Cogs of War
@cogs0fwar.bsky.social
https://warontherocks.com/category/blogs/cogs-of-war/
The Pentagon has spent years trying to speed up the kill chain. The brigades doing the fighting continue to wait on someone else for the money, approvals, and engineers to connect it all. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
The Last Mile of Pentagon Reform Runs Through the Brigade
A kill chain measured in seconds cannot depend on processes measured in weeks or months. The Pentagon recognizes that drone proliferation and AI-enabled
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Shipyard pay is finally competitive. Getting there still means months of training without a paycheck, which most low-wage workers can't afford. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
The Navy's Missing Welders Are Stocking Shelves
The U.S. Navy's May 2026 shipbuilding plan, signed by Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao, uses the word “innovative” eight times. The plan applies that
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A strike can be legal and still wreck a coalition or local support. AI systems that nominate targets should also be built to argue against them. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
The AI-Assisted Strategic Own Goal in the Kill Chain
For eighty years, the Western alliance has anchored its strength in moral legitimacy, shared values, and the resulting credibility to shape international
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Engineering at the tactical edge is a skill most engineers never learn in school. And in a Pacific fight, help from home is an ocean away. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
MacGyver at Scale: Winning Future Air Wars of Rapid Technological Adaptation
During a recent training exercise in the western Pacific, a small group of engineers single-handedly saved the day. In the scenario, adversary covert
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Two decades ago, the Army designed fourteen systems that only had value as a complete set. Its eventual cancellation is still a lesson for today's biggest acquisition bets. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
The Unhedgeable Bet: What the Future Combat Systems Can Teach Us About Acquisition
The Pentagon describes Golden Dome for America as a “system of systems,” an integrated air and missile defense architecture that combines space-based
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Allies want their own defense tech, sovereign industry, and data. NATO's transformation leader explains how the alliance is preparing to fight modern wars, as one. Listen here: pod.link/1818133762/e...
Weapons reviews often can't reach a verdict until the system is finished and tested. What if instead, the reviewers were present while it was being designed? warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
Winning by the Rules: Optimizing Weapons Reviews in the Age of Technological Innovation
We spare the reader another detailed story from Ukraine to establish the now-familiar point that battlefield technology changes faster than militaries can
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American firms backed by federal dollars abide by U.S. governance rules. Foreign firms that receive the same support don't have to. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
Washington's Foreign Equity Bets Need Better Governance
What do a rare earth mine in Brazil and a graphite mine in Mozambique have in common? Both have received significant United States government funding. The
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The Army built its first permanent multi-domain operations command to prepare to fight across land, air, sea, cyber, and space on NATO's eastern flank. Its commander shares their progress. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
An Army General Talks Fusing Sensors and Shooters on the Eastern Flank
This exclusive Cogs of War interview is with Brig. Gen. Steven P. Carpenter, the commanding general of Multi-Domain Command - Europe, the U.S. Army's
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Our Arsenal of Innovation series, celebrating wartime innovation, is complete. Readers can pick their favorites, with cash prizes for the top five. Voting happens exclusively through our free newsletter. Subscribe by Monday to take part: warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war-...
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Data centers in orbit, solar power beamed to Earth, and hundreds of thousands of satellites. Three experts discuss the origins of the boom and how to sustain it. Listen here: pod.link/1818133762/e...
