Why did the Vietnam War era end and the era of great power dominance begin?

No, Trump and not even the failures of Western Europeans in their attempts to deceive him are to blame. Technology has simply changed.

 

No defense that is expensive (a bullet must be used to shoot down a bullet, which makes the defending bullet expensive and complicated) can withstand large, well-organized military production, which produces a lot of these cheap offensive means and releases them in large swarms.

 

This insight into the technological breakthrough is very accurate and corresponds to the modern logic of the renaissance of attrition warfare. Here is why the mass of cheap technology changes the geopolitical balance:

1. Asymmetric economics: offense versus defense

During the Vietnam War, expensive equipment (planes, tanks) dominated, while guerrilla warfare relied on human resources. Today, the situation has changed fundamentally:

 

The cost of defense: Shooting down a cheap kamikaze drone (costing a few thousand euros) using a Patriot or IRIS-T missile (costing millions) is an economically sustainable strategy only in the short term.

 

“Swarm” tactics: When the number of offensive means exceeds the capacity of defense systems, defense simply “chokes”. As analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) note, mass production again becomes more important than individual technological advantage.

 

2. The advantage of great powers – production capabilities

 

Why does this return the “great power rule”?

 

Economies of scale: Only great powers (like the US, Russia or China) have the industrial capacity to produce millions of drones and precision munitions. Small states, even with advanced technology, cannot achieve the scale necessary to withstand a “swarm” attack.

 

Resource Control: The production of cheap offensive weapons requires huge quantities of rare earth metals and semiconductors, the supply chains of which are controlled by big players.

 

3. Why did the “Vietnam Era” end?

 

The Vietnam Era was a time of asymmetric warfare, where a technological state would lose to determined local resistance.

 

Now, technology has become “democratized” (cheap), but its effectiveness depends on the mass. This is more favorable to those countries that can turn their economies into “war factories”.

 

Trump or diplomatic maneuvers are only the surface. Real power returns to the factory floors, where “cheap and plentiful” defeats “expensive and perfect”.

 

This is the economic crisis of asymmetric warfare. Modern air defense is currently experiencing a turning point, as the traditional “missile against missile” strategy becomes financially untenable against mass-produced cheap drones.

 

Key aspects of this imbalance:

 

The huge price difference: An often-cited example is a $3 million Patriot missile used to shoot down a drone that costs just $20,000 to $40,000. This creates a ratio that experts call “shooting gold into plastic.”

 

The manufacturing gap: The attacker can produce thousands of cheap drones per month, while the defender can only produce dozens of sophisticated missiles. Swarm tactics aim to simply exhaust the defense’s reserves.

 

The “bullet-to-bullet” challenge: Kinetic interceptors (missiles) are complex because they must have their own highly sensitive sensors and motors to engage a small, maneuverable target.

 

How are militaries trying to solve this problem?

To withstand swarms of cheap drones, new technologies are being used:

 

Non-kinetic defense (Electronic Warfare): Radio jamming that disrupts the drone’s communication with the operator or GPS signal. Cheap fiber-optic control cables or robotic autonomous drones make this type of warfare unviable.

Directed energy weapons: Laser systems (such as the Iron Beam) or microwave weapons (such as the Leonidas), which cost just a few dollars per shot (just the cost of electricity). Such beam weapons are easily detected, making them good targets for a few cheap drones in a swarm.

Cheaper kinetic solutions: Small, cheap interceptor drones are being developed that simply ram the attacking drone (such as the Roadrunner). It is worth repeating that all kinetic interceptors are complex, as they must have extremely sensitive sensors and engines themselves to hit a small, maneuverable target. Therefore, this is also unviable.

 

All these problems for the West have already appeared in Ukraine:

 

“Ukraine lacks missiles for air defense systems, there are cases when they are empty before the next Russian attack,” said Colonel Yuri Ihnat, head of the Communications Department of the Ukrainian Air Force Command, in an interview with RBC-Ukraine. “This has been said more than once, and the Ukrainian president has drawn the attention of partners many times that sometimes some air defense systems are empty, and the next attack still needs to be repelled,” he said.

 

According to Ihnat, another problem with air defense is the excessive number of missiles and drones that Russia uses.

 

Russia simultaneously attacks one city or region intensively and with a large number of weapons. Sometimes Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile systems, such as like NASAMS or IRIS-T, simply do not have time to reactivate during such powerful attacks, said Mr. Ihnat. He gave the example of a recent attack, when Russia used 18 ballistic missiles across the country. But sometimes all the ballistic missiles during the attack fly only towards the capital, targeting critical infrastructure.

 

“When they attack the Kyiv region and Kyiv itself, we often see dozens of missiles of various types and up to five hundred drones.

 

Can you imagine how difficult it is to cover even a well-protected city from such a large number of enemy air attack forces?

 

No matter what, someone still gets through. Even if 80 percent of the targets are shot down, the other 20 percent cause huge damage. This could be a hit on a thermal power plant, another critical infrastructure object or an enterprise,” he said.”

 

Therefore, what the Lithuanian elite is doing – three very expensive tanks, several very expensive missiles, a lot of sand and swamps for those tanks to drive and missiles to fly – is cruelly naive. The Lithuanian elite must urgently engage in diplomacy, first of all, promise Belarus’ Lukashenko at a high level that there will be no more stupid border closures that harm everyone. Put those big hats back in the boxes you bought them in and get to work. There are no defense options A, B, and C, and there won’t be any. Oh, and say goodbye to Greenland while you can. A little later, the US will not give you visas.