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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFrank Kendall argues that the United States should master technological change by reorganizing its military around largely autonomous systems. Sarah Scoles’s review for Undark, published September 11, 2026, treats that vision as both a strategic proposal and an ethical challenge: machines might reduce soldiers’ exposure to combat, but they could also misidentify targets, cause collateral harm, and make responsibility for lethal decisions harder to trace.
What Kendall’s book argues
Lethal Autonomy: The Future of Warfare Whether We Like It or Not is Frank Kendall’s 288-page book, published by Knox Press in 2026. As Scoles describes it, Kendall’s central argument is that the United States should adapt to technological change rather than resist it, building a military that relies more heavily on autonomous systems across multiple domains.
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Kendall, a former Secretary of the Air Force and senior defense acquisition official, frames this shift partly as a way to reduce the number of soldiers directly exposed to combat. He tells Scoles, “I continue to believe that the appropriate response is to master technological change rather than resist it.” The review presents this as his case for change, not as proof that autonomy will make warfare safer or more effective.
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Space: more resilient satellite networks
The review recounts an earlier choice Kendall faced: keep relying on a small number of expensive, vulnerable satellites, build a more resilient architecture, or reduce dependence on space systems. A study recommended smaller, cheaper satellites working collaboratively, with the possibility of continued operations after losses or replacement through relaunches. Kendall also supports considering anti-satellite weapons and reserve satellites. These are proposals and judgments reported by Scoles, not evidence that a complete or universally adopted architecture exists.
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Land: teams of aircraft and driverless vehicles
Kendall envisions groups of uncrewed vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft working with driverless ground vehicles. They could gather information and act on automated decisions. The review does not suggest such systems would suit every situation; it also describes remote human involvement as possible. That distinction matters: a force can use autonomous functions without removing people from every decision or intervention.
Sea: questions about ships and submarines
Kendall questions the role of large surface ships in an environment where aircraft, satellites, and ocean monitoring can track them and land-based weapons can reach them. He also predicts that improving detection will make crewed submarines harder to hide, and proposes groups of medium-sized autonomous submarines. These are forecasts and proposals attributed to Kendall, not established outcomes.
Air: drones alongside piloted fighters
Scoles connects Kendall’s time as Air Force secretary with the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, which develops drones intended to fly alongside piloted fighters and take direction from a nearby pilot. Kendall’s wider vision points toward fewer pilots and more autonomous aircraft operating together. But automation that works in flight is not automatically trustworthy in combat: Kendall cautions that “Combat-related automated behaviors will be much harder to verify.”
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Cyber: analysis aimed at psychological effects
The book also considers a focused cyber organization and AI-aided analysis of a target society and its leadership to assess psychological effects. Scoles presents this as a potentially dystopian extension of warfare: analytical tools could help shape not just physical operations but efforts directed at people’s perceptions and behavior.
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What autonomy might change—and what it cannot settle
Reducing soldiers’ direct exposure to combat is a proposed advantage, but it is only one measure of military harm. The review’s concerns include whether systems can distinguish legitimate targets, avoid collateral damage, behave reliably in circumstances unlike training or peacetime use, and permit meaningful human oversight or intervention. Resilience and replaceability matter too, but they do not answer whether a weapon should be used or who is answerable when it fails.
These dimensions should not be collapsed into a simple verdict that autonomous forces are safer or more effective than conventional ones. A machine might keep personnel farther from danger while creating new risks for civilians, or distribute a decision among sensors, software, commanders, and operators in ways that complicate accountability. The review raises those risks without claiming to establish how any proposed system would perform in war.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The unresolved question: who owns a lethal decision?
Autonomy is not only a technical question about whether software can carry out a task. It is also a question about authorization and responsibility: who decides what the system may do, who can intervene, and who answers for harm afterward? Kendall’s plans retain human roles in many cases, including possible remote intervention, but the review’s central tension remains: reducing direct exposure for one group does not necessarily reduce the total harm of war.
Kendall says, “I hate war. It is the most wasteful and cruel of human endeavors.” Scoles’s review holds that conviction alongside the possibility that automating more military functions could normalize or extend violence. Its concluding question—“Where might machine-on-machine conflict take us?”—captures the uncertainty better than a prediction of an inevitable robotic battlefield.
Who should read this review
Readers interested in military technology, AI, and the ethics of automated weapons will find the book’s ambition and its stakes clearly framed. Scoles reports Kendall’s arguments across space, land, sea, air, and cyber operations while emphasizing that proposed capabilities are not demonstrated results. The review is most useful as an account of the choices and accountability problems raised by his vision, rather than as evidence that a machine-led military is either inevitable or less harmful.
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