If the war is after the tomorrow

About the status of military futurology. If tomorrow is a war, then we will have to fight what we have today, at that level of combat training and development of military art that exist now and, most importantly, we will have to study on our own bloody mistakes. In other words, tomorrow's war was won or lost yesterday. It is more interesting with the war of the post-staff, that is, that war, between which and our day there is some temporary backlash, in which humanity prone to rational self-change will still have time to come up with something, to somehow disperse and present a certain surprise that has ceased to be a “potential” opponent.

Military futurology - that is, the art of composing beautiful fantastic sagas about the wars of the future - is necessary precisely for the outdated war. It matters then and only when it operates not what is now , but with what will happen , even more precisely, maybe if you try very much and lift the brains. The treatises about future wars, which calculate the use of really existing forces and means, become obsolete at the time of the first shot of a new war and serve only for the senile consolation of their authors, who allegedly “predicted” something there ...

The works of future wars are interesting and significant only when they are the fruit of a productive creative imagination that will never tell us, “how will it really be”, but will indicate new opportunities, the efforts of the best military theorists, military strategists, military technicians and military industrialists will be directed to the implementation. It was the dreamers who, like Jules Verne, and the poets invented missiles and submarines, atomic bombs and bombers (recall Blokovo: “The night flyer in the darkness of the inclement dynamite ...”, written when the explosives from the aircraft still did not think of the airborne troops in the uniforms Army. There is no doubt-even more fiction turned out to be in the summer of oblivion, but this happens in any search-certain elements of military-futurological constructions are tested in practice during the real war, their unilateral character is usually found, but after overcoming this one-sidedness they enter military everyday life.

You can not compose a plan of the utopian of a future war, hoping for its implementation, but you can and should use fantasies, theories and projects of the future war as an intensive tool of self-development of the existing armed forces. In stimulating the army’s self -development, the most important task and a great merit of military futurology consists, for which courage, originality and adventure (sometimes cynical adventurism) of thought is not a vice and a lack of dignity.

The phantom of the "small army". Modern military theory experiences a real shock from the creation of and (partially) the army obtaining a huge number of the latest types of weapons. If during the war in Korea in 1950–1953 nine new types of weapons were applied, in the 1967-1982 Middle Eastern wars series, about 30 during the “War in the Gulf” in 1991, the current complex war against terrorism already promises us about 400 new weapons, and this is only the beginning, the first stage of the war, and after some time, and after some time, and after some time, and after some time. Development orders ordered after the start of anti -terrorism operations and specifically for their needs will begin to be implemented accelerated. An imaginary soldier of the future is already drawn to us filled with microchips and sensors hung with night vision devices and connected directly to the satellite.

Today's military futurology passes through stages that are very similar primarily to the intensive military-theoretical searches of the 1930s, when in the last years of the First World War and in the interwar period the army of Europe experienced shock from the infusion of new types of weapons-tanks, military aircraft, chemical weapons, etc. In the most advanced military thought of the “small army”, contrasted by the “armed people” dominates ” - Mass draft army. This small army is highly professional, well -trained and owns the latest types of weapons. The army is highly maneuverable and in constant combat readiness, and therefore capable of winning in a short time and without any universal mobilization. The ideas of the Englishman John Fuller, the Frenchman Charles de Gaulle (both - fans of the decisive importance of the tank war) and the German, General von Sext, the father of the “Wehrmacht” developed in this line. The most pragmatic was sects, which laid in the structure of a small but highly professional Reichswehr, which Germany had the right to have under the Versailles treaty, the idea of ​​unfolding a professional army in the sergeant-commissioned officer of the Wehrmacht-the mass of the Army. The other, no less vivid idea of ​​that era is the idea of ​​an independent air war of the Italian General Julio Douet, returns on a new round. Due believed that strategic aviation blows to the enemy’s economic and political centers would be enough to force him to surrender. The massive strategic bombing and the idea of ​​“dominance in the air” became undoubtedly an integral part of the modern war and prepared the concept of nuclear war, but showed their limitations. The third idea-the fruit of the restless heyday of the military thought of the 1930s-is the famous "Strategy of indirect actions" by Basil Liddel Gart. The most productive, popular and not obsolete theory of those years. In this concept, the “British War Way” was translated to the level of universal strategy, described earlier than the same liddel-gart and consisting of a direct clash for centuries, in the blow of the enemy’s combat effectiveness with economic and psychological measures, in the search for allies who would be ready to fight instead of the British. The strategy of indirect actions in the Second World War did not discredit themselves - if only because the British achieved their own - the Americans and Russians entered the war on their side and won it mainly with their lives; True, they forced Britain to pay for this an empire and the status of a great power ... But the best historical essays about the Second World War belong to the British-Winston Churchill and the same Liddel Gart.

