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15th December 2012, 05:37 PM | #201 |
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I think they responded how they should have. In fact I believe America should have got in the war sooner. But America weren't really the aggressors in the first place as far as that conflict goes. That being said we became the aggressors pretty damn fast after that. I think one of the Japanese said we have "awaken a sleeping giant". That ended up being correct. And I think that it can be debated that the giant has become tyrannical. Lots of Americans think the whole world owes us something. We did what we should have done in WWII. That's it.
Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, all bull in my opinion. Did I leave any out? Correct my numbers if I'm wrong but do we really put 40% of our budget into defense and intelligence? The same intelligence and military that failed to stop 9/11? As a country whatever the number is we have gotten nothing back. Many Americans are broke now. How many have died? Oh, and I know that America has killed many more than what it has sacrificed in all of these wars. But that just means we were good at it. But were we right? And what did everyday Americans get out of any of it? |
16th December 2012, 12:18 PM | #202 |
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It is proof that just throwing money at something doesn't mean its going to work properly. There are two things I can safely say about the failure of US Intelligence prevent 911.
1. The gradual change in the methods of intelligence gathering after the Cold War; from a combination of agents in the field, direct surveillance using satellites and electronic eavesdropping, to an almost total reliance on the latter two, and the comparative phasing out of the field agent, was a huge mistake. 2. The placing of "weight" in information from the various sources with heavy reliance placed on the information from electronic and satellite surveillance, and very little weight being placed on what they were getting from the field, was also a big mistake. There was nothing much wrong with the information being gathered from the field, except that there wasn't enough of it. The fault lay largely with those up the chain of command who ignored warning signs such as the memo from the FBI's Phoenix field office that said there was "an alarming pattern of Arab men with possible ties to terrorism taking aviation-related training". Now as it turned out, none of the students attending Embry- Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott were among the 19 who carried out the 911 attacks, but that doesn't mean they weren't party to it in some way. Anyone involved in training personnel for a military operation will tell you that if you need 20 men for the job, you don't just train those 20 men; you train many more, at the very least a back-up crew, to allow for things going wrong in the lead up to "A" Day. The memo from the Phoenix office was largely ignored, and of itself, this probably didn't contribute all that much to the failure to detect 911. However, they continued to ignore warning signs, until in August of 2011, Zacarias Moussaoui - a French Moroccan - was detained in Minnesota after raising suspicions among his instructors at a flight school where he said he wanted to know how to fly, but not how to land or take off. There is only one reason why a student would only want to know how to fly without wanting to know about landing and taking off. Why on earth did they not investigate this man further? At the time, Moussaoui had emerged as the lone defendant charged in the aftermath of the attacks. |
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16th December 2012, 02:06 PM | #203 |
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Moussaoui didn't actually skip the landing and take-off lessons; that was an incorrect early report by the media. His instructor was suspicious because of his sporadic knowledge; such as knowing airline jargon but using it in nonsensical ways. He was detained on an immigration violation, and although some in the FBI suspected him of being involved in something, they didn't have enough evidence to convince FBI lawyers that they had grounds to obtain search warrants for his apartment or computer. |
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16th December 2012, 02:13 PM | #204 |
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This is fascinating, but has absolutely zero bearing on the matter of the perpetrators of the "terrorist attacks" you listed. Are you even aware that the PFLP was started by a Christian? What part of "not carried out by a Muslim Arab terrorist organisation" are you still struggling with? Here's a few basic tips for you to follow when looking at violence in the middle east from now on: 1. Not all violence is terrorism. 2. Not all middle-eastern people are Arabs. 3. Not all middle-eastern people are Muslim. 4. Not all middle-eastern people are motivated by religion. |
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16th December 2012, 02:24 PM | #205 |
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16th December 2012, 02:29 PM | #206 |
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16th December 2012, 02:32 PM | #207 |
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17th December 2012, 02:43 AM | #208 |
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Sorry, I missed this and would like to reply so sorry if I distract everyone from once again arguing the Islamist/Terrorist link in a thread that should have nothing to do with same.
