Talk:Modern warfare

message: Needs a very large amount of work. I've put up the categories just to give people something smaller to deal with than this mammoth subject. KharBevNor 19:51, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Given that early modern warfare "lasts until the end of the eighteenth century", this article's definition seems to be false in saying modern warfare is that involving first world countries (POV itself) and computers. Can anyone improve the definition? Also, I think this current organization is so detailed it is impractical, and Western-centric. 119 20:19, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree on all counts. The term modern is only a time-construction, and does not specify participants (first world). If this term is used academically only to refer to first world, computers, etc., then it should be sourced and stated as such, pointing out that the name used is actually something of a misnomer. That is if.--Dmcdevit 05:26, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: Or we could just call an article covering the 19th-early 20th centuries Pre-Modern warfare.--Kross | Talk 18:25, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: While everyone figures out how to do this, I created a stopgap period called Industrial Warfare (A working title, which we can easily change) to cover the Nineteenth Century and Twentieth Century (Prior to 1980s).  Palm_Dogg 09:24, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Article needs extensive editing

message: added references in 4gw to propaganda as a means of starting a war, additional references should be added about propaganda during a war- regarding both methods used to justify the war effort at home and demoralize the declared enemy forces in the foreign lands, along with the motivations and moral implications of both aspects. -Outofthebox  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Outofthebox (talk • contribs) 08:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Propaganda

message: Reading through this article, I found two sections which were in desperate need of rewording, and at least one section that looked like it could use cleanup. Should this page be tagged for cleanup or is it good enough to leave it as a start-class project? -Player 03 14:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup? 

message: Modern warfare doesn't mean the use of nukes and satallites.  It mean using the most advanced tech of the time.  "Modern" is the most meaningless word in the english laguage.  This article states "modern warfare" began in the 40's, but here it is Modern Warfare in 1915 and Gas and Flame in Modern Warfare in 1918 and here is article on the evolution of tatics in modern warfare from 1892. This article either needs to forget about all the stuff from the 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's and focus on only the current cutting edge of technology in warfare or else talk about the continual intergration of new technology into the battlefield throughout history.--BirgitteSB 14:45, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, got to agree with BirgitteSB here. Every period had its own modernity at least since the word was coined in ancient Rome. I would also like to point out that the article does not define itself, but the widest available definition of what is being described in the article is in fact Post-modern warfare--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 23:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Useless article 

message: I have restarted a discussion here that may get two articles sorted out in a way, and point to a way forward with their revision and improvement, and would like to invite participation is discussion there--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 13:47, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Renewed discussion, and suggestion

message: Does anyone see the vandalism in this article or is everyone blind? WinterSpw (talk) 21:22, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: "Modern warfare, although present in every historical period of military history, is generally used to refer to the concepts, methods and technologies that have come into use during and after the Second World War." Who says that is the definition of "Modern warfare"?  
"The concepts and methods have assumed more complex forms of the 19th and early-20th century antecedents largely due to the widespread use of highly advanced information technology." Who says?  Who says that the majority of wars fought in the last 2 years, such as Sri Lankan Civil War or Pakistan conflict  are any more complex than the wars fought in the same regions by the the British Empire?
"Although Total war was thought to be the form of international conflicts from the experience of the French Revolutionary Wars to the Second World War, the term no longer describes warfare in which countries or nations use all of their resources to destroy another country's or nation's organized ability to engage in war." Who says? "The practice of total war which had been in use for over a century, as a form of war policy has been changed dramatically with greater awareness of tactical, operational and strategic battle information." Who says? 
--PBS (talk) 12:19, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The current lead needs a rewrite 

