[phkahler]

The US military knows full well the importance of logistics. TFA is somehow arguing for distributed distribution networks that are harder to track and attack. Why not advocate for improved defenses along the supply lines? Or is it down to percentages where just one good hit has large effect?

[Animats]

The main point of this paper is that rear area bases are too vulnerable now. This paper is from West Point, and is the view from the Army side. It's a big problem for air forces, too.

The US has a tradition of large, supposedly secure bases in the rear. The USAF has relied on this since WWII. It's not working any more. Iran has been hitting US air bases. In the last day, they've hit US bases in Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain. That's just this round. There were previous hits a few months back. It's not publicized much, but it's no secret. It's hard to protect an air base against drones. Air bases are big, everyone knows where they are, airplanes are hard to hide from drones, and are vulnerable to small explosive charges. As Russia keeps finding out as Ukraine hits their air bases. There have been hits well inside Russia. Blast-resistant hangars in Crimea have been attacked. Don't leave a door open.

China is going in for airbase hardening in a big way.[1] This is sometimes called a "concrete sky" program. The USAF is way behind in the Pacific. Too many planes parked out in the open, or in weak hangars.

Active defenses against drones and missiles do work, but they just thin them out. Some get through. If the attacker has enough manufacturing capacity, the defenses can be overwhelmed. Ukraine is currently building about 7 million drones a year.

[1] https://www.hudson.org/arms-control-nonproliferation/concret...

[chasd00]

> The US has a tradition of large, supposedly secure bases in the rear. The USAF has relied on this since WWII. It's not working any more.

I guess we're all guerrilla fighters now.

[Animats]

"The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea" - Mao

Guerrilla forces have to be popular, or at minimum, have the local population cowed. They're useful for kicking an oppressor out of your own country, but not for conquest.

[shimman]

Maybe the US should focus more on diplomacy and open collaboration rather than letting a few dozen psychopaths convince the country we need to support a war machine that has benefited no one outside of the defense industry.

[Noumenon72]

If the problem was as simple as a few individuals and had no benefits it would not persist -- this is a Hollywood view of the world that won't help you understand your opposition.

[watwut]

Things that benefit only few can persist for a very long time. And US politics is full of those.

[shimman]

No, it's quite simple. US imperialism only benefits the select elites of the country at the expense of the poor.

Why are you denying the absolutely destructive power of the US military and it's abject failure in not only making the world safer for Americans but explicitly more dangerous?

Are you personally benefiting from US imperialism?

[shmeeed]

This was not the point of GP's comment. The point was that your reductive take on the military-industrial complex as "a few dozen psychopaths" is simplistic and won't help you understand your opposition.

Also, please refrain from making personal allegations.

[ericmay]

What diplomatic means should the United States (why the US and not others) take to stop Russia in Ukraine, stop Iran in the Middle East, stop North Korea, and stop China and its support for Russia or insistence of attacking Taiwan?

Certainly there is some room for negotiation and diplomacy and frankly I think we've tried that and tried it until it was clearly insane and then we still tried it. We (the west) tried to invite Russia to NATO and we opened up Europe to Russian gas. We tried the JCPOA with Iran. We have no clue what to do with North Korea. And we pushed for Chinese entry into the WTO only for them to backstab the west.

[shimman]

Conflating China with Russia is absolutely bonkers. No need to comment when you're already engorged on propaganda.

Also don't understand what point you're trying to make outside of the US being explicitly poor actors that ignore treaties, allies, and are willing to start wars to run cover for unpopular domestic leadership while causing the unnecessary deaths of millions of people across the world.

Also WTF does backstab even mean in this context? That China didn't bend over and allow US corporations to rat fuck their country dry? Who exactly benefits from enriching US corporations here? It's assuredly not US citizens.

Good grief.

[strangegecko]

I'm guessing with backstabbing he means China's practice of stealing technology and closing off the market for foreign companies.

Lots of smaller and mid sized companies that tried to invest in the Chinese market lost everything because the government protected and supported local copycats, with no intention of giving the foreign company fair access to the market.

[ericmay]

Thanks yes. You can read about Germany shedding 10,000 manufacturing jobs a month for yourself here: https://www.wsj.com/economy/china-is-devastating-the-last-st...

And let’s not forget China’s helping of Russia to prosecute its war in Ukraine by training soldiers [1] and providing dual use technology access.

It’s interesting how the OP that you responded to was quick to start slinging accusations of propaganda and react so violently without even asking a clarifying question. Well, let’s just say some of us read those comments with a little extra interest.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/04/ukraine-war-br...

[shimman]

Okay and how does this materially hurt Americans? The elites in the US hoard all the wealth, US corporations doing well internationally means fuck all for the domestic citizens.

This is what I mean by how much of a farce this all is. Why should I care that China's steal IP? Chinese products are actually good + cheap to a consumer like me, all I see our corporations being unable to compete with an actual competitor that has a different view of the world + vision of the future.

Hard to see why I should be willing to sacrifice Americans to uphold corporations.

[oatmeal1]

We pulled out of the JCPOA. It worked but we quit.

[ericmay]

Iran routinely denied inspectors access to facilities. American intelligence isn’t 100% accurate. And why should we have to effectively pay off Iran or have some special deal where they hold the world hostage less they build a nuclear bomb? Why do we only have to do that with Iran but not other countries?

