Anduril Industries head of strategy and former Senate Armed Services Committee staff director Chris Brose joined McCain Institute non-resident senior fellow Nick Rasmussen for a discussion of his book “Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare” in the in the latest installment of the McCain Institute’s Authors & Insights Book Talk Series.
Watch or listen to the entire event below. You can also tune into the audio-only podcast version of the event via iTunes or Spotify.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
CHRIS BROSE ON THE TERM “KILL CHAIN”
“The term Kill Chain is a term that everyone in the military who works with and around the United States military is familiar with, but I think many outside of that world have never heard of. Really sort of succinctly, what it means is it is a process of understanding, decision making, and action. At a broader level, what I was trying to do for more of a general audience was unpack this concept that is so familiar and so sort of integral and central to the United States military, and all militaries. Which again is this process of a kind of chain of events that has to happen in order for a military to compete effectively. Whether that’s competing in actual warfare, or in military competitions that don’t involve the use of violence. It is a process that is inherently sequential. A process of understanding what is happening in your environment, in your world, and your area of responsibility making decisions about what to do, how to compete effectively, how to deploy forces that you have at your disposal, and then ultimately the actions that you take to affect your will, influence events, and influence a competitor. That is a sequential process.”
CHRIS BROSE ON US-CHINA COMPETITION
“You now see rhetoric coming from the Biden administration that doesn’t seem too remarkably different from a lot of the rhetoric coming from the Trump administration, with respect to great power competition, China as a pacing threat, the need to not do more of the same. But, fundamentally change the way we are building our military and programing our force for the future.”
CHRIS BROSE ON DISRUPTION IN MILITARY TECHNOLOGY
“I think the big thing to underscore here is back to this theme of disruption. The United States has been disrupted. We are being disrupted, being disrupted by these emerging technologies that have absolutely changed our day-to-day lives in our commercial worlds and overturned sector after sector of our economy… but largely left national defense untouched. But, then we are simultaneously being disrupted by competitors, who have had very focused strategies.”