Don't count the fighter jet out quite yet
On sailing ships, resourceful thinking, and why it's premature to assume that drones will replace fighter jets entirely in the future of war
Technological change has a way of bending the mind of a certain kind of techno-enthusiast -- such that they see only how the new development will replace what came before it, rather than existing side-by-side with the old. Prudence dictates that we beware of such forecasts, even when they come from people who appear emphatic. Take, for example, Elon Musk's confident assertion that "Crewed aircraft will be destroyed instantly by cheap drone swarms".
■ It's a sweeping prediction, and one that flies in the face of the history of warfare. Perhaps the only thing that has ever really made a warfighting technology permanently obsolete is a change in propulsion. Ships once went to sea under sails, then coal-powered boilers, then diesel engines, and then (for some) nuclear power. Yet even then, sometimes what's old is new again.
■ While old propulsion may be permanently displaced by new, basically everything else simply adapts to the presence of new technologies, including drones. There's no doubt that Ukraine has revolutionized drone warfare as it seeks to repel the Russian invasion, but that doesn't mean fighter jets themselves are obsolete. "Destroyed instantly"? Certainly not.
■ It's dangerous to make plans under assumptions of obsolescence that do not match reality. Even soldiers on horseback sometimes make the difference in combat, even today. Blind faith in what's new can be just as hazardous as a rigid adherence to the old.
■ What matters is seeing the whole scope and using any and all of the appropriate tools available to settle the matter at hand. In the words of Dwight Eisenhower, "The trained American possesses qualities that are almost unique. Because of his initiative and resourcefulness, his adaptability to change and his readiness to resort to expedient, he becomes, when he has attained a proficiency in all the normal techniques of battle, a most formidable soldier." Limber minds are what win in the long run.
