The irony is that as warfare increasingly goes in the direction of technological signals and controls, the meaning of "direct involvement" diffuses such that be

The irony is that as warfare increasingly goes in the direction of technological signals and controls, the meaning of "direct involvement" diffuses such that belligerents cannot be pinned down on the nature or degree of their involvement. If the US provided people that deployed in Ukraine to do reconnaissance, that would be "direct". But if it's satellite data or drones, they're shielded from blame; and yet, the generals would in almost every case prefer more technology over more troops, because it automates away a slew of logistical and operational issues and gives them more options moment-to-moment, even if it creates a larger dependency on having the best tech. If the trend towards use of technology continues in this way, future wars between nations will be stopped before they go kinetic by reframing the entire coordination problem that causes them into something addressed through information warfare instead. At worst, you might see low-level stochastic violence.