Created with the aid of Gemini AI
Back in tribal days, the war leader was usually the best fighter, and he led from the front. The main development of war tactics in the last couple of millennia has been the gradual movement of the leaders away from danger. Since Medieval times, the noble/serf relationship has dominated the battlefield, with the serfs taking the brunt of the battle.
The Common Soldier
As far as the soldiers were concerned, the apex of feudal warfare was WWI, where thousands of volunteer soldiers struggled back and forth across the muddy fields of northern Europe, directed by generals whose only tactic was to throw huge numbers of men against each other, and hope some of them survived. Then Hitler invented the blitzkrieg, and technology began to supersede manpower.
However, the development of warfare often involves an aggressor amassing huge amounts of the technology that won the last war and being surprised at the result. The Ukrainians demonstrated this neatly when small squads of men with rockets and drones sowed chaos in columns of Russian tanks. Now they have fielded Unmanned Ground Vehicles for defence, attack, supply and medevac.
For private citizens, however, the scale continues to tip the other way.
Civilian Involvement
WWII created the big change for civilians. Up to that point, the only way you got personally involved in a war is if the front lines were in your vicinity. The invention of the bomber airplane changed all that. Now the front lines were in your own yard no matter where you lived.
However, strategists have learned that bombing a civilian population simply doesn’t work. First London and later German cities were heavily bombed, but the population proved remarkably resilient.
Guerilla Warfare
The battle for democracy during the Cold War brought civilians right into the battlefield, as guerillas hid within the population and government soldiers found it difficult to distinguish one from the other. Civilian deaths accounted for 65% of fatalities in Viet Nam, and up to 75% in Korea. In Gaza that number is around 80%, although Hamas is so embedded in the population it is hard to tell.
The New Reality
Technological advancements lately have created the nine-to-five soldier, who sits at his control desk in a safe place and guides his drones and missiles into battle against civilian and military targets, then goes back to his bunk or even to his apartment to sleep.
The US-Iran war is the poster child for the situation. America has had 18 service members killed. No civilians. Information from Iran is sketchy, but 6000 soldiers and 2000 civilians is a reasonable suggestion. No matter how this war ends, average Americans will only feel it in their pocketbooks, while Iraq will take decades to recover. And still the war rages on, with no end in sight.
Soldiers are being removed from danger, and civilians now provide the casualties.
Imbalance
These observations lead to the suggestion that despite our democracy, there is a large imbalance in power between the leaders running these wars and the common people who are suffering from them. The deaths of thousands of soldiers in WWI meant nothing to the generals who ordered them into no man’s land. Likewise, the deaths of thousands of civilians mean nothing to the would-be dictators whose only objective is their own power.
Looking Ahead
And now we come to the greatest war humanity has ever fought: against climate change. Unfortunately, despite our democratic governments, our economic structure is returning ever closer to the medieval pattern, with a few economic giants and their lackeys calling the shots, and the vast majority of the population following like sheep.
These greedy people are the perpetrators of the problem, with their vast wealth built on the causes of climate change. They have achieved the ultimate in protection from feeling the effects of their actions; by the time the environment crashes, they’ll be long dead and gone.
The innocent victims will be our grandchildren.