Towards the end of December 2024, a minor clash between Ukrainians and Russians took place in the countryside near Kharkiv, largely unnoticed. However, it may one day be remembered alongside battles such as Adrianople or Pavia—battles that marked a turning point in military strategy. Adrianople is famously regarded as the last time Roman legions, overwhelmed by Visigoth cavalry, operated effectively in open battlefields, while Pavia virtually marked the end of medieval heavy cavalry dominance, defeated by the firepower of arquebuses.
In the confrontation near Lyptsi, an unknown locality in Ukraine, the Ukrainians for the first time fought using only drones and remotely controlled tanks, the latter possibly maneuvered with the help of some artificial intelligence system, without the presence of soldiers on the field. In fact, the massive use of drones and satellite control has so far been decisive in this war. It is puzzling why a similar technique has not yet been widely adopted for tanks, self-propelled artillery, and other ground vehicles. If this use were to become generalized, we might witness, in the near future, battles fought entirely by robots, with no soldiers physically present on the battlefield. These soldiers would act as controllers from distant locations, difficult to reach by enemy fire—something akin to what we’ve only seen in Hollywood movies so far.
If this technology were to spread, there would be at least two major consequences: one psychological and the other more substantial. Psychologically, the main barrier that currently prevents war from breaking out, especially in so-called democratic countries—the fear of seeing one’s children die in a distant land, possibly in a war with disputed motives—would disappear. If only machines were to perish, the loss would be purely economic (excluding civilian casualties, who would still belong to the opponent’s side relative to the invader). The second, more substantial consequence is that the disparity between technologically advanced countries and others, particularly nations lacking such know-how or economically weaker ones, would become far more pronounced—a gap that today can sometimes still be mitigated by human factors.
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