The Future of Western War

My favorite Hanson book:

http://www.amazon.com/Why-West-Has-Won-Carnage/dp/0571216404/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268332129&sr=8-4

Brilliant article - thanks for the link.

Let us bear in mind that we are at risk of losing our place in this world to throw-backs in the Muslim world because of Leftist guilt. The rest of us are willing and able to win against Islam. We are being held back and that makes us a fat goose being pucked to death.

I can understand why leftists feel so guilty in their lives ... it is because most of them do not earn anything and do not do anything of real wealth creating value. They do love to live high on the hog though. That would cause guilt in most people.

Those with good sense (usually Conservative types) design their lives around real work in the private sector, their families, monogamy, heterosexuality, and letting babies live to be born .... you know ... stuff like that which will make you feel worthwhile, proud, productive ... so unlike a leftist who is more likely to be benefiting from the extortions of a union or a mindless, worthless government job or both and will protest and petition for the right to be sexually perverted, to be a drug addict and even have privileges attached to those failings.

We are in interesting times.

Hanson's notions on warfare are far too circumscribed. He describes Cannae as an east vs. west, even though both armies used similar notions of organization, discipline and training. Carthage was as thoroughly 'western' as Rome was. It goes further; there is no essential difference between an Assyrian infantryman in the second millennium BC and a Greek hoplite in the first. There was no essential difference between a Roman imperial combined arms army and one of the Tang Dynasty in China, or of the Han dynasty which preceded it. And both survived considerably longer than the Western Roman Empire.

The notion that a 'western' mode of military affairs is somehow connected with 'western' notions of freedom is simply absurd. Ancient Egypt retained the world's most effective fighting force for nearly 2000 years, and no one would pretend that the Egyptian pharaohs countenanced notions of liberty for the peasantry.

And just like all armies following them, Egyptian infantry 'stepped off from the left'. Indeed, it can be suggested that Egypt invented the concept of military formations, which everyone else copied, as they were the first to do it.

This notion particularly fails the test with respect to technology. It was the Chinese who first developed and used extensively gunpowder. It was the Japanese who in the 16th century made the world's finest firearms. The quality of Japanese musketry at Sekigahara was so high that it would have annihilated any western army of the time. Indeed, up to the 17th century, most of the military innovation in technology, from missile weapons to stirrups, was invented and implemented by 'easterners'. It was the Turks who were the first to put cannon on ships, and they dominated the eastern Mediterranean for roughly the next three centuries.

Or has Victor forgotten a little place called Adrianople? Or another called Yarmuk? Or Manzikert?

cgh: Did you read Hanson's "Why the West Has Won;Carnage and Culture from Salamis to Vietnam" ... if you didn't, then you haven't given consideration to his very indepth thesis spelled out in the book.

You are lecturing an outstanding historian, one who has not forgotten Adrianople etc. as you claim, great minds don't brush over events; they formulate general concepts from which we can learn.

Two words: giant robots

The Japanese will have great ones, except they'll be piloted by teenaged girls (if TV and movies haven't been lying to me). American made ones will have great pilots, but they'll be union made by the lowest bidder, and their performance will be lowered by all the sponsership stickers. The Germans will have the best engineered ones, but they'll be expensive.

Speaking of War,here's a Video I found on YouTube about whats going to happen in Europe by 2029

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3pm3eRp3-0

Here's a better copy which has a higher resolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THrltK9cGo8&NR=1

The assymetry that he refers to is significant to what the left in Canada are in a tizzy about right now wrt the Afghan detainees.
Lefties (Layton and Iggy) have the terrorists on par with our soldiers.

Hanson isn't talking about technology (and indeed is quite explicit that our enemies and competitors in the non-west can adapt and use what we make) but rather the cultural factors behind the Western way of war.

It simply does not matter if the Chinese invented gunpowder or Egyptian infantry fought in formation, their cultural backgrounds are very different and the uses they put gunpowder and formation fighting were different from what Western armies did. Similarly, Carthage had a far different culture than Rome, and while the Res Publica Roma could quickly rebuild from defeat, Carthage could not, and was destroyed by the Romans.

Wars are always fought between different cultures/tribes/nations. With the advent of multiculturalism in the future the only people we will go to war against will be "ourselves".

