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It's hard to predict what the next outbreak of war will look like. Are we going to see more Syria/Yemen/Sudan-type conflicts or will we get back to a conventio

It's hard to predict what the next outbreak of war will look like. Are we going to see more Syria/Yemen/Sudan-type conflicts or will we get back to a conventional war with tank battles and all? In the 20th century warfare evolved trench warfare to asymmetrical war. You don't need divisions to make an impact, you need someone willing to set off a suicide vest in a police station, a pregnant woman to sit an a VBIED and drive past a checkpoint or someone strong enough to fire an RPG. To assume robots or technology is going to solve those problems is probably a naive position. It's of course important to prepare for a larger scale war against China, Russia, etc. but realistically we're more likely to be fighting a handful of goat herders in Afghanistan with an AK and a bag full of rice before we're taking on an armored division. The best line in the article was "We can’t hope endlessly that technology will make warfare easier or less brutal or less costly, [because] The reality is, it doesn’t; it changes it. It makes it harder in many cases." Note: I was in the US Army from 03-07 serving in the Rangers with 4 deployments and have seen ingenuity trump technology

mjfl 6y ago
> Are we going to see more Syria/Yemen/Sudan-type conflicts or will we get back to a conventional war with tank battles and all? Every major power that can manufacture tanks also can make nukes. Thus there will probably be no pre-apocalyptic war like that.
VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
> or will we get back to a conventional war with tank battles and all? The answer is: no. There isn't a single country in the entire world that could challenge USA to a 1-1 military battle. There is no more such thing as tank warfare. At this point it's impossible to defeat USA on the high seas, or on land.
- nradov 6y ago
  True for now but the Chinese navy is expanding at a rate not seen since the peak of the Cold War. If they sustain the effort for a couple decades then they'll be in a position to defeat the USA on the high seas.
  - VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
    Decades. Decades... and maybe in 2080 they'll be able to assert control of the South China Sea. But until then the USA Navy controls it.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      This is incredibly optimistic. If their hypersonic missiles work properly they could theoretically gain control of the SCS decisively in the next 5 years, at a massive cost of course. This should be expected, military power is more or less a function of economic power, and as they rival the US in economic power they will also rival the US in military power in their own backyard. In a few decades, they could possibly outmatch the US outside the SCS as well.
      - nyokodo 6y ago
        > In a few decades, they could possibly outmatch the US outside the SCS as well. China's has a number of very big problems they have to solve before they'll reach regional hegemony let alone global dominance. India is next-door, they have a massive demographic bomb coming because of the one child policy, and buying friends is unsustainable long-term, especially as those friends get wealthier too. This isn't to mention internal instability that massive concentration camps are unlikely to solve. We'll see what happens I suppose but one thing I do wish is all the best for the Chinese populace.
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        India being next-door is not that big of an issue. The fixation on their demographic issue is quite ridiculous. Demographic problems are not problems in a vacuum. Demographic decline is only an issue insofar as it prevents economic growth. It turns out, the CPC is acutely aware of the issue, and considered it before putting the policy into place. The crucial fact is this one: Over 25% of the Chinese population is employed in agriculture. However, only 2% of the American population is employed in agriculture. This fact is the root cause of the demographic decline being planned and indeed wished for by the CPC. They, in effect, have a 20+% population surplus, that could be got rid of without a negative economic impact. Therefore, the Chinese economy is very unlikely to implode because of the upcoming demographic shock, as it will not negatively impact economic growth and will thus not lead to issues with either the retirement system (China already has one of the lowest retirement ages), nor with economic growth. This inscribes itself further in the process of proletarianization in which the Chinese economy is engaging in order to continue its development, as well as calculated so that the peak population will coincide with the carrying capacity of Chinese arable lands. The CCP are a lot of bad things, but they really aren't idiots. An issue that was not foreseen, however, is the gender imbalance that was created, but even that is not that bad of an issue - involuntary celibacy is significantly lower in China than, for example, the United States, and is actually one of the lowest in the world, but this is still a problem, especially for more long term relationships. People have been clamouring for the imminent fall of China for this or that, but objectively I don't see it happening.
- Laremere 6y ago
  To reinforce your answer: no because nukes In warfare, logistics and production are major factors. In protracted conflicts, factory capacity and transportation infrastructure are vital, and therefor targets. Nukes, delivered by subs, aircraft, or ICBMs are the most effective way to destroy those targets. The days of nation states fighting other nation states with their own production capacity are forever over on planet earth, baring full out nuclear warfare.
- fiblye 6y ago