Today, popular military theories and futurological forecasts are reduced to a similar triad, but at a new level of military-technological progress. The first is the “small army” , which has a fantastically modern technical equipment and the highest level of professionalism, is, in fact, a huge special forces. The army, which should oust itself and fully write off the “large” army into the archive for unnecessarily. In the most recent years, this idea has been closely associated with the need to solve relevant anti -terrorism problems requiring the use of rapid response forces. The second is the “distance”, or “contactless” war, conducted by unmanned aerial vehicles, spacecraft from space and other latest achievements of aerocracy and cosmocracy. A war that will allow you to completely defeat the enemy "without getting dirty"; Not even so much defeat the enemy as to force him to recognize the defeat. And finally, the third is the “ Information War” , the latest passion for fans of “indirect action”, giving hope that all enemies will be able not to defeat, but to deceive and persuade that they lost, or it will be possible to find the “third” who will beat these enemies.

Weapons development cycle. All indicated approaches arise in the era of oversaturation of the army with new weapons not by chance. They are a reflexive reflection of the initial phase of the development of a new type of weapons.

Any new weapon originally creates a situation in which it was mastered only by “professionals”, to the subtlety of owning the technologies of its application (they, in fact, create these “subtleties”). These weapons masters make up the shock core of the new generation armies. The development of weapons leads to its improvement and simplification, after which it can act as if in itself, due to its properties as a “slaughter force”, while a person is only a “application” necessary for launching weapons into action.

The first stage of weapons development is associated with the natural professionalization of the armed forces, which gives rise to groups of warriors who are perfect for all military skills and take on the main work in the battle. The second stage gives rise to more or less “mass” army, which does not require the highest level of individual military skill, but the highest level of military skill and a disciplinary organization is needed.

The first phase of the development of the new weapons belongs to the minted formulation of de Gaulle: “The position that both on land and on the sea and in the air is an elected personnel, which can extract maximum effectiveness from extremely powerful and diverse equipment, is undeniable.

War of the XXI century - tension lines. There is one very unpleasant topic that almost all theorists of wars of the 21st century strive to bypass - this is the preservation of the factor of nuclear weapons as a “frame” weapon that sets the parameters and boundaries of the conflict and allows the losing player to simply brush the figures from the boards, dilate the clock and turn the table over. The nuclear factor was largely inhibited by the militaristic fantasy in the second half of the twentieth century, and in the XXI she treated it simply-she decided to ignore it in her calculations, getting off with the statement that so far the nuclear factor will be of great importance, but gradually it will lose it, because, firstly, the form of struggle, in which the murder of the enemy is suicide, is not needed by anyone, and the second, because, because of it, because To neutralize nuclear weapons, they will surely come up with something ...

The dreams of the world of soybean, in which the “framework of the conflict” of the conflict is not “guaranteed mutual destruction”, but a guarantee from such destruction-this is a dream of the possibility of finally normally reduce scores with each other and fight, finding out who is “in fact” stronger. But there are forces, and the forces are very influential, which will continue to be interested in maintaining the nuclear deterrence factor in all its meaning.

One can imagine the military-political and military-technical history of the 21st century as the struggle of the two The Lobby is an anti -nuclear and nuclear. The former do everything in order to devalue and demifologize nuclear weapons; In particular, they are trying to organize a “limited nuclear war” that would show everyone that nuclear weapons are not as scary as it is painted, and it can be completely not melted in strategic reserves, but to put it into tactical exchange. They will be the main supporters of nuclear distribution and maximum increase in the number of nuclear club. At the same time, they sponsor more and more projects for creating anti -detrain launch systems, as well as technologies for fast elimination of the consequences of a nuclear attack and life support systems in case of a nuclear war. In general, an anti -core lobby does everything so that the fear of nuclear weapons ceases to be a restriction in military conflicts. The latter, on the contrary, will fight for nuclear non -proliferation, for maintaining the privileged status of a nuclear club, for maintaining a “guaranteed mutual destruction” around the nuclear weapons. This aura will only be emphasized by international treaties governing nuclear weapons that limit them and, at the same time, emphasizing their exclusivity. This line will in every possible way sponsor the development of the impact power of nuclear weapons, its guaranteed penetration through any missile system and an increase in its damaging force.