I’m all for diplomatic solutions to problems, but Iran was building nuclear weapons under our nose anyway and loading up on missiles and drones to make it difficult to impossible for the US to do anything about them without severe regional casualties. Nevermind Iran’s continued funding of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis and their support for Russia in its war against Ukraine.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> why should we have to effectively pay off Iran or have some special deal where they hold the world hostage less they build a nuclear bomb?

This is a narrative you constructed. The reality is simpler:

- All countries have equal rights.

- The usa and israel want iran to give up their rights to a nuclear program, which is equal to the usa's and israel's right to a nuclear program.

- If you want someone to give you something, you generally have to give them something on which they place equal or greater value.

> Iran was building nuclear weapons under our nose anyway and loading up on missiles and drones

So was+is the usa and israel.

> Nevermind Iran’s continued funding of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis

The usa continues funding israel and supporting their war on Lebanon, Palestine, and Iran.

[ImPostingOnHN]

russia makes sense to the extent that they're attacking other countries unprovoked, but what are you talking about stopping China, North Korea, and Iran, from actually doing? Being successful? Improving their country? Existing?

[strangegecko]

He literally said it for China: stopping an invasion. I would add limiting political influence from autocratic governments that don't respect individual rights, but I know that's opening another Pandora's box.

[ImPostingOnHN]

- china isn't invading

- "autocratic government that doesn't respect individual rights" may describe china and north korea, but also describes the usa and israel over the last couple years (who have done more invading than china)

[maxglute]

Knowing logistics is important =/= able to adapt logistics to modern environment. Last 40-50 years US adversaries couldn't really contest/degrade US logistics at scale. Article is suggesting with new tech, they probably could, and hence may have to redo the entire system for distributed survivability / operate under chaos. Aka 60/70% of the force (the tail) is going to have to change the way they do things. It's hard to make 60/70% of org change, especially the boring bureaucratic/logistics part built around predictability, who are going to want to stay predictable and insist everything is fine with these minor changes, until its not.

[zipy124]

They argue for both no? Increased armour for logistics, but also the notion that yes, if one good hit destroys your whole stockpile then you would need a 100% success rate defense mechanism which is impossible when you can be overwhelmed by the number of drones/missiles seen in modern warfare.

[rawgabbit]

Ukraine is deploying AI enabled drones that require no fiber optic wires and no electronic tethering. They patrol autonomously and identify targets; a human authorizes the strike and they take out targets by themselves. This is the holy grail of modern warfare; destroy the enemy’s rear staging and logistics. If they don’t have fuel or ammo, they are a defenseless sitting target.

[RealityVoid]

These kinds of systems are rare or super rare.

[fragmede]

Not for long. Software copies easily. Hardware's more difficult.

[RealityVoid]

You need hardware for these things. High speed image processing and high precision control and global shutter cameras. You can't just slap a raspi on it with any run of the mill camera and call it a day.

[Edman274]

So what? A Google Pixel 9 Pro costs only about 4 times what a bare RPi 5 with a run of the mill camera costs, yet with its NPU it can perform 45 trillion operations per second with a camera that can reach 240 frames per second at a resolution of 2 megapixels. Do you think that's insufficient to autonomously pilot a drone moving at highway speeds towards a target that it identified as a fighter jet? In addition, it has an onboard battery, GPS, cellular and WiFi connectivity, pressure sensor, accelerometer, and USB connectivity. A phone by itself could replace practically all of the brains of a single use drone and they sell phones literally in the millions. The hardware is terrifyingly easy to source.

[RealityVoid]

It's not as easy as plopping a new SW on it. Have you wondered why, despite this conflict dragging on for this long, autonomous targeting is still not common? It's just much harder to do, and doing it reliably is actually super hard.

Hw access is also not as easy as you think. Try getting a Pixel 9 class SoC board that you can actually dev stuff on, you'd be surprised how hard it is to get such a thing. And when you get it, it will probably be 2x as expensive for just the board.

Oh, put the Pixel 9 on it then. Have you tried doing optical flow on rolling shutter cameras?

Then, whatever solution you get, you need sufficient volume and reliable supply of the thing. Oh, you can't find the chip anymore? Good luck porting the stack you have since the pipeline is different.

Whereas these rc FPV drones you can basically build what what you find in the back of your drawer.

[_carbyau_]

With advances in drones but issues with communications I thought it was obvious that having a drone-area-of-denial would be a thing.

I mean, if minefields are okay with the intention to kill anything that walks in the area, why not drones?

[mikeodds]

got any more links for info on these?

[rawgabbit]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbC2cD1Mxjc https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260601-ukraine-kamikaze...

[nickphx]

huh? how does one keep a human in the loop for decision making it there is not an 'electronic tether'?

[rawgabbit]

A human is not piloting the drone. It patrols even if it lost communication due to jamming. It does need communication to ask the human for authorization to strike.

[chasd00]

> It does need communication to ask the human for authorization to strike.

well.. about that. "A senior figure in the Ukrainian defence industry told New Scientist that a test took place two years ago involving fully autonomous drones set to destroy anything in a given area, with confirmed casualties"

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2529849-fully-autonomou...

this article says "one time test" but i, personally, can't believe it's not being used daily.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/ukraines-one-time-test-us...

[bluGill]

You need human confirmation (for now) only when your side might be there. Tell your army not to go someplace and you can kill anything that is there.

[CamperBob2]

I wonder about the feasibility of an IFF-like mechanism at the level of individual soldiers. The drone could be designed not to attack when a nearby transmitter is broadcasting a prearranged encrypted code that's dependent on elapsed mission time or some other hard-to-spoof factor. Any humans caught out in the open without the IFF signal present are fair game.