  > There isn't a single country in the entire world that could challenge USA to a 1-1 military battle I guess that really depends on what you consider a "1-1 military battle." Gentlemanly warfare used to be people marching and staying in formation and going straight at each other until they died. With that battle strategy, the victor is generally going to be the one with more people covering more ground. But that strategy hasn't been used in a long while, because there are smarter ways to fight. Tanks and so on are the old way of fighting battle. The US has a decidedly bad post-WW2 record since nobody is really fighting by the "old ways" that much of the American military fights by, and the biggest advantage is the US can just drop bombs indiscriminately basically forever (decidedly not 1-1 combat) and hope to destroy every living thing imaginable (which still failed in basically everything from Vietnam onwards). The claim that the US will beat any country isn't backed by any evidence. At all. There are theoretical situations where maybe the US has more people, more money, more whatever and will win if you line soldiers up and have them fight Napoleonic style, but in reality, successful wars following WW2 include... the Gulf War? Which just ended up leaving Saddam in power, ending up with the unmanageable chaotic wars we've had in the middle east these past 2 decades.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > which still failed in basically everything from Vietnam onwards Dropping bombs didn't fail in Vietnam. It succeeded. North Vietnam was defeated militarily. They only took over South Vietnam after the US Congress snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by withdrawing funding so the US troops had to leave. > The claim that the US will beat any country isn't backed by any evidence. At all. Certainly it is. Given a clear objective, the US military has achieved it in every case. The reasons that the US often fails to capitalize on such victories are political, not military. > the Gulf War? Which just ended up leaving Saddam in power Because removing Saddam from power was explicitly not a military objective in that war; the military objective was to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, and that objective was met. When the US decided it did want to remove Saddam from power, in the second Gulf War, it succeeded. Again, the reasons why the aftermath of that war became a debacle were political, not military.
    - 6y ago
- pritovido 6y ago
  "There isn't a single country in the entire world that could challenge USA to a 1-1 military battle." That was also true of Nazi Germany. But is actually quite possible to defeat USA on the seas and on land if different countries join against it. Europe is not Iraq or Afganistan, as a whole, it is stronger than the US. I have lived and worked in China(and the US) and while I believe they way weaker(China) than what they project, they can f*ck the world immensely. They can contaminate the Pacific Ocean (with radioactivity and other poisons) forever. BTW most of the intelligent and educated(engineers, scientists) people in the US comes from outside the US. Not reasonable to believe they will contribute against fighting their own countries. This "war on everything" American mentality needs to stop.
  - ericmay 6y ago
    > Europe is not Iraq or Afganistan, as a whole, it is stronger than the US. Militarily there is no doubt that Europe is not. The only country in Europe that can really project force is France. (I’m assuming the UK is not getting into a war with the United States). > BTW most of the intelligent and educated(engineers, scientists) people in the US comes from outside the US. Not reasonable to believe they will contribute against fighting their own countries. A lot to unpack behind this weird assertion. First-> many (most?) of these smart people are working at companies like Facebook to hook kids into endlessly scrolling. Second -> your claim is unfounded. Third -> even if it were true, the skills and knowledge to win wars do not have a 1-1 correspondence with the skills of these so called experts. Even then, who is to say given the right opportunity there are plenty of other smart people around. Fourth -> those same smart people have families in the US. You think they’re just going to go transfer some Amex points and hop on a Delta flight home? There wouldn’t even be a way to leave the US. Finally -> the idea that “all the smart foreigners will betray the US” gives ammo to arguing points by suspicious white supremacists. So you probably shouldn’t do that.
nyokodo 6y ago
>I was in the US Army from 03-07 serving in the Rangers with 4 deployments Thank you for your service! > but realistically we're more likely to be fighting a handful of goat herders in Afghanistan with an AK and a bag full of rice before we're taking on an armored division. Why should we be fighting goat herders in Afghanistan? I can understand the justification for striking back at the structures that committed the 9/11 attacks, but I can't understand the failed nation building and staying there forever and putting our troops in harms way.
- EGreg 6y ago
  We trained rebels against the USSR occupation so we could do the same thing on our own dime to the tune of multiple trillions of dollars for two decades: Prop up a secular government Defend women’s rights and education In the midst of an Islamic country much of which does not want us or our values there. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/08/world/asia/us-misleads-on-afghanistan.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/08/world/asia/us... This is true whether it’s the “Afghan Arabs” or the Taliban doing the fighting.
  - remarkEon 6y ago
    Just to add some context to this, Afghan Arabs refers to Arabs that traveled to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets with the Mujahideen.
nordsieck 6y ago
> You don't need divisions to make an impact, you need someone willing to set off a suicide vest in a police station, a pregnant woman to sit an a VBIED and drive past a checkpoint or someone strong enough to fire an RPG. I understand what you're saying, but those are all self-inflicted vulnerabilities from trying to "nation build". > It's of course important to prepare for a larger scale war against China, Russia, etc. but realistically we're more likely to be fighting a handful of goat herders in Afghanistan with an AK and a bag full of rice before we're taking on an armored division. Broadly, I think there are 2 theories of conflict. The first is what I'll call the "justice" theory of conflict: people fight because they are oppressed. The second is what I'll call the "rational basis" theory of conflict: people fight because they think they can win, or because their backs are against a wall and they have nothing to lose by fighting. IMO, the second theory has much, much more explanatory power. If you buy the second theory, then the major reason there is no war between the US and China or Russia is because they don't believe they can win (which is probably true, as long as the US doesn't try to invade). But in order for that to continue to be true in the future, the US needs to continue to invest in military assets that are effective in fighting near peer opponents. It is also important to be good at fighting developing nations. But ultimately, being good at that doesn't matter as much. If the US goes home from Afghanistan, that might affect the Afghans, but it doesn't really have global implications. But a hot war between the US and China would result in a truly enormous number of deaths. Also, I don't really see much evidence that the US has ever really been successful at nation building. The last real success was South Korea. And it's just as easy to see that as a fluke rather than the result of US presence (during the peace - obviously the US helped immensely during the hot part of the conflict).
