Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by chongli 2692 days ago
A human can carry a shoulder-launched anti-aircraft weapon and destroy the helicopter, while hiding amongst the rubble of a chaotic urban environment.

Asymmetric warfare is very difficult. The US military struggled for many years and spent huge amounts of money fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those are small countries compared to the US. Trying to fight an insurgency on home soil, without the support of a tax-paying public? Forget about it!
2 comments
gumby 2692 days ago
FWIW insurgent asymmetric warfare was how the US primarily fought its own revolution (there were a few set piece battles as well, e.g. Yorktown, hardly insignificant).

In the end I believe quite a bit of cash spread around Whitehall is what made the difference, though not everyone will agree.

In the US civil war there was much less of this for reasons unclear to me.

link
jessaustin 2692 days ago
One theory would be that CSA's draconian conscription operation (watch or read Cold Mountain, for example) emptied the countryside of its natural defenders. The conscription level may have been necessary given the idiotic location of the CSA capital, but quite a bit about CSA was idiotic.

In Missouri, which didn't secede but had a lot of Southern sympathizers, this conscription wasn't really a thing, and there was lots of asymmetric warfare. It actually started in the 1850s in what would become Kansas. (There are good movies about this too: The Outlaw Josey Wales and Ride with the Devil.)

link
sametmax 2692 days ago
> The US military struggled for many years and spent huge amounts of money fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan

They kill 100 fighters for one death on their side, and have control over the natural resources they want. I don't see the bright side for the opposite party.

> Trying to fight an insurgency on home soil, without the support of a tax-paying public? Forget about it!

That's a better argument. But that would assume the revolution would last. The local population would not have money or food either, but wouldn't have the supply chain or the reserve the military have.

link
pfisch 2692 days ago
The us lost these engagements though. Truly defeating insurgencies like these is currently beyond the reach of the most technologically advanced and well funded armies in the world.
link