A question about military manpower vs population

[geoschmo]

Starhawk said:
Well another argument Geoschmo is that technology has a way of winding back around in a circular pattern by that i mean eventually technology would nullify it's own effect, some say that we may eventually see the return of WWI and WWII style warfare someday in the future, not because the technology has become primitive again but because both sides having that kind of tech may very well result in a return to the old style of fighting.

Technology never has and never will eliminate the need for technology in battle. Individual pieces of tech can nullify each other's effects, but then another technological advance will come along and upsets the balance. It's a cycle, not a cirlce, between technology to kill and technology to protect from being killed. It's been going on since the second guy used an animal hide to block the first guys stick.

[Starhawk]

geoschmo said:

Technology never has and never will eliminate the need for technology in battle. Individual pieces of tech can nullify each other's effects, but then another technological advance will come along and upsets the balance. It's a cycle, not a cirlce, between technology to kill and technology to protect from being killed. It's been going on since the second guy used an animal hide to block the first guys stick.

Oh you misunderstand me I did not mean that technology becomes irrelivent I meant that I've heard/read/saw people who argue to the fact that okay say a hundred years from now side

A. Has lasers, tanks, armor that protects against lasers, nukes and nuclear defense systems.

Side B: Also Lasers, tanks, armor that protects agaisnt lasers, nukes, and nuclear defense systems.

Side A- v-Side B
Laser Anti-laser armor
Anti-Laser armor Laser
Nuke Anti Nuke
Anti Nuke Nuke
Tank Tank
Airpower Airpower
Sea Power Sea Power

Now what they said is basically that because both sides become roughly equal do to the very technology that gives them an advantage their "advanced weapons" are neutralized as "advanced" by the fact that they have "advanced countermeasures" and likewise these "advanced countermeasures" are rendered un "advanced" by the weaponry employed against them.

Basically it's like pitting two WWI era soldiers against one another they are both now just rendered into just "grunts" fighting one another on such a level playing ground that trench warfare may again rear its ugly head.
Or more likely not a WWI but a WWII because the sides would indeed have tanks and mobility warfare.

So the argument is that the very technology that makes them advanced compared to us levels them out with one another to the point where it would likely come down to attrition warfare again one way or another, where one side simply tries to find the other's technological/numerical breaking point.


Did that make sense this time? (seriously I'm asking because some times I don't type as well as I speak or think)

[El_Phil]

It makes sense.

But I think it's wrong. You will never get then anti-technology evolving at the same rate as the technology. It's not until you know what your fighting against that you can develop an effective counter-measure. So the first use of a clever technology will normally have the edge as no-one has developed the appropriate counter-measures.

So very rarely have a force with a clever weapon and only that clever weapon met a force with the exact clever anti-weapon. In fact the counter-tech tends to be cleverer than the tech it was designed to counter. Take the tank, originally designed just to cross no-mans land and beat machine gun emplacements. Look what it became.