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I'm half-asleep and spitballing on a topic I think about semi-frequently but haven't read all that much about. So excuse my incoherence.
Modern warfare is fascinating to me because the objective to avoid escalation, and to keep boots off the ground for the most part. I think the possession of ICBMs sort of guarantees sovereignty (though nations can still be economically destabilized and all), and the invention of the atomic bomb made a lot of military strategy superfluous for the largest powers, at least where it comes to defending against land invasion. We've kind of perfected the obliteration of human life to the point where there's no need to innovate militarily because the solution is always to build more a-bomb variants (and to manage your supply chain in-between stockpiling bombs). But then the real end goal is to not have to use any of it at all... so in the pursuit of not using the bombs we make sure that the prospect of nuclear armageddon is as horrific as it can be and we build up this whole taboo around W70s and ant walkers and submarines armed to the teeth with cruise missiles. I still find it interesting how "winning" thermonuclear war was a serious point of debate before it became unthinkable, and theorists dreamt up strategies with figures of deaths in millions (got to actually read Herman Kahn one of these days).
There's this quote commonly attributed to Einstein that goes something like "I know not what WWIII will be fought with, but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones." Makes me think about the China-India border dispute where both sides have agreed to prohibit the use of firearms close to the line of actual control, so now you've got actual modern troops training in phalanx formation. Looks like we're already fighting wars with sticks and stones.
Modern warfare is fascinating to me because the objective to avoid escalation, and to keep boots off the ground for the most part. I think the possession of ICBMs sort of guarantees sovereignty (though nations can still be economically destabilized and all), and the invention of the atomic bomb made a lot of military strategy superfluous for the largest powers, at least where it comes to defending against land invasion. We've kind of perfected the obliteration of human life to the point where there's no need to innovate militarily because the solution is always to build more a-bomb variants (and to manage your supply chain in-between stockpiling bombs). But then the real end goal is to not have to use any of it at all... so in the pursuit of not using the bombs we make sure that the prospect of nuclear armageddon is as horrific as it can be and we build up this whole taboo around W70s and ant walkers and submarines armed to the teeth with cruise missiles. I still find it interesting how "winning" thermonuclear war was a serious point of debate before it became unthinkable, and theorists dreamt up strategies with figures of deaths in millions (got to actually read Herman Kahn one of these days).
There's this quote commonly attributed to Einstein that goes something like "I know not what WWIII will be fought with, but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones." Makes me think about the China-India border dispute where both sides have agreed to prohibit the use of firearms close to the line of actual control, so now you've got actual modern troops training in phalanx formation. Looks like we're already fighting wars with sticks and stones.
