gotta disagree there.
gotta disagree there.
Ok, Mr. History Major, give us some examples of where I'm wrong.
I'd agree with you if we were talking about sports, not war. I have a bunch of examples actually, but I don't think examples are really necessary to prove the point that defense is inherently stronger than offense, other things being equal. Defense is stronger because its objective is negative, while the attack/offense is essentially tougher because it has a positive objective. The same way it's easier to demolish a house than to build one, it's easier to deny an attacker's move than it is to attack. Now of course I'm not saying offense never wins, just that playing defense has inherent characteristics that makes it stronger than the offense in war. Even if the attack achieves any degree of success, i'm sure you've heard the maxim that taking territory is always easier than holding it.
But you wanted examples (just off the top of my head):
Well, the American Revolution for one.
Jet already provided you with one (Battle of Britain).
Peninsular campaigns, Spain
Russia, 1812.
Russia, 1941-45
Vietnam
basically any case in which a native insurgency was victorious.
And I know video games aren't real life, but if you ever play any strategy-type video games, it's usually a good strategy to establish a strong defensive position, have the enemy's attack break like waves upon a rock, and then counterattack. That's the true value of defensive strategy, combining it with offense.
Edit: Now that I think about it...it even applies to sports. Defense wins championships.
If someone had intervened, the West still would have failed. :rofl
I'd agree with you if we were talking about sports, not war. I have a bunch of examples actually, but I don't think examples are really necessary to prove the point that defense is inherently stronger than offense, other things being equal. Defense is stronger because its objective is negative, while the attack/offense is essentially tougher because it has a positive objective. The same way it's easier to demolish a house than to build one, it's easier to deny an attacker's move than it is to attack. Now of course I'm not saying offense never wins, just that playing defense has inherent characteristics that makes it stronger than the offense in war. Even if the attack achieves any degree of success, i'm sure you've heard the maxim that taking territory is always easier than holding it.
But you wanted examples (just off the top of my head):
Well, the American Revolution for one.
Jet already provided you with one (Battle of Britain).
Peninsular campaigns, Spain
Russia, 1812.
Russia, 1941-45
Vietnam
basically any case in which a native insurgency was victorious.
And I know video games aren't real life, but if you ever play any strategy-type video games, it's usually a good strategy to establish a strong defensive position, have the enemy's attack break like waves upon a rock, and then counterattack. That's the true value of defensive strategy, combining it with offense.
Edit: Now that I think about it...it even applies to sports. Defense wins championships.
I'd agree with you if we were talking about sports, not war. I have a bunch of examples actually, but I don't think examples are really necessary to prove the point that defense is inherently stronger than offense, other things being equal. Defense is stronger because its objective is negative, while the attack/offense is essentially tougher because it has a positive objective. The same way it's easier to demolish a house than to build one, it's easier to deny an attacker's move than it is to attack. Now of course I'm not saying offense never wins, just that playing defense has inherent characteristics that makes it stronger than the offense in war. Even if the attack achieves any degree of success, i'm sure you've heard the maxim that taking territory is always easier than holding it.
But you wanted examples (just off the top of my head):
Well, the American Revolution for one.
Jet already provided you with one (Battle of Britain).
Peninsular campaigns, Spain
Russia, 1812.
Russia, 1941-45
Vietnam
basically any case in which a native insurgency was victorious.
And I know video games aren't real life, but if you ever play any strategy-type video games, it's usually a good strategy to establish a strong defensive position, have the enemy's attack break like waves upon a rock, and then counterattack. That's the true value of defensive strategy, combining it with offense.
Edit: Now that I think about it...it even applies to sports. Defense wins championships.
The Soviets didn't fight a defensive campaign.
The Confederates fought employed a defensive strategy. How did that turn out for them?
Now of course I'm not saying offense never wins, just that playing defense has inherent characteristics that makes it stronger than the offense in war.
You're going to have to be mor specific than just saying, "Vietnam!". Expand, I would love to hear it.
What would you call it then. Defensive campaign on the home territory weakening the German enemy, then launching a strategic counteroffensive after the Germans stretched their forces.
As for the Battle of Britain being a battle not a war. I was talking about defense being inherently stronger than offense at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. It applies to wars battles campaigns.
Vietnam is a textbook example of defensive strategy. If a defender's will is strong enough, there pretty much isn't anything you can do to stop them. Isn't it impressive that someone can lose all tactical engagements and battles and still win the war.
Col. Harry G. Summers: ""You never defeated us in the field."
NVA Colonel Tu: "That may be true. It is also irrelevant."
Originally Posted by doctorhugo Nation-building in a land of primitive cave dwellers and tribal warlords committed to trafficking in hard drug raw material. A nation state barely existing as such with no concept of personal freedoms to be propped up as a venture in democracy. Sheer idiocy!
Well..Golly gee sarge I truly am sorry that my stated opinion bothers you so much and the fact that it's replete with "ignorance". And, of course, pitiful or not is in the eye of the beholder, but you should guard against letting your emotions rule the intellectual bent of your comments.Reply by MSgt
Now...this really bothers me. And the fact that you cap the ignorance with a "idiocy" remark is really pitiful.
