Why do you think this is some sort of a game? It's not like a guerilla organization would assault the same point day after day, every time with a new ingenious plan and tools. Actual assaults towards heavily protected military establishments which the government has decided as a priority takes months of planning and training
No it doesn't. It takes packing some explosives into a pick-up and seeing if they manage to shoot it fast enough this time. Randomize when you do it, and sooner or later someone will be zoned out at their post, or passed out because they've been forced to run triple shifts, or whatever, and you ram through a gate and take out like half the building.
I take it that you haven't seen the entrance to a military base in the past decade, have you? The US learned from Beirut, and the gate would be configured in such a way to make it near impossible to ram through it.
Why do you think this is some sort of a game? It's not like a guerilla organization would assault the same point day after day, every time with a new ingenious plan and tools. Actual assaults towards heavily protected military establishments which the government has decided as a priority takes months of planning and training
No it doesn't. It takes packing some explosives into a pick-up and seeing if they manage to shoot it fast enough this time. Randomize when you do it, and sooner or later someone will be zoned out at their post, or passed out because they've been forced to run triple shifts, or whatever, and you ram through a gate and take out like half the building.
I take it that you haven't seen the entrance to a military base in the past decade, have you? The US learned from Beirut, and the gate would be configured in such a way to make it near impossible to ram through it.
You don't hit military bases. You hit factories, oil refineries, etc.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Why do you think this is some sort of a game? It's not like a guerilla organization would assault the same point day after day, every time with a new ingenious plan and tools. Actual assaults towards heavily protected military establishments which the government has decided as a priority takes months of planning and training
No it doesn't. It takes packing some explosives into a pick-up and seeing if they manage to shoot it fast enough this time. Randomize when you do it, and sooner or later someone will be zoned out at their post, or passed out because they've been forced to run triple shifts, or whatever, and you ram through a gate and take out like half the building.
I...
Uhhh
what?
Are you under the impression that insurgent forces in various conflicts, inner or outer, have not seen or heard about trucks and explosives?
Randomize when you do it and after two times you have done it they will blow up every truck on a ten mile radius that doesn't have the proper clearance to go past their two different checkpoints ten further miles away.
You really seem to be thinking this from an action movie/video game perspective right here.
You don't hit military bases. You hit factories, oil refineries, etc.
Which as vital military interests will be heavily protected as well and all roads and entrances to them filled with checkpoints as well as monitored through air, satellite, etc.
You realize that even now if you planned a terrorist strike to a major oil refinery with the technique you described, you would be most likely stopped, much less in a police state under a military lockdown expecting attack at any moment...
You are going to need to explain why electricty, spare parts, money, food and water are not major resources in a modern army, in great detail, before I will believe you.
As these are all things I would expect need to be greatly lacking before any real insurgency could occur in a modern country. Insurgency over a political ideal and nothing else? I never see this happening. Ever. Because as you and others have said, modern society has a lot of advantages that would overcome an insurgency before it became more than a mere bunch of people with guns. A real insurgency that became a credible threat could not happen unless society brokedown. And I do not see how the army would be immune to that.
Sorry, I misread your post, I thought you mean that it requires for U.S. somehow abnormal resources to control it's military like that.
I agree that a total breakdown of society would most likely change it, though military is usually the first one to get the resources in that sort of situation.
Actually, no, that wasn't the South's plan at all. Their plan was that European allies who needed cotton would come in and support the South, making the North's position untenable. Unfortunately, it turned out that cotton grows pretty well in Egypt and India.
It wasn't their plan. It was their recruiting message. Southerners believed, en masse, that they were such a superior fighting force because they were lifelong hunters. It's one of the reasons that so many in the South thought the war would be over in months.
The 9/11 pilots were not exactly star pilots... From what I know they received incredibly basic training on how to fly a plane in mid air, something a lot of people would be able to do by pure luck without even trying before.
To run an F22 you'd need a base and like 100 trained supply people, and flying a fighter is something that requires years of service.
To use an ICBM you'd need everyone from the president down through the joint chiefs so there might as well not be a civil war at all. That is an extremely bad example, possibly the worst that can actually be thought of so good job there I guess.
Do you even need to be in the cockpit to fly an airliner? I assumed that the autopilot could do everything as long as you kept him inflated.
As for soldiers running off with stuff, good luck getting the facilities to keep them fueled, loaded, and serviced.
Are you under the impression that insurgent forces in various conflicts, inner or outer, have not seen or heard about trucks and explosives?
Randomize when you do it and after two times you have done it they will blow up every truck on a ten mile radius that doesn't have the proper clearance to go past their two different checkpoints ten further miles away.
We do not have the manpower to do that for the hundreds if not thousands of sites across the US that would need to be protected.
You realize that even now if you planned a terrorist strike to a major oil refinery with the technique you described, you would be most likely stopped, much less in a police state under a military lockdown expecting attack at any moment...
I seriously doubt this.
Most terrorist plots seem to get stopped when they try and contact someone outside the US or try and get bomb-making materials.
A domestic insurrection in a rural area has no need for the former and tons of the latter lying around.
The reason the current breed of terrorists have failed to do anything is because they are dumb. Not because our infrastructure is actually secure.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
We do not have the manpower to do that for the hundreds if not thousands of sites across the US that would need to be protected.
You need hundreds/thousands of sites for fully working U.S, civilians included. Military would secure the things it would need first and then put manpower into civilian interests if it can spare it. Believe it or not, as large as your military is it only consumes a fraction of the energy used by U.S. And there is really nothing a civilian insurgency could to to put a stop to the government delivering energy from overseas.
And I'm not sure where you get that U.S. could not recruit enough manpower to protect said sites. You really think there wouldn't be a mass recruitment operations in the case of civil war? You'd have a potential pool of fifty million people. Especially when defense duty is not as taxing.
Most terrorist plots seem to get stopped when they try and contact someone outside the US or try and get bomb-making materials.
A domestic insurrection in a rural area has no need for the former and tons of the latter lying around.
The reason the current breed of terrorists have failed to do anything is because they are dumb. Not because our infrastructure is actually secure.
Which is why terrorists are forced to use suicide attacks in busy crowds in places like Iraq or Afghanistan...instead of driving trucks into places and blowing them up.
