While the French general staff did not see the potential for armored warfare, De Gaulle developed and advocated a military strategy built around rapidly deployable and highly maneuverable concentrated armored units. As a junior officer, De Gaulle came away from the trenches determined to break away from the established French military thinking that dictated static defence reinforced by sheer numbers of soldiers the ‘nation in arms’ concept. The experience of Churchill’s contemporary, General Charles De Gaulle, offers a cautionary tale of the consequences of failing to adapt when technology transforms war. However, their potential for transforming warfare away from the conventional practice of entrenched and defensive combat quickly became evident.
When first deployed onto the battlefield, the technology and tactics of tank warfare did not live up to expectations. The tank represented both a transformation and a tragically missed opportunity for land warfare after the appalling and wasteful attrition of the First World War. In order to avoid the same trap Churchill was warning against, it is worth examining one of the key examples of the evolution of land warfare: the tank. While it might take time to recognise the full potential of Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS), Army should not make the mistake of assuming that our current land capabilities represent the future of land warfare. Looking back at his experiences leading up to the Second World War, in The Gathering Storm Winston Churchill quipped that, “the War Office is always preparing for the last war.” Churchill was chiding the tendency of military planners not to appreciate the potential of new technologies in war, and not to adapt their strategies accordingly. Robotic and Autonomous Systems represent the potential future of land warfare where militaries can effectively strike their opponents while removing humans from the conflict zone.
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