National Security

Contributing Scholar: Nadia Schadlow

Rethinking Decisive Force in Modern Warfare

For centuries, commanders won wars by concentrating overwhelming mass at a single decisive point, but today lethal yet inexpensive drones shatter that logic by delivering persistent, precise strikes across multiple fronts at once — requiring the United States to blend mass with flexibility, rapidly adapting while preserving the core strengths of troops, logistics, and combined arms.

Rethinking Decisive Force in Modern Warfare

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Rethinking Decisive Force in Modern Warfare

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Published July 27, 2026

For centuries, commanders concentrated overwhelming mass at a single decisive point to win wars. Today, lethal yet inexpensive drones shatter that logic by delivering persistent, precise strikes across multiple fronts at once, turning the battlefield into a swarm of simultaneous threats. To maintain its military advantage, the United States must blend mass with flexibility — rapidly adapting while preserving the core strengths of troops, logistics, and combined arms.

To learn more, read "The Three D’s Of Mass: Decentralization, Democratization, And Deliverability" by Nadia Schadlow.

Explore more from Nadia Schadlow here.

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The opinions expressed in this video are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University.