Gumboot, Since we're speculating, you can propose all sorts of hypotheticals. History, though, should be taken into consideration somewhat. Mighty England spent most of the post Napoleonic Wars 19th century whupping up on woefully equipped local populations. And frankly, was fought to a standstill too many times for anyone to consider them Genghis Khan redux. The only global power they entered the field against, arguably, was during the Crimean War and that didn't turn out so food. Other than that, as we say in the football pools, "Who'd they beat?" I'm less impressed by the fact that they'd send half their forces to fight the Maori than I am impressed negatively that they needed to do so. Again, it's speculation... so maybe there would've been trained and garrisoned forces in the Union, but I think that just like the US forts and facilities prior to the Civil War, a lot of those trained and garrisoned forces would've been in the South. England and France both hoped for, for economic reasons, a Confederate victory. This was with an independent USA, and I believe it would've been more so if it was still a colony. The South supplied cotton to the mills in both England and France. But, like I said, ... it's speculation. Would England with the wealth of the non-Canadian North American colonies have been even more dominant? Quite probably so. Equally, might England's financial interests in cotton have created a more problematic situation at home, viz their objection to slavery? Can't say. Oh, and I totally doubt that England would've helped "this week's buddy" in establishing a foothold in Central America. It took England a couple of centuries to rid itself of the Spanish pests, whose wealth was largely based on their Central and South American holdings. I can't see Gladstone or anyone else thinking "Oh, what's the harm? They're our friends, now. Let's let them set up shop on the doorstep to one of our most important colonies/dominions. |
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17th December 2012, 10:35 AM | #209 |
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I didn't ask about World War I; I asked about Korea. Kindly answer my original question. Further, it was only "official" US participation that began when Japan attacked and Germany and Italy declared war. Unofficial US participation had been ongoing (and escalating) for many months prior to that. |
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18th December 2012, 09:22 AM | #210 |
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Thats a somewhat cliched interpretation of history. First of all, it was at the time Britain. Not England. "whupping up on woefully equipped local populations" Yes, most enemies were less well equipped, yet invariably the British would be massively outnumbered. In the case of the Anglo-Zulu war, typically by about 20 to 1 and equally invariably had the home-ground advantage. Then you have the Sikh wars in which the British were not only outnumbered but thoroughly out-gunned too. Then you have the Mutiny in which, again the British were outnumbered and the equipment deficit was tiny. And checking up on the Crimean War, its does seem the Russians kind of, well, lost, while the British did the lions share of winning Alma - Storming uphill a supposedly impregnable position Balaklava - Defending a supposedly indefensible position Inkerman - Decisively defeating the Russians in a set-piece so heavily they never ventured out again and then there's Sevastopol - Also eventually stormed, though it could have been stormed almost directly after Alma if Raglan had disregarded the whinging French. All that with a high command of the very most concentrated distillate of everything that was wrong with the purchase system. If "Indian" Officers had not been actively discouraged from joining, I do wonder what might then have happened. |
19th December 2012, 01:17 AM | #211 |
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In the spirit of speculative history, I was taking the ****, so to speak. But with a grain of truth. The majority of Britain's (I am very guilty of that transgression, sorry) wars were determined by out-gunning the enemy. The supply chain invariably took some time to catch up, but in the end the superiority in well-trained disciplined troops, a professional officer corps and vastly superior arms did win the day*. But there was kinda no one to fight on the Continent so that's not necessarily the fault of the British.
And the outcome of the Crimean was a marginal win for the British, a marginal loss for the Russians, a major setback for Austria and a pretty good leg up for the Ottomans. Not that any of that necessarily lasted all that long - the whole thing, like many/most wars, was a pretty pointless affair. *When that support was forthcoming, witness Lucknow in '57, the British prevailed. When that support didn't get there, witness Khartoum at the end of the century, the sheer numbers of the opposition eventually undid the British. (In all fairness, Khartoum was not a failure of British Military Logistics. It was a foreign policy failure - they were essentially abandoned.) |
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19th December 2012, 01:52 AM | #212 |
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The most successful war one that has never needed to be fought.
