The various conflicts in Iraq over the past decade have had an interesting effect on the public perception of war. To us in the UK, thousands of miles away from the battleground, it can seem that war is mostly automated, with our soldiers in bunkers pressing the buttons that launch the missiles that defeat the enemy. It's reached the stage where - apart from the niggling fact that Saddam Hussain is still in power, and politically strengthened by his survival - it perhaps seems that with today's technology, all we have to do is press a few buttons and the mighty Western war machine will neutralise our enemies at no cost to us. The reality is not quite so simple. Even in Iraq, where allied forces outnumbered Iraqi troops by a staggering amount, and had far more effective weaponry, British and other allied soldiers were killed. The financial cost of the operation was immense, and that in turn affects people living in this country. Iraq, with its large desert areas, was an almost ideal place to test out remote, computer-controlled weaponry, yet still there were losses and the outcome was far from perfect.

Serbia is quite a different kettle of fish. For a start, it's much closer to home, and the inhabitants of countries such as Italy must be feeling just a tad nervous at the proximity of this war. Much as we'd feel if NATO decided to attack France. Serbia is a country with varied terrain, sophisticated weapons and, perhaps most importantly, a fierce sense of pride, tradition and national identity. Leaving aside the question of selective intervention and whether or not you think that air-strikes were justified or necessary, there are some tough facts to face. Potentially, this war could all be over tomorrow. On the other hand, it could drag on for years, pitting new and old enemies against each other. Putting on my pessimist's hat, a war in Europe could be a welcome distraction from Russian internal strife and economic problems for Boris Yeltsin. After all, much of the Russian army is bored and underpaid, and just itching for a bit of action. Boris himself, meanwhile, is hardly one of the most stable leaders the world has seen.

Given the advances that we've seen in PC technology, it's tempting to think that wars can now be fought with little or no risk to Western forces. Unfortunately that's not the case. There are NATO 'planes flying today whose weapons and/or navigation systems are controlled by a computer with the same processing power as a Commodore 64. And for younger readers, no that doesn't mean that it had a 64-bit processor. They do the job, but they aren't exactly high-tech. Laser- and wire-guided missiles can do some damage, but they aren't 100 percent reliable. As America discovered in Vietnam, and the USSR in Afghanistan, remote bombing doesn't guarantee success. If the enemy resists - and any psychological profile of Milosevic will tell you that he's not the sort to give in easily - long-distance strikes may have to be backed up with ground troops, at which point it's likely that there will be serious casualties on both sides.

All this is fundamentally unpleasant. Battleground technology is advanced, particularly as far as remote imaging and targeting is concerned, but not so advanced that any side can win a war without getting properly involved. There is, though, a way to avoid human casualties altogether, while still maintaining national pride on all sides. Forget all this missile malarkey and instead let's have an international Quake Deathmatch. The eight best players from each country get to team up and fight, with the loser forced to accept the will of the winner. It sounds facetious, but in fact the wars of the future may well be fought without any human intervention at all. Early in the next century it's likely that artificial intelligence will be built into armoured robots, remote-controlled vehicles and perhaps nano-engineered 'insects'. Some of the necessary technology already exists. If implemented, the battlegrounds of the future could be littered not with the bodies of dead humans, but with the remains of destroyed machines. In the meantime, there may be attempts to improve the fighting efficiency of humans, perhaps with neurological implants that improve reactions, increase aggression, add extra senses such as radar awareness, and so on, à la Rogue Trooper.

Another way that computers can be - and are - used in war is in predictive modelling. Like a game of chess, the protagonists have a limited number of options available to them at any time. By building a simulated model of the warzone, logistics and troop characteristics, and including all these options, the computer can help in finding the strategy or tactics that will cause the most damage to the enemy while minimising your own casualties. Looking further ahead, there may come a time when, instead of computers guiding the actions of troops on either side, the computers themselves compete head-to-head, in what some writers have dubbed the ultimate 'Cyberwar'. By this stage, there may be no need for soldiers of any kind, with the war taking place solely in the virtual realm.

My apologies if this column has wandered a little off-topic (i.e. more than usual!) this month, but I thought it worth considering that, while computer technology pervades our everyday lives, at work and at play, it has not yet progressed to a level where it can keep us safe from the fallout of war. The events of the last few days may prove to be the most significant since computers were first used in anger in the second World War.