> "War is so much more complicated than the author wants readers to think. Raw technological dominance does not assure victory, as the US found after 20 years i

> "War is so much more complicated than the author wants readers to think. Raw technological dominance does not assure victory, as the US found after 20 years in Afghanistan." I'm not sure that really proves your point, in that the US' problem in Afghanistan wasn't that their tech dominance wasn't enough - it clearly was, they pretty much had control of the country for years, no? Where they failed was that in a fairly rare example of a "victory target" for a war, wanted to not just win militarily but also to change the minds/culture of an entire country to the point where they could withdraw and have the country keep acting the way they were enforcing while there. Sure they failed at that, but had the goal been to take control of Afghanistan and make it a US colony, permanently occupied for the foreseeable future, that would've been doable (at least technically, ignoring US domestic politics etc etc) Historically most wars have been about seizing land/wealth/people, not about changing a country's culture and then walking away. Surely drones which patrol the skies and kills anyone at the first sign of any sort of resistance (holding a gun, crossing a forbidden line, whatever) would've made holding the country a lot easier from a technical point of view. Imagine if the US army had, when in Afghanistan, been given the same orders as say UK was giving back when building an empire "make them submit, kill those who don't, that's going to be our land" is there any doubt that their military strength wouldn't have been enough against Afghan rebels who in the real case could hide in mountains until America ran out of time and withdrew (which wouldn't happen if they hoped to own the country)? So sure I agree with you that war isn't as simple as technical dominance as the reasons for war etc come into play, but since most wars have different reasons to the US' i Afghanistan... wouldn't Putin love drones that could fill Ukranian skies and kill anyone at the first sight of a weapon (while avoiding Russian soldiers)?