Bob Work

In The Kill Chain, Robert “Bob” Work is one of the main architects of the U.S. response to “the reemergence of great power competition” after the 2014 ambushes by Russia and China. As deputy secretary of defense and an acolyte of Andrew Marshall — for whom he had once written reports and run wargames — Work had grown increasingly concerned that China and Russia were acquiring exactly the military countermeasures Marshall foresaw. The book frames his core project as an attempt to “rehabilitate the revolution in military affairs that had fallen into disrepute” in the two decades after Marshall first articulated it: the technologies had changed radically, but the goal had not — to build high-tech, information-centered battle networks that let U.S. forces find and strike enemy targets faster than ever, closing the kill chain. Kyle flags Work alongside Marshall as a figure to understand (“Understand Andrew Marshall and Robert Work”).

Context: Robert O. Work served as the 32nd United States Deputy Secretary of Defense (2014–2017) and is widely associated with the Pentagon’s “Third Offset Strategy,” which sought to preserve U.S. military advantage through AI, autonomy, and human-machine teaming.

Where this appears

• The Kill Chain — Marshall acolyte and deputy secretary of defense who tried to rehabilitate the revolution in military affairs after the 2014 great-power-competition wake-up