| I agree that the end game, when you must simply secure your gains and administer the territory, will require numerous troops and fairly conventional armaments, but I am not so sure about the breaking of the enemy. For example, we have increased "productivity" immensely, from the standpoint of casualties per soldier, while not having to engage in wholesale destruction, a la nuclear weapons. Telecommunications efficiencies improve command and control, to the point where a lot of the commando battles were viewable in the States in real time, thus making coordination and integration of skirmishing troops into a coherent battlefield more feasible. Innovations like night- capability make it almost impossible for opponents to defend against surprise commando raids. In all of these, we are by far the best equipped, most advanced, and best trained forces in the world. Doesn't this mean that we are approaching a situation similar to facing spear throwers with gatling guns and grenades? Certainly, in the Gulf War, with conscripts, it was a slaughter, though the Republican Guard fought harder...... |
