[Ultra Tech] Non-lethal warfare at TL9

Curmudgeon · 09-21-2023, 10:40 PM

Possibly of greater importance, if there is little appetite for casualties, there is little need for large armed forces. If you aren’t going to take more than a few hundred casualties before you quit, a military of five to ten thousand is plenty and anything more than that is probably a waste of money and resources. If your military is limited to that small a number, the objective in any war is likely to be very limited. Something on the order of a minor border adjustment that might move one or two miles of the border by as much as a mile from its current position.

There is an argument that you might still have a large national military, but it would be widely dispersed. Thing of say five hundred forward bases world-wide with each base able to field the equivalent of a division (about five thousand men) with maybe another five thousand personnel comprising naval, air and other military assets.

Against that argument, there is the problem that it will take a while for the public to get over the last “unacceptable losses” before you can engage in a new conflict that might create more unacceptable losses. I would suggest that the probable timespan for “getting over” the losses would be something on the order of twenty years, a generation, possibly half that time, ten years, but its unlikely to be less. Casualty fatigue might set in even if there are no “unacceptable losses” in a nation that goes to war after war after war. I’d suggest that the public would force their government to stop “having all these wars” once the cumulative casualties from successful wars reach two or three times the number of “unacceptable losses” on the grounds that the public will tolerate smaller losses without immediately realizing how many of their own are dying, but they will eventually notice that they’re “being bled white in a death of a thousand cuts.”

So, my take would be that the weaponry ought to be the most lethal things you can find for TH9. Ideally, you want weaponry whose effects, if you think about them graphically, leave you thinking, “Ew! Almost any thing else would be a better way to go than that!.” The constraints will be on what are acceptable tactics/targets*, and agreements between nations to, as History Oversimplified puts it “not be jerks.”

* For example, assassination by drone, even for military targets, is likely to fall under the “crimes against humanity” umbrella in this world.

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09-21-2023, 10:40 PM	#10
Curmudgeon Join Date: Sep 2011	Re: [Ultra Tech] Non-lethal warfare at TL9 Possibly of greater importance, if there is little appetite for casualties, there is little need for large armed forces. If you aren’t going to take more than a few hundred casualties before you quit, a military of five to ten thousand is plenty and anything more than that is probably a waste of money and resources. If your military is limited to that small a number, the objective in any war is likely to be very limited. Something on the order of a minor border adjustment that might move one or two miles of the border by as much as a mile from its current position. There is an argument that you might still have a large national military, but it would be widely dispersed. Thing of say five hundred forward bases world-wide with each base able to field the equivalent of a division (about five thousand men) with maybe another five thousand personnel comprising naval, air and other military assets. Against that argument, there is the problem that it will take a while for the public to get over the last “unacceptable losses” before you can engage in a new conflict that might create more unacceptable losses. I would suggest that the probable timespan for “getting over” the losses would be something on the order of twenty years, a generation, possibly half that time, ten years, but its unlikely to be less. Casualty fatigue might set in even if there are no “unacceptable losses” in a nation that goes to war after war after war. I’d suggest that the public would force their government to stop “having all these wars” once the cumulative casualties from successful wars reach two or three times the number of “unacceptable losses” on the grounds that the public will tolerate smaller losses without immediately realizing how many of their own are dying, but they will eventually notice that they’re “being bled white in a death of a thousand cuts.” So, my take would be that the weaponry ought to be the most lethal things you can find for TH9. Ideally, you want weaponry whose effects, if you think about them graphically, leave you thinking, “Ew! Almost any thing else would be a better way to go than that!.” The constraints will be on what are acceptable tactics/targets, and agreements between nations to, as History Oversimplified puts it “not be jerks.” For example, assassination by drone, even for military targets, is likely to fall under the “crimes against humanity” umbrella in this world. Post 2 of 2