Wars are fought for objectives. Killing is one method of achieving those objectives. Killing the most people does not mean winning a war. Achieving one's objectives wins a war.
Read what was written once again, and you might discover the meaning of the statement. Nor did I state killing the most people wins the war. For instance the South in the American Civil War killed more enemy then the Union Army - but they still lost.
Your stuck on a semantic that will lead you to an incorrect conclusion. Your confusing objectives and reason with method. War is a method to reach one's objective.
If you believe war is not about destroying your opposition - then volunteer for the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.
08-22-2006, 15:25
Pannonian
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redleg
Read what was written once again, and you might discover the meaning of the statement. Nor did I state killing the most people wins the war. For instance the South in the American Civil War killed more enemy then the Union Army - but they still lost.
Once again you wish to argue with me on a point where I am not arguing with you, but reinforcing your point, and showing how the original poster whom I replied to was wrong. Read Horatius' post #81 on how the 5-1 Hezbollah-Israeli losses (where did he get those numbers from?) and Israel's holding the field meant Israel had won the war. That's what I was referring to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Horatius
That happened only in Hezbollah propaganda, 1-5 casualty ratios say the one who lost 5 lost unless of course they gained something worth the casualty gap, however the IDF had Southern Lebanon Occupied at the end of the fighting, and had captured more Hezbollah fighters, and destroyed a lot of Hezbollah Rocket Caches so Hezbollah did lose, if only the Israeli PR machine could match it's military machine.
Quote:
Your stuck on a semantic that will lead you to an incorrect conclusion. Your confusing objectives and reason with method. War is a method to reach one's objective.
If you believe war is not about destroying your opposition - then volunteer for the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.
There's a Van Creveld article I've posted somewhere, where he described a anecdote related by a British colonel on Northern Ireland. Said colonel went through the numbers of IRA and British soldiers killed in the conflict, which were something like 1000 troops and 300 IRA dead. That, emphasised the colonel, was why the British were still in Northern Ireland, and hadn't been driven out as they were in Palestine and the other colonies.
So according to the colonel, in the case of Northern Ireland killing was not only not the point of the war, British soldiers being killed was actually helpful towards the favourable conclusion of the war. People could see that, not only were the British not the ogrish tyrants the republicans were depicting them as, their soldiers went to great lengths, even risking and sacrificing their own lives, to avoid spreading the war into the civilian population.
In addition, successive British governments trained not only their soldiers, but the British population as a whole away from the view that a successful conclusion to the war by destroying the IRA. When hostilities began in the early 1970s, it would have been highly unlikely any British government would dare suggest negotiating with these terrorists, or using any method other than confrontation, for fear of "giving in to the enemy". Sometime during Thatcher's reign, another seemingly paradoxical approach was tried, enrichening and empowering the IRA's support base. Later on, demonisation of the enemy was also reduced, and initially a hypocritical approach of privately talking with Sinn Fein whilst publicly decrying terrorism in general was taken, later upgraded to open talks. This led to a great reduction in IRA activity, and when the British public did not object the government progressed to the next step, of releasing IRA prisoners. This generally congenial atmosphere which the British governments had worked hard to achieve led to the assumption of peace (or rather a ceasefire) as the normal state of affairs. Even when talks hit bumps later on, too much of a cooperative background had been built up to seriously affect the overall situation.
So did the British win the war in Northern Ireland by destroying the enemy? No, they won by turning the enemy into a partner whom they could work with. Another definition of military victory may be more accurate, victory is achieved by destroying the enemy's will to fight. When two states are facing each other across the battlefield, physically destroying the enemy's forces in the field may indeed break their will to fight. Sometimes, and it's increasingly becoming the case, the physical forces in the field are less important than what they represent. When that is so, killing the enemy and holding the field may not only be irrelevant, it may actually be counter-productive.