I'm luvin' this brief reprise of Afghanian historical perspective. Very enlightening, but since I'm not a Professor of Middle Eastern Studies like yourself I wasn't really concerned with all that. I'm more into what is DIRECTLY relative to us as you see. So you can pack up your treatise in your old kit-bag and smile, smile, smile. Nice jobAfghanistan was a country that was modernizing in the mid-twentieth century.
In 1964, Afghanistan's King deliberately abandoned 200 years of autocratic rule and diminished his family's power in order to give his people democracy. He knew that absolute monarchy in the twentieth century would not ensure his nation's survival like a democracy would. Unfortunately, in 1965, among the many political parties, was The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. It was strongle influenced by that of the Soviet Communist Party. Other Socialilist political groups began to emerge.
During this phase, nations like the U.S., Britain, and the Soviet Union was channeling financial aid into the country. If you look at pictures of Afghanistan during this period, you will see a country you don't see on CNN. You will see modernization. There were thousands of enterprises underway. Major exports were cotton and fruit. There were two majopr discoveries in the 1960s. Natural gas was discovered in Shiberghan and iron ore in Bamiyan. Extensive traces of other mineral deposits were later discovered. There is a large sulphur deposit near Nangarhar. Coal is present and would later be mined in small quantities. There is also significant lead, manganese, marble, gypsum, barite, gold, beryl, and uranium deposits here and there. Until these mining operations could be brought into production, it was understood that agriculture had to be Afghanistan's primary economic prosperity for some time.
In the mean time, pictures of the past would show you schools full of women learning about medicine. It's most prominent leaders in the mid-1960s were four female deputies elected to the lower house of the parliament. Women were abandoning the veil. When President Kennedy visited he was surrounded by business suits. Pictures of the men in the surrounding area would be beardless and many without robes. Hell, as far back as the 1920s, you would see pictures of men in suits sitting on bicycles and cars. In the 1960s you would read about the news in a couple magazines that were emerging from the free press. You would hear about your political party or the global happenings from a radio station. They were modernizing.
Okay, now you are finally getting somewhere. Your item 1) I agree with and fully comprehend despite my limited range due to "idiocy". It's why all the rest of what you say is informative, but superfluous. EDUCATION. Toss all your historical facts into the hopper and after they've been completely digested, the end result is Afghanistan never did make a serious commitment to education. To the very basic ability to read and write. Having not done so she, as a nation, wallows in the rule of the strongest and has been the subject of external agitation by foreign nations all for their own ulterior motivations...NONE OF WHICH had anything to do with what was best for Afghanistan. So you see, despite and in spite of your well-intentioned and pedantic historical perspective and having gotten off to a somewhat rocky start we agree on a basic REALITY.Take a guess at what happened. Never mind, I'll help you. Three factors were crucial to Afghanistan's failure to modernize.
1) Due to the education system, few were engaged in the political processes. Most in the country couldn't read (over 80 percent still can't). It was largely up to the Pashtun and they were being influenced by the Soviets at the time. This meant that mass fair circulation of the press was not only hampered, but most couldn't read it anyway.
2) Those that were elected by those who were educated enough to know what they were doing were inflexible, which meant that they constantly sought ways to improve upon their power.
3) The reflexive panic of the King and his family whenever they or the system they devised came under fire meant that no coherent, legitimate opposition could develop. The only alternatives to not trusting the natural instability of democracy meant that autocracy or anarchy was always in the shadows.
At the risk of fanning your emotionalism, I know all this and understood it before your indocrination. What you have totally ignored is the point of my original comment which you actually haven't dealt with in this attempt to impress myself and others as to the breadth of your knowledge of things Afghanian. So before folks reading this fall into a somnambulistic stupor I'll make the cogent points to you.The communist leaning political parties eventually gained strength and allowed the Soviet Union to gain influence. The West (America and Britian) was shoved out. The Soviet Union assumed to bank roll highways, irrigation systems, and other projects. The Soviet policy to "Russianize" Afghanistan took its toll on the tribes. Tribes in the north began to rebell against the communist parties in Afghanistan. Russian presence became more and more. The Soviets decided that invading into Afghanistan to help the struggling government was a good idea. It was a the last clear example of imperialism in history. During the years of warfare, the population radicalized, Islamic warriors traveled to find the latest jihad, agriculture fields were destroyed, irrigation systems were destroyed, social systems were destroyed. After we assisted the Mujahadeen to defeat the Soviets, we left. They turned on their own people and headed straight into a decade of civil war. Afghanistan led the world for amputees. Even more destruction ensued and the farmers of Afghanistan turned to poppy not only to feed their family, but to appease the Taliban's demands for financial support. The Taliban (means students - it's to show their conviction to learn true Islam) won at the end of the decade and two years later 3,000 Americans died across the Atlantic Ocean because of an international terrorist organization they harbored. Today, we can't burn the poppy fields because it means the death of their families when Taliban agents come to collect. It also means that without those irrigation systems and other systems that were destroyed, farmers only have poppy. Without it, we may as well usher them to the taliban so that they can pay them for digging holes to set IEDs for twenty bucks.
