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Because any technological advance is going to be countered. Then at some point, we have drones killing drones. Currently military numbers are limited by manpow

by vlehto 11y ago

Because any technological advance is going to be countered. Then at some point, we have drones killing drones. Currently military numbers are limited by manpower. And military units (like let's tanks) are to some degree limited by money. You don't want to pour too much money on single tank, because you then put all your eggs on few baskets. And you also don't want to put significant part of your troops in badly armored tanks with food firepower, because then you will run out of tankers in no time. Currently the "good balance" is 10 000 M1A2 Abrams that cost 6,2 million dollars a piece. Those would need 40 000 tankers, which is tolerable amount of crew. Training them is costing and going to cost lots of money. Combined price of the thing is 62 billion dollars or tax payer money, distributed to several decades. Increasing the price of tank to 10 million would be stupid, as it's still vulnerable to certain dangers, but you now lose 4 million more in single blast. Now let's imagine full autonomous tank fleet of M1A9 Abrams somewhere around year 2050. You are no longer limited by tankers. You are only limited by price. But as you lack crew, you need less armor. Lets say we have unit price of 4 million dollars. Now 10 000 units is only 40 billion and zero tankers. Then Russia makes autonomous tank "T17 Kursk" and produces 15 000 of them to sell to China. (Or something else, I'm not fiction writer.) They are bit crap, but as trained tankmen are not required, they can easily produce higher numbers to compete with U.S. But U.S. is not happy with second place. So U.S. gets another 10 000 Abrams. But China is not giving up, they order another 15 000 Kursk. And on and on. Until tax percentages of both China and U.S. reach 70% and all of it is poured to "defense". China, India, Brazil and Russia are all likely to beat U.S. in economic growth rate in the future, because it's easier if you start from the bottom. And they are all geopolitically ambitious. We are headed towards multipolar world and that means arms races again. TL;DR: Autonomous killing robots remove limitations of arms race. This is "destabilizing" and draining.

vectorjohn 11y ago
People are not the limiting factor on number of tanks. See: the rest of the military. This is an implausible scenario.
- vlehto 11y ago
  It was simplification. But yes, the real shit hits the fan when infantry can be replaced with robotics. See "combined arms approach".
walshemj 11y ago
You do know that MBT's require a lot of day to day maitainace by the crew to keep them going - that's one reason why they still have 4 man crews.
- vlehto 11y ago
  Yes I do. It's oversimplified scenario to drive home the principle. Money and perceived threat are big factors in the equation. But anyhow there is currently a limit on how much money you can throw at a Field army until you hit deeply diminishing returns. And numbers of enlisted limit how many field armies you can field. Robotics can push this limitation way further.
- nxzero 11y ago
  This is a short-term issue, which is widely known; autonomous self-healing support and supportable units are a coming.
  - goldenkey 11y ago
    Hah I suppose you think we have self healing cars.
    - nxzero 11y ago
      Appears that you don't understand how auto companies make money; hint, it's not by selling cars.
      - goldenkey 11y ago
        Please enlighten me with more information regarding this scam that even Tesla hasnt expunged
        nxzero 11y ago
        Auto industry makes most of it's money from enabling auto ownership, not selling the autos themselves. For example: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhenry/2012/02/29/the-surprising-ways-car-dealers-make-the-most-money-off-of-you/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhenry/2012/02/29/the-surprisi... Believe what you want, but comparing auto industry to the military systems is meaningless in my opinion.
nxzero 11y ago
Hardware is limited by resources, which are neither limitless or instantaneous. That said, I agree the cost of war will rapidly increase, as will the desire to control resources; China already sees this, though they're not good at fighting economic wars.
bad_alloc 11y ago
I'd argue that China, Russia and the US have already passed this point w.r.t. nucelar weapons: Every side is sufficiently armed so that a war between any of them cannot be won. As soon as you start winning in a conventional scenario the other side might as well use nuclear weapons, just to ensure you'll lose too. In short a war between nuclear powers makes no sense, since the "victory condition" has been removed. I'd assume that this is the same in asymmetric conflicts: If you are fighting a guerilla war, you "win" when you kill some of your enemies troops and demoralize them. However if enemy sends only machines, then cannot win as long as the enemy is capable of producing more of these autonomous weapons than you can destroy. As you've said the cost savings do enable that. Hence the guerilla side also loses its victory condition. This is a scenario I'd actually like to see, since it might put an effective end to the kind of fighting we've seen in the middle east. Your argument is of course correct when we consider two countries which are both capable of producing such weapons and neither side has a nuclear weapon. Saudi-Arabia and Iran are candidates which could probably fall into this kind of an arms race and that would indeed make the situation there even worse.
- vlehto 11y ago
  "Hence the guerilla side also loses its victory condition. This is a scenario I'd actually like to see, since it might put an effective end to the kind of fighting we've seen in the middle east." As a Finn, this is exactly the kind of stuff I don't want to see. Russia can win conventional war against Finland any day, if Finland would be absolutely certain to lose also the ensuing guerrilla war, we would lose our independence without fighting. Maybe not de jure independence, but practically yes. Nukes are unusable as you said. This has not prevented conventional arms race and it's usage for proxy wars during cold war. It's unlikely it would do so in future. It might even make the whole situation worse, as now you can supply the "mujahideen" with so much more potent weapons. And you need less popular support to maintain similar levels of guerrilla activity. Damn I hope I'm wrong on that. The possible counter could be autonomous aerial denial weapons. If they get better than autonomous assault weapons, we might actually see more peaceful world in the fashion of Kant(1). It might mean that Taleban might rule Afganistan again. But it would also mean that Russia can't wing Georgia, Egypt can't win Israel and Iran can't win Iraq. Westphalian utopia. :D [1] https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kant/kant1.htm https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kant/kant1.htm It's really awkwardly worded essay, but the point is that if everybody defends and nobody attacks, we can get resilient world peace. With the downside of occasional minor conflict, but also with no "world government". If you start to think the election of president of world government, the whole idea seems pretty obviously oppressive and potentially very totalitarian.
Symmetry 11y ago
I should point out that if you are a perfectly immortal government that takes a strictly instrumental view of your population then the value of the typical 1st world citizen's life is going to be about $5 million. The government can't extract all that value from its soldiers but it should still consider their long term productivity forgone by them dying as much the cost of training them if you're being smart. Of course that only enhances your point.
FranOntanaya 11y ago
Arguably most conflicts are caused by people with much lower level concerns. Two opposing governments launching a drone war between them, due to some civilians being disgruntled at some other civilians, while these angry people watch from the sidelines, sounds very theatrical compared with governments lacking the political will or interest to stop some rebels from grabbing pointy sticks and fighting each other. Sort of how we have lots of countries with airforces, but current wars don't involve air vs air combat. People smart enough to use the technology don't seem to have that much taste for fighting other smart people.
- vlehto 11y ago
  Two opposing countries launching ICBM war between them never happened either. But that didn't stop people pouring incredible amounts of money into it. Until certain saturation point was achieved. Military spending is not much determined by war-fighting, but capabilities and threats.

by vlehto 11y ago

vectorjohn 11y ago

People are not the limiting factor on number of tanks. See: the rest of the military. This is an implausible scenario.

vlehto 11y ago
It was simplification. But yes, the real shit hits the fan when infantry can be replaced with robotics. See "combined arms approach".

walshemj 11y ago

You do know that MBT's require a lot of day to day maitainace by the crew to keep them going - that's one reason why they still have 4 man crews.

vlehto 11y ago
Yes I do. It's oversimplified scenario to drive home the principle. Money and perceived threat are big factors in the equation. But anyhow there is currently a limit on how much money you can throw at a Field army until you hit deeply diminishing returns. And numbers of enlisted limit how many field armies you can field. Robotics can push this limitation way further.
nxzero 11y ago
This is a short-term issue, which is widely known; autonomous self-healing support and supportable units are a coming.
- goldenkey 11y ago
  Hah I suppose you think we have self healing cars.
  - nxzero 11y ago
    Appears that you don't understand how auto companies make money; hint, it's not by selling cars.
    - goldenkey 11y ago
      Please enlighten me with more information regarding this scam that even Tesla hasnt expunged
      - nxzero 11y ago
        Auto industry makes most of it's money from enabling auto ownership, not selling the autos themselves. For example: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhenry/2012/02/29/the-surprising-ways-car-dealers-make-the-most-money-off-of-you/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhenry/2012/02/29/the-surprisi... Believe what you want, but comparing auto industry to the military systems is meaningless in my opinion.

