Here’s a fact that ought to startle every American who assumes that because we spend nearly trillion each year on defense, we have primacy over our emerging rival, China. “Over the past decade, in U.S. war games against China, the United States has a nearly perfect record: We have lost almost every single time.” That’s a quote from a new book called “The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare,” the most provocative critique of U.S. defense policy I’ve read in years. We have become so vulnerable, he argues because we’ve lost sight of the essential requirement of military power — the “kill chain” of his title — which means seeing threats and taking quick, decisive action to stop them. We have been so busy buffing our legacy systems that, asBrose writes, “the United States got ambushed by the future.” We should reflect on America’s vulnerability now, when the world is on lockdown and we have a chance to reassess. Rather than match our fleets of carriers and squadrons of jets around the world, Beijing developed precision weapons to prevent the United States from mobilizing these forces. An example is the DF-21, the world’s first ballistic anti-ship missile, which Brose says isknown as “the carrier killer.” Gallery: 11 striking photos show the US military in action around the world (Business Insider) When the Pentagon tries to innovate, it’s too hidebound to maneuver and adapt. Brose envisions a military version of the “Internet of things” — smart systems at the outer edges of our defenses which can blunt China’s dominance without breaking the budget or risking all-or-nothing confrontations. The question for Americans to ponder, in Brose’s simple formulation, is “how the future can win.” We have a window of time now, thanks to our enforced lockdown, to do some creative thinking about defense.
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