Compass Points - Cloud is Down?
What happens when high tech is unplugged?
Compass Points - Cloud is Down?
What happens when high tech is unplugged?
July 16, 2026
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In both civilian life and in military operations, it is often said that everything is moving to the cloud. Is that true? Even if it is true, is it wise?
The US Marine Corps has announced it is looking at technology that could help Marines stay connected when the cloud goes down.
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As the Marine Corps explores ways to bring AI tools to the battlefield, it is looking at one software company’s proposal to keep troops computing when broader access gets cut off.
Ditto will announce Monday that the Marines’ Project Dynamis will evaluate their technology for turning radios, cell phones, even drones, into a local network that can keep data flowing and AI tools running locally when cloud access disappears.
“Ditto’s position is that we do not leverage a server-client model,” Eric Hanft, Ditto’s senior vice president for public sector and a former Army infantry officer, said in an interview. “If you continue to architect your data flows around that, you never remove this fundamental dependency that, if two edge nodes need to communicate and have to go to and from a server—and that server is not available—there’s no communication.”
A digital and data communication failure is a nightmare scenario that the United States has largely been able to avoid in past operations. But over the past two decades, those operations have increasingly focused on the Middle East, where the United States did not face adversaries that were capable of disrupting critical communications infrastructure.
-- Defense One, “Marines eye cloudless networks to keep AI tools running when the cloud goes down”
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Many pundits and prognosticators today are predicting that because of artificial intelligence, quantum computing, satellites, and precision munitions, wars of the future will be fought at a distance, from clean control rooms. Wars of the future will be high technology combat.
Despite advanced technology, however, much of the fighting in recent years in Ukraine and Gaza is not futuristic. In Ukraine, soldiers are fighting and dying in muddy trenches. In Gaza, the fighting took place in rubble filled streets and in treacherous subterranean caverns. The US today has reduced much of Iran’s military to rubble. What is left in the rubble? Sticks and stones.
Writing in the Small Wars Journal, author Casey Christie predicts that, “Future War Will Be Fought with Sticks and Stones.”
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In an era defined by artificial intelligence, drones, and satellite-guided warfare, it may seem absurd to suggest that the future of war lies in trenches, artillery, and rifles. Yet history has a way of circling back on itself and as nations race to develop increasingly advanced systems of destruction, they also create the means of their own paralysis. The next great war will not be won by the most technologically advanced army, but by the one that can still fight when all technology fails. This is not a romantic return to the past, nor a doomsday prediction, but a logical outcome of warfare’s evolution. Each new military breakthrough has produced a corresponding countermeasure, driving modern battle toward a point of diminishing returns. Directed-energy weapons now drop entire drone swarms from the sky. Cyber-attacks can paralyze command networks. Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) systems threaten to fry electronics across vast regions. Logically, therefore, when all sides possess such capabilities, the advantage shifts not to the most advanced, but to the most adaptable.
The Paradox of Progress
For over a century, the trajectory of war has been defined by progress – faster aircraft, smarter bombs, and more connected command networks. Yet every step toward technological supremacy also increases fragility. Modern militaries are built upon vulnerable foundations: GPS, communications satellites, and data-dependent logistics. An adversary that can disrupt those systems does not need to outgun its opponent; it only needs to unplug it. The U.S., the U.K., China, and Russia are all developing EMP and high-power microwave weapons designed to do exactly that.
The U.S. Department of Defense has warned repeatedly that an EMP detonation could disable unshielded electronics across an entire theatre of operations. Russia claims to have a number of non-nuclear EMP devices that have allegedly been tested for battlefield use. China’s military doctrine openly discusses “information dominance” as a means of blinding an adversary before the first shot is fired. If such weapons are ever used at scale, the result would be immediate regression as drones would fall, satellites would go silent, and precision-guided munitions would become scrap metal. Armies would be forced to fight with what still works: small arms, fieldcraft, artillery, and ground tactics that predate the digital age.
-- Casey Christie predicts that, “Future War Will Be Fought with Sticks and Stones.”
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Sticks and stones? Or AI and precision munitions?
Is warfare more science than art?
