The Changing Face of War

[eyeball]

Yes but you probably think I mean Islamic terrorists amongst us.

[Guest]

Yes but you probably think I mean Islamic terrorists amongst us.

I'm hurt. I do not.

Of course, they wouldn't be exempt.

[eyeball]

As long as they keep on killing those who need killing, and try their hardest not to kill those who don't, then that's all we can ask for.

No that's not even close to what we should be demanding which is the arrest of war criminals and terrorists amongst our side

and their extradition to the Hague.

Then we should be instructing our governments to start undertaking the Mother of all Marshall Plans for the Muslim world.

[Guest]

No that's not even close to what we should be demanding which is the arrest of war criminals and terrorists amongst our side

and their extradition to the Hague.

Then we should be instructing our governments to start undertaking the Mother of all Marshall Plans for the Muslim world.

Don't they have some oil...?

[herples]

It was the rise of the use of the horse...mounted in particular...that allowed any culture to take the next big leap in military tactics...combined arms. This was not unique to the Greeks and Romans...though they were certainly masters of it.

I think it is simply the need to be better equipped than the enemy that pushed the innovation of weapons.

[Big Guy]

I think it is simply the need to be better equipped than the enemy that pushed the innovation of weapons.

It used to be the nation with more people had the advantage in war but now it is becoming more and more the nations with more money to spend on technology. I believe that the development of drones and robots will win the wars. To-day we have drones that can be controlled from thousands of miles away and we have robots that are quite capable of killing. A robot was recently adapted to blow up a mass murderer recently in the USA. You do not have to worry about drones and/or robots getting injured or backlash from civilians when the robot parts come home in a box.

Send technology into the front lines. They get wiped out - send in some more. You are limited only by how much you have to spend. For that reason I am skeptical about spending $billions on battleships or fighter jets. Humans make mistakes and their deaths are mourned - not so for drones and robots.

[Army Guy]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147

I guess it boils down to the question, how far is NATO willing to go to destroy one target, or in your case these 47 individuals. One could ask how many lives were allies willing to take to kill top brass in WWII such as Hitler, if it could change the course of the war, did they ask the same question when they dropped the bombs on Japan....

Taking out top tier targets has also proven to shorten or change the course of the conflict. Does it have a price Yes it does....

But during the same period of time that NATO was looking for these 47 terrorist, how many civilians did the terrorist kill, also proven over many studies that they are responsible for 90 % or more of all civilan cas in Afghanistan.

This has to also be taken into account when deciding to take out these 47 targets, if they are to be left unmolested then how many more civilian's will be killed by terrorist actions....

The difference between the two, is terrorist deliberately target civilains, as it garnishes the largest media / world attention...

while NATO does kill civilians it is a side effect of their attacks, the main target is the terrorist themselves....the fact they take great effort to reduce civilian causalities....something the media fails to report on....

[Big Guy]

The difference between the two, is terrorist deliberately target civilains, as it garnishes the largest media / world attention...

while NATO does kill civilians it is a side effect of their attacks, the main target is the terrorist themselves....the fact they take great effort to reduce civilian causalities....something the media fails to report on....

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/led-air-strikes-kill-21-civilians-syria-160719045329897.html

[Bonam]

It used to be the nation with more people had the advantage in war but now it is becoming more and more the nations with more money to spend...

Cite? I believe a rudimentary study of history will show little or no correlation between the population of nations and their success in warfare. How much of its resources a nation could afford to spend on its military was always a much more important factor. Nations structured in a way that allowed them to deploy a better trained, better equipped and better motivated force almost always had the advantage compared to nations that simply had large populations. One need only look at how the Mongol invasions of China played out to see that much illustrated, as one example among many possible ones.

[GostHacked]

I guess it boils down to the question, how far is NATO willing to go to destroy one target, or in your case these 47 individuals. One could ask how many lives were allies willing to take to kill top brass in WWII such as Hitler, if it could change the course of the war, did they ask the same question when they dropped the bombs on Japan....

..

This has to also be taken into account when deciding to take out these 47 targets, if they are to be left unmolested then how many more civilian's will be killed by terrorist actions....

Unacceptable. Typically it is civilians paying a much higher price. Albright said it was worth all those deal Iraqis to 'free' the nation from Hussein.

