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Frank Kendall’s Lethal Autonomy: The Future of Warfare Whether We Like It or Not argues that the United States should master technological change and reorganize its military around largely autonomous systems. In Sarah Scoles’s review for Undark, that vision is both a proposed way to reduce soldiers’ exposure to combat and a source of unresolved questions about targeting, collateral damage, oversight, and responsibility. The systems Kendall describes could reshape conflict, but the review presents his forecasts as arguments—not as proven outcomes or an inevitable future.
What Kendall’s vision of autonomous warfare proposes
Kendall, a former Secretary of the Air Force and senior defense acquisition official, makes the case for a military built around vehicles and weapons that can operate with substantial independence. The aim is not simply to automate existing equipment: it is to reorganize how forces gather information, coordinate, and act across several domains.
One potential benefit, as Scoles recounts Kendall’s argument, is fewer soldiers directly exposed to combat. But reducing exposure does not by itself show that a system is safer overall. A force still has to distinguish legitimate targets, avoid unintended harm, behave reliably in conditions it was not built or trained for, and leave people able to understand and answer for lethal decisions.
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Space: smaller, more replaceable satellite networks
Kendall’s earlier choices about military space systems included continuing to rely on a small number of expensive, vulnerable satellites, creating a more resilient architecture, or reducing dependence on space systems. Scoles reports that a study recommended smaller, cheaper satellites able to work collaboratively, keep operating after losses, or be replaced through relaunches. Kendall also supports the possibility of anti-satellite weapons and reserve satellites. These are reported proposals and judgments, not evidence that a complete, broadly adopted architecture is already in place.
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Land: aircraft and ground vehicles operating in groups
On land, Kendall envisions groups of uncrewed vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft gathering information and acting on automated decisions, supported by driverless ground vehicles. The review does not suggest this approach would fit every situation. It also describes remote human involvement as possible, leaving a role for people to intervene in at least some circumstances.
Surface sea and undersea: questioning large ships and crewed submarines
Kendall questions the future role of large surface ships in a world where aircraft, satellites, and ocean monitoring can provide surveillance and land-based weapons can reach far offshore. He also predicts that improving detection will make crewed submarines harder to hide, and proposes groups of medium-sized autonomous submarines. These are Kendall’s forecasts and proposals; the review does not establish that they will occur or that the systems would outperform alternatives.
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Air: drones paired with piloted fighters
The review connects Kendall’s tenure as Air Force secretary with the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, which develops drones designed to fly alongside piloted fighters and take direction from a nearby pilot. His broader vision includes fewer pilots and autonomous aircraft working together. Scoles highlights an important distinction Kendall draws: flight automation developed for commercial or peacetime use is easier to verify than automated behavior tied to combat.
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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 treats this as a potentially dystopian extension of warfare: a system intended to influence people can raise concerns beyond whether its software performs as designed.
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What machines might improve—and what they cannot settle
The case for autonomy rests partly on keeping people farther from immediate physical danger and on systems that could act across distributed forces. But the review places that possible advantage beside risks that cannot be collapsed into a single verdict about whether autonomous forces are safer or more effective.
- Human exposure: Uncrewed systems could reduce the number of soldiers placed directly in danger, but that does not establish a reduction in total harm.
- Target identification and collateral harm: A system must identify appropriate targets in context and avoid harming civilians or infrastructure. The review emphasizes targeting failures and collateral damage as central concerns.
- Reliability outside familiar conditions: A behavior that can be verified in peacetime or routine flight may be harder to verify in combat, where conditions and consequences differ.
- Oversight and intervention: Human involvement remains in many of Kendall’s plans, and remote intervention is described as possible in some circumstances. The practical question is whether people can meaningfully supervise or stop a system when it matters.
- Accountability after failure: Responsibility may be spread among software, sensors, commanders, and machines. The review asks what it means to answer for a lethal decision when authority and action are distributed.
- Resilience and replaceability: Smaller, collaborative satellites are proposed as a way to continue functioning after losses, but the review does not establish how such resilience would perform in practice.
- Strategic and ethical effects: Even reliable automation could change how readily leaders use force, or extend the scope and character of conflict. Technical performance alone cannot resolve that question.
Where might machine-on-machine conflict take us?
Scoles’s question points beyond whether machines can perform individual tasks. If opposing forces increasingly rely on autonomous systems, conflict could involve machines detecting, adapting to, and acting against other machines, while human decision-makers set objectives or intervene at a distance. The review does not predict a settled outcome; it asks readers to consider whether such a battlefield would reduce human harm or make violence easier to normalize and extend.
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Kendall says, “I continue to believe that the appropriate response is to master technological change rather than resist it.” The review also quotes his statement, “I hate war. It is the most wasteful and cruel of human endeavors.” Both claims help explain the tension in the book: a desire to prepare for technological change does not remove the ethical question of whether automation restrains war or changes its costs and limits.
What the review establishes—and what it does not
Sarah Scoles’s review, published September 11, 2026, discusses Frank Kendall’s Lethal Autonomy: The Future of Warfare Whether We Like It or Not, a 288-page book published by Knox Press. It describes the book’s central case and the reviewer’s concerns; it is not an independent assessment of the operational performance of the systems discussed. Kendall’s forecasts, the status of military programs, and the effectiveness of proposed systems should therefore be understood as claims and possibilities described in the review, not demonstrated results.
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