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No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

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Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#41

Post by planetis »

smcl wrote: post #37
planetis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue at hand is both relevant to the articles meaning and content but it is also identical to the mentioned geographic location. In ancient Greece people refusing to talk about politics where called idiots, meaning a person not partaking in public affairs.

Ah come on, you have to admit that Erdogan's recent posturing has nothing to do with an article about a manual on ancient counter-siege tactics. And it's a good thing I explicitly said political talk was fine, otherwise someone might think you were calling me an "idiot", right? :D

Of course my friend, no disrespect was meant towards you, that's why I was explicit for the meaning of the word. It's fascinating that some ancient Greek words where borrowed to English with a completely different meaning like empathy which is a negative emotion, similar to envy.

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#42

Post by wnkrshm »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #5
kkfx wrote: post #3

The real interesting part is the Swiss model, or instead of having a big army a small one with heavy weapons and a popular conscription one month (paid) per year 18-28 years range, for the rest. That's interesting because: - it's not good to go to war OUTSIDE country borders - power are balanced: the State can count (perhaps) on army, but if it goes against the people they are trained and armed, with less heavy weapo…

Powers are not balanced in Switzerland. The reason most modern countries stopped conscription is because infantrymen are far less useful than they used to be in combats - they remain useful if you want to control the place you have invaded but are not that useful to do the actual invading. Advanced weaponry is just too efficient: artillery, helicopters, planes, drones, missiles. Switzerland is not even really trying…

Less than two years ago, the Swiss air force, which is there for intercepting air space incursions had business hours [0].

[0] https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/26815-no-more-office-hour...

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#43

Post by hrgiger »

planetis wrote: post #13

Quoted post unavailable.

Heya Turkish guy here, some points you mention I agree (our secularism, administration), but I found your lobbying approach for cheering for war and weapons quite disturbing, I love Greek people, we have many commons and differences, when I share my projects or work publicly I always think there is many otherside think like me, peaceful minds concentrated on development rather than destruction. Elections are due we will show our response to that administration as well. Hope we will have better discussions then.

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#44

Post by nradov »

blfr wrote: post #26

The almost unreasonable effectiveness of citizen-soldier over the ages is often underappreciated. It takes life-long dedication and a whole martial culture for professionals to keep the upper hand (medieval Europe, Sparta)

Overall the Spartans weren't even much more effective. They took some losses battling other Greek city-states. Their martial prowess has been somewhat exaggerated.

https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#45

Post by stavros »

throw93232 wrote: post #16
planetis wrote: post #13

Quoted post unavailable.

Turkey has a point though, relevant treaty says those islands should be demilitarised. If Greece is not happy about that, it should renegotiate and sign new treaty. Dismissing someone greavances as "warmongering" will just escalate war.

You mean the treaty between Greece and Italy? I don't understand why Turkey has a right to complain about a treaty between two unrelated countries.

If Italy wants to complain about Greece violating the treaty, by all means, but why should Turkey, as a non-signatory?

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#47

Post by stavros »

jomjomv wrote: post #23
throw93232 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkey has a point though, relevant treaty says those islands should be demilitarised. If Greece is not happy about that, it should renegotiate and sign new treaty. Dismissing someone greavances as "warmongering" will just escalate war.

Afaik "militarization" here refers to permanent Naval bases and such in which case, no, Turkey doesn't have a point at all.

This is the Lausanne treaty (which Turkey is a signatory of, and which stipulates that Greece shouldn't build naval bases on islands, which it hasn't).

There's also a treaty between Greece and Italy, which stipulates that there will be no army on some islands, the violation of which Italy apparently has no problem with. I don't understand by what right an unrelated third party complains about it, it seems to me about as relevant as Greece complaining about a treaty between Colombia and Brazil.

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#48

Post by Claude_Shannon »

kkfx wrote: post #3

The real interesting part is the Swiss model, or instead of having a big army a small one with heavy weapons and a popular conscription one month (paid) per year 18-28 years range, for the rest. That's interesting because: - it's not good to go to war OUTSIDE country borders - power are balanced: the State can count (perhaps) on army, but if it goes against the people they are trained and armed, with less heavy weapo…

Popular conscription is nothing else but slavery. And sexist one, most of the time.

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#49

Post by jomjomv »

mrunseen wrote: post #35
planetis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkish EFES 2022 military exercise concluded just a day ago and it's scenario was landing on an enemy island. The pesident demanded that Greece demilitarize its islands in the eastern Aegean, otherwise face disaster. If that's not a clear military threat then what could it be? Source: https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1186488/erdogan-issues-thr...

Aegean sea has seen a lot of military exercises with both Greece and Turkey, I remember the Medusa-10 exercise with Greece, France, Egypt and UAE (and yeah, these are the sides which clash against Turkey-backed official government in Libya) NATO Allied Land Command (in Izmir) tweeted the exercise with hashtags: #WEARENATO and #StrongerTogether. I would normally say such a weird timeline we live in but it has been lik…

Yes, military exercises happen all the time but the scenarios of the exercises are not always the same and they are not irrelevant.

Re: No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece

#50

Post by nspattak »

nradov wrote: post #44
blfr wrote: post #26

The almost unreasonable effectiveness of citizen-soldier over the ages is often underappreciated. It takes life-long dedication and a whole martial culture for professionals to keep the upper hand (medieval Europe, Sparta)

Overall the Spartans weren't even much more effective. They took some losses battling other Greek city-states. Their martial prowess has been somewhat exaggerated. https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

I think that their martial discipline and military life style is what they are famous for. Again, I think that the failure of the effectiveness of their of their military training simply shows that in war there are a lot of factors. Sth that can be seen even in our times, the US effectively lost in Vietnam or Iraq even though their military was far superior.
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