There are some excellent discussions in this book about Nelson that touch on the culture and society that produced him and the Royal navy

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0141007613/202-8135635-4735840?ie=UTF8&tag=peacefreedpre-21&linkCode=xm2&camp=1634&creativeASIN=0141007613

It gets linked to some of the things Hanson discusses. Good book.

I would like to add a point to Hanson's excellent observations: The current crowd in Washington, especially Obama and Holder, are advocates of "Lawfare"---waging war by using the law, the courts, the quasi-judicial bodies, such as the Canadian Human Rights commissions, against one's enemies. And for them, their most dangerous enemies are not abroad, but at home. With the help of like-minded allies at home and abroad, they seek to wage war against their own countrymen, in their own courts and in international courts, for a variety of sins including waging western war itself. They are endeavoring to make western war illegal. It's so unfair, don't ya know, since the west is so good at it. Causes inequality, don't ya know, the greatest of all sins.

Pogo was so right.....
"we have seen the enemy and he is us."
The Micheal Moores insist we lost Viet Nam but ignore that in Tet we fought and defeated an enemy 300,000 strong with 80,000 combat troops.
The Micheal Moores politically brought on the cut and run, and interdiction of supply to the South Vietnamese.
After we excise this cancer in our body politic smiting our foreign assailants will be relatively easy......when unencumbered by the quislings.

Kate

You had a post here a few years ago similar... Something about not if but when some jihads get a nuke and LA or New York get bombed. That when the full power of the western military with the will of its people behind it it cannot be stopped.

I have to run but in the back of my mind I always think that when, not if, an attack on the west far larger than 911 happens, will the will of the people be strong enough to keep our freedom, prosperity and way of life? Or will many lie down?

I don't find this one of Hanson's better articles. In particular he seems to be describing the
current American way of war. If recollection serves, the last couple of times the French
government has put troops into one of its former colonies in Africa the resultant contest didn't last long.
Nor were the British in the Falklands affair particularly nice to the Argies.
Something about sinking a troop ship outside of the war zone, and
using Ghurka troops. The Argies really didn't like the Ghurkas.

That is a great article but it is also depressing, the West is not in a good place right now. Thankfully we still have young men and women who are willing put on the soldiers uniform. Hopefully the weight of our history helps us through.

The wars of the 21st century will be waged between economies and fought with currency,market raiding, market collapsing and aided by paying off debtor governments to sell out their own people.

Face it people,

Western civilization is doomed.

No need for any big war or any new big military weapon,
immigration and birth rates differences have initiated the unstopable launch sequence of a slow suicide for the West.

Mark Steyn is right; it is a slow suicide.

And it is too late now.

I'm glad I'll be dead before the end of this century.

The "Cannae" thing caught my eye too. The greater part of the Carthaginian army would have the Western sense of displine as much as the Roman one it beat. The Carthaginian army was composed of Greek-Trained hoplite infantry (Sacred Bank -- Marines), Spanish swordsmen and African infantry (most displined to least disciplined).

Core to Hanson argument is that it was the Greeks that invented "Western" military discipline. All hoplites had the same equipment
and they marched in step and followed orders on the battlefield.
So the argument that the Assyrian is the same as a Greek is wrong. Persian armies never had the coesion (sp?) that the Greek ones did.

Looks like the Greeks may not have been the first to march in step. I got that idea from "Battle that changed history" by Fletcher Pratt. Now I'm looking in a music book and it says that by 1600 BC Egyptians were marching to trumpet and drums. I've heard that the Assyrians were fairly well organized as well.

But I still don't get how Cannae is an example
of a defeat for Western military discipline.

the point of the book is now just organization of western forces. the point is ,western battles are fought to a conclusion , often to the point of complete annialation of the enemy. outcomes of western war are digital , yes or no, win or lose.

the long wars of attrition are not western style.Charles Martel woke up to see the Muslims on the lam , done, kaput , completely gone.

by the way Hanson considers VietNam essentially a victory , the defeat being on the home front , not in the field.

[quote]In a moral sense, the lives of these two young men are of equal value. But in reality, our society values the lives of our young men much more than Afghan societies value the lives of theirs. And it is very difficult to sustain a protracted war with asymmetrical losses under those conditions.[/quote] Hanson

Very True:
I think that the results of the American War of Independence were partly determined by the British Generals attitude that his enemy was unworthy.

