As we approach the 21st century our fears are changing shape: no longer will nuclear holocaust hold sway in our minds as God's destruction by fire and brimstone did for our ancestors at the end of the first millennium. Refugees streaming north from the poverty-stricken south, destruction of the planet's life-preserving balance and the epidemic of AIDS nurture a more insidious dread that won't yield to the simple logic of deterrence. What then will have to be faced in future battles? Where will the lines of defence be drawn, and what will be left for the serving soldier to do? This book provides answers to such questions which strike at the roots of our understanding of human nature and of our concept of the relationship between armies and the societies they defend. Holmes begins with the larger issues of morality in a nuclear world; goes on to question the function of battle and its successful operation in the hands of the microchip; examines command in peace and war, and the soldier's task as he - or increasingly she - manipulates the technology, fights and dies. He does not subscribe to the view that warfare may have abolished itself by becoming too dreadful to contemplate. He nevertheless sees the ultimate sanction of force applied quite differently in the next century to any in the past.