As I write in the summer of 2004, assymetrical warfare can be very rewarding to the attacker since the cost of destruction has dropped, but not the cost of building.
Over the past half century — and perhaps before that, but I don't know, the cost of destruction has dropped compared to the cost of people.
In the 1960s or 1970s, I remember reading an article that explained how much an F-4 Phantom jet could destroy, with only two crewmen on board, compared to a World War II bomber, with many more crew. (As I remember, both airplanes could carry the same weight of bombs.) The thesis of the article was that in the twenty years after 1945, rich countries' militaries increased their efficiencies, as measured in terms of how many buildings they could destroy for a billion US dollars of spending, or the number of people they could kill; and this was with ordinary chemically-based explosives, not with nuclear explosives.
Progress has proceeded apace. In 2001, it was possible for a military accountant to spend a half million dollars or less, and nineteen lives in a suicide mission, and destroy two symbolic buildings in New York city, kill thousands, and also damage the central US military command post and kill people there, too. The amount of treasure and lives spent by the attackers was small compared to the consequences.
What happens, however, if `quickly reproducing von Neumann machines' move out of the realm of fantasy and come into being? Then the cost of material manufacturing decreases. The two NY Trade Center towers are destroyed; and they are replaced the next day. Material destruction continues to be cheap, but then, so does rebuilding.
What about the people who are killed? That becomes key. It is harder to `back up' people (a common science fiction theme) than it is to build houses and office towers. From an enemy military point of view, the goal ceases being to destroy material symbols, like the Eiffel Tower or Westminister Abbey, but becomes that of killing people.
This means that two, fairly old, science fiction themes, fantastical literary devices, would, if turned into reality, have even more impact than previously imagined.
It goes without saying that one of the themes, `rapidly reproducing von Neumann machines', has not come to be since I first wrote about it in 1980. Comtemporary reality is that the rich parts of the world are vulnerable in ways they were not in generations past. It is always less expensive to destroy than to build; but over the past few generations cost difference has widened dramatically. Assymetrical war is both more possible now than it was, and more available to those without the vast resources of the government of a great power.
Return to: Notions
Or return to: Rattlesnake Home Page