Non-lethal weapon Armies. In the future?

[Feltan]

I think this is a wonderful idea.

I suggest the Russians and Chinese adopt this attitude without delay!

Regards,
Feltan

[V22 Osprey]

I wanna see computer wargames replace wars. [&o]

[Big B]

Why?

ORIGINAL: V22 Osprey

I wanna see computer wargames replace wars. [&o]

Do you all value your life, kin, and and folkways so little?
Is nothing bigger than you? Is nothing to outlive you? Is nothing worth fighting for??

I guess today - the 'proper' answer is 'no'.


You poor soulless SOB's...

[V22 Osprey]

WTF? How am I a soulless SOB just because I think  wargames should replace wars......thats actaully saving lives.......[&:]

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: V22 Osprey

WTF? How am I a soulless SOB just because I think  wargames should replace wars......thats actaully saving lives.......[&:]

You're not soulless for wanting people not dead.

What I am trying to say is that there are things worth fighting for - real things, not to be held so lightly that the only thing to consider is casualties... but the better things your ancestors handed to, you at great, cost to themselves.

That's what I meant by 'things bigger than you (or me)'

[Feltan]

ORIGINAL: V22 Osprey

WTF? How am I a soulless SOB just because I think  wargames should replace wars......thats actaully saving lives.......[&:]

You never watched the original Star Trek did you? [;)]

Regards,
Feltan

[Doggie]

ORIGINAL: V22 Osprey

WTF? How am I a soulless SOB just because I think  wargames should replace wars......thats actaully saving lives.......[&:]

Hey, that would be great. A couple of dorks could play a computer game and then the side that loses would assemble all their able bodied men to be shipped off to a slave labor camp while the women reported to the victorious side's brothels.

Or maybe the losers should all be required to submit to some barbarous death cult and agree to be slaves in their own country.

Yeah, that would be kewl.

[mikul82]

ORIGINAL: Doggie

ORIGINAL: V22 Osprey

WTF? How am I a soulless SOB just because I think  wargames should replace wars......thats actaully saving lives.......[&:]

Hey, that would be great. A couple of dorks could play a computer game and then the side that loses would assemble all their able bodied men to be shipped off to a slave labor camp while the women reported to the victorious side's brothels.

Or maybe the losers should all be required to submit to some barbarous death cult and agree to be slaves in their own country.

Yeah, that would be kewl.

Basically, not much changes, except for more slaves for the victors then.

[Mike Dubost]

ORIGINAL: Big B

I concur with the nay-sayers about the lack of probability of such a thing.

But an intriguing question is: 'Given that it could be...would such a thing really be desirable?'

At the risk of being the resident neanderthal, would (relatively) bloodless war be a goal to work towards? Possibly, ...but I'm not sure.

We can all see the benefit of no-risk war to our own persons (me included), but what would be the unforeseen effects of such an arrangement? Would it lead to tyrannical governments across the globe? - never needing popular support?

Would 'war' become the standard international relationship? Wars are ruinous economically...

In a world used to 'war' being no more than a soccer-match, what would be the result of destructive war, fought with deadly weapons, upon a populace no longer imbued with the morale strength to take life in self-defense? (we see that now in some circles).
The obvious answer would be that - after 'sufficient' misery - people would re-discover their own self-interest...but how many innocent people would die before that point were reached?

I don't know, maybe my intuitions are all wrong... but Robert E. Lee said "it is good that war is horrible - or else we may grow too fond of it".

Food for thought anyway.


B

I am trying to remember where I read it, but about 10 years ago, I saw a short story set in this sort of world. There was a war being fought in the Balkans with non-lethal weapons, until one side began using lethal weapons. I no longer recall the end of the story. Anyone else read this one?

Personally, I think the end result of the scenario would be nuclear war initiated by the side which was last to use lethal weapons, if they had any squirelled away (which is highly likely). In general, history shows that the "logic" of war usually leads to escalation. Maybe it should not be so, but that is human nature. It is the same drive that leads gamblers who have lost big to keep playing in order to "make back my losses".

[Ike1947]

A more reasoned reply is this: massive death and property destruction is what enabled the deep cultural and social changes seen in post-WW2 German and Japan. This is only the most recent example of the phenomenon. The failure of the post-Civil War "Reconstruction" in the U.S. is an example of the converse; while the death toll was horrific for the time and some parts of the Confederacy were devestated - Sherman's March to the Sea, e.g. - insufficient trauma was inflicted to allow the restructuring of the states of the former Confederacy into different - I do not say "better" - members of the Union.

