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DanArmak comments on A brief history of ethically concerned scientists - Less Wrong
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Some actual or hypothetical advances in military technology allow very widespread, imprecise destruction. Such destruction could kill big segments of the enemy state's civilian population, or of a population in which a guerrila army is embedded, as a side effect of killing soldiers.
For instance sufficiently powerful or numerous bombs can destroy large cities. Pathogens can kill or sicken an entire population (with the attacker distributing a vaccine or cure among their own population only). Damage to infrastructure can kill those who depend on it.
Notably, the two World Wars introduced the mass use of mechanized units and heavy weapons leading to a huge amount of infrastructure damage.
On the other hand, a century or two previously little infrastructure existed outside cities. Railways, electricity lines and power plants, car-quality roads, oil and gas pipelines, even most roads or trans-city water and sewage systems are modern inventions.