Ben Connable, Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War (Georgetown University Press, 2025)

Intelligence professionals, military officers, and historians alike have often proven to be poor prophets. Our predictions of future wars are rarely accurate, our expectations of those wars breaking on the anvil of combat. However, we have no choice but to continue trying to imagine and forecast what the future character of war may hold on those battlefields that have yet to bear a name.

In the intellectual pursuit of forecasting the character of future combat, there is a tendency to be influenced by subjective biases stemming from operational experiences and fear. Academics and security practitioners alike craft and shape conceptual molds influenced by experience, observation, and doctrine. This mold is then cast and made ready to pour in the molten steel of ideas, theories, and simulations. There is then a hope that the hardened weapon that emerges will match the reality of future combat. Many envision casting a blade: sharp, sleek, and suited for the wars to come.

However, the furnace of battle seldom conforms to our preconceived molds.

When a war comes, its character is not carefully poured—it is struck. Hammered by terrain, chaos, fear, and friction, it shatters the carefully crafted forms. Instead, the furnaces of war splash the molten metal from our chosen molds, spilling onto the floor of reality in combat. These drops of molten steel then shape themselves into blades of their own choosing. They are not the meticulously crafted blades our molds predicted. Instead, they take on deadly, jagged shapes formed by chance and contact.

Past Attempts at Military Forecasting

The history of the United States’ failed forecasts persists in the remnants of past overly optimistic military thinking. Consider General William Westmoreland’s confident prediction in the late 1960s:

On the battlefield of the future, enemy forces will be located, tracked, and targeted almost instantaneously through the use of data links, computer-assisted intelligence evaluation, and automated fire control… I see battlefields or combat areas that are under 24-hour real or near-real time surveillance… [where] we can destroy anything we locate through instant communications and the almost instantaneous application of highly lethal firepower.

While the weapons, communications, and command-and-control platforms have certainly evolved, the promise of a synergized orchestra of combat has not been fulfilled as prophesied.

New dreams and molds were again cast following the lightning strikes and low casualty count of the 1991 Gulf War, breathing new life into technophilic interpretations of future warfare. A dazzling display of precision bombing, satellite communication, and rapid maneuvering encouraged a generation of strategists to believe that war had entered a new phase. Terms like “network-centric warfare” and “full-spectrum dominance” filled PowerPoint slides and think tank reports. The fog of war was, we were told, finally lifting.

And then came the post-9/11 wars.

Despite our networks, sensors, and drones, we found ourselves trapped in counterinsurgency challenges deeply rooted in the cities of Iraq and the valleys of Afghanistan, which resembled Vietnam more than the professed swift victory enabled by the revolution in military affairs. The United States once again learned that intelligence was never perfect. Airpower was not always accessible, and often, local knowledge mattered more than intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance feeds. The enemy adapted, using wires, homemade explosives, and cell phones to destroy million-dollar vehicles. While we progressed with new systems to counter the threat of improvised explosive devices and heavier armored vehicles, the character of warfare appeared to remain unchanged.

Forecasting in the Drone Age

Today, as drones seem to swarm the skies over battlefields, delivering death in combat through an unfamiliar presence, we are once again tempted to question and predict the future character of warfare. The thousands of videos and articles that have inundated social media platforms and journals about combat in Ukraine are both breathtaking and unsettling. Inspired by the horrors of modern warfare, many of us rush to envision and create a mold to prepare for the future once more.

The implications seem profound. First-person-view drones hover, dart, and dive like a new species of battlefield predator. Kamikaze quadcopters target individual soldiers, while loitering munitions take out tanks and command posts. It feels revolutionary. Thus, like Westmoreland before us, we begin to describe the next war—one of perfect visibility, seamless targeting, and algorithmic lethality.

As security professionals, we must remember the historically long and brutal reality of ground combat. We forget that steel behaves differently under fire than it does in theory.

Ground Combat’s Enduring Truths

Ben Connable’s new book, Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War, is essential reading for all security professionals, particularly those involved in imagining and forecasting the future of combat. Connable explores ground combat and how experts characterize and predict war. His work comes at a critical time in military affairs, as the rise of drone warfare and recent significant attacks in Ukraine and Russia have prompted modern militaries to rethink how they integrate drones into their formations and doctrines.

A significant part of Connable’s central argument is that, despite exponential improvements in sensors, data links, and precision munitions, the reality of ground combat has remained remarkably constant since World War II. Units still fracture under stress. Terrain still distorts intentions. Morale still frays. Communication still fails. And human fear—not bandwidth or targeting software—still shapes decisions at the point of contact. His book continually emphasizes that ground combat is not a sanitized laboratory, but rather a fluid cauldron of exhaustion, error, and emotion.

According to Connable, ground combat has not undergone a true revolution but rather an uneven evolution. Despite decades of confident predictions that precision, automation, and information dominance would reshape war, the essence of ground combat continues to be defined by friction, chaos, terrain, and human will. Borrowing from Isaiah Berlin’s famous framework, he critiques the hedgehog style of military futurism—characterized by declarative and overconfident forecasts—and instead presents a fox-like perspective grounded in humility, evidence, and complexity. He warns that too many forecasters rely on subjective and emotional triggers rather than military history and empirical evidence.

