An excellent book on the hindsight-based myth of inevitable Allied
victory in WW2 is the oddly-titled "Why The Allies Won" by Richard
Overy.
I have never been a soldier, and I don't even play one on TV, so I'm in a poor
position to comment on generalship on the battlefield. When it comes to the
military and civil management of all the human and material resources needed
to fight a modern war, I don't think
there's much doubt that the Axis powers were comprehensively "out-
generalled". There's a huge difference between potential resources and
effective ones, and had the Allied powers used their resources as
inefficiently as the Axis ones did theirs, the result could have been very
different.
Just take a look at a map showing the territory (with its associated potential
resources), controlled by the Axis powers at the end of 1942. And ask yourself
if any rational observer *at* *the* *time* would have regarded total Allied
victory in less than three years as inevitable.
I'm with Atkinson on this. Resources don't guarantee victory; you have to
fight effectively too.
I find it hysterical that I have to argue both for the ability to beat an
insurgency AND that having a big economy doesn't guarantee victory ON THE SAME
EMAIL LIST, with some of the SAME PARTICIPANTS.
Am I the only one that doesn't find that to be just a little bit ironic?
John
> On 7/22/08, Robert N Bryett <rbryett@gmail.com> wrote:
Eh? I'm confused...
Best regards, Robert Bryett
> On 22/07/2008, at 18:00 , John Atkinson wrote:
> I find it hysterical that I have to argue both for the ability to beat
Basic premise of the insurgency argument: Ideology, mass participation,
avoidance of direct confrontation will inevitably allow a combatant with a
weak army and weak economy to gradually overcome an opponent superior in all
conventional measures.
Basic premise of the economic argument presented so far: All that matters in
warfare is weight of numbers as expressed in economic terms.
Directly contradicatory argruments. Both are fallacies which ignore the
complexity of actual situations.
Let me throw a trio of quotes out. Two are from Clausewitz, the other I don't
recall the source.
1) In war, everything is simple. But in war, the simplest thing becomes
difficult.
2) In war, the will is directed against a living enemy who reacts.
3) The difference between surgery and warfare is that in the latter, the
patient is not tied down. It is a common error of generalship to forget this.
There is always a countermeasure. It is always possible to make enough errors
to fail regardless of good position relative to the enemy. It is always
possible to overcome an enemy's good position by superior use of one's
resources.
There are some exceptions: The Starfire universe which began this conversation
is purely attritional, with little or no room for tactical innovation. All
combat essentially boils down to overcoming warp point defenses, which due to
the game mechanics, generally boils down to throwing enough ships through it
to do enough damage, and having enough of a reserve to defeat the enemy's
remaining forces in
the system. It's a Weber-ism to ignore political consequences of
casualties measured in the millions or billions. It is also a Weberism to
ignore questions of morale, or will. And Weber's universes tend towards
massive shipbuilding programs and recruit
training programs happening off-screen and via handwaving. In
reality, navies which are forced to replace massive casulties have a
significant decrease in capability due to loss of trained cadre. See Japanese
Naval Aviation in WWII. So given a Starfire universe, with all questions
simplified down to putting hulls into space as fast as possible, the purely
economic argument makes sense and is demonstrated over and over in the four
novels set in that universe.
John
> On 7/22/08, Robert N Bryett <rbryett@gmail.com> wrote:
> At 1:15 PM +0300 7/22/08, John Atkinson wrote:
John, I'm going to miss you at Dragon Con for Round two of arguing with Sci Fi
Authors. Now that Krautman and others know who you are, Ringo
would have his hands full keeping the peace. :-)
Yeah, sorry, I got that. But I didn't argue either position, so I was puzzled
by the response to my posting. No worries.
Best regards, Robert Bryett
> On 22/07/2008, at 20:15 , John Atkinson wrote:
> Basic premise of the insurgency argument: Ideology, mass
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