- remarkEon 6y ago
  I think you’re mostly right. One thing about “nation building” though is that the US has only been successful (broadly defined) when we occupy the country completely, like a colony, for a generation and essentially administer their government for them for a long time. Now, there’s obviously a lot of warts involved in doing that but Germany, Japan, and South Korea are the last times we really went “all in” (South Korea is a much more murky example as you’ve pointed out). To be clear, Iraq and Afghanistan are very different for reasons that should be obvious (OEF 12-13, here), and while I’m not saying that treating those places like a colony would’ve worked better (I don’t think it would have, for enough reasons to fill a PhD thesis) it’s an interesting historical thought experiment. Back to the actual topic, I share the skepticism of tech Uber alles expressed like others, and trying to predict the future of warfare is mostly a futile exercise. Probably best to index on flexibility and tight training regimens and make some informed inferences about how to structure the force.
ethbr0 6y ago
> It's of course important to prepare for a larger scale war... but realistically we're more likely to be fighting a handful of goat herders I guess a big part of the broader picture is "Who would you least like to lose against?" Losing against goat herders has consequences, but I'd argue that losing a larger-scale war has more severe consequences. So even if you never intend to fight a large scale war, can you afford to ignore preparing for one? > 03-07 Oof, that's a rough period. Thank you, gratefully, for your service.
killjoywashere 6y ago
I'd argue nukes make the next outbreak of war fairly predictable. The large nuclear powers are essentially unassailable by conventional means: Russia, France, China, Britain, the US, India, Pakistan, and probably North Korea are all untouchable by conventional assault. Pakistan and India only (edit: ok, mainly) care about each other. The US and Britain are tightly aligned and they are separated from Eurasia by water, a non-trivial obstacle in its own right. The remaining Eurasian nuclear powers, Russia, China, and North Korea share borders. They are surrounded by essentially a skirt of nations. These nations are where proxy wars will occur. Various pretexts will develop from time to time. The wars have not all been American. Russia has fought the Ukraine and the US continues to support Georgia (the country). China was heavily involved in Korea and Vietnam. The English Wikipedia is tracking 29 ongoing proxy wars, 21 of them are Eurasian (1). Why are there so many proxy wars in Eurasia? First, ethnic violence. Racism is not uniquely American, and the slow migration of humanoids across Eurasia over history has left a lot of ethnic groups to quarrel with their neighbors. It is not uncommon that one of the major powers gets pulled in for some reason, and then other major powers see an advantage in supporting the opposing combatant. Second, the major powers have always wanted buffer states like a chess player wants pawns. The US has Canada and Mexico, and a large number Central and South American states. China's empire has stretched from time to time as far as Okinawa and the Philippines to Mongolia, Korea, and brief intrusions into Japan proper. Russia has opposed the entry of the former Eastern Bloc states into NATO. Most recently, Russia has sold S-400 radars to Turkey, creating tension between NATO's newest and oldest members. Russia and China have both demonstrated they are willing to use armed force to extend their borders. Russia in Crimea, and China in the South China Sea (9-dash line). They have also demonstrated they will use economic means to advance their soft power (Russia creates dependencies through oil and gas trade, China floods various islands with money and cuts deals with the locals to "lease" their land (a trick they learned from the British, see Hong Kong). The other battlefield is of course the Internet, ranging from intrusions and malicious behavior (e.g. stuxnet, N.K. vs Sony, Titan Rain) to open source information ops (Russian interference in the US 2016 election). (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proxy_wars#Ongoing_proxy_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proxy_wars#Ongoing_pro...
- ardy42 6y ago
kumarvvr 6y ago
Well, robits have done fantastically well for the US military. A predator drone, killing people in Afghanistan, while being controlled from a base in Las Vegas, is a wet dream for military chiefs and policy makers, not to mention war mongers. I suspect the end game is to drastically reduce humans and have robots to conduct the war, remotely killing the 'enemy'. One more sad step towards de-humanizing the enemy.
- squarefoot 6y ago
  > One more sad step towards de-humanizing the enemy. Much worse than that; it's one more step towards screening people from the monstrosities of the war, creating therefore a culture that endorses it because any negative effects are hidden. Families are often opposed to war because they know some of their kids won't make it back; that's a powerful deterrent and is the reason why after a while showing soldiers coffins was forbidden to US TV networks during the last Gulf War: they recalled the protests during Vietnam after it became clear that soldiers weren't taking a walk in the park down there. Now if we make it certain for one side to never lose any soldier because every action is being performed from safe distance by a drone pilot, war suddenly becomes a videogame in which one side cannot lose anymore, but more importantly that same side won't have any negative feelings associated to the war because it doesn't bring any suffering. This is the recipe for creating a state of eternal war, and I'm strongly opposed to that. I want all sides - including mine - to experience deaths and mutilation, grieving families, babies who will never know their parents, etc. If we take those away, we take away all reasons to not want wars.
