Burundi is one of the poorest nations on Earth, having been repeatedly devastated by civil war. They have seen two genocides between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnicities. In 1972, Tutsis killed Hutus. In 1994, Hutus killed Tutsis in something of an extension of the more well-known genocide going on in Rwanda around the same time. Both of the 1994 genocides were set off by the same event, that being the shooting down of a plane containing the presidents of both nations, both Hutu.
The bulk of the violence only ceased in 2006, though even then, one splinter group, the National Liberation Front (a Hutu group), continued to fight for two more years. Burundi has since turned its attention to rebuilding the smoking crater that has become their home. In terms of GDP per capita, they rank ahead of only DR Congo.
Among the mediators who helped broker peace, or at least tried to, was current South African president Jacob Zuma. Zuma wrapped up a three-day return to Burundi on Friday in which the two signed an economic pact. The scope of the pact seems to be fairly comprehensive, with various articles on the topic mentioning cooperation in agriculture, defense, education, energy, finance, infrastructure, sports (Times Live mentions South Africa sending 3,000 soccer balls), transportation and tourism.
Zuma was also called upon to help soothe once-again-rising tensions in Burundi before they degenerate into another war. Last year, Pierre Nkurunziza was re-elected president with 91% of the vote (and without opposition) after the opposition claimed it to be a rigged election and boycotted. Much of that opposition has since fled the country or went underground.
The chief opponent: Agathon Rwasa of the National Liberation Front.
Zuma, however, declined to get involved this time. Hopefully, someone will.
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
It's Like A 'Participant' Ribbon, But In Statue Form
Early last month, the town of Fushe Kruje, Albania dedicated a statue to George W. Bush. The Americans in the audience will probably wonder why in blazes someone outside of Texas would do that. After all, Bush isn't exactly Mount Rushmore material. Many would argue that Buah was in fact one of the worst Presidents of all time.
There are others that will ignore the 41 men that came before Bush and compare him exclusively to Obama- generally favorably, and while asking the question 'miss him yet?'- but these people aren't even worth the hassle. And I've gone double-barreled on some pretty stupid things in my day.
Anyway. Why Bush? Why Bush of all the Presidents? Long story short, he was the one who showed up. Bush was the one who took time out of his schedule to roll into Fushe Kruje and say hi. Albania, despite everything America has done to go out of its way to inspire people to burn our Presidents in effigy as opposed to making statues of them, has a special affection for the United States for two reasons: first, they credit us with bringing them out of the Cold War era; and second, Albanians in Kosovo were under threat of Slobodan Milosevic and his "ethnic cleansing" campaign, and when we bombed Kosovo, we saved those Albanians.
Of course, all the events of consequence happened in the period between the Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton administrations. All Bush did was go over and say hi as part of a multi-country trip. But since he did and the others didn't, he's the one that got the statue.
Bush's statue joins a rather eclectic list of foreign dedications to American presidents. Three of the others, one of which needs far more explanation than the others:
*Monrovia, Liberia, named for James Monroe in 1824, during his administration, as that is the point the country was "founded" by freed American slaves. As we've stated here, it didn't end well.
*A statue of Abraham Lincoln stands in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on a street also named for him. The statue stands as part of a trade with Mexico made in 1969, which in turn is the reason Washington DC has a statue of Benito Juarez, that city's namesake. The two were the respective heads of state during the Civil War and were on good terms with each other. Juarez is held in similarly high regard in Mexico.
*Rutherford B. Hayes has a Paraguayan soccer club named for him, called Presidente Hayes. Americans know Hayes largely as the guy who stole the Presidency from Samuel Tilden in the 1876 election.
Not long beforehand, Paraguay was being led by a man named Francisco Solano Lopez. Lopez was watching a conflict unfold between Brazil and Uruguay. Since Uruguay's 1830 independence, that nation had been seeing shaky internal relations that would eventually gel into the two major factions at the time, the Colorados and the Blancos. This conflict spilled over into Brazil, damaging Brazilian farmland. In 1864, Brazil demanded restitution. Uruguay refused.
Brazil invaded, on the side of the Colorados. Argentina was unhappy with this and joined in the war; they supported the Blancos. Brazil won and installed a Colorado government, dismaying Lopez. Uruguay was an ally of Paraguay. He at this point requested to move Paraguayan troops through Argentina so he could join in as well. Argentina told him no; the war was over and there wasn't really any point anymore.
He did it anyway. In fact, he attacked Argentina. According to the book Stupid Wars by Ed Strosser and Michael Prince, Paraguay sacked the city of Corrientes without so much as a declaration of war. This got all three countries angry at Paraguay: Argentina for blindingly obvious reasons, Brazil because he was in support of the Blancos, and Uruguay because it was now a Brazilian puppet state. Cue what became known as the War of the Triple Alliance, in which it was Paraguay against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.
Paraguay, after a couple initial victories against the Argentinians, ran up against the much hardier Brazilian forces. Here, Paraguay's luck turned. It wouldn't stop turning for the next six years. Lopez's forces took battering after battering after battering, but he kept throwing more and more troops into the grinder. At one point in 1865 a draft was held, conscripting boys as young as ten years old and men as old as 60. It wasn't nearly enough to get the troops up to comparable numbers, much less comparable strength. By 1867, troops fought semi-nude for lack of supplies. And lest they not win under these conditions, Lopez would off them himself. "Conquer or die" was the motto, the threat, and the promise.
Meanwhile, what troops remained kept getting pushed north and north and north into the jungle, where in 1870 Brazilian troops finally picked off Lopez. And all it took to reach him was the death of a widely-varying estimate of Paraguay's total population that we'll peg here at 60%. Not just from war, but also food poisoning, poor adaptation to changing climates, and disease (both in general and from all the dead bodies laying around).
Argentina and Brazil spent most of the next decade squabbling over who got what parts of Paraguay. Argentina wanted to annex half of the country, Brazil wanted to leave it in place as a buffer zone and had a second standoff with Argentina to keep them from invading. Eventually, in 1878, they sought a mediator.
Namely, Rutherford B. Hayes. He gave both Argentina and Brazil chunks of land, but he permitted Paraguay to continue to exist. Paraguay was eternally grateful that they had not ceased to exist, and proceeded to plaster Hayes' name all over the country, something they still do today to the utter bewilderment of most Americans who get a good look at how Hayes is honored. As part of Hayes' Fabulous Paraguayan Hero Package, he has a soccer team named for him (which in turn managed to win a top-flight league title in 1952).
It's estimated that Hayes only spent a couple hours of his life on the matter; probably less time than I've spent on this article. The writing and vetting of the treaty were handled on the lower rungs of the diplomatic ladder and Hayes was merely handed something to look over and sign. Which largely, when you get technical, means he did only barely more than Bush did to get his statue. But he still signed a treaty nonetheless.
Either way, sometimes you just can't predict what your legacy's going to be.
There are others that will ignore the 41 men that came before Bush and compare him exclusively to Obama- generally favorably, and while asking the question 'miss him yet?'- but these people aren't even worth the hassle. And I've gone double-barreled on some pretty stupid things in my day.
Anyway. Why Bush? Why Bush of all the Presidents? Long story short, he was the one who showed up. Bush was the one who took time out of his schedule to roll into Fushe Kruje and say hi. Albania, despite everything America has done to go out of its way to inspire people to burn our Presidents in effigy as opposed to making statues of them, has a special affection for the United States for two reasons: first, they credit us with bringing them out of the Cold War era; and second, Albanians in Kosovo were under threat of Slobodan Milosevic and his "ethnic cleansing" campaign, and when we bombed Kosovo, we saved those Albanians.
Of course, all the events of consequence happened in the period between the Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton administrations. All Bush did was go over and say hi as part of a multi-country trip. But since he did and the others didn't, he's the one that got the statue.
Bush's statue joins a rather eclectic list of foreign dedications to American presidents. Three of the others, one of which needs far more explanation than the others:
*Monrovia, Liberia, named for James Monroe in 1824, during his administration, as that is the point the country was "founded" by freed American slaves. As we've stated here, it didn't end well.
*A statue of Abraham Lincoln stands in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on a street also named for him. The statue stands as part of a trade with Mexico made in 1969, which in turn is the reason Washington DC has a statue of Benito Juarez, that city's namesake. The two were the respective heads of state during the Civil War and were on good terms with each other. Juarez is held in similarly high regard in Mexico.
*Rutherford B. Hayes has a Paraguayan soccer club named for him, called Presidente Hayes. Americans know Hayes largely as the guy who stole the Presidency from Samuel Tilden in the 1876 election.
Not long beforehand, Paraguay was being led by a man named Francisco Solano Lopez. Lopez was watching a conflict unfold between Brazil and Uruguay. Since Uruguay's 1830 independence, that nation had been seeing shaky internal relations that would eventually gel into the two major factions at the time, the Colorados and the Blancos. This conflict spilled over into Brazil, damaging Brazilian farmland. In 1864, Brazil demanded restitution. Uruguay refused.
Brazil invaded, on the side of the Colorados. Argentina was unhappy with this and joined in the war; they supported the Blancos. Brazil won and installed a Colorado government, dismaying Lopez. Uruguay was an ally of Paraguay. He at this point requested to move Paraguayan troops through Argentina so he could join in as well. Argentina told him no; the war was over and there wasn't really any point anymore.
He did it anyway. In fact, he attacked Argentina. According to the book Stupid Wars by Ed Strosser and Michael Prince, Paraguay sacked the city of Corrientes without so much as a declaration of war. This got all three countries angry at Paraguay: Argentina for blindingly obvious reasons, Brazil because he was in support of the Blancos, and Uruguay because it was now a Brazilian puppet state. Cue what became known as the War of the Triple Alliance, in which it was Paraguay against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.
Paraguay, after a couple initial victories against the Argentinians, ran up against the much hardier Brazilian forces. Here, Paraguay's luck turned. It wouldn't stop turning for the next six years. Lopez's forces took battering after battering after battering, but he kept throwing more and more troops into the grinder. At one point in 1865 a draft was held, conscripting boys as young as ten years old and men as old as 60. It wasn't nearly enough to get the troops up to comparable numbers, much less comparable strength. By 1867, troops fought semi-nude for lack of supplies. And lest they not win under these conditions, Lopez would off them himself. "Conquer or die" was the motto, the threat, and the promise.
Meanwhile, what troops remained kept getting pushed north and north and north into the jungle, where in 1870 Brazilian troops finally picked off Lopez. And all it took to reach him was the death of a widely-varying estimate of Paraguay's total population that we'll peg here at 60%. Not just from war, but also food poisoning, poor adaptation to changing climates, and disease (both in general and from all the dead bodies laying around).
