| > In the near future, war might be about who can build faster/better and hit the other economy more effectively This has been the assumption for over a decade now. > those who can't produce any more drones, lose Already the norm. Even the Taliban has been operating a drone mass production program for a couple years now [0][1]. > If one side economy collapses and their manufacturing collapse, then what is left? they could easily kill the people, but other nations won't allow it, so it will stop at economical defeat This abstraction of warfare isn't as peaceful as you make it out to be. Operationally, you still need to take out dual use infra which in a number of cases is civilian in nature. The reality is, countries have increasingly accepted that civilian casualties will occur and it doesn't matter because they don't impact tactical goals. [0] - https://www.themiddleeastuncovered.com/p/inside-the-talibans... [1] - https://thekhorasandiary.com/en/2026/03/13/taliban-strengthe... |
For example, in Iraq, Saddam was able to use chemical weapons and wipe out the resistance, this is no longer an accepted solution by majority of people on earth.
So there is no real way to actually win a war. If you can't kill or enslave the other population, and the world is not accepting refugees, if you hit one economy completely you might the global economy. So what do you do? there is actually no real way to win a war as those constraints become strong and stronger. You are left with the only option of nulling the other's economy down and hope they would resign, by better co-ordinating your drones and managing your economy, which is a video game in the real world.