Bing West
Today, millions of drones are battling in the Ukrainian sky, while unmanned naval variants stalk Russian ships. Cheap unmanned kinetic systems have changed the 21st-Century face of war. This surprised the intelligence community, the Pentagon, and its major defense contractors. Every Ukrainian infantry platoon employs drones to kill any single Russian soldier venturing into the open. Unmanned seaborne drones sank so many warships that Russia pulled its fleet out of most of the Black Sea, enabling Ukraine to resume grain exports deemed impossible when the war began. President Biden, intimidated by Putin, has forbidden Ukraine from employing U.S.-provided weapons to strike inside Russia. Nonetheless, Ukraine is employing its own patchwork drones to hit deep inside enemy territory.
Over the past three years, the face of war in the 21st Century has been forever altered by the commoditization of digital technologies. This has enabled unmanned systems to wreak destruction at a fraction of the previous costs. These cheap economies of scale are advantaging Iran, Russia, and China, because the American military procurement system has not adapted.
The economist Joseph Schumpeter coined the memorable phrase “creative destruction” to summarize how upstart companies, decade after decade, have introduced manufacturing innovations that destroyed more established companies. Cars bankrupted buggy whip companies, digital photography doomed Kodak, etc. In the free marketplace, millions of consumers choose what to buy. If a company does not keep pace, its products fail to sell, and bankruptcy follows.
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