Like countless other hostilities, the stealthy Israeli missile and drone strike on Iran doesn’t risk war. It is war.
But this, in fact, is what actual war looks like these days: Sometimes it’s a volley of 300 missiles and drones, and sometimes it is lean, targeted, and carried out covertly. Gone are the days of vast conquering armies and conventional military confrontations between two parties. So long as experts, the government, and the media worry only about a kind of war that is obsolete, it cannot see the war right in front of our faces.
Great article on the evolving face of warfare and how, as long-range and unmanned systems replace on-the-ground and manned conflict, people are assuaged into treating missiles and bombs being lobbed between countries as something “other” than war.
Gone are the days of vast conquering armies and conventional military confrontations between two parties. So long as experts, the government, and the media worry only about a kind of war that is obsolete, it cannot see the war right in front of our faces.
The article makes a good point about the global warfare already underway, but is it really the WWI/WWII template that distracts people from considering today’s global warfare as WWIII? During the Cold War we all came to imagine WWIII as a sudden and total nuclear devastation brought about by conflicting superpowers. When people express relief that WWIII didn’t yet happen, they may mean “at least we didn’t all get nuked.”
I think he is trying to say this is the way it is and implies that this is where it is going. I do not buy it. This may just be a run up. We have not seen major powers engage and I hope we do not. I also do not agree with his characterization of the Russia Ukraine conflict.
Agreed. Also, WW1 and WW2 were characterized by total war, where the economy shifts to a military economy and everything else becomes secondary. None of the major powers in the world are engaging in total war right now.
To me, it’s not WW3 until that happens. Hopefully, it never does.
Even then, nations had engaged in total war for thousands of years, a World war is a war involving total war and major combat all over the world with few truly neutral nations. Nato/Japan/Korea/India vs Russia/China engageing in total war would probably count, but any definition kind of needs to not include conflicts like Korea or any of the internal European ones to make sense.
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The article makes a good point about the global warfare already underway, but is it really the WWI/WWII template that distracts people from considering today’s global warfare as WWIII? During the Cold War we all came to imagine WWIII as a sudden and total nuclear devastation brought about by conflicting superpowers. When people express relief that WWIII didn’t yet happen, they may mean “at least we didn’t all get nuked.”
I think he is trying to say this is the way it is and implies that this is where it is going. I do not buy it. This may just be a run up. We have not seen major powers engage and I hope we do not. I also do not agree with his characterization of the Russia Ukraine conflict.
Agreed. Also, WW1 and WW2 were characterized by total war, where the economy shifts to a military economy and everything else becomes secondary. None of the major powers in the world are engaging in total war right now.
To me, it’s not WW3 until that happens. Hopefully, it never does.
Even then, nations had engaged in total war for thousands of years, a World war is a war involving total war and major combat all over the world with few truly neutral nations. Nato/Japan/Korea/India vs Russia/China engageing in total war would probably count, but any definition kind of needs to not include conflicts like Korea or any of the internal European ones to make sense.