developed for deployment in the battlefield, while Russia claims to be preparing to test nuclear-powered cruise missiles.
While drones and kinetic weapons are heavily dependent on their energy sources, artificial intelligence is having the greatest broad-scale impact on our national energy grid. xAI’s new Colossus training cluster is estimated to use enough energy to power 150,000 homes, with plans for rapid expansion. AI data centers like this are placing an incredible strain on the US energy grid, necessitating new solutions for broad-scale power.
Finally, portable high-power solutions are a key requirement for the development of effective directed-energy weapons. With enough high-output, portable power, the battlefield could suddenly look like nearly every sci-fi film with lasers and particle beams becoming the weapons of choice.
Vignette: The US Government recently announced plans to deploy SMRs to power its military bases. Nuscale’s SMR is a 76 x 15-foot cylindrical design with the ability to generate 77 MW of energy, refueling as infrequently as once every 21 months. This is enough energy to power over 35,000 homes! Excess power from an SMR could be used to power an array of directed energy weapons, which the government plans to eventually utilize for applications including ballistic and hypersonic missile defense.
History Repeats Itself
In World War I, the United States entered the war with only a few hundred machine guns and initially had to arm its soldiers by purchasing weapons from France and Britain. At the end of World War II, the USA famously created a program called Project Paperclip, bringing over 1,000 scientists from Germany and Austria to develop rocket technology. Currently, the Trump administration is working on a deal with Ukraine to purchase advanced drones.
In each of these cases, the need was clear but was not addressed in a timely fashion by private industry and markets in the United States. As the pace of technological advancement continues to quicken in an increasingly multipolar world, we cannot afford to fall behind.
Conclusion
The art of war is changing at an unprecedented pace. AI, drones, new energy solutions and many other technologies are rapidly redefining strategies, with the most innovative solutions driving significant advantage. It is critical for the United States and its allies to lead in the development of these key new capabilities. To do so our government, private industry, and private markets must work together to deploy significant capital and our top talent to build new capabilities that will allow us to deter, and when necessary win wars to protect our country and our allies.