In any case, to endure a nuclear weapon beyond the scope of reasoning about the future war at least prematurely, it itself will “endure” anyone.

Premature, if not more, are the enthusiasm of many military theorists about the “contactless war”, so to speak the “clean” war, which will finally move the “dirty” nuclear war, and an uncomfortable ground war, forcing everyone to forget about tanks and infantry. The picture of thousands of satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles, which in a matter of seconds collapse their power on the enemy, destroying his communication systems, economics and, most importantly, the will to resist, is certainly impressive. But the spectacle of manned aircraft that crashes into beautiful skyscrapers is even more impressive. Moreover, if the first can be seen so far only in the cinema, then the second we have already seen on our blue screens in news programs.

The mythology of the "contactless war" rests on one strange assumption, without which it does not work at all. Namely, it is assumed that the will to resist the potential enemy is exclusively small, and if you deprive him of advanced systems and the achievements of civilization (like digital communication), he will immediately sign surrender, without even trying to use ground forces. However, as we have already noted, the experience of the Second World War, in which Germany tried to try the “co -coting” method, showed that the idea of ​​a contactless war is divided into small - the enemy will to resist and desire to fight to the last at all costs. What worked for highly civilized England in the middle of the twentieth century works even more for much less civilized countries of the early XXI. Blows from the air and out of space can destroy military infrastructure, but cannot interfere with the use of “asymmetric” weapons, that is, simply the enemy’s transition to partisan and terrorist methods - from airplanes to skyscrapers to cholera into water pipelines and other instrumentation of a meaningless and merciless Scythian war. Allegedly “defeated” in a contactless war, the enemy can cause the “winner” the damage is much more fundamental.

The corresponding law of military development was noticed by military theorists in the middle of the twentieth century. “On the one hand, there is a violent growth of military equipment, and on the other, a return to the most primitive forms of warfare. Television and reactive planes and missiles, atomic bombs and, along with them, are shrub production mines and shortened rifles - “cuts”, ”wrote Colonel Zaitz O B, called“ one of the best military minds of Russian emigration ”in 1954. Another emigrant echoes him, E. E. Messner, who prophetically predicted a terrorist war and said that “the rebellion is the name of the third world”: “The warfare without troops, the partisans, saboteurs, terrorists, pests, saboters, propagandists will take enormous sizes in the future, which is guaranteeing facts from the recent past.”

However, what was clear in the 1950-1960s after the Second World War and Vietnamese Wars was somewhat muddied in the 1990s, when the United States showed many successes in the “contactless” wars with Iraq in 1991, Yugoslavia in 1999 and the Taliban in 2001. Few pay attention to the fact that in none of these cases a victory was not won; The enemy was recognized as a defeat in the rather modest conventional framework that were given to him. It was necessary to get out of Kuwait from Iraq, from Yugoslavia to surrender in Kosovo under the guarantees of Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin, from the Taliban - so that they leave the kabul and cease to be Taliban (which does not guarantee from their return in a new guise). The condition of the “contactless war” is the strict conventional framework - we demonstrate to you our superiority by bombing your communication systems and airfields, you recognize this superiority and inferior to our modest requirements - immodest requirements will not. If one of the parties, for example, the technically developed winners will decide to “squeeze”, or the vanquished, decide not to recognize the defeats, but go to the partisan or terrorist war, then to win real victory will have to finish the work using ground forces, landing, infantry, and occupation ...

However, there is a certain alternative to win the enemy in an open battle - it is to try to convince him that he is defeated, or, even better, that he is not an enemy and that there was no war or she has long been and has already been lost. Here, special hopes are assigned by military theorists on “information wars”, that is, the use of a strategy of indirect actions through information channels. However, the time of a full -fledged information war has already passed or pass rather than have not yet come. We are talking about the information war as "propaganda."

