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| WW1 Trench Warfare (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
WASHINGTON: If you want a glimpse of future war, look back a hundred years to the bloody stalemate of the Somme, the cataclysmic battle of World War I. Instead of machineguns and artillery slaughtering soldiers in no man’s land, imagine smart weapons ravaging the air, land and sea. Instead of biplanes overhead, imagine swarming drones. Instead of the unreliable radios of 1916, with communications breakdowns throwing plans into chaos, imagine wireless networks hacked and jammed by enemies. The end result — the bodies — would look much the same.
“Like the European powers at the start of World War I, we could find ourselves tremendously unprepared,” said Tom Mahnken, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “We’re likely to find ourselves surprised, and unpleasantly surprised.”
That grim prospect is much on the minds of top Pentagon leaders, notably the Deputy Secretary, Bob Work, and the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, who recently invoked World War I in a harrowing speech.
Read the full story at Breaking Defense