The Hoover Institution’s flagship program GoodFellows returned with a sweeping and sobering examination of tomorrow’s wars — conflicts increasingly shaped by drones, cyberweapons, commercial satellites, AI, and fragile global supply chains. Moderator Bill Whalen was joined by Sir Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, alongside guest Anne Neuberger, the former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technologies.
Neuberger’s presence set the tone: this is not a conversation about hypothetical futures, but about a revolution already under way.
Neuberger’s central warning was blunt: technology is outpacing military strategy, and the results are already visible on the battlefield. She pointed to Ukraine’s use of inexpensive drones to cripple parts of Russia’s Black Sea fleet and undermine Moscow’s attempt to suffocate Ukrainian grain exports.
The asymmetry is unprecedented. A $3,000 drone can neutralize a multi-million-dollar weapons platform, reshaping the economics and geometry of war. She also noted that U.S. advantages built over decades — particularly GPS-based precision systems — are increasingly vulnerable to Russian and Chinese jamming.
Beyond the drones and explosions visible on frontlines, Neuberger stressed the existence of a second war, fought in the electromagnetic spectrum, cyberspace, and RF space.
This silent war is already affecting communication satellites, battlefield networks, and civilian infrastructure. It is also accelerating the collapse of long-held assumptions about deterrence and defense.
McMaster pressed Neuberger on how offense and defense evolve in tandem. Her answer was unsettling: offense is cheaper, faster, and more scalable.
A single drone is difficult to stop. A swarm is exponentially harder. Defending against low-cost technologies now often costs more than deploying them.
From Starlink supporting Ukrainian troop communications to Planet Labs and Maxar providing high-resolution imagery during missile strikes, Neuberger emphasized that commercial companies now sit at the core of modern warfare. This is not a future scenario — it is the present reality.
Ukraine’s ability to restore its power grid after Russian strikes depended in part on commercial imagery purchased by the U.S. and then shared with Kyiv.
Ferguson raised the key strategic question: Is the West adapting at the speed required?
Ukraine now produces an estimated three million drones annually; Russia produces four million. Germany and other European powers, Ferguson argued, remain trapped in outdated procurement thinking.
Neuberger agreed the pace of Western adaptation remains dangerously slow. She pointed to three urgent changes:
1. Adopt Commercial Tech First
Do not build bespoke systems when viable commercial products already exist.
2. Incentivize Speed in Procurement
Decades of bureaucratic processes must be replaced by rapid adoption cycles.
3. Open Architectures
Soldiers, engineers, and operators must be able to reprogram defensive systems in real time to counter new threats.
The United States, she said, is only beginning to learn these lessons.
Ferguson’s second question cut to the core of U.S.–China competition: rare earth elements and minerals. China controls key nodes in the global supply chain for components essential to missiles, semiconductors, and advanced optics.
Neuberger warned that without diversifying supply chains — including partnerships across the Americas and other friendly regions — the U.S. may discover in a crisis that it lacks the materials needed to scale up production.
Cochrane expressed the common fear: a massive cyberattack on U.S. banks. Neuberger surprised the panel with cautious reassurance: major banks are among the most secure entities in the country.
What she fears most is something else entirely.
Water systems, power grids, rail networks, and air-traffic control are largely run by the private sector, and the U.S. government does not monitor private networks the way China monitors its own. China’s “Great Firewall” doubles as a defensive mesh. The U.S. has nothing comparable.
Worse, Chinese malware has been detected pre-positioned in U.S. critical systems — not to attack now, but to be triggered during a crisis.
The panel revisited Eisenhower’s classic warning about the military-industrial complex, asking whether today’s threat involves Silicon Valley rather than shipyards and aircraft factories.
Neuberger emphasized that modern warfare increasingly relies on private technology companies — from satellite networks to AI labs. But this dependency creates new vulnerabilities and raises new governance questions.
McMaster and Ferguson argued that the United States must rethink incentives, procurement cycles, and the balance between inexpensive “attritable” systems and the advanced “exquisite” platforms that remain indispensable.
Later in the show, the panel shifted to a controversial development: Albania testing algorithmic governance, described by Eric Schmidt as a step toward “algocracy.”
Ferguson warned that algorithms already shape political life through platforms like YouTube, long before entering government procurement. Cochrane countered that algorithms, no matter how sophisticated, ultimately reflect the biases of their creators.
A major segment focused on the growing crisis inside the BBC after allegations of manipulated editing in a program involving Donald Trump. Ferguson described the scandal as part of a broader erosion of trust in media institutions, which he connected to a rise in cognitive warfare — the exploitation of polarized media ecosystems by foreign adversaries.
The final debate centered on an under-reported geopolitical flashpoint: U.S. military movements around Venezuela. With an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean and stealth fighters moved quietly to Puerto Rico, McMaster called for transparency about U.S. objectives. Ferguson argued that removing Nicolás Maduro is strategically essential for balancing China and Russia’s influence in the Western Hemisphere.
The panel agreed that whatever the plan is, it must articulate a clear basis in sovereignty and democratic restoration.
The GoodFellows’ discussion painted a world in which wars begin in space and cyberspace before a single shot is fired; where private companies control essential military functions; where swarms of cheap drones can sink fleets; and where civilian infrastructure may be the softest target of all.
The through-line was clear: the future of war is already here, and the institutions meant to defend the United States — military, political, industrial, and informational — must adapt at a pace they have rarely achieved.