tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3239599.post110960289917781705..comments2024-03-08T05:28:34.766-05:00Comments on Through the Looking Glass: Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3239599.post-1109883007494207172005-03-03T15:50:00.000-05:002005-03-03T15:50:00.000-05:00While your conclusion that it is difficult to trai...While your conclusion that it is difficult to train people to be killers is probably accurate. One of the legs it stands on is shakey.<br />SLA Marshall's after battle interview techniques have been brought into considerable question. His methodology was faulty and he made assumptions that weren't backed up by the evidence.<br />Many of the men Marshall interviewed didn't fire their weapons because they didn't see anyone to shoot at.<br />The American infantry were trained to fire at individual targets rather than to use "area fire". <br />Since the end of the Napoleonic era troops have used cover making it kinda hard for soldiers to see someone to shoot at.<br />American soldiers have since WWII increased their firepower almost exponentialy and have adopted area fire as a tactic. So now instead of waiting for an enemy to pop up so we can shoot them we just shoot the hell out of the place they are taking cover in.<br />It's a tactic that works fine and dandy but but it dramaticaly lowers real estate resale values.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3239599.post-1109873935195745702005-03-03T13:18:00.000-05:002005-03-03T13:18:00.000-05:00The US Army is moving towards doing much of the ki...The US Army is moving towards doing much of the killing via battlefield robots by 2035. (New York Times)<br /><br />Robots will, in the long run be cheaper, and they don't ask questions. <br /><br />This will coincide with the already-in-progress shift in most other industries to the use of automated technology for non-creative jobs. <br /><br />Some say that within 20-30 years, as many as 90% of us, globally, will be out of work. <br /><br />Forever.<br /><br />So an unquestioning military may be an necessity in the face of food riots, etc.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3239599.post-1109858325553976252005-03-03T08:58:00.000-05:002005-03-03T08:58:00.000-05:00There's some doubt whether that 15-20% business is...There's some doubt whether that 15-20% business is true or not. Nothing on snopes but lots of google links for example:<br /><br />http://www.warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marshallfire.htm<br /><br />Also see Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs & Steel. Turns out that in primitive societies murder is the #1 cause of death. So I don't buy that only 15% of men are killers.erniehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14623468746464020467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3239599.post-1109789540398899932005-03-02T13:52:00.000-05:002005-03-02T13:52:00.000-05:00Can't afford to have those people in CONUS or talk...<I>Can't afford to have those people in CONUS or talking to each other or out of the Army.</I>How about we make it a rule that provincial troops can't cross the Rubicon River. Seemed to work pretty well the last time this problem arose.<br /><br />Oh wait...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3239599.post-1109696413034478612005-03-01T12:00:00.000-05:002005-03-01T12:00:00.000-05:00Anonymous --
Historically, the way you got effect...Anonymous --<br /><br />Historically, the way you got effective killers was by <B>attrition</B>. This is why the high emphasis on <I>veteran</I> units in Napoleonic (and earlier) times; in the days before mass warfare, you got a group of reliable killers by putting a formed unit through enough hell that the unreliable killers died.<br /><br />The present system is problematic mostly in that much, much less effort has gone into re-integrating all these artificial semi-sociopath barbarians back into civil society than has gone into producing them in the first place.<br /><br />And yeah, cops aren't soldiers. You do need both. If you're going to do a lot of nation building, you need many more cops than soldiers.<br /><br />My personal suspicion is that one of the problems for the neocons with Iraq is what do they do if they stop? They've produced at least a hundred thousand able killers who are personally angry <B>with them</B>. Can't afford to have those people in CONUS or talking to each other or out of the Army.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3239599.post-1109690678478618582005-03-01T10:24:00.000-05:002005-03-01T10:24:00.000-05:00Sam -- if we're going to keep trying to rebuild ot...Sam -- if we're going to keep trying to rebuild other countries, <I>somebody</I> needs to train more cops. Whether it ought to be the army is a different question. But one of the ways we got into this fix is that Dubya came in with a strong reluctance to plan for "nation building" at all -- and even though he seems to like <I>doing</I> the nation-building thing, he still seems averse to planning for it.<br /><br />Anonymous: if you think that the armies of an earlier age were not effective killers, you might want to review some of Mathew Brady's Civil War battlefield photos -- or, for that matter, a Mark Twain essay or two about what the American army was up to at the turn of the last century in the Phillipines. They weren't <I>as</I> effective as the current model, but the basic idea was the same: you give 'em guns and artillery because you want 'em to go out and kill people as you direct. That's what armies do. An organization that does different things might be good for a different purpose -- but it wouldn't be an army.charleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10359125688523895375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3239599.post-1109685955239039492005-03-01T09:05:00.000-05:002005-03-01T09:05:00.000-05:00If you're going to have an army at all, the people...<I>If you're going to have an army at all, the people on the front lines have to be effective killers. That's what armies do.</I>But that isn't true: you yourself have pointed out that armies existed until close to the present day without these techniques. As recently as half a century ago, give or take a decade, our grandfathers formed an army without benefit of psychological manipulation, and they did a good enough job of it that we call them the "greatest generation". <br /><br /><I>and having them trained to do it effectively has benefits for the rest of us: the more efficient they are, the fewer of them we need, and the less the rest of us need to get dragged into it.</I> <br /><br />I put it to you that being able to form an invading army from a tiny minority of your country's population is not a benefit, but a detriment.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3239599.post-1109628306783252192005-02-28T17:05:00.000-05:002005-02-28T17:05:00.000-05:00Soldiers are not cops. Cops are not soldiers. Po...Soldiers are not cops. Cops are not soldiers. Politicians have never been able to tell the difference.lightninghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01324277194228663914noreply@blogger.com