Sublime

First, that technology alone rarely confers an insurmountable military edge; tactics, organization, training, leadership, and other products of an effective bureaucracy are necessary to realize the full potential of new inventions. For this reason, ever since the rise of modern nation-states in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, shifts in

To win a war, it helps to have three things: more troops than the enemy, intelligence about the enemy’s plans, and superior technology. Alliance-building and patron–client relations helped leaders amass more troops and often learn about the enemy’s plans—and this is true whether a society is preindustrial, industrial, or postindustrial.

Battlefields don’t always follow the logic of math on blackboards. Tactics, terrain, the element of surprise, and the quality of weapons or soldiers all are incredibly important variables. But the key point is this: mathematical logic shows that the advantage of having a larger army is much greater for armies using ranged weapons than those engaged

Petraeus was armed with an actual strategy. His idea was that one could combat an insurgency as long as the large preponderance of civilians supported a legitimate government. The trick was to shift the military’s focus from making patrols to protecting the populace.

Four months later, in a speech to a luncheon given by the Association of the United States Army (AUSA), General Shinseki laid out his vision for the way forward. The Army would, he contended, explore and exploit the full range of emerging technologies, including command, control and communications technology, to find the best solutions to the