Argentina and Brazil spent most of the next decade squabbling over who got what parts of Paraguay. Argentina wanted to annex half of the country, Brazil wanted to leave it in place as a buffer zone and had a second standoff with Argentina to keep them from invading. Eventually, in 1878, they sought a mediator.
Namely, Rutherford B. Hayes. He gave both Argentina and Brazil chunks of land, but he permitted Paraguay to continue to exist. Paraguay was eternally grateful that they had not ceased to exist, and proceeded to plaster Hayes' name all over the country, something they still do today to the utter bewilderment of most Americans who get a good look at how Hayes is honored. As part of Hayes' Fabulous Paraguayan Hero Package, he has a soccer team named for him (which in turn managed to win a top-flight league title in 1952).
It's estimated that Hayes only spent a couple hours of his life on the matter; probably less time than I've spent on this article. The writing and vetting of the treaty were handled on the lower rungs of the diplomatic ladder and Hayes was merely handed something to look over and sign. Which largely, when you get technical, means he did only barely more than Bush did to get his statue. But he still signed a treaty nonetheless.
Either way, sometimes you just can't predict what your legacy's going to be.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Random News Generator- Afghanistan
I think we're all rather well-acquainted with the minor little squabbles in Afghanistan. So let's just hop right in.
In Helmand Province, roadside bombs killed 23 people yesterday- 19 from a minibus and four from a tractor. The number was difficult to ascertain due to the damage to the minibus, and also because when security officials arrived on the scene for cleanup, they were attacked by Taliban forces.
This comes one day after an attack by suicide bombers in Uruzgan province that killed 19 people- 12 of them children- and wounded 35. Statistically, the current situation is the deadliest things have been for civilians since the war began a decade ago.
Things are also more deadly for donkeys. No. Really. Afghanistan is now seeing donkey-based IED's. The exact details have quickly fallen victim to urban legend and the telephone game, ranging from simply strapping bombs to them like you would any other suicide bomber to having "shoved explosives into a place no living donkey would ever tolerate," but one way or another, donkeys are being loaded up with bombs and sent on their merry way. The soldiers seeing them in action can do little but laugh, because it's really either that or go crazy worrying about it.
As far as soldiers returning home, according to the terms of a class-action lawsuit, over 1,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are set to receive PTSD benefits that were previously denied them. When you're diagnosed with PTSD, long story short, you're sent home. That happened with the veterans in the settlement. However, they were denied PTSD benefits because the military did not assign them at least a 50% disability rating. That was the basis of the class-action, which also affects several thousand more veterans who will now see their benefits go up. (Debt ceiling notwithstanding, of course.)
And finally, along those same lines, a press release from the Department of Defense announces $60 million in new grants designed to prevent veteran homelessness. The grants are being handed out to 85 organizations in 40 states and the District of Columbia.
Among the grants:
*$600,000 to Housing First, Inc., Mobile, AL.
*$753,399 to Shelter Network, Burlingame, CA.
*$100,000 to PATH Achieve Glendale, Glendale, CA.
*$730,000 to Shelter, Inc., Martinez, CA.
*$610,000 to Catholic Charities Hawaii, Honolulu, HI.
*$639,000 to United Way of Central Indiana, Indianapolis, IN.
*$1 million to Veterans Inc., Worcester, MA.
*$999,559 to Southwest Counseling Solutions, Detroit, MI.
*$590,928 to Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency, Wyandotte, MI.
*$1 million to Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans, St. Paul, MN.
*$574,651 to Goodwill Industries of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM.
*$124,999 to St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County, Eugene, OR.
*$1 million to Crisis Ministries, Charleston, SC.
*$684,000 to Opportunity Council, Bellingham, WA.
*$507,000 to Community Psychiatric Clinic of Seattle, Seattle, WA.
*$1 million to Center for Veterans Issues, Milwaukee, WI.
In Helmand Province, roadside bombs killed 23 people yesterday- 19 from a minibus and four from a tractor. The number was difficult to ascertain due to the damage to the minibus, and also because when security officials arrived on the scene for cleanup, they were attacked by Taliban forces.
This comes one day after an attack by suicide bombers in Uruzgan province that killed 19 people- 12 of them children- and wounded 35. Statistically, the current situation is the deadliest things have been for civilians since the war began a decade ago.
Things are also more deadly for donkeys. No. Really. Afghanistan is now seeing donkey-based IED's. The exact details have quickly fallen victim to urban legend and the telephone game, ranging from simply strapping bombs to them like you would any other suicide bomber to having "shoved explosives into a place no living donkey would ever tolerate," but one way or another, donkeys are being loaded up with bombs and sent on their merry way. The soldiers seeing them in action can do little but laugh, because it's really either that or go crazy worrying about it.
As far as soldiers returning home, according to the terms of a class-action lawsuit, over 1,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are set to receive PTSD benefits that were previously denied them. When you're diagnosed with PTSD, long story short, you're sent home. That happened with the veterans in the settlement. However, they were denied PTSD benefits because the military did not assign them at least a 50% disability rating. That was the basis of the class-action, which also affects several thousand more veterans who will now see their benefits go up. (Debt ceiling notwithstanding, of course.)
And finally, along those same lines, a press release from the Department of Defense announces $60 million in new grants designed to prevent veteran homelessness. The grants are being handed out to 85 organizations in 40 states and the District of Columbia.
Among the grants:
*$600,000 to Housing First, Inc., Mobile, AL.
*$753,399 to Shelter Network, Burlingame, CA.
*$100,000 to PATH Achieve Glendale, Glendale, CA.
*$730,000 to Shelter, Inc., Martinez, CA.
*$610,000 to Catholic Charities Hawaii, Honolulu, HI.
*$639,000 to United Way of Central Indiana, Indianapolis, IN.
*$1 million to Veterans Inc., Worcester, MA.
*$999,559 to Southwest Counseling Solutions, Detroit, MI.
*$590,928 to Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency, Wyandotte, MI.
*$1 million to Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans, St. Paul, MN.
*$574,651 to Goodwill Industries of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM.
*$124,999 to St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County, Eugene, OR.
*$1 million to Crisis Ministries, Charleston, SC.
*$684,000 to Opportunity Council, Bellingham, WA.
*$507,000 to Community Psychiatric Clinic of Seattle, Seattle, WA.
*$1 million to Center for Veterans Issues, Milwaukee, WI.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
RNG Week- Liberia
TODAY: Liberia
THURSDAY: Gibraltar
FRIDAY: Turkey
SATURDAY: Congo-Brazzaville
Liberia's history has been mired in violence and bloodshed, dating back to when the country was first christened as such. When slaves in the United States were freed in the wake of the Civil War, some crossed the Atlantic to settle in Africa and declare the foundation of Liberia. They called themselves Americo-Liberians.
Two problems emerged, though. First, these particular people arriving in Africa had never seen Africa before. Slavery had gone on long enough to where everybody had been born on the American side of the Atlantic. Second, nobody told the actual locals that the people just off the boat were their new rulers.
And the Americo-Liberians ruled the only way they knew: total domination. The Americo-Liberians comprised 5% of the population of Liberia, yet were the only people with voting rights. They built residences that resembled Southern plantations. In 1878, they instituted one-party rule.
Eventually, slavery itself would take hold. The very thing Liberia was created to celebrate against. It continues to this day.
The native Liberians would not wait nearly as long as the Americo-Liberians had to start rebelling. Riots, uprisings and wars would be repeatedly waged until 1980, when the Americo-Liberians were dislodged.
This did not quell the violence even a little bit. By 1989, civil war had kicked off once again; two consecutive wars would take the country into 2003. Only since then has the country even begun to move away from its unending cycle of bloodshed, though the fundamental issue of slavery persists.
Part of the recovery process involves how to account for all those wounded by war, including those who have lost limbs.
This brings us to the Cup of African Nations for Amputee Football, the third edition, which Liberia is scheduled to participate in during October. They are the defending champions, having won on home soil in 2008. This year's tournament, back after a two-year hiatus, is slated for Ghana, who won the inaugural 2007 tournament in Sierra Leone by beating Liberia in the final. Aside from Liberia and Ghana, Angola, Niger, Nigeria and Sierra Leone have confirmed their intent to participate. The organizers expect to also see Algeria, DR Congo, Kenya, Mali and South Africa in the field.
How does amputee soccer work? If you have one leg, you play in the field. If you have one arm, you play goalkeeper. The ball cannot touch an outfield player's crutch (no prosthetic limbs allowed) or a goalkeeper's arm stump. The goal is shrunk by half. More detailed rules are here.
Soccer gives the players hope. Employment in Liberia, as in many, many other developing countries, is difficult-to-impossible to find for people with missing limbs. A soccer tournament set aside specifically for amputees gives them a purpose. It gives them recognition. It also gives them a measure of needed respect. Amputees in Liberia, prior to the 2008 victory, were shunned. An amputee was, in the eyes of non-disabled Liberians, a former soldier, and therefore to blame for the nation's many years of misery and for all the people that died. If they suffered, they were seen to have deserved it. Amputees could not so much as get a taxi. With the prominence of the amputee soccer team, though, Liberia's amputees have slowly begun to be treated as people deserving of compassion as opposed to scorn.
How much prominence? In the Guardian article above, in January 2010, the amputee team was scrimmaging next to the club Invincible Eleven, a 13-time Liberian league champion and 15-time winner of the national cup competition. The amputees were drawing the larger crowd.
In addition to being inspiring, with the main Liberian league (in which Invincible Eleven currently lie 7th out of 20) trying to haphazardly sort out a 15-month league schedule this season, following the amputee team more closely may be the logical thing to do anyway.
THURSDAY: Gibraltar
FRIDAY: Turkey
SATURDAY: Congo-Brazzaville
Liberia's history has been mired in violence and bloodshed, dating back to when the country was first christened as such. When slaves in the United States were freed in the wake of the Civil War, some crossed the Atlantic to settle in Africa and declare the foundation of Liberia. They called themselves Americo-Liberians.
Two problems emerged, though. First, these particular people arriving in Africa had never seen Africa before. Slavery had gone on long enough to where everybody had been born on the American side of the Atlantic. Second, nobody told the actual locals that the people just off the boat were their new rulers.
And the Americo-Liberians ruled the only way they knew: total domination. The Americo-Liberians comprised 5% of the population of Liberia, yet were the only people with voting rights. They built residences that resembled Southern plantations. In 1878, they instituted one-party rule.
Eventually, slavery itself would take hold. The very thing Liberia was created to celebrate against. It continues to this day.
