The status quo in Washington is that conventional warfare is long-obsolete, but these three nations don’t agree.
U.S. policy makers and security experts believe that technology has changed the way warfare takes place. While World War II involved battalions of troops, strategic movements of tanks and artillery, these are seen as things of the past.
During the Cold War, it was thought that if war broke out between the U.S. and Soviet Union, it would be a nuclear holocaust. There would be no war with troop invasions, just a series of missile launches.
For much of the 20th century, war for the U.S. was guerrilla war, going into a difficult environment and relying heavily on the air force and small groups of troops. Now technology has accelerated, and very few troops with sophisticated technology are relied upon to get the job done. Unmanned drones carry out some of the bombing.
But Russia, India and China rely on large land armies to maintain power. All three have continued to expand conventional forces (India recently bought 300 tanks from Russia).
Perhaps the different mentalities come from the fact that the U.S. military is spread all around the globe. Much of the world criticizes the U.S. for being the world’s policeman. These three nations are focused on their immediate surroundings, and perhaps they are concerned with nearby potential threats. Of course, they also don’t have the “Star Wars” technology that the U.S. has invested so heavily in.
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