I guess you never read books with pictures, huh!http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh283/doctorhugo/Image13.jpg"Primitive cave dwellers?"
Your vomiting all over your self-righteous, pontificating self sarge. Shape up and wake up."No concept of personal freedoms?" Assuming that democracy is something that entered their world only after we showed up to engineer them out of their mess is ignorant. What was that about "sheer idiocy?" Read a ****ing book, then vomit an educated opinion.
In case your history prof didn't tell you, the Soviets ended up in Berlin. Sound like a defensive strategy to you? Do you even know what a counter-offensive amounts to??????
You don't have the first ****ing clue what these words mean; do you? Obviously, you're degree isn't in military history.
Who were the dfenders?
Vietnam is a textbook example of defensive strategy. If a defender's will is strong enough, there pretty much isn't anything you can do to stop them. Isn't it impressive that someone can lose all tactical engagements and battles and still win the war.
Col. Harry G. Summers: ""You never defeated us in the field."
NVA Colonel Tu: "That may be true. It is also irrelevant."
Defense, followed by offense. I'm not sure what your problem is here. I mentioned the value of the defense followed by a counteroffensive in a previous post.
Actually that was my concentration, and yeah just keep making assertions without backing them up.
The NVA and VC. I don't see why this is even a question.
That was not a case of defensive strategy as much as political strategy. The Left turned against Democracy and supported Communism. The result was a disaster which still reverberates around the world.
IYou better slow down with the historical facts, before there's a Yukushima melt down on this forum. :rofl
But you wanted examples (just off the top of my head):
Well, the American Revolution for one.
Jet already provided you with one (Battle of Britain).
Peninsular campaigns, Spain
Russia, 1812.
Russia, 1941-45
Vietnam
basically any case in which a native insurgency was victorious.
And I know video games aren't real life, but if you ever play any strategy-type video games, it's usually a good strategy to establish a strong defensive position, have the enemy's attack break like waves upon a rock, and then counterattack. That's the true value of defensive strategy, combining it with offense.
Edit: Now that I think about it...it even applies to sports. Defense wins championships.
WE SHOULD GET THE HELL OUT, BECAUSE NOONE BELIEVES BIN LADEN IS THERE.
BIN LADEN AND THE PURSUIT OF HIM WAS OUR ONLY MISSION THERE!
WE ARE NOT IN THE NATION-BUILDING BUSINESS.
WE DO NOT NEED TO SACRIFICE ONE MORE AMERICAN LIFE (OR $) THERE.
THAT COUNTRY HAS NO NATIONAL SECURITY INTEREST FOR AMERICA.
THAT COUNTRY IS NO NATIONAL SECURITY RISK FOR AMERICA.
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I guess you never read books with pictures, huh
Your vomiting all over your self-righteous, pontificating self sarge. Shape up and wake up.
The U.N. has just voted for implementing a no-fly zone in Libya.
On Vietnam...
We DID win in Vietnam. We left in 1972. When we left, the Viet Cong, the South Vietnamese Communist insurgency was essentially gone and there was a truce with N. Vietnam. Three years later, in 1975, N. Vietnam invaded S. Vietnam with their army. A conventional army. An invasion conducted in the classical fashion with more tanks than Hitler had when he invaded Russia in 1941. Because we were no longer funding the S. Vietnamese and refused to live up to our promise to provide military aid and support if the N. Vietnamese did cross the border, they were unable to mount an effective defense and the country fell.
If by win you mean accomplish none of our stated objectives you'd be exactly right. Do you think it really matters that there was a 3 year truce before the situation turned into exactly what North Vietnam wanted? I'd call that more of a tactic on their part. Just ask yourself, what is the present situation? Their post war aims or ours? The answer is quite obviously their's.
Again - We didn't lose **** in Vietnam. We left in 73 - Vietnam fell in 75. They fought good until the libs yanked the rug out from under them. Look for Foreign Assistance Act of 1974.
Your so-called "disease of the human spirit" is most accurately applied to the fundamentalist Islamists. The ever-warring Shia and Sunni factions at each others throats over Q'ran interpretation. So you would have us do what? Insert ourselves in those Middle East nations to show them the way by enabling discourse. By sending agronomists there to teach them. By sending teachers in to replace the madras schools. Give me a break. Your high-minded commentary provides no practical solutions. The indigenous peoples have to have the courage to rise up and however possible reject the notion of totalitarian religious states. We cannot pay the blood bounty to do that for them. This has been ongoing back into the Ottoman Empire and will continue until those very people reject it. So now we shall see, with all the current turmoil, whether regimes that fall are replaced by a worse fate, the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and equivalent interests or a secular uprising of the people to take the first step towards some form of democratization. We have no business inserting ourselves in the middle.Originally Posted by MSgt
We face a disease of the human spirit. This disease is affecting the entire Western world. Bin Laden is merely a symptom. Focusing on Bin Laden is a simpleton's chore. Without Bin Laden, there are thousands of others who are bred to hate and to murder in the name of Islam.
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