To be frank, this book is a bit dry and sometimes difficult to penetrate, but Ben Connable, an ex-US marine turned military analyst and academic, has sought to provide some science to the question of (a) whether and (b) how ground combat has changed over the period 2002-2023. He has based his analysis on over 400 examples of recent ground combat. For this reason, as a piece of analysis, it is well worth reading. It is an insightful challenge to those who claim that the very nature, or character, of war is changing irrevocably from that to which humankind has historically understood it. The loud clamour among those who are not historians of war, and especially not of battle, can be distracting in their mis-reading of Ukraine (for instance) when they claim inter alia that (a) the tank is dead (though this cry began long before 2020) (b) drones make infantry combat impossible (c) AI will be the next combat spectrum, etc. etc. ad infinitum and ad nauseum. All this excited journalism (and too much military commentary is by journalists and not combat specialists, people who are simply not steeped in the history of war) does get a bit tedious, especially when it is sometimes promoted by defence organisations and think tanks, who should, frankly, know better.
One of the beauties of Connable’s book - if you persevere with it - is that he confirms, to me at least, that ground combat is complex, but that successful battle is built on an enduring set of factors. These include having the right operational plan (one that attacks the enemy’s critical vulnerabilities, not his strengths necessarily); and deploying combat capability (infantry, armour, precision strike, air and so on) effectively, as a combat or fighting system. At the heart of this ‘fighting system’ needs to be intelligent soldiers, and lots of them. Successful battle is concerned with securing and maintaining a capability edge over the enemy, and using that edge to unpick his own approaches and defeat his plans. Every war entails new technologies and new weapons, but the same principles of war endure. If you don’t master the principles of war, Connable seems to be saying, you’ll be undone by every new weapon and technology that rears its head on the battlefield.
I think that we are in this place because of a dearth of publicly accessible experts on battle; its nature and effects. I was bought up in the era of, and taught by, the likes of John Keegan and Richard Holmes, men steeped in knowledge of the historic battlefield. The most frightening aspect of much so-called military journalism today is the shallowness of their analysis about combat. Much of this ‘analysis’ is conducted from afar, and is based on no experiential foundation, such as a deep-seated historical understanding of battle. Where are the historians of battle in our think tanks, universities and academies today? Most I come across tend to be historians of the societal impact of war. Hard-headed analysis of the historic battlefield is becoming the preserve of nerds on platforms like Substack, where you can find plenty of helpful commentary.
Accordingly, in the public and political realm conclusions are jumped at frequently and, as I believe Connable suggests, wrongly. For instance, the assumption by many that in the battles of the future mass will not matter, and will be replaced by drones and AI, is mistaken, and is simply not supported by the evidence. If anything continues to matter on the battlefield it is large numbers of intelligent, well-led and expertly directed human beings, delivering the same sort of combat capabilities we’re used to, but in ever more intelligent and applied ways - including drones, AI and so on. And mass will be critical. This is where, yet again, in their search to minimise defence spending - and also, perhaps, to reduce the societal impact of mass death on the future battlefield - governments of all stripes divert money away from buying large numbers of young human beings to turn them into intelligent warriors, instead seeking technological alternatives to the ugly face of warfighting.
By looking at well over 400 recent examples of ground combat, between 2003 and 2022, Connable warns us not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Change in warfare is evolutionary and is not zero-sum. And we need lots more intelligent soldiers, not fewer of them, to operate all the new battlefield technologies we need to master to win the wars of the future.
Connable demonstrates the value of analysing battle, demonstrating to me at least that we need more historians/analysts of battle, not merely of war, or of conflict, for it is in an understanding of how battle is conducted that we can best shape ourselves to meet it.