The native Liberians would not wait nearly as long as the Americo-Liberians had to start rebelling. Riots, uprisings and wars would be repeatedly waged until 1980, when the Americo-Liberians were dislodged.
This did not quell the violence even a little bit. By 1989, civil war had kicked off once again; two consecutive wars would take the country into 2003. Only since then has the country even begun to move away from its unending cycle of bloodshed, though the fundamental issue of slavery persists.
Part of the recovery process involves how to account for all those wounded by war, including those who have lost limbs.
This brings us to the Cup of African Nations for Amputee Football, the third edition, which Liberia is scheduled to participate in during October. They are the defending champions, having won on home soil in 2008. This year's tournament, back after a two-year hiatus, is slated for Ghana, who won the inaugural 2007 tournament in Sierra Leone by beating Liberia in the final. Aside from Liberia and Ghana, Angola, Niger, Nigeria and Sierra Leone have confirmed their intent to participate. The organizers expect to also see Algeria, DR Congo, Kenya, Mali and South Africa in the field.
How does amputee soccer work? If you have one leg, you play in the field. If you have one arm, you play goalkeeper. The ball cannot touch an outfield player's crutch (no prosthetic limbs allowed) or a goalkeeper's arm stump. The goal is shrunk by half. More detailed rules are here.
Soccer gives the players hope. Employment in Liberia, as in many, many other developing countries, is difficult-to-impossible to find for people with missing limbs. A soccer tournament set aside specifically for amputees gives them a purpose. It gives them recognition. It also gives them a measure of needed respect. Amputees in Liberia, prior to the 2008 victory, were shunned. An amputee was, in the eyes of non-disabled Liberians, a former soldier, and therefore to blame for the nation's many years of misery and for all the people that died. If they suffered, they were seen to have deserved it. Amputees could not so much as get a taxi. With the prominence of the amputee soccer team, though, Liberia's amputees have slowly begun to be treated as people deserving of compassion as opposed to scorn.
How much prominence? In the Guardian article above, in January 2010, the amputee team was scrimmaging next to the club Invincible Eleven, a 13-time Liberian league champion and 15-time winner of the national cup competition. The amputees were drawing the larger crowd.
In addition to being inspiring, with the main Liberian league (in which Invincible Eleven currently lie 7th out of 20) trying to haphazardly sort out a 15-month league schedule this season, following the amputee team more closely may be the logical thing to do anyway.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
It's Okay, Sir; I'm From The Internet
Are you any good at games with guns? Okay, great. Now how are you at the non-shooting parts of those games? The tactical aspects?
Also, how good are you at tweeting? That's kind of key.
If you're good at all of that, the Office of Naval Research has a favor to ask: would you be willing to help with their ongoing Somali piracy problem.
Meet MMOWGLI: Massive Multiplayer Online WarGame Leveraging the Internet. What the Navy is looking for is basically brainstorming. They want you to answer two things: what new resources could improve matters on the Navy's end, and what new risks could pop up that make things tougher or change the landscape. From there, it's your basic peer-voting contest.
Aside from a brainstorming session, the Navy is looking to see whether MMOWGLI is actually going to generate anything usable or whether it'll just be a bunch of people asking if the Navy will get ninjas to fight the pirates and asking if the Navy can has cheezburger. Probably in an effort to weed out the lolcats, they're limiting the participant pool to 1,000 players. If it works out, the concept could easily be applied to other problems.
Considering that you have to answer each question in relation to solving a very complicated problem in the space of a tweet, I'm betting the usefulness may be limited a bit. (That's why I use Twitter on the order of once every couple months: if I have a thought, it's almost certainly going to come in over 140 characters.) But if you think you can make hay of it, head over, register and see if you get in.
Also, how good are you at tweeting? That's kind of key.
If you're good at all of that, the Office of Naval Research has a favor to ask: would you be willing to help with their ongoing Somali piracy problem.
Meet MMOWGLI: Massive Multiplayer Online WarGame Leveraging the Internet. What the Navy is looking for is basically brainstorming. They want you to answer two things: what new resources could improve matters on the Navy's end, and what new risks could pop up that make things tougher or change the landscape. From there, it's your basic peer-voting contest.
Aside from a brainstorming session, the Navy is looking to see whether MMOWGLI is actually going to generate anything usable or whether it'll just be a bunch of people asking if the Navy will get ninjas to fight the pirates and asking if the Navy can has cheezburger. Probably in an effort to weed out the lolcats, they're limiting the participant pool to 1,000 players. If it works out, the concept could easily be applied to other problems.
Considering that you have to answer each question in relation to solving a very complicated problem in the space of a tweet, I'm betting the usefulness may be limited a bit. (That's why I use Twitter on the order of once every couple months: if I have a thought, it's almost certainly going to come in over 140 characters.) But if you think you can make hay of it, head over, register and see if you get in.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Osama bin Laden Dead
But then, you've in all likelihood already known that for a couple hours now.
Took ten years. Took a whole lot of pain and anguish and doubt we'd ever get him. We have to be mindful of what happens next; you know al Qaeda won't be taking that kind of news sitting down. They'll probably lash out in pure rage, so everyone keep on their toes for a little while.
But we got our man. After ten long years, we got our man. We avenged each and every person that died on 9/11. We got closure.
Well done to the soldiers that carried out the mission. And well done to Obama for planning and overseeing it.
Took ten years. Took a whole lot of pain and anguish and doubt we'd ever get him. We have to be mindful of what happens next; you know al Qaeda won't be taking that kind of news sitting down. They'll probably lash out in pure rage, so everyone keep on their toes for a little while.
But we got our man. After ten long years, we got our man. We avenged each and every person that died on 9/11. We got closure.
Well done to the soldiers that carried out the mission. And well done to Obama for planning and overseeing it.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Remember The Goat
Sunday, on Lisa Ling's Twitter feed:
Here's the ad she's referring to. So as not to cause the highlighted problem, it's a link and not an embed. Her first comment got picked up by a couple gaming forums, and the reaction was pretty largely 'who cares what she thinks' and 'idiot media is trying to stir up videogame controversy again'.
I'm not going to speak to the actual PTSD-causing quality of the ad- my dad, a Vietnam veteran, will commonly talk in his sleep using statements that frequently seem military-related, though to my knowledge he's not yet seen the ad and hasn't shown any waking-hour flashbacks of any stripe; otherwise he wouldn't be watching war stuff all day.
Though I will say that that particular ad isn't really all that outstanding or notable considering the genre. There are plenty of games just like it who have done similar ads. Unless this is some sort of crazy Pikachu-causing-a-seizure instance where the specific blend of images causes a trigger, I don't think she has much to worry about here. I think it might just be a side effect of her having been, as she said, working with PTSD veterans. Being around the subject a lot lately, it was fresh in her mind when she saw the ad, noticed it when she wouldn't have noticed it previously, and had the reaction she had. I think she overreacted, but I get her train of thought.
It's easy to see where the gamers are coming from too, particularly for me, a gamer myself. I grew up on the Atari and NES. A number of fights with the media and even governments over the years over a wide variety of games- Mortal Kombat, Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, Postal, Doom, Night Trap, Death Race 2000, just to name a few off the top of my head- has given gamers a sort of 'oh, geez, here we go again' attitude towards any new controversy, or anything that even has the whiff of a controversy. They brace themselves any time a videogame is even tangentically connected to something bad in the news. If a kid shoots up a school, after 'that's terrible', one of the first reactions you'll likely get from a gamer is 'please don't let there be an Xbox in his room when the cops show up at his house,' because if there is, they know exactly what's liable to happen next. Whatever game was spinning in his Xbox at the time is at risk of being the next controversy, especially if it was a game with guns in it.
And since the Battlefield 3 ad doesn't really stand out, the reaction is pretty much to dismiss Lisa as one more stupid journalist that has no idea what she's talking about.
Epke of the forum NoobToob, however, made a different point:
That's the other thing about 'controversial' games: controversy sells. People want to see what all the fuss is about. And oh, it can get much, much worse.
How much worse?
In 2007, Sony was promoting God of War 2 at a European release party in Athens, Greece. Fitting, as God of War references (read: kills) a large chunk of Greek mythology. In this release party, Sony went for the theme of an ancient Greek orgy. Attendees were treated to topless women.
Nobody noticed the topless women.
This is because everybody was too busy noticing the decapitated goat. The Daily Mail kicked off the controversy by describing it as such:
Sony released a statement in response saying that this was irresponsible reporting. Nobody was eating out of the goat, and it was returned to the butcher afterward. Well, that just makes it SO much better.
Everybody got in an uproar over this one, gamers included. Sony's explanation barely even slowed anyone down, with the response being simply 'you're still using a dead goat to promote your game'.
Here's actual footage of the event, so as to get away from he-said-she-said. You'll note in the video that snakes were not pulled out of a pit, but rather a key from a box filled with snakes, and the goat thing consisted of drinking something out of a large pot; Sony claimed it was punch. The knife-throwing, though, seems to have been described accurately.
God of War 2, of course, sold like gangbusters.
The eternal knock on violent games has been that the gamers somehow can't tell games from reality; that they'll put down the game, go about their day, and then mindlessly shoot someone thinking they'll get points for it, or something else of that nature.
Everything described by the Daily Mail, even that which was shown as wrong, is something most gamers would do in a game without thinking twice about it. Killing a goat is nothing. Using an in-game goat as a golf ball is a story you repeat on forums. In real life, though, when a goat gets killed, those same gamers will react like everyone else.
Battlefield 3 shouldn't be any different, for gamers or veterans. At least, that's what I'm hoping.
UPDATE: Lisa took the time to respond...
"Thx Aaron...I JUST returned home from a veterans retreat where men had been dealing with severe ptsd for decades. They told me that any realistic portrayal of war sends them into a panic. When I saw that commercial out of the blue, I couldn't help but think of those guys. I have nothing against the video game itself, but seeing the commercial on TV--and how real it is just startled me."
"Any realistic portrayal of war" is a fair bit more disheartening; as I stated, Battlefield 3's ad isn't that unusual. Ads and trailers for franchises like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, as well as the rest of the Battlefield franchise, aren't going to be any easier on them. Halo, Killzone and Metal Gear would easily count as well if the threshold for 'realistic' is adjusted low enough.
Horrified by the new Battlefield 3 commercial I just saw--especially after working with U.S. veterans with severe PTSD.
To the Battlefield gamers out there: I have no prob with the games, but when commercials come on randomly, it can trigger things.
Here's the ad she's referring to. So as not to cause the highlighted problem, it's a link and not an embed. Her first comment got picked up by a couple gaming forums, and the reaction was pretty largely 'who cares what she thinks' and 'idiot media is trying to stir up videogame controversy again'.