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19th December 2012, 02:49 AM | #213 |
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19th December 2012, 12:06 PM | #214 |
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I'll grant you that by the time of Ulundi, "vastly superior arms did win the day", but up to the Crimean war, the British were still armed with bog-standard muskets and cannons, neither of which were a rarity in the Indian subcontinent where most of the actions of significance took place. If there was a qualitative advantage with regards to equipment, it was far smaller than the commonly accepted idea of hordes-of-noble-spear-chucking-savages-being-mown-down-by-gatling-guns would have us believe.
Indeed the Sikh's not only outgunned and outnumbered the British, but they were disciplined and drilled to western standards. The were probably the equal of most western armies of the time And again to the Crimean war. There can only be one explanation to the success at Alma and the charge of the heavies. In both cases, the British had no right to win and every right to be annihilated. Yet win they did and you cant pin that on any technological superiority of firepower. To paraphrase George McDonald Fraser - It would simply not be true to say that British soldiers were braver than soldiers of any other nation. It is almost undoubtably true though, that British soldiers had more faith in the bravery of the man standing next to him than any other. Its what enabled the thin red line to hold steady in the face of almost certain death and its what allowed the British to use a two-rank firing line when other armies dismissed the tactic as an impossibility. To quote a Russian officer at Alma "...we had never before seen troops fight in lines of two deep, nor did we think it possible for men to be found with sufficient morale to be able to attack, in this flimsy formation, our massive columns". Its also what convinced the Russian cavalry to retreat before the heavies, though they outnumbered them ten to one and had virtually swallowed the brigade whole.... The success of the British redcoat, as attested by how much of the globe he coloured pink, was far more to do with steadiness and discipline in the face of almost certain death, than it was to do with technology. Of course this all came unstuck in the Boer war when steadiness and disciplined volleys were made obsolete by high-velocity magazine rifles..... |
19th December 2012, 12:38 PM | #215 |
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19th December 2012, 05:42 PM | #216 |
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19th December 2012, 08:47 PM | #217 |
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19th December 2012, 09:07 PM | #218 |
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Well, Gallipoli (the choice to invade and the leadership during the battle) is the one campaign that not even the proponents of the "Britain actually had reasonable leadership" school try to defend.
If you ask me, virtually all of the fighting against the Turks was a massive misallocation of resources that could have been better spent on the Western Front. |
19th December 2012, 09:46 PM | #219 |
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That's more the War Cabinets fault than the generals though. Lloyd George was always looking for an alternative to the western front. The middle east campaign was a result of this.
Whatever your position on the overall leadership, surely everyone can agree that Hubert Gough was at best promoted beyond his ability, and at worst spectacularly incompetent. Ironically at the time the one thing he had little part in stuffing up, the 5th Army's defense during Operation Michel was one thing he was heavily criticised for. Even if Plumer, Currie or Monash (in my mind the three best Empire generals during the war) had been in charge then they couldn't have done a lot better in my view. |
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19th December 2012, 10:27 PM | #220 |
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Yes. Amazing the hoops Lloyd George would jump through to try and take the focus away from the Western Front (if only the Germans had obliged!)
Gough should have been sacked after (during?) 3rd Ypres. Ironically, the battle where he didn't do too badly (considering the circumstances) was the "straw that broke the camel's back" and finally got him canned. |
20th December 2012, 04:45 AM | #221 |
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I think you missed my point. They didn't need to. The fact they did reflects how little their armies had to do. The very reason the United Kingdom idn't do much whopping of global powers in the second half of the 19th Century is because they'd done so much whopping in the Napoleonic Wars and earlier that they didn't need to do any more. There were no other global powers.
