This book examines the subject that has haunted mankind since its origins - war. Beginning with an analysis of warfare in the past, it offers insights into today's conflicts - and a portrait of the future face of battle. Its premise is that the forms of war follow forms of economic activity. In pre-industrial agrarian societies, men fought hand-to-hand. With the age of mass production came mass destruction - the savage bombing sorties of World War II and Vietnam, as well as the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation. The "smart bombs" of the Gulf conflict, it warns, are precursors of what war could become as the information age unfolds: a battlefield dominated by "intelligent" weapons systems, from tiny, antlike robots that crawl into an adversary's headquarters to "autonomous arms" that, once programmed, decide when, and towards whom, they fire. The authors show how changes in the media business and the global economy are blurring the distinction between news and psychological warfare, and they call for bloodless battle (anti-war) as a new approach to world peace. Other work by the authors includes "Future Shock", "Third Wave" and "Powershift".
