Could we actually fight a war against an alien race?

[NJ5]

Rath said:
It depends on quite a bit.

For one thing humans have always shown themselves to be adept at picking up technology pretty quickly - take the Maori land wars for example where within ~40 years of western technology arriving the Maori were in some ways more advanced at using it for warfare than the Europeans.

For another we have no guarantees that the aliens will have really developed warfare, in which case our focus on using technology for killing things might give us an advantage.

I see your point on a general level, but... If they can bring an alien mothership here they have shown they can control vast amounts of energy. Warfare is really all about controlling energy...