The Primitivisation of Major Warfare

Abstract Despite optimistic technological visions, future warfare is likely to consume and destroy military equipment and personnel at rates for which the West is ill prepared. Medium and larger militaries in particular may be primitivised during and by future warfare: they may become more socially, organisationally and technologically primitive versions of themselves. This is a process with historical and contemporary precedents, as experienced by Germany’s Wehrmacht during the Second World War and the Russian army in Ukraine today. The tactical and operational realities of sustained military campaigning against a major adversary may well primitivise Western militaries too, a challenge for which better technology is at once a partial answer and a vulnerability. Primitivisation has implications not only for defence-industrial and personnel policies, but also force design and ultimately employment.