Clearly the ability to deliver a massive, punishing attack has become faster and easier with nuclear weapons, and now the growth of reliance on vulnerable cyber-based systems.
But how does that change the speed of war?
To attack an opponent is not to defeat an opponent. One must still occupy and hold ground and the skies above that ground. One must secure passage across the seas and skies to reach that ground. And even if one accomplishes all of those things, one must then force the people living on that ground to submit to their newly imposed system of governance.
As the US has demonstrated (too often of late), if one has the relative advantage of resources and technology, yes, the initial aspects of that can be fairly quick and easy. But forcing a people to submit? The only "easy" way is genocide, coupled with the destruction and replacement of the existing culture with that of the invader. Plenty of historic examples of that, some fairly recent. Are nuclear weapons spread across a populace faster than a Sharps rifle directed at the primary source of food and culture? No, not if one takes into account how soon that place is occupiable by the invading element.
But yes, punitive attacks are easier, faster, and now something that individuals and non-state actors can conduct at levels once the sole realm of powerful states (with far less risk of consequence, and thus outside our current concepts of deterrence). But to conduct an act of war is different than waging war, just as throwing a punch is different than a fight.
Countries such as the US will increasingly need to absorb the occasional sucker punch and not be distracted from the business of being a powerful state. Retaliation and prevention cannot be an all-consuming extravaganza such as we have put on for the past decade or so, but rather must be a small, quiet, but deadly certain capability. No massive deployments, no public chest-thumping when enemies fall, just cold hard business of being a state in the modern age.
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