If you want peace, study war • Hacker News Board

Re: If you want peace, study war

#221

Post by bennysonething » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

lmilcin wrote: post #179

bennysonething wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I had never been talk that in school. Recently kasporov pointed it out in a pod cast I was listening too. It's so obvious but I'd never thought of it that way because of the narrative that we are taught.

Just out of curiosity, where are you from? Here in Poland this is very well known fact and nobody is going to forget this, for a very long time. Soviets attacked Poland on September 17th, 1939 in accordance with plans they made with Nazis before the war. They made plans which part of Poland belonged to Soviets and which to Nazis and then were all too happy to occupy until Nazis turned on them.

UK, northern Ireland.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#222

Post by jeffreyrogers » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 11:16 PM UTC

Balero wrote: post #153

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is the other way around. Cavalry could beat pretty much any group of non-cavalry unless they had a massive numerical advantage, so castles/walled settlements were the way to defend against that, but they only arose by necessity. Carol Quigley's theory is that technology changes the balance of power, sometimes favoring centralized power other times favoring decentralized power. Cavalry/knights/castles favor…

Cavalry could absolutely not beat 'any group of non-cavalry'. Cavalry was a very specilised, powerful and effective tool. But the real world wasn't what the English guy said in Braveheart ("We have the heavy cavalry, we win"). Many knights fought on foot as well. Cavalry could not break many infantry formations. You were safe in a square. Cavalry was great at harassing supply lines in raids, and importantly running d…

Cavalry dominated the middle ages except in mountainous areas until artillery became prominent. Yes, cavalry could be defeated, but all things being equal it was far superior.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#223

Post by ncmncm » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #219

mbrodersen wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you agree that it took 4 years before the US entered the war in Europe . And yes I am probably wrong about the 23 million. It doesn’t change my conclusion though: the US spent 4 years on the side line selling weapons to Europe, and only joined the war after most of the German war machine was defeated.

If you consider the entire North Africa campaign to be "the sidelines" I suppose. I completely disagree with your conclusions, though, because I completely disagree that North Africa was "the sidelines", even with respect to Europe. What were they doing in North Africa? Killing Germans. Was that "selling weapons to Europe", or was it more than that? I claim that it was much more.

The entire North Africa campaign certainly was the sidelines, by any measure. It involved a tiny fraction of German forces. Every day spent in Africa was a day not spent advancing on the German heartland.

That said, the US was far from ready to advance on the German heartland until after the time they were pottering about in Africa. It was a way to look busy.