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.
Actually, the very worst thing is the date. 2002.
The war games were supposed to be the ultimate confirmation of the Rumsfeld doctrine. He brought in a lot of civilian contractors to the pentagon, planning all sorts of 'revolutionary' new ideas. The Millennial Challenge was intended to prove that this doctrine of reliance on air-power, small mobile forces, preemptive attacks, and high tech systems was superior to the old way of doing things. After it achieved a 'stunning victory' in the wargames, it was supposed to be absolute proof that our military should enter combat that way.
It's a shame that reality disagreed. Of course, we still falsified the results and went ahead with it anyways.
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.
I wouldn't be too worried about that. The President needs to authorize the use of nuclear weapons. I don't see any realistic scenario where the US would fire nukes first, other than maybe a case where another nuclear power was in the process of prepping its nukes for launch.
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Personally I'd argue that armed insurrection wouldn't even work and probably be counterproductive in the United States and probably most 1st world countries today. Economic insurrection(if we are talking a small % of the population) or even a prolonged general strike(if your talking about a majority of the population) could bring a country like the US to its knees in fairly short order.
I've always liked the idea of economic insurrection ala Atlas Shrugged, start minting an alternate currency from gold and silver, value based on the metals weighted price rather than bits of tin and copper and worthless paper which has been assigned an arbitrary value based on the whim of a nebulous "World Bank"
Technicus Rex on
People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazi's. You can't trust people. - Super Hans.
I've always liked the idea of economic insurrection ala Atlas Shrugged, start minting an alternate currency from gold and silver, value based on the metals weighted price rather than bits of tin and copper and worthless paper which has been assigned an arbitrary value based on the whim of a nebulous "World Bank"
Personally I'd argue that armed insurrection wouldn't even work and probably be counterproductive in the United States and probably most 1st world countries today. Economic insurrection(if we are talking a small % of the population) or even a prolonged general strike(if your talking about a majority of the population) could bring a country like the US to its knees in fairly short order.
I've always liked the idea of economic insurrection ala Atlas Shrugged, start minting an alternate currency from gold and silver, value based on the metals weighted price rather than bits of tin and copper and worthless paper which has been assigned an arbitrary value based on the whim of a nebulous "World Bank"
Would you put the coins in your mouth and try to bend 'em to make sure you're not getting lead?
It's pretty much like this for everything (with the exception of the Tu-160, which there exists no western counterpart to presently, because it's huge and, perhaps, too much awesome for us in the west).
Personally I'd argue that armed insurrection wouldn't even work and probably be counterproductive in the United States and probably most 1st world countries today. Economic insurrection(if we are talking a small % of the population) or even a prolonged general strike(if your talking about a majority of the population) could bring a country like the US to its knees in fairly short order.
I've always liked the idea of economic insurrection ala Atlas Shrugged, start minting an alternate currency from gold and silver, value based on the metals weighted price rather than bits of tin and copper and worthless paper which has been assigned an arbitrary value based on the whim of a nebulous "World Bank"
1.) The "world bank"(note quotation marks) does not assign value to any currency, individual countries controlling their currency do. The US dollar for example is controlled by the US federal reserve. Also the World bank(note lack of quotation marks) is not a nebulous organisation controlling the world, its an institution dedicated to giving loans to nation states and far from controlling the US, the US controlls the world bank.
2.) Arbitrary value? And coins minted using Gold/Silver would have real value? How do you define that without ultimatly relying on the arbitrary paper money you dislike? I know Gold has many industrial uses, but a gold coin is not the same.
3.) Like Atlas Shrugged? That says a lot about you.
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Personally I'd argue that armed insurrection wouldn't even work and probably be counterproductive in the United States and probably most 1st world countries today. Economic insurrection(if we are talking a small % of the population) or even a prolonged general strike(if your talking about a majority of the population) could bring a country like the US to its knees in fairly short order.
I've always liked the idea of economic insurrection ala Atlas Shrugged, start minting an alternate currency from gold and silver, value based on the metals weighted price rather than bits of tin and copper and worthless paper which has been assigned an arbitrary value based on the whim of a nebulous "World Bank"
Would you put the coins in your mouth and try to bend 'em to make sure you're not getting lead?
