Today’s military has it easy. Why? Because technology is all on its side.
Everything from ruggedized laptop computers to satellites circling the globe benefit the “war-fighter.” The Romans could have held on another two thousand years if they’d had this shit.
In modern times, the “logistics tail” of the army is longer than the fighting-men complement that actually wields the guns. The support staff has grown so huge and ponderous that it colors the nature of the entire military. And it’s all to maintain the tech.
The human element has almost become secondary to the machine. This whole process really started in the U.S. Civil War with interchangeable parts for weapons and trains and ironclad ships, but it got its proper headwind during World War I, some fifty years later. By this time artillery shelling and machine guns and planes had advanced to the point that the battlefields were industrial killing fields. Later, during World War II, blitzkrieg tactics perfected the machine. With the advent of ICBMs in the Fifties and Sixties, techno-death-dealing power was at its height.
We may as well rename the Armed Forces into the Technology Group. Silicon Valley is more important for the future of war-fighting than West Point. Naturally, the soldiers grumble about this but there’s nothing they can do. The geeks have assumed the forefront. The mind is all. Nothing they say or do will change the fact that technology reigns over all, and always shall until something more powerful than technology — is it even conceivable? — comes along.
Dark Sport 
Even when I served (1979-83), I was told that for every soldier on the front line, there are four behind the lines supporting him.
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Yes, and the ratio’s probably gotten more rear-echelon-heavy since then.
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However, despite all the technology in their favor, the military still takes enormous risks today. Wars always bring with them pain and fear. Of course, nowadays they have a much better advantage: they can discover the enemy’s moves before facing him. In the past, they faced him without knowing where he had come from. This undoubtedly gives the most technologically advanced armies a great advantage over the less advanced ones.
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The military, however, abhors risks and the unknown. In many ways they are a conservative body. Typically, it is the politicians who are the first to want to go to war and the military who drags its heels. They knoew better.
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Lack of insight during WW1 about what planes would become mirrors the surprise of self-directed armed drones. The initial idea of “observation” became much more. Swarms of deadly insect like drones are next. God forbid there’s a return to chemical warfare. A cloud of fentanyl dust could wipe out a full army from a drone.
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The future is a dark vista in which we project our deepest fears.
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