Technology makes fighting war easier and more palatable—but it dangerously changes the nature of the fight, argues US Marine veteran Anthony Swofford.
The lust for new defense technology is an insidious attempt to distance ourselves and our leaders from the moral considerations and societal costs of waging war. It’s not so much about the newest tools—swarm drones, exoskeletons, self-guided sniper projectiles. It is that this reliance on technological cool, the assumption that it lessens or alters the lethality of war, allows zero accountability for how, when, and why we fight. All wars must eventually be won with boots on the ground. The problem is not the technology, but the equivocation that high-tech military armament invariably invites. Read his full essay (taken from our upcoming War and Peace print issue) here.
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