Introduction
Speed has become the defining currency of modern warfare. Whether discussing artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, or kill chains, the assumption remains the same: whoever acts fastest wins.
There is good reason for this belief. From antiquity to the present, speed has often conferred advantage by forcing an adversary to react to a situation that has already changed. Yet the fixation on speed encourages a view that striking more targets, faster, will somehow scale into strategic effect – a mindset Thomas Hughes termed “the cult of the quick.”
Recent commentary on Ukraine has revived versions of this thinking, with claims that we are entering an era of ‘machine speed adaptive hyperwar’, where conflicts that would previously have lasted years will now resolve ‘in months or even weeks.’
This piece argues that the speed narrative, while not entirely wrong, mistakes an emergent capability for a theory of victory. Speed undoubtedly matters, but it emerges from the cohesion of a system and, even when that system functions exceptionally well, it does not guarantee strategic success.
The Need for Speed
The point is not that speed in war is irrelevant. In fact, history tells us that it is usually fundamental to advantage. Julius Caesar’s contemporaries attributed his battlefield success to his ‘audacious speed‘ – epitomised by his quick victory at Zela, and his famous declaration “veni, vidi, vici” – I came, I saw, I conquered.
Two thousand years later, the decisive victory in the First Gulf War of 1991 similarly owed much to the tempo of operations. Lt Col Ray Cole, 1st Marine Division operations officer, noted “We took a chance on speed and won. Going through as fast as we did made every action they [Iraqis] took irrelevant.”
Yet neither Caesar nor coalition forces in Iraq won simply because they moved quickly. Their speed reflected an ability to coordinate action more effectively than their opponents. The question, therefore, is not whether speed matters, but where it comes from.
The Sprinter’s Breakfast
Stories about speed naturally capture our attention. In the war in Ukraine, our interest is piqued by headlines like: “80 seconds from detection to destruction.” - a story about the rapid closure of a drone-to-drone kill chain in Kherson Oblast. Examples like this warrant attention, but they also reveal a broader tendency to focus on outputs rather than the systems that produce them.
We want to watch the 100m sprinter win the race in record time. But far fewer people are interested in what the sprinter had for breakfast that day – the years of training, nutrition, coaching, and recovery that made the final performance possible. And yet, without those invisible foundations, the end result simply does not occur.
Speed in war is no different. The compressed kill chain is the visible outcome of the larger, complex system that enables it.
The network as “Zusammenhang”
Rapid kill chains emerge from the interaction of thousands of dispersed sensors, resilient communications, command-and-control architectures, and the weapons systems that deliver the final effect. It is the preservation of the relationships between them that allows a force to sense, understand, decide, and act before an adversary can respond.
Clausewitz offers a useful way of thinking about this. While his concept of the centre of gravity often draws the focus, another word in the same passage is more appropriate in this context: he refers to the ‘Zusammenhang‘, which translates to “cohesion”, “connection”, or “relationship.”
Today’s battle networks can be understood in the same manner - what matters is not any single capability or platform, but the connection that binds individual capabilities into a cohesive whole across the force.
Crucially, the same relationships that enable a force to act with speed also allow it to absorb disruption. When individual nodes are degraded, disrupted, or destroyed, the rest of the system reconfigures to preserve operational effectiveness.
Ashley Ruiz argued that “Victory will belong not to the fastest network, but to the most durable system.” The important point, though, is that durability and speed are not competitors – both emerge from the same underlying cohesion.
The Limits of Speed
The question, then, is what this means for theories of victory. If the same systems that generate speed are also designed to absorb disruption, then the assumption that faster strikes will automatically produce strategic collapse becomes much harder to sustain.
The origin of the idea was the Network-Centric Warfare literature of the late 1990s. Some proponents argued that networked militaries, through superior information and decision making, could identify and strike critical nodes at the start of a conflict, inducing systemic paralysis – a condition described as “lockout”. David S. Alberts captured this idea, writing ‘When 50 percent of something important to an adversary is destroyed at the outset, so is his strategy. That stops wars.’
Ukraine has tested that claim more thoroughly than any conflict since. Rarely have two conventional militaries demonstrated such rapid sensor-to-shooter integration, routinely detecting, deciding and striking within seconds or minutes rather than hours. Yet after four years, neither side has experienced systemic paralysis or collapse.
Part of the explanation is the resilience of the network described above. But resilience alone does not explain the endurance of either side. Even where military systems are degraded, war continues until political authorities decide the cost of continuing is no longer worth paying. As Thomas Hughes argued in 2001, gradual, deliberate campaigns can achieve their objectives just as reliably as fast ones. This is not something that a kill chain, however fast, can decide.
Conclusion
None of this diminishes the importance of speed. It remains one of the most valuable military capabilities available to commanders. Nor does it diminish the importance of the systems that generate it. Cohesion, connectivity and resilience are essential qualities of modern military power. But they remain means, not ends.
The lesson from Ukraine is not that warfare has become a contest between ever-faster networks. Nor is it that resilience has replaced speed as the decisive variable. Rather, both are characteristics of cohesive military systems that operate within the broader realities of strategy, adaptation and political purpose.
Thomas Hughes warned against the “cult of the quick” because it confused rapid action with strategic success. Ukraine has provided perhaps the clearest contemporary illustration of his argument. Never before have armies been able to detect, decide and strike so quickly. Yet rarely has a war of such technological sophistication endured for so long.
The danger therefore lies not in pursuing speed, but in mistaking it for the path to victory.
