Thoughts on the Shrinking Utility of War

Until quite recently war has been one of the most profitable of human activities, at least for the winners. The necessary investment in men and equipment was only modest. Women and children did most of the domestic work, leaving underemployed young men to be recruited for minimal wages, a promise of adventure, and the potential fringe benefits of rape and pillage.  For most of that era a warrior’s basic equipment was minimal. A spear or sword, a shield and a pair of sandals were all that was needed for foot soldiers. It was a winner-takes-all contest and the profit to be had in territory gained, resources, treasure, slaves and women was substantial. Having a homeland surrounded by a buffer zone of conquered territory was also a valuable addition to security.

For groups having a clear advantage in fighting capability there has always been a strong temptation to use it. However, there has always been the less apparent risk of an addiction to power and, inevitably, this has been fatal.  The capacity to expand and control is highly attractive; enough is never enough.  Empires are built, then large militaries and bureaucracies are required to control, manage, and defend them. Vital interests expand, as does domestic disagreement, opposition and corruption. External threats and enemies also arise and grow.  Eventually every empire collapses in decay, moral dissolution and/or outright defeat.

Today, the insatiable addiction to empire building continues. But, unlike the slower rise and falls of the past, this process has become faster and more obvious.  Technology has changed everything, making a fundamental rethink necessary.

The key fact is that war is becoming too costly and too destructive to pursue, even for the winners. The equipment, training, maintenance and ongoing technological development required by a modern military has become ruinously expensive. Worse yet, the destructive capacity of modern weaponry has become so effective that even a moderate war can cost hundreds of billions of dollars (and hundreds of thousands of lives) while a major superpower conflict involving a nuclear exchange would be in the incomprehensible range of trillions in cost and hundreds of millions of lives.

The current war in Ukraine is a prime example. It was expected to result in a rapid and overwhelming victory for Russia. Now, after more than a year of heavy fighting, the Russian military has suffered well over a hundred thousand deaths, the loss of several thousand tanks worth billions of dollars, plus myriad more military losses and expenses in addition to multiple other national economic costs stemming from the war. And all for what?  Ukraine was no threat to Russia and has nothing that Russia needs. Putin simply thought Ukraine would  be a quick and easy victory, a simple step on the road to re-establishing even more of the former Soviet empire. He and his nation are paying dearly for this mistake.

What Vladimir Putin should have grasped is that modern technology enables masses of soldiers, weapons and supplies to be readily detected,  precisely located and accurately targeted. The advantage in numbers that previously afforded victory now presents fat targets vulnerable to devastating attack by highly mobile precision weapons, often situated far away from their targets.  In Ukraine this enhanced capacity to locate and destroy targets has not been limited to strikes on  troops, equipment and supplies; it  has also been very effectively applied to wreak havoc on command posts and even on individual high rank commanders. The mortality rate for Russian colonels and generals has been unprecedented.

Meanwhile, the population of Russia was already in decline, and this has been accelerated by a wave of war-inspired emigration that has seen the brightest and best of the country’s young professionals take their talents elsewhere. Compounding the consequences of the narcissistic insanity of Putin’s leadership is Russia’s awesome potential, which has gone begging. Russia has the largest land area and richest reserves of undeveloped natural resources of any nation. The wealth currently being literally blown away in an obscene war can only obtain what amounts to an ongoing and massive liability — if Russia were to win, how many more lives and how much treasure would be needed to occupy and pacify? Had that expenditure been directed to development of what is known and already possessed, Russia might have been well on the way to achieving one of the world’s highest standards of living. Instead, most of its population daily confronts a near Third World existence.

The cost of modern warfare has simply become prohibitive for winners as well as losers.  The recent experiences of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan are further telling examples. With the most advanced military in the world confronting a Third World rabble there was never a risk of overall US defeat on the battlefield. However, in the final reckoning, a cost of more than a trillion dollars and the lives of several hundred thousand civilians for little or no achievement amounts to a defeat.

The expense of maintaining both a large standing military and an ongoing lead in technology is never ending and unsustainable. Where technology is concerned, catching up is always cheaper than finding and developing the next big advance. The herd of lesser powers will follow as closely as they can afford, so the leading armies will always need to keep running if they are to stay ahead. To exit from such a  rat race is difficult.  Paying more attention to where you are headed is helpful but insufficient.

We see this too in Joe Biden’s America which, like Putin’s Russia, has its own internal problems — and an apparent, equally insistent refusal to recognise them. The US has developed far more government than its economy can support. Its health and education systems, welfare and infrastructure all require major attention. Meanwhile, a growing bureaucratic morass impedes productive activity, with the interest due on cumulative budget deficits raising the possibility of default. With one eye on history as a guide, the probability of large, disruptive change is approaching a certainty.

And then there is China and and its enmity for Taiwan. Both share much the same culture and ethnicity as well as enjoying highly beneficial economic relations. In addition, Taiwan provides China an open side door for access to much of the most advanced Western technology, even including military hardware, systems, and operational information. As for an actual invasion, no war is needed.  At any time it wishes, China could contrive some incident to declare a blockade of commercial shipping and aircraft. While it is certain no airline or commercial shipping would dare defy such a ban, Washington’s response, especially under the current administration is moot. What we can assume is that, after a few weeks, Taiwan would run out of fuel and the world would begin to face an abrupt halt in the supply of over 90 per cent of global production of the most advanced microchips. China could then make Taiwan an offer it couldn’t refuse, much like the  treatment meted to Hong Kong.  No war, and minimal risk or effort would be needed.  Taiwan is a ripe fruit, easily plucked whenever China wants it.

However, China too faces its own, far more difficult, problems. The consequences of its longstanding one-child policy, for starters, these being compounded by the effects of the huge growth in urbanization. With a rapidly growing population of elderly and no system of social security, children are expected to care for their elderly, with few able to afford the support of two parents. Relaxing the one-child policy came too late for the spoiled offspring of single-child families to take such Confucian responsibilities on themselves.

Any hope of the superpowers addressing their problems will require a major realignment of national resources and priorities away from the arms race. Counterintuitively, advances in  technology may greatly reduce the need for insanely complex and expensive weapon systems if these are made obsolete by their vulnerability to highly effective defensive weapons. This appears to now be happening with tanks in Ukraine, where Russian losses have seen storage depots and even military museums stripped of outdated models, which are being pressed into front-line service. It is likely other military systems will also become vulnerable to highly effective (and far less expensive) drones, robotics, beam weapons and unmanned systems.

While all this may seem like science fiction much of it is already in advanced development, testing, even early stages of deployment. Soon manned aircraft and submarines will begin to be replaced  by drones. Surface ships, long since trackable by satellite, will become sitting ducks indefensible against long range hypersonic missiles. All vehicles of all types anywhere will be open to serve as shooting gallery targets for controllers and targeters at military consoles thousands of miles away. 

Looming over all this is the undeniable reality that all of the major powers face a growing affliction of politico-economic imbalances, and all would benefit greatly from a reduction in military costs to enable an increased focus on their own development. Rational analysis would suggest such a move; it remains to be seen if policies and expenditures endorse that future.