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Comment by csomar | Hacker News Reader

> I guess each side will always know that humans are the high value targets and that will dictate that whatever else happens they will still target them even if a proxy-war is being fought by the drones.

Humans are more of an emotional target. Some humans are a high value target, but most are not. It's more valuable to target an oil refinery, an airport or a strategic bridge.

The next war will boil down to math. AI powered drones where intelligence and strategy will determine the fate of the war. That is until the other party decide to blow the whole thing with nuclear weapons.

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>Humans are more of an emotional target. Some humans are a high value target, but most are not

Only using western $military spending$ numbers, like $10K switchblade-300 or those ridiculous $90K Rogue https://www.twz.com/air/rogue-1-is-one-of-the-marine-corps-n... https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/1colzqq...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2023/12/04/some-o...

Ukraine calculated that at $500-1000 per fpv kill they can deplete all russian able bodies without breaking $10 Billion, something inconceivable to NATO armies.

> Humans are more of an emotional target. Some humans are a high value target, but most are not.

Tell that to Nagasaki or Hiroshima. Also, tell that to Ukraine.

Humans will always be targets at least somewhat; If for nothing else, they are near the controls to some drone. Warfare is psychological at least as much as it is physical.

Nuclear weapons are on a different category. They are not targeting a lot of humans but pretty much all humans; and infrastructure too (strategic or not).

Carpet shelling or carpet bombing with kilotons of TNT beg to differ.

Carpet bombing has strictly limited utility vs. humans and infrastructure, as shown by allied bombing campaigns in WWII. Strategic targets were bombed for years and the Germans kept building tanks and aircraft. Japanese cities were burned without breaking the will of the Japanese people to fight.

With nuclear weapons, the potential for total destruction of human civilization is extremely high. The "tons of TNT" measure doesn't take into account flash, radiation and environmental effects of nuclear warfare.

The next war will boil down to math. AI powered drones where intelligence and strategy will determine the fate of the war.

AI powered drones are useless without the logistics and manufacturing base which they came from. They also cannot take land, because they're drones, not infantry killbots. They also lack the attribute and strength of tube artillery, rockets, fighter planes, etc.

It's also missing the dimensions of counter such as direct energy weapons, SHORADs, electronic warfare, etc. Drones are prominent now because counters hadn't been sufficiently developed or widely deployed.

Also, we don't know when the next war will erupt. 1 year? 5 year? 10 year? It's quite bold to make such prediction.

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