The military is nothing more than a pawn to the elites who want to waste time, money and human lives (soldiers AND civilians) on being able to do whatever it is they want. Soldiers that want to sign up to protect the nation have good intentions, but they are being used and taken advantage of.

Sure some argument can be said for WWI and WWII, but even then civilians STILL payed the heavier price. North America has two large oceans that created a good enough buffer that Canada/USA never experienced the civilian casualties like that of in Europe.

[Army Guy]

Not typically but always, more civilian casualties in every war since man first learned to club his enemies.

Once again one has to measure the gains against the losses....to find out if it was really worth it, in terms of lives lost.

WWII was a terrible war with over 60 million lives lost, but how many were saved if Hilter and his cronies were not stopped....

That is the nature of war, that will not go away for some time. it is the attitude of "unacceptable" that is driving better wpns that limit civilian cas, but it is very slow.

Yes there has been times that I was not on the same page as our government during conflicts the Yugoslavia UN mission was one ....But I also felt that my service brought about more good than bad....while the elites are controlling the big picture, for the most part it is soldiers that control things on the ground....

[GostHacked]

Army Guy

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/19/world/syria-airstrikes-civilian-casualties/

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday that the Pentagon will look into reports that the U.S.-led coalition in Syria has killed more than 100 civilians since June.

Human rights groups said Tuesday that airstrikes in and around the ISIS-controlled city of Manbij had killed many residents and wounded dozens more.

Carter said the coalition was aware of the reports.

"We'll ... continue to do all we can to protect civilians from harm," he said at anti-ISIS coalition defense ministerial news conference at Joint Base Andrews near Washington. "Being scrupulously careful in avoiding civilian casualties and being transparent about this issue is a reflection of the civilized nature of this coalition."

They are not being careful enough, as they have no f'n idea who the enemy is, how can they verify they are using utmost care in making sure civilians are not being killed during these attacks.

[eyeball]

We're the enemy.

Edited July 21, 2016 by eyeball

[Army Guy]

Until there is a major break through in wpns development , things are going to stay as is for now, it is just the way things are.

Can they be more careful, I am sure they can, but when you add in many other things such as the fog of war, your enemies tactics, their counter intel capacities, there is a huge list of things that could go wrong.....Murphy's law ....War is a terrible thing and it does horrible things most whom are innocent...

As for not knowing who the enemy is, for the most part that is true, when we talk about the smaller tier people, but NATO Intel services are vast, tracking millions of cell phone, sat phone and intra net conversations, combine with intel and spec ops on the ground, or other governmental assets, finding bad guys is easy, it is killing them while minimizing civilian cas that is the hard part.... That being said some times the value of the target is worth more than civilians lives.

[Big Guy]

So ISIS is in competition with the Taliban as to can kill more people in suicide attacks in Afghanistan. The latest is ISIS killing about 80 Afghans. Sure is lucky for the Afghan people that Canada got involved to get rid of that dictator.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/23/asia/afghanistan-explosion/index.html

Now if our military had been better equipped we would have killed all those "scumbags and murderers" in the Taliban and all those "scumbags and murderers" in ISIS.

Lets throw more money into our military and we might be able to join the USA in its next expedition to screw up the world.

[GostHacked]

Until there is a major break through in wpns development , things are going to stay as is for now, it is just the way things are.

That's something I always hear, but then it seems the low tech of terrorists negate any real advancement in those weapons. Sure the Coallition was able to take out Saddam quickly, now look at the shit show.

More advanced weapons are not the answer. Because that's something we've been hearing for decades if not centuries.

[GostHacked]

That being said some times the value of the target is worth more than civilians lives.

Totally the wrong approach.

How many civilians?

Can you quantify the gains if there are any?

How many more terrorists have been created by killing civilians?

Counter productive.

[Big Guy]

If we had fanatic patriots intent on killing anyone endangering our nation would we support suicide bombers? If we had someone prepared to surround himself with explosives, infiltrate an ISIS military leaders meeting and blow himself (and them) up, would we encourage it?

Would that person be a "hero"?

What about Nathan Hale's ""I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."?

So would our suicide bomber be the uber patriot?

What is the difference between a suicide bomber and a pilot dropping bombs on civilians (besides surviving the ordeal to do it again)?

[Army Guy]

That's something I always hear, but then it seems the low tech of terrorists negate any real advancement in those weapons. Sure the Coallition was able to take out Saddam quickly, now look at the shit show.

