Techno Fetish

Techno fetishists are already creaming their pants over the demonstration of the new doctrine of remote warfare displayed by the US in the Afghan War. It’s certainly good for initial deployment and aerial interdiction and control, but remains untested for endgame positional tactics using soft assets. But this development is nothing that Our Prophet Philip Dick did not foresee in such stories as Second Variety. It reminds me of how Twain saw the devastating and immobilizing affect on warfare of machine guns and trench technology in the closing chapters of his 1889 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Or HG Wells foreseeing aerial warfare and the bombardment of cities and civilian populations in The War in the Air.

But the techno fetishist is right. Because war is politics by any means necessary, when one approach is blocked the street will find a way to express itself through another. If politicized groups and countries cannot hope to use conventional warfare, then they will move on to more promising avenues and asymmetrical opportunities. Things more horribly inventive than destroying buildings with sharp knives and opportunity.