[HN Gopher] Rise of the war machines: Charting the evolution of ...
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Rise of the war machines: Charting the evolution of military
technologies
Author : howsilly
Score : 55 points
Date : 2021-10-29 20:41 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (journals.plos.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (journals.plos.org)
| jonmc12 wrote:
| The analysis of Cavalry and Iron is fascinating. As is the
| correlation between MilTech and Phylogeny (cultural similarity
| between polities).
|
| I was most surprised that the authors had no strong theories
| about the role of "agricultural productivity". In addition to
| building armies from agricultural surplus, the ability to feed
| horses, people, elephants, etc was key to large military
| campaign. A common defensive technique against large army
| campaigns included burning agriculture.. for instance Hannibal's
| invasion of Rome. ie, the agriculture supply-chain itself seems
| to be a necessary pre-requisite to military campaigns with
| thousands of troops.
| narrator wrote:
| Speaking of examples of food innovation aiding military
| campaigns, Napoleon's army was responsible for the development
| of canned food[1].
|
| [1] https://unrealfacts.com/napoleon-bonaparte-role-canned-
| food-...
| rogereur wrote:
| I think wars in the future will be about who's better at computer
| science. It will be programmers vs programmers, and computer
| literacy will become the new military service and a national
| security interest
| doomjunky wrote:
| I was astonished about the rapid expansion of the list of cyber
| warfare forces in recent years and by the incredible mass of
| cyber warfare capabilities of the United States.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cyber_warfare_forces
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It's just the technology of the day. From an earlier day:
|
| _" Oscar Wilde issued a memorable prediction of the war of the
| future: "A chemist on each side will approach the frontier with
| a bottle."_
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/12/22/the-ring-and-t...
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| It all cumulates eventually into a race to singularity, which is
| a zero sum game. Whoever gets there first wins. I promise to make
| mine mostly benevolent.
|
| I think emp warfare (actually already quietly a thing) is going
| to be the in between for stuff like drones...
|
| I hope the new generations of children are being taught old
| school survival skills, because they are probably going to need
| them.
|
| One of the best books on the post nuclear world that I reference
| often is _The Shield of Achilles_ , and one of the conclusions
| that sticks with me is that there will be a rise in corporate
| power and a fall of nation state power.
|
| Fight club was right after all... "planet Starbucks" indeed.
| usui wrote:
| I don't think a rise in corporate power and a fall of nation
| state power makes sense.
|
| At some point, some group is going to need to have a monopoly
| on violence. It doesn't matter if two groups of power don't
| have complete dominance over a geographic region, they are
| still two groups with power that look after their own kind and
| perform diplomacy.
| baybal2 wrote:
| To me, it's very clear. Drone warfare will be the next big thing
| after a nuke, and ICBM.
|
| Probably it's the only thing which can shift the power poles from
| the current nuclear states.
| narrator wrote:
| Drones warfare will really have a big affect on small
| conflicts, not great power conflicts. Look at the recent
| Azerbaijan/Armenia war. Drones give the power of having a full
| fledged air force to small countries.
| baybal2 wrote:
| The role of drones in a big conflict is a tactical warfare
| again regaining critical importance.
|
| Mid-sized drones are an unkillable airforce, following the
| front-line, with very small logistic footprint.
|
| This way, nuclear countries cannot simply nuke your few
| airfields, and deprive your force in the field of air cover,
| and then bomb you with impunity with cheap bombs.
|
| It very much means, a big conventional army can now get a
| decent chance to reach your capital in case of continental
| conflict even if you nuke all their airfields, and supply
| caches.
|
| In fact, a lighter force can now have much bigger chances to
| win than a heavier one, burdened by expensive toys, with huge
| demand on supplies, which will run out of fuel in a day if
| the supply chain is interrupted. A tank without fuel is just
| a bunker with 50 cal. on top.
| yellow_postit wrote:
| satellite sabotage/hijacking/repair is a field I would foresee
| parallel accelerating development in. The critical path for
| comms and vision when paired with drones makes leo a likely
| playground but with the fun dynamics of many amateur
| astronomers being able to watch what's going on.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Here we analyze the evolution of key military technologies in a
| sample of pre-industrial societies world-wide covering almost
| 10,000 years of history using Seshat: Global History Databank.
|
| Does anyone here know about that Seshat Databank? It looks
| fascinating, and I ran into it someplace else too. What is its
| scope? Who actually uses it and for what?