I'm not going to speak to the actual PTSD-causing quality of the ad- my dad, a Vietnam veteran, will commonly talk in his sleep using statements that frequently seem military-related, though to my knowledge he's not yet seen the ad and hasn't shown any waking-hour flashbacks of any stripe; otherwise he wouldn't be watching war stuff all day.
Though I will say that that particular ad isn't really all that outstanding or notable considering the genre. There are plenty of games just like it who have done similar ads. Unless this is some sort of crazy Pikachu-causing-a-seizure instance where the specific blend of images causes a trigger, I don't think she has much to worry about here. I think it might just be a side effect of her having been, as she said, working with PTSD veterans. Being around the subject a lot lately, it was fresh in her mind when she saw the ad, noticed it when she wouldn't have noticed it previously, and had the reaction she had. I think she overreacted, but I get her train of thought.
It's easy to see where the gamers are coming from too, particularly for me, a gamer myself. I grew up on the Atari and NES. A number of fights with the media and even governments over the years over a wide variety of games- Mortal Kombat, Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, Postal, Doom, Night Trap, Death Race 2000, just to name a few off the top of my head- has given gamers a sort of 'oh, geez, here we go again' attitude towards any new controversy, or anything that even has the whiff of a controversy. They brace themselves any time a videogame is even tangentically connected to something bad in the news. If a kid shoots up a school, after 'that's terrible', one of the first reactions you'll likely get from a gamer is 'please don't let there be an Xbox in his room when the cops show up at his house,' because if there is, they know exactly what's liable to happen next. Whatever game was spinning in his Xbox at the time is at risk of being the next controversy, especially if it was a game with guns in it.
And since the Battlefield 3 ad doesn't really stand out, the reaction is pretty much to dismiss Lisa as one more stupid journalist that has no idea what she's talking about.
Epke of the forum NoobToob, however, made a different point:
EA [the publisher] will be pleased, there is no such thing as bad press, BF3 will sell more because of this.
And what is the biggie? it is not like the airport massacre in [Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2], just war like war is.
That's the other thing about 'controversial' games: controversy sells. People want to see what all the fuss is about. And oh, it can get much, much worse.
How much worse?
In 2007, Sony was promoting God of War 2 at a European release party in Athens, Greece. Fitting, as God of War references (read: kills) a large chunk of Greek mythology. In this release party, Sony went for the theme of an ancient Greek orgy. Attendees were treated to topless women.
Nobody noticed the topless women.
This is because everybody was too busy noticing the decapitated goat. The Daily Mail kicked off the controversy by describing it as such:
At the event, guests competed to see who could eat the most offal - procured elsewhere and intended to resemble the goat's intestines - from its stomach.
They also threw knives at targets and pulled live snakes from a pit with their bare hands.
Topless girls added to the louche atmosphere by dipping grapes into guests' mouths, while a male model portraying Kratos, the game's warrior hero, handed out garlands.
Sony released a statement in response saying that this was irresponsible reporting. Nobody was eating out of the goat, and it was returned to the butcher afterward. Well, that just makes it SO much better.
Everybody got in an uproar over this one, gamers included. Sony's explanation barely even slowed anyone down, with the response being simply 'you're still using a dead goat to promote your game'.
Here's actual footage of the event, so as to get away from he-said-she-said. You'll note in the video that snakes were not pulled out of a pit, but rather a key from a box filled with snakes, and the goat thing consisted of drinking something out of a large pot; Sony claimed it was punch. The knife-throwing, though, seems to have been described accurately.
God of War 2, of course, sold like gangbusters.
The eternal knock on violent games has been that the gamers somehow can't tell games from reality; that they'll put down the game, go about their day, and then mindlessly shoot someone thinking they'll get points for it, or something else of that nature.
Everything described by the Daily Mail, even that which was shown as wrong, is something most gamers would do in a game without thinking twice about it. Killing a goat is nothing. Using an in-game goat as a golf ball is a story you repeat on forums. In real life, though, when a goat gets killed, those same gamers will react like everyone else.
Battlefield 3 shouldn't be any different, for gamers or veterans. At least, that's what I'm hoping.
UPDATE: Lisa took the time to respond...
"Thx Aaron...I JUST returned home from a veterans retreat where men had been dealing with severe ptsd for decades. They told me that any realistic portrayal of war sends them into a panic. When I saw that commercial out of the blue, I couldn't help but think of those guys. I have nothing against the video game itself, but seeing the commercial on TV--and how real it is just startled me."
"Any realistic portrayal of war" is a fair bit more disheartening; as I stated, Battlefield 3's ad isn't that unusual. Ads and trailers for franchises like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, as well as the rest of the Battlefield franchise, aren't going to be any easier on them. Halo, Killzone and Metal Gear would easily count as well if the threshold for 'realistic' is adjusted low enough.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
The Libyan Dilemma
I'm conflicted over our endeavor in Libya for much the same reasons everyone else is. On the one hand, if we didn't go in, the rebel forces would have been crushed, and Gadhafi/Qadaffi/Kadafy... whatever his name is, he's a head of state that the world would certainly be better off without. (We'll go with 'Gadhafi'. As good a choice as any. You'd think we'd have made up our mind after 40 years.) On the other, it is a third military front for a nation stretched threadbare by two, and you can't forget the cost at a time when our national pocketbook is already pretty light. (Not empty. But light.) And of course, we said the same thing about Saddam Hussein, and look what happened.
There are other concerns, though, that I think are merely being overly skeptical; the kind of things that under Bush 43 would have been well-founded concerns, but under Obama are unproven cases of once-bitten-twice-shy. It must be first established that this is the first conflict under Obama that is completely, unambiguously his. Iraq and Afghanistan were inherited over half a decade in, each. Whether he is doing well with the hands dealt him is not the issue at hand; we'll leave that debate alone. All that matters here is that he was dealt those hands, and thus was forced to occupy his time reversing, not reversing, or dealing with the consequences of irreversible actions taken over years upon years, decisions that were not his to make. You can grade him, certainly, but only really in the sense that you can grade the performance of a manager hired in midseason to replace a guy who led his team to last place and no chance at the playoffs. You don't really start judging him until he has a season all to himself.
The most major concern raised that fits this category is how, no matter what the timeline aimed at by the administration, no matter how much the administration says they're only going to provide air support, many just automatically leaped to the conclusion that Obama is lying and that there are going to be ground troops, eventually, and that we'll be in Libya for the next decade. This came about almost immediately upon the planes showing up. Immediately, people assumed a 10-year occupation, virtually on Day One. This seems gun-shy to the point of near-ridiculousness. America is capable of short wars. Relatively recent ones, too. Grenada. Kuwait. Bosnia. Somalia. Not all wars are open-ended meat grinders. We've just forgotten what the short wars look like. This seems to me like a very straightforward thing with a very straightforward goal, no matter how much anyone wishes to pretend there's no endgame: the ouster of Gadhafi and that's it. Unless I see actual boots on the ground, actually see them and not just rumors or speculation of them, or until we stay past the ouster of Gadhafi, I'm not inclined to make the open-ended argument myself. I'm willing to trust, at least for now, that this will be kept as short as possible.
In addition, Jon Stewart and John Oliver of the Daily Show did a skit about 'freedom packages'. Since my non-American readers won't be able to load the clip, I'll give the gist. Three 'packages' were outlined: a 'bronze' package, in which we say 'Oh, how sad' and then don't do anything of substance (Sudan was provided as an example), a 'silver' package in which we utilize diplomatic channels but don't send a military (Egypt was their example), and a 'platinum' package, in which our military does get involved (Libya, of course). So far, so good. But then Oliver claimed that the countries in question don't get to decide which 'package' they get.
Under Bush, and in fact under a lot of Presidents, true enough. Under Obama, though, not so fast. Technically, yes, it's true. Other countries can't decide what we do with our instruments of government.
But they can make requests. And Obama has actually been rather accommodating in granting requests. There have been three high-profile cases thus far- Iran, Egypt and Libya- in which a request has been made of the United States or the West in general. Egypt and Iran's rebels both asked for no outside involvement, both on the grounds that as soon as the West showed up, the rebellion would instantly cease to be about the rebels and instead be about the West, as their respective dictators would instantly seize the chance to paint the rebellion as a Western puppet, stripping the rebellion of any grassroots credibility. It was something that, no matter the odds, they had to do themselves. Both wishes were granted. One turned out well, one turned out badly, but both wishes were granted. (The Daily Show painted Iran as the US being too scared to take them on. Perhaps that is true as well, but that neither agrees or disagrees with this, and so we'll merely acknowledge it and otherwise leave it alone.)
The Libyan rebels, meanwhile, did request our help. They begged, pleaded, groveled for Western assistance, and quickly, lest they be killed. At the eleventh hour, the day before they were predicted to be slaughtered by Gadhafi ('bloodbath' was a popular word), help came. Again, wish granted.
Sudan, for their part, would now like similar intervention and are stunned they didn't get it before Libya did, and in the story, while Sudan is requesting the so-called platinum package, the administration remains seemingly as committed to bronze as every other administration. Fair enough. Wish not granted, and not likely to be granted anytime soon. Point for the Daily Show there.
It must be further established that Obama was in a bad spot from the get-go, Libya-wise. There was no right decision for him to make. His choices, for all intents and purposes, were but two: Either go in, and be denounced as a warmongering flip-flopper who's spending money we don't have, or don't go in, and be denounced as sitting back and doing nothing while brave freedom fighters are mercilessly cut down by a brutal regime, cursing his name as they die. Either way, he was going to get savaged by both sides of the aisle. It's the exact kind of decision that they don't put in the promotional materials when they try and encourage someone to run for the office. It's the decision that makes Presidents age prematurely.
As Obama's actions have borne out thus far, it appears, by my reading, that he would have preferred to see the rebels saved but to have someone else do the heavy lifting so he wouldn't have to. Say, NATO. Could the rebels turn out to be ideologically against us as well? The allied forces appear willing to take that chance.
'Couldn't he have asked Congress for approval beforehand?'
To put it bluntly: no.
Specifically, Obama would have had to go through the House, controlled by the Republicans, who have said up and down that their big goal is to defeat Obama in 2012. Anything they can hang on him, they'll do.
