Sci-Fi Author Joe Haldeman On the Future of War

merbs writes: Joe Haldeman wrote what is hailed by many as the best military science fiction novel ever written, 1974's The Forever War. In this interview, Haldeman discusses what's changed since he wrote his book, what hasn't, and what the future of war will really look like. Vice reports: "...The Vietnam War may have ended decades ago, but our military adventuring hasn’t. Our moment can somehow feel simultaneously like a crossroads for the technological future of combat and another arbitrary point on its dully predictable, incessantly conflict-laden trajectory. We’re relying more on drones and proxy soldiers to fight our far-off wars, in theaters far from the conscionable grasp of homelands, we’re automating robotics for the battlefield, and we’re moving our tactics online—so it seems like an opportune time to check in with science fiction’s most prescient author of military fiction."

Comments

I've always said

[Ol Olsoc]

If we aren't killing people, what the hell is the point of war?

It sounds crass and nasty. But if we have manned engines of war fighting other unmanned enginnes of war, there is no point.

Because everyone else will catch up. It won't always be unmanned on people, all will eventually have dronish devices.

Be cheaper to run simulations and the best one wins.

Re: I've always said

[HagbardCeline6909]

War with no killing is called Diplomacy.

Re:I've always said

[pushing-robot]

Giant robots fighting giant robots is its own reward.

Re: I've always said

[TWX]

War with no battles is Diplomacy. There are still casualties.

Re: I've always said

[TWX]

The M16 is powerful enough to kill. It's not powerful enough to kill in nearly all circumstances. If you're fighting an enemy that treats their battlefield-wounded soldiers like you treat yours- expending effort to rescue them and save their lives after they've been wounded, it works just as effectively as a more powerful round that has a greater chance of killing. If anything it's probably better, as the ammunition is smaller and lighter, the recoil is less, and the soldier can carry more rounds. When your enemy doesn't have effective aid stations, doesn't have field hospitals, doesn't have ambulances or helicopters, and can't really take care of their wounded and worse, might even seek glory in death while fighting, using a round that doesn't kill as quickly and might even leave a wounded man capable of fighting after being hit then it's an issue.

Re:I've always said

[Ol Olsoc]

the unassailble fact that humanity is in everlasting war

sophomoric drivel

Really Okay first thing you have to do is prove that war is a rare punctuation of the normal condition, peace and harmony. Then prove we don't like it.

war is not an ongoing process

SRSLY? Here's a listing of US wars just the 20th century: Some overlap due to turn of century..

Yaqui war - 1896-1918

Phillipine-American War - 1899-1902

Moro rebellian - 1899 - 1913

Boxer Rebellion - 1899 - 1901

Crazy Snake - 1909

Mexican border war - 1910 - 1919

Bannana War Negro Rebellion - 1912

Nicaraaugua occupation - 1912 - 1933

Bluff War - 1914 - 1915

Bananna War Haiti occupation - 1915 - 1934

Bananna War Sugar - 1916 - 1918

Dominican Republic occupation - 1916 - 1924

World War 1 - 1917 1918

Russian Civil War - 1918 - 1920

Samsum Turkey - 1922

Posey War - 1923

World War 2 - 1941 - 1945

Korean War - 1950 - 1953

Lebanon - 1958

Bay of Pigs 1961

Dominican Civil War 1965 - 1966

Vietnam War 1965 - 1973

Zaire - 1978

Lebanese Civil War - 1982 - 1984

Grenada - 1983

Tanker war when Iraq was a ally - 1987 - 1988

Panama - 1989 - 1990

Gulf War 1 - 1990 - 1991

Iraq No Fly - 1991 - 2003

Somalia 1992 - 1995

Haiti - 1994 - 1995

Bosnia - 1994 - 1995

Kosovo - 1998 - 1999

And to bring it to the present

Afghanistan- 2001 to present

Iraq as enemy 2001 - 2011

Pakistan Drone strikes 2004 - present

Ocean Shield 2009 - present Libya - 2011

ISIL - 2014 - present

So "sophomoric" or not, I'm right.