Nuclear warheads typically take years to engineer. A flight test vehicle designed by AI and 3D printed hints at a faster model for future systems. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
This Is Not Your Father’s Nuclear Flight Test Vehicle
For decades, the United States’ nuclear weapons enterprise has wrestled with an institutional paradox. On one hand is the imperative to make the complex
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Pentagon action officers do functionally the same job as their predecessors decades before. As leaders demand more speed, where should and shouldn't automation fit in? warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
Automating the Action Officer: Between Bureaucracy and Technology
If there is a revolution brewing in the automation of white-collar work, you wouldn’t know it at the Pentagon. Here, the typical action officers, staff
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The usual suspects behind Navy maintenance delays are well known. Far less examined is how the Navy contracts for private-sector repair work at its own public shipyards. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
The Tyranny of Shipyard Cost-Plus Contracting
As a naval shipyard commander, my mandate from Navy leadership is straightforward: return warships to the fleet as quickly as possible. Neither my
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American troops once had to choose between protection and mobility. Kevlar's accidental discovery helped end that tradeoff. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
The Strategic Fiber of America: Kevlar’s Impact on Warfighters
Editor’s note: This is the tenth article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader
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European states depend on foreign firms for more than 80 percent of their critical digital products, services, and infrastructure. Subsidies alone will never close that gap. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
European Resilience in Digital Infrastructure: The Changing Nature of State-Business Relations
As the war in Ukraine progressed, Russian strikes increasingly degraded Ukraine’s terrestrial communications infrastructure, steadily deepening Kyiv’s
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A test pilot's instinct is to stop for surprising machine behavior. Commanding an agentic aircraft requires a manual for a new skill: judging whether an autonomous surprise is sound or an error. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
A Rulebook for Surprises: Commanding Autonomous Aircraft
My greatest challenge while flight testing collaborative combat aircraft was not troubleshooting errors at high speed in the cockpit. It was when, in a
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The quantum race is really several races at once: breaking encryption, enhancing sensing, and changing computing’s economics. Three industry leaders joined the show to discuss what's coming. Listen here: pod.link/1818133762/e...
The defense debate is consumed by weapons and mass. One of the earliest movers in AI-powered drones believes the real gap is in autonomy and military intelligence. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
Betting on Autonomous Aircraft
This exclusive Cogs of War interview is with Brandon Tseng, the co-founder and president of Shield AI and a former Navy SEAL, whose company builds the
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Electrotech has become the foundation of military power, from drones to AI and manufacturing. Yet Washington is strangling that same industrial base it will need to compete. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
War: Watt Is It Good For?
Military analysts are captivated by how the material nature of war is transforming in Ukraine. Unmanned systems have captured Russian infantry units,
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Logistics ships will likely be among the first targets in a Pacific war. Three veteran defense tech leaders discuss how autonomy, scale, and predictive supply are reshaping modern logistics. Listen here: pod.link/1818133762/e...
In the War of 1812, faulty muskets pitted the government against its contractors. The push for higher standards gave Blanchard's lathe its opening, reshaping American manufacturing. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
What America Learned About Democracy When It Gained Stealth
Editor’s note: This is the seventh article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader
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A memory shortage is pushing Western tech firms toward a Chinese military-designated supplier. Buying cheap memory now hands Beijing lasting leverage over the supply. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
The True Cost of Cheap Chips
Given the relentless demand for computing power, electronic components are in scarce supply. Prices for certain memory chips, known as DRAM, have surged
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Nuclear submarines and power plants reshaped the twentieth century. Both trace back to one stubborn Navy captain who could not take no for an answer. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
Hyman Rickover and the Birth of Nuclear Power
Editor’s note: This is the eighth article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader
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Federal research dollars once defined the technological frontier. Our infographic traces how that leadership passed to industry across seven decades. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
Who Pays for America’s Research and Development?
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, the U.S. government was the unrivaled patron of American science. It funded nearly two-thirds of the
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Stealth was among the most closely held secrets of the Cold War. That secrecy tested the balance between national security and democratic accountability. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
What America Learned About Democracy When It Gained Stealth
Editor’s note: This is the seventh article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader
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New entrants promised to escape the politics that ossified traditional defense procurement. The subsidies aligning them with statehouses may unintentionally deliver those same politics. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
The Arsenal and the Statehouse: New Defense Firms, Venture Capital and State Industrial Policy
When Anduril announced a $910 million drone production facility in Ohio, it was not politics as usual. The main message came from Ohio’s governor, Mike
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The Defense Department is pushing to reform acquisition on several fronts at once. What's changed, and what's to come? Listen here: pod.link/1818133762/e...
Protecting American frontier labs from theft is a national security interest. Protecting them from open-source competition is not. How can the U.S. government create a durable policy that distinguishes between the two? warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
How to Stop China from Freeriding on American AI
The release of the Chinese open-weight AI model Kimi K3 has compressed a year’s worth of unresolved AI policy debate into a single news cycle. On July 21,
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The U.S. government is worried about complex chip-making systems falling into China's hands. Even if they do, owning the hardware is not the same as knowing how to build it. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...
ASML's Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography and the Limits of Reverse Engineering in China
In June, the U.S. Department of Commerce informed the Dutch company ASML that it suspects one of its extreme ultraviolet lithography machines has reached
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