You do realize that actual honest to god military actions by professional forces in any vital location in warfare are actually difficult to execute, right? Much less by civilian terrorists? Which is why terrorists very rarely do such things. The Taleban have explosives and trucks and tens of thousands of trained and motivated fighters, but they very rarely attack infrastructure or military installations. Never enough to make a dent in anything.
Not to mention that a lot of American industry is concentrated in cities, where it is actually easier to control access to important facilities and to the city itself by just blocking select roads.
Again, do you really think that "Truck + Explosives" is some revolutionary insurgency action that neither the world's war planners or the various different insurgency/terrorist groups have failed to account "because they are dumb"?
The 9/11 pilots were not exactly star pilots... From what I know they received incredibly basic training on how to fly a plane in mid air, something a lot of people would be able to do by pure luck without even trying before.
To run an F22 you'd need a base and like 100 trained supply people, and flying a fighter is something that requires years of service.
To use an ICBM you'd need everyone from the president down through the joint chiefs so there might as well not be a civil war at all. That is an extremely bad example, possibly the worst that can actually be thought of so good job there I guess.
Do you even need to be in the cockpit to fly an airliner? I assumed that the autopilot could do everything as long as you kept him inflated.
As for soldiers running off with stuff, good luck getting the facilities to keep them fueled, loaded, and serviced.
Why are you guys assuming every soldier would remain fanatically loyal to the motherrealm?
Them's a pretty big miscalculation in your simulations there. You could drive a tank through it. Pun intended.
Because even if the army splits, then it's going to be a battle of army versus army; a bunch of civilians armed with hunting rifles still aren't going to matter.
You're thinking about this the wrong way, civilians with hunting rifles don't engage the military, they sabotage vulnerable points, basically they carry out an insurgency.
It's actually something the police in American borders would be better at dealing with than the military though
You need hundreds/thousands of sites for fully working U.S, civilians included. Military would secure the things it would need first and then put manpower into civilian interests if it can spare it. Believe it or not, as large as your military is it only consumes a fraction of the energy used by U.S. And there is really nothing a civilian insurgency could to to put a stop to the government delivering energy from overseas.
Except, you know, the complete economic collapse that would accompany such a situation. They couldn't afford to import the needed supplies.
And I'm not sure where you get that U.S. could not recruit enough manpower to protect said sites. You really think there wouldn't be a mass recruitment operations in the case of civil war? You'd have a potential pool of fifty million people. Especially when defense duty is not as taxing.
That would make it incredibly easy to get sympathizers into positions were they could do the job all by themselves.
You do realize that actual honest to god military actions by professional forces in any vital location in warfare are actually difficult to execute, right?
Because an army, or even special forces, are incredibly obvious compared to insurgents.
The Taleban have explosives and trucks and tens of thousands of trained and motivated fighters, but they very rarely attack infrastructure or military installations. Never enough to make a dent in anything.
The US is not Afghanistan.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Why are you guys assuming every soldier would remain fanatically loyal to the motherrealm?
Them's a pretty big miscalculation in your simulations there. You could drive a tank through it. Pun intended.
Because even if the army splits, then it's going to be a battle of army versus army; a bunch of civilians armed with hunting rifles still aren't going to matter.
You're thinking about this the wrong way, civilians with hunting rifles don't engage the military, they sabotage vulnerable points, basically they carry out an insurgency.
It's actually something the police in American borders would be better at dealing with than the military though
Which is adorable right up until the kid gloves come off. And then it just ends very quickly and bloodily.
Why are you guys assuming every soldier would remain fanatically loyal to the motherrealm?
Them's a pretty big miscalculation in your simulations there. You could drive a tank through it. Pun intended.
Because even if the army splits, then it's going to be a battle of army versus army; a bunch of civilians armed with hunting rifles still aren't going to matter.
You're thinking about this the wrong way, civilians with hunting rifles don't engage the military, they sabotage vulnerable points, basically they carry out an insurgency.
It's actually something the police in American borders would be better at dealing with than the military though
Which is adorable right up until the kid gloves come off. And then it just ends very quickly and bloodily.
I say we firebomb Atlanta. They were clearly asking for it.
Anyway, an insurrection would probably go like the Revolutionary War did in Appalachia, with tons of hicks using the conflict as an excuse to settle scores with each other, except with the petty bullshit eclipsing the actual war.
Why are you guys assuming every soldier would remain fanatically loyal to the motherrealm?
Them's a pretty big miscalculation in your simulations there. You could drive a tank through it. Pun intended.
Because even if the army splits, then it's going to be a battle of army versus army; a bunch of civilians armed with hunting rifles still aren't going to matter.
You're thinking about this the wrong way, civilians with hunting rifles don't engage the military, they sabotage vulnerable points, basically they carry out an insurgency.
It's actually something the police in American borders would be better at dealing with than the military though
Which is adorable right up until the kid gloves come off. And then it just ends very quickly and bloodily.
I say we firebomb Atlanta. They were clearly asking for it.
Anyway, an insurrection would probably go like the Revolutionary War did in Appalachia, with tons of hicks using the conflict as an excuse to settle scores with each other, except with the petty bullshit eclipsing the actual war.
If you're going to, hurry up. I need to know where DragonCon's going to be relocated to.
Why are you guys assuming every soldier would remain fanatically loyal to the motherrealm?
Them's a pretty big miscalculation in your simulations there. You could drive a tank through it. Pun intended.
Because even if the army splits, then it's going to be a battle of army versus army; a bunch of civilians armed with hunting rifles still aren't going to matter.
You're thinking about this the wrong way, civilians with hunting rifles don't engage the military, they sabotage vulnerable points, basically they carry out an insurgency.
It's actually something the police in American borders would be better at dealing with than the military though
Which is adorable right up until the kid gloves come off. And then it just ends very quickly and bloodily.
Kay
When are the kid gloves going to come off in Afghanistan? Or Russia v. Chechnya?
You can't really win against an insurgency unless you kill everyone, all you can do is minimize its effects
Why are you guys assuming every soldier would remain fanatically loyal to the motherrealm?
Them's a pretty big miscalculation in your simulations there. You could drive a tank through it. Pun intended.
Because even if the army splits, then it's going to be a battle of army versus army; a bunch of civilians armed with hunting rifles still aren't going to matter.
