Total war tactics vs Current limited engagement tactics

[Wolfala]

Was doing some brainstorming and got to thinking about the vast Army's and armada's assembled 60 years and prior. Another thread was brought up about the Battle of the Somme with 60,000 casualities on the first day, yet the idea of 10 guys getting wacked is too much for any country to take. Assuming the advances in technology still took place, but we still had Dreadnaught's, Battleships and big guns on Land and Sea - and without the media slants - how would u see the current wars being faught started out, and resolved?


Wolf

[indy007]

The advances in technology (which also improves training) directly contradict the need for things like Dreadnaughts & Paris Guns. That's why we've had battles like 73 Easting & Medina Ridge (biggest US tank battle ever)... they've been very one-sided engagements.

As for numbers of casualties and their effect on public opinion... well... iirc, there's a quote by Stalin that hits the nail on the head.

[Yeager]

There is certainly a problem that arises when your military has become so efficient that the country being invaded is left largely intact and the civilian population largey untouched.  If we had waged war in Iraq like we did against Japan and Gremany, Iraq would be a much more tranquil place than it is today.

Give me 1000 B17s and General Patton and I can still turn Iraq into a stable occupied nation.  One where the average Iraqi says "Thank you Sir, may I shine your shoes!, please take my daughter"

[indy007]

Originally posted by Yeager
There is certainly a problem that arises when your military has become so efficient that the county being invaded is left largely intact and the civilian population largey untouched.  If we had waged war in Iraq like we did against Japan and Gremany, Iraq would be a much more tranquil place than it is today.

Give me 1000 B17s and I can still turn Iraq into a stable occupied nation.  One where the average Iraqi says "Thank you Sir, may I shine your shoes!, please take my daughter"

That's a joke.... right?

[Yeager]

Ok...ok

make that 2000 B17s

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by indy007
That's a joke.... right?

If it is. it shouldnt be.
I agree with him.

the problem today is we arent at war with particular nations as in our old wars but rather segments of a nation.
Which makes out enemies less easily defined

[Nilsen]

Iraq is an asymetric battlefield, so I doubt you could win by using bombers.

You could kill so many iraqi civilians that they would turn against the insurgents, or the population would turn to the insurgents and pultiply.

[soda72]

Eisenhower was effective at negotiating an armistice with N. Korea by threating the possiblity of total war..  He threated the conflict would no longer be confined to the Korea peninsula and that it would no longer be limited to conventional weaponary..

[Yeager]

Nil,

Iraq is about a dozen large cities surrounded by thousands of square miles of absolutely nothing.  Flatten those cities (like Dresden) with everyone in them, then send in ten massive armies to keep the sand clear of FOD and Iraq becomes a very very tranquil place, very peaceful.

[Nilsen]

Originally posted by Yeager
Nil,

Iraq is about a dozen large cities surrounded by thousands of square miles of absolutely nothing.  Flatten those cities (like Dresden) with everyone in them, then send in ten massive armies to keep the sand clear of FOD and Iraq becomes a very very tranquil place, very peaceful.

Wouldnt that be genocide?

[indy007]

Originally posted by soda72
Eisenhower was effective at negotiating an armistice with N. Korea by threating the possiblity of total war..  He threated the conflict would no longer be confined to the Korea peninsula and that it would no longer be limited to conventional weaponary..

Assuming NK has a nuke now, do you think that idea will still work? I personally don't. Threat tactics worked great in Eisenhower's dealings... he had atomic weapons... but this is 2006. When you've got a new cold war, where the potential damage outweighs the benefits of political gains possible by Total War, it devolves back into an economic war, without the exchange of fire.

[Maverick]

Originally posted by Nilsen
Wouldnt that be genocide?

Nope genocide would be wiping out the entire population of a species. There are quite a few other Arabs and other humans besides those living in Iraq. One might say that Iraq has a minority of the population.

By definition total war is war not only on the military of the beligerant nation but also all of the support structure of that nation to include the people, resources and infrastructure. Kind of like what the jihadists have declared on the US and other western nations that they don't like. The thing is that so far they lack the ability to carry out their war.

[indy007]

Originally posted by Maverick
Nope genocide would be wiping out the entire population of a species. There are quite a few other Arabs and other humans besides those living in Iraq. One might say that Iraq has a minority of the population.

Genocide is defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) Article 2 as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."


Mav, by your definition you'd have to wipe out life on the entire planet for it to be genocide. I think we can all agree that is not the accepted definition of it.

[DREDIOCK]

Question.

What would happen if we opted out of the geneva convention?

Im not saying to commit Genocide or even to do much if anything that would be outside of the Geneva convention

but what if we just decided to say.
"We will no longer subscribe to the Geneva convention"

After all. our enemies certainly dont.

So why should we?

Other then to be able to say "were better then them"

and just what wuld happen if we decided that?

Now that doesnt mean we treat our enemies worse. but rather by our own rules

[Maverick]

Originally posted by indy007
Genocide is defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) Article 2 as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."


Mav, by your definition you'd have to wipe out life on the entire planet for it to be genocide. I think we can all agree that is not the accepted definition of it.

Lets see here,

Does Iraq contain all of any particular religion, culture, ethnic group? Or are you considering just existing in Iraq makes one a special group that destroying the city would be considered genocide.

I suppose by using the sub part of the definition  "or in part" that the taking of a single life could be considered "genocide".