Hence my suggestion that Israel stops all thought of fighting Hezbollah, but instead pour money into their coffers for them to use however they like, effectively outbidding the Iranians and Syrians for their favour. The bulk of Hezbollah's efforts goes into civilian governmental projects. Let Hezbollah maintain a hostile facade towards Israel, while accustomising them to the benefits of Israeli friendship. It doesn't matter if Hezbollah's stated aim is to end the state of Israel (Sinn Fein's ultimate aim is to remove the British from Northern Ireland) - they're not in a position to realise it, and words don't matter if in practice they're willing to restrict actual hostilities to exchanges of rockets and shells across a mutually recognised battleground, as was the case in the 2000-2006 period. Eventually, if they like the new situation enough, they'll stop even that and settle for peace.
What I still consider the most important insight, however, was given to me not at Camberley but over dinner in Geneva some time in the early 1990s. My interlocutor was a British lieutenant colonel who had done several tours of duty in Northern Ireland but whose name, alas, I cannot remember either. What he told me can be summed up as follows. Look at almost any one of the hundred or so major counter-insurgency campaigns that took place all over the world since 1945 (or, if you wish, 1941). However great the differences between them, they have one thing in common. In every known instance the “forces of order” killed far more people than they lost. Often by an order of magnitude, as is the case in Iraq where the Americans always emphasize how many more Iraqis died; and often in such an indiscriminate manner (in counter-insurgency, whenever heavy weapons are used, the results are bound to be indiscriminate) as to make the result approximate genocide. By contrast, up to that date the struggle in Northern Ireland had cost the United Kingdom 3,000 casualties in dead alone. Of the 3,000 about 1,700 were civilians, most of them innocent bystanders who had been killed as bombed exploded at the time and place they happened to be. Of the remaining 1,300, 1,000 were British soldiers and no more than 300 were terrorists, a ratio of three to one. And that, he ended his exposition, is why we are still there.
08-22-2006, 18:43
Redleg
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Once again you wish to argue with me on a point where I am not arguing with you, but reinforcing your point, and showing how the original poster whom I replied to was wrong. Read Horatius' post #81 on how the 5-1 Hezbollah-Israeli losses (where did he get those numbers from?) and Israel's holding the field meant Israel had won the war. That's what I was referring to.
Are you now quibbling? Are you attempting to state that war is about destroying your opposition?
You made a certain claim about war that incorrect in its conclusion. You claimed that Another person who thinks war is about killing people..
In your previous response you did not indicate that you were agreeing and supporting my statement. Your statement actually reads as a counter to mine, not a supporting statement.
Edit: Here is probably what you really meant to state.
Winning wars is not about who kills the most enemy, but which nation is able to achieve not only its military objectives but its political objectives as well.
My response is that war is very much about killing. Police up the battlefield afterwards, and you get a very quick lesson about what war is about. You got yourself wrapped around a semantic issue on his post, and your carrying it on with your response here.
The objective of warfare is to achieve the goals of the nation state, the method of fighting a war necessates that the opposition is destroyed - ie their will to fight is destroyed or their ability to fight is destroyed. Killing the opposition on the battlefield is very much one of those methods. Wars are fought for other reasons then killing the oppositions, but war is about killing.
Quote:
There's a Van Creveld article I've posted somewhere, where he described a anecdote related by a British colonel on Northern Ireland. Said colonel went through the numbers of IRA and British soldiers killed in the conflict, which were something like 1000 troops and 300 IRA dead. That, emphasised the colonel, was why the British were still in Northern Ireland, and hadn't been driven out as they were in Palestine and the other colonies.
So according to the colonel, in the case of Northern Ireland killing was not only not the point of the war, British soldiers being killed was actually helpful towards the favourable conclusion of the war. People could see that, not only were the British not the ogrish tyrants the republicans were depicting them as, their soldiers went to great lengths, even risking and sacrificing their own lives, to avoid spreading the war into the civilian population.
Oh I don't disagree with the esteemed English Colonel at all. Nor have you paid attention to what I have stated either, and it seems to me once again your stuck on the politicial aspects of war - hanging yourself up on a sematic issue, that you recongized as the British colonel's point but failed to actually comprehend what he was telling you. The battlefield deaths of the British helped bring about the successful negotation that ended the conflict. Again death was involved. War is both a political method and an extremely physical and personal thing.