You're thinking about this the wrong way, civilians with hunting rifles don't engage the military, they sabotage vulnerable points, basically they carry out an insurgency.
It's actually something the police in American borders would be better at dealing with than the military though
Which is adorable right up until the kid gloves come off. And then it just ends very quickly and bloodily.
Kay
When are the kid gloves going to come off in Afghanistan? Or Russia v. Chechnya?
Russia has actually found a reasonably effective way of dealing with Chechnya and that is turn the country into a giant blood feud whose factions hate each other more than they hate the Russians, making it an internal problem that costs a few hundred troops their lives and a few thousand their sanity each year. Russia's goal seems to be more stopping Chechen independance rather than actually turning it into a stable place. If the US had that kind of simplistic goal and an autocratic regime then they'd probably be more successful fighting their insurgencies.
8. (C) The lack of central control over the military, as well as officers' cupidity, may have been a prime cause of the first Chechnya War. Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, energy prices in the "ruble zone" were 3 percent of world market prices. Government officials and their partners bought oil at ruble prices, diverted it abroad, and sold it on the world market. The military joined in this arbitrage. Pavel Grachev, then Defense Minister, reportedly diverted oil to Western Group of Forces commander Burlakov, who sold it in Germany.
9. (C) Chechnya was a major entrepot for laundering oil for this arbitrage. It appears to have been used both by the military (including Grachev) and the Khasbulatov-Rutskoy axis in the Duma. Dudayev had declared independence, but remained part of the Russian elite. Chechnya's independence, oilfields, refineries and pipelines made Chechnya perfect for laundering oil. Planes, trains, buses and roads and pipelines to Chechnya were functioning, allowing anyone and anything to transit -- except auditors. In the early 1990's millions of tons of "Russian" oil entered Chechnya and were magically transformed into "Chechen" oil to be sold on the world market at world prices. Some of the proceeds went to buy the Chechens weaponry, most of it from the Russian military, and another lucrative trade developed. Dudayev took much of his cut of the proceeds in weapons. The Groznyy Bazaar was notorious in the early 1990s for the quantity and variety of arms for sale, including heavy weaponry.
there's a lot more interesting stuff in that cable too.
That would make it incredibly easy to get sympathizers into positions were they could do the job all by themselves.
Perhaps in some cases. Certainly not in all, and it certainly would get more difficult over time as the government would start doing background checks, if they already weren't doing it.
Because an army, or even special forces, are incredibly obvious compared to insurgents.
And driving a truck forcefully through a checkpoint, several times per month, over and over again would be the height of secrecy and stealth?
The US is not Afghanistan.
Not really a working retort right there. You haven't posted a reason why it would work any more in U.S. then it would work in Afghanistan. Especially when by all logic it would be easier to do it in Afghanistan or Iraq or any other similar location in the world.
DarkCrawler on
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited December 2010
Uh. Dude modern armies still have trouble with guerilla tactics. Please do not be that ignorant when making your defences. Acknowledge the weaknesses in an army.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
The problem the US army faces in Afghanistan is that its troops don't know the language, Don't know the Culture, don't know the terrain and Can't infiltrate the Taliban. The Taliban also have a safe area across the border in the tribal area of Pakistan. None of which would be a problem against a home grown insurgency.
Homegrown insurgens would also face police infiltration and informants.
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Uh. Dude modern armies still have trouble with guerilla tactics. Please do not be that ignorant when making your defences. Acknowledge the weaknesses in an army.
That trouble is more based on terror, morale of the troops, popular support and civilian casualties then on them constantly winning battles or significantly damaging infrastructure. No guerilla army has won a war through combat alone. No guerilla army has defeated an numerically and technologically superior military. Hell, you could say that no guerilla army has won a war, period. The Viet Cong for example still had the People's Army of Vietnam which was a regular military formation, and after the war conquered both Laos and Cambodia and humiliated China, and still remains one of the largest armies in the world.
Terror, morale, civilian casualties and popular support don't usually mean as much to a dictatorship with a superior military fighting to keep a hold it's own territory, which is usually why civil wars are so goddamn bloody. If you give up, you lose everything, so you fight to the bitter end.
In addition plans like 100,000 people massing against a tank or constantly driving explosive trucks towards vital military interests can't really be constituted as "guerilla tactics".
The problem the US army faces in Afghanistan is that its troops don't know the language, Don't know the Culture, don't know the terrain and Can't infiltrate the Taliban. The Taliban also have a safe area across the border in the tribal area of Pakistan. None of which would be a problem against a home grown insurgency.
Homegrown insurgens would also face police infiltration and informants.
Which are also the same exact problems U.S. Army faced in Vietnam, with China playing Pakistan's place in the war.
And in the end, when taking all military costs into account, they would simply be so much less. It would be doubtful that U.S. would have retained any of it's overseas bases and interests at this point (or they would be quickly made second in importance to an inner civil war), meaning no foreign wars or bases or the costs associated with either. Lot of high tech research would not be needed or would be put on hold. If the United States Armed Forces were strictly limited to their own borders and waters, it's costs would be far, far lower. U.S. Army would not need to be a global high-tech force with deployments in several different Middle-Eastern countries to fight a civil war and an insurgency. No constant developments of F22's or Future Combat Systems or sensors or whatever. No 200 billion on a Global War On Terror.
A lot of costs would be shaved by the virtue of America leaving it's global responsibilities alone. You don't need all that to keep planes flying and tanks running, with it's current inventory limited to it's own borders America could still easily crush any inner insurgency.
Note: I'm not dissing anyone, I'm just pointing out a lack of history when in comes to armed rebellion. I hope you like text.
It's been brought up in this thread a couple of times that no guerrilla force has ever won through sheer combat, and that technology will always trump a few "freedom fighters". These are misconceptions. Bullet for bullet, a small resistance group likely won't win, which is why guerrilla fighting was invented in the first place. Armed resistance needs to quickly replace the old power structure, show that it is more capable than the old power structure, and be tenacious. If everyone puts their guns away after the first defeat, well, didn't some people rebel because they drank too much whiskey back in the 1790's? :P
Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, I call this story "Civil War in Nicaragua". A land much closer to the US, and much more in sync with its culture and customs than Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan.
