Surprise on the battlefield is not a thing of the past. When we figure out the latest leap in battlefield intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) partnered with new communications means, we will find that the tank was born to exploit information superiority.
Thank you for this observation related to Russia’s lost access to Starlink:
Throughout the time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there have been increasing numbers of articles in the media, and analyses by think tanks, about the concept of battlefield transparency. And while there is a degree of legitimacy to this debate, the reality is that war is never transparent. We can certainly see more of the battlespace than ever before; that is hardly up for debate. But being able to see more is not the same as understanding what we see. Visibility does not equal wisdom.
Therefore, surprise still occurs on the modern battlefield.
Having the battlefield go dark like that hurts my old Signal Corps bones.
And at higher levels, having minds go dark is frightening:
Intelligence and Putin's Preparations For War
Western allies and Ukraine refused to believe America and Britain who warned them that Russia was determined to invade Ukraine prior to the February 2022 attack. It was too inconvenient and in defiance of common sense and rationality as they defined them to believe our intelligence prediction.
But back to the point of the article, yes! Surprise is achieved in the mind of the enemy commander:
I just don’t think a future of what we think is a transparent battlefield that makes war a pure battle of attrition like two machines operating within predictable design parameters grappling with each other will ever really arrive. The human mind will always be vulnerable to drawing the wrong conclusion. Any three accurate dots can form a picture even in the chaos of war, eh?
And recent improvements in battlefield ISR and means of communicating only seem like they provide a transparent battlefield. America believe it had a transparent Pacific in 1941. And in 1944 Germany surprised us with its Battle of the Bulge offensive because Hitler avoided using even encrypted radio to organize the offensive. America and Britain had grown used to its ability to read Germany’s “unbreakable” code with Ultra, and dangerously assumed that was the universe of visibility into Germany’s plans. But apparent transparency in both cases was not the entire intelligence universe of how the enemy would prepare.
I’ve been on this issue for several decades, as I wrote in 1997 about increased battlefield surveillance that supported theories about a Revolution in Military Affairs making precision firepower the latest silver bullet:
As we seek information dominance through satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles and the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS), which promise near real-time knowledge of troop dispositions, we must remember that they cannot look into an enemy’s mind. Nor can they ensure that we will not misinterpret the data because of preconceived notions or that we will refuse to accept information that contradicts what everyone “knows” about enemy capabilities or intentions. …
If we can harness the potential of information dominance, we will allow the Army to exploit its training and equipment advantages to create a fast and agile force whose flexibility and firepower stun an enemy by massing effort against weak points.
Information and precision, I believed, must support maneuver and not try to replace it.
And no, artificial intelligence won’t provide a transparent battlefield.
Rest assured, when we figure out how to cope with the latest increase in ISR capabilities, we will find that properly supported tanks were born to exploit information superiority:
Tanks are not made obsolete by a more transparent battlefield. The impact of tanks is amplified by secure information that surpasses what the enemy has. But tanks are just one more wonder weapon to be slaughtered if not used in combined operations in the right circumstances and at the right time and place.1
Recall that Ukraine did achieve surprise with their August 2024 offensive into Russia by gaining temporary information superiority on that section of the front. This allowed Russian commanders to let their preconceived notions dominate their interpretation of what was seen.
If only Ukraine had mechanized brigades fighting within a couple of their new corps to exploit their temporary Starlink advantage this year that the author of that initial essay cites.
Warfare is ultimately a human endeavor supported by technology. Whether you are talking about infantry giving their last full measure alone in the mud, or commanders trying to make sense of the complex battlefield.
It worries me a great deal that so many believe we will detect Chinese preparations to invade Taiwan and act on it in time.
I suspect I was stuck while typing between “joint operations” and “combined arms operations” and glitched with neither. I probably intended to type the latter. While being aware of the former. Probably.