Therefore, to avoid more serious and long-term damages, death and destruction, sometimes it is entirely necessary and unavoidable to inflict truly horrific death and massive property destruction on one's enemy(ies). Non-lethals do not fill that prescription; being hit by a taser isn't sufficiently traumatic to compel abandonment of long-held deeply rooted beliefs in the "destiny" of one's homeland to rule the universe. Like it or not, it took the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force the surrender of the Japanese; General Staff estimates of casualties were in the millions for the civilian population and at least 1.5 million in the American military alone for the planned invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. Consider, for a moment, what the world would have been like after such an invasion; do you suppose we'd have the relationship with the other nations as we do now? The leftist's claims of our supposed imperialism would have been made real by such a casualty toll in an invasion of Japan; the aftermath would have been even worse.

[Zap]

IKE
Therefore, to avoid more serious and long-term damages, death and destruction, sometimes it is entirely necessary and unavoidable to inflict truly horrific death and massive property destruction on one's enemy(ies). Non-lethals do not fill that prescription; being hit by a taser isn't sufficiently traumatic to compel abandonment of long-held deeply rooted beliefs in the "destiny" of one's homeland to rule the universe.



But with a more convincing non-lethal weapon(I was thinking in that line) could a nation be defeated? If one could be developed.?

I don't know, for an example, what if the non-lethal weapon(a gas) could induce amnesia on those who were effected. The effect would last 10 years. What I'm trying to imagine, is if, non- lethal weapons might someday inflict serious enough damage a tyranical government would have to surrender.

Remember my initial post is conjecture only and not a statement of my politics.

[Ike1947]

It may well be possible to construct non-lethal weapons sufficiently powerful to "win" a war.  Keep in mind, however, that most nominally "non-lethal" weapons are lethal under circumstances of use other than those ideal for the particular non-lethal weapon; e.g., very close range for "rubber" bullets.  Winning the war isn't the same as winning; if that makes any sense.  In modern state to state warfare - and perhaps even in so-called "assymetrical" warfare as well - it is entirely possible to defeat the field army of an enemy and enforce a peace agreement with the original government or its successor; see, e.g. defeat of the Third Reich.  What is not possible in the absence of what I labelled "sufficient trauma" in my post is to change the thinking, the world view if you will, of both "the people" of the losing nation as well as of the members of "the government".  It is that world view which leads to war, it is why World War 1 was not "the war to end all wars"; the trauma was inflicted upon the losing combatants was insufficient to cause them to abandon the world view which lead to the war in the first instance; no change in attitude.  Note - to continue with the post-WW1 German illustration - how the defeat was blamed upon "November criminals", "race traitors" and others faceless factors and actors; not upon the genuine source, being the nationalism and worldview of the pre-WW1 German rulers that German was, indeed, Deuschland Uber Alles.  Similar results would obtain in any state to state war where the nominal loser of the war isn't defeated psychologically, only physically or militarily, if you prefer.  Very dangerous position in these times of suitcase nuclear weapons and similar small man-portable WMD.  (Forget biologicals and gas for practical reasons; but that's another argument, isn't it?) Oh, and I don't infer anything about a person's politics from what they post on forums; that's a silly thing to do from very very thin evidence and it's rude as well. [;)]

[Paul Vebber]

My idea is ,for sure, is much more improbable. It would work like this. The non-lethal weapons developed would incapacitate the other nations army. The nations would have to capture and hold(temporarily) in cells that army. Until one of the nations had to sue for peace. because it no longer had an Army to field. After the war was won. The incarcerated armies would be released back to there nations.

This assumes that the fate of the country is in the hands of its army. When the army is defeated, capituation of the state must ensue. Assuming that a "phaser on stun" can make all the adversary soldiers "fall asleep" so you can capture them, why would a country simply capitulate any more readily than they would submit to walking into the disintegration chambers?

The combat power overmatch that the US has against most potential adversary armies approaches this. When you can filed a force that can accomplish its military objectives with few casualties, whether you are killing the adversary of making him fall asleep to capture him is really immaterial. In both cases he has no effective means to resist by means of an army.

You have two basic strategies to use when confronted by such an enemy - one that prevents the US from projecting that power into your sphere- the "anti-access" strategy; or you simply don't field a uniformed army and you fight a guerilla campaign that makes it difficult of the US to sort combatant from non-combatant.

In both cases you remove the advatage provided by tactical overmatch by 'strategery'.

[Sarganto]

There are anyway too many humans in the world...