In the late 1970's, Nicaragua's dictator Somoza got his ass handed to him on a plate by the Sandinistas. Somoza's National Guard was better trained, better equipped, and had plenty of support in the US, but was repeatedly defeated by rebel forces. Long story short, the Somoza family ruled Nicaragua as a hereditary dictatorship with an iron fist from 1937 to 1979. the first Somoza tricked the only rebel leader (of some 30 men) named Sandino and assassinated him before pulling a coup and taking control of the whole country. (Sandino had managed to evade the Nicaraguan National Guard and the US Marines for a couple of years, leading a guerrilla war.) Groups opposed to the government went from being small fringe groups and radical students to large opposition groups over night when newspaper owner Pedro Chamorro, who was a wealthy and respected Nicaraguan who was critical of the Somoza regime. Protests and strikes rocked the country, even many private business participated - enough that many in the country noticed a need for change. The few armed rebel groups, specifically a group calling themselves the FSLN (named after Sandino) launched attacks across the country in the wake of the strike. The armed assault was virtually a waste, and Somoza's US financed military swatted them away. However, things changed when a group of FSLN fighters captured the National Palace (think Nicaraguan White House), took 2,000 hostages, had many of their demands met, and negotiated their way to freedom in Panama. Suddenly, the FSLN had no trouble turning protesters into guerrillas.
Despite complete air and naval superiority (the guerrillas had no air force or navy), the FSLN marched to victory primarily using technicals (pick up trucks with machine guns), AK-47's, short wave radio propaganda, and molotov cocktails. As the war intensified they got their hands on some Belgian rifles, and whatever anti-tank weapons they could scrounge from the international market. To avoid bombing runs and artillery shelling, the guerrillas moved from house to house instead of down the streets so they could avoid detection. They claimed to be using civilians as human shields, while evacuating civilians from combat areas, winning the populace to their side by "saving them" from the brutal Somoza regime. They mounted an international PR campaign, showcasing all of the regimes human rights abuses to the world. Even the US stopped financing Somoza, and decided to stay neutral in the struggle after an American journalist was filmed being shot by a Guard officer. Finally the FSLN launched what they called the "Final Offensive". Guerrilla troops began actively recruiting as they fought, picking up the fallen weapons of National Guard troops as they went, grateful citizens left their doors and windows open so FSLN fighters could move through their neighborhoods unseen.
Across the country the National Guard was on the defensive, being pushed back until the only area firmly under Somoza control was about a quarter of Managua. At this point, the Somoza family had enough, and fled the country in the dead of night. The Sandinistas took power, and the National Guard which had outnumbered the guerrillas by 4-1 and had all the means of a modern military on their side, all surrendered or fled the country.
(Note: Anastatio Somoza was hunted down and killed by a Sandinista commando team not long after.)
And there you have it kids! The story of how a modern army, well trained, well equipped with tanks, planes, etc... was outwitted, and outplayed by a guerrilla force. While sheer force of arms was never in doubt, the resourcefulness of the Sandinistas coupled with the Somoza regime playing right into their hands led to a small but fierce group of armed rebels defeating a larger and much better equipped modern military.
MplsOsiris on
A while back I hated where my life was and where my life was going. Now I'm happily engaged, in the best shape I've been in since high school, have a bunch of wild stories and most importantly I enjoy my life! You can check out what I'm up to next at http://coolbyintent.com/blog
While your assessment of the Revolution in Nicaragua is very well written, the fact is that it's not a purely military victory either. International support, loss of aid from United States and like you demonstrated - popular support - were larger factors in play. I'm not really sure that those, or other various different things that happened during te Nicaraguan conflict could be replicated on a country the size and history of the U.S.
It would also be a bit misleading to say that the National Guard was a modern and well equipped military, in my opinion at the least. Their armored forces were mostly WWII hand-me-downs. Their Air Force was either converted civilian planes or training planes given to them by the U.S.
I do guess misleading to say that no guerilla group has won a war as well though, so you got me there. There was Cuban Revolution after all as well. But the forces arrayed against both the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutionaries were far, far lesser in training, manpower and equipment then any force put against hypothetical American insurrection in any near future unless something truly radical - and I'm talking about U.S. losing like 95% of it's trained personnel and equipment that it has right now - would happen.
Well, but what's the point of talking about a "pure military victory?" We're not discussing a tabletop game, so I'm not sure what's gained by excluding such factors as popular support and so on.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
I'm not sure US civilians would be willing to tolerate 10:1 casualty ratios in the army's favour if they wanted to fight a guerilla war. Actual fights between Taleban and occupying forces in Afghanistan tend to be brutally one-sided.
While your assessment of the Revolution in Nicaragua is very well written, the fact is that it's not a purely military victory either. International support, loss of aid from United States and like you demonstrated - popular support - were larger factors in play. I'm not really sure that those, or other various different things that happened during te Nicaraguan conflict could be replicated on a country the size and history of the U.S.
It would also be a bit misleading to say that the National Guard was a modern and well equipped military, in my opinion at the least. Their armored forces were mostly WWII hand-me-downs. Their Air Force was either converted civilian planes or training planes given to them by the U.S.
I do guess misleading to say that no guerilla group has won a war as well though, so you got me there. There was Cuban Revolution after all as well. But the forces arrayed against both the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutionaries were far, far lesser in training, manpower and equipment then any force put against hypothetical American insurrection in any near future unless something truly radical - and I'm talking about U.S. losing like 95% of it's trained personnel and equipment that it has right now - would happen.
Alright, first off, thanks. I studied in Nica for awhile and spent time working with former Sandinistas. Crazy stuff. I expected the first reply to be the usual internet comments of "Ur n ignorent communist!1!" I appreciate the intellect, seriously.
The Guard was well equipped considering the country is the 2nd poorest in the hemisphere. Standing up to tanks and armored cars with molotov cocktails and hand me down AKs is no cakewalk. The guard was armed with "modern" weapons for the time, things the US used during Korea and the early years of Vietnam. Also, most Sandinistas were convinced the US was going to intervene on behalf of Somoza at any moment.
Somoza lost the popular support to the Sandinistas by doing exactly what they said he would - bombing cities and towns, arresting and executing anyone suspected of being a guerrilla. The same with international support, when the international community said, "Enough with the human rights violations!" Somoza blatantly ignored them. When faced with that, the Sandinistas looked absolutely stunning.