  - greggman3 6y ago
    I don' think that will ever happen because you can't keep tech in a bottle. The tech will spread and people on the other side will also fly their war drones from sofas.
    - tremon 6y ago
      And both sides will try to hit the sofas, not the drones.
darepublic 6y ago
What about bio warfare. Covid showed how effective it can be. Crippling sabotage attacks against infra as well.
- Leherenn 6y ago
  And how uncontrollable it seems to be unless you almost completely cut yourself from the rest of the world.
randomNumber7 6y ago
One thing which is pretty obvious imho but often overlooked... It doesn't matter how many tanks you have when your opponent has atomic bombs. The same is true for most of the airplanes, ships and robots. So from a western perspective all those weapons are only useful in an offensive war against a weak opponent (no atomic bombs). In this context it also makes sense to have less but better trained soldiers. Reducing casualties reduces bad press. You don't need millions of soldiers to bomb away Irak anyway. If you assume that military leaders have basic logic reasoning (i think they are smart actually), you see that self defense is not the primary goal for western countries (except Switzerland).
credit_guy 6y ago
First, thank you for your service. 03-07 were quite some rough years. > realistically we're more likely to be fighting a handful of goat herders in Afghanistan with an AK and a bag full of rice before we're taking on an armored division. Absolutely true. And to keep this statement true in the future as well, it will make sense to heed FDR’s advice to speak softly and cary a big stick. We need advanced weapons not in order to use them, but in order not to use them.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
  "Big sticks" don't help against irrational actors. Mutually Assured Destruction assures that there will be no direct conflict between superpowers, but if individuals become radicalized, they become willing to act irrationally(from a game theory definition of "rational"). This is the real reason we started a war against terror. Terrorism and asymmetric warfare are about the only external thing capable of actually bringing our country down.
  - credit_guy 6y ago
    > Mutually Assured Destruction assures that there will be no direct conflict between superpowers If a conflict stays below a certain threshold, it doesn't go nuclear. Russia is always prodding to see how far they can go. Ability to answer in kind is something you need, and autonomous tanks seem to fit the bill quite well.
- Snitch-Thursday 6y ago
  Pedantry ahead: Big Stick diplomacy was Teddy, not Franklin, Roosevelt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Stick_ideology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Stick_ideology
lm28469 6y ago
> It's hard to predict what the next outbreak of war will look like. Look at Armenia vs Azerbaijan: drone destroying anything on the ground, one second you're not even aware you're in active combat, the next you're dead. You can also look at what ISIS is doing, strap a mortar round to a commercial drone, fly over an enemy position, drop the round [0][1] !!! Spoiler: war footage, don't click if you don't want to see people dying https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjJ6sc1OBwA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjJ6sc1OBwA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raaYRlri4J0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raaYRlri4J0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz4DQWIBH50&has_verified=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz4DQWIBH50&has_verified=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKNkcM9kdf0&fea=&has_verified=1&bpctr=1605015341 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKNkcM9kdf0&fea=&has_verifie... https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/jquj1n/one_kamikaze_drone_of_azerbaijan_records_the_use/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/jquj1n/one_k... [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vY7i_eR06M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vY7i_eR06M [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/fnrox0/isis_drone_drops_a_grenade_on_a_large_syrian_army/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/fnrox0/isis_...
- jkinudsjknds 6y ago
  I don't really want to watch those videos but I've thought about the mortar idea a lot before. It seems much more difficult to protect against versus a more traditional projectile or a bomb that you try and fly into an enemy position. What's happening with them? Are they common?
- cooljacob204 6y ago
  Armenia had no real modern anti air weapons to combat this. If this were tried on any other modern military those drones would have been shot down at the border.
  - MagnumOpus 6y ago
    Iranian drones blew up Saudi processing facilities in 2017; Russian thermite drones exploded two major Ukrainian ammo dumps in 2017. Both Saudi and Ukraine are modern military powers, certainly more so than Armenia. It's not quite as simple as "shoot it down" - few places have 360-degreee 24/7 coverage of all their borders that is effective (and cost-effective) against both 50,000-foot high altitude UAVs and a swarm of DJI thermite shell drones (not to speak of the semi-truck driving up five miles from your facility and unloading such a swarm.
rgbrenner 6y ago
Asymmetrical war wasn’t invented in the 20th century. It exists wherever a weaker force encounters a stronger force. In the revolutionary war Americans were criticized by the British because they wouldn’t line up to shoot.. they would hide behind trees and fire from cover. Or more recently in the Iraq war (2) we got to watch as the Iraqi military dissolved into an insurgent force (this was before alqueda moved in). We see more of it today because so many wars today are imbalanced. It’s not US v China.. it’s US v Afghanistan. They have no choice but to attack from the shadows.
gumby 6y ago
> In the 20th century warfare evolved trench warfare to asymmetrical war. I think you mean "back to asymmetric war" which appears to have been the norm through history, even taking in the extensive literature of set-piece battles. In fact the American revolution was primarily an asymmetric conflict. (Otherwise I agree with your comment)
matheusmoreira 6y ago
> have seen ingenuity trump technology Examples?

