Is It Possible to Wage a War without Warriors? The Effects of Robotisation in Small Wars

Abstract

At present, Western armies seem to be engaged only in small wars, e. g. the
war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and this trend is likely to continue in the near
future. From a historical view only a few small wars, with respect to military
superiority, have been won by great powers and, on the contrary, the small
wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan represented the bitterest defeats that the
two Cold War superpowers experienced. Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA)
is supposed to make a change in this uncomfortable trend. However, the
role of the RMA in small wars is very ambiguous. On the one hand, the RMA
could solve the value dilemmas the postmodern western societies are
bound with. It saves the lives of soldiers, and hence it prevents people from
turning their attention to the particular war, and, secondly, it prevents the
soldiers from being conscious of killing, and therefore the soldiers are not
so alienated from their society. On the other hand, modern technologies
alienate soldiers from the war and from their enemy. They prevents them
from understanding and respecting the enemy and therefore the RMA
makes a way to peace by either victory or agreement difficult.