The Sandinistas didn't win through firepower, they won through not giving up and their opponents not taking them as seriously as they should have. A lesson not quite learned over the next decade in El Salvador, and learned all too well in Guatemala where the military went absolutely apeshit at any hint of guerrilla activity.
MplsOsiris on
A while back I hated where my life was and where my life was going. Now I'm happily engaged, in the best shape I've been in since high school, have a bunch of wild stories and most importantly I enjoy my life! You can check out what I'm up to next at http://coolbyintent.com/blog
I'm not really sure that those, or other various different things that happened during te Nicaraguan conflict could be replicated on a country the size and history of the U.S.
There was Cuban Revolution after all as well. But the forces arrayed against both the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutionaries were far, far lesser in training, manpower and equipment then any force put against hypothetical American insurrection in any near future unless something truly radical - and I'm talking about U.S. losing like 95% of it's trained personnel and equipment that it has right now - would happen.
You are aware than in the biggest wargames of all time, costing 1/4th a billion dollars, the U.S. lost, right? The first day Blue (American armed forces) gave Red (insurgents) the ultimatum to surrender in 24 hours. By the second day, an entire American fleet of warships including a carrier was sunk. By the third day, another one of our fleets was badly crippled. All for a fraction of the price, and with nearly no technology level. Instead of using compromisable electronic communications, red used bike messengers. Instead of trying to use electronic targeting for the missiles, red used fishing boats to spot for cheap missiles. Etc.
And what was the lesson our military learned?
We refloated the fleets that were sunk. Told the Red team they weren't playing fair, and that they had to follow a pre-determined script. Then when we won we declared our military invincible, and didn't change a goddamn thing.
No, I think the reports of our invulnerability are greatly exaggerated.
I dunno how to interpret that wargame, really. Like, the general on the blue side basically said "look, we lost, there's really no reason to continue this iteration of the sim, let's start over and try to learn something new."
It's not as though the U.S. military would be walking around broadcasting the ways in which it is adapting to the Red tactics, so I'm not sure there are many conclusions to draw from it.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The problem the US army faces in Afghanistan is that its troops don't know the language, don't know the culture, don't know the terrain and can't infiltrate the Taliban.
I dunno how to interpret that wargame, really. Like, the general on the blue side basically said "look, we lost, there's really no reason to continue this iteration of the sim, let's start over and try to learn something new."
It's not as though the U.S. military would be walking around broadcasting the ways in which it is adapting to the Red tactics, so I'm not sure there are many conclusions to draw from it.
It's actually much worse than the wikipedia article would have you believe, assuming you trust the Red general (a lieutenant general who resigned over the affair). It's important to note that the US does not disagree with his story. The US took over control of the Red team assets, and then forced them to lose. Not "oh lets try a rematch," but literally forced them to lose.
"A phrase I heard over and over was: 'That would never have happened,'" Van Riper recalls. "And I said: nobody would have thought that anyone would fly an airliner into the World Trade Centre . . . but nobody seemed interested."
Van Riper was pretty fed up by this point, but things were about to get worse. The "control group", the officers refereeing the exercise, informed him that US electronic warfare planes had zapped his expensive microwave communications systems.
"You're going to have to use cellphones and satellite phones now, they told me. I said no, no, no - we're going to use motorcycle messengers and make announcements from the mosques," he says. "But they refused to accept that we'd do anything they wouldn't do in the west."
Then Van Riper was told to turn his air defences off at certain times and places where Blue forces were about to stage an attack, and to move his forces away from beaches where the marines were scheduled to land. "The whole thing was being scripted," he says.
Within his ever narrowing constraints, Van Riper continued to make a nuisance of himself, harrying Blue forces with an arsenal of unorthodox tactics, until one day, on July 29, he thinks, he found his orders to his subordinate officers were not being listened to any more. They were being countermanded by the control group. So Van Riper quit. "I stayed on to give advice, but I stopped giving orders. There was no real point any more," he says.
The problem the US army faces in Afghanistan is that its troops don't know the language, don't know the culture, don't know the terrain and can't infiltrate the Taliban.
Do you remember when some dudes saw that our special forces were growing beards in order to fit in slightly better with the local population and then the soldiers were ordered to cut them off?
No, I think the reports of our invulnerability are greatly exaggerated.
I'm well aware of the Millenium Challenge, though I'm not sure how it relates here. The war games were intended to demonstrate a battle against an "unknown Middle Eastern foe" (*coughIraqcough*), not an insurgent force. Americans (or lets say those who take a heed of this warning) are scared of countries like Iran and China sinking their carrier force. Iranians and Chinese have hundreds or thousands of anti-ship missiles, a massive brown water patrol force, submarines, planes, all ready and waiting with experienced crews and generals. Here is a good analysis: http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779&IBLOCK_ID=35&PAGE=1
Don't get me wrong though, it certainly showcased the inherent weaknesses in the modern American navy structure. It's still largely designed to fight a massive global war instead of a localised conflict with an enemy using low tech forces. Call it a legacy of the Cold War. But I doubt it's massively appicable to a situation that we are talking in here.
This would be really threatening only to the American carrier force, which I doubt would be as integral in a hypothetical inner civil war conflict. No need for such a massive power projection after all. Planes would operate from inner bases. Armies would not need naval transport. Naval conflicts would be at best unlikely and it would be doubtful that the insurgency would even bother to focus on anything to do with the navy since they would have a huge continental war to fight out.
But I totally agree that U.S. Navy has massive weaknesses as far as conventional warfare is considered.
Yeah, my sense of the Millennium Challenge is basically that the Red forces behaved in ways far outside of what the exercise was actually attempting to model. That doesn't mean the data generated by the initial blue loss is less interesting, but it also means that putting the exercise back on the rails for the second iteration isn't some kind of ostrich-headed conspiracy.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
See, here is what would have happened if that was the case:
The goverment would have declared that:
Homosexuals = Pedophiles = Sexoffenders
So now all the rules for sexoffenders apply to Homosexuals.
If you protested in a rally, the police would have shown up to arrest you for "Rioting" and thrown you in jail for the maximum sentence. If you complied with the laws and registered, a lynch mob would show up outside your house with the police "unable to respond for about 1 hour".
And the Supreme Court would have struck down any such law in about 5 minutes.
