The Automated Battlefield

Barnaby, a British nuclear scientist, believes that warfare could be made completely automated within the next 20 or 30 years, fought with machines and computerized missiles with no direct human intervention. He describes developing and planned technologies that will be applicable to the automated battlefield, including, of course, Star Wars. He argues persuasively that what he calls a ""conventional non-provocative defensive deterrence'' makes infinitely more sense on all levels than the offensively oriented warfare with which the superpowers are obsessed. Finally, Barnaby analyzes problems foreseeable in automated warfare such as distinguishing combatants from noncombatants, and whether by allowing machines ``to kill humans with nonchalance and without regret'' the world will enter an age of ``new barbarism.'' (October)