Hell yes! I'm taking the Con out of Consumerism!
Technicus Rex on
People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazi's. You can't trust people. - Super Hans.
Personally I'd argue that armed insurrection wouldn't even work and probably be counterproductive in the United States and probably most 1st world countries today. Economic insurrection(if we are talking a small % of the population) or even a prolonged general strike(if your talking about a majority of the population) could bring a country like the US to its knees in fairly short order.
I've always liked the idea of economic insurrection ala Atlas Shrugged, start minting an alternate currency from gold and silver, value based on the metals weighted price rather than bits of tin and copper and worthless paper which has been assigned an arbitrary value based on the whim of a nebulous "World Bank"
1.) The "world bank"(note quotation marks) does not assign value to any currency, individual countries controlling their currency do. The US dollar for example is controlled by the US federal reserve. Also the World bank(note lack of quotation marks) is not a nebulous organisation controlling the world, its an institution dedicated to giving loans to nation states and far from controlling the US, the US controlls the world bank.
2.) Arbitrary value? And coins minted using Gold/Silver would have real value? How do you define that without ultimatly relying on the arbitrary paper money you dislike? I know Gold has many industrial uses, but a gold coin is not the same.
3.) Like Atlas Shrugged? That says a lot about you.
But I'm talking about DUBLOONS! PIECES OF EIGHT!
Yeah I read a book and liked the idea of something that happened.
Technicus Rex on
People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazi's. You can't trust people. - Super Hans.
I'm not an objectivist if that is the point you are trying to make, even if I were what would that have to do with anyones sexual preference?
So where do you get your morals from kipling?
If your government was exposed as opperating in a manner which you considered to be outside of your moral code would that be enough for you to consider insurrection? Starting a sedition movement? Dissonance? Civil Disobedience?
Technicus Rex on
People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazi's. You can't trust people. - Super Hans.
If your government was exposed as opperating in a manner which you considered to be outside of your moral code would that be enough for you to consider insurrection?
There is a line. Moral code has something to do with it, but thats not the sole reason... we would have insurrections everywhere. No, also a certain degree of suffering and "it can't go on this way" is needed...
Personally I'd argue that armed insurrection wouldn't even work and probably be counterproductive in the United States and probably most 1st world countries today. Economic insurrection(if we are talking a small % of the population) or even a prolonged general strike(if your talking about a majority of the population) could bring a country like the US to its knees in fairly short order.
I've always liked the idea of economic insurrection ala Atlas Shrugged, start minting an alternate currency from gold and silver, value based on the metals weighted price rather than bits of tin and copper and worthless paper which has been assigned an arbitrary value based on the whim of a nebulous "World Bank"
You realize that fiat currencies are backed by every good and service in the economy, right?
Personally I'd argue that armed insurrection wouldn't even work and probably be counterproductive in the United States and probably most 1st world countries today. Economic insurrection(if we are talking a small % of the population) or even a prolonged general strike(if your talking about a majority of the population) could bring a country like the US to its knees in fairly short order.
I've always liked the idea of economic insurrection ala Atlas Shrugged, start minting an alternate currency from gold and silver, value based on the metals weighted price rather than bits of tin and copper and worthless paper which has been assigned an arbitrary value based on the whim of a nebulous "World Bank"
You realize that fiat currencies are backed by every good and service in the economy, right?
I don't think that's right. A fiat currency is backed by goodwill and consumer confidence, the second people decide that the money is shady it loses its value.
I found this wikipedia article to be enlightening to say the least.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
I am always a bit lost when I hear people talking about the insurgents in afghanistan as though they are winning in a sense that is applicable to a revolution. They are winning because they are causing the US to spend too much effort and money, not because they are even remotely winning engagements. The coalition lost only 700 men in the whole of last year, including to IEDs. The insurgents lost well over 6000 men at a conservative estimate with many more captured. And this is in the country where that style of warfare is absolutely perfect and where there is a tactical interest in keeping the tribesdudes under control.
All of this would be harder for the revolutionaries in the US.