The Marine Corps’ foundational publication, Warfighting, says that war will be forever not just science and not just art, but will be ever-shifting levels of science and art, combined with the power and complexities of the human will.
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THE SCIENCE, ART, AND DYNAMIC OF WAR
Various aspects of war fall principally in the realm of science, which is the methodical application of the empirical laws of nature. The science of war includes those activities directly subject to the laws of ballistics, mechanics, and like disciplines; for example, the application of fires, the effects of weapons, and the rates and methods of movement and resupply. However, science does not describe the whole phenomenon.
An even greater part of the conduct of war falls under the realm of art, which is the employment of creative or intuitive skills. Art includes the creative, situational application of scientific knowledge through judgment and experience, and so the art of war subsumes the science of war. The art of war requires the intuitive ability to grasp the essence of a unique military situation and the creative ability to devise a practical solution. It involves conceiving strategies and tactics and developing plans of action to suit a given situation. This still does not describe the whole phenomenon. Owing to the vagaries of human behavior and the count- less other intangible factors which influence war, there is far more to its conduct than can be explained by art and science. Art and science stop short of explaining the fundamental dynamic of war.
As we have said, war is a social phenomenon. Its essential dynamic is the dynamic of competitive human interaction rather than the dynamic of art or science. Human beings interact with each other in ways that are fundamentally different from the way a scientist works with chemicals or formulas or the way an artist works with paints or musical notes. It is because of this dynamic of human interaction that fortitude, perseverance, boldness, esprit, and other traits not explainable by art or science are so essential in war. We thus conclude that the conduct of war is fundamentally a dynamic process of human competition requiring both the knowledge of science and the creativity of art but driven ultimately by the power of human will.
-- Marines, MCDP-1, Warfighting
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While pundits and prognosticators may predict that technology means wars of the future will be fought at a distance from cloud connected clean control rooms, technology is rarely dependable. While it is true that military contractors spew out proposals for new technology at a cyclic rate, still warfighting will always be filled with the unexpected.
In wars of the future, crucial technologies will go down. The technologies may stay down for a few minutes, a few days, or weeks, or more. If military units depend on fragile technologies that cannot be easily repaired, replaced, or resupplied, they are in for a surprise. Warriors must always be prepared to continue the fight with the most rudimentary technology.
Compass Points salutes Casey Christie and his insightful article, “Future War Will Be Fought with Sticks and Stones.”
When trained in the art and science of war, and in the complexity of the human will, US Marines can prevail in any conflict, whether high tech, low tech, or no tech.
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Small Wars Journal - 11/20/2025
Future War Will Be Fought with Sticks and Stones
By Casey Christie
Casey Christie is the Managing Director of Christie and Associates, a London-based private military security and intelligence firm. With decades of experience in security, intelligence, and risk analysis, he has written extensively on geopolitical threats, security and defense, and modern warfare. His work has been published in The Times of London, The South African Sunday Times, and Ukraine’s Kyiv Post, among others.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/11/20/future-war-will-be-fought-with-sticks-and-stones/
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Defense One - 07/13/2026
Marines eye cloudless networks to keep AI tools running when the cloud goes down
The software company Ditto says it can solve a key problem by networking “whatever transports the customer brings.”
By Patrick Tucker
https://www.defenseone.com/defense-systems/2026/07/marines-cloudless-networks-ai-cloud/414716/
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BITSKRIEG
I highly recommend the book “Bitskrieg: The New Challenge of Cyberwarfare” by John Arquilla (noted American strategist, analyst and academic of international relations). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arquilla
In Chapter 2, the author makes the case that as new cyberwarfare technology is introduced, we need to ensure the tech security is also updated. He argues that traditional defenses: firewalls, antivirus tools, perimeter security are “Maginot Lines”: brittle, static, and easily bypassed (and we all know the problems with the Maginot Line strategic). These defenses need to be replaced and updated with security tools like Universal Encryption (E2EE), resilient cloud architectures, and deterrence by denial (making attacks unprofitable or ineffective). He also warns that failure to modernize in this area will leave our systems catastrophically vulnerable. Sounds like the MC Development Center needs a new department, section, or division. S/F