Ep 013 "End of an Era: The Infantry Folds Its Colors"

Effective 20 June 2025, I did a major improved revision on the sound quality for all my WarNotes episodes retroactively thanks to the technology at Podsworth.

The age of the infantry is over after a thousands-year long reign in human warfare and conflict.

The next 75 years in the 21st century will put paid to an august and enduring institution in human conflict.

The combination of salvo competition, reduced costs of combat UAS munitions, targeting of exquisite platforms, intelligence/reconnaissance/surveillance (ISR) ubiquity, and anti-fragility/fragility are some of the factors informing this demise.

There is no longer near peer competition and there is only peer competition, you will never hear me utter the former phase again. A hybrid of technology and the nature of sensor & effector synchronization has driven cost and opportunity so far down, it is now a rational calculation to destroy individual infantrymen and small units in detail.

For the first time in conflict history, the infantry on the battlefield will be targeted in a cost-effective fashion that will annihilate them on any field they step on in any climate at any time on the planet. The difference now is that wholesale elimination of infantry forces is nearly available to every combatant force on Earth.

And it will simply become more refined and deadly with time.

It's time for some severe self-reflection and reassessment to question the efficacy and utility of the infantry mode of combat. This Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) needs to be faced immediately.

This is an existential crisis for combat arms in the West.

Tick tock.

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Please take the time to listen to my twelve-part series, Fixing Fight Club, here at WarNotes.

Despite what you may think, the US conventional forces are in terminal collapse and completely unprepared for 21st century peer conflict.

References:

The Infantry Rifle and Platoon Squad: The Official U.S. Army Field Manual FM 3-21.8 (FM 7-8), 28 March 2007

Ranger Handbook: TC 3-21.76, April 2017 Edition

Erwin Rommel Infantry Attack

Siegfried Sassoon Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

Paul Avallone Tattoo Zoo: A Novel of the Afghan War

Karl Marlantes Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

Carl von Clausewitz On War

Miyamoto Musashi A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

H. John Poole The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO’s Contribution to Warfare

Christian Brose The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

My Substack

Email at cgpodcast@pm.me