Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

When everyone else gets as much data as we do, how will we prevail in combat?

In the future everyone will be data-rich, my New America colleague Sascha Meinrath said over his lunch of baked salmon last week. So, he figures, the key to future victories will be in "synthesis and the velocity of decision-making." This suggests to me that military training and education should focus on those skills, and military ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
via Air Force Historical Research Agency
via Air Force Historical Research Agency
via Air Force Historical Research Agency

In the future everyone will be data-rich, my New America colleague Sascha Meinrath said over his lunch of baked salmon last week. So, he figures, the key to future victories will be in "synthesis and the velocity of decision-making."

In the future everyone will be data-rich, my New America colleague Sascha Meinrath said over his lunch of baked salmon last week. So, he figures, the key to future victories will be in "synthesis and the velocity of decision-making."

This suggests to me that military training and education should focus on those skills, and military exercises should test them. I know, some will say it does already. But in an adaptive way?

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

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