[klausD]

The real observation to be made here is that the 'highly irregular warfare' of the future, where terrorists do their best to attack where our defenses ain't will not be won with heavy weapons. I suspect that the very dangerous merging of police and military that we've already begun to see will continue in the attempt to cope with this problem. We'll have 'SWAT' teams getting more and more heavy-duty and high-tech, and police legal powers getting more and more crazy - as already demonstrate with the 'Patriot' and 'Patriot II' acts.

Well I think this is one of "military" actionswe will see in the future. But it depends on the type of armies which are battling against another. If one army is technologically very superior (like the US army is now) then the other only can do guerilla and media warfare to have a minimum chance of surviving (not winning) The alternative to this "illegal" kind of warfare is only giving up.

But we will see a more conventional warfare (like a high tech WW2 war) if the armies are equal in technology. This could be if china closes up to the US in financial and technological capacity the next 3 or 4 decades.

It is IMO wrong to assume the every war in future will be one of a unconventional mixture of police and military action like it is now in Iraque and several other conflict regions.

In history there has been often a mixture like the above. (romans peace keeping activities in germania and so on) The only difference is that today the media is bringing the cruel war to everybodies home TV and by doing this making the "home front" somewhat discomfortable and angry.

bye
Klaus

sorry for my bad english