Battleland Battleland

A New Way of War

For more than a decade, we’ve been getting somber Pentagon emails telling us the name, hometown and age of every U.S. troop killed in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Noticed something new, at least to us, in …

Ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon--so long as there is no answer to it--gives claws to the weak.
— George Orwell, 1945
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