Для пропагандистской, психологической информационной войны идеальным инструментом является всемирное телевидение, с его цельной непротиворечивой «картинкой», однонаправленным информационным потоком, низкой информативностью сообщений и отсутствием возможностей для всякой критики информации. Однако время телевидения если не ушло вовсе, то находится в начале конца. Безусловно величайшее достижение информационных технологий — Интернет, ноон мало того что не очень подходит для ведения информационных войн, но еще и вырабатывает к ним иммунитет. Информационная среда Интернета гетерогенна, информационные потоки разнонаправлены, существуют многочисленные версии информационного сообщения, которые легко могут быть подвергнуты интеллектуальной и смысловой критике, сами сообщения высокоинформативны и, волей-неволей, заставляют сколько-нибудь продвинутого интернет-пользователя учиться читать между строк и искать, «кому выгодно». На любой сообщающий дезинформацию сайт найдется сайт разоблачителей, на любого виртуального паникера или распространителя слухов тут же найдется бдительный гражданин, который его опровергнет и посрамит. Привыкший к«спаму» и «виртуалам», среднестатистический интернетчик имеет пусть и не стопроцентный, но сильно повышенный иммунитет к стандартным средствам информационной войны, более того — готов к активному противодействию, если будет потребность или если в случае войны поступит приказ.

Таким образом, вместо орудия информационной войны современная информационная среда окажется еще одним театром военных действий (и военно-технических, «хакерских», и пропагандистских), театром, на котором ни у кого нет решающего преимущества. Кибер-войны для ХХI века станут еще одной формой войны, но, опять же, не решающей, не способной обеспечить коренной перелом и решительное преимущество одной из сторон (по крайней мере — если речь идет о цивилизованных сторонах конфликта, а нецивилизованные просто не имеют доступа к тем средствам воздействия, которые могут быть применены против них).

Реванш бюргера. Первая фаза освоения вооружений порождает военную аристократию, т. е. тех, кто уверен в своем исключительном умении пользоваться оружием и в существовании особого кодекса войны между «профессионалами». Фигура «профи» порождает на противоположном полюсе фигуру «партизана», — жертвы технологической сегрегации, которая не может позволить себе содержать дорогостоящее вооружение и обеспечить обучение по всем правилам, а потому действует без правил и «асимметричным оружием». Средневековые рыцари вели между собой изысканные «профессиональные» войны, но оказывались бессильны перед крестьянами, стаскивавшими их крючьями с лошадей и забивавшими цепами (это, впрочем, не давало крестьянам решающей победы, и все равно им приходилось покоряться).

Однако в противостоянии аристократа-рыцаря и варвара-мятежника обычно побеждает бюргер , горожанин, который без особой выдумки и гонора, зато со знанием дела выпускает простое, но надежное современное оружие, осваивает его в минимально необходимой степени и учится ходить строем, стрелять залпом и прочим нехитрым премудростям рационального военного дела. Именно городское, «бюргерское» военное искусство — искусство Афин и Спарты, Рима и Фландрии, Пруссии и Франции — составляет основное содержание военной истории. По отношению к этому военному искусству и этой системе военной организации искусство аристократа и искусство варвара составляют периферийные районы. Бюргер может заменить себя квалифицированным (но не до аристократизма) наемником, может укрыться за спиной призванного по всеобщей повинности крестьянина, но суть не меняется — и наемник, и призывник дерутся по созданным бюргерами правилам. Цезарь, Фридрих Великий, Наполеон — гении именно бюргерского военного искусства (о чем заинтересованному читателю может дать понятие блестящая «Эволюция военного искусства» Александра Свечина).

Военно-футурологические теории, о которых мы говорили выше, возлагают на новое оружие надежду на «разбуржуазивание» и аристократизацию военного дела (непременно ведущую, с другой стороны, и к варваризации). Однако проходит время, новое оружие оказывается не таким уж сложным, не таким уж дорогим и не таким уж страшным. И появляется основа основ любой армии — эффективное индивидуальное оружие, в котором современность сочетается с простотой — римский gladius, фламандская пика, мушкет, винтовка, автомат Калашникова… Простое оружие, позволяющее смертным делать друг друга еще более смертными.

«Постиндустриальный» XXI век ничего не изменит в этой тенденции — пройдет совсем немного времени, и дорогое высокоточное оружие сменится дешевым и доступным для массового производства. Оружием, которым можно вооружить пехоту. Непосредственные столкновения вооруженных масс, а главное — связанный с ними подход к военному делу никуда не денутся (по крайней мере, если не будет новых «темных веков» — эпохи деурбанизации, приведшей к расцвету и варварского и аристократического воинского искусства). И в минус двадцать первом, и в первом, и в двадцать первом веках, при всех модификациях, вносимых прогрессом, люди убивали и будут убивать друг друга в общем-то одинаково.