Thread: The New Aztecs

Thanks. It looks interesting and I'll try to read it this week. Will you be authoring "The New Attila: Wanton and Unhinged Barbarians At The Gates Of Civilization"?

That would be more entertaining...

A quick five minute thought:

Could it be more simply because warfare is simply become more resource intensive (stretching out personnel more, which in turn requires a greater emphasis on economy of force) for western militaries? After all, NATO and et al are still conditioned in many ways to fight a conventional war (a high risk to existence, low probability occurrence) versus police action (low risk to existence, high probability occurrence), and since one often doesn't have both because of cost constraints, we are stuck in the awkward position of trying to fight 'small' actions using a sledgehammer (I'm thinking more of the current wars than Vietnam, which was touched upon in the article).

I want to see "The New Attila: Wanton and Unhinged Barbarians At The Gates Of Civilization" by Mihai. Best seller easy!

On the issue of mass war a la WW1 and 2, I am not sure it is needed until it is needed so why bother practising it until then? Of course this is probably why Britain traditionaly loses the first battles.

Originally Posted by snapper

I want to see "The New Attila: Wanton and Unhinged Barbarians At The Gates Of Civilization" by Mihai. Best seller easy!

+1

On the issue of mass war a la WW1 and 2, I am not sure it is needed until it is needed so why bother practising it until then? Of course this is probably why Britain traditionaly loses the first battles.

You were so eager to expel Romans, you even forgot 'Sic vis Pacem, Para bellum'

Don't get me onto that... I can rant for hours and do. In some cases (Iran springs to mind) a form of converse applies: 'Sic vis pacem, fac bellum'.

Originally Posted by snapper

Don't get me onto that... I can rant for hours and do. In some cases (Iran springs to mind) a form of converse applies: 'Sic vis pacem, fac bellum'.

Please tell us how you feel

Few tyrants wont live long I suspect.

I prefer not to bore fellow wabbits to death but the current British military planning is asking for trouble imho. It's not as if we'll be caught half dressed next time we'll be positively streaking down the High Street. Bearing in mind the losses of cancelation where money money has already been spent we could (from the wasted money spent on cancelled orders alone) have upgraded Trident in this Parliament and not postponed it. Then you start getting in the alterations and whatnot and the whole procurement process that is used which is a. completly unfit for the purpose it seeks to achieve b. riddled with political interference and c. partly corrupt. It's a wonder the troops get ANY equipment let alone stuff that normaly doesn't work first time and subsequently needs multiple changes costing extra £bns. Luckily for all Ministers of Defence I do not work in the MoD. In my opinion there should be NO Minister of Defence as a political appointee. There should be either individual or a combined Services Procurement Committee/Board made up the Officers themselves who have to use the equiptment in the field. An assesment should be made of possible requirements given A-Z of possible threats/actions etc and this list alone should be reviewed by the Cabinet. When an agreed list of 'possibles' is formed by Cabinet and military on 10-30yr basis the Treasury should simply hand the money over necessary for procurement necessities in given agreed 'possibles' (and if necessary the Bank of England should print the money). The last 'Strategic Defence and Security Review' was so politicaly motivated it has left Britain with a smaller army than Greece, simply because the sole objective of our current Government is to reduce the deficit. This is NOT wisdom long term.

Originally Posted by Doktor

+1


You were so eager to expel Romans, you even forgot 'Sic vis Pacem, Para bellum'

They were losing their grip on Europe so perhaps they should have practised what they preached with 'Sic vis Pacem, Para bellum' Anyway, we were getting fed up with pasta and pizza

Originally Posted by dave lukins

They were losing their grip on Europe so perhaps they should have practised what they preached with 'Sic vis Pacem, Para bellum' Anyway, we were getting fed up with pasta and pizza

Yes they should, but that's why they lost

Afterwards you ended with fish and chips and Yorkshire pudding. Not a good trade my friend.

Good grief,me and writing.I just fell from the tree and started walking on 2 legs. S-2 on the other hand has enough time.After all,the good sir enjoys fishing meaning he has the time while waiting for something to bite.