mjfl 6y ago

> Are we going to see more Syria/Yemen/Sudan-type conflicts or will we get back to a conventional war with tank battles and all? Every major power that can manufacture tanks also can make nukes. Thus there will probably be no pre-apocalyptic war like that.

VWWHFSfQ 6y ago

> or will we get back to a conventional war with tank battles and all? The answer is: no. There isn't a single country in the entire world that could challenge USA to a 1-1 military battle. There is no more such thing as tank warfare. At this point it's impossible to defeat USA on the high seas, or on land.

nradov 6y ago
True for now but the Chinese navy is expanding at a rate not seen since the peak of the Cold War. If they sustain the effort for a couple decades then they'll be in a position to defeat the USA on the high seas.
- VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
  Decades. Decades... and maybe in 2080 they'll be able to assert control of the South China Sea. But until then the USA Navy controls it.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    This is incredibly optimistic. If their hypersonic missiles work properly they could theoretically gain control of the SCS decisively in the next 5 years, at a massive cost of course. This should be expected, military power is more or less a function of economic power, and as they rival the US in economic power they will also rival the US in military power in their own backyard. In a few decades, they could possibly outmatch the US outside the SCS as well.
    - nyokodo 6y ago
      > In a few decades, they could possibly outmatch the US outside the SCS as well. China's has a number of very big problems they have to solve before they'll reach regional hegemony let alone global dominance. India is next-door, they have a massive demographic bomb coming because of the one child policy, and buying friends is unsustainable long-term, especially as those friends get wealthier too. This isn't to mention internal instability that massive concentration camps are unlikely to solve. We'll see what happens I suppose but one thing I do wish is all the best for the Chinese populace.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        India being next-door is not that big of an issue. The fixation on their demographic issue is quite ridiculous. Demographic problems are not problems in a vacuum. Demographic decline is only an issue insofar as it prevents economic growth. It turns out, the CPC is acutely aware of the issue, and considered it before putting the policy into place. The crucial fact is this one: Over 25% of the Chinese population is employed in agriculture. However, only 2% of the American population is employed in agriculture. This fact is the root cause of the demographic decline being planned and indeed wished for by the CPC. They, in effect, have a 20+% population surplus, that could be got rid of without a negative economic impact. Therefore, the Chinese economy is very unlikely to implode because of the upcoming demographic shock, as it will not negatively impact economic growth and will thus not lead to issues with either the retirement system (China already has one of the lowest retirement ages), nor with economic growth. This inscribes itself further in the process of proletarianization in which the Chinese economy is engaging in order to continue its development, as well as calculated so that the peak population will coincide with the carrying capacity of Chinese arable lands. The CCP are a lot of bad things, but they really aren't idiots. An issue that was not foreseen, however, is the gender imbalance that was created, but even that is not that bad of an issue - involuntary celibacy is significantly lower in China than, for example, the United States, and is actually one of the lowest in the world, but this is still a problem, especially for more long term relationships. People have been clamouring for the imminent fall of China for this or that, but objectively I don't see it happening.
Laremere 6y ago
To reinforce your answer: no because nukes In warfare, logistics and production are major factors. In protracted conflicts, factory capacity and transportation infrastructure are vital, and therefor targets. Nukes, delivered by subs, aircraft, or ICBMs are the most effective way to destroy those targets. The days of nation states fighting other nation states with their own production capacity are forever over on planet earth, baring full out nuclear warfare.
fiblye 6y ago
> There isn't a single country in the entire world that could challenge USA to a 1-1 military battle I guess that really depends on what you consider a "1-1 military battle." Gentlemanly warfare used to be people marching and staying in formation and going straight at each other until they died. With that battle strategy, the victor is generally going to be the one with more people covering more ground. But that strategy hasn't been used in a long while, because there are smarter ways to fight. Tanks and so on are the old way of fighting battle. The US has a decidedly bad post-WW2 record since nobody is really fighting by the "old ways" that much of the American military fights by, and the biggest advantage is the US can just drop bombs indiscriminately basically forever (decidedly not 1-1 combat) and hope to destroy every living thing imaginable (which still failed in basically everything from Vietnam onwards). The claim that the US will beat any country isn't backed by any evidence. At all. There are theoretical situations where maybe the US has more people, more money, more whatever and will win if you line soldiers up and have them fight Napoleonic style, but in reality, successful wars following WW2 include... the Gulf War? Which just ended up leaving Saddam in power, ending up with the unmanageable chaotic wars we've had in the middle east these past 2 decades.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > which still failed in basically everything from Vietnam onwards Dropping bombs didn't fail in Vietnam. It succeeded. North Vietnam was defeated militarily. They only took over South Vietnam after the US Congress snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by withdrawing funding so the US troops had to leave. > The claim that the US will beat any country isn't backed by any evidence. At all. Certainly it is. Given a clear objective, the US military has achieved it in every case. The reasons that the US often fails to capitalize on such victories are political, not military. > the Gulf War? Which just ended up leaving Saddam in power Because removing Saddam from power was explicitly not a military objective in that war; the military objective was to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, and that objective was met. When the US decided it did want to remove Saddam from power, in the second Gulf War, it succeeded. Again, the reasons why the aftermath of that war became a debacle were political, not military.
  - 6y ago
pritovido 6y ago
"There isn't a single country in the entire world that could challenge USA to a 1-1 military battle." That was also true of Nazi Germany. But is actually quite possible to defeat USA on the seas and on land if different countries join against it. Europe is not Iraq or Afganistan, as a whole, it is stronger than the US. I have lived and worked in China(and the US) and while I believe they way weaker(China) than what they project, they can f*ck the world immensely. They can contaminate the Pacific Ocean (with radioactivity and other poisons) forever. BTW most of the intelligent and educated(engineers, scientists) people in the US comes from outside the US. Not reasonable to believe they will contribute against fighting their own countries. This "war on everything" American mentality needs to stop.
- ericmay 6y ago
  > Europe is not Iraq or Afganistan, as a whole, it is stronger than the US. Militarily there is no doubt that Europe is not. The only country in Europe that can really project force is France. (I’m assuming the UK is not getting into a war with the United States). > BTW most of the intelligent and educated(engineers, scientists) people in the US comes from outside the US. Not reasonable to believe they will contribute against fighting their own countries. A lot to unpack behind this weird assertion. First-> many (most?) of these smart people are working at companies like Facebook to hook kids into endlessly scrolling. Second -> your claim is unfounded. Third -> even if it were true, the skills and knowledge to win wars do not have a 1-1 correspondence with the skills of these so called experts. Even then, who is to say given the right opportunity there are plenty of other smart people around. Fourth -> those same smart people have families in the US. You think they’re just going to go transfer some Amex points and hop on a Delta flight home? There wouldn’t even be a way to leave the US. Finally -> the idea that “all the smart foreigners will betray the US” gives ammo to arguing points by suspicious white supremacists. So you probably shouldn’t do that.

