War Making Capacity.

 

War Making Capacity

There is no human activity more economically obsolete than making war, but it remains entertained as a handy way to force a change, any change, not necessarily good either.

However, back in the day, with the rise of industrial war, it proved possible for a country to put ten percent of its population under arms.  What I am now saying is that modernity and technology has changed that by empowering the full participation of women.  That said, full mobilization will conscript twenty percent of the whole population.

Understand that we still need the MkI combat male doing his thing.  However he now has drone wingmen able to support his activity.  This can mean literally a million drones packing all sorts of munitions operated far away.  All this and other support roles can easily use up all female manpower away from actual harm.

My take home is that a modern society, converting to a War economy can combine robot factories and twenty percent of the population into a far larger war machine than historically imagined.  yet without proper training we are watching replays of WWI. 

You cannot win a battle without accepting casualties and without training, those expand exponentially.

Far too often decision makers are fooled into throwing the dice because they expect their opponent to roll over.  Certainly the south could not have expected a determined response by the North at the beginning of the USA Civil War.  The exact same holds true for the current Ukraine war.  When that does not happen, access to war material decides the contest.  This does not get better for Russia simply because their tech cannot be replaced with better gear.