Planetary defenses [FT] OT

> Richard Slattery wrote:

> This isn't entirely true.

I spent several months in Eritrea working and advising their armed forces and
developed many close ties with military leaders there. I read a few books
about the revolution before I went over and had many many discussions on the
subject with them. What's more aI received a passle of briefing on the war
from "our own people".

Contrary to popular belief, the EPLF received virtually nothing from any of
these governments listed. No weapons, no training, no radios no medicines.
(though towards the end their were relief organizations kicking around.
Everything they got they took from the Ethiopians and Russians.

They did have a sort of alliance with Sudan, which was fighting it's own war
also. The eritreans supplied the Sudanese with some weapons and the occasional
safe haven when things got hot. Occasionally individual Eritreans hid over in
the border. But if you could ever see eritrea, you would see that the much of
the terrain is an impregnable fortress, something like Afghanistan. The bulk
of all forces set up defended bases in the north and were never kicked out.

> That is not to say that they did not manage to take advantage of a

Yeah so who wins every battle in a 30 year war? Whenever they suffered a
setback they retreated to their mountainous strongholds and recouped.

> The EPLF also notably allied with the TPLF (Tigray Peoples etc

Yes well you can consider both movements successful. They were fighting the
same enemy in the same country (meaning greater Ethiopia) for different
reasons.

> Boiling all this down gives the following. If the USSR had kept

Hillariouis! That's exactly the point. You want to try and grind down the
invader and go for the long haul. How long is a major power supposed to bank
roll a counter insurgency operation like this? 30 years, fifty years, a
century? And by the way, the Russians had thousands of advisors (and Spetznaz
teams) working against the Eritreans and it didn't do them any good. And if
the Soviets were still bankrolling them they'd still be fighting. These are
stubborn and proud people. And how long do you suppose Ethiopia could afford
do go on loosing the casualties that they were? What do you think helped fuel
the tigray movement? For chrissakes the Russians were actually teaching the
old fashion
1941-1942 Human wave assault doctrine as the primary means of assault
for the ethiopian army. I'm sure their attitude was "Hey they're too stupid to
grasp
tactics since their just dumb-ass Africans so they just need to throw
mass men and material at them".

Let me tell you something about the Eritreans. Here's a poor province that
nobody in the world have a shit about and most most people never even heard
of. But they are the most squared away soldiers I've ever worked with. (in 20
years of working with foreign armies) everything about the way the conducted
their
guerilla war was text book. A lot of it right out of the UW/insurgency
manual. Dead letter drops, cells, on and on. And they had no advisement on how
to do this stuff. They learned it all through trial and error. Though maybe
they sent away for a few manuals from palladin press <g>.

> This supports the idea that a colony is unlikely to be able to

Maybe in your mind but not in mine. There are a number of factors that go into
a
successful insurgency or counter-insurgency. (As we've already beaten to
death on here.)

> chance of being particularly successful unless they have backing

Jeez, lord knows that's never happened before!