European military and Popular Mechanics

Wars always were total. Who said "Carthago delenda est" ? How about "This war differs from other wars, in this particular. We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war." Heck, read a Bible for a bunch of examples.

VLV

"John Larkin" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

France and Britain, obviously -- France's reparations sucked their economy dry in the 20's (look up Weimar hyperinflation) and annexed one of Germany's biggest manufacturing centers (the Rhur). What were they going to do, starve to death?

As for Poland specifically, well, I don't know what Poland was doing at the time, but that sounds like a case of "beat up the weak kids in the playground so you look tougher".

If you look at the history of the great wars in the last half a millenium, you see they come up about once every century, with a new world leader for about another century, until the next war comes in.

Easy way to think of it: economic and social factors build up. Little wars release a bit, here and there. Every so often a big war kicks up. It's like diode avalanche at low current. A noisy, chaotic, multivariable system, similar behavior.

In the 16th century, it was the Dutch, or something like that. The seas were controlled by the Dutch, French, British and so on alternately until the beginning of the 20th century. By then, it was Britain's turn (again!) to step down, and Germany was the aggressor this time (not having made any important colonies yet, like the others all did).

What's bizarre about the 20th century is, the loser was not crushed into destruction. Germany recovered fairly quickly and restarted the battle. WW2 wasn't a war all its own, so much as a continuation of WW1 which simply wasn't settled.

Now that it's a century later again, it's the US's time to step down, which you *know* isn't going to go smoothly. The economy is already starting to shit itself. It'll be a Wonder of the World if we're still on top in even 10 years, let alone 50 or 100.

Moral absolutism sucks, because it can be used to justify almost any horror.

Oooh, meta-relativism...

Tim

Total War didn't just mean that your army trashed their city. It meant that the agressor's entire population and economy was dedicated to years of war.

John

Yep, We hurt the Jap's feelings...

And the German's... burn, baby, burn ;-) ...Jim Thompson

...Jim Thompson

There you go. What I don't like is the stupid moralists with their good guy / bad guy hypocrisy. Regardless of their political orientation.

VLV

Attila the Hun is from the wimpy side of my family ;-) ...Jim Thompson

More of your self hatred.

Thanks. I've been trying to remember that expression

-- "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." (Richard Feynman)

What worried me the most about this initiative, at the time, was the lack of time it would mean for leaders to cope with a false positive. With satellites only a 100 miles overhead and very, very little time to detect and respond, I couldn't see how it was possible to avoid something terribly serious happening due to an error. Sufficient time and systems in play, it's almost inevitable.

I much prefer keeping things at a level where there is time to make a phone call; or maybe even two.

Jon

Martin Brown:

Mainly Von Neuman (Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove).

Given the bigger population in History, the 20th Century was the less cruent on record. "Just" 100 million victims, plus 10-50 M Kulaks. Unless Mao really killed 70 M.

About the same total of the mass extermination of native Americans (North, Center and South), or the slave trade.

Let's not forget the french revolution and Napoleon. I don't know much of your civil war, but is it true that in Gettysburg 50.000 died?

The Hunns and Mongols were not that kind either.

Well, much better than dying one week after having lost a limb.

And bombing is much better than rape and looting.

Herman Kahn

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax:

Dr. Strangelove did not support the doomsday device, but just the opposite, the pre-emptive strike, as Von Neumann did.

As far as I know, Dr. Kahn did not speak with a strong foreign accent, nor was forced to a weelchair by bone cancer. Von Neuman certainly did.

Jim Thompson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Ah,another "moral equivalence" proponent.

Jim Thompson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Ah,another "moral equivalence" proponent.

The character is an amalgamation of RAND Corporation strategist Herman Kahn, mathematician and Manhattan Project principal John von Neumann, German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and Edward Teller, the "father of the hydrogen bomb."

????

Don't worry, I am on your side :)))) Unlike you, I don't have any need of carrying the burden of being ideologically right or wrong in order to act efficiently :))))

The main rule of moral is simple: what is good for me and my social group, must be universally good. Corollary: those who think and do differently should be dealt with like the situation permits. The rest is just words for deception of simpletons.

Thompson rimes with Stalin ?

VLV

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax:

WOW! What a reliable and authoritative source! ;-)

Then follow up the citation.

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax:

Unfortunately I'm still too pretentious to take in every circumstance WikiLOLpedia as a source more reliable than logic.