The Automated Battlefield

Sidgwick & Jackson, 1986. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 6.25" x 9.5. h/b 180 pages, condition is very good, small tear to the top edges of the front cover of the DJ. Two related factors are removing human beings from the front line of the battlefield of the future. First, modern warfare is becoming so increasingly lethal and terrible that human beings cannot face it, either physically or psychologically. Secondly, advances in robotics, computer technology and electronics mean that machines can do far more effectively what humans did in previous wars. Frank Barnaby, a distinguished nuclear physicist and scientific writer, analyses with vividness and clarity all aspects of future warfare: the vital intelligence stage; the choice of appropriate weapons for defence and attack; the command and control of weapons; the assessment of damage; the achievement of victory. An amazing new perspective is opened up: commanders will follow future battles on television sets in their command posts and base their decisions on information about enemy forces collected by reconnaissance satellites, remotely piloted vehicles (unmanned aircraft) and a variety of sensors implanted in the ground. The invader will attack with robot-driven tanks and remotely piloted aircraft. The other side will attack these weapons of invasion with missiles; chosen, fired and controlled by computers. And these are not projections of the very distant future - as the author points out, some of this technology is with us now: ground sensors were used by the Americans during the Vietnam War and are currently in operation on the border between Northern Ireland and Eire, while remotely piloted vehicles are used extensively in the Lebanon. Frank Barnaby also raises wider issues - for instance, how will automated warfare affect the relationships of superpowers? Will automated warfare prevent or result in escalation into nuclear warfare? What are the implications of terrorist groups acquiring new automated, very destructive, highly accurate weapons? Finally, Frank Barnaby argues, new weapons and their supporting technologies favour the defence, in terms of cost-effectiveness, to a degree unprecedented in recent history. This means that a conventional, non-nuclear, defensive deterrent is today's most effective military policy.