Again if you believe war is not about killing - go volunteer for the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.
08-22-2006, 19:20
Horatius
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
Pannonian
Tribesmen, Banquo and others claimed that Hezbollah defeated the IDF during the conflict according to the traditional military way, so I was just pointing out that according to traditional military conventions Israel won every aspect, they inflicted significantly higher casualties on Hezbollah then they suffered, destroyed very large sections of Hezbollah's weapons stockpiles, had Southern Lebanon Occupied by the end, and captured many Hezbollah fighters including some of their senior officers, politically Hezbollah may have come out the winner, however that is because they are first rate propagandaists.
I agree with what you are saying about the IRA, however Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran while the IRA was independent, Hezbollah also seeks the destruction of all Israel as do it's Iranian Masters, and Hezbollah's conflict with Israel is religious not political (Iran and Israel share enemies and don't share a border or any territorial disputes).
08-22-2006, 19:31
Tribesman
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
Can you remember what Israel said were their objectives at the start of the escalation in the conflict Horace ?
Can you name any of those objectives that was realised ?
08-22-2006, 19:37
Banquo's Ghost
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Horatius
Tribesmen, Banquo and others claimed that Hezbollah defeated the IDF during the conflict according to the traditional military way, so I was just pointing out that according to traditional military conventions Israel won every aspect, they inflicted significantly higher casualties on Hezbollah then they suffered, destroyed very large sections of Hezbollah's weapons stockpiles, had Southern Lebanon Occupied by the end, and captured many Hezbollah fighters including some of their senior officers, politically Hezbollah may have come out the winner, however that is because they are first rate propagandaists.
In the military, one measures success by objectives, not by body count.
Israel's stated objective was to neutralise Hezbollah. They failed to do so, indeed they strengthened their enemies politically amongst the impressionable in the Middle East. The IDF managed to lose its aura of invincibility.
There is a reason why the Knesset is setting up a board of inquiry into the Chief of Staff and Defence Ministers, and it ain't because the IDF won. Ever heard of Pyrrhus?
08-22-2006, 20:05
Pannonian
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redleg
Are you now quibbling? Are you attempting to state that war is about destroying your opposition?
You made a certain claim about war that incorrect in its conclusion. You claimed that Another person who thinks war is about killing people..
In your previous response you did not indicate that you were agreeing and supporting my statement. Your statement actually reads as a counter to mine, not a supporting statement.
Why don't you go back to the original post and poster whom I responded to when I wrote the above, and see what he wrote? Hell, I even quoted him in my previous post, in case you missed it.
As to whether my post subsequent to yours countered it or supported it, this is the point I supported.
Now Wars are fought for reasons other then killing - normally along economic lines.
This is the point I quibbled over.
War is very much about killing. Try picking up the dead after a battle - the reality of warfare strikes home very quickly.
Weapons and muntions are design to kill and destroy. Not much doubt in that concept at all.
There has been a war fought on British soil, in my lifetime, where the fighting was very much about not killing. The terrorists warned the authorities to evacuate the area before activating the bombs (sometimes not even bothering to activate those bombs) so they could not be accused of indiscriminate killing. The soldiers were specifically trained not to kill. Yes, there was killing, but they were subsidiary to what each side was trying to do, convince the other side it wasn't worth pursuing their goal. The eventual winning strategy used by the British was to use everything but violence to fight the war, while the events that confirmed the IRA could not win the war were the bombing at Omagh and the murder of Robert McCartney, the first of which scared the IRA away from active operations thereafter, and the second of which caused it to permanently end all activities. If war can be judged by body counts as the OP suggested, how would you explain this?
Quote:
Edit: Here is probably what you really meant to state.
Winning wars is not about who kills the most enemy, but which nation is able to achieve not only its military objectives but its political objectives as well.
