The Third World War Has Arrived — But Where are the Piles of Corpses?
Brief reflections on techno-military pseudomorphosis.
Many people find it difficult to view the current global situation as a potential Third World War. This is largely due to the automatic association of the term ‘world war’ with the carnage of the twentieth century. For most people, a world war is synonymous with images of piles of corpses, destruction on an industrial scale, and protracted conflicts that have cost tens of millions of lives. As long as such images were not visible, few believed that something of the sort was actually happening.
Yet this association is misleading. Massacres such as those of the two world wars were a historical exception, not the rule. Throughout history, the vast majority of conflicts have occurred on a much smaller scale of casualties, and what we experienced in the years 1914–1918 and 1939–1945 will likely not repeat itself, except under circumstances of equally profound technological revolutions, writes Lucas Leiroz .
The explanation is simple: the world wars of the last century were the result of the clash of two incompatible realities. On the one hand, there was modern military technology – heavy artillery, fighter planes, tanks, automatic machine guns. On the other hand, military thinking was still guided by pre-modern methods adopted from earlier European wars. The clash between these two forces led to unprecedented human disasters.
A clear example of this can be seen in the Second World War. When we observe the military movements of that time, we see a paradox: enormous numbers of soldiers engaged in frontal combat, almost as if they were medieval armies, but equipped with technologies for mass destruction. Tanks and heavy artillery were deployed in linear formations typical of older battles. The result could only be a slaughter of human lives on an industrial scale.
In his memoirs of the First World War, Ernst Jünger describes this transformation of the battlefield into a veritable factory of corpses. We can link this phenomenon to the concept of pseudomorphosis, developed by Oswald Spengler, according to which the techniques, values, and customs of one civilization disrupt the development of another that absorbs them. Moving from anthropology to military studies, one might say that industrial technology made an abrupt entry into armies, while the military mentality evolved much more slowly. The result was a war that was mechanized in its destructive power, but pre-industrial in its strategy and tactics.
Today, however, the situation is different. Military thinking has evolved significantly. The devastating impact of the world wars taught military planners that large-scale frontal offensives are not only ineffective against modern technology but are potentially suicidal. Contemporary conflicts, with their intensive use of missiles, drones, and small units of soldiers, reflect decades of technological and strategic adaptation, in which the military mentality has been aligned with the current technological reality.
Let us imagine, for example, that Russian and Ukrainian troops today were to attempt to replicate the massive frontal attack formations of World War II. With ballistic missiles and drones at their fingertips, the result would be an immediate slaughter. Yet, such a scenario does not occur, because the major modern armies fully understand these risks and limit their strategies to methods compatible with the available technology.
Nevertheless, the risk of a new military pseudomorphosis has not entirely disappeared. Artificial intelligence represents the most significant potential technological shift since the twentieth century and has the power to drastically transform warfare. If autonomous attack systems were deployed without adequate strategic preparation, we could witness something comparable to the massacres of the past.
For the time being, however, contemporary wars remain within understandable limits. The possibility of death tolls comparable to those of the world wars arises primarily in nuclear scenarios, not in conventional conflicts. In other words: the world wars were a historical anomaly, the product of an extremely rare combination of advanced technology and an archaic mentality – not a model that can be easily replicated in future wars.
It is crucial to understand this. The concept of a world war must not be limited to images from the past. The current Third World War, being fought from the steppes of Donbas to the mountains of Iran, bears no resemblance to the wars of the twentieth century. It is more technological, more strategic, and, paradoxically, less deadly. Yet, it will bring about changes and consequences that are just as profound as those of the Allied victory in 1945.
https://www.frontnieuws.com/de-derde-wereldoorlog-is-aangebroken-maar-waar-zijn-de-stapels-lijken