The Arms of the Future - (New Perspectives on Defence and Security) by Jack Watling

About the Book

"From smart munitions and ground penetrating radar to autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and drones, the mode of warfare is currently undergoing a rapid transformation, with modern technologies reshaping how armies fight in the twenty-first century. Modern Weapons and Tactics analyses the choices that armies confront as they try and combine old and new capabilities. Based upon extensive observation and practical experimentation with emerging systems, Jack Watling charts how the decisions armies make to seek advantage from novel technologies inevitably determine their effectiveness and success on the battlefield. At a time when defence spending across NATO is on the rise, and conflict with Russia raises new questions of what it means to fight a truly 'modern' war, Watling demonstrates how armies must fight, rather than simply assert what they will fight with"--

Book Synopsis

From sensor-fuzed munitions and autonomous weapons, to ground moving target indication radar, laser vibrometers and artificial intelligence, the weapons of warfare are undergoing a rapid transformation, with modern technologies reshaping how armies intend to fight in the twenty-first century.
The Arms of the Future analyses how the emergence of novel weapons systems is shaping the risks and opportunities on the battlefield. Drawing on extensive practical observation and experimentation, the book unpacks the operational challenges new weapons pose on the battlefield and how armies might be structured to overcome them.
At a time when defence spending across NATO is on the rise, and conflict with Russia raises new questions of what it means to fight a truly 'modern' war, Watling examines not just the arms to be employed but how they can be fielded and wielded to survive and prevail in future wars.

Review Quotes

"You can put down your 'future war' novels and read instead the actual study of the deployment of modern weapons and systems from someone who has seen many of them in action, often as a frequent visitor to the battlefields of Ukraine. Jack Watling examines critically and thoughtfully how forces will fight in the mid-decades of the century, exploding the hyperbolae, war-scares, and myths with some very hard truths. For each technology, working from the tactical to the strategic, he focusses on its functional logic and its dependencies. If you want to know how to 'find, fix, and finish' in the battlespace, and you want to know how the technology works in practice, you have just found the book you need." --Dr Rob Johnson, Director of the Office of Net Assessment and Challenge, Ministry of Defence, UK

"In the last ten years, Dr Jack Watling, a research fellow at RUSI, has become a leading commentator on military affairs in the UK. In this perceptive, timely and provocative book, Dr Watling lays out his vision of the future of 'informationized' land warfare. In the light of ubiquitous sensors and long-range precision fires, the twentieth century doctrine of manoeuvre and its associated forces structures, so ingrained in contemporary military thinking, may now have become obsolete. In its place, Dr Watling describes a new battlefield geometry in which attacks forces will have to remain dispersed and concealed out of range of enemy strikes, until they have created the opportunity to concentrate for an attack on an objective, which will almost certainly be urban. To prevail on this battlefield, Dr Watling convincingly argues that land forces will need to be re-organised. This book represents a major contribution to current debates in military science and will be of profound interest to military professionals, scholars, and policymakers." --Anthony King, Warwick University, UK

About the Author

Jack Watling is Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in London where he works extensively with the British and allied militaries on force development and operational analysis. Jack has also worked in Ukraine during Russia's invasion, in Iraq during the campaign to defeat Daesh, in Mali, Rwanda and further afield. He is co-author, alongside Nick Reynolds, of War by Others Means: Delivering Effective Partner Force Capacity Building (2021).