Personally I'd argue that armed insurrection wouldn't even work and probably be counterproductive in the United States and probably most 1st world countries today. Economic insurrection(if we are talking a small % of the population) or even a prolonged general strike(if your talking about a majority of the population) could bring a country like the US to its knees in fairly short order.
I've always liked the idea of economic insurrection ala Atlas Shrugged, start minting an alternate currency from gold and silver, value based on the metals weighted price rather than bits of tin and copper and worthless paper which has been assigned an arbitrary value based on the whim of a nebulous "World Bank"
You realize that fiat currencies are backed by every good and service in the economy, right?
I don't think that's right. A fiat currency is backed by goodwill and consumer confidence, the second people decide that the money is shady it loses its value.
I found this wikipedia article to be enlightening to say the least.
Wow so enlightening. Want to get further enlightened? Figure out a way to turn gold into bread. How about silver into eggs? No? Well shit. Looks like precious metal currencies are still based on the perceived value of the currency rather then some magical fixed number.
Money is, fundamentally and in any form, a fancy way of trading IOUs.
I don't think that's right. A fiat currency is backed by goodwill and consumer confidence, the second people decide that the money is shady it loses its value.
I don't think that's right. A fiat currency is backed by goodwill and consumer confidence, the second people decide that the money is shady it loses its value.
Just like almost all of society.
The reason Economics is not a science is because if people believe the economy's doing well it will do well and if people believe it's failing it will fail.
And that is why society would be great if it weren't for people.
Personally I'd argue that armed insurrection wouldn't even work and probably be counterproductive in the United States and probably most 1st world countries today. Economic insurrection(if we are talking a small % of the population) or even a prolonged general strike(if your talking about a majority of the population) could bring a country like the US to its knees in fairly short order.
I've always liked the idea of economic insurrection ala Atlas Shrugged, start minting an alternate currency from gold and silver, value based on the metals weighted price rather than bits of tin and copper and worthless paper which has been assigned an arbitrary value based on the whim of a nebulous "World Bank"
You know what's funny? This has been done. It was done during the great depression, only you want to know the really zany thing? The currency was not based on precious metals. It was based on negative-interest.
I have what I would consider to be a more or less fail-safe litmus test for letting me know it's time to actively resist the government (I'd also note that 'resistance' shouldn't translate to 'grab a gun and head to city hall' - the small but effective resistance to the Vichy in France did the meat of it's work through underground newspaper publication, sabotage & espionage):
Political purges.
Every single totalitarian regime starts by (usually violently) expunging any competitors and silencing every critic. To go with the trend in this thread and use America as an example, when the bond between the Republican and Democratic party in the United States 'has never been stronger', and the ruling party has had to do a bit of 'house cleaning' to get rid of those really pesky fringe radicals, and oops there was a bit of bloodshed involved in some of the arrests, but what can you do?, that's when I'll know it's become a failed state.
I am always a bit lost when I hear people talking about the insurgents in afghanistan as though they are winning in a sense that is applicable to a revolution. They are winning because they are causing the US to spend too much effort and money, not because they are even remotely winning engagements. The coalition lost only 700 men in the whole of last year, including to IEDs. The insurgents lost well over 6000 men at a conservative estimate with many more captured. And this is in the country where that style of warfare is absolutely perfect and where there is a tactical interest in keeping the tribesdudes under control.
All of this would be harder for the revolutionaries in the US.
In vietnam the VC and NVA lost nearly ever significant engagement. Casualty ratios don't really mean shit, all that matters to the guerrillas is motivation.
If your government was exposed as opperating in a manner which you considered to be outside of your moral code would that be enough for you to consider insurrection? Starting a sedition movement? Dissonance? Civil Disobedience?
I would imagine each one of us on this thread can point to at least one thing our government does or fails to do that is a violation of our moral code. There's never been a government in human history that operated in a manner that was 100% consistent with its polity's moral code.
In some ways, that's what government is for. To do certain things on our behalf that we're unwilling to do ourselves, but that's required (like nuking Hiroshima or shooting violent criminals engaged in a killing spree).
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It's pretty much like this for everything (with the exception of the Tu-160, which there exists no western counterpart to presently, because it's huge and, perhaps, too much awesome for us in the west).
