The History of Armed Conflict, Part II.
Mao, Chairman Mao, the great bugaboo of the 50's and 60's. A great Man, Great Mandarin, or just a nasty piece of work. I will let history judge him on his merits. What matters to us is his contribution to the art of war.
You see, Mao was the guy who figured out how to beat the Europeans.
For the better part of 500 years European armies had been thrashing the natives everywhere else. Oh there was the occasional non European success. For example, the Sikhs came close to throwing the British out of India in the mid 1800's, and the Zulus had their day in the sun against a British invasion, and Custer had his last stand. But these were the exception, the more common experience being that of Cortez, who with 500 Spaniards won an Empire of millions. Even the Japanese had to remake themselves as Europeans to be able to compete with them.
Mao took a hard look at the European way of war and the nature of human beings. In doing so, he developed a theory of "guerrilla" warfare, or war of national liberation that capitalized on the weaknesses of the European/Japanese overlords and their Chinese Nationalist Proxies. In simple terms:
1. People prefer their own leaders to foreign ones.
2. The Key to liberation, first, is to win the hearts and minds of the people.
3. Since people prefer there own leaders, the cause of the revolutionary is just, therefore they ultimately will win.
4. Hence, the revolutionary has all the time in the world.
5. Hence, his goal is to survive, to keep a force in the field. So long as the revolutionary can keep a force anywhere active, the revolution lives.
6. He does this by being mobile, by not getting tied down, by being strong where the enemy is weak, and flee from the oppressors strength.
7. Keep hitting the enemy whenever possible and feasible.
8. Eventually he will wear down, and in exhaustion, leave. The government will collapse and you, the revolutionary, will succeed.
Now there is a lot more, and this is the abbreviated version, but you get the picture. ( Better yet, read the book). I would point out that one of the things that makes this feasible is the modern nature of war. The idea of Gallic peasants carrying on a Guerilla war against the Roman Legions is, well, absurd. Not that it was not tried, it just does not have the effectiveness. It is akin to me pulling an ambush on Governator Arnold with my bare hands...I might get a good sock in, but unless I get very lucky, he is going to hammer me.
But all the muscle and skill in the world cannot stop a bullet from behind. Or sticks of dynamite.
Mao could make soldiers out of kids in weeks, and arm them with weapons that had significant destructive power. A modern ambush is deadly, period. A tank can be killed by an improvised bomb. Guerrilla bands can and do destroy infrastructure, ambush professional solders, shoot down helicopters, and generally spread mayhem. What Mao realized, and what the Vietnamese proved, is that you do not have to win, all you have to do is inflict casualties and be there when the evacuation comes.
Any first year international studies undergraduate could have told you this. Of course any first world army can overrun any third world nation any time it is willing to spend lives and treasure. It can do it in record time, and it can do it in the face of any professional third world army. The US Army is the best army in the world for beating any other army, in record time, with record low numbers and record low casualties. Operation Iraqi Freedom was, by any standards, a brilliant example of the kind of Mobile campaign needed to beat a post WWII ground force.
But that was never going to be the battle. It was going to be what we have, a messy insurrection by a committed people. It is an enemy that is mobile, dispersed, committed and very aware that the only way to lose is to give up. They do not care what cities we clear out, it is not about holding cities, at least not right now. They do not care what we bomb, or what offensives we launch. They have no flank, or rear or command structure to disrupt. All they have to do is stay alive, and kill as many coalition and friendly Iraqis as they can, until we, in exhaustion leave. No matter how long it takes, so long as it takes a long time, they can and will keep on fighting.
This is not about an indictment of the US, my statements are not necessarily condemning. We can argue all day about who is ultimately right.
What matters, is what the insurgents believe.
The Vietnamese did it for 40 years, for country, for family, for freedom, for each other. They bled for the cause, right or wrong, it was their cause.
A famous American once said " My Country, May she ever be in the right. But right or wrong, my country."
What makes us believe that anyone else feels one bit differently.
The modern world is a different world. We have armies that are destructive beyond belief, but just as well we have the means to make any person a destructive killing machine, if only for the time it takes to plant a bomb or pull an ambush. There is now, too, a model for less developed peoples to resist, and do it effectively. Our leaders should have known that, but they did not, choosing instead to cling to the illusion of the Decisive Battle.