Seems pretty much what I said, which you objected to.
Wars are fought for objectives. Killing is one method of achieving those objectives. Killing the most people does not mean winning a war. Achieving one's objectives wins a war.
The IRA killed more British soldiers than the British soldiers killed IRA. The IRA ended the war not having achieved its principal goal. The British ended the war having achieved its principal goal. A British win.
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My response is that war is very much about killing. Police up the battlefield afterwards, and you get a very quick lesson about what war is about. You got yourself wrapped around a semantic issue on his post, and your carrying it on with your response here.
Semantic? The OP was saying that the IDF won the war because they had killed 5x the enemy, and held the field. Do you agree with this assessment? Because that was what I was replying to. My point being, that Israel and Hezbollah had set out their objectives at the start of the fracas. At the end of it, Israel was nowhere near achieving those objectives or a reduced version of, while Hezbollah did rather better than their aims. Let us disregard the details of current events, which will probably only be clear years from now, and look at which is the better method of judging success or failure in war.
My original post criticised the OP for judging purely on body counts. To clarify your objection to my terse comment, I explained what my view of war was. In subsequent posts I gave examples of why I held that view. Comment, explanation, examples. Where are the semantics?
Quote:
The objective of warfare is to achieve the goals of the nation state, the method of fighting a war necessates that the opposition is destroyed - ie their will to fight is destroyed or their ability to fight is destroyed. Killing the opposition on the battlefield is very much one of those methods. Wars are fought for other reasons then killing the oppositions, but war is about killing.
And I've given examples of how killing isn't the alpha and omega of war. Here's what I said.
So did the British win the war in Northern Ireland by destroying the enemy? No, they won by turning the enemy into a partner whom they could work with. Another definition of military victory may be more accurate, victory is achieved by destroying the enemy's will to fight. When two states are facing each other across the battlefield, physically destroying the enemy's forces in the field may indeed break their will to fight. Sometimes, and it's increasingly becoming the case, the physical forces in the field are less important than what they represent. When that is so, killing the enemy and holding the field may not only be irrelevant, it may actually be counter-productive.
Which is pretty much what you said above, except for the last line. I emphasised will to fight because wars aren't generally fought to destruction nowadays. I said that killing the enemy was one of the methods of breaking their will, but which wasn't always appropriate. You said that killing the enemy is one of the methods of war, but "war is about killing". There is a difference in emphasis, but is there really as much of a difference in theme as you suggest?
08-23-2006, 02:58
Horatius
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
In the military, one measures success by objectives, not by body count.
Israel's stated objective was to neutralise Hezbollah. They failed to do so, indeed they strengthened their enemies politically amongst the impressionable in the Middle East. The IDF managed to lose its aura of invincibility.
There is a reason why the Knesset is setting up a board of inquiry into the Chief of Staff and Defence Ministers, and it ain't because the IDF won. Ever heard of Pyrrhus?
I don't consider propaganda initiatives and military victory to be the same thing. The Knesset has launched an investigation into reasons why the IDF didn't do better, the same way it did during the 1973 War, it doesn't mean their soldiers lost the war. What I heard was that Olmert had limited military experience and that only he was saying Hezbollah would be nuetralized, while his generals said they would be at the Litani River which they did get to.
What did Hezbollah gain that was worth 5-1 casualties, loss of most of it's weaponry, and Iran no longer has the threat of unleashing Hezbollah on Israel as a card in Nuclear Negotiations?
Israel lost the PR war to Hezbollah, however the ground war definitely was a victory war to Israel.
08-23-2006, 03:46
Redleg
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Why don't you go back to the original post and poster whom I responded to when I wrote the above, and see what he wrote? Hell, I even quoted him in my previous post, in case you missed it.
No need to - I read it the first time. However it seems you still fail to realize that your counter to his statement was just as flawed as his.
No need for me to re-hash the rest of your statement here because we will be going over the same material in the same way.
War is indeed about killing. The objectives of the war happen to contain things beyond the simple death of the enemy on the battlefield.
