Piracy, Guerrillas & Insurgents (why our "old military" is useless)

[SoCalDem]

We are mired in a WWII/Cold war mentality, and wasting "brazillions" in the process of arming, training & stockpiling our military.

One would have thought that Viet Nam would have taught us a lesson.

We had an early-warning way back in the 60's, and yet we seem to have learned nothing.

The lesson is this:

Uneducated, poor people can and DO fight effectively against a super power, and can and do "win" many battles.

Tanks, battleships, and billion dollar planes keep people employed (in the making & marketing of them), and the Military Academy types love "playing with them", but in this modern world of ours, a cell phone & some C4 can (and does) "kill" millions of dollars worth of equipment, and wounds & kills many military people and civilians alike. These relatively "ignorant" people set off devices via remote control, and we are constantly looking for high tech solutions to low-tech attacks.

We have our million dollar-plus drones & spy planes, and we seem quite adept at killing wedding parties & school kids, but people move around, and "terrorists" are adept at evading our efforts.

A band of lawless Somali guys have figured out a way to make money, by extorting money from shipping companies, with a very low tech approach again. No fancy weapons needed..just shinny up the side of a cargo ship, take it and hold it for ransom..

The fact that they are holding an American captain for ransom , is causing a problem , because the Navy is involved now, but their warships are no match for a 28 ft skiff, out of gas and manned by 4 guys with guns. the dilemma is this.. Our "power" is useless because the outcome we want and need involves an unharmed captain, released.. They want their freedom and money. we are not willing to do that. They are willing to kill the captain.. we don't want that.

We "negotiate" with them and get him released (with payment), and we are weak, and we bowed to "sea-terrorists".. We have a shoot out and end up with a dead captain, and what did we "win"?

In the 21st Century, intelligence seems to be a better approach than armament. The massive military we have, is there to protect us from...whom?

Europe does not seem to have any despots who are hell-bent on world domination..

Russia is pretty much broke (and has been for a while) Even at their "height", they turned out to be a paper tiger..

China?..maybe.. BUT, their seemingly never-ending supply of manpower for their military is quite capable of wearing us down anyway, no matter the gadgets,planes & gizmos we can build, and they are more interested in financial domination of us these days (they have already won that war)

So just who IS our adversary? and why do we need all the "stuff", when our most recent wars have shown us how ineffective our tactics have been, in the overall scheme of things..

We did not "win" in Korea, or Viet Nam, or Iraq or Afghanistan.

The old days of sea-battles between equals or tank battles or aerial dogfights, are long past.

Removing the "causes" of insurgencies, guerrilla actions & piracy should be our goal.

The Somalis lost access to their food supply, and they found a "solution".. That may have been their goal in the beginning, but by now one would think they would have collected enough money to secure food.. perhaps the ones committing the piracy kind of like what they are doing now, and the money they claim for themselves. They may have discovered that what started as an actions "for their people" is now something they do because it's so damned easy, and is a power-trip for them too.

The Mujahadeen we sided with in the 80's were a pretty ragtag bunch of people from all over the Arab world, but they too have figured out how to wield power, and have morphed into a monster we can no longer control, and their 2nd generation is kicking our ass because they are willing to die for their cause, and have the support of the people we are claiming to be trying to help. Is it much different really, than the "helper-by-day & viet cong by night"?

We no longer "know" our "enemy".. We spend tons of money making war "stuff" to fight people we don't know, don't understand, and cannot even speak to in a common language..and we can no longer even define what winning even IS.. We fight "them" bevause they fight us, and we end up insuring that our children will fight their children.

[zipplewrath]

1. You're all over the place

Yes, removing the causes of war is the best goal. But we don't have that much power.

Most of the rest of this is about the troubles of asymetric warfare. A large part of the cost of our weapon systems, and of war itself is because of the demand for low casualties, on both sides, (risk adverse) and of the supply chain demands we have on our military (Thanksgiving dinners, USO shows, etc.). Insurgencies, and often civil wars, have enemies willing to commit atrocities as a strategy, and to commit large numbers of humans to virtual suicide missions in combat. They are willing to coerce the local populations in order to supply themselves with food, equipment and shelter. They seek caos, we seek stability. That puts a huge burden on us.

Look at the recent war in Iraq. Camp Victory isn't cheap to operate, but we need airconditioned shelters for the soldiers. They have cell phones and Pizza Hut's and internet connections. We argue about 4200+ deaths over 7 years. We complain about the lack of planning and "allowing" looting. And there is pressure to reduce "collateral damage". We complain about the "army we have, not the one we want" and the lack of body armor, and armored Humvee's.

Mean while our opponents drive around in SUV's from Ford, they live in abandoned or confiscated housing, they loot their weapons and food, they provide no medical support for their fighters, they kill without concern for whom is killed, and they accept huge losses of life amongst their own fighters.

They attack our weaknesses. Those weaknesses are our adversion to disorder, injustice, and the deaths, especially of our own forces and our allies. Strangely, one could also consider those our strengths.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. the thought of robotic warfare is quite frightening

programmed to seek and kill.

[Blue_Tires]

3. good points

the war machine has grown woefully outdated, as if all the future wars will be straightforward hollywood-type stuff