And your thesis that it's all leaders, sorry, it isn't - we elect them, and our young folks are quite willing to go to fight and die and kill- except for some notables who ironically in their older years, want to use war as an economic stimulus.

This isn't an anti-war screed, I'm nowhere near a pacifist. All I'm doing is stating a pretty simple truth. We love this shit. Otherwise we wouldn't do it so often or so well, or with so little opposition from the populous.

Re:I've always said

[Bing Tsher E]

The fact that we had daily body counts in Vietnam kinda argues against that.

No, that just shows that journalists needed something to talk about. Regularly reported body counts weren't driven by the military, they were ordered by politicians pandering to the media.

Re:I've always said

[sexconker]

"nobody wins wars"

LOL HOLY SHIT
You really believe that, don't you?

Entire countries exist today because they won wars.

Re:I've always said

[0123456]

Plus you seem to be arguing that humans don't enjoy killing each other? It's what we do best.

Uh, no, it's not. I don't believe there's any other predator that can live with so little violence with the kind of population densities humans manage in our cities. That's why we took over the planet.

Re: I've always said

[Dutch Gun]

Nixon committed a war crime in 1969 when he made it the standard rifle for the U.S. Army. He should have been put in prison for that.

The weapon first entered service in 1963 in Vietnam. You should be blaming McNamara, in Kennedy's administration, who ramrodded the damned thing through before it was properly field-ready. There were a number of issues - lack of chromed barrel, change in powder type, no cleaning kits, etc - which decreased it's efficiency and reliability in the field. It was in those early years between 1963 and 1969 that the most issues were reported.

By 1967, the weapon was significantly improved with the M16A1 variant, and by 1969, when the weapon was standardized, it was a good, reliable weapon, according to field reports. Because of earlier problems, though, a lot of servicemen continued to be wary of the weapon.

You can blame Nixon for a lot of things, but the M-16 debacle wasn't one of them.

Can't trust Michael Moore.

[Okian Warrior]

Michael Moore "Where to invade next?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I really like controversial movies that make a statement, even ridiculous or logically flawed ones. They are a springboard for debate and discussion, and even the bad ones can help clarify our thoughts. Exactly *where* is his argument wrong? And so on. ...but they have to be sincere and truthful.

Michael Moore edited and remixed dialog in "Bowling for Columbine" so that people appeared to say things that they didn't actually say. It was done so badly and so blatantly (ie - it's so blatant and pervasive that he can't claim it was accidental), that he lost all credibility.

It's really a shame. I like his earlier works, and Columbine was a ripe subject for political statement, but you just can't gin up a fight by putting words in people's mouths.

You have to show what they *really* said, and in enough context so that their intended meaning comes through.

Sadly, I don't watch Michael Moore works any more. You just can't trust him.

Re:Can't trust Michael Moore.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have citations for this? I'm not trying to be snarky here; this is a genuine question. I watched Bowling for Columbine about half a life-time ago and didn't pick up on any of that; I would be interested to see if it is the case, but not so interested as to acquire and rewatch the entire movie looking for bad editing.

Re:Can't trust Michael Moore.

[I'm New Around Here]

To add to this, he made a movie against evil capitalism, yet lived in a large mansion in a whites only gated community, and had all the post-production work done in Canada because it's cheaper there.

He is a sham, and there is nothing he says that has any value anymore.

Re:Can't trust Michael Moore.

[Okian Warrior]

Do you have citations for this? I'm not trying to be snarky here; this is a genuine question. I watched Bowling for Columbine about half a life-time ago and didn't pick up on any of that; I would be interested to see if it is the case, but not so interested as to acquire and rewatch the entire movie looking for bad editing.

For the record, I snark at people who are snarky. Honest questions and differences of opinion that *don't* cast personal aspersions are warmly welcomed.

I apologize, I actually thought this was well known.

There are lots of dissections of the film on the net, but the clearest one I read at the time posted Charleton Heston's speech side-by-side with the video dialog. It's available here.