nyokodo 6y ago

>I was in the US Army from 03-07 serving in the Rangers with 4 deployments Thank you for your service! > but realistically we're more likely to be fighting a handful of goat herders in Afghanistan with an AK and a bag full of rice before we're taking on an armored division. Why should we be fighting goat herders in Afghanistan? I can understand the justification for striking back at the structures that committed the 9/11 attacks, but I can't understand the failed nation building and staying there forever and putting our troops in harms way.

EGreg 6y ago
We trained rebels against the USSR occupation so we could do the same thing on our own dime to the tune of multiple trillions of dollars for two decades: Prop up a secular government Defend women’s rights and education In the midst of an Islamic country much of which does not want us or our values there. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/08/world/asia/us-misleads-on-afghanistan.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/08/world/asia/us... This is true whether it’s the “Afghan Arabs” or the Taliban doing the fighting.
- remarkEon 6y ago
  Just to add some context to this, Afghan Arabs refers to Arabs that traveled to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets with the Mujahideen.

nordsieck 6y ago

> You don't need divisions to make an impact, you need someone willing to set off a suicide vest in a police station, a pregnant woman to sit an a VBIED and drive past a checkpoint or someone strong enough to fire an RPG. I understand what you're saying, but those are all self-inflicted vulnerabilities from trying to "nation build". > It's of course important to prepare for a larger scale war against China, Russia, etc. but realistically we're more likely to be fighting a handful of goat herders in Afghanistan with an AK and a bag full of rice before we're taking on an armored division. Broadly, I think there are 2 theories of conflict. The first is what I'll call the "justice" theory of conflict: people fight because they are oppressed. The second is what I'll call the "rational basis" theory of conflict: people fight because they think they can win, or because their backs are against a wall and they have nothing to lose by fighting. IMO, the second theory has much, much more explanatory power. If you buy the second theory, then the major reason there is no war between the US and China or Russia is because they don't believe they can win (which is probably true, as long as the US doesn't try to invade). But in order for that to continue to be true in the future, the US needs to continue to invest in military assets that are effective in fighting near peer opponents. It is also important to be good at fighting developing nations. But ultimately, being good at that doesn't matter as much. If the US goes home from Afghanistan, that might affect the Afghans, but it doesn't really have global implications. But a hot war between the US and China would result in a truly enormous number of deaths. Also, I don't really see much evidence that the US has ever really been successful at nation building. The last real success was South Korea. And it's just as easy to see that as a fluke rather than the result of US presence (during the peace - obviously the US helped immensely during the hot part of the conflict).

