My point is that this assertion is wrong - "they could easily kill the people, but other nations won't allow it, so it will stop at economical defeat".
It is predicated on the assumption that the new (but in reality old) iteration of war would lead to less civilian casualties.
How is it really old when we have completely new AI/Robotics enabled warfare that would allow nations in the not distance future (not today) to engage in a war without human involvement? We never had anything like this before?
How would a war like this look like? what does winning really mean? and if your entire drone army depends on a global economy of suppliers, then you can easily cut off.
How is it that old? we never had wars like this..sorry, this is very stupid argument.
It is predicated on the assumption that the new (but in reality old) iteration of war would lead to less civilian casualties.