america = war

lothar
america = war

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."

That was said by someone in Ancient Greece over 2000 years ago. Killing populations one by one by the sword or one plane with one bomb?

"War means fighting and fighting means killing."
"It is good war is so horrible or else we would come to enjoy it too much."

Those were both said before nuclear weapons and they were only the echoes of words said millenia before.

Mankind=war.

What about the concept of mutual assured destruction? When America and the soviet union were in each others throats, they were hesitant to start a war that they believed would devastate each other to the point that they would never recover. Without the nukes the cold war might have been far more spicy.

I think nuclear weapons matured the western world. It made them realize that they weren't playing with toys anymore. When you could destroy an entire civilization with a push of a button, who in return had a button like that on their own, you start to respect each other a little bit.

Just years prior to the development of the nuclear bomb, Europe was a boiling pot of wars and conflict. I doubt it has ever seen 50 years of peace before now.

bravo1102
Mankind=war.

bird = the word

in an insane world it was the only sane choice



im starting to not care about things anymore

Reminds me of what George Carlin said about this kind of stuff:

(Go to 1:40 to get right to the action)

Product Placement
Just years prior to the development of the nuclear bomb, Europe was a boiling pot of wars and conflict. I doubt it has ever seen 50 years of peace before now.

Are you saying there's been peace in Europe for 50 years, or did I misread that?

There will always be reasons for people to hate other people.
race, religion, baseball teams,etc.
It is human nature to be a hater.

Ironscarf

Product Placement
Just years prior to the development of the nuclear bomb, Europe was a boiling pot of wars and conflict. I doubt it has ever seen 50 years of peace before now.

Are you saying there's been peace in Europe for 50 years, or did I misread that?

The time since 1945 is accepted to be the longest time in Western European history without a war between major countries where whole armies invade other countries. Small conflicts especially those in the Balkans don't count.

The last great European peace (1815-1854) saw all kinds of little wars and several years of great internal revolutions that were ruthlessly beaten down, but no great nation on nation combat until that mess in the Crimea. Crimea was very small compared to the wars of Napoleon and wasn't really fought in Europe but off on a Asian penninsula.

It was then another generation until those six weeks in 1870 that pulled down the comic opera empire of Napoleon III and that was a major European land war that presaged the War to End all Wars.

Part of that "peace since 1945" has also been the changing face of warfare. Large-scale wars between multiple countries have become less frequent in a lot of ways and have been replaced by smaller conflicts like the trouble in Rwanda, Somalia, the Caucasus and with the Basque region in the public eye. These days, not only are we less likely to think about large wars, but that tendency does seem to be leading towards a different idea of war in which small-arms, guerrilla fighting is more the norm. As a species, we seem much more content these days to cause a massive uproar over a few hundred dead instead of a couple thousand.

You're right. Modern all out warfare is extremely expensive and extremely logistics intensive. A few beat up Toyota pick-ups with machine guns in the back and a hundred guys with rifles is so much easier than maintaining even one tank in fully operational condition. But the side that has that tank has a huge edge.

However as I said the 19th Century was full of little wars because a nation in arms was expensive in many of the same ways as in modern warfare. So there were small professional forces that ranged all over in little brushfire wars just like today that could be stretched out into a nation under arms in case of emergency. That was the whole gist of military development in the 19th century, how best and fast can the nation make that transition. And Prussia won.

Now it's just too expensive to expand the force into the nation under arms unless national survival is at stake. Modern total warfare is also too destructive with it's emphasis on destroying infrastructure. You don't need nuclear weapons when artillery and airpower can hammer the countryside until it resembles a moonscape. And when there's not much to begin with like in Somalia it doesn't take a lot of effort to knock it all down. Those guys with the Toyota pick-ups are sufficient.

I seeeeeee a debate topic ^___^

-The future of warfare!

bravo1102
You're right. Modern all out warfare is extremely expensive and extremely logistics intensive. A few beat up Toyota pick-ups with machine guns in the back and a hundred guys with rifles is so much easier than maintaining even one tank in fully operational condition. But the side that has that tank has a huge edge.

However as I said the 19th Century was full of little wars because a nation in arms was expensive in many of the same ways as in modern warfare. So there were small professional forces that ranged all over in little brushfire wars just like today that could be stretched out into a nation under arms in case of emergency. That was the whole gist of military development in the 19th century, how best and fast can the nation make that transition. And Prussia won.

Now it's just too expensive to expand the force into the nation under arms unless national survival is at stake. Modern total warfare is also too destructive with it's emphasis on destroying infrastructure. You don't need nuclear weapons when artillery and airpower can hammer the countryside until it resembles a moonscape. And when there's not much to begin with like in Somalia it doesn't take a lot of effort to knock it all down. Those guys with the Toyota pick-ups are sufficient.

Actually, I'd argue that those guys in pick-ups might be even more effective in a place like Somalia where most fights are apt to occur in a crowded city. Tanks don't have a lot of maneuver room inside most cities and they have to move slower which makes them easy to pick off. A bunch of random looking guys carrying ak's is a hell of a lot harder to pick out of a crowd. Between that and the suicidally aggressive tendencies of Somali crowds is probably one of the major reasons so many people ended up dying during the fighting in 1993 ( official estimate from the red cross was set at about 250-300 people. ). We won the fight, hands down, in terms of numbers killed, but we lost when it came to who got more out of that fight. We captured a couple of Aidid's lieutenants, but the Somalis made us give up. They don't have the advantage of being able to destroy infrastructure as easily, but these days you don't necessarily have to destroy your enemies infrastructure to win.

Somalia and the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars have pretty much shown that if you kill enough American troops, the American public will start to lose it's stomach for the fight pretty quick. I think we're in a bit of transition between the idea of fighting a war against a nation-state who's means of fighting you can effectively destroy and end their ability to fight, and the idea of learning to fight against a small de-centralized group who has very little needed to keep it running. It's still quite possible to win, as the Sri Lankan fight against the Tamil Tigers shows, it just takes a lot of time. And I think that's where they have the chance to win. As a country, we're just not as willing to accept casualties as we used to be. In a lot of ways, that's a good thing. But I think we're moving in the direction of fighting guerrillas who's main objective is just to outlast us. I'm no military expert, but looking at the past, and what's going on now, that's my prediction for the future.

edit: feel free to send this to debate Oz, but I probably won't be spending a lot of time debating it myself seeing as how I barely have time to be on right now.

ozoneocean
I seeeeeee a debate topic ^___^

-The future of warfare!

I have seen the future and it is a beat up Toyota pickup with an RPG and a machine gun mounted in the back fighting giant robots marked with huge Kangeroos, Kiwis, Jerboas or anchors and globes.

And maybe a few laser bracelet wielding women in tight clothing for local color.

And phased plasma rifles in 40 watt range.