remarkEon 6y ago
I think you’re mostly right. One thing about “nation building” though is that the US has only been successful (broadly defined) when we occupy the country completely, like a colony, for a generation and essentially administer their government for them for a long time. Now, there’s obviously a lot of warts involved in doing that but Germany, Japan, and South Korea are the last times we really went “all in” (South Korea is a much more murky example as you’ve pointed out). To be clear, Iraq and Afghanistan are very different for reasons that should be obvious (OEF 12-13, here), and while I’m not saying that treating those places like a colony would’ve worked better (I don’t think it would have, for enough reasons to fill a PhD thesis) it’s an interesting historical thought experiment. Back to the actual topic, I share the skepticism of tech Uber alles expressed like others, and trying to predict the future of warfare is mostly a futile exercise. Probably best to index on flexibility and tight training regimens and make some informed inferences about how to structure the force.

ethbr0 6y ago

> It's of course important to prepare for a larger scale war... but realistically we're more likely to be fighting a handful of goat herders I guess a big part of the broader picture is "Who would you least like to lose against?" Losing against goat herders has consequences, but I'd argue that losing a larger-scale war has more severe consequences. So even if you never intend to fight a large scale war, can you afford to ignore preparing for one? > 03-07 Oof, that's a rough period. Thank you, gratefully, for your service.

killjoywashere 6y ago

I'd argue nukes make the next outbreak of war fairly predictable. The large nuclear powers are essentially unassailable by conventional means: Russia, France, China, Britain, the US, India, Pakistan, and probably North Korea are all untouchable by conventional assault. Pakistan and India only (edit: ok, mainly) care about each other. The US and Britain are tightly aligned and they are separated from Eurasia by water, a non-trivial obstacle in its own right. The remaining Eurasian nuclear powers, Russia, China, and North Korea share borders. They are surrounded by essentially a skirt of nations. These nations are where proxy wars will occur. Various pretexts will develop from time to time. The wars have not all been American. Russia has fought the Ukraine and the US continues to support Georgia (the country). China was heavily involved in Korea and Vietnam. The English Wikipedia is tracking 29 ongoing proxy wars, 21 of them are Eurasian (1). Why are there so many proxy wars in Eurasia? First, ethnic violence. Racism is not uniquely American, and the slow migration of humanoids across Eurasia over history has left a lot of ethnic groups to quarrel with their neighbors. It is not uncommon that one of the major powers gets pulled in for some reason, and then other major powers see an advantage in supporting the opposing combatant. Second, the major powers have always wanted buffer states like a chess player wants pawns. The US has Canada and Mexico, and a large number Central and South American states. China's empire has stretched from time to time as far as Okinawa and the Philippines to Mongolia, Korea, and brief intrusions into Japan proper. Russia has opposed the entry of the former Eastern Bloc states into NATO. Most recently, Russia has sold S-400 radars to Turkey, creating tension between NATO's newest and oldest members. Russia and China have both demonstrated they are willing to use armed force to extend their borders. Russia in Crimea, and China in the South China Sea (9-dash line). They have also demonstrated they will use economic means to advance their soft power (Russia creates dependencies through oil and gas trade, China floods various islands with money and cuts deals with the locals to "lease" their land (a trick they learned from the British, see Hong Kong). The other battlefield is of course the Internet, ranging from intrusions and malicious behavior (e.g. stuxnet, N.K. vs Sony, Titan Rain) to open source information ops (Russian interference in the US 2016 election). (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proxy_wars#Ongoing_proxy_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proxy_wars#Ongoing_pro...

ardy42 6y ago

kumarvvr 6y ago

Well, robits have done fantastically well for the US military. A predator drone, killing people in Afghanistan, while being controlled from a base in Las Vegas, is a wet dream for military chiefs and policy makers, not to mention war mongers. I suspect the end game is to drastically reduce humans and have robots to conduct the war, remotely killing the 'enemy'. One more sad step towards de-humanizing the enemy.

squarefoot 6y ago
> One more sad step towards de-humanizing the enemy. Much worse than that; it's one more step towards screening people from the monstrosities of the war, creating therefore a culture that endorses it because any negative effects are hidden. Families are often opposed to war because they know some of their kids won't make it back; that's a powerful deterrent and is the reason why after a while showing soldiers coffins was forbidden to US TV networks during the last Gulf War: they recalled the protests during Vietnam after it became clear that soldiers weren't taking a walk in the park down there. Now if we make it certain for one side to never lose any soldier because every action is being performed from safe distance by a drone pilot, war suddenly becomes a videogame in which one side cannot lose anymore, but more importantly that same side won't have any negative feelings associated to the war because it doesn't bring any suffering. This is the recipe for creating a state of eternal war, and I'm strongly opposed to that. I want all sides - including mine - to experience deaths and mutilation, grieving families, babies who will never know their parents, etc. If we take those away, we take away all reasons to not want wars.
- greggman3 6y ago
  I don' think that will ever happen because you can't keep tech in a bottle. The tech will spread and people on the other side will also fly their war drones from sofas.
  - tremon 6y ago
    And both sides will try to hit the sofas, not the drones.

darepublic 6y ago

What about bio warfare. Covid showed how effective it can be. Crippling sabotage attacks against infra as well.

