War – What is it Good For

OK, if you’re going to talk about the military and technology, you cannot not talk about War. And it’s been asked, “What is it Good for” –

Now you can get philosophical about this and say it is not good for anything. Or you can be like Carl von Clausewitz in his book On War.

WAR IS A MERE CONTINUATION OF POLICY BY OTHER MEANS.

Carl von Clausewitz – https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/clausewitz-war-as-politics-by-other-means

Your view on both war and the military will often vary based upon your gender, age, political leanings, if you or your family members have served, and what country you have lived in/currently live in. Different countries see war and the military from different perspectives such as protecting them from internal threats (gangs/rebels/etc), external near threats (neighboring countries), regional threats (think Australia or India and China – typically same content or near ocean), and/or globally as part of power projection.

Now a real challenge of this is what do we want to do, and how do we want to do it? President Richard Nixon once said, “Our interests must shape our commitments, rather than the other way around.” – https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/22/opinions/biden-israel-gaza-ukraine-china-mccallion/index.html

This topic and get very complex very quick, as we have various ideas which get interconnected, between miniaturisation, metallurgical, computer hardware and software, and more – and that is before we get into the geo-political aspects and moral aspects of war in general.

For our purposes, we’re not going to look at the geo-political or moral aspects of war itself. We are assuming that war is a reality, and we have no further to look at it than both the conflicts in Ukraine and Isreal-Gaza. In fact, there are generally speaking, more conflicts/wars going on in the world than ever in history. They are just smaller and happening in places we don’t know/care about as a society. (Feel free to insert ethical and moral issues here.) These include border disputes, civil wars, regional conflicts, and conflicts by non-political entities. We are not speaking to the moral or ethical perspective of these sides.

Avoiding War Crimes

It is important to note, and this will come up again, that while there are lots of potential ways to ensure your side wins, some of them are not legal. There is both rules which you internally must obey, in the US it is the USMJC. You also have several sets of rules, such as War Crimes by treaty (think Geneva Convention), and Crimes Against Humanity.

In general, you don’t want to target civilians or medical personnel and equipment – for example. We also don’t want to use things like biological or chemical weapons. Ironically, the military is prohibited from using tear gas, which is non-lethal because they consider it a chemical weapon.

We also have to remember that just because we don’t like something, or an accident happened, it isn’t make it a war crime. In WW I, Germany, who was using chemical weapons like mustard gas, thought the American use of shotguns should constitute a war crime because they were so effective. They lost that case. Also, if a protected place, such as a school, hospital, or place of worship, is used to house military people, equipment, or for planning, it loses its protected status. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/16/middleeast/israel-hamas-gaza-war-crimes-international-law-explainer-intl/index.html

War and Technology

The type of weapons and tactics your country’s military uses will be based on how and what your country seeks to do. Likewise, the type of technology your country purchases and/or develops will be based on the goals for their military. While advanced weapons have historically been expensive to develop and build, recent conflicts have see the cost going way down, till we fight a war of attrition.

Wars have been wages from the beginning of time. And technological advancements have come along with them. These can be in the form of new weapons (slings instead of swords), metallurgy (the bronze age to the iron age), techniques (volley firing lines of muskets vs. hiding and firing with rifles), supply lines and transportation (often referred to as logistics), and now technology.

Logistics (the transferring of supplies to the front) is actually a tremendous deal, and why we have such a strong logistical system that allows us to feed and supply our troops around the world. Many have said that is what separates the US from other countries as we’re one of only a handful of countries that can do that. Consider the challenges Russia has had supplying their troops fighting in the Ukraine, which is literally their neighbor.

In the End What Does a Military Want to Do

Gen. Patton (US WW II Army) can be paraphrased as to say that “you should not die for your country. You are there to make the other guy die for his.” (He was a bit more crass about it.) While it isn’t considered “polite” to talk about death and killing, we cannot forget that behind every tank, plane, etc – is a manned crew. (Is that a reason to support unmanned AI vehicles?)

Technology improvement is based on one of two ideas, or a combination. It is also based on the limitations of the entity creating it, be it from their own technological knowledge and/or the tactics that they wish to use.

• Make your troops harder to kill.
• Make your troops more lethal.

In the realm of making your troops harder to kill, we have something called the survivability onion. – https://www.thearmorylife.com/forum/threads/the-survivability-onion.15935/

If you look, this is common in a lot of new weapons and/or systems. Stealth fighters/bombers make it harder to see, thus harder to kill. Jets that are faster are harder to hit this harder to kill, etc. Longer range and/or more accurate munitions make your troops more lethal, and thus they are able to survive, etc.

Ending a war, or a battle, is often done for one of several reasons, but this can be simplified by:

• No more troops to continue fighting (all of team B is gone)
• Breaking the opponent’s will to fight

Sometimes, you may “fight to the last man” but this is not normal. Troops will often retreat or surrender if they feel there is no chance of them winning, especially if they think they will be treated well upon their surrender. This is why the US has a history of treating their captured troops very well – especially compared to many other people/countries.

United States Perspective

Each country will have their own perspective. However, the United States has some unique situations. These include:

An all voluntary military. While males have to register for selective service, they do not have to even go through any form of training. This means we need more effective training and tools, for fewer people. They estimate that only 3% of our population serve in the military, compared to mandatory military service for many countries, including both male and female, which may have closer to 90% conscription or more.

The US uses a lot of technology to send fewer personnel into dangerous situations. For example, during our conflict in Afghanistan from October 2001 to August 2021 (or 20 years), we had about 23,000 casualties, of which 2,400 were deaths. During Iwo Jima in WW II, the US sustained 24,053 casualties. Of these, 6,140 died – in only 36 days. So technology allows us to keep our troops safer.

Global Reach – we reach out and act as the World’s Police force, because we can reach anywhere. This has been going on for a while since the Great White Fleet – sent in the early 1900s by Teddy Roosevelt. This allows us to protect our interests (people, business, political, and economic) as well as making us a potential target for others.

War – What is it Good For was originally found on Access 2 Learn