Retired Gen. David Petraeus’s recent call for “urgent revolutionary institutional change” within the U.S. military to prepare for modern autonomous warfare signals a familiar trajectory in defense spending and industrial influence. While presented as critical for national security, such strategic pivots historically lead to substantial new budgetary allocations, creating lucrative avenues for the defense industry and its stakeholders.
The praise for new entities like the Autonomous Warfare Command underscores a shift towards technologies that demand significant research, development, and procurement contracts. This emphasis on “revolutionary” and “urgent” change can often bypass thorough oversight, enabling rapid spending on complex systems and perpetuating the cycle of industry gain detailed in War Is Still A Racket, where strategic imperatives frequently translate into outsized financial benefits for the military-industrial complex.