In 2022, we considered questions ranging from identifying the greatest weakness of the U.S. in the national security arena to considering how to de-center the U.S. in discussions, expand the array of perspectives, and bring together fresh solutions and new ideas.

To begin 2023, we wanted to explore the relationship between historical lessons and preparation for an unknown future. A wide array of thinkers have inspired this theme, including Lawrence Freedman. In The Future of War: A History, Freedman explains that the future is so difficult to predict because “it depends on choices that have yet to be made, including by our own governments, in circumstances that remain uncertain.” Freedman continues to unpack this notion, stating:

History is made by people who do not know what is going to happen next. Many developments that were awaited, either fearfully or eagerly, never happened. Those things that did happen were sometimes seen to be inevitable in retrospect but they were rarely identified as inevitable in prospect.[1]

This quarterly thus examines preparation for future warfare based on historical lessons, learned or not. How have states and other actors envisioned future warfare? How did they prepare, or fail to prepare, for future warfare? Are these lessons of use to states and other actors as they prepare for future conflict?

First, Will Hitchen begins this quarter by reminding us that most forward-leaning predictions are just wrong. The author explores prediction in general before honing in on how often past predictions about future warfare have been erroneous. Predictions fail for a number of reasons, including misapplying history or even misrepresenting it. One solution to best preparing for future warfare includes hedging to prepare for a variety of different potential developments.

Next, Amos Fox identifies four different schools of thought to understand how institutions and individuals view future conflict: the futurist, the traditionalist, the institutionalist, and the conflict realist. Only by blending each camp, Fox contends, can militaries best prepare for future warfare.

Samuel Shamburg acknowledges how much history shapes theory and doctrine, but argues that military leaders often fail to use history appropriately. Planners can help resolve this challenge by engaging in better scenario planning, especially looking for leading indicators that so often result due to scenario planning. If one considers a future scenario as akin to a maze, then these indicators are like breadcrumbs that provide “signals to watch for,” helping create mindsets that allow leaders to respond better when tomorrow becomes today.

Nate Bump then suggests that story matters more in avoiding past catastrophes than predicting specific events years into the future. As British soldier and military historian B.H. Liddell Hart concludes, “the value of history is in the countless repeated ways things can go wrong.”[2] This piece examines recent thinking and planning examples to better understand how states effectively envision future warfare by examining their performance in past and present conflict to include how lessons learned were applied by the countries in focus, or not.

Next, Peter Hickman highlights how even the most studious military professionals can often repeat previous military predecessors by exploring Napoleon’s disastrous invasion into Russia. The author argues that because politics shapes strategy, situations that may superficially appear to be similar are in reality “utterly unique, unbounded, and rarely conform to previous experience.”

Then Kyle Rable highlights the U.S. Army’s strategic amnesia regarding unconventional wars, arguing that the institution stubbornly refuses to use history correctly. Rather than learning lessons from conflicts in Vietnam and Afghanistan, the Army instead pushes learning opportunities aside and rushes headlong into developing new doctrine for high-intensity conflict.

Timur Nersesov then walks us backward before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine to argue that the US failed the international world order regarding the Armenia and Azerbaijan conflict, thereby helping to precipitate the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That the US did not respond is even more surprising in light of the past 30 years of US involvement seeking to mediate between the two warring nations. The international community has taken a Jekyll and Hyde approach to these recent conflicts although both overlap in being “ ethnic-territorial disputes between early democracies and autocratic neighbors.”

Ryan Easterday then returns to a more macro-level discussion of the tendency of nations to forget one of the recurring lessons of history: that wars rarely turn out to be as short as expected or hoped. An enduring historical lesson is the need to resist such overoptimism and plan for a potentially long and highly attritional conflict.

In keeping with Lawrence Freedman’s warning as to how often predictions fail, Cameron Ross next advises leaders to be humble regarding future anticipations. In the face of an unknown future, the best course of action involves pursuing flexibility in shaping strategy, training, and acquisition to best hedge against the impact of unexpected developments. 

In a similar vein, Ian Li highlights two cautionary themes for military professionals. There can be a danger in looking backwards for historical parallels, such as reflexively viewing tensions between the US and China as another Cold War running the risk of ignoring significant contextual differences. Additionally, it is not enough to study recent history out of the assumption that it has more relevance for future warfare.

Finally, Bryce Johnston looks to the past to forecast the future with the warning that technology has not simply had an additive effect historically; rather, it has been fundamentally transformative, albeit not in the way that proponents of the revolution in military affairs have argued. Johnston points to how it is not always the flashy technologies like hypersonics and drones that have the greatest effects on warfare and society. This point is important because of the sweeping changes that have begun occurring to warfare because of large-language models and the impact they will have on automating staff work, thereby transforming warfare by greatly speeding up decision making.

This collection of essays represents a varied set of ideas and arguments from our community. Considered together, they give us a point from which to continue the conversation about what history can, or cannot, tell us about the future of conflict.

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Header Image: Vintage portrait photography collection, Paris France, 2016 (Fabien Barral).

Notes:

[1] Lawrence Freedman, The Future of War: A History (New York: Public Affairs, 2017), xviii-xix.

[2] B.H. Liddell Hart, Why Don’t We Learn From History?