Connable adeptly blends qualitative historical case analysis, coded data from 423 modern ground combat incidents (2003–2022), and critiques of doctrine, modeling, and strategic discourse. He heavily draws from RAND’s research tradition while integrating Clausewitzian theory, military history, and his firsthand combat experience in the Gulf War and the Iraq War. The book is structured around a review of failed military forecasts, empirical coding of combat trends, and a sharp dissection of what forecasting can—and cannot—reveal.

A key aspect of Connable’s work focuses on the microrealities of natural and human-made terrain that shape the grammar of violence in ground combat. Connable consistently emphasizes that terrain imposes limitations on the ranges and types of weapon systems that can be used against the enemy. For example, he notes that, despite being equipped with armor, airpower, and artillery, ground combat was a slog in places such as Peleliu in 1944. From World War II to the present, ground combat has been closely tied to terrain, as combatants have strived to mass armor, infantry, and air support for ground advances. However, defending forces utilize natural forests or dig into the terrain, setting up minefields and counterattacking when possible. Connable notes that terrain often punishes forces that are unprepared for challenging environments, whether created by nature or humans.

A few points within Connable’s book will be tough pills to swallow for many who are tasked with forecasting or, like me, dabble in their imaginations while trying to envision the future of combat. Some readers may initially be put off by his criticisms of past forecasts, particularly his assertion that ground combat has undergone minimal change since World War II. Perhaps his most striking assertion, which is sure to raise some eyebrows, is his belief that it is time to expunge the deeply embedded blitzkrieg myth from American military discourse on war. He echoes historian Michael Geyer’s sentiment, writing that “blitzkrieg was a make-believe spectacle” that, in its fantastical technical and tactical overreach, ultimately contributed to Nazi Germany’s existential defeat in 1945. Nevertheless, it is Connable’s critique of military thought that makes this an essential read for today.

This Is Not a Book About Drones

Although drones are part of Connable’s work, this is not a book about drones. That’s what makes it important, especially today, as the op-ed world overflows with assertions that flirt with declaring a new, drone-driven military revolution.

Connable continually debunks myths familiar to any modern military professional: the belief that intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance dominance ensures victory; that perfect situational awareness is achievable; that precision eliminates uncertainty; and that new tools have changed the character of ground combat. He does not dismiss the drone or its effects. Instead, he reminds us that it may not deliver what it often promises.

This is where Ground Combat, even though it isn’t principally about drones, significantly intersects with the drone debate. According to Connable, drones are, in many ways, the latest expression of the same vision Westmoreland described: real-time targeting, unblinking surveillance, and rapid lethal action. However, like every system before them, drones are subject to friction and the realities of combat. They can be jammed, and they often miss their targets, crashing harmlessly and wastefully instead. They are also heavy, adding an extra burden to the already laden pack of the mule of warfare—the infantryman. They don’t eliminate the fog of war; they shift it into new realms. Connable thus warns against treating combat as a knowable system when, in fact, it is a storm of imperfect information, clashing wills, and moral stress.

In Ukraine, we are witnessing the largest drone war in history unfold—not in a vacuum, but across muddy trenches eerily reminiscent of World War I. The means may have changed, but the mess has not. Platoon commanders may operate drones from behind berms, yet they can still misread enemy intent. First-person-view drones may be capable of annihilating armored vehicles, but the promise of total transparency remains, like so many predictions before it, just out of reach.

To be clear, Connable is not antidrone. Far from it. He aptly points out that drones have succeeded in limited tactical strikes, such as destroying small trench lines. However, collectively, they are not yet at a point that they enable an operational breakthrough.

Connable gives us the intellectual vocabulary to process this moment. He reminds us that revolutions in military affairs are not declared by platforms but by institutional change. They do not begin with viral footage but with sustained doctrinal adaptation. Until drones reshape not only tactics but also the training, ethics, and mindset of ground forces, their revolutionary status remains aspirational.

That’s not to say drones don’t matter—they do. They are shaping the air littoral, redefining small-unit tactics, and driving urgent adaptations across militaries worldwide. But what Connable compels us to ask is: Are they changing combat itself or merely accelerating its timeless chaos?

That question should haunt every forecast we make. And if there’s any lesson to take from Ground Combat, it’s this: When we imagine the next war, we should not begin with what we wish to be true—but with what remains stubbornly, historically, and brutally unchanged.

Antonio Salinas is an active duty US Army officer and PhD student in the Department of History at Georgetown University. Following his coursework, he will teach at the National Intelligence University. Salinas has twenty-six years of military service in the US Marine Corps and Army, where he has served as an infantry officer, assistant professor of history at West Point, and strategic intelligence officer, with operational experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is the author of Siren’s Song: The Allure of War and Boot Camp: The Making of a United States Marine.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

The appearance of or any reference to any commercial products or services does not constitute an Army or Defense Department endorsement of those products or services. The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute an Army or Defense Department endorsement of the linked websites or the information, products, or services therein.

Image credit: Kyivcity.gov.ua