In the last days before the airstrikes began and the no-fly zone enforced, you may recall that the rebels were on the ropes, the media and the Gadhafi government giving them 72, 48, 24 hours before they were massacred. If I'm John Boehner, and I'm thinking only of Obama's defeat, I don't exactly want to make this call either, but I do know that I want whatever Obama's decision is to be wrong. My solution is, if Obama asks for approval, I run out the clock. I drag my feet, let Gadhafi do what Gadhafi will do, render the vote moot so I don't have to make a stand on it, and then hit Obama over the head with 'look at all those dead freedom fighters, why didn't you do something' as if he'd never even asked in the first place, counting on the fact that 'asking Congress' won't count as 'something'. If Obama had asked Congress, it would have ended the same way, and he would have gotten the same amount of credit, as if he'd watched the rebels die on a live feed while munching on a bowl of popcorn. If Obama wanted to help the rebels out, he had to go over the head of Congress.
For all of the many factors and difficult decisions, though, there is one area in which Obama has a distinct advantage.
He has the benefit of the war having front lines.
Front lines were a staple of war for the vast, vast majority of human history: one army on one side, the other on the other side, and most of the fighting happens where the two brush up against each other. As air technology advanced, though, front lines began to vanish, as it became much easier to deposit troops in any part of a warzone, and extract them as well. Battles could be fought in the air, or from the air. A war could be fought throughout a theater, as opposed to in one specific region.
In Libya, though, this is not the case. The theater is something like a football field. Gadhafi's forces are trying to get to an endzone in Benghazi. The rebel forces are trying to get to an endzone in Tripoli. The only way to either end zone is to go straight through the enemy and push them back, as all the key cities in the battle are along the Mediterranean coastline. The first team to reach their respective endzone wins.
This makes things very easy on Obama as far as the actual prosecution of the conflict goes. First, there is no ambiguity as far as being able to tell who's winning and who's losing. Just color-code a map according to who controls what. Not only can you tell at a glance who's winning, you can also tell who's driving downfield. Second, it cuts a huge country down to bite-sized chunks. You know exactly what parts of Libya need support. A child could draw up an air strategy. Just note the front line, point out the first key point west of it, circle it on a map and write 'BOMBS GO HERE'.
In order to make it to Tripoli, though, an upgrade of guns for the rebels is likely necessary. At the moment, while Gadhafi's forces are well-armed, the rebels are scraping by with whatever random assortment of guns they can scrounge up. For them to make the kind of gains they need to make, they may need further reinforcements. But does anyone, most importantly Obama, have the stomach to go down a road of arms deals that has burned America so many times before? Do we even have the stomach to clear the rebels' path for them all the way to Tripoli for as long as it takes for them to get there, even though regime change is the only possible desirable outcome and that goal is the worst-kept secret around?
Be glad you're not the one that has to make these calls.
There are other concerns, though, that I think are merely being overly skeptical; the kind of things that under Bush 43 would have been well-founded concerns, but under Obama are unproven cases of once-bitten-twice-shy. It must be first established that this is the first conflict under Obama that is completely, unambiguously his. Iraq and Afghanistan were inherited over half a decade in, each. Whether he is doing well with the hands dealt him is not the issue at hand; we'll leave that debate alone. All that matters here is that he was dealt those hands, and thus was forced to occupy his time reversing, not reversing, or dealing with the consequences of irreversible actions taken over years upon years, decisions that were not his to make. You can grade him, certainly, but only really in the sense that you can grade the performance of a manager hired in midseason to replace a guy who led his team to last place and no chance at the playoffs. You don't really start judging him until he has a season all to himself.
The most major concern raised that fits this category is how, no matter what the timeline aimed at by the administration, no matter how much the administration says they're only going to provide air support, many just automatically leaped to the conclusion that Obama is lying and that there are going to be ground troops, eventually, and that we'll be in Libya for the next decade. This came about almost immediately upon the planes showing up. Immediately, people assumed a 10-year occupation, virtually on Day One. This seems gun-shy to the point of near-ridiculousness. America is capable of short wars. Relatively recent ones, too. Grenada. Kuwait. Bosnia. Somalia. Not all wars are open-ended meat grinders. We've just forgotten what the short wars look like. This seems to me like a very straightforward thing with a very straightforward goal, no matter how much anyone wishes to pretend there's no endgame: the ouster of Gadhafi and that's it. Unless I see actual boots on the ground, actually see them and not just rumors or speculation of them, or until we stay past the ouster of Gadhafi, I'm not inclined to make the open-ended argument myself. I'm willing to trust, at least for now, that this will be kept as short as possible.
In addition, Jon Stewart and John Oliver of the Daily Show did a skit about 'freedom packages'. Since my non-American readers won't be able to load the clip, I'll give the gist. Three 'packages' were outlined: a 'bronze' package, in which we say 'Oh, how sad' and then don't do anything of substance (Sudan was provided as an example), a 'silver' package in which we utilize diplomatic channels but don't send a military (Egypt was their example), and a 'platinum' package, in which our military does get involved (Libya, of course). So far, so good. But then Oliver claimed that the countries in question don't get to decide which 'package' they get.
Under Bush, and in fact under a lot of Presidents, true enough. Under Obama, though, not so fast. Technically, yes, it's true. Other countries can't decide what we do with our instruments of government.
But they can make requests. And Obama has actually been rather accommodating in granting requests. There have been three high-profile cases thus far- Iran, Egypt and Libya- in which a request has been made of the United States or the West in general. Egypt and Iran's rebels both asked for no outside involvement, both on the grounds that as soon as the West showed up, the rebellion would instantly cease to be about the rebels and instead be about the West, as their respective dictators would instantly seize the chance to paint the rebellion as a Western puppet, stripping the rebellion of any grassroots credibility. It was something that, no matter the odds, they had to do themselves. Both wishes were granted. One turned out well, one turned out badly, but both wishes were granted. (The Daily Show painted Iran as the US being too scared to take them on. Perhaps that is true as well, but that neither agrees or disagrees with this, and so we'll merely acknowledge it and otherwise leave it alone.)
The Libyan rebels, meanwhile, did request our help. They begged, pleaded, groveled for Western assistance, and quickly, lest they be killed. At the eleventh hour, the day before they were predicted to be slaughtered by Gadhafi ('bloodbath' was a popular word), help came. Again, wish granted.
Sudan, for their part, would now like similar intervention and are stunned they didn't get it before Libya did, and in the story, while Sudan is requesting the so-called platinum package, the administration remains seemingly as committed to bronze as every other administration. Fair enough. Wish not granted, and not likely to be granted anytime soon. Point for the Daily Show there.
It must be further established that Obama was in a bad spot from the get-go, Libya-wise. There was no right decision for him to make. His choices, for all intents and purposes, were but two: Either go in, and be denounced as a warmongering flip-flopper who's spending money we don't have, or don't go in, and be denounced as sitting back and doing nothing while brave freedom fighters are mercilessly cut down by a brutal regime, cursing his name as they die. Either way, he was going to get savaged by both sides of the aisle. It's the exact kind of decision that they don't put in the promotional materials when they try and encourage someone to run for the office. It's the decision that makes Presidents age prematurely.
As Obama's actions have borne out thus far, it appears, by my reading, that he would have preferred to see the rebels saved but to have someone else do the heavy lifting so he wouldn't have to. Say, NATO. Could the rebels turn out to be ideologically against us as well? The allied forces appear willing to take that chance.
'Couldn't he have asked Congress for approval beforehand?'
To put it bluntly: no.
Specifically, Obama would have had to go through the House, controlled by the Republicans, who have said up and down that their big goal is to defeat Obama in 2012. Anything they can hang on him, they'll do.
In the last days before the airstrikes began and the no-fly zone enforced, you may recall that the rebels were on the ropes, the media and the Gadhafi government giving them 72, 48, 24 hours before they were massacred. If I'm John Boehner, and I'm thinking only of Obama's defeat, I don't exactly want to make this call either, but I do know that I want whatever Obama's decision is to be wrong. My solution is, if Obama asks for approval, I run out the clock. I drag my feet, let Gadhafi do what Gadhafi will do, render the vote moot so I don't have to make a stand on it, and then hit Obama over the head with 'look at all those dead freedom fighters, why didn't you do something' as if he'd never even asked in the first place, counting on the fact that 'asking Congress' won't count as 'something'. If Obama had asked Congress, it would have ended the same way, and he would have gotten the same amount of credit, as if he'd watched the rebels die on a live feed while munching on a bowl of popcorn. If Obama wanted to help the rebels out, he had to go over the head of Congress.
For all of the many factors and difficult decisions, though, there is one area in which Obama has a distinct advantage.
He has the benefit of the war having front lines.
Front lines were a staple of war for the vast, vast majority of human history: one army on one side, the other on the other side, and most of the fighting happens where the two brush up against each other. As air technology advanced, though, front lines began to vanish, as it became much easier to deposit troops in any part of a warzone, and extract them as well. Battles could be fought in the air, or from the air. A war could be fought throughout a theater, as opposed to in one specific region.
In Libya, though, this is not the case. The theater is something like a football field. Gadhafi's forces are trying to get to an endzone in Benghazi. The rebel forces are trying to get to an endzone in Tripoli. The only way to either end zone is to go straight through the enemy and push them back, as all the key cities in the battle are along the Mediterranean coastline. The first team to reach their respective endzone wins.
This makes things very easy on Obama as far as the actual prosecution of the conflict goes. First, there is no ambiguity as far as being able to tell who's winning and who's losing. Just color-code a map according to who controls what. Not only can you tell at a glance who's winning, you can also tell who's driving downfield. Second, it cuts a huge country down to bite-sized chunks. You know exactly what parts of Libya need support. A child could draw up an air strategy. Just note the front line, point out the first key point west of it, circle it on a map and write 'BOMBS GO HERE'.
In order to make it to Tripoli, though, an upgrade of guns for the rebels is likely necessary. At the moment, while Gadhafi's forces are well-armed, the rebels are scraping by with whatever random assortment of guns they can scrounge up. For them to make the kind of gains they need to make, they may need further reinforcements. But does anyone, most importantly Obama, have the stomach to go down a road of arms deals that has burned America so many times before? Do we even have the stomach to clear the rebels' path for them all the way to Tripoli for as long as it takes for them to get there, even though regime change is the only possible desirable outcome and that goal is the worst-kept secret around?
Be glad you're not the one that has to make these calls.
Friday, November 26, 2010
The Double-Barreled Cannon
Chain shot was introduced to warfare in the 1600's by the French navy. This is two cannonballs or other projectiles connected by something, such as chain. The French used it to rip down the masts of enemy boats, to great effect, such that it became a common feature of naval warfare.
During the American Civil War, John Gilleland of Athens, Georgia tried to being the chain shot to land combat, with the one and only double-barreled cannon. It looked like any other cannon, except, well, double-barreled. It worked by placing a cannonball in each barrel, connected by a length of chain. If you wished to use it like a normal cannon, you could do that too; there were three fuses in back: one for each barrel, and then one for both together.