Once again I suggest you volunteer for peacekeeping duty in Lebanon if you believe warfare is not about killing. The whole scenerio of the recent events in Lebanon smack of nothing else but killing.
08-23-2006, 07:59
Duke of Gloucester
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
Quote:
Israel lost the PR war to Hezbollah, however the ground war definitely was a victory war to Israel.
In finally defeating terrorism, the PR war is more important (and much harder to win).
08-23-2006, 08:04
Pannonian
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redleg
No need to - I read it the first time. However it seems you still fail to realize that your counter to his statement was just as flawed as his.
No need for me to re-hash the rest of your statement here because we will be going over the same material in the same way.
War is indeed about killing. The objectives of the war happen to contain things beyond the simple death of the enemy on the battlefield.
Once again I suggest you volunteer for peacekeeping duty in Lebanon if you believe warfare is not about killing. The whole scenerio of the recent events in Lebanon smack of nothing else but killing.
Perhaps that's why the whole bloody thing is a failure.
08-23-2006, 15:18
rory_20_uk
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
What did hesbollah loose in the war that is so important? Not much. Mostly light arms which are easily replaced. Troops are poorly trained, and again their numbers will be replenished by the whole conflict. Syria and Iran will quickly get them stocked again, just as USA will stock Israel. The war has crippled neither of them for the long term.
~:smoking:
08-23-2006, 19:16
Horatius
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duke of Gloucester
In finally defeating terrorism, the PR war is more important (and much harder to win).
I agree, however I still believe that the two should be aproached seperately.
rory Hezbollah may find some equiptment harder to get, for example the stolen British Night Vision equiptment is being investigated by our intelligence on how it was smuggled to Hezbollah, so I don't think they have much of a chance on doing that again.
08-23-2006, 20:47
Tribesman
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
This is hilarious , come on horace what were Israels objectives and which of their objectives did they achieve . And don't come back with rubbish that they reached the river , that was not one of the objectives , it was to clear the area south of the river . They didn't even manage to clear the ridge 5 kms from their own border .
Hey didn't the Allies reach the river at Arnhem , was that part of the operation a victory ?
Come to think of it the allies lost more civilians and military than the axis during WWII . so that means the Axis won doesn't it .
I am quite interested in your figure of 500 terrorist killed , that Israeli estimate is quite a significant number in relation to the total Lebanese casualties .
So if you take that number and add it to the number of children killed the remainder of the casualties must be civilian adults .
Can you explain how so many children we killed yet proportionally so few civilian adults ?
What did Hezbollah gain that was worth 5-1 casualties, loss of most of it's weaponry, and Iran no longer has the threat of unleashing Hezbollah on Israel as a card in Nuclear Negotiations?
Perhaps you had better send a message to planet Earth about that , as the news down here was somewhat different.
You will of course remember the IDF statement from the 3rd week of the operation that they had destroyed not more than 10 rocket launchers , that is hardly hezballah losing most of its weaponry is it , it might explain why the number of rockets launched at Israel just kept on going up and up .
As for Iran losing its hezballah card , who are you trying to kid ?
Israel has blown its IDF detterent card , which after its last forays into lebanon was no longer really a strong card to hold .
The Germans pushed the Allies back from Arnhem Hezbollah did not push the IDF back from the Litani, and by the end of World War Two the Allies had the field, by the end of this conflict Israel had the field hence the comparison is ludicrous at best, like I said the side that has the field won the battle, especially if they lost a much smaller amount of men, and inflicting 5 enemy combatants dead for each of your own is much lower casualties, and th
08-23-2006, 22:24
Tribesman
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
This is seemingly pointless since you are so detatched from reality , but I will ask once more . Can you name ANY of the stated Israeli objectives that were achieved ?
08-23-2006, 23:20
Horatius
Re: German peacekeepers to Lebanon?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tribesman
This is seemingly pointless since you are so detatched from reality , but I will ask once more . Can you name ANY of the stated Israeli objectives that were achieved ?