message: Why does this article note modern warfare as conflicts after World War II? World War II is the pinnacle of modern warfare, the only example of modern warfare on a global scale. Aircraft carriers, intercontinental ballistic missiles (V-2s), cruise missiles (V-1s) guided missiles, were all part of the war, so were computers, jet aircraft, even simply high speed fighters and long range bombers. Radar was fielded on a large scale, computers were utilized, and the war ended with what has stopped a major war since: nuclear weaponry. The war was entirely mechanized, battles were fought entirely with advanced tanks; is it not modern warfare when a country conquers all of Western Europe in weeks? When entire battles are fought only with battalions of paratroopers?The economy of every major belligerent became mobilized, and the opposing sides had nearly unlimited budgets, and two countries (USA and USSR) also had virtually unlimited resources. World War II included every type of war included in the article, and is why we have not seen modern warfare on a full scale since, due to the sheer onslaught brought with it; one hundred million deaths in WWII's case. 
Sorry if I began haranguing there. WWII simply shows the capability of full-scale, and the change I propose is a new section detailing the history and progression of modern warfare, a subsection mentioning a refined version of what I earlier stated, and the inclusion of WWII on the lists.
Thank You. Ryandinho14 (talk) 01:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  World War II 

message: I know that piracy is old, but it is going on off of Somalia. Does that count?98.228.227.12 (talk) 00:33, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: We agree that piracy still exists. What is your point? -- Fyrefly  (talk) 21:08, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Piracy?

message: It is ridiculous to keep this section in the article. Encyclopedias are not for making guesses about the future, but for documenting reliably sourced accounts of what has already happened. Unless someone can come up with some amazing reason to keep the future warfare section, I'll be deleting it shortly. -- Fyrefly  (talk) 21:11, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of future warfare section 

message: We can now discuss the other tag, inadequate lede.  I added this tag because the body of the article had little or nothing to do with the old lede.  Now, it has little or nothing to do with the new lede; nothing's changed in this respect.
The body of the article currently consists of a list of sections -- from Aerial to Space -- as "Types" of modern warfare; I'm not sure what that means.  Rather than these being in order of their relative significance or chronology, they are arranged alphabetically, apparently because these "types" have no comparable significance or chronology.  I think this is all the result of the old lede giving no foundation to work with.  Unfortunately, like the old lede, I feel there is very little of value in all the current body, and we should probably just start over.
What should the new article body be like?  As I see it, we have two general choices: either focus on history, or on technology.  By "history", I mean that this article should cover warfare by historical eras, essentially becoming a subset of History of warfare#Periods of military history, leaving out everything before early modern warfare.  By "technology" I mean cover the times that new weapons changed warfare, essentially becoming a subset of History of warfare#Technological evolution, leaving out everything before gunpowder.  (Note that History of warfare has a section on things after Industrial warfare, titled "Modern warfare", that links here.  Sigh.)
The "history" style, as I noted above, fits the Template:War use of this article, and is more traditional.  The "technology" style better fits most of the common uses of "modern history" that I've found, where the author makes a point that so-and-so just don't get that the introduction of such-and-such weapons has changed "modern warfare", and their old-fashioned armies are on the road to catastrophe.
I suppose we could do both, having a major section for each, like History of warfare does.  But that's pretty ambitious, since we have very little to work with in the current article.  It's also going to duplicate some info, and eras are at least somewhat tied to technology changes.
Or maybe someone has an idea on how to salvage some or all of the current body?
Comments?  --A D Monroe III(talk)  17:48, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Follow the lede? 

message: The list of wars in the section Modern warfare#Major modern wars has been growing rapidly recently, to the point of violating WP:LINKFARM.  To be useful, the list must be kept fairly short.  The most glaring problem with many of the additions is that they don't appear "major", such as ones with casualties only in the thousands or less, with some hardly qualifying as a "war".  I have boldly cut back the list to wars with total military casualties of 50,000 or more.  
As to what wars are "modern", I note that several respected military historians have called the American Civil War the "first modern war", due to its use of rifles, railroads, telegraphs, ironclads, etc.  Based on that, any later war with similar elements (or better) also qualifies as "modern".
Of course, this criteria is subjective, and merits discussion.  But until some consensus is reached, to keep the list from going right back into LINKFARM territory, any addition that doesn't meet this criteria should be removed.
Comments?  --A D Monroe III(talk)  00:25, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criteria for "Major modern wars"?