The Art of War in the 21st Century

I recently read an interesting piece on this topic and the URL is at the end for this post.

Emerging technologies (drones, cyber, AI, economic statecraft) are rewriting military affairs. Offense is cheaper than defense; chokepoints in supply chains and tech standards matter as much as traditional firepower.

The calculus of conflict has flipped—great powers now fight through proxies, sanctions, and tech dominance more than massed armies. Mehlman sees this as part of the broader disruption era.

There were a few points that struck me in reading this thought piece by Bruce Mehlman on the Art of War in the 21st Century.

1. Offense is cheaper than defense. On offense you only need one to make it and you won. On defense if you miss one you lose.
2. If you use a computer or smartphone, you’re on the new front lines. If you rely on GPS, cloud services or semiconductors, you’re on the front lines too. In today’s wars the front lines are everywhere. With so much of our lives online, cyber warfare can target civilian communications, private markets and critical infrastructure (including power, water & sanitation). The first shots of World War III will likely come in cyberspace… and may have already been fired.
3. Manufacturing capacity matters — Better technology only wins if you don’t run out of it… as Stalin allegedly declared, “quantity has a quality all its own.” War simulations consistently find the U.S. loses to China for lack of domestic industrial capacity, validated as the wars in Iran & Ukraine deplete American stockpiles much faster than we can replenish them.
4. Supply chains & logistics matter — Much of 21st century geopolitics reflects a race for resilience (obtaining self-sufficiency in case of conflict) and leverage (creating dependencies among adversaries to discourage conflict).

Here is the URL https://brucemehlman.substack.com/

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