this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2025
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[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yes, but there are people in the USA who have made systems solving very complex tasks. Suppose people who've built Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google - suppose they build the robotized system that is going to fight such a war. (Which is also similar to what Russia and Ukraine did, their new military development is all around local analogs of those companies.)

They have a whole new MIC emerging, with Palantir and more general companies developing new weapons. Mostly, like I said, autonomous drones (meaning far longer range, smaller vulnerability to jamming and miniaturization - what can you do against a killer bird the size of your fist?).

Russia and Ukraine are mostly fighting using drones and artillery now, with very small suicide groups of people used to find openings, infiltrate lines and take pieces of territory.

Suppose a military fighting just like today's Russian or Ukrainian one attacks an unprepared old one, with very expensive and big AD batteries, artillery, tanks, infantry transports and so on, unprotected from swarms of cheap drones immediately killing anything detected. They might be able to wipe it all out like a week before the world around will realize that such a blitzkrieg has happened.

Also not only swarms themselves, but modern tools of operational control. Lots of blunders are due to living humans panicking or making emotional decisions and shows, or just not being able to process information quickly enough. Due to struggle for power, or crime. A swarm of drones doesn't have those problems.

In any case, for the purpose of this fear it only makes sense to explore the possibility of it not making a blunder. What if yes - if yes, then either the general west supports such a war and Mexico is done, just slowly, like Gaza, or it doesn't and then, I guess, the US is going to slowly drift out of relevance.

EDIT: And that fantasy of mine is connected to a situation where US leadership goes almost Khmer Rouge. So - a clearly suicidal, but murderous scenario. So - control over millions in such a model is done by killing many.

But you are right in there not being anything resembling such amount of equipment available now to use. So I'd expect all this to be at least a decade away even if it can happen.