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I can't speak for the entire military[1], but I've known a few "brilliant military minds" and they rarely, if ever, talk in terms of killing. The military's goals are usually things like area denial, disrupting lines of communication, limiting access to materiel and supplies, degradation of morale, etc. These aren't just euphemisms. If you're trying to win a war solely by killing the enemy, you're going to be in for a looooong and bloody war. In fact, there's long been a thinking in the military that "a dead soldier removes one soldier from the field, but a wounded soldier removes two". What makes the military, and war, seem "outdated" or downright "despicable" comes down to, I think, two things: 1. War is often what happens when two sides have let long lingering issues fester to the point that dialogue is not possible. In other words, the only thing anyone wants less than to throw the first punch is to be unable to throw the second. 2. Yes, military industrial complex. Specifically, the MIC has muddled the "goals" and abstracted them away behind many layers of "weapons systems" and "advanced tactics". That is, if you're a general attempting to disrupt lines of communication, and you have to decide on committing the lives of your soldiers and potentially taking the lives of your enemy, you might consider a battle plan that minimizes loss of life. If you're that same general and Raytheon (or Lockheed or Honeywell or...) offers to sell you the CommsRuptor 7000 that will take out enemy communications at the press of a button (and a signature on a check for $300M), you might not adequately question the impact on lives. War used to be about loss of blood and treasure. Lately it seems to be more about treasure and blood... [1] Especially not the "grunts" that see front-line action. I've heard, anecdotally, that enlisted soldiers are often trained in such a way that they enter war zones with raw blood-lust. Whatever your opinion on this practice, I took from your question that you were more interested in the thinking of the decision-makers, i.e. commissioned officers. |