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2 Outsourcing War to Machines attack. No group has formally taken responsibility for the attack—but it demonstrated a new form of attack that has been used to devastating effect in the past two years: suicide drones. Small, remotely guided flying robots have been able to sneak past defenses designed to protect against aerial attacks, ground assaults, and human infiltration to deliver their small but deadly packages. Thermite is a mixture of aluminum powder and iron oxide, which burns at approximately 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit when ignited. This allows a single canister, weighing less than 2 pounds, to cut through a half-inch thick slab of steel—and to burn anything con- tained inside. On at least four occasions, Ukrainian ammunition dumps have been attacked by the same method, with devastating results. The attacks were almost certainly carried out by Russian operatives, given the state of conflict between Russia and Ukraine. What made the attacks particularly noteworthy, beyond the sheer scale of the destruc- tion they caused, was the underlying method being used. In each case, the explosives were carried into the targeted facilities by a small, com- mercially available unmanned aircraft. A quad-copter, similar to the hot- test holiday gift of 2016, was slightly modified so that its remote operator could place its deadly cargo and trigger it (an action that destroyed the drone in each case). The aircrafts’ operators needed only to fly over the fencing of the compounds and locate a stack of ammunition crates, an action taking only a few seconds, to inflict catastrophic damage upon the Ukrainian military, far beyond what has been witnessed in the Predator and Reaper strikes usually associated with attacks by drones.5 The attacks demonstrated that even small payloads, delivered to the right location, can have enormous strategic effects, a form of attack that David Hambling has dubbed “bringing the detonator” and relying upon the local environ- ment for the bulk of the destruction.6 A NEW FORM OF CONFLICT FOR A NEW CENTURY For almost the entire twenty-first century, the United States has been involved in an international conflict with terrorist organizations, particu- larly al Qaeda and the Islamic State, but also affiliated (and nonaffiliated) groups sprinkled around the globe. For most young American citizens, particularly those approaching military age, conflict has become the new norm—the United States has literally been at war for as long as they can remember. Because the war is as much a fight against ideology and spe- cific activities as it is a struggle with enemy organizations, it presents spe- cial challenges to civil and military leaders charged with bringing it to a successful conclusion. Many have turned to advanced technology to cre- ate an asymmetrical advantage, in the hopes that using high-performance machines might offset the challenges of attacking a system of beliefs that have diffused throughout the world.