Imagine a war where one side’s soldiers, sailors, and airmen sit in air-conditioned buildings ten thousand miles from the battle. George Patton would curse such an ignominious situation, where troops need not suffer the hardships of the field, sea, or air; where fear and courage do not guide the actions of combatants; and where the warrior neither bleeds nor dies. Yet we are approaching such a state of affairs. Unmanned vehicles operating in the sea, on land, in the air, and in space are filling missions previously conducted by human beings. Precision munitions allow the combatant to attack and kill the enemy from distances measured in hundreds of miles. . . . Not too long ago, a warrior’s ability to strike an enemy was limited to what he could reach with his sword or his spear.

Aerial reconnaissance is now almost exclusively the realm of unmanned aircraft. Battles for control of the sea will increasingly be fought using cruise missiles. The demand for robotic devices that can explore buildings and attack individuals hidden inside is increasing (a radical change from yesterday’s urban warfare, when the presence of an enemy was first known when he opened fire on you). Other battles will be fought using nonkinetic methods of attack.

Throughout history, psychological methods have been used to traumatize an enemy. The Mongols would slaughter all the inhabitants of a town that resisted their attacks to ensure the inhabitants of other towns would surrender when they arrived there. Today we use far more sophisticated psychological methods to achieve the same results.

Today computer viruses can disable vital utility, banking, or communications-control devices. The use of standoff weapons, unmanned vehicles, and nonkinetic attacks raises a number of moral considerations. To be sure, war—killing people and destroying things—is immoral. Yet using military force is often the question of the lesser evil: Do I kill my enemy before he or she kills me? Do I kill the enemy to halt the pillage, rape, and murder being inflicted on a helpless third party?

In the past, the battle—getting shot at—imparted some measure of emotional relief to those engaged in the killing and destruction. Now one can kill the enemy or destroy the target while drinking a cup of coffee, and then go to a nearby Taco Bell for lunch. What will be the effect of a war on such a warrior where only his low-tech enemy bleeds and dies? Will it make war a more acceptable alternative for the resolution of conflicting nations’ interests? Will it inflict long-lasting, perhaps debilitating, psychological scars on combatants who do not feel the fear and anger currently found in battle, yet still turn their opponents into piles of burnt and bloody flesh?

We are not yet at such a point, but with the advent of each new unmanned system and new nonkinetic weapon, and with the increasing range of precision munitions, we approach an age where the nature of warfare will pose many painful new dilemmas.