The Primacy of the First Strike: An essay regarding the practice and execution of warfare in the 21st century and an analysis as to why it differs from all eras before it

During the Second World War Erich Hartmann shot down an unprecedented 352 Allied airplanes. His record has not been surpassed and likely never will be. After the war Erich Hartmann was frequently asked what the secret to his success was. He credited it to one attribute above all: his excellent eyesight. He firmly believed that in most of his aerial encounters he saw his enemy well before they saw him, which enabled him to position his fighter advantageously for the aerial duel to follow, or in many cases, shoot his enemy out of the sky before they even knew he was there.

Since the beginning of human conflict, the one who has been able to identify or strike their enemy or both before they are able to retaliate has always held a decisive advantage. One of the first revolutionary battlefield formations, the Greek phalanx, was in part so effective because of the long spears or pikes its constituents wielded. The long reach of these weapons guaranteed that the individual hoplites or phalangites within the formation would be able to engage their enemies wielding shorter spears or swords many feet before they had closed the distance. The Roman legion, while not presenting the same obvious visual cues as the phalanx’s wall of spears, had its own “first strike” method. Nearly every Roman legionnaire carried two javelins called “pila”. Prior to engaging in hand-to-hand combat, Roman legionnaires would unleash a volley of these missiles into the ranks of the enemy. The pila would kill a few, maim many and disrupt the entire formation, giving the legionnaires an edge before the deadly melee began. In the Middle Ages, English armies were successful time and time again when fighting larger French forces because of their native weapon of choice, the longbow. A skilled longbowman could fire his weapon at a faster rate and at much farther ranges than the average French archer could fire his crossbow, giving the English the ability to inflict casualties on French formations long before the French missile troops could do the same. Most memorably at the two great English victories of Crecy and Agincourt, concentrated English longbow fire decimated the ranks of mounted French chivalry before they could come to grips with their adversaries.

Throughout history, no matter the era, no matter the terrain, no matter the countries involved, and independent of every other factor, the military which possesses the ability to strike first, whether tactically or strategically, has always had a decisive advantage. It is my argument that in our current era of warfare in the 21st century that this ability now matters more than ever for two main reasons: the increasing cost of military tech and weapons systems and the overwhelming firepower available to modern militaries, which renders most defensive options unviable. Modern combat has increasingly become see first, shoot first, or like Erich Hartmann’s opponents, become a statistic.

In the 15th Century Italian military expert Marshal Gian-Giacopo Trivulzio advised King Louis XII that three things were necessary for the execution of war: money, money and yet more money. War has always been expensive. Yet with the rapid pace of technological advances in the 21st century all signs point to war being even more expensive in the future, not less. As weapons systems have become ever more digitalized and advanced targeting systems, displays and other technology has been implemented the costs of both producing these systems and training operators to use them effectively has risen exponentially. For example, during the last two years of WWII the P-51 Mustang manufactured by North American was the premier US fighter. In 1944 it cost the US government roughly $50,000 to build a Mustang. Adjusted for inflation this comes to about $900,000 dollars in today’s money. The US’s current premier fighter, the F-35, cost about $100 million dollars. Doing some simple arithmetic, we can see that today it costs a little over 111 times the amount of money to purchase a first-class fighter compared to what it did in WWII. But this isn’t the full picture. We must remember that the manufacturing capability and GDP of the US has also increased since 1944. We must take that into account as well, for it is even more important than a pure cost comparison to understand what fraction or percentage of the US’s total industrial capacity it took to produce these fighters then compared to now. If we take the cost of a P-51 Mustang in 1944 ($50,000) and divide this number by US GDP in 1944 (135 billion) we get 0.00000037 if we divide the cost of a modern F-35 ($100 million) and divide it by the current US GDP in 2024 (27.7 trillion) we get the number 0.0000036101. If we compare these two numbers (0.00000037 to 0.0000036101) we arrive at the conclusion that a modern F-35 costs nearly 13 times the percentage of current US GDP to produce than a Mustang did of US GDP in 1944. Another example we can point to is portable infantry anti-tank weapons. In 1944 the bazooka had just recently been introduced as the first mass issued personal infantry anti-tank weapon in US service. The US government bought them in 1944 for $19 a pop. The modern US infantry AT weapon, the Javelin, costs the US government $265,000 per unit. If we once again divide these costs by the respective GDP numbers, we get the values 0.000000000140740741 & 0.00000000888086643. Doing the math, we arrive at the conclusion that a modern anti-tank weapons system costs over 63 times the percentage of GDP to produce now than it did eighty some years ago. 