| nradov wrote:
| You can just read their own description.
|
| http://seshatdatabank.info/seshat-about-us/
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Re: Lazy Saturday Accommodations:
|
| About Us Seshat: Global History Databank is a large,
| international, multidisciplinary team of evolutionary
| scientists, historians, anthropologists, archaeologists,
| economists, and other social scientists. Our team includes
| scholars from various backgrounds, policy makers, and
| enthusiastic volunteers. Seshat is governed by an editorial
| board, who oversee work done by postdoctoral researchers,
| collaborators and consultants, and research assistants all
| over the world. We are a nonprofit organization housed by the
| innovative Think-Tank the Evolution Institute. Our mission is
| to gather information from historical societies in order to
| rigorously test different hypotheses about the rise and fall
| of large-scale societies across the globe and human history.
|
| The Seshat: Global History Databank is an umbrella
| organization for numerous research projects that examine
| different facets or themes of human life. Each project is
| headed by various members of the Seshat Team along with a
| group of consultants and contributing experts. Support for
| our research comes from a variety of private donors,
| academic, and governmental funding sources. The Seshat
| (project) Wikipedia page provides some additional information
| about how the project is organized and funded.
|
| We also rely on the efforts of our team of Research
| Assistants and Volunteers -- see how you can get involved in
| this exciting organization!
| enzino wrote:
| One has to wonder how much of military "tech" is simply fake.
| Until its use is demonstrated in war (which i absolutely do not
| advocate, and is known to affected by propaganda as well), all
| the incentives from weapons' manufacturers and buyers are to
| exaggerate features and effectiveness. The main victim is the
| gullible public, who funds the military-industrial complex with
| taxes.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| Or just catastrophically malfunction. What % of ICBMs launched
| from silos in the Midwest will fail and land inside the US?
| What % of those actually trigger?
| ArtWomb wrote:
| Arthur C. Clark's "Superiority" comes to mind ;)
| throw3849 wrote:
| Most countries have real safety concerns and their weapons are
| VERY effective.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It serves another purpose: Deterring potential enemies and
| giving confidence to allies. For example, the US has
| contributed to international peace East Asia for generations in
| part by having underlying muscle available. And today, if the
| US military tech was removed, I have a hard time imagining that
| alliances with Japan, S Korea, and others, not to mention
| Taiwan's freedom, would survive.
| pasabagi wrote:
| Wait, what? Did you miss the bit where they bombed North
| Korea until they had killed about one fifth of the
| population, and destroyed basically every form of standing
| shelter? Or the war in Vietnam? Or the support for South
| Korean dictators, even as they murdered their own people?
|
| If that's a contribution to international peace, I hate to
| imagine what you'd think was a contribution to regional
| instability.
|
| Even on a modern level, I think it's arguable that the 90's
| gulf war, and then the 2000's one, were the drivers behind a
| massive up-arming amongst states around the world that saw
| themselves as on the US's potential 'regime change' hitlist.
| It's often touted as a reason for China's massive arms
| buildup, for example.
| [deleted]
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Even if 90% of military tech is fake (and I think "fake" more
| usually means "we think it works, but turns out it doesn't"),
| the other 10% can completely tip the scales in a war, to
| disastrous effect (to the loser). History has a lot of examples
| of technology which seemed preposterous until it completely
| turned the tides of battles or wars (radar, tanks, mustard gas,
| atomic bombs...)
|
| Drone warfare is pretty clearly in this camp. Not a lot of
| people followed the Armenia / Azerbaijan war last year, but
| Armenia was fighting a war from 10 years ago (trench + urban
| warfare), and they got slaughtered by armed drones. It was a
| wipeout.
|
| Nobody wants to be the Armenians in the next war... and often
| that means wasting a lot of money figuring out what the next
| breakthrough is.
| enzino wrote:
| your comment shows little knowledge of history. wars,
| historically, have been won by the parties with the strongest
| economy. that's even true for pre-historical conquests, as
| far as we know. ww2 was won by the midwest industrial base,
| and (mostly), the soviet's. check out the ussr industrial
| growth in the 30s. (they didn't have the fed wrecking havoc.)
| today there's no match for china, this is not even
| controversial. thankfully they're smart enough to understand
| that war doesn't make sense.
| remarkEon wrote:
| What.
