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Comment by markessien | Hacker News Reader

You know, this would be a good thing. Imagine that countries had robots that where so overwhelming in force, agility and firepower, that no army could resist them. No combination of tanks and airplanes could defeat such a fleet of robots.

In that case, there is no need to kill the civilians any longer. If two technologically advanced nations battle each other, and the robot fleet of one of the nations is destroyed, the battle is lost. Still fighting would be pointless, because you lose people, and the other guy does not even lose machines.

So we'd just have a huge robot battle in the desert that we could watch on TV, and when our country lost, we'd resign ourselves to the invading force and just give up (or run).

I guess the strategy then would be to wait till the human military administrators come in, and then start a low level insurgency.

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...which reminds me of a line from R.J. Gatling:

"It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine - a gun - which could by its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a large extent supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease [would] be greatly diminished."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jordan_Gatling

Well, he was right. Imagine the invasion of Iraq with swords and men on horses. You would need millions and the deaths would have been in hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

Guns end wars quicker.

So do nuclear weapons I suppose.

That's why I'm never really worried by some specific country out East getting a few nukes. Good ol' MAD ensures they'll be turned into a glass parking lot as soon as they so much as breathe on the launch button.

Obviously it becomes an issue when individual terrorists can get their hands on nukes, because then there's no country to flatten in response to such an atrocity.

All of this is under the assumption that war is a necessity.

Or when nations use terrorists and other non-state actors (such as mercenaries) to launch attacks without taking ownership.

When you had 5 nuclear powers, it was pretty easy to figure out who was bombing you. When you have 25, MAD doesn't work any more. Somewhere in between the word "mutual" loses cohesion. (unless you plan on bombing every nuclear country in the world in response to any nuclear attack, which seems politically a no-no)

I don't understand your logic. Why would you want to respond to mass death by imposing mass death? Why would you want to 'flatten' a country? Whatever the reason for a nuclear attack, it was not decided by a country, it was decided by a small group of people. Destroying an entire country of 10 or 20 million would be a barbaric and completely counter-productive answer to a nuclear strike.

What I'm saying was that if it was clearly identifiable that a country was responsible for an attack (ex. country declares war on Israel, fires nuke), then they deserve to be ruined.

It's not that I'm advocating going around tossing nukes at the home country of a single terrorist or group, I was just addressing the specific issue where we're so worried about X or Y country acquiring nuclear weapons. If that country would ever use them as part of a declared war on our allies, then they'd deserve what came to them.

But as I (and Dan above noted), the real issue is if individuals sneak these weapons around and cause mass destruction - who deserves the response to that atrocity?

So if Saddam decided to throw a nuclear bomb at some country, all Iraqis would have been responsible for this? And you advocate wiping them all out? Is the president, in this case, any different from a terrorist? Particularly an unelected president - one who cannot be said to represent the members of his country.

People don't 'deserve' death because someone in their neighbourhood did something bad.

It is attitudes like 'countries deserve to be ruined' that cause world wars. The U.S, without being provoked, declared war on Iraq and caused the death of 600.000 Iraqis. Do 600.000 U.S citizens now 'deserve' to die?

Think before repeat things, even if you grew up hearing them.

Without guns and bombs I think the conflict would have ended sooner. Well trained armed forces using bow and arrow are extremely effective to the point where untrained forces have little chance of winning. For a historical example consider what the mongol army did and how long it took. The reason why insurgency and non traditional warfare has become effective is how little training someone needs to use hit and run tactics and a gun.

PS: Picture a tank using a balista and protected by bow and arrow. It's not rapid fire but without guns / high explosives it's just about as hard to stop.

What about the fortress/siege process. You know it took months to take a single fortress back in those days, but nowadays if it's surrounded, the battle is over.

No single fortress would have lasted 8 years of constant fighting while being surrounded. Having a fortress increases the cost of conflict but unless support shows up they don't really help over the long term. Because, the enemy can wait for you to starve while they bring in new supply's.

Clearly we would have lost more people and it would have taken longer to overthrow the government but as individual technology improves the ability for an insurgency to last as an effective fighting force increases.

> Without guns and bombs I think the conflict would have ended sooner. Well trained armed forces using bow and arrow are extremely effective to the point where untrained forces have little chance of winning. For a historical example consider what the mongol army did and how long it took. The reason why insurgency and non traditional warfare has become effective is how little training someone needs to use hit and run tactics and a gun.

Counterexample: it took Julius Caesar 7 years to conquer Gaul. Then there's the Hundred years War, fought over much the same terrain.

Some other modern examples: Iran-Iraq War: lasted 8 years, was a draw; 1991 Gulf War: lasted one month.

German invasions of France: 1970 - quick victory; 1914 - bogged down; 1940 - quick victory

I suspect the technology used during a war has little effect on its duration.

Hmm, Germany invaded France in 1970? I never heard of that.

that should be a typo, i think he was referring to the franco-prussian war of 1870.

Indeed.

The hundred year war was a single war in name only.

True, but the individual conflicts that were part of it lasted a long time.

Guns end wars quicker.

There's a certain beauty to getting to the wrong answer quicker - I just don't see it in this case.

Very slippery slope. If overt warfare becomes obsolete, civilians might be the only targets.

I think slavery might be making a comeback sixty or so years from now. And I mean large-scale slavery, unlike the 26 million slaves there are now. I mean slavery in the billions. Robots might make it very easy.

I'm not sure what you're saying. Robots will enslave humans, humans will use robots to enslave other humans, or robots will become our slaves?

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