More advanced weapons are not the answer. Because that's something we've been hearing for decades if not centuries.

The terrorist themselves have their own wpns tech tree that over the last 20 years has advanced as fast as any NATO country. Take a look at suicide bombers and IED's and how they went from very simple devices to very tech devices. and with every improvement NATO has made to detect or overcome these wpns they have invented another counter....

If you take a look at history you can see that wpns are becoming for and more effective with less civilian damage....Take a look at WWII then at the modern battle field....Now I know that does not warm your heart and make you feel very good, but that is war....a while it is a cold hearted thing to say, that is exactly what war is all about....it has no values or morals and has very little rules....

Yes Iraq is a shit show, and yes the coalition had no problems with sweeping aside sadams army.....that is what it was designed to do, however it was not designed to fight an insurgent war, that being said the coalition did not plan very well for the after party, nor did the governments involved....what should have gone from a military mission to a diplomatic one failed....Nation building should have happened once Iraqi military forces were defeated.

[Army Guy]

Totally the wrong approach.

How many civilians?

Can you quantify the gains if there are any?

How many more terrorists have been created by killing civilians?

Counter productive.

Well that would depend on the target would it not....or the objective you are trying to achieve....IE would Have WWII been shorten if we had killed Hitler earlier ? most seem to think yes, remember the last few years in the war is when the most people were slaughtered....so if Hitler could be killed but we would also have to kill 10,000 or 100,000 German civilians to do so....would it be worth the price....keeping in mind we could save millions....

Same as the dropping of the atomic bombs in Japan, although that action killed thousands....how many did it save....

Killing of high value targets in Iraq or Afghan will not give us the over whelming advantages as the two examples above but it does change the course of the conflict.....

"How many more terrorist are we creating", good question there is no doubt that NATO did create more terrorists by it's bombings and other actions during the conflict. But this opinion is a two edge sword.....90 % of all civilians killed in both conflicts were from the actions of the terrorist themselves....Attacking civilians was their primary goal...to achieve there aims...How many people did the terrorist drive in NATO's direction....a lot more than NATO created.

[GostHacked]

"How many more terrorist are we creating", good question there is no doubt that NATO did create more terrorists by it's bombings and other actions during the conflict. But this opinion is a two edge sword.....90 % of all civilians killed in both conflicts were from the actions of the terrorist themselves....Attacking civilians was their primary goal...to achieve there aims...How many people did the terrorist drive in NATO's direction....a lot more than NATO created.

Then there are those terrorists being funded by NATO to help attack other nations. (Syria)

If the numbers are a lot more than what is being driven to terrorism, I'd like to see those numbers.

[eyeball]

"How many more terrorist are we creating", good question there is no doubt that NATO did create more terrorists by it's bombings and other actions during the conflict. But this opinion is a two edge sword.....90 % of all civilians killed in both conflicts were from the actions of the terrorist themselves....Attacking civilians was their primary goal...to achieve there aims...How many people did the terrorist drive in NATO's direction....a lot more than NATO created.

It's the failed region we're creating that should really be at issue now. The question, "How many more terrorists are we creating" should have been answered when other people were asking it 15 years or more ago.

Now you think its a good question.

It seems until recently, just about anyone who did was usually branded as some sort of an unpatriotic terrorist sympathizer who wasn't with us.

[GostHacked]

It's the failed region we're creating that should really be at issue now. The question, "How many more terrorists are we creating" should have been answered when other people were asking it 15 years or more ago.

Now you think its a good question.

It seems until recently, just about anyone who did was usually branded as some sort of an unpatriotic terrorist sympathizer who wasn't with us.

Its about consistency. You, me and others have said the same thing since the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and you were right, branded as unpatriotic and many other things. Now some of those who called that out are now saying the same things we are.

Better late than never, but at this stage it is too late the damage is done and the region is beyond repairable now.

[Big Guy]

Perhaps we should look to the past for the solution to these civil wars. Just let them do their thing:

Stalemate

[Guest]

If we had fanatic patriots intent on killing anyone endangering our nation would we support suicide bombers? If we had someone prepared to surround himself with explosives, infiltrate an ISIS military leaders meeting and blow himself (and them) up, would we encourage it?

I would. If he wanted to instead drive a truck through a party, I'd discourage it.