Essays & field notes · Berlin · 52.52° N 13.40° E
Christoph Brauer
On what fast technology does, slowly, to societies.
Essays & field notes · Berlin · 52.52° N 13.40° E
On what fast technology does, slowly, to societies.
01 · The thesis
New technology arrives in months. What it does to armies, companies, cities and the way we live together takes decades to unfold. That slower story is the one I follow.
02 · Three lines
03 · About
04 · Latest essay · 2026-08-03
The post-2022 consensus said decapitation fails. Twelve days in June 2025 split it instead: killing a command layer reliably silences the system beneath it — and reliably fails to break the society above it. February 2026 ran the test again, to the very top of the state, with the same result.
No Maverick Wins Military folklore says innovation comes from lone rebels the institution punishes. The scholar who counted twenty-one cases found the opposite: new ways of war take hold when respected insiders open promotion pathways for the new specialty. The test of any defence innovation hub is not its demo day — it is who makes general. 
The Sky Is Alive — But Not Everywhere The transparent battlefield is real — but it is a gradient with workable edges, not a law of nature. Four operations since 2022 beat it, and the seven-month autopsy of Kursk shows what manufactured blindness buys — and what it cannot. 
The Douhet Trap In 1924 the Royal Air Force wrote down that the lessons of military history did not apply to the bomber. The bill arrived in 1941. Three questions reveal which of today's drone and AI claims are built the same way. 
What Must Be True About the Next War — and What Nobody Can Know Defence forecasting fails so reliably that failure itself is the field's best-documented finding. But seven statements about the next decade can be deduced rather than predicted — and each one states what would prove it wrong. I don't predict.
I trace.
05 · THE METHOD
Lines of change, followed over years and revisited.
06 · The book · in progress
Twenty-five lessons from recent wars, written for founders first and young officers second.
A letter every two weeks on what fast technology is doing, slowly, to the world.