Never Again Boots on the Ground

 

$54 at Amazon

The war in Ukraine is changing history in ways we may not immediately see.

At the end of the 19th century, the invention of the machine gun revolutionized war by giving massive advantage to the defense. The result was the stasis of the trenches in WWI. The carnage was too great; war became unthinkable.

Except... the British invented the tank. Tanks trumped machine guns; the advantage shifted over again to offense.

Now drones have made tanks obsolete. They have made any large war machines obsolete. Drones can cover the battlefield and target precisely anything that moves. 

It is not that the war in Ukraine has devolved to trench warfare. Instead, I hear that the front lines are nearly deserted. A trench cannot protect from drones.

I cannot think of the technological innovation that could, in principle, trump drones. Radio jamming? But just like self-driving cars, AI can increasingly allow drones to find targets on their own.

This gives an overwhelming advantage to the defense, and equalizes opposing sides. Drones are cheap; far cheaper than tanks or aircraft carriers. And if nobody, man or machine, can raise their heads above ground, ground cannot be taken.

And the issue should become the same at sea: underwater drones.

The lesson Russia is learning should for the foreseeable future, deter any major acts of military aggression. If Taiwan is wise, they are developing a drone force now, aerial and submarine. It would be fairly easy and inexpensive to make an invasion from the mainland virtually impossible.

Giving the defense the advantage should preserve the status quo, so benefitting those on top in the status quo—good news for America. On the other hand, the US should with all deliberate speed shift their defense spending from building heavy armaments like aircraft carriers and tanks to drone fleets. The era of American “boots on the ground” is over. It was never a good tactic for a sea power like the US.

Trump’s diplomatic strategy seems just right for this new era: non-intervention, using economic power, and if necessary, unannounced strikes from the air.

About Those UAPs/UFOs over New Jersey

 

I think I know what’s going on with ll the drones being spotted over New Jersey.

The clue is that they are over New Jersey. Why New Jersey?

I say this is a promotion stunt for a new movie (or possibly a series) based on HG Wells’s War of the Worlds.

In Orson Welles’s famous radio adaptation in 1938, the aliens landed in Grovers Mill, New Jersey.

That play was done as a mock series of news reports. It was so realistic many thought Martians were really landing.

So a fleet of mysterious drones might recreate the moment and stimulate the sme level of interest again.

It is a good time to do a remake, too. The last was in 2005; twenty years ago. But between then and now, we have had the Covid pandemic, making the ultimate defeat of the aliens by a terrestrial virus topical. And there are current anxieties over the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war in Gaza, the same sort of tensions that helped the 1938 broadcast go viral.

This makes more sense to me that it being UFOs/UAP of the usual sort. These drones do not look like the usual UFOs, and do not seem to have the same ability to defy the laws of physics. If it were a government operation, why would they do it over a highly populated area like New Jersey, with flashing lights? Hardly the way to ensure secrecy; this looks more as though designed to ensure publicity. Iran or China? Same objection. What would they have accomplished? Revealing a new capability so the US can figure out how to defend against it?

I say it is a Hollywood stunt. I expect the government is in on it. This is why they can say there is no security threat or threat to the population, while also saying they don’t know where the drones are coming from.

The Future of War

 

Our first surprise in the current Russo-Ukraine War was that Russia was a paper tiger. Its vaunted military could not make progress after the initial surprise attack was stalled.

Our second surprise is that everyone is a paper tiger. Now Ukraine too, with NATO doctrine and all its NATO weapons, is struggling to make progress.

It turns out it is not that the Russians were so incompetent. It is that the current state of weaponry gives an advantage to defense. We did not see this coming, because the offense has been dominant since the Second World War, and as recently as the Second Gulf War. 

This balance between offence and defense has swung back and forth many times over history; although in the days of set battles it mattered less. Mounted knights gave advantage to the offense; a charge could mow down a static line. Then the longbow gave advantage to the defense. Muskets gave advantage to the offense: their accurate range was short, and cavalry could break through infantry with a charge. The machine gun decisively killed the cavalry charge, and we had the static tranches of WWI. Then the tank broke things open again, unexpectedly, aided by air power, and we had the shock of blitzkrieg. 

Now the era of the tank is over.

What has changed since the Gulf Wars? 

Drones and portable missiles like HIMARS. 

These are cheap weapons. Cheap and simple enough to be mass produced by countries like Iran and Turkey, not famous for efficiency and high-tech.

Cheap drones and HIMARS can too easily take out a fantastically expensive modern tank or jet fighter.

I wouldn’t want to risk an aircraft carrier in a war situation these days, either.

This is good news for world peace. So long as defense has the advantage over offense, aggressors are much less likely to start a war. War becomes too costly in general.