Bottom line is, the more advanced society is, the more planning and advanced, long range thinking has to go into getting anything done.
What was the real difference between the Conquistadors and the Aztecs? It was the level of thinking and production that went into arming, equipment, and tactics. And even then, explorers with much more advanced technology (i.e. Magellan) could be slaughtered by primitives if they got overconfident and failed to use the advantages they had - and it's no coincidence Magellans' specific flaw was conversion to religious, mystical thinking.
In the same way, today drones, advanced aircraft, tracking technology, AI, could all be negated by failing to apply them. In a word, Afghanistan. Revolutions in technology only become revolutions in warfare if the Generals know how to apply them - and if Afghanistan is any indication, that is frightening.
Not sure how well the "generations of warfare" schema has held up.
It seems, as you note here, that all of these issues and methods have always existed, and that civil and military leaders must be willing and able to use all available means to secure their communities and defeat their enemies.
All of America was 4th generation war until at least 1707, really 1776 . If not 1789.
Francis Jennings “The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire”
The covenant Chain Confederation of Indian tribes with the English colonies.”
That’s why I keep posting that America is the eternal Federation from the Iroquois Confederation through the Internet and all other arrangements, including the present one.
With your love of arcana you will love Jennings.
Squanto running a ah legitimate business with the Pilgrims was normal. The Indians were masters of trade, negotiations and diplomacy, not children in any way.
This Plymouth exercise has give me a lot to think about over the summer.
Merchantilism seems to be the common thread and the common driver.
Lazy knee-jerkers will scream about how evil capitalism is and how there's a socialist paradise just waiting for all of us. But that's not what I'm after here. (There are no Utopias on Earth. That's called Heaven and you hafta to die to get there.)
I'm seeing the machinations and economic tides of trade as world-shaping and society-shaping exercises. And it seems to be that the merchants of the world ( the merchant class for those who indulge in class stratification exercises) have been the captains of that ship for a very long time. And it is they who pull the levers of warfare either obliquely or directly.
Stability is good for business and trade. Instability is bad for them. Sometimes a little instability can lead to better stability and better trade. Much like burning off a prairie to revive it. The inconveniences of political tides, were simply things to be dodged, or if possible, harnessed and influenced. Even sometimes subverted. (See also the Fuggers, Augsburg, Charles V). Everyone think it was Martin Luther and his little petition on the church door that gave us the Reformation (hence the Puritans) which led directly to the Enlightenment. Nope. It was the Fugger dynasty.
Merchants are adept at long-range thinking, or rather they were, before the immediate-gratification-strip-harvest-and-burn Hell we now find ourselves in. Delayed gratification for long-term wealth was the much preferred method.
Oh yes I would ! I'll look it up. I've been collecting Hanseatic League merchants' marks.
The Merchant Venturers, who were the British small version of the HL, and were the financiers of Jamestown ( 1 & II), the Berkeley Plantation, as well as Plymouth, and others.
Bottom line is, the more advanced society is, the more planning and advanced, long range thinking has to go into getting anything done.
What was the real difference between the Conquistadors and the Aztecs? It was the level of thinking and production that went into arming, equipment, and tactics. And even then, explorers with much more advanced technology (i.e. Magellan) could be slaughtered by primitives if they got overconfident and failed to use the advantages they had - and it's no coincidence Magellans' specific flaw was conversion to religious, mystical thinking.
In the same way, today drones, advanced aircraft, tracking technology, AI, could all be negated by failing to apply them. In a word, Afghanistan. Revolutions in technology only become revolutions in warfare if the Generals know how to apply them - and if Afghanistan is any indication, that is frightening.
Any defeat since 1950 must look past General and Generalship.
Not sure how well the "generations of warfare" schema has held up.
It seems, as you note here, that all of these issues and methods have always existed, and that civil and military leaders must be willing and able to use all available means to secure their communities and defeat their enemies.
The terminology is a bit too Hegelian for my tastes as well. Nonetheless, I have yet to find a better name for the phenomenon.
I’ve always found this an interesting read as it tended to set military doctrine since 9/11.
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam
All of America was 4th generation war until at least 1707, really 1776 . If not 1789.
Francis Jennings “The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire”
The covenant Chain Confederation of Indian tribes with the English colonies.”
That’s why I keep posting that America is the eternal Federation from the Iroquois Confederation through the Internet and all other arrangements, including the present one.
With your love of arcana you will love Jennings.
Squanto running a ah legitimate business with the Pilgrims was normal. The Indians were masters of trade, negotiations and diplomacy, not children in any way.
Thanks for linking that mil review article, great reading
You are most welcome. Whenever I can, I provide links to my sources. (The archives of 'The Marine Corps Gazette', alas, dwell behind a paywall.)
This Plymouth exercise has give me a lot to think about over the summer.
Merchantilism seems to be the common thread and the common driver.
Lazy knee-jerkers will scream about how evil capitalism is and how there's a socialist paradise just waiting for all of us. But that's not what I'm after here. (There are no Utopias on Earth. That's called Heaven and you hafta to die to get there.)
I'm seeing the machinations and economic tides of trade as world-shaping and society-shaping exercises. And it seems to be that the merchants of the world ( the merchant class for those who indulge in class stratification exercises) have been the captains of that ship for a very long time. And it is they who pull the levers of warfare either obliquely or directly.
Stability is good for business and trade. Instability is bad for them. Sometimes a little instability can lead to better stability and better trade. Much like burning off a prairie to revive it. The inconveniences of political tides, were simply things to be dodged, or if possible, harnessed and influenced. Even sometimes subverted. (See also the Fuggers, Augsburg, Charles V). Everyone think it was Martin Luther and his little petition on the church door that gave us the Reformation (hence the Puritans) which led directly to the Enlightenment. Nope. It was the Fugger dynasty.
Merchants are adept at long-range thinking, or rather they were, before the immediate-gratification-strip-harvest-and-burn Hell we now find ourselves in. Delayed gratification for long-term wealth was the much preferred method.
I think that you would enjoy the season of the 'History of the Germans' podcast that deals with the Hanseatic League.
Oh yes I would ! I'll look it up. I've been collecting Hanseatic League merchants' marks.
The Merchant Venturers, who were the British small version of the HL, and were the financiers of Jamestown ( 1 & II), the Berkeley Plantation, as well as Plymouth, and others.
You’d love Jennings