These comparisons highlight an increasingly important truth of modern conflict: the vast technological advancements and improvements being made to modern weaponry are outpacing the rate at which countries are improving their industrial ability to produce them. In short, modern economies are improving rapidly but the cost of military tech is increasing at an even greater rate. On the strategic level this means that at least in the near future conflicts will be decided by small amounts of highly advanced and costly weapons systems. Any amount that a nation can increase its production of these weapons systems will have a tremendous impact on the battlefield situation. Additionally, having standards to keep these weapon systems properly maintained in the field and the logistical chain to keep them supplied with ammunition, fuel and other needs will prove pivotal. Likewise making every effort to train and prepare crews of these systems as thoroughly as possible is essential to their effectiveness. Crews with battlefield experience should constantly be asked by those higher up in command how they and their systems could be better used, what weaknesses and faults they have found with their equipment and what they need to perform their tasks more proficiently. Highly experienced operators should also be rotated out of frontline fighting from time to time and perhaps even permanently to train new recruits and impart the invaluable knowledge they have learned while in combat. On the tactical level, commanders must use and position these valuable assets wisely to both most effectively utilize their firepower and to preserve both their operators and the weapons themselves whenever possible, carefully assessing the risks and rewards of using these systems based on the tactical situation they are in.

Modern military equipment is expensive to produce. Thus, militaries are faced with a daunting question: how do we preserve these weapon systems? Throughout the history of human warfare, a consistent answer to increasing levels of threat has been increasing levels of protection. In the Middle Ages as metallurgical advances increased the killing ability of metal tipped weapons, and new advancements like the crossbow put more penetrating power into the hands of combatants, so too did the quality and amount of armor combatants wore for protection. A cyclical pattern began in which new armor types would be developed to deal with new types of armament, reaction and counteraction. This pattern was suddenly and irrevocably broken by the advent of gunpowder. It didn’t change the situation overnight, but as gunpowder weapons became more effective and more widely available, personal armor became archaic. By the 1700 and 1800s European infantry and cavalry had scrapped all but the lightest pieces of armor in favor of greater mobility. There was no stopping the bullet or musket ball, all a soldier could do was to try his best to avoid it. 

Much like the advent of gunpowder, modern militaries find themselves in a day and age where there is no surviving the bullet or missile; all that can be done is to avoid the projectile or escape detection in the first place. But don’t just take my word for it. The world’s foremost militaries are currently investing into exactly the types of projects that abide by the maxim see first, shoot first, or die. Militaries are not making ever more heavily armored and bulkier tanks, planes and vessels in an effort to defeat projectiles through reinforced armor plating or other physical defensive measures. No, much like the European militaries in the wake of the gunpowder revolution, militaries are headed in the opposite direction. They are focused on stealth, lower profiles, mobility and greater battlefield awareness and coordination. This is demonstrated by recently developed stealth aircraft and vessels like the F-35 and the Zumwalt-class destroyers. The new Abrams X prototype designed to replace the current M1 Abrams as the standard US MBT (main battle tank) features a lower profile and systems designed to decrease the vehicle’s thermal signature. These are just a few examples of the large number of military decisions being made today that are guided by the principle that the best way to keep expensive equipment safe is to keep it from being identified by the enemy. Even when effective defensive countermeasures are possible, these are rarely static physical barriers or hardened alloys but rather reactive technology which neutralizes projectiles before they reach their target.

The sci-fi looking Zumwalt class stealth destroyer. The cost and variety of technical failures have caused the US Navy to cease further development.

The only simple defensive tool that is still effective is earth. The battlefields of Ukraine do not look too different from the battlefields of WWI. Thousands of miles of trenches, dugouts, foxholes and other below-ground defensive positions have been dug by both sides to provide protection and concealment from bullets, artillery rounds, rockets, drones and all of the other nasty killers of modern warfare. Another recent conflict, the ongoing struggle between the IDF and Hezbollah/Hamas in Lebanon/Palestine has also demonstrated that digging up earth to get below ground and off the surface is still an effective way to provide safety and concealment to large groups of soldiers. The reality is without their extensive tunnel networks, Hamas at least would have been annihilated in hours. However, trenches, caves and tunnel systems cannot win a war. They are only a method of survival, a way to negate enemy firepower, a stalling tactic. As has always been the case, to prosecute a war to its conclusion attacks will have to be made on the surface.

Operation Desert Storm was the most recent full-scale war in which a first-rate military was engaged in. (I do not consider the Russo-Ukraine war to count because the Russian military was not first-rate, nor do I consider the Hamas/Hezbollah/IDF conflict to count because the scale is too small). Operation Desert Storm lasted a little over forty days, but the campaign was over long before Saddam Hussein capitulated. As Erik Durschmied so eloquently writes in his book The Hinge Factor:

The first strike was launched during the moonless night of January 17th, 1991. Two helicopter units skimmed below radar range over the sand dunes, guided to their target by four Navstar satellites which indicated via the Satnav Global Positioning System the two units’ true position to within ten meters. At a distance of 6 km their target ‘lit up’. For the final confirmation of each specific target, the crews wore night-vision helmets which illuminated the scene as if bathed in bright moonlight. At a distance of 3 km the Apaches opened fire. Thirty Hellfire missiles, 100 rockets and some 4,000 rounds of 30-mm shells from their miniguns blasted radar dishes, radio masts and electronic installations. Their operators were buried beneath the rubble. The time was 02:38 hours.