Thank you for reinforcing my point with a Russian rock song.
There'd be a new Unibomber cropping up every second if the basis for insurrection was "the goverment does something I don't like".
And the treatment (ignoring/capture/execution/suicide/whatever) of some of those dissidents would likely lead to more unhappy people. It'd be like gang warfare but with more bitching about tea and taxes and following through on second ammendment solutions to things people don't like.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
In vietnam the VC and NVA lost nearly ever significant engagement. Casualty ratios don't really mean shit, all that matters to the guerrillas is motivation.
Well, motivation alone isn't enough if you don't have the outside backing, strategy, logistics and tactics under control, which VC/NVA had utterly perfected to a level unheard by any other guerilla organization in the history of the world. I mean, Hezbollah is maybe becoming a strong competitor (lets face it, they won the 2006 war, big time), but is still nowhere near approaching the scale that the Vietnamese pulled off. U.S. decided to try and take them on at their absolute apex, when they had been developing their strategy for close to two hundred years. They lost due to that.
I'm not simply sure that a newly born American insurgency could take on a better U.S. military with experiences from several different guerilla conflicts, on their own soil, and become even one hundreth of the organization that VC/NVA is. Or Hezbollah for that matter. Or even Taleban, really.
Same would go for most Western countries trying to take on their own military too.
I think the accepted idea that it would be easy to mobilize the entire American military, or even a good portion of it, and turn it against the citizenry without massive dissent and resentment is pretty hillarious.
Depending on what spurred the events it's very likely the military would also be fighting itself in the event of a full scale armed uprising. I know a lot of people who joined up in the military, and most of them didn't join to protect the social construct of "the government" they joined for reasons like "my grandfather" "protecting freedom" "I felt it was my duty"
The government tries to send those same guys home, tell them it's now their duty to burn down the school they went to because radicals are holing up in it, shoot some townies to put down a rebellion, drive a tank down the street they used to ride bikes, there is going to be massive dissent.
This is pretty much my thoughts on civies vs the military. I can't imagine a scenario where the rank and file military personal have some sort of ideological split with the common citizen to the point of wanting to kill them. We don't have the ethnic divisions that usually cause such scenarios.
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No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
In vietnam the VC and NVA lost nearly ever significant engagement. Casualty ratios don't really mean shit, all that matters to the guerrillas is motivation.
Well, motivation alone isn't enough if you don't have the outside backing, strategy, logistics and tactics under control, which VC/NVA had utterly perfected to a level unheard by any other guerilla organization in the history of the world. I mean, Hezbollah is maybe becoming a strong competitor (lets face it, they won the 2006 war, big time), but is still nowhere near approaching the scale that the Vietnamese pulled off. U.S. decided to try and take them on at their absolute apex, when they had been developing their strategy for close to two hundred years. They lost due to that.
The North Vietnamese and their allies in the South were resistant to a primary, if not the primary, method of exerting American power--the same one that had worked with great success in Japan: bombing an enemy into oblivion. The tonnage of bombs dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia by the US is comparable--some people argue higher--than the entirety of bombs dropped during all of World War II by all countries.
As it happened, the opposing party realized that the US was putting a disproportionate amount of effort into one strategy, and managed to make themselves largely immune to it (in so much that even when bombing killed millions of people, over time, it did not cripple the war effort). But that's not something easily reproduced by anyone who opposes the country with the largest air forces in the world.
The North Vietnamese and their allies in the South were resistant to a primary, if not the primary, method of exerting American power--the same one that had worked with great success in Japan: bombing an enemy into oblivion. The tonnage of bombs dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia by the US is comparable--some people argue higher--than the entirety of bombs dropped during all of World War II by all countries.
As it happened, the opposing party realized that the US was putting a disproportionate amount of effort into one strategy, and managed to make themselves largely immune to it (in so much that even when bombing killed millions of people, over time, it did not cripple the war effort). But that's not something easily reproduced by anyone who opposes the country with the largest air forces in the world.
