A missile the size of my young nephew’s forearm can destroy any tank in the world at a range of hundreds of yards.
A dozen fired from cigarette boats can cripple an aircraft carrier. (An exaggeration—trying to make a point here.)
The days of big armor. Big Navy, and big air fleets is over.
The future is SF strikes, drones, and cyber/economic warfare.
Eleven crazies using TWO commercial planes f##cked this country up right good. That was no army that struck enough fear in the peasantry that they were willing to surrender their rights as sovereign citizens—it was crazies striking at society’s nerve centers.
That’s how one wins the war of the future.
True.
The next WW will probably be Biological and the world will probably not even know what hit them.
How about a nice airborne/waterborne pathogen designed around DNA of those of Prominent middle eastern descent that simply renders them sterile.
The next ‘nuclear’ weapons will be Genetically modified DNA (is that redundant?) designer diseases.
Romans used to salt the earth and catapult diseased sheep (anthrax) into and around people they didn’t like. We aren’t so different. Just the methods have changed.
Sir, I must respectfully disagree.
When one can dominate the skys, ensuring only your birds fly, you have won any "war". The same applies to the seas.
It is only because the USA dominates those two areas that there is even serious discussion of other forms of warfare.
Sure, if one wishes to subjugate or police a populace you need SF, Drones etc.
But why would any sane person want to do that? Have we not learned our lesson?
No sir, the future of war is TOTAL WAR...back for a second, more dangerous round.
“Eleven crazies using TWO commercial planes f##cked this country up right good. That was no army that struck enough fear in the peasantry that they were willing to surrender their rights as sovereign citizens—it was crazies striking at society’s nerve centers.”
This is not a new idea - the idea of “decapitating” a country has been around for a while. Among the many visionary things from the mind of Arthur C. Clarke was in his book, “Childhood’s End”, where he asks to the effect, what is the more powerful weapon - An atomic bomb, or a miniaturized robot bug that flies in the ear of the enemy leader, and keeps him up day and night driving him crazy. That wild idea is darned near achievable now.
And if we don’t decentralize our nerve centers they will be able to deliver more blows like that one.
The power grid. The California aqueduct. Freeway overpasses. So many easy targets.