In April 1862, on Athens' north side, it was ready for a demonstration.
Now, the intent of the double-barreled cannon was to help cut down on the North's manpower advantage over the South. The South knew it had to do that much extra damage to the North, or else they were going to lose a war of attrition. The hope was to fire the cannon, cut a wide path of chaotic destruction, and advance through the havoc that had been wrought.
And to the cannon's credit, that is exactly what it did.
To its detriment, it did it a little too well.
The chain refused to stay connected no matter how many times they tried to fire. The cannonballs would come out, spin around wildly, and at some point the chain would always break, sending the cannonballs in two different directions of doom. One eyewitness of the first firing noted that the shot "plowed up about an acre of ground, tore up a cornfield, mowed down saplings, and [then] the chain broke, the two balls going in different directions." Another firing saw the chain break immediately, with one ball taking out the chimney of a nearby cabin, and the other turning a cow into hamburger. Some reports- unverified- claim there to be a handful of human deaths; in any case, the spectators all headed for the hills.
Well, Gilleland was happy with it. He sent it to the Confederate government in Richmond, Virginia, who sent it back, begging to differ.
It didn't remain totally out of combat, though. It saw a bit of airplay. After the failure as a weapon, it was moved to the Athens town hall as a signaling device. It got to signal in August 1864, late in the war. It, according to one account, was moved a few miles north of town, loaded with canisters, and fired sans chain.
This time, it had the proper effect. It turned out that if you took the chain out of the equation, the cannon fired just fine. Too late to save the gun's legacy, but good enough to win the day. The Northern troops saw what was getting fired and ran for their lives. After all, those crazy Confederates have a freaking double-barreled cannon.
Who knows what that thing's capable of?!
At least, that's one account. Other accounts disagree, saying that no canisters were fired, or that it was some other, normal cannon that did it and this story was just concocted to save the gun's reputation. In any case, the North did come into Athens in 1865, and disabled the damn thing just in case. It currently sits back at Athens town hall, used occasionally for ceremonial purposes.
Still pointing north.
During the American Civil War, John Gilleland of Athens, Georgia tried to being the chain shot to land combat, with the one and only double-barreled cannon. It looked like any other cannon, except, well, double-barreled. It worked by placing a cannonball in each barrel, connected by a length of chain. If you wished to use it like a normal cannon, you could do that too; there were three fuses in back: one for each barrel, and then one for both together.
In April 1862, on Athens' north side, it was ready for a demonstration.
Now, the intent of the double-barreled cannon was to help cut down on the North's manpower advantage over the South. The South knew it had to do that much extra damage to the North, or else they were going to lose a war of attrition. The hope was to fire the cannon, cut a wide path of chaotic destruction, and advance through the havoc that had been wrought.
And to the cannon's credit, that is exactly what it did.
To its detriment, it did it a little too well.
The chain refused to stay connected no matter how many times they tried to fire. The cannonballs would come out, spin around wildly, and at some point the chain would always break, sending the cannonballs in two different directions of doom. One eyewitness of the first firing noted that the shot "plowed up about an acre of ground, tore up a cornfield, mowed down saplings, and [then] the chain broke, the two balls going in different directions." Another firing saw the chain break immediately, with one ball taking out the chimney of a nearby cabin, and the other turning a cow into hamburger. Some reports- unverified- claim there to be a handful of human deaths; in any case, the spectators all headed for the hills.
Well, Gilleland was happy with it. He sent it to the Confederate government in Richmond, Virginia, who sent it back, begging to differ.
It didn't remain totally out of combat, though. It saw a bit of airplay. After the failure as a weapon, it was moved to the Athens town hall as a signaling device. It got to signal in August 1864, late in the war. It, according to one account, was moved a few miles north of town, loaded with canisters, and fired sans chain.
This time, it had the proper effect. It turned out that if you took the chain out of the equation, the cannon fired just fine. Too late to save the gun's legacy, but good enough to win the day. The Northern troops saw what was getting fired and ran for their lives. After all, those crazy Confederates have a freaking double-barreled cannon.
Who knows what that thing's capable of?!
At least, that's one account. Other accounts disagree, saying that no canisters were fired, or that it was some other, normal cannon that did it and this story was just concocted to save the gun's reputation. In any case, the North did come into Athens in 1865, and disabled the damn thing just in case. It currently sits back at Athens town hall, used occasionally for ceremonial purposes.
Still pointing north.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars
Here's an interesting piece I stumbled across, entitled 'Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars'. The topic should be pretty obvious.
Small nations have a better record in wars against big nations than you'd think. A 2007 study, done by Patricia Sullivan for UC-Davis, caluclated all conflicts since World War 2 in which one of the United Nations 'Big 5'- the US, UK, France, China or Russia- fought someone else. This worked out to 127 conflicts, 34 of which involved the United States. A conflict was defined as anything involving at least 500 battle-ready troops. A win was recorded when the nation could leave and see the situation hold for at least one year. A loss was recorded when the cost of maintaining a conflict became too high to successfully impose its will, and the big nation walked away. Ties appear to have not been tolerated.
The Big 5, given those criteria, had a win rate of only 61%; with the Americans sporting a 24-10 record. (You may note that I use the term 'nation' for the designated underdogs. Sullivan found it really doesn't matter much whether the underdog is an actual nation, such as Iraq, or a nonstate actor, such as al Qaeda.)
The reason, it is argued, is that the underdogs go in knowing full well that if they play by generally-accepted rules, they are going to not only lose, but get their butts kicked. The obvious solution is to NOT play by the rules. Because, you know, they'd like to live and stuff. The bigger nation, playing by the rules, starts noticing that it's not experiencing the quick, easy victory that will pay for itself that they promised the folks back home (and oh, does that promise get thrown around). They start realizing they have to stop playing by the rules too if they want to win. The war quickly degenerates into a miserable farce.
The piece uses a soccer match between Barcelona FC and a random college team to make its point. Straight-up, Barcelona would win. The college team, knowing this, would extend the playing field into the bleachers, change the ball being used at will, bring in fans (some not wearing uniforms) onto the field, and if they were still losing by the end of the game, simply declare the game to not be over. Barcelona would start to have to pull like-minded stunts, such as calling in their youth team or going after fans who may or may not be playing because, hey, they might be. The game would only end when one team got sick of it all and left the field.
The wars tend to be lost when the cost of the war starts to exceed a value that was expected at the start of the conflict. So if you promise a quick, easy victory, it damn well better be a quick, easy victory or the war's going to get really old really fast.
Iraq was not scored- presumably; the window I had containing her piece crashed before I could see for sure- but Sullivan only gave it a win probability in the 20's.
Sullivan's full piece, mentioned earlier, is viewable in full here. The full list of conflicts is available, but, maddeningly, Sullivan failed to state which conflicts she scored as wins and which she scored as losses. I'll at least give you the US schedule, with start/end dates, opponent and location:
1948-49, vs. communist guerilla movement in Greece
1950, vs. North Korea in South Korea
1950-53, vs. North Korea/China in North Korea
1954-55, vs. China in Taiwan
1958, vs. Syria/leftist insurgents in Lebanon
1958, vs. China in Taiwan
1961, vs. new Trajillista regime in Dominican Republic
1961-62, vs. new Trajillista regime in Dominican Republic
1962-73, vs. North Vietnam/Vietcong in Vietnam
1962, Pathet Lao/North Vietnam/China in Thailand
1964-73, vs. North Vietnam/Vietcong/Pathet Lao in Laos
1965-66, vs. leftist Constitutionalists in Dominican Republic
1970-73, vs. Khmer Rouge in Cambodia
1970, vs. Palestinian fedayeen/Syria in Turkey
1983-84, vs. Amal-Draze regime in Lebanon
1983, vs. new Jewel/PRG regime in Grenada
1986, vs. Qaddafi regime in Libya
1988, vs. Nicaraguan Sandanistas in Honduras
1989, vs. Panamanian government in Panama
1989-90, vs. Noriega regime in Panama
1990-91, vs. Iraqi Hussein regime in Saudi Arabia
1991, vs. Iraqi government in Kuwait
1991-03, vs. Iraqi government in Iraq
1992-03, vs. Iraqi government in Iraq
1992-93, vs. warring clans in Somalia
1993, vs. Somali National Alliance in Somalia
1994-95, vs. Cedras regime in Haiti
1994, vs. Iraqi Hussein regime in Kuwait
1995, vs. Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia
1996, vs. China in Taiwan
1996-03, vs. Iraqi Hussein regime in Kuwait
1998, vs. Iraq in Iraq
1999, vs. Yugoslavia in Yugosalvia
2001-02, vs. Taliban regime in Afghanistan
Small nations have a better record in wars against big nations than you'd think. A 2007 study, done by Patricia Sullivan for UC-Davis, caluclated all conflicts since World War 2 in which one of the United Nations 'Big 5'- the US, UK, France, China or Russia- fought someone else. This worked out to 127 conflicts, 34 of which involved the United States. A conflict was defined as anything involving at least 500 battle-ready troops. A win was recorded when the nation could leave and see the situation hold for at least one year. A loss was recorded when the cost of maintaining a conflict became too high to successfully impose its will, and the big nation walked away. Ties appear to have not been tolerated.
The Big 5, given those criteria, had a win rate of only 61%; with the Americans sporting a 24-10 record. (You may note that I use the term 'nation' for the designated underdogs. Sullivan found it really doesn't matter much whether the underdog is an actual nation, such as Iraq, or a nonstate actor, such as al Qaeda.)
The reason, it is argued, is that the underdogs go in knowing full well that if they play by generally-accepted rules, they are going to not only lose, but get their butts kicked. The obvious solution is to NOT play by the rules. Because, you know, they'd like to live and stuff. The bigger nation, playing by the rules, starts noticing that it's not experiencing the quick, easy victory that will pay for itself that they promised the folks back home (and oh, does that promise get thrown around). They start realizing they have to stop playing by the rules too if they want to win. The war quickly degenerates into a miserable farce.
The piece uses a soccer match between Barcelona FC and a random college team to make its point. Straight-up, Barcelona would win. The college team, knowing this, would extend the playing field into the bleachers, change the ball being used at will, bring in fans (some not wearing uniforms) onto the field, and if they were still losing by the end of the game, simply declare the game to not be over. Barcelona would start to have to pull like-minded stunts, such as calling in their youth team or going after fans who may or may not be playing because, hey, they might be. The game would only end when one team got sick of it all and left the field.
