
The Future of War Technology - chat
https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/the-future-of-war-technology-whispers-to-us-from-the-past-and-we-must-listen-better/
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nostrademons
This study cites expert predictions from the 1990s and then polls another set
of experts today about whether the predictions came true. I'd argue that
that's a uniquely bogus experimental design, because: a.) you've cherrypicked
a 25-year period of peace b.) with relatively minor geopolitical changes c.)
where military technology is driven by a set of oligopolistic contractors who
basically deliver what they want to deliver d.) which is whatever the long-
term technology plans said they would deliver.

I'd argue that if you look at history, his argument decisively does not hold,
which you can see from the rushed construction of the USS Monitor and CSS
Virginia in 1862, all the battleships canceled after Pearl Harbor in 1942, the
rapid development of the atomic bomb only 7 years after nuclear fission was
discovered, or the cancellation of SDI and ABM defense when the Cold War
ended. Basically, everything goes according to plan until war happens, at
which point all plans are useless.

I'd further argue that the exponential curve he shows cherrypicks examples.
The kinetic energy of a subsonic bullet fired from a silencer is orders of
magnitude lower than that of an ICBM, yet the former is significantly more
useful in today's conflicts.

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marvin
Are subsonic, silenced weapons significantly used in wars today? Out of
curiosity.

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pheme1
Probably what he means are weapons used in black ops and special ops. For
example the assault on the Osama hideout in 2011. But I think the more
significant version are subsonic weapon fueling for proxy wars in Middle East.

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SiempreViernes
Yeah, but these are demonstrably not very important actions to the overall
war: the Afghan forever war for example has currently continued for 8 years
past that "decapitation" strike. I'm uncertain if it even gave Obama any
political capital to use beyond the week he announced it.

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Symmetry
The most important consequence might have been setting back our efforts to
fight polio.

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sitkack
[https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/ngo-head-cia-shares-blame-
mur...](https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/ngo-head-cia-shares-blame-murdered-
health-workers/story?id=18124580)

> Two days after gunmen killed seven of his employees, the head of a Pakistani
> aid organization blamed their deaths not only on the militants who pulled
> the trigger, but also on America's Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA is directly responsible for hundreds of aid worker deaths, the very
people working in the field to eradicate polio.

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arminiusreturns
Just as the industrial age brought on a deceptive transition from hard power
to soft power mechanisms, I think the automation age will bring on a
transition from soft power and the hard power residuals to psychological
warfare first and foremost. Of course it's already implemented, but it is
likely to get much worse as the supranational oligarchy begins to corrupt the
internet, driving free-thinkers into enclaves that are censored and targeted,
while the increase of monopolistic entertainment and mainstream media sources
created through mergers and aquisitions backed by banks will become defacto
government mouthpieces.

They want a brave new world, where they entertain and distract you and
manipulate your information bubbles primarily, secondarily, if you fight, is
when the 1984 tactics will be used.

Through these mechanisms other future strategic pushes are enabled, such as
for example, the increasing use of manipulated and inorganic color revolution
movements to weaken or overthrow governments. Those participating in the
revolutions may not even know or understand the shady forces that started said
revolution.

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dsfyu404ed
If you ever see a non-training photograph of someone firing that size
artillery piece at that kind of angle you can be assured that they are having
a very interesting day.

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mothsonasloth
Can these pieces not be used for direct fire in anti tank situations?

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pjc50
Yes, but if that's happening you're losing. Or at least you've lost air
superiority and your own armoured advance hs stalled or been destroyed
somewhere up ahead.

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mothsonasloth
I think lasers are going to be the biggest flop. There was big talk about them
from the 90s till now. However they only seem to be able to be used for
disruption or counter measures. Not in an offensive capability. Unless you
mount it on a battleship.

Railguns and new kinetic energy weapons seem to the natural trend following on
the graph (in the article)

Rifle --> Railgun --> Energy Weapons?

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jjoonathan
IMO the most useful thing about lasers is that they disrupt the idea that
"humans can't be jammed." Humans are visual, and even if you put people behind
tinted glass or cameras, lasers jam visual systems. I don't think the
consequences of readily available good visual jamming have fully sunk in to
the tactical playbook yet.

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arethuza
An an aside - about the main picture. Is that an artillery piece being used
for direct fire - looks to be rather short range?

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anvandare
Practice firing, hence direct fire. But unless I'm mistaken, it's an M777 UFH
- conventional range 15 miles, rocket assisted projectile range 18.6 miles.
More than capable of lobbing stuff a few horizons ahead.

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C1sc0cat
And also for the "O bugger the enemy have broken through" moments

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pjc50
"maximum kinetic energy that the system can potentially direct at the target
in unit time and per unit mass of the overall system" is a great example of a
metric that's simple to understand, relatively straightforward to calculate,
and misleading enough to result in optimising for the wrong things.

I would argue that the peak of destructive technology was the ICBM. We're now
at the point where we have "enough" destructive capability. At the height of
the cold war the plan was to wipe out half the Russian population in an hour.

The problem of today's low-tech widespread conflicts is how to bring them to a
peaceful resolution that stays resolved, so that the refugees can go home.
Something like three million Syrians are refugees in Europe including Turkey,
and this is destabilising local politics. Refugees from Guatemala and Honduras
are causing a similar problem to the United States. The war started on 9/11;
people born after then are now old enough to fight in it.

The guy with the chart of destructive energy has no solutions to that. Well,
one solution, but you're not going to like it.

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dandare
My favorite way of low tech conflict resolution is prevention. For instance,
don't draw arbitrary borders through multietnic nations when colonizing them,
don't arm random militants to fight your proxy wars or don't topple democratic
regimes just because they want to get rid of your crony "capitalists".

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lowdose
My favorite way of low tech warfare was the illegals program. The USA for
decennia fascinated by high-tech solutions while just installing some people
can deliver results as easily.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program)