Leherenn 6y ago
And how uncontrollable it seems to be unless you almost completely cut yourself from the rest of the world.

randomNumber7 6y ago

One thing which is pretty obvious imho but often overlooked... It doesn't matter how many tanks you have when your opponent has atomic bombs. The same is true for most of the airplanes, ships and robots. So from a western perspective all those weapons are only useful in an offensive war against a weak opponent (no atomic bombs). In this context it also makes sense to have less but better trained soldiers. Reducing casualties reduces bad press. You don't need millions of soldiers to bomb away Irak anyway. If you assume that military leaders have basic logic reasoning (i think they are smart actually), you see that self defense is not the primary goal for western countries (except Switzerland).

credit_guy 6y ago

First, thank you for your service. 03-07 were quite some rough years. > realistically we're more likely to be fighting a handful of goat herders in Afghanistan with an AK and a bag full of rice before we're taking on an armored division. Absolutely true. And to keep this statement true in the future as well, it will make sense to heed FDR’s advice to speak softly and cary a big stick. We need advanced weapons not in order to use them, but in order not to use them.

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
"Big sticks" don't help against irrational actors. Mutually Assured Destruction assures that there will be no direct conflict between superpowers, but if individuals become radicalized, they become willing to act irrationally(from a game theory definition of "rational"). This is the real reason we started a war against terror. Terrorism and asymmetric warfare are about the only external thing capable of actually bringing our country down.
- credit_guy 6y ago
  > Mutually Assured Destruction assures that there will be no direct conflict between superpowers If a conflict stays below a certain threshold, it doesn't go nuclear. Russia is always prodding to see how far they can go. Ability to answer in kind is something you need, and autonomous tanks seem to fit the bill quite well.
Snitch-Thursday 6y ago
Pedantry ahead: Big Stick diplomacy was Teddy, not Franklin, Roosevelt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Stick_ideology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Stick_ideology

lm28469 6y ago

> It's hard to predict what the next outbreak of war will look like. Look at Armenia vs Azerbaijan: drone destroying anything on the ground, one second you're not even aware you're in active combat, the next you're dead. You can also look at what ISIS is doing, strap a mortar round to a commercial drone, fly over an enemy position, drop the round [0][1] !!! Spoiler: war footage, don't click if you don't want to see people dying https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjJ6sc1OBwA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjJ6sc1OBwA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raaYRlri4J0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raaYRlri4J0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz4DQWIBH50&has_verified=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz4DQWIBH50&has_verified=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKNkcM9kdf0&fea=&has_verified=1&bpctr=1605015341 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKNkcM9kdf0&fea=&has_verifie... https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/jquj1n/one_kamikaze_drone_of_azerbaijan_records_the_use/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/jquj1n/one_k... [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vY7i_eR06M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vY7i_eR06M [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/fnrox0/isis_drone_drops_a_grenade_on_a_large_syrian_army/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/fnrox0/isis_...

jkinudsjknds 6y ago
I don't really want to watch those videos but I've thought about the mortar idea a lot before. It seems much more difficult to protect against versus a more traditional projectile or a bomb that you try and fly into an enemy position. What's happening with them? Are they common?
cooljacob204 6y ago
Armenia had no real modern anti air weapons to combat this. If this were tried on any other modern military those drones would have been shot down at the border.
- MagnumOpus 6y ago
  Iranian drones blew up Saudi processing facilities in 2017; Russian thermite drones exploded two major Ukrainian ammo dumps in 2017. Both Saudi and Ukraine are modern military powers, certainly more so than Armenia. It's not quite as simple as "shoot it down" - few places have 360-degreee 24/7 coverage of all their borders that is effective (and cost-effective) against both 50,000-foot high altitude UAVs and a swarm of DJI thermite shell drones (not to speak of the semi-truck driving up five miles from your facility and unloading such a swarm.

rgbrenner 6y ago

Asymmetrical war wasn’t invented in the 20th century. It exists wherever a weaker force encounters a stronger force. In the revolutionary war Americans were criticized by the British because they wouldn’t line up to shoot.. they would hide behind trees and fire from cover. Or more recently in the Iraq war (2) we got to watch as the Iraqi military dissolved into an insurgent force (this was before alqueda moved in). We see more of it today because so many wars today are imbalanced. It’s not US v China.. it’s US v Afghanistan. They have no choice but to attack from the shadows.

gumby 6y ago

> In the 20th century warfare evolved trench warfare to asymmetrical war. I think you mean "back to asymmetric war" which appears to have been the norm through history, even taking in the extensive literature of set-piece battles. In fact the American revolution was primarily an asymmetric conflict. (Otherwise I agree with your comment)

matheusmoreira 6y ago

> have seen ingenuity trump technology Examples?