The wars tend to be lost when the cost of the war starts to exceed a value that was expected at the start of the conflict. So if you promise a quick, easy victory, it damn well better be a quick, easy victory or the war's going to get really old really fast.
Iraq was not scored- presumably; the window I had containing her piece crashed before I could see for sure- but Sullivan only gave it a win probability in the 20's.
Sullivan's full piece, mentioned earlier, is viewable in full here. The full list of conflicts is available, but, maddeningly, Sullivan failed to state which conflicts she scored as wins and which she scored as losses. I'll at least give you the US schedule, with start/end dates, opponent and location:
1948-49, vs. communist guerilla movement in Greece
1950, vs. North Korea in South Korea
1950-53, vs. North Korea/China in North Korea
1954-55, vs. China in Taiwan
1958, vs. Syria/leftist insurgents in Lebanon
1958, vs. China in Taiwan
1961, vs. new Trajillista regime in Dominican Republic
1961-62, vs. new Trajillista regime in Dominican Republic
1962-73, vs. North Vietnam/Vietcong in Vietnam
1962, Pathet Lao/North Vietnam/China in Thailand
1964-73, vs. North Vietnam/Vietcong/Pathet Lao in Laos
1965-66, vs. leftist Constitutionalists in Dominican Republic
1970-73, vs. Khmer Rouge in Cambodia
1970, vs. Palestinian fedayeen/Syria in Turkey
1983-84, vs. Amal-Draze regime in Lebanon
1983, vs. new Jewel/PRG regime in Grenada
1986, vs. Qaddafi regime in Libya
1988, vs. Nicaraguan Sandanistas in Honduras
1989, vs. Panamanian government in Panama
1989-90, vs. Noriega regime in Panama
1990-91, vs. Iraqi Hussein regime in Saudi Arabia
1991, vs. Iraqi government in Kuwait
1991-03, vs. Iraqi government in Iraq
1992-03, vs. Iraqi government in Iraq
1992-93, vs. warring clans in Somalia
1993, vs. Somali National Alliance in Somalia
1994-95, vs. Cedras regime in Haiti
1994, vs. Iraqi Hussein regime in Kuwait
1995, vs. Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia
1996, vs. China in Taiwan
1996-03, vs. Iraqi Hussein regime in Kuwait
1998, vs. Iraq in Iraq
1999, vs. Yugoslavia in Yugosalvia
2001-02, vs. Taliban regime in Afghanistan
Saturday, August 14, 2010
History's Last Cavalry Charge
The cavalry charge isn't used anymore in wars. It's been a crucial part of many of them, but, well, weapons of war don't get retired because they win too much.
Quite the opposite. On November 17, 1941, Mongolia became the last country to send a cavalry into battle, deploying the 44th Mongolian Cavalry Division, near Musino.
Musino is in Russia, near Moscow, and in November 1941, Moscow was being contested by the Germans and Soviets. Mongolia, having just arrived from Tashkent, fought on the Russian side, going up against the German 106th Infantry Division in an open field. An open, snowy field.
The Germans couldn't believe it. One German soldier noted, "We could not believe that the enemy intended to attack us across this broad field, which lay open like a parade ground before us."
Well, they did. Fine then, if that's the way you want it, Mongolia. The Germans readied their machine guns and artillery, quickly got their shooting eyes in, and within ten minutes 2,000 horses- and their riders- were absolutely shredded. The horses were thrown into absolute chaos, the riders that weren't shot straight away were dumped unceremoniously onto the ground, where they were picked off just like everyone else.
Then the cavalry- what was left of it- regrouped and did it again. Same result. Horsies go blooey.
No Germans were harmed in the making of this glue.
Quite the opposite. On November 17, 1941, Mongolia became the last country to send a cavalry into battle, deploying the 44th Mongolian Cavalry Division, near Musino.
Musino is in Russia, near Moscow, and in November 1941, Moscow was being contested by the Germans and Soviets. Mongolia, having just arrived from Tashkent, fought on the Russian side, going up against the German 106th Infantry Division in an open field. An open, snowy field.
The Germans couldn't believe it. One German soldier noted, "We could not believe that the enemy intended to attack us across this broad field, which lay open like a parade ground before us."
Well, they did. Fine then, if that's the way you want it, Mongolia. The Germans readied their machine guns and artillery, quickly got their shooting eyes in, and within ten minutes 2,000 horses- and their riders- were absolutely shredded. The horses were thrown into absolute chaos, the riders that weren't shot straight away were dumped unceremoniously onto the ground, where they were picked off just like everyone else.
Then the cavalry- what was left of it- regrouped and did it again. Same result. Horsies go blooey.
No Germans were harmed in the making of this glue.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
The Most Decisive Battle Of All Time
Across history, there have been lots of wars that have decided lots of world history. If nothing ever got accomplished through war, or if people didn't at least think it was going to accomplish anything, it wouldn't be such a big part of history.
And in those wars, there are battles that make up that war. Those often get things done as well. Kursk burned up so many German resources that from then on they were doomed to lose World War 2. Waterloo was the effective end of Napoleon. The Tet Offensive turned Walter Cronkite against the Vietnam War, and American public opinion went with him, and Lyndon Johnson knew it.
But none of them had the this-one's-for-all-the-marbles stakes of the Battle of Gaugamela, on October 1, 331 BC. Gaugamela was a little burg existing at the time; the battle is also sometimes called the Battle of Arbela for the city, the capital of Kurdistan, currently standing 60 miles east of the battle. One might actually be better off pegging it as about 15-20 miles north of Mosul.
The stakes? Nothing much, just the fate of Western and Eastern culture throughout the world from then on.
For the west, Alexander the Great of Macedonia and you've probably already figured out who's getting the W.
For the east, Darius III of Persia.
Alexander was looking for vengeance on Persia for their earlier having tormented Greece from 499-448 BC, and having killed Alexander's father, and by the time he got to Gaugamela, he'd already done more than his share of conquering. Darius was on his heels, just hoping to fend Alexander off. In an earlier battle at Issus (in southern Turkey, near the Syrian border), he'd lost but managed to slip away, and even though Alexander captured Darius' family at Issus, he wanted Darius himself.
Darius came into the battle with more troops than Alexander- Alexander had about 47,000, while Darius had anywhere from 53,000-92,000- but it's not like that mattered, as Alexander was vastly shorthanded at Issus and smacked Darius around there too. Darius knew exactly what Alexander was capable of doing to him, even shorthanded, and it utterly psyched him out. Especially since Alexander had spent the two years since Issus carving his way from south-central Turkey to north-central Iraq, by way of Gaza, and snapping up anything that happened to be in the way, a time during which Darius had tried to buy Alexander off with anything and everything- land, money, his daughter's hand. Maybe he could at least get his family back.
As far as Alexander was concerned, the whole of Asia was already his anyway, and if he wanted to marry Darius' daughter, he could just up and do it whether Darius liked it or not.
Darius had guessed that Alexander was going to cross the Tigris River at Mosul, set up a sentry there to intercept him after what was to be a tough river crossing, and housed the main army in Arbela.
Alexander did not cross at Mosul. He didn't want to deal with fording a fast-moving river and then fighting right afterward. He headed further north. Now Darius was forced to scramble, and semi-arbitrarily picked Gaugamela as a substitute battle site.
Bad move. (There probably wasn't a good move, but still.) He'd chosen a place where he was on a plain, and the Macedonians would be up in the hills where they could easily make out the Persian layout beforehand. When Alexander showed up, he chose to rest up for the night, do some recon, and fight in the morning.
Darius called for an all-night guard, just in case. Alexander was in his head and now his army would be pulling an all-nighter to prepare for a fresh Macedonian army to boot. Alexander was pulling an all-nighter too, but he was busy working out how he wanted to do this.
Assume a map divided into squares:
PERSIAN SIDE
123
456
MACEDONIAN SIDE
When they met, Darius was in Square 2 guarded by infantry, with Alexander in Square 5 and his second-in-command Parmenion over on Square 4. The Persians were in three lines, with the Macedonians winged back on both flanks so as to draw the Persian fire. After feeling each other out, Darius chose to concentrate on Square 4 and Parmenion's men. Alexander, originally in Square 5, headed over to 6 and took the Persians that sat in Square 3. The point was to draw as many Persians as possible off of Square 2, leaving as little defense as possible around Darius himself.
First out of the proceedings were the Persian chariots, who ran into the Macedonian lances. The first line of lances stepped aside. The elephants running the chariots ran into the gap and then stopped, not wanting to run into the lances deeper in. The first line closed the circle. No more worrying about chariots. The javelin-throwers had a field day.
Once enough strength had been siphoned out of the Square 2 defense, the Macedonians- who had been forming a giant wedge with the point poking through the top of Square 5- pressed through, with Alexander behind the point. The Persians were split in two. Darius ran like hell.
Alexander surely would have taken off in pursuit, but around that time he heard that Parmenion was in trouble back at Square 4, and he chose to help him out instead. A few Persians saw a gap in the Macedonian line and ran through it, but there wasn't much to be done with it except loot from the Macedonian camp, which wouldn't even make up for the looting Alexander would be doing as part of the spoils of victory (and was unsuccessful anyway, as the back-line Macedonians easily drove them back.)
And it was a victory. It's estimated that by the end, the Macedonians had lost about 500 men, compared with at least 40,000 Persians. The Persians were all over the place, with Alexander's bodyguards taking up the pursuit of Darius, soon joined by Alexander after he had bailed out Permenion. Among Darius' remaining forces was Bessus, a nobleman and relative. A relative who would kill Darius himself, taking the Persian throne. Or what was left of it. Most historians, while conceding that he would be the next-in-line, don't consider him a king of Persia.
What Persia?
And in those wars, there are battles that make up that war. Those often get things done as well. Kursk burned up so many German resources that from then on they were doomed to lose World War 2. Waterloo was the effective end of Napoleon. The Tet Offensive turned Walter Cronkite against the Vietnam War, and American public opinion went with him, and Lyndon Johnson knew it.
But none of them had the this-one's-for-all-the-marbles stakes of the Battle of Gaugamela, on October 1, 331 BC. Gaugamela was a little burg existing at the time; the battle is also sometimes called the Battle of Arbela for the city, the capital of Kurdistan, currently standing 60 miles east of the battle. One might actually be better off pegging it as about 15-20 miles north of Mosul.
The stakes? Nothing much, just the fate of Western and Eastern culture throughout the world from then on.
For the west, Alexander the Great of Macedonia and you've probably already figured out who's getting the W.
For the east, Darius III of Persia.
