Quora Answer: Do You Think a Large Scale War like World War II Will Happen Again?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Do you think large scale war, like World War II, will ever happen again, or do you think it will become increasingly more tactical, and subtle?” 

The mistake most military strategists make is to fight the last war.  Whatever we have seen of the last two world wars will not be done again, because technology has improved, and we have gotten a lot better at killing each other, and destroying things.  The type of war fought on the Western Front of the Great War was already obsolete in World War II.  The French built the Maginot Line, recreating, on a grander scale, the miles and miles of fortifications at Somme and Verdun.  The Germans had Generaloberst Heinz Wilhelm Guderian of the Wehrmacht.  He massed his panzers into a spearhead, group and cut these fortifications at specific points, before encircling and overwhelming the French.  Whilst the French had superior tanks at the start of World War II, the Germans had better tacticians, and officer corps. 

A naval landing such as Normandy cannot happen.  A modern military would be engaging the armada over the horizon, with long-range surface to surface missiles guided by satellites.  Modern satellites would have seen the troops at a staging area, and put an end to an invasion before it even began.  Warfare of such scale will still be fought in theatres, but we will not see hundreds of thousands of men slogging across the battlefield with support vehicles.  Modern rocket artillery has a range of over 300 km, precision guided; in World War II, it was 5.5 km unguided.  Modern tanks can engage at almost 8 km; World War II tanks at just under a kilometre.  This changes the way engagements is fought, and the tactical picture. 

From what we have seen of American deployments in various places, and Russian tactics in Georgia and Crimea, if there were a large-scale war between two major powers, deployments will be faster, and engagements will be at ranges far beyond what was fought previously.  This also involves warfare at a very intimate level because troops need to be inserted to identify targets, which means the deployment of a lot of special forces elements long before hostilities are declared.  This involves drones of many type.  This involves cyberwarfare and economic warfare to cripple enemy logistics. 

Troop movements will be quicker.  And the front will encompass a wider area, require greater strategic depth.  This necessitates more aggressive movements, since any static defence would be vulnerable to artillery and air strikes.  The classic ideas of envelopment will not work because most units are mechanised, or at least motorised.  This would necessitate the deployment of paratroops, heliborne troops and other types of rapid reaction forces to capture key positions behind enemy lines, and hold them until lead elements of heavy infantry and armour relief them.  However, large scale deployment of airborne troops such as Operation Market Garden would be suicide, unless there is a significant upgrade in light infantry capabilities. 

One of the theories of warfare that has developed is that there is no real necessity to hold ground in the same way it was in previous eras.  As populations converge in urban areas, they become vulnerable to precision attacks on key infrastructure, which would tie up a lot of resources on the opposing side.  For example, instead of sending troops into the meat grinder of a city, like it was in Stalingrad or Berlin, it would make more sense to send specialised units to take only the power grid, the port, or key roads.  Modern militaries have the capability to hit far behind enemy lines. 

Another factor to consider is that missile warfare has advanced greatly.  We have conventional ordnance that are more devastating than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.  The delivery of payloads have also become more precise. This encourages use, not discourages it.  The eventual widespread deployment of hypersonic missiles would limit the capabilities of carrier groups, changing the way support and air cover is provided. 

Any such conflict has to be short.  The interconnected nature of the world economy and supply chains means that a prolonged war will plunge much of the world into recession.  Short wars are profitable.  Long wars are not.