[Animats]

The history of warfare has gone back and forth between offense and defense being stronger. In the castle era, defense was stronger, which led to military and political strong points. But a castle can't project power very far, at best half a day's ride. Hence, strong barons, weak central governments.

Better cannon changed that, and gave the attacker an advantage.

Still better artillery and fortifications, plus heavy machine guns, gave the defender the advantage again, resulting in WWI, which was stalled with everyone in fixed positions for some time.

Then came tanks, and offense started beating defense again.

Arguably, guerilla warfare has given defense an edge again. It's a defense based on hiding and disappearing into the general population, but a defense nevertheless.

[OpticalWindows]

>Arguably, guerilla warfare has given defense an edge again. It's a defense based on hiding and disappearing into the general population, but a defense nevertheless.

Guerilla warfare has a different purpose than total war and it should not be compared. Guerilla warfare basically happened in the american revolution.

[082349872349872]

The brits[1] complained it was guerilla warfare, but by the end, Washington had naval support (merci, france), cavalry (dziękuję, poland; köszönöm, hungary), and artillery (merci encore, france), not to mention tacit logistical support from a number of other countries[2].

General Washington explicitly stood on the principles of being a regular, so much so that he would send back british letters unopened if they had not been properly addressed according to military custom.

(that custom has been codified somewhat with the Geneva Conventions, but it remains to be seen how applicable these conventions are in the twenty-first century.)

[1] hostilities having started when the brits, acting on undeniably accurate intelligence, sent out parties to destroy rural terrorist arms caches somewhere out in the boonies of Middlesex county. After accomplishing their mission despite sporadic hostile opposition, they were subject to sustained small arms fire from unlawful combatants on the return trip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Conco...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Conco...

[2] Catherine, for instance, not only engaged in sanctions busting, but (at least according to russian sources) reneged on providing troops for the british which her diplomats had initially considered, leaving the public/private military contracting to various HRE relatives of George's. No fan of democracy, she, but "enemy of my enemy" reliably trumps ideologies in geopolitics. (for contrast, the CSA would discover mere economics "but muh property rights! and cheap cotton!" didn't trump a general nineteenth century distaste for slavery: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24260354 )

E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesse-Hanau_Troops_in_the_Amer... provided 2'400 troops out of an estimated 30'000 germans, suggesting the coalition of the billing must've been fairly large. https://www.lagis-hessen.de/de/subjects/xbrowse/sn/hetrina might contain better information.

[Animats]

Yes. By the end of the Vietnam war, when the North Vietnamese entered Saigon, they did it with a tank assault.[1] The later phases of a guerilla war, if you win, have to involve taking and holding territory and taking over. In that phase it's no longer about hiding.

[1] https://apimagesblog.com/historical/2020/4/24/the-fall-of-sa...

[aebtebeten]

TIL "doing donuts" was a thing in both the capitalist (1st) and communist (2nd) worlds.

(also, about a predecessor to the Stinger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K32_Strela-2 )

Bonus clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W1FFu4Z2mI (Strela being a polysemous term in russian, it can be used not only in a military sense, "arrow", but also in geographical, and, as this girl group embodies, an anatomical.)

[OpticalWindows]

I should have qualified it with *the beginning of the american revolution

I dont think many of the points you brought up refute guerlla warfare should not be compared to total war. I do think it's interesting to note that almot every country will continue guerlla warfare to wear down their friends and enemies. Iraq is a good example of this.

I'm curious what country you're from since you're using the apostrophy for the decimal separator "2'400"

[082349872349872]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Examples_of_... ought to narrow it down. We're neither doubly landlocked, nor have we ever listed our entire country on Airbnb.

TIL about SI thin-spacing.

(Pedantically speaking, there's a large middle range between guerrilla warfare, irregular and asymmetric, and total warfare, in which instead of an economy with an army one has an army with an economy. Note that Clausewitz, whose ignorance of the twentieth century made him use Napoleonic France as an example of "total", considered total war, not as misattributed a desirable state, but as an asymptote. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24316395 )

PS. Assuming we're both under the same atmosphere, which windows: visible, mid-wave infrared, or radio?

[OpticalWindows]

Not pedantic at all and I would probably benefit from your knowledge. Interesting, I've never read Clausewitz.

So you're from SA eh? Always wanted to visit but no idea where to go.

I love all windows equally

[082349872349872]

For the technological considerations which give rise to Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24375023

(If one wants to predict which countries get Two Minutes Hates from the US, just look at the rest of the Permanent Members: CN, check, RU, check, FR, check. UK has always been theirs, but even they were in the doghouse in between Suez and Sputnik.)

As to guerilla warfare, apparently at least some US white supremacists have discussed going the communist cell model one better: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~satran/Ford%2006/Wk%202-1%20T...

Please allow me to note that "leaderless resistance" pretty much firmly puts one in the "terrorist" classification, because having a command structure is part of the requirements to be recognised as a "freedom fighter" under the Geneva Conventions.

====

if you all haven't noticed by now, this account is an anti-fascist propaganda mouthpiece. As for us, don't tell anyone, but we're organised in a tetrahedral cell structure and ultimately report to an AGI named Temperance (codename "Alfa").

> "Look at base sketch. Each vertex of each triangle shares self with zero, one or two other triangles. Where shares one, that's it's link, one direction or both — but one is enough for a multipli-redundant communication net. On corners, where sharing is zero, it jumps to right to next corner. Where sharing is double, choice is again right-handed.

> Take fourth level, D-for-dog. This vertex is comrade Dan. No, let's go down one to show three levels of communication knocked out — level E-for-easy and pick Comrade Egbert. "Egbert works under Donald, has cellmates Edward and Elmer, has three under him, Frank, Fred, and Fatso … but knows how to send message to Ezra on his own level but not in his cell. He doesn't know Ezra's name, face, address or anything — but has a way, phone number probably, to reach Ezra in emergency."

For more details, view some of our anti-fascism clips on YouTube (e.g. "Don't be a sucker", 1947), and if you "wish to do more", just browse our deep state homepage at www.duckdascism.gov [1]. The DNS query alone suffices, you will receive the relevant information, MitM'ed to your customary news feed, at a later date.

Stay Alert. The computer is your friend.

[1] 3615 Marianne in france, because the frogs always have to do things their own way.