Alexander was looking for vengeance on Persia for their earlier having tormented Greece from 499-448 BC, and having killed Alexander's father, and by the time he got to Gaugamela, he'd already done more than his share of conquering. Darius was on his heels, just hoping to fend Alexander off. In an earlier battle at Issus (in southern Turkey, near the Syrian border), he'd lost but managed to slip away, and even though Alexander captured Darius' family at Issus, he wanted Darius himself.
Darius came into the battle with more troops than Alexander- Alexander had about 47,000, while Darius had anywhere from 53,000-92,000- but it's not like that mattered, as Alexander was vastly shorthanded at Issus and smacked Darius around there too. Darius knew exactly what Alexander was capable of doing to him, even shorthanded, and it utterly psyched him out. Especially since Alexander had spent the two years since Issus carving his way from south-central Turkey to north-central Iraq, by way of Gaza, and snapping up anything that happened to be in the way, a time during which Darius had tried to buy Alexander off with anything and everything- land, money, his daughter's hand. Maybe he could at least get his family back.
As far as Alexander was concerned, the whole of Asia was already his anyway, and if he wanted to marry Darius' daughter, he could just up and do it whether Darius liked it or not.
Darius had guessed that Alexander was going to cross the Tigris River at Mosul, set up a sentry there to intercept him after what was to be a tough river crossing, and housed the main army in Arbela.
Alexander did not cross at Mosul. He didn't want to deal with fording a fast-moving river and then fighting right afterward. He headed further north. Now Darius was forced to scramble, and semi-arbitrarily picked Gaugamela as a substitute battle site.
Bad move. (There probably wasn't a good move, but still.) He'd chosen a place where he was on a plain, and the Macedonians would be up in the hills where they could easily make out the Persian layout beforehand. When Alexander showed up, he chose to rest up for the night, do some recon, and fight in the morning.
Darius called for an all-night guard, just in case. Alexander was in his head and now his army would be pulling an all-nighter to prepare for a fresh Macedonian army to boot. Alexander was pulling an all-nighter too, but he was busy working out how he wanted to do this.
Assume a map divided into squares:
PERSIAN SIDE
123
456
MACEDONIAN SIDE
When they met, Darius was in Square 2 guarded by infantry, with Alexander in Square 5 and his second-in-command Parmenion over on Square 4. The Persians were in three lines, with the Macedonians winged back on both flanks so as to draw the Persian fire. After feeling each other out, Darius chose to concentrate on Square 4 and Parmenion's men. Alexander, originally in Square 5, headed over to 6 and took the Persians that sat in Square 3. The point was to draw as many Persians as possible off of Square 2, leaving as little defense as possible around Darius himself.
First out of the proceedings were the Persian chariots, who ran into the Macedonian lances. The first line of lances stepped aside. The elephants running the chariots ran into the gap and then stopped, not wanting to run into the lances deeper in. The first line closed the circle. No more worrying about chariots. The javelin-throwers had a field day.
Once enough strength had been siphoned out of the Square 2 defense, the Macedonians- who had been forming a giant wedge with the point poking through the top of Square 5- pressed through, with Alexander behind the point. The Persians were split in two. Darius ran like hell.
Alexander surely would have taken off in pursuit, but around that time he heard that Parmenion was in trouble back at Square 4, and he chose to help him out instead. A few Persians saw a gap in the Macedonian line and ran through it, but there wasn't much to be done with it except loot from the Macedonian camp, which wouldn't even make up for the looting Alexander would be doing as part of the spoils of victory (and was unsuccessful anyway, as the back-line Macedonians easily drove them back.)
And it was a victory. It's estimated that by the end, the Macedonians had lost about 500 men, compared with at least 40,000 Persians. The Persians were all over the place, with Alexander's bodyguards taking up the pursuit of Darius, soon joined by Alexander after he had bailed out Permenion. Among Darius' remaining forces was Bessus, a nobleman and relative. A relative who would kill Darius himself, taking the Persian throne. Or what was left of it. Most historians, while conceding that he would be the next-in-line, don't consider him a king of Persia.
What Persia?
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Dangerously Short Tempers
As you may be aware, North and South Korea are getting progressively angrier with each other over the sinking of a South Korean ship by a North Korean torpedo. The two have cut all ties, and North Korea nullified any agreement meant to prevent further escalation.
Will this end in war? I'd give it about a 10% chance. North and South Korea have rising and falling tensions over the years- North Korea does something that angers everyone, they see how far they can push the envelope, and right before everyone gets angry enough to do something nasty to them, they back off and wait for everyone to calm down before the next episode. This episode, however, has a different air to it; unlike most things North Korea has done, this particular act- the deaths of a South Korean ship by North Korean weaponry- is an indisputable act of war and is being treated as such. If anything is going to lead to war, it seems like this would do it.
The mitigating factor, though, is that just about everybody knows basically how such a war would play out, and nobody would be happy with the result or else it probably would have happened decades ago: the second hostilities commence, North Korea fires every bit of artillery they've got directly at whatever has the most people in range, with Seoul tops on the hit list. While most of the artillery could not reach Seoul, and not all of Seoul could get hit by the artillery pieces, it would be squarely in the range of the second phase: the North Korean army swarming across the border. The deaths could easily reach into the millions. After that, though, the gross disparity in technology would take over, and North Korea would be driven back without much additional trouble by just about everybody in the Western world. The only reason North Korea wasn't smashed in the Korean War was because Douglas MacArthur pushed too far, across the Yalu River, and got China involved. It's been 50 years since then, and while South Korea and the Western allies have dramatically upgraded their weaponry, North Korea is using some of the exact same weapons they used last time.
China, meanwhile, would be too busy dealing with the swarms of refugees they've been propping up North Korea for the sole purpose of avoiding. They wouldn't be interested in bailing out North Korea again.
North Korea would this time be smashed, but at a terrible cost, and afterwards there would be a massive catch-up operation by whoever wound up looking after North Korea to bring them somewhat in line with the rest of the world, something nobody is overly thrilled about having to pay for.
In any case, over at Penny Arcade, a discussion has taken place over whether the ship-sinking that caused all this anger is, or ought to be, enough to justify all that.
Whether it is is really up to you. What I can say is that wars have been started over less. Much, much less...
*In 1925, a dog belonging to a Greek soldier scurried across the border with Bulgaria. When the soldier ran after it, he was shot by a Bulgarian border guard. The League of Nations calmed Greece down, but not before over 50 people, mainly Bulgarian civilians, had been killed in response.
*In 1896, the British Royal Navy was in Zanzibar, and stopped in to watch a cricket match. The sultan of Zanzibar, however, had not been informed that the Brits were stopping by, and he was a tad paranoid as he had (illegally) claimed power the previous day. So Zanzibar declared war on Britain. 38 minutes later, the sultan's palace was a pile of rubble, his one-ship navy was on the sea floor, and he was fleeing to German East Africa (modern-day Tanzania/Burundi/Rwanda). It is the current world-record holder for shortest war. The cricket match never took place.
*When Louis VII of France returned from the Second Crusade, he had grown a beard. At the time, according to Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, long hair was considered unholy by no less than Pope Urban II, to the point where the unshaven would be excommunicated. Louis shaved. His wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, wanted the beard back. Louis said no. Eleanor got an annulment and married Henry II of England instead. Henry then told Louis to surrender Aquitaine to England, since according to him it should have gone to England with Eleanor. Louis said no. Cue Anglo-Franco hostilities for the next 301 years, going from 1152-1453.
Hopefully, the Koreas will be a bit more level-headed than that.
Will this end in war? I'd give it about a 10% chance. North and South Korea have rising and falling tensions over the years- North Korea does something that angers everyone, they see how far they can push the envelope, and right before everyone gets angry enough to do something nasty to them, they back off and wait for everyone to calm down before the next episode. This episode, however, has a different air to it; unlike most things North Korea has done, this particular act- the deaths of a South Korean ship by North Korean weaponry- is an indisputable act of war and is being treated as such. If anything is going to lead to war, it seems like this would do it.
The mitigating factor, though, is that just about everybody knows basically how such a war would play out, and nobody would be happy with the result or else it probably would have happened decades ago: the second hostilities commence, North Korea fires every bit of artillery they've got directly at whatever has the most people in range, with Seoul tops on the hit list. While most of the artillery could not reach Seoul, and not all of Seoul could get hit by the artillery pieces, it would be squarely in the range of the second phase: the North Korean army swarming across the border. The deaths could easily reach into the millions. After that, though, the gross disparity in technology would take over, and North Korea would be driven back without much additional trouble by just about everybody in the Western world. The only reason North Korea wasn't smashed in the Korean War was because Douglas MacArthur pushed too far, across the Yalu River, and got China involved. It's been 50 years since then, and while South Korea and the Western allies have dramatically upgraded their weaponry, North Korea is using some of the exact same weapons they used last time.
China, meanwhile, would be too busy dealing with the swarms of refugees they've been propping up North Korea for the sole purpose of avoiding. They wouldn't be interested in bailing out North Korea again.
North Korea would this time be smashed, but at a terrible cost, and afterwards there would be a massive catch-up operation by whoever wound up looking after North Korea to bring them somewhat in line with the rest of the world, something nobody is overly thrilled about having to pay for.
In any case, over at Penny Arcade, a discussion has taken place over whether the ship-sinking that caused all this anger is, or ought to be, enough to justify all that.
Whether it is is really up to you. What I can say is that wars have been started over less. Much, much less...
*In 1925, a dog belonging to a Greek soldier scurried across the border with Bulgaria. When the soldier ran after it, he was shot by a Bulgarian border guard. The League of Nations calmed Greece down, but not before over 50 people, mainly Bulgarian civilians, had been killed in response.
*In 1896, the British Royal Navy was in Zanzibar, and stopped in to watch a cricket match. The sultan of Zanzibar, however, had not been informed that the Brits were stopping by, and he was a tad paranoid as he had (illegally) claimed power the previous day. So Zanzibar declared war on Britain. 38 minutes later, the sultan's palace was a pile of rubble, his one-ship navy was on the sea floor, and he was fleeing to German East Africa (modern-day Tanzania/Burundi/Rwanda). It is the current world-record holder for shortest war. The cricket match never took place.
*When Louis VII of France returned from the Second Crusade, he had grown a beard. At the time, according to Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, long hair was considered unholy by no less than Pope Urban II, to the point where the unshaven would be excommunicated. Louis shaved. His wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, wanted the beard back. Louis said no. Eleanor got an annulment and married Henry II of England instead. Henry then told Louis to surrender Aquitaine to England, since according to him it should have gone to England with Eleanor. Louis said no. Cue Anglo-Franco hostilities for the next 301 years, going from 1152-1453.
Hopefully, the Koreas will be a bit more level-headed than that.
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