|
| The US spent 20 years fighting goat herders with AK-47s,
| and lost. The CCCP did the same and also lost, albeit they
| left actually left when they realized is was a mess (with a
| little help from CIA, sure). There are other obvious
| examples.
|
| Economic might is a major determinant in how well you can
| prosecute a war but it is by no means the only thing that
| matters.
| FromHoiPolloi wrote:
| The vast majority of wars have been won by the party with
| stronger economy. There are of course exceptions.
| Especially when the theater of operation is on the other
| side of the globe (i.e. 1776)
| enzino wrote:
| unless you live on the moon, it should be clear by now
| that the afghanistan occupation's main objective was to
| enrich contractors. the mission was accomplished.
| remarkEon wrote:
| I was there, so believe me I'm plenty familiar with the
| grift that went on. But your characterization of economic
| might Uber alles is not accurate, which was my point.
| enzino wrote:
| My objective is not to belittle the contribution of
| individuals in war efforts. Clearly wars are won by
| soldiers. But technology matters. Cement to make roads.
| Steel to make ak47s (which are much more valuable, per
| kilo of raw material, than drones). Coal to power it all.
| And so on.
| s5300 wrote:
| Mujahideen that turned into Taliban were literally
| trained by the CIA.
|
| Calling them goat herders is either ignorance, racism, or
| pushing whatever agenda you're trying to push.
|
| Unless you're specifically speaking of the lowest caliber
| grunts of their infantry, in which theirs are nearly the
| same as ours. Mostly uneducated cannon fodder.
|
| But yes, the US completely intentionally drew out the 20
| years of war to put money in the military industrial
| complexes pockets. The Taliban tried to surrender 2-3
| months after we first attacked them IIRC, and we said no.
| remarkEon wrote:
| Unless those mujahideen were time travelers, no they were
| not the same taliban I was fighting when I was there. I'm
| well aware of the early history of how the Taliban
| developed as a CIA proxy war against Soviet Union. It had
| little to do with who we were fighting when we were
| actually there. It's a Reddit-tier reductionist reading
| of history to laugh it off as "you were fighting the
| people CIA trained".
|
| >Calling them goat herders is either ignorance, racism,
| or pushing whatever agenda you're trying to push.
|
| I'm accurately describing the people I personally fought
| in this war. Good to know it's racist to accurately
| describe them.
|
| > Unless you're specifically speaking of the lowest
| caliber grunts of their infantry, in which theirs are
| nearly the same as ours. Mostly uneducated canon fodder.
|
| I actually laughed out loud at this.
| s5300 wrote:
| I wasn't trying to imply that anybody fighting post 2000
| or even earlier is fighting the people the CIA trained.
|
| I'm saying that today's Taliban receive training by
| yesterday's Taliban/whatever tribal spinoffs came from
| that who were trained by the CIA.
|
| Is that anything like the direct US Military/CIA
| training? No, but the tribal knowledge of what _was_
| learned doesn 't just disappear, it gets passed down.
|
| Do you think it wasn't at all passed down? I too have
| more than one friend in the marines that went on multiple
| deployments mid 2000's-2010's. They seem to think it's a
| fairly reasonable argument.
|
| I see no point in the goat herders comment. We don't
| refer to our basic infantry as former "factory laborers",
| "retail workers", "hamburger flippers", or "highschool
| dropouts" - all occupations I've seen go into the army,
| and end up as actively deployed infantry.
|
| I don't know though. If you want to say the hamburger
| flippers got blown up by the goat herders IED, feel free.
| [deleted]
| User23 wrote:
| The US "cannon fodder" comes from the most advanced
| civilian gun culture in the world. To this day the US
| federal government actively supports civilian
| marksmanship.
|
| It was entertaining seeing how the CIA taught the 2021
| Taliban proper trigger discipline compared to the fingers
| resting on the trigger of a machine gun photos of the
| early 2000s. Shades of Kipling there.
| s5300 wrote:
| Do you know what the Army Commendation medal is? To my
| knowledge, it's mostly something that is given after your
| first deployment/duty, fairly common but you have to have
| done something meaningful.
|
| A friend of mine got his commendation medal in what I
| believe was Basic training (and this was just national
| guard), or training slightly after basic. This, from his
| understanding at the time, was fairly uncommon/unheard
| of.