Skywatcher-this is war,not bussiness.The enemy can recruit 4 guys in a place like Peshawar with a few hundreds bucks,can give shovels worth 50$ and AK's worth 400$ and ask them to make a bunker,which is a day of work.You can take that bunker by droping a 100000$ bomb or by risking an infantry squad worth 1-2 millions in training&equipment.Either way,the enemy makes a great ''deal''.This problem was also present in past wars.Making armor,shipping men by galley,keeping them fed by ox cart which in turn needs a stone road was a big deal 2000 years ago.The enemy had a spear,which literally grows in the tree and some furs as clothes,which grows in the wood or on the pasture on their natural owner,the animal.Bussiness wise,it's waste of resources for the greater power.Yet,it turned to be profitable to wage war like that.The secret lies in not waging actually too many wars.Make a few points by torching some villages and salting a city and the rest might choose a path of least resistance,giving up.That's also an art.Kill too many,you give the others no choice but fight to the last.Kill too few and you impress nobody.

One point the article makes is that modern day school of thought is that sending in troops is in vogue.The reasoning behind the decision is shallow,but seeing troops run in some exotic land and aircraft taking of is cool on TV.While there,said troops are told to sit on their butts at the cost of 1 million/year/man.Said pilots are toast if they drop bombs.Same effects on target can be obtained by not going there and that has no cost at all.So much for the economy.Like the Foreign Legion and the Marine Infantry used to make the law in the French Empire without the homeland actually giving a crap about what was going in Algeria or Dahomey,western world might and will be better served by a small body of small wars experts.SOF are that body of experts.Yet they rarely won a war although they rarely lost a battle,unlike their predecessors,who never lost a war and rarely lost battles.And we're not allowed to fight wars,because the society has no idea what a war is.We're engaged in ritualic expeditions that are the offerings to the gods of Feel Good,Act Humanely and Think Of The Children.Said gods are also hypocrites of first rank,because the end result is not more humanity but more cruelty.
Fact is our societies have changed.I don't believe our armies are actually prepared to wage a big war without significant resources and time to get in shape,but they do act like they can.They're also structurally incapable of winning small wars and it's not what they should do.Ultimately,modern world has no freaking idea what is doing.Tactics exist to give a solution to a problem. Strategy exists to guarantee a continuation of our existence.We have none.

That may seem like a rant of a disgruntled sociopat,pi$$ed of he can't kill and destroy at his heart leisure.Crazy or not,war matters because it decides life and death.Modern culture acts like the ostrich and believes that an unpleasant thing can be ignored.We either change that or we die.Either by a thousand small cuts or by a big one.Simple as that.

Wars are expensive. Total war is ridiculously expensive. Modern day Mongols are history. You cannot rape and pillage to recover costs. It won't even begin to make a dent. How much oil does Iraq have to pump to repay the costs of the V Corp's invasion and occupation?

Is it any wonder why we want to fight wars on the cheap?

Sir,with all the respect,but I don't see how paying 1 million$/year for every REMF and bureaucrat in A-stan is cheap.And even at that cost,the job doesn't gets done.

Iraq may be beyond the scope of the argument,but IIRC there were some serious strategic errors that augmented the costs of the invasion.The point is that said errors were the consequence of the mainstream culture in the Western world.

The occupation would occur no matter what. It makes no sense to slaughter a population and not take what riches there are. Even old Genghis settled in Afghanistan after he killed off every man, woman, child, dog who opposed him.

Afghanistan is dirt cheap by comparison. We may have spent $billions but it is $billions less than what would have costs to hunt down every man, woman, child.

Sir,some 200.000 Englishmen held India.5 or 6 French divisions held half of Africa and they had some fights on their hands.Instead,NATO sent a big conventional army to sit on its butt.We are occupying the dirt on the FOB and not much else.

Soviet generals knew in 1985-6 they can win the war by doubling their force.Had they chosed this path,they would have had roughly the same numbers we and the ASF have today.For whatever reasons,they decided not to,mainly because it wasn't worth the bother.With 150000 men they killed 1.5 millions and sent packing 3 times that number.Double that and there's not much left in A-stan,particularly fighting age men.Their costs were far less than ours and they achieved better results,with a general correlation of forces far worse than ours.Nobody but the Khyber gunsmiths and the Pak army supplies the 30-40000 foes.Their power base is 20% of the country.In Soviet times,the whole world was actively supporting the Muj,while 80% of the country fought the Russians.Yet in a sense the Russians were closer to victory than us.

Our men pass along the Taliban on their patrols.They're unarmed,so they can't be shot.25 years ago, there would have been nothing left of them,as well as all the nearby villages that couldn't prove their innocence.For us to do one single thing like that would mean instant defeat on the home front.