Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "I haven't seen any Arab armies mobilizing, have you? Military conquest requires armies and the Arabs know they would lose."
(1) No such Arab armies are needed. Where was the mobilization of black armies that led to the toppling of the apartheid regime in South Africa? Israel has already had to abandon Lebanon in the face of no Arab armies.
(2) Even in situations where an army is mobilized to topple a government, mobilization is so far in the future that looking for signs of it now is silly. The theory, as quite clearly enunciated in US military documents (see #reply-17282864 ), is that terrorism precedes guerilla warfare, and that guerilla warfare precedes true warfare.
Re: "They don't count because Israel won'em? They were quite as major as the neighboring Arabs could muster."
Not true. The Iraqis and Iranians demonstrated an ability to accept casualties far greater than Israel has ever put on anyone. And like I said before, Israel's problem is not with war as such, it's with civil insurrection and guerilla warfare.
Re: "Why don't you bring in the dynastic wars of the ancient Egyptians and Hittites, at least they would be local?"
Yes, those are also examples of conflicts with more casualties than any of Israel's wars.
Your error in analyzing Israel lies in the assumption that Israel is a major country with major force etc. The truth is that Israel is a tiny country. The reason that Israel has been successful in the four tiny scrabbles it's been involved in is because their foes were 3rd world armies. Israel has an elite military force, but it is very small. The other 1st world countries also have small elite military forces, and have a similar record in wars against the 3rd world. That is, the 1st world wins in open war and loses in guerilla conflicts against hostile populations. And why aren't you counting Israel's invasion of Lebanon as one of Israel's great military victories? That would make 5 incredible victories over the Arabs.
This military advantage of the 1st world is something that has not always existed, nor will it always exist in the future. (I.e. forever is a long time.) The advantage wasn't nearly as pronounced before the invention of the machine gun, and it largely disappeared when the machine gun became widespread.
The spread of the machine gun forced the 1st world to shed their colonies after WW2. What will happen when other 1st world military technologies become widespread? (Take your pick, here's some that immediately come to mind: Tactical nukes, anti-armor, anti-aircraft, chemical or biological weapons. Any single one of these would raise the level of violence against Israel enough to force Israel to negotiate from a position of weakness. And in a recent post I showed that heat seeking guided missile technology is commonly designed, built, and tested by hobbiests in the US. See #reply-17633291 for the details.)
It is fundamentally impossible to predict the future military history in terms of what kind of advantage the 1st world has over the 3rd world. Right now the trend is that the 1st world is becoming more and more effective in defensive operations against the 3rd world, but less and less effective offensively against the 3rd world. That is, the 1st world is excellent at breaking the military toys that the 3rd world has (i.e. Gulf War, US against Taliban in Afghanistan, Israel's scrabbles), but has a dismal record of conquering hostile 3rd world populations. (I.e. US in Vietnam, Israel in Palestine, Russia in Afghanistan, US in Mogadishu, France in Algeria, etc.)
This situation is only getting worse. The 1st world is developing no weapons that will assist in winning the hearts and minds of hostile populations through fear (which can only be obtained by killing large numbers of people), but is instead concentrating exclusively on weapons that are even more carefully targeted against military forces. To make a 3rd world country immune from such attacks it need merely shed its major military hardware.
If Israel's problem were Arab armies coming over the border they would still be eventually conquered, but as in the South African case, the end will come long before that happens. Note that the South Africans were possessed of a highly effective 1st world elite military that also never lost a real war, but kept getting bogged down in guerilla conflicts. That elite military force didn't save the apartheid regime and it won't save the Israeli one either.
Re: "Sheesh, Carl. I'd enjoy arguing with you more if you didn't move the goalposts everytime you were in danger of losing a point." Huh? What goalposts? By the way, you're the one who was swearing recently that the US would be in Iraq.
-- Carl |
