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While a common sentiment, I think this concept misses the entire purpose of war. The purpose of any war is to impose your will by force on another, and by exten

by 0x0203 2y ago

While a common sentiment, I think this concept misses the entire purpose of war. The purpose of any war is to impose your will by force on another, and by extension, prevent your enemy from imposing his. A drone-on-drone war may be an opening salvo, but unless drones are the only means available to an aggressor or defender, they will never be the only means being used in warfare no matter how technologically advanced things become. As long as an enemy has the will and capacity to resist force upon him, or still has the ability to impose his will by force on another, the war will continue. Once enough of one side's drones or robots are sufficiently defeated, it will be people that are the means for imposing or resisting force, so they will eventually always be the ones fighting and dying. I can't imagine if Ukrainians had incredibly advanced drone/robot tech, them throwing all their drones at the Russians, loosing them all, and then saying 'Well, we used up all our drones, I guess we'll give up now.' It always comes down to removing an enemy's capacity or will to resist force, and people will always be part of that equation.

Dalewyn 2y ago
>While a common sentiment, I think this concept misses the entire purpose of war. The purpose of any war is to impose your will by force on another, and by extension, prevent your enemy from imposing his. More fundamentally, war is just another facet of diplomacy. It's commonly said that diplomacy has failed when wars are waged, but actually wars are merely the act of last resort in diplomacy and diplomacy itself is perfectly fine.
- Retric 2y ago
  War itself involves a great deal of diplomacy between those fighting, various allies of those fighting, neutral 3rd parties etc. Treatment of prisoners of war is probably the most obvious example of this. If you’re known to treat people who surrender well then you get more people willing to do so compared to a reputation as a country which will simply slaughter anyone captured. Sure it forces you to devote resources to caring for potentially millions of people, but that’s preferable to fighting millions of desperate people.
pophenat 2y ago
If drone armies are vastly more powerful than human armies, the latter become insignificant much like unarmed civilians are irrelevant in a war today. If Ukraine loses its army, it will surrender. If an army of the future loses its drones it will be impossible to oppose the winner’s drones and would surrender as well.
- maxglute 2y ago
  Still had to atom bomb the Japanese for them to capitulate. Sometimes defenders ready to fight with stick and stones. At the end of the day, still need to slaughter a bunch of combatants and civilians to extract human cost to prime surrender. Drones may make that more expedient by making the slaughter competely lopsided. But peoples tend not to capitulate until they've suffered severe loss in material and lives. IMO what's more likely are fully automate drones that guns down wedding parties without human operators on winning side developing PTSD.
redandblack 2y ago
It will help non-state actors wage the asymmetric war and impose costs. Think Houthis, they may in few years drive sea/air drones with small load munitions - operating far from the site, and statistically be lucky to make their point It will not be limited to them either - pick a place that have people who think they are oppressed and live in the margins, and really have not a whole lot at stake to worry
Intralexical 2y ago
> Once enough of one side's drones or robots are sufficiently defeated, it will be people that are the means for imposing or resisting force, so they will eventually always be the ones fighting and dying. If your people are better at building drones than fighting in person, then presumably the enemy's drones will already be in your cities before it makes sense to send people to stop them. > The purpose of any war is to impose your will by force on another… …It always comes down to removing an enemy's capacity or will to resist force, and people will always be part of that equation. People are the quarry. That doesn't mean that the physical means to resist force will always be in the hands of people. It might also mean an initial attritional phase where machines kill machines, followed by a very brief and very lethal series of machine-directed killings in all your metropolitan areas, as soon as one side runs out of drones and drone-producing factories.
rasz 2y ago
>I can't imagine if Ukrainians had incredibly advanced drone/robot tech, sufficiently advanced for supply disruption https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1csempg/ukraines_signum_warriors_use_sternenko_community/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cse... and profit denial, something international sanctions seems to have failed to accomplish, here 1400km away from border: https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cnsri0/ukraine_strikes_salavatnefteorgsintez_oil/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cns... > them throwing all their drones at the Russians, loosing them all 'losing' by blowing stuff up >and then saying 'Well, we used up all our drones, I guess we'll give up now.' is that what you see here (NSFW): https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cuqwqt/video_from_the_47th_strike_drones_ruzzian_soldier/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cuq... are 20 burned russian bodies Ukrainian way of saying 'I guess we'll give up now'? Drones enabled $500-1000 kills, the cheapest way to erase enemy manpower ever achieved. This is typical ru trench run https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cthh6k/russians_attempt_to_assault_a_ukrainian_position/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cth... and mopping up leftovers https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cumdjt/25th_separate_airborne_video_mopping_up_and_ap/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cum...

