War Predictions

Central America is starting up right now…

I wonder wher eteh refugees will go now, though, since teh US economy is so bad and just beginning to catch up. They do not need cheap labor anymore with so much unemployment. Now that will be a problem.

Wars are chaotic, ill-conceived cluster fucks conceived by idiots, started by morons and fought by fools.

It’s no coincidence that terms such as SNAFU were spawned by war.

The only thing truly predictable about war is that it’s fundamentally unpredictable, as anyone who was conscious between 2003 and 2008 should have learned by now.

[quote=“politbureau”]

The only thing truly predictable about war is that it’s fundamentally unpredictable, as anyone who was conscious between 2003 and 2008 should have learned by now.[/quote]

It was fairly predictable, no? After 9-11?

Iraq 2 made me double take for a minute or so, I’ll admit. So I guess the locations were unpredictable. Everyone expected the bombings to stay in Africa and Asia, not head to the US. Then Iraq was a bit of a stretch because it didn’t have much logical connection to 9-11.

[quote=“politbureau”]Wars are chaotic, ill-conceived cluster fucks conceived by idiots, started by morons and fought by fools.

It’s no coincidence that terms such as SNAFU were spawned by war.

The only thing truly predictable about war is that it’s fundamentally unpredictable, as anyone who was conscious between 2003 and 2008 should have learned by now.[/quote]
And it was like the people starting the 2003 war weren’t conscious during the Vietnam war even though they were a part of it. (Except for Bush.) It’s like, “Learn from history, people!”

Russia lays claim to the arctic circle, Obama does nothing.

As an alternative to future wars, I have a better idea: no wars.

This whole notion of wars occurring every ten years is so non-sensical. Large parts of the world have been engaged in proxy wars, civil wars or on and off regional conflicts for decades. What the OP means is that America has had those wars, although it still engaged in a whole ton of proxy wars on and off in various parts of the world. Pretty well at any one time, somewhere in the world there’s a war.

Also, as to the notion of World War 1 being unpredictable, nothing could be further from the truth. Everything pointed towards it. You go back to the 1790s with the three partitions of Poland, and you have three empires (Prussia, Austria and Russia) all bordering each other, two of whom (Russia and Austria) have recently lost to the third (Prussia) not fifty years before (in the 7 Years’ War) and who fear its rise (and in the case of Austria, who lost Silesia to Prussia), fear its growing influence in their sphere of influence (the Holy Roman Empire).

Back then, everyone feared the shit would hit the fan, until they all got distracted by that short Corsican.

Again, moving to the mid nineteenth century, everyone thought there would be yet more shit, until the nationalist uprisings in 1948 made all the monarchs sit up, listen and forget about their differences.

Then some of it did actually break out in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, from which point forward, Prussia and Austria-Hungary were pretty well in accord. This in turn allowed Prussia to become the dominant power in central Europe, especially after it handed France’s arse to it in the early 1870s and unified to become the Second Reich.

Whilst the British and French had initially resisted the carve up of the Ottoman Empire (at least by the Russians), at least during the Crimean War, the two questions on everyone’s minds at the end of the nineteenth century were what was going to happen in the Balkans as the Ottoman Empire continued to disintegrate (specifically, how to stop Austria-Hungary from picking up the pieces), and what to do about a rising Germany, especially as it had designs on Britain’s sea dominance.

Thus, exactly prior to WW1 (and after the two Balkan Wars), you had Russia, France and Britain allied against Germany and Austria-Hungary, all three with designs on the crumbling Ottoman Empire. Russia also had major issues with Austrian expansion into the recently independent Balkan states because it had a doctrine of pan-Slavism (and both Germany and Austria-Hungary were really edgy about the doctrine of pan-Slavism because large parts of their empires were in fact Slavic). Britain was increasingly edgy about Germany’s naval power and attempts to expand as a colonial power. At first, the fairly recently unified Italy was going to be allied to Germany and Austria-Hungary, but they decided they’d do better switching to the other side (and indeed they did: they carved a couple of pieces out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – South Tyrol and Trieste, if I remember correctly), and the Ottomans ended up with the Germans and Austrians (partly because everyone else wanted a piece of them, and partly because the Germans had been providing them with armaments and training).

