[Kerrigan]

Battlefield-ready iRobots roll into Washington - Engadget

This cleverly named iRobot is following a trend where nations are stocking up on robotic "soldiers". It got me thinking: in the future, it is plausible that most of the fighting will be done by robots, drones, etc, with humans staying safely behind enemy lines controlling the battle.

If this state of things ever comes to be, then what how would your attitude towards war be changed? Would war be acceptable if very few human lives are lost, and robots carry the burden of combat? And, IF things get to that point, won't war seem even more pointless than it does now?

[Dakar]

Unfortunately wouldn't that mean war is won by those with the most money?

[Kerrigan]

Isn't that the case now? GDP estimations tend to have a strong correlation to determining the winner of a potential war (insurgency wars excluded)

[Chuckit]

That idea doesn't make a lot of sense. At some point, the war will have to come to one country or another, and then it won't just be robots dying. It's not as though one country is going to say, "Well, you sure did give my robots a good thrashing. I'll just let you walk in and take the place now."

[Dakar]

Yes. But right now we still worry about human losses. Without that burden its basically a game of economic chicken, no?

[Chuckit]

As I said, if there is no worry over human losses, neither country has any incentive to admit defeat.

[turtle777]

And what if the other side doesn't have any robots (anymore) ? We stop the war ? How boring.

-t

[osiris]

If the robots are nanobots, we'd never see the war and only hear of who supposedly won/lost.

[imitchellg5]

No. Save the robots and bunnies. Destroy all humans.

[Kerrigan]

Maybe it would be like a forum war, when the other side gets pissed and tired of being attacked with g04tse and tubg1rl, they surrender.

[Kerrigan]

On a serious note, I think the future could be like that. Wars are about asserting authority and/or getting access to resources, killing civilians is usually a byproduct of combat, not the aim. Soldiers are regarded as little more than machines, especially these days.

Remember how they experimented with making soldiers feel no pain, so they would fight to the end? Hardly anything human about that.

So I could see in the future that warfare is about asserting dominance, or a country defending its resources and sovereignty, with robots, and human bloodshed would be something of a taboo. Far fetched, but certainly possible: the future will be a strange place.

[freudling]

War is war. You can't take other people's land, resources, etc. by force, except if you are the USA.

[willed]

War has changed. Big set pieces aren't going to be happening for a long time. Have a look at Iraq and southern Afghanistan; this is the new war. You can call it terrorism if you like as a moral distinction, but to all intents and purposes the two have merged. Yes there will be uses for robots, but robots aren't going to be replacing human combatants and targets for a good long while.

[tboparis]

It's not going to be so much better. There will still be as many human casualties. When the robots will have killed the 'enemy'' robots they will have to kill lots of humans too if they are going to take over a country.

[Dr Reducto]

The problem comes in when we look at the fact that our eneomies we will likely be fighting for the next 20 years, aren't even wearing a government-issued uniform, and thus won't have access to robots or any of that.

So our test will be if the American public is ok with sending in robots to kill people without suffering any human casualties of our own.

Personally, i am all for robots. I think the best possible baance of power is overwhelming superiority, and if other countries don't like it, they can go pound sand. I'd rather have our soldiers lives than the approval of the international community, because when it comes down to it, it's every country for itself

Countries don't wage war for the sake of winning battles. Countries wage war to take their land, kill their people, etc. If both countries agree to fight with robots, they'd probably agree to just play a video game to decide the war. Neither of which are likely to happen.

Now, it's likely in the future, robots will be used to kill enemies, strategic targets, etc., but not just to kill other robots.

[mitchell_pgh]

"Please put your weapon on the ground and walk away"

[Teronzhul]

I've always wanted an ED-209