The current situation in Iraq, Chechnya and Afghanistan demonstrates the central problem of modern warfare. Contemporary warfare was forged during World War II when the three dominant elements of the modern battlefield reached maturity: the aircraft carrier-submarine combination in naval warfare, the fighter and bomber combination in aerial warfare and the armored fighting vehicle-self-propelled artillery combination on land. Tied together with electromagnetic communications and sensors, this complex of systems has continued to dominate modern military thinking. It was not the weapons systems themselves that defined warfare. Rather it was the deeper concept — the idea that technology was decisive in war. The armed forces of all major combatants in the 20th century were organized to optimize the use of massed technology. The neatly structured echelons in each sphere of warfare were designed not only to manage and maintain the equipment, but also to facilitate their orderly deployment on the battlefield.