And we saw a smaller repeat of the same in the 2006 war - after decades of Israeli Defense Forces reigning supreme against all the peasant armies the Arab powers and the laughingstock that is Hamas (and the absolute joke that is PLO, they make Hamas look like Viet Cong), a motivated and prepared enemy with far less numbers rendered millions of cluster munitions and hundreds of thousands of shells meaningless.
It would have made me feel nostalgic if I had been alive during Vietnam.
I think the accepted idea that it would be easy to mobilize the entire American military, or even a good portion of it, and turn it against the citizenry without massive dissent and resentment is pretty hillarious.
Depending on what spurred the events it's very likely the military would also be fighting itself in the event of a full scale armed uprising. I know a lot of people who joined up in the military, and most of them didn't join to protect the social construct of "the government" they joined for reasons like "my grandfather" "protecting freedom" "I felt it was my duty"
The government tries to send those same guys home, tell them it's now their duty to burn down the school they went to because radicals are holing up in it, shoot some townies to put down a rebellion, drive a tank down the street they used to ride bikes, there is going to be massive dissent.
This is pretty much my thoughts on civies vs the military. I can't imagine a scenario where the rank and file military personal have some sort of ideological split with the common citizen to the point of wanting to kill them. We don't have the ethnic divisions that usually cause such scenarios.
This.
Though in Guatemala (another Central America thing, my apologies) soldiers drawn from one area were never assigned to anywhere near their home during their 36 year civil war. It's much easier to massacre people if you have never seen them before, and likely never will again massacre or no.
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In huge part though, it's because we generally regard the Russian sacrifice of WW2 as being a result of incompetent military tactical strategy.
Yeah, when you pull a Zapp Brannigan in real life in regards to your troops, it's kind of bad.
To cover both sides, I tend to think the Omaha, and in general D-Day beach landings are a pretty good example of this on the Allied side as well, but what was the average grunt to do?
Australia's version was Gallipoli in WW1, though the entire war could be defined this way.
These are both common misconceptions about the second world war: Omaha was not simply jumped into with thousands of troops without preparations; there was a massive counter-intelligence operation before any of the landings in Normandy (which is why the vast majority of the Allied Landings encountered very little resistance on the beaches - the Germans thought that the invasion would be taking place at Pas de Calais), but unfortunately Rommel did not wholly buy into the story about FUSAG and went to the stretch of beach that would later become the Omaha landing area and oversaw a build-up of it's defenses.
Far more allied soldiers would be killed in the hedgerows than would be killed on the beaches.
Russian casualties were so high because of the effectiveness of the initial German blitzkrieg (Operation Barbarossa), not due to technical or strategic inferiority (the commissar system was barbaric and hindersome, but not nearly as much so as Germany's disastrous insistence that all plans were to be approved by Hitler himself). Later engagements, like the battle of Kursk, demonstrated that the Red Army could meet the Wehrmacht on about even footing.
Well, motivation alone isn't enough if you don't have the outside backing, strategy, logistics and tactics under control, which VC/NVA had utterly perfected to a level unheard by any other guerilla organization in the history of the world. I mean, Hezbollah is maybe becoming a strong competitor (lets face it, they won the 2006 war, big time), but is still nowhere near approaching the scale that the Vietnamese pulled off. U.S. decided to try and take them on at their absolute apex, when they had been developing their strategy for close to two hundred years. They lost due to that.
I'm not simply sure that a newly born American insurgency could take on a better U.S. military with experiences from several different guerilla conflicts, on their own soil, and become even one hundreth of the organization that VC/NVA is. Or Hezbollah for that matter. Or even Taleban, really.
Same would go for most Western countries trying to take on their own military too.
This is terribly inaccurate.
First, there was no 'VC/NVA'. While the Viet Cong & North Vietnamese Army certainly did cooperate, they used very different strategies: The Viet Cong was an underground resistance movement; they had little in terms of materials, and arguably did most of their damage by being an ever-present threat, no matter where the battle lines were drawn. The North Vietnamese Army was a conventional military with tanks, aircraft, trucks, AAA batteries, etc. The conventional forces received support & supplies from the bloc states - the Viet Cong did not.