While this operation was in progress, Special Operation ground teams of US Navy SEALs, Delta Force, US Army Rangers and British SAS were heliported into Iraq to neutralize other vital installations. They attacked on foot and silenced command posts and cut lines of communication. In a series of individual combats they performed the kind of feats heroic films scripts are made of. Then they put up their communication and guidance system: collapsible satellite dishes, miniature transceivers run on silver-cadmium batteries. Tiny tape machines recorded their information at ordinary speed, then transmitted the information at burst. At operational headquarters this burst was captured, decrypted and played out en clair.  Following the successful completion of their penetration mission, the ground units were picked up by another flight of helicopters at predefined locations. 

Above them, in the night skies, consecutive waves of electronic countermeasure aircraft flew over the Iraqi air space. Their electronic sweep jammed field communications throughout the country. The first wave of coalition planes sailed unimpeded across the dark skies on their bombing mission. Objective: Baghdad. Operation Desert Storm was now one hour old. For all practical purposes the war was over.

US air power was fully demonstrated in Operation Desert Storm

Within minutes, USAF planes and Coalition ground special forces had severed Iraqi communications and obliterated the Baghdad power grid. The Iraqi military was now a snake with no head. Over the next several weeks Coalition air forces continued to pound away at Iraqi infrastructure and military targets with impunity. When the terrestrial assault commenced on February 24th, the vanguard discovered as they advanced that most of their enemies had already been killed by aerial bombardment or had made a business decision and fled. The remnants of the 1 million strong Iraqi army that decided to stand and fight suffered attack by three units of the US 1st Mechanized Division. The Iraqi Army crumpled. Three days later Coalition forces were at the gates of Baghdad. The war was over. Iraqi military losses were estimated to be 100,000. Coalition forces lost a total of 192 killed, of which 35 died from friendly fire and two were killed while dismantling a bomb.

No military campaign in human history fought on such a scale has been so one sided as Operation Desert Storm. By the time US and Coalition ground troops met Iraqi forces on the battlefield, they possessed overwhelming advantages. Whether it was the ability to “see” the battlefield, that is to accurately locate enemy troop dispositions and weapons systems, or the ability to communicate and coordinate between separate units, or the ability to use firepower with instantaneous precision, the Coalition possessed every single trump card. All that was left for the Iraqi military to do was surrender or face annihilation. The ones that stood and fought may have been brave, but no amount of bravado could change the hopelessness of their plight. The US and her allies possessed total and complete information, technological and firepower supremacy. They could dispatch their enemies at will without threat of retaliation. It was not a war. It was a slaughter.

This is the true strategic power of the first strike. With the technology and firepower available to modern militaries it is possible to so completely destroy an enemy’s infrastructure and support systems that even if the enemy survives and can still put units on the battlefield, these soldiers have no hope of accomplishing much without communication and information technology. This is the great danger of modern conflict. Even a small tech gap can tip the balance dramatically in favor of one side or the other with significant consequences. In the space of a few minutes or hours an entire nation can fall, the course of history changed or altered. What happens in those few decisive moments will likely be determined by which side can see and strike the other first. It always has. But unlike the phalanxes of Alexander the Great, or the legions of Caesar, or the longbowmen of King Henry VIII there will be no recovering from defeat. There are no second chances. A team of special operatives will break into a military data center in Beijing or Washington D.C. and in a single stroke of a key render billions of dollars of equipment useless or a few stealth aircraft will strike a handful of huge power stations in large cities bringing down the entire power grid of a region. For us civilians the decisive moments will all be over before most of us even know they occurred.

But, if in the future a conflict does become a protracted struggle between two first-class peers (likely the US and China), the tactical first strike will still be of supreme importance and is more valuable than it ever has been. Weapons systems are expensive. Every opportunity to destroy one of these systems before they are capable of retaliating is crucial. Every time one of these weapons systems is destroyed that loss constitutes a larger portion of that country's military assets than it ever has in human history. A country which does not prioritize the first strike on the battlefield is in danger of fighting a war on the enemy’s terms, relying more on the enemy to make a mistake than on its own capabilities, a grim situation we already see played out on the fields of Ukraine as ever more young Russians die, not to achieve anything of tactical significance, but to be used as bullet monkeys to draw out Ukrainian ammunition and positions. 

Modern warfare, more than any era before, is determined by who can see and kill the other first. There are only two types of militaries left: those who have the power of the “first strike” and those who don’t. There are the living and the soon to be dead.

What I believe 21st century militaries should prioritize:

1. Systems which enable their forces to better see the battlefield at greater distances and with greater precision.

2. Communications systems and equipment that are widely available, user friendly and capable of a wide range of functions that enable more accurate and timely coordination.

3. Systems which curtail the enemy’s ability to see the battlefield and communicate.

4. Value greater amounts of smaller weapons systems over small amounts of larger weapons systems (to lessen the total resources lost per direct hit).