The Future of War?

[Addled Platypus]

Originally posted by Kontiki


Are they ill tempered?

only when you use them to slap someone

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by Platypus Rex


only when you use them to slap someone

or if you tell one a turbut could take them

[Bosh]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'd hate to see what you'd call ineffective.

Military tactics that can't beat Israel?

[Patroklos]

The tactics of armed guerilla resistance in urban settings has proven to be too difficult a task for even the world's hyperpower. The US could turn Baghdad into a sheet of glass, but it cannot stop the people from fighting. Stopping the flow of arms into the region is more difficult than disabling/destroying an organized modern army.

The reason such tactics are effective is that the political will to use the proper counter tactics is not there. Like you said war, for the West anyways, has become our political objective instead of a tool to achieve them. We don't care about winning as much as being nice or rather proving we can win it in a certain way.

However, conventional forces can easily wipe the floor with insurgents/guerrillas. It is not a new thing, insurgents were around when Ceasar invaded Gaul, we just aren't in the buisness of razing cities and salting farmland. Oddly enough, I am of the opinion that a few brutal acts in the beginning is far less destructive that a drawn out protracted guerrila war, because basically all we have done in the last few decades is validate the tactics of hiding behind civilians, and then we wonder why so many get killed.

Military tactics that can't beat Israel?

And while the nature of warfare has changed, a good protion of it is the ridiculous benchmarks for success people set these days.

[Sandman]

In the medium-term future, it's all about the infantry.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Patroklos
The reason such tactics are effective is that the political will to use the proper counter tactics is not there. Like you said war, for the West anyways, has become our political objective instead of a tool to achieve them. We don't care about winning as much as being nice or rather proving we can win it in a certain way.

However, conventional forces can easily wipe the floor with insurgents/guerrillas. It is not a new thing, insurgents were around when Ceasar invaded Gaul, we just aren't in the buisness of razing cities and salting farmland. Oddly enough, I am of the opinion that a few brutal acts in the beginning is far less destructive that a drawn out protracted guerrila war, because basically all we have done in the last few decades is validate the tactics of hiding behind civilians, and then we wonder why so many get killed.

Of course you can win against the insurgents if you're behaving like Saddam Hussein himself and are killing them together with their families and whole villages (i.e. the people, behind whom they're hiding). After all most things Saddam was tried and convicted for, was just that, brutal and remorselessly quelling uprisings by killing insurgents (of the Kurds and Shiites). The mainstream, non-rioting Iraqi had little to fear under his rule.

But if you would do so, after the "WMD" justification for the invasion was a total disaster, your next choice "toppling a brutal dictator" wouldn't fly either. End of line is, you can only claim moral highground if you behave accordingly.

And while the nature of warfare has changed, a good protion of it is the ridiculous benchmarks for success people set these days.

That's not new either. You know, there are a lot of people who believe that Finland won the Winter war.

[Zkribbler]

I have a new sig!

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Paintball. Bombs even. Get spattered, go to the side. You're out of the game.

Silly pacifist.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Bosh
Military tactics that can't beat Israel?

A true student of Pyrrhus I see!

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Sava
The answer to how the future of war will play out, as far as war being a tool of political power is concerned, has to do with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. States that have nuclear weapons will not go to war against each other because there is no scenario in which one side can gain an effective advantage over another without ensuring its own survival. War as it exists in the post-Cold War era is primarily a question of nuclear powers exerting their will upon non-nuclear powers. However, although a country like the United States or Russia possesses the ability to destroy another nation, no country has demonstrated the ability to exert political control over another country. The War in Iraq is a prime example.

only if an incapacitating first strike is impossible.

If such a strike becomes possible. ut oh. SO much for MAD.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Bosh


Military tactics that can't beat Israel?

Israel wasn't beaten. The zionist entity remains. Hezbollah successfully hid from israel until israel lost the political will to continue to hunt them down. The rockets and other attacks they launched at israel had negligable to zero effect on israels fighting capability.

This 'victory' is almost totally useless for hezbollah in it's goal of destroying israel.

[Drake Tungsten]

I don't know what you guys are smoking. Hezbollah kicked Israel's ass.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
I don't know what you guys are smoking. Hezbollah kicked Israel's ass.

QFT.

What do we pay them for, again?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Geronimo
Israel wasn't beaten. The zionist entity remains.

That's like saying the US won Vietnam because we weren't conquered.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


That's like saying the US won Vietnam because we weren't conquered.

Was the US in any danger of being conquered?

IIRC Vietnam never had a stated goal of destroying the US. Hezibollah makes quite clear it intends to destroy israel.

Good luck Hez.

My point actually is that these tactics will only be the last word in defensive war. And in that role they are quite ancient. Nothing has changed on the offensive side apart from the political desire to play nice when the aggressor.