I’d say at that point it was pretty bloody obvious there was going to be a huge war in Europe. Do people really think all of this stuff happened in a vacuum, and one day, a whole bunch of big countries decided to kick the shit out of each other simply for the sake of it?

It’s also not illogical that the U.S. got involved given their economic and diplomatic relationships.

You’re undoubtedly right. There was probably somebody in the United States in 1909 sitting back thinking, "Yep. I can see it now. Trenches. Huns and Yanks going at it by the thousands. Now if I can just think of a reason why we’d be going at each other like mad dogs I just might win that prize for the Unified Field Theory of Global Warfare. "

Yeah, they were probably a survivor of either the siege of Petersburg or the siege of Vicksburg in the American Civil War. Both battles extensively used trenches. That or they saw what happened at Gettysburg when General Pickett lead the ill-fated charge across an open field against an entrenched enemy with rifles and artillery.

Yeah, they were probably a survivor of either the siege of Petersburg or the siege of Vicksburg in the American Civil War. Both battles extensively used trenches. That or they saw what happened at Gettysburg when General Pickett lead the ill-fated charge across an open field against an entrenched enemy with rifles and artillery.[/quote]

I know your kind, sir. If you and I had been sitting in a mess hall in Irak back in 2003 you would have been one of the guys bringing the house down with raucous chants of 'Git Saddam! Avenge 911!" and I would have been the guy with the cynical look on his face sitting quietly to one side thinking to himself, “Rhett Butler was right.”

GiT is right that war in Europe was widely expected, especially with events like the Agadir Crisis. What wasn’t expected was the kind of war that would follow- almost everyone thought it would be a short sharp offensive struggle decided by a few battles.

As for Petersburg and Vicksburg, what can you expect from a bunch of rank amateurs and local politicians playing at soldiers?

(The opinion of European professional officers, not mine)

There does seem to be a cyclical aspect to it. After a war, people are exposed to the terrible consequences and disabled veterans. But after awhile they forget about that and just remember the glory and the cool explosions and marches and uniforms. And so another war comes along and then people are exposed to the terrible consequences and disabled veterans again, but again, after awhile they forget about that and just remember the glory and the cool explosions and marches and uniforms. And so another war comes along and …

I just feel sorry for all those schmucks who went into battle believing they were fighting the war to end all wars.

Yeah, they were probably a survivor of either the siege of Petersburg or the siege of Vicksburg in the American Civil War. Both battles extensively used trenches. That or they saw what happened at Gettysburg when General Pickett lead the ill-fated charge across an open field against an entrenched enemy with rifles and artillery.[/quote]

I know your kind, sir. If you and I had been sitting in a mess hall in Irak back in 2003 you would have been one of the guys bringing the house down with raucous chants of 'Git Saddam! Avenge 911!" and I would have been the guy with the cynical look on his face sitting quietly to one side thinking to himself, “Rhett Butler was right.”[/quote]

I would hope that had I been sitting in a mess hall in Iraq in 2003 that I would have come up with something with more depth and thought provoking than that. While he certainly deserved his fate for the atrocities he committed against the Iranians, Kurds and Shias, it would have been far less costly to have just supported a coup against him by his generals. Fewer civilians dying and all that. So perhaps you don’t know me as well as you might think, from one post at least.

Starting when? In case you missed it, President Obama sent 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan a month after taking office. Obama maintained a hardline stance on the War in Afghanistan throughout the campaign and he is making good on his promises. He launched a major offensive in Afghanistan earlier this month.

So when does the peace start?

It does in the sense that those concerned blew loads of cash on weapons pointed at each other.[/quote]
All it lacked was that defining factor of war: combat.[/quote]
Twaddle. The cold war was fought in numerous Third World theatres when Warsaw Pact or NATO/SEATO advisors moved over that very fine line into the realm of actual fighting. Soviet MIG pilots fighting U.N. forces in the Korean War was an early example of this.
And of course there’s the conflicts between the proxy armies, counter-insurgency wars and counter-espionage. These may be low-level conflicts to some, yet they all still under the mantle of war.

If China and the US decide to start sorting out who’s boss, a convenient place to have a go would be little old Taiwan :bow: