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> but then I think what we're currently seeing is the future of war We can only hope. AFAIK, none of the wars since WWII were total wars between powers with st

• wbl 7y ago
  Second Congo proves you don't need much industrialization to have massive casualties and war crimes.
• SiempreViernes 7y ago
  I don't think wars drive any revolutionary development: the time constrains are too pressing. They rather drive revolutions in deployment. The big wars are so destructive precisely because they use weapons at qualitative different scales than previously experienced, not because weapons with completely new qualities have been invented. The celebrated revolution of the atomic weapon is a good example: during the war it did not add any new capability; the US had already completely obliterated many Japanese cities with similar numbers of (civilian and military) causalities, indeed special provisions for sparing some from destruction to use the new weapon on had to be made. (And the war almost ended before they managed to drop it: the Soviets entering the conflict in August 1945 is just as plausible as the primary reason the Japanese capitulated) It is only with the introduction of intercontinental nuclear ballistic missiles, that allows belligerents to hold entire cities at risk with little recourse for the defender to prevent it that an entirely new capability is created. This development happened after the war, when supposedly no "revolution" happens. Also, we've had autonomous weapons for ages, they're called mines, and have been widely deployed in past conflicts. They do tend to kill a lot of people long past the conflict actually ended, so that's something the new autonomous weapons might actually avoid.
  • simonh 7y ago
    >This development happened after the war, when supposedly no "revolution" happens I don't think that's fair, both atomic weapons and long range rockets to carry them only existed due to wartime research. WW2 definitely lead to very much accelerated developments in a whole range of areas of technology, but 4 or 5 years just wasn't enough to bring them all to full fruition. Radar, rockets, jet engines, autonomous air vehicles, helicopters, guided munitions, nukes, computers, assault rifles were all first developed as effective systems during WW2, but for the most part only fully matured and became widely adopted afterwards. Even to this day we are largely fighting with weapons technologies originally developed during WW2. The US civil war and Franco-Prussian war looked nothing like WW1, which looked nothing like WW2, but Operation Desert Storm looked exactly like an updated version of WW2. Having said all that a full-on existential 'total war' conflict between the USA and Russia would look like nothing we've ever seen. It would look like something military planners in 1945 were trying to achieve though.
    • SiempreViernes 7y ago
      The field where the military dominates all others is the development of weaponry, so certainly the atomic weapons owe their existence at that point in time to the war. But you make a broader claim about the history of technology in that simply doesn't hold up. Certainly a war greatly accelerates development of military applications, which can drive the broader technology forward, but invariably the basic work is done before the war: crude radar was developed before the war, powered flight pretty famously was developed outside of war, modern rocketry has its early days in the inter-war period, and fission was mastered before the war. So the basis for all these "revolutionary" weapon technologies lie outside of war time research, and thus would plausibly have been developed regardless, if a bit later. In fact, the USA is the only country to have developed nukes during a war, all others have done it in peace time, and many have done it with very little outside assistance (besides the fairly important knowledge that it is possible at all). On closer inspection I find the claim that many technologies owe their existence to the military, and the particular needs of war, to be very overblown: certainly weaponisation of technologies own much to war, but people tend to not be very clear on the detail that the miraculous technological development of a rocket that can fly very far before crashing at a predetermined spot isn't very helpful for society at large. The technologies we enjoy today don't owe that much to those developed for killing.
• bilbo0s 7y ago
  >total wars between powers with strong industrial/technological capability and >crazy weaponized computer security exploits and rushed autonomous weapon platforms deployed within weeks or months. I think that's what GP is alluding to. We have seen plenty of conflict, but not the kind that drives the most significant innovation in weapons technology. In the unfortunate event of total war between great powers today, I'm sorry, but I wouldn't count on your country's weapons research programs having "weeks" or "months" to come up with new devices. Days is more likely. Unless you're dealing with hot headed leaders who don't use the natural pauses to deescalate. In which case you would have maybe hours if you're lucky. I'll go ahead and make the disclaimer that I am ex-military, but this is not American military bravado talking. This is just the reality of total war by any other great nation on the United States Military. The same truth holds for total war on the militaries of the EU, or of Russia, or of China. Nowadays, total war between great powers will drive a great deal of change, but it's not likely to drive a whole lot of high tech weapons innovation. This is just the environment we live in today. Total war is generally, (assuming you're not insane), out of the question. Proxy, Cold, and Information wars are about all you can really do while protecting our current way of life.