Aspirations
This book aspires to set out choices that armies face in building a combined arms formation that will remain competitive over the coming decades. By evaluating emerging technologies, assessing how they interact, identifying where they are complimentary and where they are impractical, the book will endeavor to reach conclusions as to what a competitive combined arms formation will need to comprise, and where decisions must be made about trade-offs to seek advantage. In short, the book sets out to identify the arms of the future.
Watling, J. (2024) The Arms of the Future: Technology and Close Combat in the Twenty-First Century. London: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 7
In looking at a future battlefield, Watling in The Arms of the Future focuses on five fundamental problems emerging technologies create:
- “Navigating the Transparent Battlefield” talks how ubiquitous sensors prevents surprise.
- “Contesting the Spectrum” talks to the balance forces need to keep in the electromagnetic spectrum.
- “When Protection is an Illusion” speaks to how the on the future battlefield achieving mass or the ability to concentrate forces at the decisive point is threatened.
- “When the Tail Needs Tooth” discusses the need to restructure logistics.
- “Blood in the Street” points to the requirement for concentrated mass in urban environments. (Watling, p. 9)
Spoiler
As I was reading The Arms of the Future, the Ukrainian strike into the Kursk Oblast was in the first 72 hours. With those events unfolding, it was interesting to read passages such as:
Against the array of modern sensors that will permeate the future battlefield, it must be seriously doubted whether operational surprise is achievable by the current force. A modern combined arms brigade comprises somewhere in the region of 80-120 main battle tanks, 30-70 artillery pieces, around 800-1,400 infantry, and their supporting engineers, logisticians, maintenance and medical personnel. If it is to fight as a formation, it must concentrate to some extent and in doing so it generates a great deal of dust, noise and disruption of civilian traffic. For an adversary radar operator, 50 km behind their own air defenses, the signature of such columns using ground moving target indication radar is unmissable. Moreover, days before the brigade reaches its assembly area behind the lines, civilians will have photographed its vehicles en route, uploaded them to social media, and civilians will have purchased satellite images of their support area as it is established.
Watling, p. 23
The early days of the Kursk offensive also brought out critics of the “transparent battlefield”:
Caution
The Arms of the Future is a well-researched book that is highly readable. Watling dips just enough into defense jargon to show that they are knowledgeable, but stays away from coming off sounding like a defense contractor trolling for another gullible defense buyer. Watling’s view of the future battlefield, in particular the concept of the “transparent battlefield,” is not new having been written on by the likes of John Antal previously. That said, Watling does come across as a technophile, perhaps at the expense of some intellectual blinders as pointed out by Mick Ryan. All three make good points; the balance between technology and people in the future of warfare is yet to be determined.
Recommended.
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Rocky Mountain Navy Gamer 
See, Watling is right about the basics and to some extent that’s always been the case since aerial reconnaissance. It is hard to hide a large army, and technological advances don’t exactly make it easier (the cloaking device has yet to be invented). Full surprise is very hard, and so is full deception.
Keep in mind that Watling is British and so this is aimed at a policy audience with the intention of telling them that there’s no gimmicky substitute for a large, deep army.
Two years ago, despite the fact that the United States told and showed the Ukrainians and its NATO allies that the Russians were preparing to attack Ukraine, they all denied it and talked themselves out of it. The ability of armies to self-deceive is amazing. It also reflected poorly on our NATO allies’ intelligence services that they (with the exception of the Brits), could not independently verify what the U.S. was saying publicly and directly: Russia is going to attack!