|
| Why he received the medal? He was the singular person in
| his platoon/training regiment that shot a perfect
| score/sheet in their rifle marksman class. For some
| reason, very few others came even close to perfect, most
| more towards the (lol) average of what was required, or
| worse than that.
|
| He got a lot of questions from his peers as to what he
| was doing differently to have so seemingly easily scored
| perfectly. He said he wasn't really sure... asked "did
| you zero your rifles?"
|
| By his account, he was quite literally the singular
| person, of a group of people all having military training
| and fucking around with firearms and live ammunition,
| that read the actual manual, instructions, and properly
| zeroed his rifle.
|
| So, while you may perceive "comes from the most advanced
| civilian gun culture in the world" to be true, I somewhat
| disagree on its merits and propose that if the Taliban
| infantry are indeed goat herders, they may have more
| hands on experience in properly using firearms, as animal
| husbandry in areas like Afghanistan has some livestock
| preditors they must be wary about. That and the whole
| growing up in a completely unstable place constantly in
| some form of war/conflict.
|
| I have however heard reports from the tales of General
| Butt Naked & Co, that down in West Africa and such, that
| the child soldiers know nothing other than the idea of
| "big number equal good"
|
| And so, they set the windage sights on their AK's to the
| highest number, and end up shooting completely over the
| heads of people 20 feet from them. Perhaps these are the
| types you're thinking of when you say Afghani goat
| herder? No, you may be thinking of African child
| soldiers.
| User23 wrote:
| > So, while you may perceive "comes from the most
| advanced civilian gun culture in the world" to be true, I
| somewhat disagree on its merits and propose that if the
| Taliban infantry are indeed goat herders, they may have
| more hands on experience in properly using firearms, as
| animal husbandry in areas like Afghanistan has some
| livestock preditors they must be wary about.
|
| Your point is well taken, and I don't know when your
| anecdote is from, but rural Americans definitely use guns
| as an agricultural tool. Hunting season laws don't apply
| to wildlife that's damaging crops or worrying livestock.
| In my neck of the woods everyone knows how to zero their
| rifle, because one shot is the most you're going to get.
|
| I don't mean to say Americans are neo-Spartans or
| anything, just that I'm willing to bet the average Ame
|
| > I have however heard reports from the tales of General
| Butt Naked & Co, that down in West Africa and such, that
| the child soldiers know nothing other than the idea of
| "big number equal good"
|
| I heard that anecdote applied to the Bush War.
| enzino wrote:
| It's sad to hear that the neo-marxist lowering of
| educational standards is also happening in the military.
| Our faith rests with the self-regulated militia.
| s5300 wrote:
| I don't know what self-regulated militia you speak of,
| but I hope they have a way to survive MIRV's & a supply
| chain that isn't reliant on fast food and Wal-Mart,
| because any domestic group that can't will likely be
| stopped the second our government feels like stopping
| them.
| enzino wrote:
| That was just a word play on the 2nd amendment. They
| couldn't stop the Afghans with GSM-targeted drone-
| delivered missiles though :)
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| > The Taliban tried to surrender 2-3 months after we
| first attacked them IIRC, and we said no.
|
| The problem with fighting people who may have wronged you
| but have not seized any of your territories, yet whose
| values and principles are far from your own is that you
| can only accept unconditional surrender.
|
| Otherwise, why fight.
| enzino wrote:
| One could think of rural hipsters with goats in america.
| I think characterizing Afghans as poor fighters was part
| of the propaganda push. "They're so weak, no way we'll
| lose." Turns out those goat herders have successfully
| expelled invaders since recorded history.
| FromHoiPolloi wrote:
| The USSR was perfectly capable of wrecking havoc on itself
| without the fed. While the Soviet evacuation of it's
| industry to the east was impressive one must not forget the
| massive aid the USSR received from the western allies.
| remarkEon wrote:
| Yeah, I've been waiting for a full reading of last year's
| Armenian/Azerbaijani conflict but haven't seen anything that
| runs down the full event. Any links? Thus far I've found some
| YouTube or other video clips. Looking for a more technical
| exploration of how that tech was used.
| wikidani wrote:
| I believe there's a fairly comprehensive report on the
| Bayraktar TB2 and its use on this blog [oryxspioenkop.com].
| You might want to check out popular front on instagram as
| well
| mNovak wrote:
| I recall The War Zone [1] having pretty good coverage of
| the tech component.
|
| [1] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone
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