[68skylark]

The permalink is here.

The destructive capacity ascribed to the biplane bombers of the day approached that later attributed to nuclear weapons during the Cold War and so terrified politicians that it fueled the policy of appeasement.

This is a fascinating sentence. I didn't know this, and it really helps explain a lot.

[AppyPappy]

The machine gun was considered so horrible that it prevented wars from occuring.

[denydenydeny]

Brilliant piece, as always, from Wretchard.

And I love the fittingly named Joint Improvised Explosive Device Neutralizer (JIN).

[eureka!]

bump

[Andrewksu]

ping

[beebuster2000]

great post

[narby]

The asymmetrical warfare we're facing now is we're using our military, and they're using our media.

We lost Vietnam that way and we're about to do it again.

Our first amendment is our Achilles heal.

[JamesP81]

The penalty for raising weaponry to a higher standard is making existing stock somewhat obsolete. Yet a more fundamental problem may be in store for the enemy. By engaging America in a technological arms race of sorts they are playing to its strengths.

Absolutely. If they get into a war of attrition based on sophistication of weapons, we will destroy them easily.

[konaice]

Yet a more fundamental problem may be in store for the enemy. By engaging America in a technological arms race of sorts they are playing to its strengths. The relative decline in IED effectivity suggests the enemy, while improving, has not kept up.

In spite of this clue to the true situation, the writer insists on playing up the FUD factor.

The idea that a bunch of 6th grade educated camel jockeys will forever hold the upper hand is the one he wants you com come away with, rather than the very examples he cites of previous asymmetrical weapons being turned into major power advantage.

The "man-made lightning" of the Ionatron is just a Wright Brothers version of the weapon likely to be developed. More likley, area denial versions of this will appear, making it fatal to even drive a suicide vehicle.

But the jihadists are rather short of physicists.

[tophat9000]

Ultimately asymmetrical warfare is the propaganda...they use the big lie.... convince your opponent then can't win or paint your opponent as the evil one... As I type this Rush is talking about the new Hollywood propaganda campaign...

Folks we are in for a lot of work... big lie propaganda is cheap and easy to mass produce, it just that simple make stuff up.

The trick is to do it in mass so it overwhelms true facts...the left has this tactic down pat...

The only counter to big lie propaganda is hard truth, facts and logic in equal mass...and that takes hard work...

An to be blunt you don't beat the lefts big lie propaganda with your own...it the lefts game

[jonascord]

What is not mentioned is what happens when you use a JIN on a human target. Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration, the first fielded electro-blaster. Silent, invisible, portable. Hit someone with about 50,000 volts, at about 50 amps, and you have a crispy critter...

[elbucko]

Good article. Thanks for posting it.

[Travis McGee]

Wretchard wrocks!

[Alberta's Child]

This article misses a very important element that has probably been one of the most crucial factors in any war: the advantage that one side enjoys over another when it wages war on its own soil. The side that is fighting on its own soil will always be at an advantage over a foreign force, due to several major factors: 1) their familiarity with the terrain, 2) their support among the local population, and 3) their stronger resolve in the face of adversity.

This "home field advantage" is a more accurate description of what is happening in Iraq today -- the IEDs are simply one method by which it is carried out. This factor explains a number of cases throughout history in which a local fighting force was able to defeat a better-equipped adversary (the American Revolution, Russia's victory over Germany at Stalingrad, America's loss in Vietnam, etc.).

The two cases the author cites -- submarines and bombers -- are classic examples of one side taking advantage of two specific aspects of warfare (the sea and the skies) in which a country does not maintain an advantage of familiarity. Since these two areas are where technology is more important than local familiarity (nobody lives under the sea or in the sky), a local military force is not necessarily any more competent than a foreign force. The use of submarines and bombers by the U.S. in World War II, for example, was as effective in and around Japan as it would have been in and around New York City.

[Terabitten]

on July 23 ... a huge bomb buried on a road southwest of Baghdad Airport detonated an hour before dark underneath a Humvee carrying four American soldiers. The explosive device was constructed from a bomb weighing 500 pounds or more that was meant to be dropped from an aircraft, according to military explosives experts, and was probably Russian in origin.

Those four men were my friends from my old unit, 2nd Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment, Georgia Army National Guard. I knew all four of them personally. From what I heard from other friends in Iraq, it was 5 each 200 pound bombs essentially daisy chained together.