Allow us to introduce the new cast, of an old play.

World War I was awful. Soldiers were forced to live, fight and die in a hole. Rotting away in rancid, water, afraid to stick their heads up for a second. That trench was their life, and often their grave. In theory you could travel from the English Channel to Switzerland without ever walking above ground along the front line. Eleven million soldiers and about seven million civilians died in the war. After it was over world leaders looked around and decided it had been a bad idea, and they probably shouldn't try it again.

World War II was fought above ground, with speed, manuevering, and lightning assaults by columns of tanks, close air support, and mobile artillery pieces. Essentially taking the front line and moving it back and forth across Europe. It became a rolling abattoir, grinding villages to dust, and civilians died in terrible numbers. Between 25 and 28 million soldiers, and estimates of 50 to 80 million civilians died in that war. Almost 3% of the worlds population. When it was over world leaders looked at the destruction and agreed that it had been a bad idea and they should probably try to avoid it in the future.

But, how do you avoid these things? What can be done to keep this disaster at bay? These are the questions that world leaders have been grappling with for the last seventy years. The United Nations was one small step, and a good start. A place to meet and discuss problems before cranking up the war machine. But, with time, the luster faded a little, and old habits die hard.

Sovereign states have been marching in step to the same drums since anybody has been able to write. Producing weapons and training armies all in the name of self preservation. And modern nations are no different.

How do you avoid war? Bigger weapons, or better weapons, or if you are really serious bigger, better weapons. Remember how effective that was after WWI. Wholesale slaughter, destruction, and carnage on a scale of ridiculous proportions. It was a testament to the industrial age.

Enter the Autonomous Killer Robot. It can be viewed as the latest attempt to make war a reasonably sane way to settle national differences.Of course, if you ask "why do we need autonomous killer robots?" the answer will be "our enemies will have them." And the beat goes on. If you ask "why does anybody need autonomous killer robots," the answer will probably be something about reducing casualties.  And if you point out that the best way to prevent casualties is to stop fighting wars you are branded a traitor, or even worse a dreamer.

So, after a brief intermission the show is back on. A new act, and a different cast but the same plot and mostly the same conclusion, destruction, death, and not much else. Please take your seat, things are going to get interesting.

Good Bye to a real Monster, and sanity.

Anybody who knows me will tell you I am a pacifist. I feel that we can end war, or war can end us, and there is no path down the middle. Society has reached a point of diminishing returns for combat. For a long time war could be a very profitable enterprise for nations,* at least the nations that won. It was always hell for the soldiers, but the greater good and all, you know.

And, an article from Defense One concerning the retirement of the A10 Warthog Attack Aircraft adds a new reason for the feeling of hopelessness.

According to reports from several sources the relatively slow moving, heavily armored A10 used in close support of combat troops offers a great deal of protection, and "influences adversaries" mostly by killing them. Which is the best way to influence enemy combatants.

Warthogs have had a long, illustrious career, and influenced the outcome of many battles from the
Balkans to Afghanistan to Iraq and Syria.

But, the Air Force, in true military fashion, apparently feels the clunky appearance and unappealing lines of the A10 are not consistent with the style needs of the modern armed forces.




Instead, they have invested in the F35 Close Air Support fighter plane. Here is shocking news, It is wildly over budget, and does not seem to work as well as hoped. But, it is a much sleeker looking aircraft, guaranteed to impress the ladies.

Actually, that is only a small joke, the Armed Services do not appropriate weapon systems to find girls. That would be silly. But, a high ranking officer in the pentagon can find a nice retirement plan as a consultant for a wealthy defense contractor if they play their cards right.

Conversely, an officer could face serious repercussions if the extravagant weapon systems they advocated so adamantly turns out to be a huge, expensive waste. Well, only if they admit it is a huge, expensive waste. Reality is only a matter of admission in weapons procurement.

If you look at the amount of armaments available to people who are making decisions based on anything but the facts the future looks very dim.



*The lyrics from Queen and Country by Jethro Tull;

"They build schools and they build factories
From the spoils of battles won"

are dripping with artistic sarcasm, but historically accurate,

One step forward, and there is the abyss.

The history of the world is a history of violence. Other things happened, but, far and large it was the biggest, and strongest who wrote the tale of the times. Often times it was technology that defined who was the most able to control the narrative.

The Assyrians, it is believed, mastered using iron to make weaponry, which was much more widely available than bronze, used by most armies. Of course, they used their weapons with brutal and ruthless efficiency. But, learning to forge iron gave them an advantage.

Many people feel that the Mongol bow was the premier projectile weapon until the invention of the firearm. It took a great leader to bring the widely scattered tribes into a mobile, lethal, devastating army of horsemen. But, the bow gave them an edge.

Now the pace of technical innovation has changed the way things are calculated. There is no way of knowing what the future holds, but it is safe to say there will be breakthroughs undreamed of even now.

Albert Einstein said "the release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known I should have become a watchmaker." Unleashing the awful power of the atom is the most extreme example, but there are constant breakthroughs in technology that make the destruction of our enemies easier, more efficient, and "sanitary."

Now, the Air Force wants to make drones smarter and deadlier. Killing an enemy from the comfort of an air conditioned room thousands of miles away makes a cold, calculated sense. And building in an automated response system to deal with threats is perfect. Killing, and destruction, represented in an algorithm.

War has always been about choices, would the costs outweigh the benefits. And for most of the worlds history war could be a very profitable enterprise. Countries who were good filled their treasuries with the gold from conquered nations. Now, the formula is different. Our ability for destruction has irreversibly removed any real benefit from the equation.

But, if we find a way to make it less costly in human lives (at least our human lives) will that variable change again? These weapons are here to stay, but we, as a race, the human race, need to find a way to work together without the use of explosives. Finding common grounds to work together and build is liable to be much more difficult than finding ways to destroy but we no longer have much choice.