And this is reflected in the military actions the UK did involve itself in over that time. The sheer audacity of their behaviour is a reflection of their utter supremacy. Hell, in China they went to war and won to protect illegal drug smugglers. Had the South tried to secede from a British Americas here's what would have happened; the British Navy would have blockaded the South, and they would have starved to death. The end. Which would have only reduced any odds of rebellion. Well, this is the interesting point; what would have happened if the USA had stayed a British colony re: slavery? One possibility is the British wouldn't have been so keen to abolish slavery, but that seems unlikely to me given the drive to abolish slavery was done on moralistic and humanitarian grounds, not economic grounds. Another possibility is that the South never would have grown into such a significant slave industry in the first place. Bear in mind the cotton industry only really became big in the 1800s, by which time the UK was aggressively attacking the slave trade. Unlikely, as the slave trade was abolished before the cotton trade really grew significant. Why not? The British had already jumped aboard several other French ventures. Why not? They were friends, and France didn't have a hope in hell of taking on the UK. I think you underestimate how strong the British-French friendship was by this time. |
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20th December 2012, 04:57 AM | #222 |
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20th December 2012, 05:01 AM | #223 |
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21st December 2012, 03:51 AM | #224 |
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21st December 2012, 04:56 AM | #225 |
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I wasn't thinking of ANZAC Cove (although the bizarre decision to reembark the Australian artillery probably had disasterous consequences and prevented the Australians from holding Baby 700), but rather Y Beach. It was totally undefended, and British troops advanced to within 500yds of Krithia Village (which was totally undefended). However the two commanders in the landing argued all day about who was in command while their troops wandered around on the beach, with no orders, and did nothing. They didn't even bother to start entrenching themselves until 3pm, let alone advance and capture the undefended objectives. When the Ottomans finally counter-attacked the British defenses were half complete and fierce fighting developed. The following morning boats arrived to collect the wounded, and mass confusion led to an unauthorised withdrawal. Later on the afternoon of the 26th a Naval Officer returned to Y Beach to search for wounded who might have been left alone and was able to freely wander the beach in broad daylight for two hours, without seeing a single Ottoman. In the end, it would be the 28th before the British attempted to take Krithia, by which time Ottoman reinforcements had fortfied the village. Had the forces at Y Beach taken the objective they could have cut off the few units directly opposing the landings further south and enabled the British to more swiftly advance |
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27th December 2012, 01:45 PM | #226 |
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US invasion of the Canadas in the War of 1812......oh.....most successful war in history. nvrmnd
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27th December 2012, 04:03 PM | #227 |
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27th December 2012, 08:58 PM | #228 |
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True, but ironically the failure of the Canadian retaliation, specifically the American victory in the Battle of Plattsburgh, turned out to be even more important. In terms of casualties, vessels and other measures it's dwarfed by many others, but it kept New England from becoming part of Canada and changed the balance of the war.
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27th December 2012, 09:10 PM | #229 |
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27th December 2012, 09:34 PM | #230 |
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28th December 2012, 01:55 AM | #231 |
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28th December 2012, 09:34 AM | #232 |
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It's an interesting bit here, because although the Battle of Plattsburgh was, by many naval standards, a little thing, it kept New England from becoming part of Canada, and was a factor in tipping the balance of the war of 1812 such that the Americans came out of the peace negotiations differently than they might otherwise have, henceforth recognized by the UK as sovereign rather than a rebel outpost.
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28th December 2012, 09:49 AM | #233 |
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Disagree.
If through diplomacy and/or intimidation the defender prevents the aggressor from attacking it is certainly a success, but aggressor is still there and may yet attack in next generation or so. If aggressor does attack, and is defeated so completely it no longer exists -- or no longer exists as an aggressive entity[1], -- that's a bigger success for the defender than not fighting a war at all. [1]What happened to Germany and Japan in 1945 |
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28th December 2012, 03:15 PM | #234 |
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The only losers in the North American instalment of the War of 1812 were the First Nations.
