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the atomic locust-cloud, to force premature condensation to critical mass before it reached its target. The author of the book discussed the cockroach, which was the prototype for one kind of microsoldier. On its abdomen the cockroach has very fine hairs. When they are moved by the air, the insect flees, because these sensors are wired directly to its rear nerve ganglion, and they can distinguish between a draft and the disturbance caused by a predator.
    As I read, I felt pity for the champions of uniforms, flags, and medals for bravery: the new era of warfare must have been anathema to their high ideals. The author used the term upside-down evolution, because in the beginning of life there were microscopic systems which slowly changed into larger systems, while this military evolution proceeded the other way, microminiaturization, and the great human brain was replaced by mechanical insect ganglia. Microarmies arose in two steps. First, the designers and builders were still human; then the unhumanized divisions were conceived, battle-tested, and put into mass production by computer systems that were equally nonhuman. People were eliminated from the military and then from the weapons industry by a phenomenon called “sociointegrational degeneration.” The individual soldier underwent degeneration: he became smaller and simpler. In the end he had the intelligence of an ant or termite. But the collective of these tiny warriors assumed a greater role. The nonliving army was far more complex than a beehive or ant hill; it was more like a biotope in nature, an ecosystem, a subtle equilibrium between competitive, antagonistic, and symbiotic species. A sergeant or corporal in such an army obviously had nothing to do. To grasp the whole picture, merely to inspect the troops, not even the brain power of an entire university would suffice. Thus officers as well as poor Third World countries did not fare well during the great military revolution of the twenty-first century. The irresistible momentum of army unhumanization destroyed the lofty traditions of maneuvers, marches, drills, changing the guard, and regalia. For a while but alas not for long, it was possible to preserve the highest ranks for people, but the strategy-computational superiority of the computerized echelons of command finally put even the most corpulent leaders, including four-star generals, out of work. A chest of ribbons and medals was no protection from early retirement. These officers, facing permanent unemployment—for they could do nothing else—revolted, forming an underground terrorist movement. The crushing of this revolt with the use of microspies and minipolice built on the abovementioned cockroach principle was a grim chapter in our history, because neither cover of dark nor mist nor any kind of camouflage could save those desperate traditionalists loyal to the ideas of Achilles and Clausewitz.
    As for the poor countries, they could go on fighting as before, using live people, but only against opponents as anachronistic as themselves. Those who couldn’t automate militarily had to sit quietly in the comer.
    But it wasn’t fun for the rich countries either. The old political games went out the window. The line separating war and peace, having long been blurry, was now completely erased. The twentieth century had dispensed with the formal declaration of war and introduced the fifth column, sabotage, cold war, and war by proxy, but that was only the beginning. Summit meetings for disarmament pursued mutual understanding and a balance of power but were also held to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. The world of the war-or-peace alternative became a world in which war was peace and peace war. First wide-range subversive activity was conducted under the mask of official peace: the infiltration of political, religious, and social movements, even such worthy movements as those to protect the environment; the infiltration also of the culture