Just finished listening to War of the Rats by David Robbins. The misery of Stalingrad in World War II is hard for us to grasp. We haven't had global war since WWII -- primarily because the bomb makes it unthinkable -- and our tolerance for death and destruction has gone down. I've seen plots of American losses by war, starting with the Civil war through the Iraqi war. Though it does not help the specific servicemen and women who have died in later wars, the overall trend is for far fewer casualties per war with each conflict. Just last week the army put out three robot soldiers in combat, with more on the way. It has always been true but more than ever military might equals economic might. Also, the nature and mission of military action is changing, as our disastrous experience in post invasion Iraq has shown -- the job is to eliminate the threat, not merely to defeat an organized, in the field army. The Japanese in WWII over invested in Battleships because the admiral...
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Showing posts from August, 2007