Non Violent Weapons

On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, Jim 'Jiji' Foster wrote:

>Some time in the last six months, I read a SF short story about a war
in
>which the US and Soviets were fighting using non-lethal weapons, due to
>various treaties. They used gasses, semi-toxic poison tranq guns, etc.
The
>upshot of the story was, that in using non-lethal methodologies they
were,
>over time, causing more lasting trauma and psychological damage than a
>straight-up shooting war.

I'm given to understand that the major reason for the development of
"maiming" weapons - blinding lasers, landmines that blow off a foot
rather than killing you, and so on - is that it's a lot more expensive
to look after a wounded soldier than a dead one. Expensive in terms of
money, of course, but also manpower and other resources. Demoralising,
too.

Roger

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