I have no idea where the notion that the Viet Cong had 'perfected guerrilla warfare to unheard of levels' comes from (certainly not a historian). The multi-faceted resistance in France & Poland, where on the ground sabotage operations did more damage during the 2nd World war than the entire Allied bombing campaign, would be just one competing example.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited December 2010
A glance at wikipedia seems to suggest that the VC and NVA were two parts of the People's Army of Vietnam and that they both received decent logistics and materials from the bloc.
First, there was no 'VC/NVA'. While the Viet Cong & North Vietnamese Army certainly did cooperate, they used very different strategies: The Viet Cong was an underground resistance movement; they had little in terms of materials, and arguably did most of their damage by being an ever-present threat, no matter where the battle lines were drawn. The North Vietnamese Army was a conventional military with tanks, aircraft, trucks, AAA batteries, etc. The conventional forces received support & supplies from the bloc states - the Viet Cong did not.
Yeah uh, "/" in between usually indicates that I am talking about two different organizations, at least that's how I've understood the symbol. I know all that you posted, in fact I highlighted the fact that NVA was a conventional military in several posts on this thread and that assistance from bloc states was important to them.
I have no idea where the notion that the Viet Cong had 'perfected guerrilla warfare to unheard of levels' comes from (certainly not a historian). The multi-faceted resistance in France & Poland, where on the ground sabotage operations did more damage during the 2nd World war than the entire Allied bombing campaign, would be just one competing example.
Competing, but in my opinion not as impressive.
We could debate the track records of the two if you want, but that would sort of go beside the point of this thread.
I don't think the fact that Viet Cong was one of the - if not the most - successful guerilla movements in history is an unheard view, in fact I've heard it from many sources, and I doubt many similar groups have had as much studies dedicated on them.
"Unheard levels" was too much of an exaggeration though.
In vietnam the VC and NVA lost nearly ever significant engagement. Casualty ratios don't really mean shit, all that matters to the guerrillas is motivation.
Well, motivation alone isn't enough if you don't have the outside backing, strategy, logistics and tactics under control, which VC/NVA had utterly perfected to a level unheard by any other guerilla organization in the history of the world. I mean, Hezbollah is maybe becoming a strong competitor (lets face it, they won the 2006 war, big time), but is still nowhere near approaching the scale that the Vietnamese pulled off. U.S. decided to try and take them on at their absolute apex, when they had been developing their strategy for close to two hundred years. They lost due to that.
I'm not simply sure that a newly born American insurgency could take on a better U.S. military with experiences from several different guerilla conflicts, on their own soil, and become even one hundreth of the organization that VC/NVA is. Or Hezbollah for that matter. Or even Taleban, really.
Same would go for most Western countries trying to take on their own military too.
And like I said before, if the US had infinite political will, eventually the Vietnam war would have been won because all of the people capable of fighting would have died. This is pretty much almost what happened in Afghanistan V. Russia - not exactly an ideal situation, but something to keep in mind when comparing capability to political will
That's the thing with fighting insurgencies in a foreign place - for the aggressor it's political will, for the guerrilla it's fighting for the survival of your nation/ethnic group/whatever.
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Actually, the very worst thing is the date. 2002.
The war games were supposed to be the ultimate confirmation of the Rumsfeld doctrine. He brought in a lot of civilian contractors to the pentagon, planning all sorts of 'revolutionary' new ideas. The Millennial Challenge was intended to prove that this doctrine of reliance on air-power, small mobile forces, preemptive attacks, and high tech systems was superior to the old way of doing things. After it achieved a 'stunning victory' in the wargames, it was supposed to be absolute proof that our military should enter combat that way.
It's a shame that reality disagreed. Of course, we still falsified the results and went ahead with it anyways.
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I've always liked the idea of economic insurrection ala Atlas Shrugged, start minting an alternate currency from gold and silver, value based on the metals weighted price rather than bits of tin and copper and worthless paper which has been assigned an arbitrary value based on the whim of a nebulous "World Bank"
You mean like a Coin?
Would you put the coins in your mouth and try to bend 'em to make sure you're not getting lead?
1.) The "world bank"(note quotation marks) does not assign value to any currency, individual countries controlling their currency do. The US dollar for example is controlled by the US federal reserve. Also the World bank(note lack of quotation marks) is not a nebulous organisation controlling the world, its an institution dedicated to giving loans to nation states and far from controlling the US, the US controlls the world bank.
