ion-level reconnaissance and security, but reducing brigade combat team cav- alry from squadrons to troops and empha- sizing UAS, AI, deep sensing (e.g., MDSS /HADES), and multi-domain integration – risks repeating historical errors by diminishing brigade-level human-led RSS in favor of technological solutions.77 Article 1 of this series documented those structural changes. This article has de- monstrated, across a dozen historical cases spanning 125 years, why that tra- jectory is dangerous.
The historical record examined here is neither exhaustive nor coincidental – it is a pattern. From the repeating rifle to the Reaper drone, every generation of American military leadership has faced a version of the same argument: that a new technology has rendered the human scout redundant. Every generation that acted on that argument without reserva- tion paid for it. The cases in this article provide the evidentiary foundation for the concern raised in the first article of this series – that the 2030 restructuring risks repeating that error at brigade level – and they set the conditions for what follows. The next article will move from the historical to the personal, examining how specific leaders and commands have experienced the consequences of RSS neglect, and what that record demands of those making force structure decisions today.
The enduring lesson is not that technol- ogy is the enemy of reconnaissance, but that technology without the human scout is incomplete. The Army’s best results – from Luzon to Ia Drang to 73 Easting to the integrated drone-and-ground oper- ations of the GWOT – came when tech- nology and human RSS worked together. That is the model the next article will argue must be preserved.
Lt. Col. Patrick O’Brien Boling, PhD, Louisiana National Guard, is a graduate of the Joint Combined Warfighting School at the National Defense University in Norfolk, Virginia. He serves as deputy J-5 Strategy and Policy officer for the Louisiana National Guard. He holds an MS from Louisiana Tech University, an MS from the University of Phoenix, and a PhD from Capella University. Through- out his career, he served in a variety of
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assignments in both the active Army and the National Guard as a field artillery officer and infantry officer with function- al areas in operations and information operations. Cavalry assignments include FSO and AS3 Plans Officer of 2-7th Cav- alry, and S4, HHT CDR, and SXO of 2-108th Cavalry. He is also a graduate of Scout Leader Course and the Cavalry Leader Course.
Dr. Paul Sanders, U.S. Army, retired, was an Advanced Operations Course instruc- tor with the Department of Distance Education at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He holds an MA from Chapman Univer- sity and a PhD from Northcentral Univer- sity in California. During his military ca- reer, he served in a variety of assignments as a logistics officer and, earlier in his career, as a Special Forces engineer with the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne).
Notes 1 Toh, Amos, and Emile Ayoub. The Business of Military AI. Brennan Center for Justice, 11 Mar. 2026,
www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ research-reports/business-military-ai.
2 Linn, Brian McAllister. The Philippine War, 1899-1902. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.
3 Linn, The Philippine War. 4 Linn, The Philippine War.
5 McGrath, John J. Scouts Out! The Development of Reconnaissance Units in Modern Armies. Fort Leaven- worth: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2008.
https://www.armyupress.army. mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-insti tute/csi-books/scoutsout.pdf.
6 McGrath, Scouts Out!.
7 Arnold, James R. The Moro War: How America Battled a Muslim Insurgency in the Philippines, 1902-1913. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2011.
8 Arnold, The Moro War. 9 Arnold, The Moro War. 10 McGrath, Scouts Out!. 11 Arnold, The Moro War.
12 National Army Museum. “Cavalry on the Western Front.” Accessed July 6, 2025.
https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/ cavalry-western-front.
13 Cameron, Robert S. Mobility, Shock, and Firepower: The Emergence of the U.S. Army’s Armor Branch, 1917–1945. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 2008.
https://history.army.mil/ html/books/030/30-23-1/cmhPub_30- 23-1.pdf
14 Terraine, John. “Cavalry in the Age of Mechanization.” War in History 3, no. 4 (1996): 412–430.
https://doi.org/10.11 77/096834459600300403.
15 “The Maginot Line: France’s Defensive Failure in World War II.” ThoughtCo. Published March 29, 2018. https://www.
thoughtco.com/the-maginot-line-3861426
16 Jackson, Julian. The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
17 BBC History. “The Fall of France.” Published November 4, 2009. https://
www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/ wwtwo/
fall_france_01.shtml
18 “Why France Lost in 1940.” War Writers. Published October 11, 2020. https://war
writers.com/why-france-lost-in-1940
19 Terraine, “Calvary in the Age of Mec- hanization”.
20 Jackson, The Fall of France. 21 BBC History, The Fall of France.
22 Terraine, “Calvary in the Age of Mec- hanization”.
23 Jackson, The Fall of France. 24 BBC History, “The Fall of France.” 25 BBC History, “The Fall of France.” 26 BBC History, “The Fall of France.” 27 BBC History, “The Fall of France.”
28 Atkinson, Rick. An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943. Henry Holt, 2002.
https://us.macmillan.com/ books/9780805087246/anarmy-atdawn.
29 Atkinson, An Army at Dawn. 30 McGrath, Scouts Out!.
31 Cameron, Mobility, Shock, and Fire- power.
32 Appleman, Roy E. South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu: June–November 1950. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1961. https://history.
army.mil/books/korea/20-2-1/toc.htm
33 Appleman, South to the Naktong. CAVALRY & ARMOR JOURNAL Spring 2026
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