by 0x0203 2y ago

Dalewyn 2y ago

>While a common sentiment, I think this concept misses the entire purpose of war. The purpose of any war is to impose your will by force on another, and by extension, prevent your enemy from imposing his. More fundamentally, war is just another facet of diplomacy. It's commonly said that diplomacy has failed when wars are waged, but actually wars are merely the act of last resort in diplomacy and diplomacy itself is perfectly fine.

Retric 2y ago
War itself involves a great deal of diplomacy between those fighting, various allies of those fighting, neutral 3rd parties etc. Treatment of prisoners of war is probably the most obvious example of this. If you’re known to treat people who surrender well then you get more people willing to do so compared to a reputation as a country which will simply slaughter anyone captured. Sure it forces you to devote resources to caring for potentially millions of people, but that’s preferable to fighting millions of desperate people.

pophenat 2y ago

If drone armies are vastly more powerful than human armies, the latter become insignificant much like unarmed civilians are irrelevant in a war today. If Ukraine loses its army, it will surrender. If an army of the future loses its drones it will be impossible to oppose the winner’s drones and would surrender as well.

maxglute 2y ago
Still had to atom bomb the Japanese for them to capitulate. Sometimes defenders ready to fight with stick and stones. At the end of the day, still need to slaughter a bunch of combatants and civilians to extract human cost to prime surrender. Drones may make that more expedient by making the slaughter competely lopsided. But peoples tend not to capitulate until they've suffered severe loss in material and lives. IMO what's more likely are fully automate drones that guns down wedding parties without human operators on winning side developing PTSD.

redandblack 2y ago

It will help non-state actors wage the asymmetric war and impose costs. Think Houthis, they may in few years drive sea/air drones with small load munitions - operating far from the site, and statistically be lucky to make their point It will not be limited to them either - pick a place that have people who think they are oppressed and live in the margins, and really have not a whole lot at stake to worry

Intralexical 2y ago

> Once enough of one side's drones or robots are sufficiently defeated, it will be people that are the means for imposing or resisting force, so they will eventually always be the ones fighting and dying. If your people are better at building drones than fighting in person, then presumably the enemy's drones will already be in your cities before it makes sense to send people to stop them. > The purpose of any war is to impose your will by force on another… …It always comes down to removing an enemy's capacity or will to resist force, and people will always be part of that equation. People are the quarry. That doesn't mean that the physical means to resist force will always be in the hands of people. It might also mean an initial attritional phase where machines kill machines, followed by a very brief and very lethal series of machine-directed killings in all your metropolitan areas, as soon as one side runs out of drones and drone-producing factories.

rasz 2y ago

>I can't imagine if Ukrainians had incredibly advanced drone/robot tech, sufficiently advanced for supply disruption https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1csempg/ukraines_signum_warriors_use_sternenko_community/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cse... and profit denial, something international sanctions seems to have failed to accomplish, here 1400km away from border: https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cnsri0/ukraine_strikes_salavatnefteorgsintez_oil/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cns... > them throwing all their drones at the Russians, loosing them all 'losing' by blowing stuff up >and then saying 'Well, we used up all our drones, I guess we'll give up now.' is that what you see here (NSFW): https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cuqwqt/video_from_the_47th_strike_drones_ruzzian_soldier/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cuq... are 20 burned russian bodies Ukrainian way of saying 'I guess we'll give up now'? Drones enabled $500-1000 kills, the cheapest way to erase enemy manpower ever achieved. This is typical ru trench run https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cthh6k/russians_attempt_to_assault_a_ukrainian_position/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cth... and mopping up leftovers https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cumdjt/25th_separate_airborne_video_mopping_up_and_ap/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1cum...