The limited, rules regulated, conflict must be reconsidered... Absolute annihilation is the solution...The anti-war Socialists are most likely to adapt the policy of Attila the Hum because they only have one tool....

"by the way Hanson considers VietNam essentially a victory , the defeat being on the home front , not in the field."

"war is a continuation of foreign policy by other means". If you win on the battlefield but loose politically, you loose. This is why we will loose in Afstan. The battlefield is only half the story.

Re: laventus, maybe this brief article gave you the wrong impression. If you read his full thesis on the matter in "Why the West Has Won", you will see that Hanson covers far more than just western technology and military discipline.

Take note, the Carthaginians fought with western style army and discipline, and won many notable victories, but which empire do we remeber today? Who prevailed in the long run?

Cannae is Hanson's contrary example that proves the rule. The Carthaginians didn't grasp that war with Rome was a total war of annihilation. They never turned tactical victory into strategic victory. As such in the end they were the ones that got annihilated.

Those pointing out that the Chinese invented gun powder, consider that they were also the first to hit on the idea of the compass and ships rudder. Take note of who's initiative exploited those inventions and conquered most of the known world with them.

Again read Hanson's book where he expands on the idea that its far more than technology that lead to western dominance.

Re: John Lewis

Hanson has elsewhere explicity pointed out that, in the past, Western supremacy in warfare hasn't always translated into moral supremacy as well.

sorry junker..i call bullshit.

hanson never pointed out any lapses in 'moral supremacy' committed by the U.S.A.

Hanson's article was informative, but he got off on the wrong foot with these comments:

"... war is a human enterprise that will always be with us. Unless we submit to genetic engineering, or unless video games have somehow reprogrammed our brains, or unless we are fundamentally changed by eating different nutrients—these are possibilities brought up by so-called peace and conflict resolution theorists—human nature will not change. And if human nature will not change—and I submit to you that human nature is a constant—then war will always be with us."

It is not true that "war will always be with us". Human beings will always have the potential for violence against one another, but we also have the power to reason that is our tool of survival. People who use their rational faculties know that in order to have a good life, they must produce goods and services and trade them with others for mutual benefit. War, on the other hand (like socialism) consists of looting the productive efforts of others. Thus war is a losing proposition, certainly for the vanquished and it has immense costs for the victors too. A rational moral code by which human beings can live in harmony with one another begins with the idea that no person has the right to initiate the use of force on any other person. If everybody on the planet lived by this dictum, there would be no more war. We don't need to change human nature; our rational faculty is something that "will always be with us", and if we are determined to use it properly, war need not always be with us.

The problem is that the West has fostered the seeds of its own destruction through the anti-rational philosophical theories of the likes of Plato, Kant and Hegel. That is what we have to get rid of (i.e., refute), because it is the cause of Western problems.

Hanson: "it's not easy to convince someone who has the good life to fight against someone who doesn't."

True. We should be trying to convince the "have-nots" that they too can be "haves". The thing standing in their way is their unwillingness to abolish dictatorship and other violence within their societies. Unfortunately, because of the philosophical mainstream I mentioned above, the West never completely abolished it either, and because that mainstream is still in full force, by now every moron politician (step forward, Dalton McGuinty) thinks he's supposed to run the whole damn economy instead of setting it free for individual value judgments to do the job. In other words, it's hard for the West to convince others about the virtues of capitalism when we're losing sight of them ourselves.

War? Just a temporary application of force.

Today we have a thorny problem..

A powerful Saudi is really pissed off at America. Let's call him Bin Laden for fun.

We burned him and his wealth in our tricky stock market. Bush senior said.. " Bin baby, investing is a gamble. Win some, Lose some."

Bin is STEAMED! " Money back, or I Keel You!"

So now in the various 'Aftstans we have thousands of illiterate young men who are unemployed, without prospects, and unhappy.

So Bin sees these boys as his bomb-vest army.

Bin sets up madrasses where he offers a bed, a meal and all day Koran chants for exercise.

With a choice of starvation or 'Bin', naturally they choose to join 'Bin".

Freedom? Democracy? Whats that? We can't even reach them with leaflets in their own Urdu language. Illiterate, remember?

War then is a temporary cap on the fundamentalist output from these madrasses.

War is a mere bandaid. To reverse this trend young Afghanistani and Pakistani and others will have to be given hope.

