Most of the countries in the western world have spent so long not really being at risk of being at war that we really have no idea how to react to potentially actually being at war. We are so incredibly unprepared in such incredibly profound ways. Imagine being in a war and not having anti-air defenses around your most important strategic nuclear sites and having to rely on troops shooting at incoming aircraft with what I suspect were simply their service weapons, and almost certainly not even dedicated anti-drone weapons. Yes, drones are sort of new, that’s not really an excuse. New things will happen during a war. You have to be able to react quickly to defend your critical assets at a moment’s notice. The fact that we’re still not doing that properly is a perfect demonstration of how far behind the curve we really are.

I hope this changes soon with the sprawling investments being directed towards defense budgets, but I remain unconvinced, will it just result in more hyper-capable, hyper-expensive techno-wonderweapons? It’s the cheap, good-enough, high-supply things that are currently threatening us, and both history and the present seem to tell us it’s usually the cheap, good enough, high-supply things that both win wars and enable effective defense. Spending money seems like it would imply seriousness, but I don’t think we’re actually taking this seriously enough, yet. When you really get serious about war and defense you need to be asking the real questions about what it’s going to take to win, not just throwing money at the problem.

Maybe I’m wrong, maybe they’re just sandbagging and waiting for the right moment to reveal our true defensive preparations, but I know a lot of people in various western militaries, and I honestly don’t think so at all, and neither do they. If we are more prepared than we look, it’s a pretty goddamn well-kept secret.