But don't let that get in the way of hyperbole.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited December 2010
From what was available to read, it's pretty clear that they did much more than put it back on the rails.
Did we read the same thing, or do you have a better link?
The lesson from the wargame doesn't seem to be so much directly important and an indictment of a "They can't do that - that's cheating" mindset within the military estabilishment, which is very relevant in discussing a response to whatever tactics some hypothetical insurgency might employ.
See, here is what would have happened if that was the case:
The goverment would have declared that:
Homosexuals = Pedophiles = Sexoffenders
So now all the rules for sexoffenders apply to Homosexuals.
If you protested in a rally, the police would have shown up to arrest you for "Rioting" and thrown you in jail for the maximum sentence. If you complied with the laws and registered, a lynch mob would show up outside your house with the police "unable to respond for about 1 hour".
And the Supreme Court would have struck down any such law in about 5 minutes.
But don't let that get in the way of hyperbole.
1.) It was a hypotetical scenario, you silly goose.
2.) The Supreme court in question would be the Roberts court, of Citizens United fame.
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited December 2010
That wargame is very damning. There is no justification for attempting to claim "that wouldn't really happen".
That's what fools and sore losers do.
If it is possible, you can damn well believe someone is going to try it once they get desparate enough. The whole thing smacks of arrogant wrongheadedness. Don't try to defend it, you just make yourself look bad. It's okay to admit that the armed forces are arrogant. They've got a lot of reason to be. Don't join them in their folly.
The worst thing is that the US side actually started telling their "opponent" what to do. "Turn off your defences here" "pull your forces away from here". This needs to be emphasised. That is not a learning experience. That is a play. Essentially, after their first defeat, they stopped trying to learn anything.
If you want to defend the armed forces from an unjustified assertation that is cool, but you really don't want to include this little gem in your "gotta protect the reputation" or indeed anywhere near your argument. You wanna wash your hands of it and join in the "what the fuck were they thinking" like the rest of us. Otherwise you just come off as heavily biased and that isn't going to help you.
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(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
You know what scares me the most about that? If it actually goes down that someone with minimal hardware takes a catastrophic toll on the US armed forces like that, there's a real life "Fuck you cheaters, you lose!" button. I don't trust guys like these not to use it when there's no threat of retaliation in kind.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited December 2010
Another neat thing is how one of our Swedish electric submarines in a war game with the US avoided detection for a whole year, entered several ports and "sunk" a lot of ships.
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I take it that you haven't seen the entrance to a military base in the past decade, have you? The US learned from Beirut, and the gate would be configured in such a way to make it near impossible to ram through it.
You don't hit military bases. You hit factories, oil refineries, etc.
I...
Uhhh
what?
Are you under the impression that insurgent forces in various conflicts, inner or outer, have not seen or heard about trucks and explosives?
Randomize when you do it and after two times you have done it they will blow up every truck on a ten mile radius that doesn't have the proper clearance to go past their two different checkpoints ten further miles away.
You really seem to be thinking this from an action movie/video game perspective right here.
Which as vital military interests will be heavily protected as well and all roads and entrances to them filled with checkpoints as well as monitored through air, satellite, etc.
You realize that even now if you planned a terrorist strike to a major oil refinery with the technique you described, you would be most likely stopped, much less in a police state under a military lockdown expecting attack at any moment...
Sorry, I misread your post, I thought you mean that it requires for U.S. somehow abnormal resources to control it's military like that.
I agree that a total breakdown of society would most likely change it, though military is usually the first one to get the resources in that sort of situation.
It wasn't their plan. It was their recruiting message. Southerners believed, en masse, that they were such a superior fighting force because they were lifelong hunters. It's one of the reasons that so many in the South thought the war would be over in months.
Do you even need to be in the cockpit to fly an airliner? I assumed that the autopilot could do everything as long as you kept him inflated.
As for soldiers running off with stuff, good luck getting the facilities to keep them fueled, loaded, and serviced.
We do not have the manpower to do that for the hundreds if not thousands of sites across the US that would need to be protected.
I seriously doubt this.
Most terrorist plots seem to get stopped when they try and contact someone outside the US or try and get bomb-making materials.
A domestic insurrection in a rural area has no need for the former and tons of the latter lying around.
The reason the current breed of terrorists have failed to do anything is because they are dumb. Not because our infrastructure is actually secure.
You need hundreds/thousands of sites for fully working U.S, civilians included. Military would secure the things it would need first and then put manpower into civilian interests if it can spare it. Believe it or not, as large as your military is it only consumes a fraction of the energy used by U.S. And there is really nothing a civilian insurgency could to to put a stop to the government delivering energy from overseas.
And I'm not sure where you get that U.S. could not recruit enough manpower to protect said sites. You really think there wouldn't be a mass recruitment operations in the case of civil war? You'd have a potential pool of fifty million people. Especially when defense duty is not as taxing.
Which is why terrorists are forced to use suicide attacks in busy crowds in places like Iraq or Afghanistan...instead of driving trucks into places and blowing them up.
You do realize that actual honest to god military actions by professional forces in any vital location in warfare are actually difficult to execute, right? Much less by civilian terrorists? Which is why terrorists very rarely do such things. The Taleban have explosives and trucks and tens of thousands of trained and motivated fighters, but they very rarely attack infrastructure or military installations. Never enough to make a dent in anything.
Not to mention that a lot of American industry is concentrated in cities, where it is actually easier to control access to important facilities and to the city itself by just blocking select roads.
Again, do you really think that "Truck + Explosives" is some revolutionary insurgency action that neither the world's war planners or the various different insurgency/terrorist groups have failed to account "because they are dumb"?
Nice
You're thinking about this the wrong way, civilians with hunting rifles don't engage the military, they sabotage vulnerable points, basically they carry out an insurgency.
It's actually something the police in American borders would be better at dealing with than the military though
Except, you know, the complete economic collapse that would accompany such a situation. They couldn't afford to import the needed supplies.
That would make it incredibly easy to get sympathizers into positions were they could do the job all by themselves.
Because an army, or even special forces, are incredibly obvious compared to insurgents.
The US is not Afghanistan.
I say we firebomb Atlanta. They were clearly asking for it.
Anyway, an insurrection would probably go like the Revolutionary War did in Appalachia, with tons of hicks using the conflict as an excuse to settle scores with each other, except with the petty bullshit eclipsing the actual war.