They will require first an understanding of freedom and then a promise of freedom.

They will require education before brainwashing by Bin Laden.

This will be a tough nut to crack.

The war in Iraq got rid of a monster and adjusted things slightly, but the problem lives on.

The war in Afghanistan keeps the focus there, but for how long? The problem persists and marches on, regardless.

It would be in China's interest to fix this. China can afford to.

Western economies are headed for a double dip and the PIGS.. Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain are about to bust the EU. [ This after buying into a complex paper shuffle to hide national debt designed by Morgan Stanley -US.]

So War..very expensive, very dangerous, [Atomic, if someone gets really mad.] very temporary, and not likely to fix the problem.

Add to this the Shia kingdome - Iran, going for world domination by taking over Pakistan and Afghanistan for starters...

Well, let's not.

Small shops are quite capable of producing AK rifles with small tools, firearms are generally late 19th century tech, any competent machine shop can turn out firearms by the dozen every day.

"Cannae is Hanson's contrary example that proves the rule. The Carthaginians didn't grasp that war with Rome was a total war of annihilation. They never turned tactical victory into strategic victory. As such in the end they were the ones that got annihilated."
I pretty sure the Carthaginians knew what was at stake. Didn't they send their best general (Hannibal) with 45,000 troops + elephants over the Alps and into the very heart of enemy territory?
The reasons the Carthaginians didn't win was
a)no siege train to assault Rome
b)Hannibal couldn't get many of Italian city to defect to his side

The Roman political system was so strong that even after loosing three major battles (Trebia, Lake Trasimene, Cannae) hardly anyone defected to the Carthaginians.

The Carthaginians were not so strongly politically organized and their cities defected to the Romans (e.g. Utica in the 3rd Punic War).

Laventus.....I concur.....then there is the added feature that the Roman Navy interdicted Carthaginian trade and having cornered that market by force had the wealth to hire Hannibal's mercenaries out from under him....and Utica....
Colin
Yes especially the AK but with the vast numbers in circulation (constantly replenished by mass production from Russia) such production is un-neccessary.
The key to western success is reflected by the continued existance of Isreal. Out-numbered and through much of it's history encumbered with obsolete cast-off western weapon systems Isreal triumphed over new state-of-the art Soviet weaponry.
Much fuss is made about the recent Isreali operation into Lebanon. Isreal achieved it's objective---the Litani River.....despite encountering extensive modern defensive works.....concrete bunkers interconnected by tunnels....and new state-of-the-art Russian anti-tank/anti-personnel infantry weapon systems.
It's not the size of the dog in the fight---but the size of the fight in the dog.

nick @ 4:48, that would then be a "cold" civil war.

I'd agree more with Hansen about what's going on if we were actually -in- a war. Canada as a society is not on a war footing, nor are any other Western countries. Portions of our standing armies are fighting police actions in the middle east, which is different.

The general population isn't affected by the military. No fortunes are being made in the munitions biz, casualties are not leaving farms and businesses un-maned, pretty much nothing is happening.

Should something more serious than toothless hillbillies with Kalashnikovs come along, I dare say a large number of post-modern academics and other anti-war malcontents will find all kinds of reasons to shut up while the rest of us take care of business like we always do.

Re: Colin

Yes its true, backwards barbians living in a cave can learn to produce AK-47s, but from where did those weapon's designs and production techniques originate? How many successful and widespread assault rifles or machine guns originated outside of the West? How many fighter jets, tanks, frigates, armored vests, radios, missiles?

Re: sasquatch

You inadvertantly highlighted another one of Hanson's key points about Western dominance. Western armies tend to be composed of free men, or at least men "more" free than those they fight.

At the time of the Punic Wars, Rome's proffesional semi-mercenary armies were a thing of the still distant future. Rome's armies facing off against the Carthagians were still composed of Roman's, who had a very big stake in the outcome of the fighting. They would not and could not be "bought out", as Carthage's mercenaries were....no matter how much wealth Carthage might or might not have.

Re: Phantom.

I wonder what a modern day Canada would like on "war footing", as you put it. What manner of crisis would be big enough to convince Canadians it was time for mass conscription, and what would that army look like filled with the current generation of 18-30 year olds?

I personally wonder if we still have to collective will to fight a massive war ala WWII.