How the militaries in four key states adapted to disruptive technological change during the Second Industrial Revolution—with lessons for today
Mars Unbound explores the development and application of military power during the Second Industrial Revolution (1870–1914), an era of rapid technological change analogous to the present. Emerging technologies—such as steel, turbines, electricity, aviation, and wireless communications—generated dramatic changes in political, social, and military affairs. Senior defense analyst Frank G. Hoffman examines four case studies covering a range of states that were either rising, peaking, or relatively declining: the United States, Japan, Imperial Germany, and Great Britain. The book analyzes how policymakers directed their security investments and how the armed forces adapted to these changes.
This timely study offers critical lessons for today's Fourth Industrial Revolution, when advances in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and quantum computing are having profound and unpredictable military consequences. Mars, the god of war, is no longer bound by either human muscle or cognition. Future wars will exploit automated platforms and military operations at machine speed.
Hoffman provides an updated definition of military effectiveness and a fresh analytic framework for assessing the development and application of military power. His analysis and detailed comparison of the two eras has implications for policymakers and military leaders navigating today's organizational, cultural, and technological challenges.
Reviews
"Frank Hoffman's Mars Unbound confirms the aphorism that the deeper you look into the past, the further you can see into the future. His thoughts on how old lessons can be applied to create new sources of military effectiveness in an era of disruptive change in war's character should be read by serious strategic thinkers."—Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., author of The Origins of Victory: How Disruptive Innovation Determines the Fates of Great Powers
"As technological progress accelerates, no subject is more important to defense policymakers today than the relationship between technology and military effectiveness. Frank Hoffman has produced a brilliant, landmark study on this issue, deeply grounded in historical scholarship and offering critical lessons for current policy."—Michael J. Mazarr, Senior Fellow, Technology and International Affairs, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
"Frank Hoffman is one of the great strategic thinkers of our time. In Mars Unbound, he examines how four countries–—Japan, the United States, Great Britain, and Germany—adapted their military forces during the Second Industrial Revolution, a period of great technological change and corresponding changes in the character of warfare. The lessons for militaries during the current technological revolution are profound and worthy of the attention of political and military leaders in our country and around the world."—Dr. John Nagl, author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife and Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War
"Drawing on the scholarship about military effectiveness of Murray, Millet, Brooks, Biddle, and others, Frank Hoffman has produced a masterful exposition on learning from the Second Industrial Revolution to guide modern military institutions, and wider society, through the profound, accelerating changes driven by AI, autonomous systems, and other advanced technologies."—Major General (retired) Mick Ryan, Senior Military Fellow, Lowy Institute
About the Author
Frank G. Hoffman, PhD, retired from the US Marine Corps as a lieutenant colonel and was formerly a distinguished research fellow at the National Defense University. He is the author of Mars Adapting: Military Change During War and Decisive Force: The New American Way of War.