If you're going to, hurry up. I need to know where DragonCon's going to be relocated to.
Kay
When are the kid gloves going to come off in Afghanistan? Or Russia v. Chechnya?
You can't really win against an insurgency unless you kill everyone, all you can do is minimize its effects
Russia has actually found a reasonably effective way of dealing with Chechnya and that is turn the country into a giant blood feud whose factions hate each other more than they hate the Russians, making it an internal problem that costs a few hundred troops their lives and a few thousand their sanity each year. Russia's goal seems to be more stopping Chechen independance rather than actually turning it into a stable place. If the US had that kind of simplistic goal and an autocratic regime then they'd probably be more successful fighting their insurgencies.
there's a lot more interesting stuff in that cable too.
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
The Russian government is not actually representative of the people it controls
more updates on this shocking revelation when the rest of the world decides it cares
Hasn't really stopped other failed states, and even the insurgencies inside them, from importing all sorts of things from other countries.
Perhaps in some cases. Certainly not in all, and it certainly would get more difficult over time as the government would start doing background checks, if they already weren't doing it.
And driving a truck forcefully through a checkpoint, several times per month, over and over again would be the height of secrecy and stealth?
Not really a working retort right there. You haven't posted a reason why it would work any more in U.S. then it would work in Afghanistan. Especially when by all logic it would be easier to do it in Afghanistan or Iraq or any other similar location in the world.
Homegrown insurgens would also face police infiltration and informants.
That trouble is more based on terror, morale of the troops, popular support and civilian casualties then on them constantly winning battles or significantly damaging infrastructure. No guerilla army has won a war through combat alone. No guerilla army has defeated an numerically and technologically superior military. Hell, you could say that no guerilla army has won a war, period. The Viet Cong for example still had the People's Army of Vietnam which was a regular military formation, and after the war conquered both Laos and Cambodia and humiliated China, and still remains one of the largest armies in the world.
Terror, morale, civilian casualties and popular support don't usually mean as much to a dictatorship with a superior military fighting to keep a hold it's own territory, which is usually why civil wars are so goddamn bloody. If you give up, you lose everything, so you fight to the bitter end.
In addition plans like 100,000 people massing against a tank or constantly driving explosive trucks towards vital military interests can't really be constituted as "guerilla tactics".
Which are also the same exact problems U.S. Army faced in Vietnam, with China playing Pakistan's place in the war.
And in the end, when taking all military costs into account, they would simply be so much less. It would be doubtful that U.S. would have retained any of it's overseas bases and interests at this point (or they would be quickly made second in importance to an inner civil war), meaning no foreign wars or bases or the costs associated with either. Lot of high tech research would not be needed or would be put on hold. If the United States Armed Forces were strictly limited to their own borders and waters, it's costs would be far, far lower. U.S. Army would not need to be a global high-tech force with deployments in several different Middle-Eastern countries to fight a civil war and an insurgency. No constant developments of F22's or Future Combat Systems or sensors or whatever. No 200 billion on a Global War On Terror.
A lot of costs would be shaved by the virtue of America leaving it's global responsibilities alone. You don't need all that to keep planes flying and tanks running, with it's current inventory limited to it's own borders America could still easily crush any inner insurgency.
It's been brought up in this thread a couple of times that no guerrilla force has ever won through sheer combat, and that technology will always trump a few "freedom fighters". These are misconceptions. Bullet for bullet, a small resistance group likely won't win, which is why guerrilla fighting was invented in the first place. Armed resistance needs to quickly replace the old power structure, show that it is more capable than the old power structure, and be tenacious. If everyone puts their guns away after the first defeat, well, didn't some people rebel because they drank too much whiskey back in the 1790's? :P
Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, I call this story "Civil War in Nicaragua". A land much closer to the US, and much more in sync with its culture and customs than Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan.
In the late 1970's, Nicaragua's dictator Somoza got his ass handed to him on a plate by the Sandinistas. Somoza's National Guard was better trained, better equipped, and had plenty of support in the US, but was repeatedly defeated by rebel forces. Long story short, the Somoza family ruled Nicaragua as a hereditary dictatorship with an iron fist from 1937 to 1979. the first Somoza tricked the only rebel leader (of some 30 men) named Sandino and assassinated him before pulling a coup and taking control of the whole country. (Sandino had managed to evade the Nicaraguan National Guard and the US Marines for a couple of years, leading a guerrilla war.) Groups opposed to the government went from being small fringe groups and radical students to large opposition groups over night when newspaper owner Pedro Chamorro, who was a wealthy and respected Nicaraguan who was critical of the Somoza regime. Protests and strikes rocked the country, even many private business participated - enough that many in the country noticed a need for change. The few armed rebel groups, specifically a group calling themselves the FSLN (named after Sandino) launched attacks across the country in the wake of the strike. The armed assault was virtually a waste, and Somoza's US financed military swatted them away. However, things changed when a group of FSLN fighters captured the National Palace (think Nicaraguan White House), took 2,000 hostages, had many of their demands met, and negotiated their way to freedom in Panama. Suddenly, the FSLN had no trouble turning protesters into guerrillas.
Despite complete air and naval superiority (the guerrillas had no air force or navy), the FSLN marched to victory primarily using technicals (pick up trucks with machine guns), AK-47's, short wave radio propaganda, and molotov cocktails. As the war intensified they got their hands on some Belgian rifles, and whatever anti-tank weapons they could scrounge from the international market. To avoid bombing runs and artillery shelling, the guerrillas moved from house to house instead of down the streets so they could avoid detection. They claimed to be using civilians as human shields, while evacuating civilians from combat areas, winning the populace to their side by "saving them" from the brutal Somoza regime. They mounted an international PR campaign, showcasing all of the regimes human rights abuses to the world. Even the US stopped financing Somoza, and decided to stay neutral in the struggle after an American journalist was filmed being shot by a Guard officer. Finally the FSLN launched what they called the "Final Offensive". Guerrilla troops began actively recruiting as they fought, picking up the fallen weapons of National Guard troops as they went, grateful citizens left their doors and windows open so FSLN fighters could move through their neighborhoods unseen.
