It gets me in the feels.
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I used the word influence. Influence, like deterrence, ia a matter of emotions and not facts on the ground. It relies on emotions, most notably fear. Its counter is hope.
People change their behaviour when they are fearful. When they perceive they are under threat and their city is at risk of looking like the pictures
@GR66 posted then their fear influences their behaviour and the behaviour of their government.
Hope also influences behaviour. Hope can be generated by having friends show up. Hope can also be generated if it is felt that there are the means to reduce the likelihood of thse dire images occuring.
I believe this is a driving force behind the present interest in the IAMD/GBAD/C-RAM/CUAS battle. Governments fear the reactions of fearful populations who want to believe their cities will be spared that devastation.
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I don't contest the validity of the value of the conventional army on the battlefield and its utility in taking and holding ground.
I don't even contest that fear and influence alone don't win wars. I do contend that influence, fear and hope are key to deterrence and managing the risk of war in the first place.
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I believe that we can supply influence, hope to our friends and fear to our enemies, through technology, a lot more effectively than through boots on the ground. Boots tat they already have in numbers greater than us and more proximate to their battles. Boots that are readily filled by their citizens in their reserves because they maintain limited numbers of full time soldiers because those soldiers, in peacetime are more useful to society in productive labour.
A nation with a large peacetime army has an unemployment problem. The army as an alternative to welfare.
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