2.) Arbitrary value? And coins minted using Gold/Silver would have real value? How do you define that without ultimatly relying on the arbitrary paper money you dislike? I know Gold has many industrial uses, but a gold coin is not the same.
3.) Like Atlas Shrugged? That says a lot about you.
Hell yes! I'm taking the Con out of Consumerism!
But I'm talking about DUBLOONS! PIECES OF EIGHT!
Yeah I read a book and liked the idea of something that happened.
So where do you get your morals from kipling?
If your government was exposed as opperating in a manner which you considered to be outside of your moral code would that be enough for you to consider insurrection? Starting a sedition movement? Dissonance? Civil Disobedience?
There is a line. Moral code has something to do with it, but thats not the sole reason... we would have insurrections everywhere. No, also a certain degree of suffering and "it can't go on this way" is needed...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEDrOtNAZ2U&feature=fvw
You realize that fiat currencies are backed by every good and service in the economy, right?
I agree with the sentiment, I just think it's funny. If someone had an article on how to troll the PA forums, 'mention Atlas Shrugged' would be in it.
RAWR WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT AYN RAND
DON'T YOU KNOW SHE LOVES GETTING RAPED AND OBJECTIVISM IS TOTALLY WRONG
PLUS ALL HER BOOKS ARE PIECE OF SHIT
Edit: Wait, that was actually used unironically as an argument just now. Welp, I guess it is technically true.
I don't think that's right. A fiat currency is backed by goodwill and consumer confidence, the second people decide that the money is shady it loses its value.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money
I found this wikipedia article to be enlightening to say the least.
All of this would be harder for the revolutionaries in the US.
Wow so enlightening. Want to get further enlightened? Figure out a way to turn gold into bread. How about silver into eggs? No? Well shit. Looks like precious metal currencies are still based on the perceived value of the currency rather then some magical fixed number.
Money is, fundamentally and in any form, a fancy way of trading IOUs.
Just like almost all of society.
The reason Economics is not a science is because if people believe the economy's doing well it will do well and if people believe it's failing it will fail.
And that is why society would be great if it weren't for people.
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You know what's funny? This has been done. It was done during the great depression, only you want to know the really zany thing? The currency was not based on precious metals. It was based on negative-interest.
Political purges.
Every single totalitarian regime starts by (usually violently) expunging any competitors and silencing every critic. To go with the trend in this thread and use America as an example, when the bond between the Republican and Democratic party in the United States 'has never been stronger', and the ruling party has had to do a bit of 'house cleaning' to get rid of those really pesky fringe radicals, and oops there was a bit of bloodshed involved in some of the arrests, but what can you do?, that's when I'll know it's become a failed state.
In vietnam the VC and NVA lost nearly ever significant engagement. Casualty ratios don't really mean shit, all that matters to the guerrillas is motivation.
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In some ways, that's what government is for. To do certain things on our behalf that we're unwilling to do ourselves, but that's required (like nuking Hiroshima or shooting violent criminals engaged in a killing spree).
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Thank you for reinforcing my point with a Russian rock song.
There'd be a new Unibomber cropping up every second if the basis for insurrection was "the goverment does something I don't like".
And the treatment (ignoring/capture/execution/suicide/whatever) of some of those dissidents would likely lead to more unhappy people. It'd be like gang warfare but with more bitching about tea and taxes and following through on second ammendment solutions to things people don't like.
Well, motivation alone isn't enough if you don't have the outside backing, strategy, logistics and tactics under control, which VC/NVA had utterly perfected to a level unheard by any other guerilla organization in the history of the world. I mean, Hezbollah is maybe becoming a strong competitor (lets face it, they won the 2006 war, big time), but is still nowhere near approaching the scale that the Vietnamese pulled off. U.S. decided to try and take them on at their absolute apex, when they had been developing their strategy for close to two hundred years. They lost due to that.
I'm not simply sure that a newly born American insurgency could take on a better U.S. military with experiences from several different guerilla conflicts, on their own soil, and become even one hundreth of the organization that VC/NVA is. Or Hezbollah for that matter. Or even Taleban, really.