nxzero 11y ago

Hardware is limited by resources, which are neither limitless or instantaneous. That said, I agree the cost of war will rapidly increase, as will the desire to control resources; China already sees this, though they're not good at fighting economic wars.

bad_alloc 11y ago

I'd argue that China, Russia and the US have already passed this point w.r.t. nucelar weapons: Every side is sufficiently armed so that a war between any of them cannot be won. As soon as you start winning in a conventional scenario the other side might as well use nuclear weapons, just to ensure you'll lose too. In short a war between nuclear powers makes no sense, since the "victory condition" has been removed. I'd assume that this is the same in asymmetric conflicts: If you are fighting a guerilla war, you "win" when you kill some of your enemies troops and demoralize them. However if enemy sends only machines, then cannot win as long as the enemy is capable of producing more of these autonomous weapons than you can destroy. As you've said the cost savings do enable that. Hence the guerilla side also loses its victory condition. This is a scenario I'd actually like to see, since it might put an effective end to the kind of fighting we've seen in the middle east. Your argument is of course correct when we consider two countries which are both capable of producing such weapons and neither side has a nuclear weapon. Saudi-Arabia and Iran are candidates which could probably fall into this kind of an arms race and that would indeed make the situation there even worse.

vlehto 11y ago
"Hence the guerilla side also loses its victory condition. This is a scenario I'd actually like to see, since it might put an effective end to the kind of fighting we've seen in the middle east." As a Finn, this is exactly the kind of stuff I don't want to see. Russia can win conventional war against Finland any day, if Finland would be absolutely certain to lose also the ensuing guerrilla war, we would lose our independence without fighting. Maybe not de jure independence, but practically yes. Nukes are unusable as you said. This has not prevented conventional arms race and it's usage for proxy wars during cold war. It's unlikely it would do so in future. It might even make the whole situation worse, as now you can supply the "mujahideen" with so much more potent weapons. And you need less popular support to maintain similar levels of guerrilla activity. Damn I hope I'm wrong on that. The possible counter could be autonomous aerial denial weapons. If they get better than autonomous assault weapons, we might actually see more peaceful world in the fashion of Kant(1). It might mean that Taleban might rule Afganistan again. But it would also mean that Russia can't wing Georgia, Egypt can't win Israel and Iran can't win Iraq. Westphalian utopia. :D [1] https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kant/kant1.htm https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kant/kant1.htm It's really awkwardly worded essay, but the point is that if everybody defends and nobody attacks, we can get resilient world peace. With the downside of occasional minor conflict, but also with no "world government". If you start to think the election of president of world government, the whole idea seems pretty obviously oppressive and potentially very totalitarian.

Symmetry 11y ago

I should point out that if you are a perfectly immortal government that takes a strictly instrumental view of your population then the value of the typical 1st world citizen's life is going to be about $5 million. The government can't extract all that value from its soldiers but it should still consider their long term productivity forgone by them dying as much the cost of training them if you're being smart. Of course that only enhances your point.

FranOntanaya 11y ago

Arguably most conflicts are caused by people with much lower level concerns. Two opposing governments launching a drone war between them, due to some civilians being disgruntled at some other civilians, while these angry people watch from the sidelines, sounds very theatrical compared with governments lacking the political will or interest to stop some rebels from grabbing pointy sticks and fighting each other. Sort of how we have lots of countries with airforces, but current wars don't involve air vs air combat. People smart enough to use the technology don't seem to have that much taste for fighting other smart people.

vlehto 11y ago
Two opposing countries launching ICBM war between them never happened either. But that didn't stop people pouring incredible amounts of money into it. Until certain saturation point was achieved. Military spending is not much determined by war-fighting, but capabilities and threats.