I'm no military strategist I just play one on the internet aka I'm about to talk some shit haha so take it with a grain of salt.
Robotic war is interesting and specifically drone warefare in my mind is similar to the role carriers played in World War 2 which is having a great cost benefit ratio along with great flexibility on damaging enemy ships and allowing longer range bombing runs. I agree that killer robots would definitely alter the battlefield equation but over the long run I think youth should still get the edge.
Having said all of that based on WW2 technological advantages eventually get countered or erode in a war of attrition with the largest industrial base eventually winning by simple over production and/or reducing the enemy's industrial capacity through strategic bombing of factories / input resources.
Either way in a total war scenario where attrition crowns the eventual winner devising counter measures and other cognitive work in general is easier when workers are <50 since there's measurable cognitive decline after that at least productivity wise. The average age of the Manhattan project scientists was ~24-25.
Additionally, a country needs to be able to simply replace it's productive experienced workers with new workers after it's factories get bombed and having a fatter more numerous population pyramid would definitely help. It's also entirely possible that robotic workers / automated factories get degraded over time due to missing parts when the enemy blows up supply chains or other resources required to get the to full robo productivity.
To sum up my entire argument/assumption youth + more population is robust to the chaos of war.
Robotic war is interesting and specifically drone warefare in my mind is similar to the role carriers played in World War 2 which is having a great cost benefit ratio along with great flexibility on damaging enemy ships and allowing longer range bombing runs. I agree that killer robots would definitely alter the battlefield equation but over the long run I think youth should still get the edge.
Having said all of that based on WW2 technological advantages eventually get countered or erode in a war of attrition with the largest industrial base eventually winning by simple over production and/or reducing the enemy's industrial capacity through strategic bombing of factories / input resources.
Either way in a total war scenario where attrition crowns the eventual winner devising counter measures and other cognitive work in general is easier when workers are <50 since there's measurable cognitive decline after that at least productivity wise. The average age of the Manhattan project scientists was ~24-25.
Additionally, a country needs to be able to simply replace it's productive experienced workers with new workers after it's factories get bombed and having a fatter more numerous population pyramid would definitely help. It's also entirely possible that robotic workers / automated factories get degraded over time due to missing parts when the enemy blows up supply chains or other resources required to get the to full robo productivity.
To sum up my entire argument/assumption youth + more population is robust to the chaos of war.