Interlude: "Democratization of Warfare"

In Women Warriors by Fabius Maximus, the reality of women and child soldiers is discussed. The author points out that modern warfare has essentially become an undertaking devoid of honor. He concludes:

What drives this democratization of warfare, providing women and children the opportunity to die for their tribe, religion, or nation?

Technology is the obvious candidate. Many powerful weapons require little strength, such as pulling the trigger on an AK-47 or detonating 10 kg of SEMTEX wrapped around your waist.

Today even the physically weak can fight. And they do fight, proving that bravery is a universal aspect of the human spirit. Many kinds of societies send women and children to fight and die, another example of the soulless, Darwinian nature of warfare. What works gets used. Even the most fundamental social rules bow to the necessities of war.

Consider this trend from another perspective.

Many armies have traditionally relied on “stand-off” weapons, such as cavalry armed with the
composite bow, to combat heavy infantry. Now armies can in some circumstances rely almost
entirely on mines, mortars, and missiles – with no need to even face their enemy.

We see this in Iraq, where about 2/3 of our deaths result from insurgents’ IEDs. We see the
same trend in our own forces, as the day nears when remotely piloted vehicles sweep manned
aircraft from the sky. What need for the traditional warrior virtues in this form of combat? Bravery, discipline, and loyalty have no role. Armies themselves become unnecessary in any conventional sense. Perhaps armies become strange in form, mixing fighters who face their foe and those who do not – a more radical divide than anything in today’s military.

These trends affect all soldiers in another way. Warfare is an intimate relationship between
enemies. What glory for our elaborately equipped soldiers when they kill “armies” containing
women and children? Or for a “pilot” sitting in a comfortable chair, commanding a RPV to drop
500-pound bombs on a densely populated neighborhood hundreds of miles distant?

This puts a new spin on Thomas Barnett’s sunny tales about a future in which American
Expeditionary forces sail off to civilize dark corners of the world. To do so means wars of a kind alien to our culture and experience. Are we willing to kill women and children soldiers who are defending their cultures, however misguided we believe them to be?
This is our times’ Revolution in Military Affairs, perhaps the most significant in many millennia.

What might this mean for warfare as a social phenomenon?
Often the entrance of significant numbers of women into a profession both lowers its social
standing and sparks an exodus of men. Examples are teaching in the United States and medicine
in the Soviet Union.

The increased role of women in both conventional and unconventional armies might do this for
warfare. The increased role of children in guerilla warfare might do so even more powerfully,
especially in tribal societies where the role of Warrior has deep connections with concepts of manhood and glory.

Perhaps men will no longer see war as a high status occupation, but just another nasty but
occasionally necessary task. Like fixing sewers.

We will have moved from the Clausewitz’s ordered theater of war to a new world where war
becomes a more primal thing – still terrible, but with little room for glory or honor.
Perhaps then it will become less common.

Perhaps that is an acceptable trade-off, if one wants to live in societies that send women and children to fight and die – or sends soldiers to kill armies of women and children -- for politically convenient goals.

For myself, it seems better to stay at home, waging defensive warfare.

I would have to agree with this sentiment. The fact is aggression through warfare can only end when the warriors refuse to fight. Even for the warrior, killing for the lies of politicians is becoming less attractive. Personally, if I am not defending myself or my own, then I have no interest (which is why the military never had any appeal). It would appear others are beginning to agree. The inevitable conclusion is that those who wage aggression are a threat to be defended against. My question is when will the obvious next step be taken?