Specifically, Moore cuts and pastes quotes from two of Heston's speeches together, giving the impression that he said both of them in the speech immediately after Columbine. Heston has lavender shirt/tie in one speecn, and white shirt/red tie in another. Moore covers this with a cut scene of a billboard between the video clips, while the narration is seamless.

More specifically, the "cold dead hands" quote from Heston was not made at the speech after Columbine. By seamlessly editing that quote into the supposed speech, he paints Heston as heartless and uncaring.

And as a further note, and I'm doing this from memory of the movie, Moore asks a lot of the convention holders whether they should have cancelled the event out of respect for the Columbine shooters. He gives the distinct impression that the convention was held in callous disregard for the feelings of the affected Columbine families.

In point of fact, *this* is what Heston (NRA president) actually said in that speech:

I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today. Or course, you have a right to be here. As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. As your president, I apologize for that.

But it's fitting and proper that we should do this. Because NRA members are, above all, Americans. That means that whatever our differences, we are respectful of one another and we stand united, especially in adversity.

And I remember personally, while seeing the movie, noting that the convention (Charlotte, NC) was around 1,500 miles, from Columbine, and wondering how far away does something have to be to not cancel a convention.

Google for Bowling for Columbine Truth and such like, there's lots of expose's about it.

Moore was simply going for emotional appeal, and lost his integrity doing it.

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[account_deleted]

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.223 calibre highly lethal

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why the M-16 was invented. It isn't powerful enough to kill. It is a 22 caliber. The rifles at the time didn't cause enough suffering.

The M-16 was *more* lethal than the .30 calibre rifles that preceded it, M-14, M1 Garand. Although .223 calibre don't make the mistake of thinking its anything like the .22LR you may have plinked at soda cans with. Its a high velocity round, much faster than it's predecessor's .30 calibre rounds. So that gets it closer with respect to energy delivered to target. However the admittedly cruel thing that makes the .223 deadlier is that it is less stable than its .30 calibre predecessors. It doesn't drill a clean hole through a person, the round has a tendency to tumble when it hits a person, doing a lot more tearing and shredding of tissue. As I said, cruel.

Some US Special Forces troops who originally tested the Armalite AR-15, the prototype of what would become the M-16, were a bit skeptical at the smaller calibre at first but after a few engagements were surprised and considered it more lethal than the .30 cal M-14.

After evaluating the .223's effectiveness against their Vietnamese allies in the war the Russians went to a similar calibre, actually about 0.1mm smaller, in the AK-74 that replaced the AK-47. You only see the .30 calibre AK-47s around because the Russians gave away/sold their huge inventories after the switch, the .30 calibre weapons were considered second tier gear.

Can you list any reasons?

[Okian Warrior]

I will say, though, that I disagree with you that a tragedy like Columbine should have some sort of geographical limit to its impact. We live in a connected world, and for better or worse one of the impacts of that is that such tragedies affect the world (or at least the first world) more or less simultaneously. I think the days where you can claim "oh, that happened miles (or thousands of miles) away, it shouldn't impact us" are long gone.

I disagree with you completely on that point.

John Cleese believes that the purpose of solemnity is to enforce control: control over people, over their actions, and over their natures.

Cleese got a lot of shit from making fun of the life of Christ, and that was half a world away and 2000 years ago(*). Because he wasn't solemn about it.

We hear weekly about bombs going off in India or Syria, a cop shoots an unarmed black man every week in the USA (on average), and of late there's an endless string of "baby found dead" stories in the news.

Must we live in a continual state of solemnity?

This is how people get controlled, how their behaviour gets corralled and guided. Comedians are quick to point out that humor is the best way to get us past a tragedy, but I've often wondered whether there's anything special about humor.

Not having the convention because of some unrelated incident is simple emotional control.

Can you give me any rational reasons why I should change my behaviour over... well... anything?

(Rational meaning: not based on emotion.)

(*) And was the first person to say "shit" on British television, the first person to say "fuck" at a British funeral (Graham Chapman's)