The States came out of it with an enhanced cohesiveness as well as a realisation of the value of a standing army. The Canadas were set on a half-century-long path to nationhood, a path that wouldn't have been trod had the States not invaded. The First Nations who as a group were critical to keeping the States' forces at bay at the darkest moments were treated after the War and for much of the succeeding interim as a problem to be assimilated into a superior culture or at worst to be tolerated until nature ran its course and rendered them but a memory. Fitz |
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30th December 2012, 06:15 PM | #235 |
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Anyone who is interested in history and/or a great podcast should check out Hardcore History by Dan Carlin. His most recent series, which isn't done yet, but the first four episodes are available, is called Wrath of the Khans, and it's all about Genghis Khan and his conquests. I think that there's an argument to be made that these conquests were perhaps the most successful wars in history, in terms of the Mongols achieving what they wanted to achieve. Want they wanted to achieve was not really a good thing of course, particularly for their victims. But they were spectacularly successful on the battlefield. No army of the time could stand against them. The Mongol empire lasted more than a century so it wasn't just a flash in the pan.
Whether you agree or not, I still recommend Hardcore History. |
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1st January 2013, 04:18 AM | #236 |
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I think the answer to that can be seen in troop numbers. The UK just didn't give the conflict much priority. Prior to 1814 their focus was Napoleon, and after that they clearly still weren't committed. Consider, if you will, that after Napoleon's defeat the British sent 15,000 troops to Canada, less than half of which were veterans of the Peninsula War. In 1814 the Royal Navy had 99 Ships-of-the-Line, yet at the completion of the Peninsula War they released only a single Ship-of-the-Line and sixteen other smaller vessels (the largest being three frigates) to North America. Compare this with the Hundred Days, only a year later, when the British fielded an army of 93,000 in Europe to stop Napoleon a second time. The issue for the UK was that America was too useful to be at war with. The UK could have easily choked the US to death through a naval blockade (and was doing so, for the duration of the war) but the problem was the blockade hurt them as well. Their armies in Europe, in particular, relied heavily on food from America. |
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1st January 2013, 06:19 PM | #237 |
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But troop numbers don't really tell the tale as by numbers alone, it really should've been a mere matter of marching for the States in the first 18 months of the War. And likewise, it should've been all Britain in the last year. But bungling (and some real serendipity on the part of the British in 1813 [especially Stoney Creek]) rendered the numbers factor moot. In fact, IMHO it was all over but for the posturing as of July 1813
Certainly the Canadas were fed courtesy of Cousin Jonathan. It doesn't surprise me that the same applies in the Continental instalment. Fitz |
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2nd January 2013, 02:54 AM | #238 |
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I wasn't really trying to claim that the British didn't have sufficient numbers to win, or that bungling didn't play a role in their failures. My point was more that the Empire didn't really commit significant military forces to the conflict, which indicates they weren't particularly dedicated to winning - which makes sense when you consider how important American trade was. It's notable that the original intention of the 1814 campaign was merely to raid along the East Coast so that the US had to withdraw their forces from Canada to defend their own territory. Had they really felt the USA needed bringing to heel, they would have landed the Duke of Wellington in Chesapeake Bay with 50,000 troops and a fleet of Third Rate warships. |
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2nd January 2013, 06:49 AM | #239 |
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Agreed. The British were well and truly tired of war at that point and as was evidenced by Lundy's Lane, they were quickly acquiring a knack for warfare
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"Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth... Go to God!" Howard Beale, "Network" |
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2nd January 2013, 10:06 PM | #240 |
Salted Sith Cynic
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 38,527
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You have that wrong. War per Clausewitz is the extension of policy by other means, and policy is "what the king/leader of nation does to achieve his political ends."
If he can get it without war, he most likely will as war is rather expensive and risky. I'll also agree with gumboot on two of the most successful wars. Prussian Austrian War, and the war a few years before that with the Danes. Schleswig Holstein is still part of Germany. Also the Greek wars with the Persians, which kept the Greek world Greek and set the stage for Alexander. But then, the argument for the Khans is pretty strong. |
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Helicopters don't so much fly as beat the air into submission. "Jesus wept, but did He laugh?"--F.H. Buckley____"There is one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth ... His mirth." --Chesterton__"If the barbarian in us is excised, so is our humanity."--D'rok__ "I only use my gun whenever kindness fails."-- Robert Earl Keen__"Sturgeon spares none.". -- The Marquis |
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