War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First Century Great Power Competition and Conflict. Mick Ryan. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2022.

The character of war is rapidly changing. The increasing availability of evolving technology confounds previous frameworks for military operations. Socioeconomic factors and demographic shifts complicate manpower and force generation models for national defense. Ubiquitous connectivity links individuals to global audiences, expanding the reach of influence activities. And a renewed emphasis on strategic competition enhances the scope of military action below the threshold of violence.

This is the world that Mick Ryan explores in War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First Century Great Power Competition and Conflict. A retired major-general of the Australian Army, adjunct fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a frequent writer on topics of modern and future warfare, Ryan is well positioned to develop this study. By deeply examining drivers of change, Ryan aims to offer a solid approach to preparing for modern competition and war. In this he succeeds admirably, offering military practitioners and policy makers alike a sound understanding of war’s changing character, a path of inquiry to understand it, and principles to seek advantage in this new security environment.

Ryan’s central premise is that despite ever expanding technological leaps, relative advantage will not be maintained by the relentless pursuit of the latest tech.[1] Rather, military organizations will gain a decisive edge in the 21st century through a combination of appropriate ideas, adaptive institutions, and well trained and educated people. While Ryan offers that his argument is not particularly groundbreaking, it is still important and must be re-emphasized to guard against the feckless pursuit of new and glamorous technology, and to focus policymakers and leaders instead on their greatest asset—their people.

Military organizations will gain a decisive edge in the 21st century through a combination of appropriate ideas, adaptive institutions, and well trained and educated people.

This emphasis on an enduring argument is a strength of his case rather than a shortcoming. The focus reveals that while the character of war is changing faster than ever and in an era of extraordinary and novel threats, its enduring nature provides timeless principles for those intent on succeeding in war. In this, Ryan echoes a key argument of Air Force officer and military theorist John Boyd: People, ideas, and things, in that order.[2]

War Transformed reads much like an exploratory discussion, one in which Ryan guides the reader through synthesis, antithesis, and thesis. Thoughtful questions are explored through engagement with foundational  texts on the subject at hand. For example, his analysis of the impact of culture on military institutions includes a brief discussion of Peter Mansoor and Williamson Murray’s pivotal text The Culture of Military Organizations, as well as Frank Hoffman’s important work Mars Adapting: Military Change During War.[3] These touchstones of scholarship demonstrate Ryan’s deep expertise on the subject, while offering avenues for further exploration by the military professional.

One of the book’s shining points is the recurring theme of adaptation. In building a model of a world in constant competition, Ryan provides a theoretical construct for competition that is accessible to the military professional. By identifying historical and modern cases for the importance of adaptation, he connects this to the modern reader by identifying adaptive requirements to the emerging trends in 21st century warfare, such as a new appreciation for the importance of time, new forms of mass, the battle for signatures, and human-machine integration. Strategists and operational planners will find even more utility in Ryan’s concept for counter-adaptation, in which he outlines ways for denying an adversary the ability to adapt to friendly operations.[4] 

Leaders should also take note of the linkage of adaptation to institutional culture, which Ryan connects directly to military effectiveness. Ryan argues that without a culture open to self-examination, critique, and adaptation, military effectiveness will not be achieved. As today’s military practitioners find themselves tasked to develop and implement a litany of new operational concepts, they will be well served by Ryan’s argument for nurturing a culture that matches concepts to capacity, maintains a focus on their mission, and aligns their activities with their objectives.

Diagnosing several shortcomings found within most contemporary approaches to military learning, he proposes that a joint, integrated force can be better developed if military leaders are taught to be joint by design, rather than attempting to make officers joint qualified when they are over halfway through their careers.

Himself a noted writer on the subject of professional military education, it is no surprise that Ryan dedicates significant attention to the problem of intellectually developing military personnel. He argues for constructing a system of continuous learning, challenging military institutions to strategically design their efforts for training and education. Diagnosing several shortcomings found within most contemporary approaches to military learning, he proposes that a joint, integrated force can be better developed if military leaders are taught to be joint by design, rather than attempting to make officers joint qualified when they are over halfway through their careers. Similarly, Ryan proposes that learning will be enhanced through engagement with non-military institutions, a goal easily achievable through interaction with the interagency and civilian industry.[5]

Additionally, he makes a strong case for the applicability of speculative fiction as a means by which to develop plausible futures, anticipate challenges, and develop solutions. While many readers will be familiar with the genre of fiction intelligence, or FICINT, popularized by August Cole and Peter Singer through their novel Ghost Fleet, Ryan demonstrates that a long and wide-ranging application of science fiction for military education and planning exists and that this is a tool that is both useful and culturally acceptable to military organizations. Finally, Ryan makes the case for military educational institutions to formally repurpose a portion of their syllabi to deliberately study and solve emerging problems. In proposing the educational institution as think tank, Ryan again appeals to history, noting two key precedents: the U.S. Naval War College’s 1930s wargames that informed operations in the Pacific War, and the Marine Corps Schools’ task to its students to develop and write what would become the Tentative Manual for Landing Operations, which provided essential doctrine for amphibious operations conducted by the Allies in multiple theaters in World War II.[6]  

Ryan’s boldest and perhaps most important argument is his critique of hyper-war, a type of conflict where there is no human in the loop; instead, military decision-making is entirely automated, provided by combinations of artificial general intelligence and machine learning.[7] Ryan is forthright: “I can think of no human endeavor that would benefit from it—especially war.”[8] To reach this conclusion, he contests that such a form of war is possible, but instead examines whether such an arrangement is desirable. Without skin in the game, such constructs will never be able to fully consider the human implications of their decisions.

War Transformed provides the necessary lens through which military practitioners must consider modern competition and conflict.

This, too, is an old argument, one that strikes at the heart of the quantitative versus the qualitative when assessing value. But the debate takes on new meaning when the technology to offload strategic decisions from human beings is rapidly becoming available. This discussion is revisited in the epilogue, where Ryan disputes the argument that technological advances are changing not just the character, but also the nature of war. Weighing different arguments regarding whether the nature of war could ever change, he contends that no such change will occur in the near future, and regardless of the possibilities, that “no AI can inspire humans to cohere, learn, fight, and sacrifice.”[9]

War Transformed provides the necessary lens through which military practitioners must consider modern competition and conflict. It describes the rapidly changing operational environment, frames its defining problems, and provides suitable answers to its many dilemmas. While confirming the importance of technological change, Ryan makes a compelling case to focus instead on people, institutions, and operational concepts in order to be successful. In challenging leaders to embrace adaptation and to build cultures of learning, War Transformed offers a reliable path forward through an increasingly uncertain future.

Brian Kerg is an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. He is also a nonresident fellow with Marine Corps University’s Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the U.S. Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

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Header Image: Untitled, 2020 (Martin Sanchez).

Notes:

[1] Mick Ryan, War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First Century Great Power Competition and Conflict, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2022), 7.

[2] Ryan, 158-59.

[3] Ryan, 139-40.

[4] Ryan, 159-60.

[5] Ryan, 187-189.

[6] Ryan, 191-195.

[7] Ryan, 88-89.

[8] Ryan, 108.

[9] Ryan, 231.