Compass Points - Bloody Struggle

The limits of technology.

Compass Points - Bloody Struggle

The limits of technology.

June 23, 2026

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Does technology erase history?

The US military has made tremendous progress in using technology to both see the battlefield and then use precision munitions to strike targets. These advances in technology have led some defense theorists to proclaim that technology has made war simple. The technology recipe says, 1. See the battlefield; 2. Identify targets; 3. Strike targets; and 4. End the conflict. History, to the contrary, consistently cautions that despite advances in technology, war remains a bloody, intractable struggle.

In the most recent conflict with Iran, US has used its enormous technology advantage to find targets, strike targets, and destroy targets. For example, the US has destroyed every ship in the Iranian navy and every aircraft in the Iranian air force.

Yet, despite technology, there are growing questions about the whether the US has been able to destroy the Iranian arsenal of mobile ballistic missiles.

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The picture now emerging is that Iran may have lost roughly a third to half of its ballistic missile arsenal and approximately half of its missile launchers. While we do not know the exact ratio of missiles and launchers destroyed versus damaged or rendered inaccessible, these attacks handicapped Iran’s wartime performance leading to a reduced rate of fire.

Yet some continue to portray Iran’s missile force as largely intact. Citing unnamed U.S. officials sharing a classified intelligence assessment, The New York Times reported on May 12 that Iran “has retained roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile.” Similar claims citing U.S. intelligence officials were published earlier by The Washington Post.

Those reports drew unusually direct public pushback from U.S. officials.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 14, CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper dismissed the reports as “not accurate,” but failed to offer a countervailing number.

-- FDD, “Evaluating the Damage to Iran’s Ballistic Missile Arsenal”

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In World War Two, the allies with their precision bombing technology were never able to eliminate the German mobile rockets launchers that were striking London.

Decades later in Desert Storm the US and allies with complete control of the air could not eliminate mobile SCUD launchers.

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Mobile Launchers – a Vexing Problem. The Iraqis had a number of mobile Transporter – Erection – Launch (TEL) vehicles that had been dispersed throughout western and southern Iraq. The exact number varies depending on which source you use – between 20 to 36 launchers are an approximate guess. They were difficult to find. The electronic signature of the TELs were not distinct enough for location purposes. The TELs were camouflaged and hidden to avoid observation from the air. They were frequently moved at night. Once the TELs launched their SCUDs they moved rapidly from the launch site to a different hide location. Sophisticated decoy vehicles were deployed throughout the region that attracted the attention of coalition aircraft. Coalition aircraft had a difficult time finding and targeting the mobile SCUDs. There was some confusion in obtaining the confirmation of ‘kills’ of SCUDs by aircraft. [4] The SCUD launches toward Israel continued.

-- SOF News, “Desert Storm – SOF Scud Hunting Mission in Iraq”

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The article, “”Preparing for War in the 21st Century” written by two experienced US warriors warns of the limits of technology.

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. . . US military policy remains imprisoned in an unresolved dialectic between history and technology, between those for whom the past is prologue and those for whom it is irrelevant. Today’s debate about the preferred structure of American military forces thus in the end is a debate about the future of war itself. The debate goes far beyond which weapons to buy or whether to favor this or that capability. At its heart, rarely considered and even less often articulated, are fundamentally incompatible views about the nature of war, about what conditions produce victory and defeat – indeed, how one should define these concepts – and ultimately, about the purpose for which we maintain military forces in the first place.

For those placing unbridled faith in technology, war is a predictable if disorderly, phenomenon, defeat a matter of simple cost/benefit analysis, and the effectiveness of any military capability a finite calculus of targets destroyed, and casualties inflicted. History paints a very different picture. Real war is an inherently uncertain enterprise in which chance, friction, and the limitations of the human mind under stress profoundly limit our ability to predict outcomes: in which defeat to have any meaning must be inflicted above all in the minds of the defeated; and in which the ultimate purpose of military power is to assure that a trial at arms, should it occur, delivers an unambiguous political verdict.

-- Van Riper, Paul K. and Robert H. Scales, Jr., US Army War College, Parameters, “Preparing for War in the 21st Century”

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In his white paper, “A Story of Unfulfilled Promises: From Douhet to Deptula” and in many other speeches and remarks, General Van Riper continues to warn about the dangers of over-estimating our own technology. He often explains that while technology is important and useful, it does not solve all battlefield problems. Repeatedly, technology has shown an inability to complete even simple tasks like eliminating the German V2 launchers, eliminating Iraq’s SCUD launchers, or eliminating Iran’s ballistic missile launchers.

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Unfortunately, however, only one side of the debate – that of the true believers in technology – is being widely heard today. In fact, there is not really much of a debate; rather there is a steady stream of pronouncements from those with a technical bent as to what the future holds for the military. Among the more startling are such edicts as, “If you see the battlefield, you win the war!” Or “The large battlefield of 200-300 miles wide…will change the nature of warfare so that people such as Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Mahan, may now well be wrong.” The mantra of ‘dominance, precision, decisive, full spectrum’, and more recently, ‘centric’ drown out the intelligent thoughts that are offered by opponents of the high technology vision. Terms such as, ‘military technical revolution (MTR)’ and ‘revolution in military affairs (RMA)’ that at one time had meaning now more frequently provide only a thin veneer for concepts lacking meaningful substance.

With few exceptions, those who espouse much of the current nonsense come from organizations within the armed forces that are generally far removed from the confusion and horror of the close-in fighting that occurs in real war. Theirs is largely a world of sterile control centers filled with technical marvels such as radar, sonar, satellite communications, and computers. The “field” experience of many of these officers is limited to that gained in vessels sailing hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean, in aircraft flying miles above the battlefield, or in the command facilities of major headquarters. “Fighting” for them revolves around the movement of icons and tracks on a screen. Death and destruction are abstractions represented by flashing symbols and changing colors on those screens. Their window on conflict imbues them with an air of make-believe about combat that is difficult to transcend. In many ways their view of war is very similar to one that players of video games would recognize.

Not understanding war in any fundamental way, these officers speak and write of it as they would wish it to be, that is, as an orderly and certain activity where there are virtually no friendly casualties and minimum casualties among the enemy. Though these are lofty goals they are unachievable, for war is inherently a dirty, chaotic, and bloody business. Without doubt, it is a scourge that all would wish to see lifted from the backs of humankind, but there is little evidence that such a miracle will happen in the foreseeable future. Therefore, it is only prudent that those responsible for our defense do not succumb to the siren song being sung by the proponents of high technology. If we follow their recommendations, our nation will no longer have the kind of fighting forces it requires, not today and certainly not tomorrow.

-- Van Riper, Paul K. “A Story of Unfulfilled Promises: From Douhet to Deptula”

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Does technology erase history?

Compass Points salutes Lt General Paul K. Van Riper (USMC ret) and all those who continue to work toward a Marine Corps that is not only technologically advanced, but also fully prepared for bloody, intractable combat on the ground.

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Foundation for the Defense of Democracies - 05/26/2026

Evaluating the Damage to Iran’s Ballistic Missile Arsenal

By Mark Dubowitz and Behnam Ben Taleblu

https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2026/05/26/evaluating-the-damage-to-irans-ballistic-missile-arsenal/

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SOF News - 02/23/2021

Desert Storm – SOF Scud Hunting Mission in Iraq

By John Friberg

https://sof.news/history/desert-storm-sof-scud-hunting-mission-in-iraq/

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US Army War College, Parameters Autumn 1997 - Volume 27, Number 3

Preparing for War in the 21st Century

By Van Riper, Paul K. and Robert H. Scales, Jr.,

https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol27/iss3/

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