By Frank Kendall
This is a work that I began mentally composing when I left government service in early 2017 and largely completed before taking office as Secretary of the Air Force in the summer of 2020. The views within are thus my own and do not represent the official position of the Department of the Air Force or the Department of Defense. However, I would offer two observations on the continued relevance of this line of thinking. First, it has been interesting to observe the progress of technology,experimentation, and innovative thinking by others all moving rapidly down the general path I will describe here. While I continue to believe that we are “out of time” to implement the concepts herein from a technological, organizational, and doctrinal perspective, I am heartened by the significant movement already underway. Second, the experiences of the last four years have served to reinforce my belief that these concepts are directionally correct. For example, technologies that were demonstrated in Armenia have been further developed by innovative Ukrainians and proven at scale in the conflict with Russia; UAVs employed by ISIS as asymmetric threats to US forces in Syria have evolved into one-way attack vehicles threatening shipping in the Red Sea. The cycle of innovation and response only accelerates, and I continue to believe that the appropriate response is to master technological change rather than resisting it.
Read the full paper here: The Future of Warfare
