Victor Davis Hanson: Tomorrow’s Wars - Enormous, massively destructive engagements may again be...

City Journal ^ | Winter 2010 | Victor Davis Hanson

[familyop]

Finally, one of the elite folks realizes that high intensity conflict is possible after all. But it’s a little late.

[Freedomlibertyjustice]

VDH nails it again.

I would only add that one possible scenario leading to the resumption of massive, set-piece battles would be a collapse of the US as a superpower. The most likely scenario for this is an economic meltdown precipitated by sovereign debt (like Greece today). If that happened here not only would the rest of the world be disinclined to bail us out, but due to the size of our debt and our economy - they simply could not.

The current state of relative peace among nation-states is due to Pax Americana. Like the Roman peace under Augustus, the other nations of the world have generally avoided confrontations which would draw the US into battle (Saddam learned this lesson in 1991).

If you remove this global shield of American supremacy the current era of relative peace (between nation-states) will end abruptly.

[GonzoGOP]

Even the “Mother of All Battles” in the 1991 Gulf War was largely a rout. The tank battle at Medina Ridge involved hundreds of armored vehicles but lasted little more than an hour—the Americans suffering neither casualties from enemy fire nor a single Abrams tank destroyed, while obliterating 186 Iraqi tanks.

While I hate to argue with VDH (Since he is almost always right) fast, decisive and lopsided engagements that take place during a larger battle are the hallmark of Western warfare. He seems to discount Median Ridge because it took only a little more than an hour and the Americans took no casualties. But at Midway the attacks by the American Dive bombers destroyed three Japanese aircraft carriers with no losses in less than five minutes. And in doing so decided the entire course of the Pacific War.

It doesn't make sense to look at one engagement separate (Median Ridge) from the battle in which it took place (The Left Hook). You can't look at the charge of the light brigade without looking at the entire Crimean campaign. You cannot look at the nearly bloodless capture of Eniwetok without first examining the carnage of Tarawa that taught the US Navy and Marines what not to do. Or how the Japanese altered their strategy afterwords (don't fight the Americans on the beach) to make Iwo Jima such a tough target.

[iceskater]

Read “One Second After”. It’s a novel based on a EMP attack.
I’m reading it now. Very scary to think about.

The military is probably not as hardened against EMP damage as we’d like to think. Civilians definitely are not.

[Quix]

WRONG.

The PTB have scheduled massive WWIII horrors

They REALLY ARE determined to reduce the population to 200 million

by force.

And one of their key strategies is by massive war making destructiveness on a scale NEVER seen before.

They have this ego-maniacal delusion that they’ll be big elites managing a much smaller and more manageable pile of serfs and slaves with most of the world returned to Natural National Park status for their play times.

God has some BIG surprises in store for them, however.

[lentulusgracchus]

Lots of wars have been fought for less.

How about the Soccer War between El Salvador and Honduras? It was the last combat in which Vought F4U's were used -- by Honduras.

The war stopped when the combatants ran low on everything, and their neighbors refused to resupply them.

[lentulusgracchus]

God has some BIG surprises in store for them, however.

Yeah. Us. And Dr. Guillotine.

Nasty when the help gets uppity.

[lentulusgracchus]

But at Midway the attacks by the American Dive bombers destroyed three Japanese aircraft carriers with no losses in less than five minutes.

Those three minutes were bought by the sacrifices of the torpedo squadrons and the Marine dive-bomber and F-3A fighter squadrons from Midway. They were slaughtered.

Ensign George Gay was the only survivor of his torpedo-bomber squadron. He's the guy who saw the whole dive-bomber attack on Nagumo's carrier divisions up close and in Technicolor from underneath a floating seat cushion.

[GonzoGOP]

Those three minutes were bought by the sacrifices of the torpedo squadrons and the Marine dive-bomber and F-3A fighter squadrons from Midway. They were slaughtered.

That was exactly my point. One part of a battle cannot be properly examined without examining the entire battle, before and after. The victory against the Republican Guards may have taken only one hour, but it was preceded by wings of B-52s bombing them round the clock for a month. They were cut off from communications to headquarters. Their dispersed positions, necessary for defense against air attack, were the absolute worst positions to be in when hit by a concentrated ground force. They had no air support. Because the Guard were effectively pinned down by US air power the US army knew exactly where they were, but with no recon or accurate intel the Guards were oblivious to an armored force as large as their own attacking them from a completely unexpected direction.

As a perfect example from another war. At Chancellorsville Lee launched an attack on one wing of the Union army while, Jackson hit the Army of the Potomac from an unexpected direction. At about the same time the Union's commanding general was incapacitated by a concussion and couldn't make the quick decisions necessary to rescue the situation. The result was a slaughter for the Union and a great victory for the Confederates. Taken by itself you could draw the conclusion that in the Civil war offensive action trumped defensive action. That a divided mobile force could defeat a larger static force, and that the Union Army lacked the training and morale to hold a position under determined assault. If you studied only Chancellorsville you could draw completely inaccurate conclusions about the state of warfare in the 1860's.

The falsity of those conclusions comes two months later when those same armies met at Gettysburg. Again Lee used his army as a mobile striking force against a more static Union army. On the second day he launched multiple simultaneous attacks on different parts of the Union Line. On the third day he subjected the Union army to perhaps the single most concentrated and determined attack it would face in the entire war. And at Gettysburg it was the Confederates that are roughly handled and driven from the field.

[Quix]

Could well be.

There are persistent rumors that the globalists have warehouses full of guillotines . . . for us . . . so they can use the organs better, more easily.

[El Gato]

Read “One Second After”. It’s a novel based on a EMP attack.

Already have. And it is scary.

The military is probably not as hardened against EMP damage as we’d like to think.

The actual weapon systems, and critical communications and other systems that *directly* support the war fighters are pretty well hardened, its not really that difficult. (One cavet is maintainence, as EMP resistance can degrade over time without proper maintainence.). However most of the logistics support "tail" is not so hardened. That tends to use commerical hardware, either unmodified, or only slightly modified. That stuff is likely no or not much harder than commercial stuff. The electrice grid is the single most vulnerable thing, The measures taken to shield electronics from radiating undesired ommissions may give some protections, but probably not enough in most cases. Keep your radios in metal cans, when not in use, and have spares, and they will likely survive all but the closest "events".

[El Gato]

Yeah. Us. And Dr. Guillotine.

Too much effort, especially considering the large numbers needing to be "serviced".

Just "Git a Rope".

[SunkenCiv]

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