Across the country the National Guard was on the defensive, being pushed back until the only area firmly under Somoza control was about a quarter of Managua. At this point, the Somoza family had enough, and fled the country in the dead of night. The Sandinistas took power, and the National Guard which had outnumbered the guerrillas by 4-1 and had all the means of a modern military on their side, all surrendered or fled the country.
(Note: Anastatio Somoza was hunted down and killed by a Sandinista commando team not long after.)
And there you have it kids! The story of how a modern army, well trained, well equipped with tanks, planes, etc... was outwitted, and outplayed by a guerrilla force. While sheer force of arms was never in doubt, the resourcefulness of the Sandinistas coupled with the Somoza regime playing right into their hands led to a small but fierce group of armed rebels defeating a larger and much better equipped modern military.
It would also be a bit misleading to say that the National Guard was a modern and well equipped military, in my opinion at the least. Their armored forces were mostly WWII hand-me-downs. Their Air Force was either converted civilian planes or training planes given to them by the U.S.
I do guess misleading to say that no guerilla group has won a war as well though, so you got me there. There was Cuban Revolution after all as well. But the forces arrayed against both the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutionaries were far, far lesser in training, manpower and equipment then any force put against hypothetical American insurrection in any near future unless something truly radical - and I'm talking about U.S. losing like 95% of it's trained personnel and equipment that it has right now - would happen.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Alright, first off, thanks. I studied in Nica for awhile and spent time working with former Sandinistas. Crazy stuff. I expected the first reply to be the usual internet comments of "Ur n ignorent communist!1!" I appreciate the intellect, seriously.
The Guard was well equipped considering the country is the 2nd poorest in the hemisphere. Standing up to tanks and armored cars with molotov cocktails and hand me down AKs is no cakewalk. The guard was armed with "modern" weapons for the time, things the US used during Korea and the early years of Vietnam. Also, most Sandinistas were convinced the US was going to intervene on behalf of Somoza at any moment.
Somoza lost the popular support to the Sandinistas by doing exactly what they said he would - bombing cities and towns, arresting and executing anyone suspected of being a guerrilla. The same with international support, when the international community said, "Enough with the human rights violations!" Somoza blatantly ignored them. When faced with that, the Sandinistas looked absolutely stunning.
The Sandinistas didn't win through firepower, they won through not giving up and their opponents not taking them as seriously as they should have. A lesson not quite learned over the next decade in El Salvador, and learned all too well in Guatemala where the military went absolutely apeshit at any hint of guerrilla activity.
Apologies if this has been posted before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
You are aware than in the biggest wargames of all time, costing 1/4th a billion dollars, the U.S. lost, right? The first day Blue (American armed forces) gave Red (insurgents) the ultimatum to surrender in 24 hours. By the second day, an entire American fleet of warships including a carrier was sunk. By the third day, another one of our fleets was badly crippled. All for a fraction of the price, and with nearly no technology level. Instead of using compromisable electronic communications, red used bike messengers. Instead of trying to use electronic targeting for the missiles, red used fishing boats to spot for cheap missiles. Etc.
And what was the lesson our military learned?
We refloated the fleets that were sunk. Told the Red team they weren't playing fair, and that they had to follow a pre-determined script. Then when we won we declared our military invincible, and didn't change a goddamn thing.
No, I think the reports of our invulnerability are greatly exaggerated.
That is horrible.
It's not as though the U.S. military would be walking around broadcasting the ways in which it is adapting to the Red tactics, so I'm not sure there are many conclusions to draw from it.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
It's actually much worse than the wikipedia article would have you believe, assuming you trust the Red general (a lieutenant general who resigned over the affair). It's important to note that the US does not disagree with his story. The US took over control of the Red team assets, and then forced them to lose. Not "oh lets try a rematch," but literally forced them to lose.
Bolded for emphasis.
Do you remember when some dudes saw that our special forces were growing beards in order to fit in slightly better with the local population and then the soldiers were ordered to cut them off?
I'm well aware of the Millenium Challenge, though I'm not sure how it relates here. The war games were intended to demonstrate a battle against an "unknown Middle Eastern foe" (*coughIraqcough*), not an insurgent force. Americans (or lets say those who take a heed of this warning) are scared of countries like Iran and China sinking their carrier force. Iranians and Chinese have hundreds or thousands of anti-ship missiles, a massive brown water patrol force, submarines, planes, all ready and waiting with experienced crews and generals. Here is a good analysis:
http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779&IBLOCK_ID=35&PAGE=1
It is also a hardly a new phenomenon as far as actual wars are even concerned.
Don't get me wrong though, it certainly showcased the inherent weaknesses in the modern American navy structure. It's still largely designed to fight a massive global war instead of a localised conflict with an enemy using low tech forces. Call it a legacy of the Cold War. But I doubt it's massively appicable to a situation that we are talking in here.
This would be really threatening only to the American carrier force, which I doubt would be as integral in a hypothetical inner civil war conflict. No need for such a massive power projection after all. Planes would operate from inner bases. Armies would not need naval transport. Naval conflicts would be at best unlikely and it would be doubtful that the insurgency would even bother to focus on anything to do with the navy since they would have a huge continental war to fight out.
But I totally agree that U.S. Navy has massive weaknesses as far as conventional warfare is considered.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
But don't let that get in the way of hyperbole.
Rigorous Scholarship
Did we read the same thing, or do you have a better link?
1.) It was a hypotetical scenario, you silly goose.
2.) The Supreme court in question would be the Roberts court, of Citizens United fame.
That's what fools and sore losers do.
If it is possible, you can damn well believe someone is going to try it once they get desparate enough. The whole thing smacks of arrogant wrongheadedness. Don't try to defend it, you just make yourself look bad. It's okay to admit that the armed forces are arrogant. They've got a lot of reason to be. Don't join them in their folly.
The worst thing is that the US side actually started telling their "opponent" what to do. "Turn off your defences here" "pull your forces away from here". This needs to be emphasised. That is not a learning experience. That is a play. Essentially, after their first defeat, they stopped trying to learn anything.
If you want to defend the armed forces from an unjustified assertation that is cool, but you really don't want to include this little gem in your "gotta protect the reputation" or indeed anywhere near your argument. You wanna wash your hands of it and join in the "what the fuck were they thinking" like the rest of us. Otherwise you just come off as heavily biased and that isn't going to help you.