And now, there is a group of Iraqis who have all the time in the world, to kill and to die.
So that is where they went wrong.
You see, Mao was the guy who figured out how to beat the Europeans.
For the better part of 500 years European armies had been thrashing the natives everywhere else. Oh there was the occasional non European success. For example, the Sikhs came close to throwing the British out of India in the mid 1800's, and the Zulus had their day in the sun against a British invasion, and Custer had his last stand. But these were the exception, the more common experience being that of Cortez, who with 500 Spaniards won an Empire of millions. Even the Japanese had to remake themselves as Europeans to be able to compete with them.
Mao took a hard look at the European way of war and the nature of human beings. In doing so, he developed a theory of "guerrilla" warfare, or war of national liberation that capitalized on the weaknesses of the European/Japanese overlords and their Chinese Nationalist Proxies. In simple terms:
1. People prefer their own leaders to foreign ones.
2. The Key to liberation, first, is to win the hearts and minds of the people.
3. Since people prefer there own leaders, the cause of the revolutionary is just, therefore they ultimately will win.
4. Hence, the revolutionary has all the time in the world.
5. Hence, his goal is to survive, to keep a force in the field. So long as the revolutionary can keep a force anywhere active, the revolution lives.
6. He does this by being mobile, by not getting tied down, by being strong where the enemy is weak, and flee from the oppressors strength.
7. Keep hitting the enemy whenever possible and feasible.
8. Eventually he will wear down, and in exhaustion, leave. The government will collapse and you, the revolutionary, will succeed.
Now there is a lot more, and this is the abbreviated version, but you get the picture. ( Better yet, read the book). I would point out that one of the things that makes this feasible is the modern nature of war. The idea of Gallic peasants carrying on a Guerilla war against the Roman Legions is, well, absurd. Not that it was not tried, it just does not have the effectiveness. It is akin to me pulling an ambush on Governator Arnold with my bare hands...I might get a good sock in, but unless I get very lucky, he is going to hammer me.
But all the muscle and skill in the world cannot stop a bullet from behind. Or sticks of dynamite.
Mao could make soldiers out of kids in weeks, and arm them with weapons that had significant destructive power. A modern ambush is deadly, period. A tank can be killed by an improvised bomb. Guerrilla bands can and do destroy infrastructure, ambush professional solders, shoot down helicopters, and generally spread mayhem. What Mao realized, and what the Vietnamese proved, is that you do not have to win, all you have to do is inflict casualties and be there when the evacuation comes.
Any first year international studies undergraduate could have told you this. Of course any first world army can overrun any third world nation any time it is willing to spend lives and treasure. It can do it in record time, and it can do it in the face of any professional third world army. The US Army is the best army in the world for beating any other army, in record time, with record low numbers and record low casualties. Operation Iraqi Freedom was, by any standards, a brilliant example of the kind of Mobile campaign needed to beat a post WWII ground force.
But that was never going to be the battle. It was going to be what we have, a messy insurrection by a committed people. It is an enemy that is mobile, dispersed, committed and very aware that the only way to lose is to give up. They do not care what cities we clear out, it is not about holding cities, at least not right now. They do not care what we bomb, or what offensives we launch. They have no flank, or rear or command structure to disrupt. All they have to do is stay alive, and kill as many coalition and friendly Iraqis as they can, until we, in exhaustion leave. No matter how long it takes, so long as it takes a long time, they can and will keep on fighting.
This is not about an indictment of the US, my statements are not necessarily condemning. We can argue all day about who is ultimately right.
What matters, is what the insurgents believe.
The Vietnamese did it for 40 years, for country, for family, for freedom, for each other. They bled for the cause, right or wrong, it was their cause.
A famous American once said " My Country, May she ever be in the right. But right or wrong, my country."
What makes us believe that anyone else feels one bit differently.
The modern world is a different world. We have armies that are destructive beyond belief, but just as well we have the means to make any person a destructive killing machine, if only for the time it takes to plant a bomb or pull an ambush. There is now, too, a model for less developed peoples to resist, and do it effectively. Our leaders should have known that, but they did not, choosing instead to cling to the illusion of the Decisive Battle.
And now, there is a group of Iraqis who have all the time in the world, to kill and to die.
So that is where they went wrong.
posted by Maurice_Basilius at 5:22 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home