[pie42000]

This is a really silly, outdated world view. You don't need everyone to fight to defend countries now, we have autonomous fighter jets, satellites, nuclear submarines, robots that can do parkour while carrying hundreds of pounds of gear (machine guns, rocket launchers), remote control drones that can deliver predator missiles to targets across the globe. You don't need everyone to fight to defend countries anymore. You just need a faction of the population to be into militarism and nationalism and they'll be the warrior class that commands the robot armies that will wage the warfare of tomorrow.

And looking even more forward, as corporations replace/control the government (basically already happening), the corporations will mediate armed conflicts and facilitate global cooperation in the interest of global profits. Warfare will be waged via tariffs, sanctions, and embargoes.

[rossdavidh]

Thanks for the optimistic world view! :) Well, if warfare does become entirely automated, I think you would still need a nation willing to pay for that, and also willing to run the risk of it when, say, another nation tries to pick off Hawaii or whatever.

Plus, warfare waged via tariffs, sanctions, and embargoes, by throwing it back into economics, would definitely require a feeling of national solidarity to stand up to it. If a supplier of oil, coal, lumber, iron ore, etc. declares an embargo until your country changes some policy, do voters tell their leaders to cave in to keep the supply coming, or do they tell them to be uncompromising and tighten their belts? If they have no real sense of national identity anyway, I think it would be harder to get them to tighten their belts.