Tactical Myths and Perceptions of Reality

the United States has built unmanned systems that focus on decreasing political cost and privileging control, precision, and persistence over survivability, mass, and economic cost. But these are all human choices—they are not immutable or even unique characteristics of drones (or even of the narrow segment of drones on which the authors focus). So how would I answer the authors’ opening question: “Do emerging and disruptive technologies yield an offensive advantage?” I would say the puzzle is not in a technological assessment of a few weapons’ capabilities in a snapshot of time, but instead in the complicated interaction of technologies, tactics, and human choices that ultimately determine the winners and losers of war. And for this more complicated puzzle, I would argue that the article, while factually correct, is unscorable at 12.