The face of warfare is changing. In the past fifty years, conventional warfare has been rare, but limited conflicts have claimed a growing number of lives. What explains such a shift and what will the wars of the twenty-first century look like?

Alvin and Heidi Toffler attempted to answer this question in War and Anti-War, a remarkably prophetic book published in 1993. According to the Tofflers, “the way we make war reflects the way we make wealth” (p. 2). Warfare changes as a society’s economy evolves because war-making and wealth-making are both fundamental elements of human society. Just as man often makes war to protect the means to make wealth, he uses those means to fight.

To enumerate their point, the Tofflers break human history into three “waves” by the dominant economic means of creation, and therefore also the dominant means of military destruction. First wave societies are agricultural—men live primarily as subsistence farmers and fight to protect their land or to win control over more hands to work the land. Eventually technology and population advance until it is no longer necessary for all workers to farm. Excess workers are turned toward industry, creating the second wave. Finally, when technological advances again make it unnecessary for all workers to create goods, workers move into service industries and begin the third wave. While the first is the wave of agriculture and the second of industry, the third wave is one of information and knowledge.

Conflicts reflects the three waves. first wave warfare is conducted seasonally so that farmers can return to their crops, and the range of an army is determined almost exclusively by how far it can travel and still feed itself. Leaders must directly equate the loss of a worker through war to a loss of agricultural productivity. Second wave warfare is a product of the industrial-revolution mentality of economies of scale. Factories are easily converted to mass-produce war equipment. Because individual workers are less-necessary, battles become larger as single men become more expendable.

Because modernity has only begun to catch glimpses of third wave warfare, it is difficult to guess what a knowledge-driven war might look like. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 might be a premonition. Unlike the Six Days’ War, in which Israel was able to destroy the air forces of Egypt and Syria before they left the ground, two weakened Israeli brigades then faced more than 45,000 troops. Rather than sending reinforcements to buttress their waning forces, the Israeli leadership launched a surprise offensive at the Syrians—not at the Syrian’s strongest point, but at an unexpected direction. The move caught the Syrians off guard and prevented their backup forces from entering the battle. In the words of the Tofflers, “even a small army strategically on the defensive might be able to seize the initiative (55).”

The conflict was obviously not the embodiment of third wave war, but it certainly demonstrated an important transition. The Israeli military, with a far-outnumbered but technically-elite force, used tactics designed to surprise, divide and ultimately rout the enemy, rather than simply wearing him down.

The real challenge for the American military is to follow Israel’s example by updating its tactics and equipment. US forces did an exemplary job winning the initial battle in Afghanistan. A small contingent of special forces linked the human intelligence of opposition leaders with computer networks for targeted aerial bombardment. But American forces remain largely mired in the mindset of second wave, industrial-complex warfare, as the inappropriate use of armored divisions against Iraqi and Afghan rebels demonstrates. The Pentagon and CIA must prepare for small-scale operations grounded in good intelligence and completed with appropriate technology.

The conclusion to the first section of War and Anti-War resounds as a warning—“the global competitive race will be won by the countries that complete their third wave transformation with the least amount of domestic dislocation and unrest.” America must realize that the vast mobilization of continental armies in Europe is a thing of the past and prepare to meet new threats quickly and efficiently before potential foes overtake our capabilities.