The Electronic Battlefield

THE ELECTRONIC BATTLEFIELD

The Russia-Ukraine war is testing new concepts of warfare, heavily dependent on electronics and computers. The classic case is a drone sensing a tank and calling in precision-guided artillery to annihilate it. Combatants use jamming to confuse and neutralize the other side’s electronics and sensors. Massing of men or tanks or other vehicles is out: massing makes better targets. Small units coordinated by electronics are the new way of war.

There are plenty of casualties in the new warfare, but nothing compared to the tens of thousands of casualties each day, for example, in the USSR-Nazi Germany battles.

How does one side “win” on the electronic battlefield? No side “wins”. One side or the other (or both) may exhaust its supplies or trained manpower. But this may not happen if supply chains and manpower sources are deep enough. Either we will have endless wars, or they will be settled by negotiations. 

Source: The Economist, 7/8/23.