Free-roaming killer drones stalk the battlespace looking for organic
targets. Human combatants are programmed to feel no pain. Highpower
microwave beams detonate munitions, jam communications, and cook
internal organs.
Is this vision of future war possible, or even inevitable? In this
timely new book, Everett Carl Dolman examines the relationship between
science and war. Historically, science has played an important role in
ending wars - think of the part played by tanks in breaching trench
warfare in the First World War, or atom bombs in hastening the Japanese
surrender in the Second World War - but to date this has only increased
the danger and destructiveness of future conflicts. Could science ever
create the con-ditions of a permanent peace, either by making wars
impossible to win, or so horrific that no one would ever fight?
Ultimately, Dolman argues that science cannot, on its own, end war
without also ending what it means to be human.