Same would go for most Western countries trying to take on their own military too.
This is pretty much my thoughts on civies vs the military. I can't imagine a scenario where the rank and file military personal have some sort of ideological split with the common citizen to the point of wanting to kill them. We don't have the ethnic divisions that usually cause such scenarios.
The North Vietnamese and their allies in the South were resistant to a primary, if not the primary, method of exerting American power--the same one that had worked with great success in Japan: bombing an enemy into oblivion. The tonnage of bombs dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia by the US is comparable--some people argue higher--than the entirety of bombs dropped during all of World War II by all countries.
As it happened, the opposing party realized that the US was putting a disproportionate amount of effort into one strategy, and managed to make themselves largely immune to it (in so much that even when bombing killed millions of people, over time, it did not cripple the war effort). But that's not something easily reproduced by anyone who opposes the country with the largest air forces in the world.
And we saw a smaller repeat of the same in the 2006 war - after decades of Israeli Defense Forces reigning supreme against all the peasant armies the Arab powers and the laughingstock that is Hamas (and the absolute joke that is PLO, they make Hamas look like Viet Cong), a motivated and prepared enemy with far less numbers rendered millions of cluster munitions and hundreds of thousands of shells meaningless.
It would have made me feel nostalgic if I had been alive during Vietnam.
This.
Though in Guatemala (another Central America thing, my apologies) soldiers drawn from one area were never assigned to anywhere near their home during their 36 year civil war. It's much easier to massacre people if you have never seen them before, and likely never will again massacre or no.
These are both common misconceptions about the second world war: Omaha was not simply jumped into with thousands of troops without preparations; there was a massive counter-intelligence operation before any of the landings in Normandy (which is why the vast majority of the Allied Landings encountered very little resistance on the beaches - the Germans thought that the invasion would be taking place at Pas de Calais), but unfortunately Rommel did not wholly buy into the story about FUSAG and went to the stretch of beach that would later become the Omaha landing area and oversaw a build-up of it's defenses.
Far more allied soldiers would be killed in the hedgerows than would be killed on the beaches.
Russian casualties were so high because of the effectiveness of the initial German blitzkrieg (Operation Barbarossa), not due to technical or strategic inferiority (the commissar system was barbaric and hindersome, but not nearly as much so as Germany's disastrous insistence that all plans were to be approved by Hitler himself). Later engagements, like the battle of Kursk, demonstrated that the Red Army could meet the Wehrmacht on about even footing.
This is terribly inaccurate.
First, there was no 'VC/NVA'. While the Viet Cong & North Vietnamese Army certainly did cooperate, they used very different strategies: The Viet Cong was an underground resistance movement; they had little in terms of materials, and arguably did most of their damage by being an ever-present threat, no matter where the battle lines were drawn. The North Vietnamese Army was a conventional military with tanks, aircraft, trucks, AAA batteries, etc. The conventional forces received support & supplies from the bloc states - the Viet Cong did not.
I have no idea where the notion that the Viet Cong had 'perfected guerrilla warfare to unheard of levels' comes from (certainly not a historian). The multi-faceted resistance in France & Poland, where on the ground sabotage operations did more damage during the 2nd World war than the entire Allied bombing campaign, would be just one competing example.
Yeah uh, "/" in between usually indicates that I am talking about two different organizations, at least that's how I've understood the symbol. I know all that you posted, in fact I highlighted the fact that NVA was a conventional military in several posts on this thread and that assistance from bloc states was important to them.
Competing, but in my opinion not as impressive.
We could debate the track records of the two if you want, but that would sort of go beside the point of this thread.
I don't think the fact that Viet Cong was one of the - if not the most - successful guerilla movements in history is an unheard view, in fact I've heard it from many sources, and I doubt many similar groups have had as much studies dedicated on them.
"Unheard levels" was too much of an exaggeration though.
And like I said before, if the US had infinite political will, eventually the Vietnam war would have been won because all of the people capable of fighting would have died. This is pretty much almost what happened in Afghanistan V. Russia - not exactly an ideal situation, but something to keep in mind when comparing capability to political will
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