One of the many reasons why the wars were so catastrophic in human terms was that the technological builds of the Industrial Revolution didn’t simply make the weapons of war more destructive, they made the cultural fabric, technical expertise, economic vitality, and military relevance of society far more dependent upon artificial infrastructure. Combatants would target opposing civilian infrastructure because it was that infrastructure that enabled warfighting. But that same infrastructure also enabled mass education, mass employment, mass health, and an end to mass hunger.
