In an information age such as ours, how do we still justify ground wars?

Question

Please accompany your answer with some form of reasoning.

Answer 1

bombing and ship barbarment along with guided missles will destroy large areas but to take the area you need ground troops to secure areas the the rest cannot do.

Answer 2

Read the book, the Third World War by Adams if you want to understand how technology will impact warfare. Remember that war is politics against another nation by force. War is about disabling assets of the ememy and removing their capability to be effective against you or those you seek to protect. The methods used depends on the capabilities and effectiveness of the enemy. We have daily battles online with terrorists attacking infomation assets of ours. We battle espionage by electronic means daily. We also have wars where we put troops on the ground to tackle a man with a kalashnikov who wants to kill either us or others.

In reality of course, all wars are to some extent information wars. Signal jamming, communications interception and technological innovation have been a part of wars since the middle of the last century. The more developed a nation, the more information based it will be. For a highly developed (target) nation, a future war could indeed be fully information based, as disabling the information infrastructure alone will cripple the core capability of the country to function. One you have done this, you cripple the infrastructure assets. Only when you have done this (and presumably failed to achieve your objective) would you need to proceed to a ground war. The obvious exception to this is if you need to invade to secure assets or recapture ground. This was the case in Iraq - the ground war was about capturing the oil supply.

Answer 3

You cannot gain intel, have a presence or build a report with the citizens unless you have boots on the ground.
I work here in Iraq as a civilian contractor and I see first hand the soldiers as well as us befriending locals, medics offering services for locals for which they and their families are grateful. Boots on the ground is able to bring humanity into the picture where as high tech from a distance destruction may score you a lot of points but, in the end you will be forever locked into a stalemate.

Answer 4

Military strategists will tell you that use of air power is now the most effective means of crippling an enemy while maintaining a minimum number of casualties (our armed forces and civilians in the "enemy" country), but in order to achieve battlefield control you'll still have to send in ground troops. Enemy soldiers can hide in caves and bunkers that cannot be reached or destroyed with the most modern aerial armaments, and those enemy soldiers can and will wreak havoc if the military moves in thinking the area has been secured after an aerial attack.

Answer 5

B/c a Navy or Air Force can take ground but it takes a Marine or an Army to hold it. Ground troops become your eyes and ears as pertains to what is going on in the day to day situations. In hostile environments, unfortunately, bad things happen.

Answer 6

Because it still takes boots on the ground to enforce anything. If I know your a serial killer, that is information. To arrest you I still have to go to where you are and make contact.

Answer 7

Seems some of the information must have missed you!! No matter how advanced some things are, someone still has to get their hands dirty!

Answer 8

there is no other way to conquer real estate except with ground forces. This is basic military science.

Answer 9

Its quite simple, we have an enemy, we kill them,or they kill us.
Information, just gives people, who have no idea about combat,
to sit there and preach about,morality, Geneva Convention,
torture, World Opinion, fair play. The Usual Suspects,!