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Comment by kcorbitt | Hacker News Reader

> But what happens if/when we get into a shooting war with an adversary that has a real army, a real air force, and/or a real navy?

Either the shooting war ends real quick with a diplomatic solution, or the territories of both adversaries quickly turn into faintly glowing wastelands uninhabitable for a thousand years.

The only warfare that matters today is asymmetrical warfare against relatively low-tech guerrillas and third-tier states. Once you credibly threaten the homeland of any opponent near the US's level of military sophistication, you've already lost the war.

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>The only warfare that matters today is asymmetrical warfare against relatively low-tech guerrillas and third-tier states.

No, that's not correct, and is emblematic of the insistence to "always train for the last war." The reality of what future war might look like is much more nuanced than "either MAD or more COIN." General Milley talked about this last summer, and I tend to agree with his assessment. Incidentally his critique is inline with the posted article about mindless obedience.

http://breakingdefense.com/2016/10/miserable-disobedient-vic...

Absolutely nobody insists on only training for the last war. The only people who use that phrase are people who are convinced, beyond all reason, that we're making that mistake; or people who use it as a strawman to criticize arguments concerning priority and budget.

I read the article, but Gen. Milley doesn't make the case for why mutually-assured destruction is no longer relevant (he doesn't mention it at all, actually). After 50 years in which it has arguably been the primary strategic factor maintaining the peace among the great powers, I'm curious about why the future would look different.

The problem with mutually assured destruction is the “assured” part. There is nothing assured about it. Cyber, space, and other weapons could dismantle the assurance and we could be in a totally different warfare environment. Certainly this doesn’t seem to be the case yet, but I wouldn’t make assumptions about the future.

Exactly. For that reason we really should cut the defense budget in half back to pre-9/11 levels. Talk about an easy fix for the US budget problem.

I am honestly puzzled at why you believe this to be the case. I'm not even sure it has ever been the case. Consider, for example, how chemical weapons have never been used in WW2, despite all sides having stockpiles. Consider the fact that MAD deterrent absolutely requires both parties to be in perfect agreement about what level of conflict will trigger MAD. Also a shooting war does not have to ever touch anyone's homeland (not to mention that in a war there is usually a disagreement about what exactly a "homeland" is).

I'd say that you can fight fairly complete proxy wars without ever threatening the homelands of nuclear powers as per the post nuclear gentleman's agreement.

I do largely agree though.

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