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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26079 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 4, 2025

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Many people did not think this argument was fine in 1776. The patriot militias were very much understood to be out-gunned and under-equipped. Pragmatic loyalists argued in the continental congress that the colonists lacked artillery, a navy, a cavalry, etc. To say nothing of the divergent quality of firearms: many observers noted that the rusty muskets pulled down from over minutemen's fireplaces were no match for the cleaned and oiled Land Pattern Muskets of the redcoats. This argument has been made against every guerilla army, and while guerilla warfare isn't a win-now button, it has been proven effective.

The advantage in weaponry back in 1776 is like two different sized water bottles, the advantage in weaponry now is a water bottle vs a giant lake. Guerilla armies thrive nowadays for a number of reasons, but a lot of it is that the big armies don't go all out.

The stark difference between say, the US during WW2 vs the US during the Iraq War suggests we have a lot of extra capacity we could throw at any issue if we wanted to. We just don't really want to, Americans don't want to feel actual meaningful sacrifices from the nonsense going on in the Middle East, so we throw a fraction of overall power at it. Israel doesn't want to (or at least are held back from) just rounding up all the Palestinians and shooting/bombing/etc. Hamas only operates by hiding in civilian cover and even then they still don't inflict much meaningful damage back. Their fight for survival is us scratching an itch on our backs.

Even when wars are more equal, it's often because they have the support of other great powers. Look at Russia vs Ukraine rn, they're both getting equipment (and sometimes even troops) from various different sources, and according to Trump Russia still seems to be facing a 14:1 ratio against Ukraine. and this is Russia

Ukraine is getting a pittance of western firepower compared to what we could do (we're not even at Iraq levels of sacrifice) if we really wanted to go all out and they're holding on strong against the Russians.

I'm sure a bunch of rogue American militias could go around shooting up theaters or something and terrorizing government siding citizens, but as long as the military stays loyal they don't got a chance if we actually wanna go all out.

The better hope here is that the military is made up of normal Americans, many who will side with the citizens if it ever got to the point where most Americans wanted an uprising to begin with.

All the high tech weaponry in the world doesn't matter for counterinsurgency purposes. Modern combined arms warfare is optimized for defeating peer and near peer adversaries in a stand up fight, not for blowing up a bunch of goat fuckers with rifles. If the enemy doesn't have anti-tank missiles or tanks, a multi-million dollar main battle tank is no more combat effective than a pickup with armor plates welded on and a cannon in the back. If the enemy doesn't have radar, your multi-billion dollar supersonic stealth strike fighter is no better than a crop duster with bombs strapped on it. Of course having armor and air support at all is super important, but the overmatch eventually doesn't provide any additional value.

During WW2, China lost nearly all its modern equipment and trained forces in the early days of the war, leaving them to fight the remainder of the war with only obsolete or crudely made small arms, against an enemy with machine guns, trucks, tanks, artillery, and air support. An enemy that was also willing to go gloves off and genocide the as many Chinese as necessary to win. Yet even with collapsing state capacity and morale against an overwhelming enemy, the Chinese still managed to stubbornly cling on to territory and inflict serious losses to the enemy, while only taking 3:1 casualties in direct confrontation. Actual gorilla warfare which does not even attempt to meet the enemy's attach head on would achieve a much more favorable kill ratio.

In the end a lake is more powerful than a water bottle, but a bucket will do the job just as well. Yet insurgencies have succeeded in the past even against determined and far more powerful opponents.

During WW2, China lost nearly all its modern equipment and trained forces in the early days of the war, leaving them to fight the remainder of the war with only obsolete or crudely made small arms, against an enemy with machine guns, trucks, tanks, artillery, and air support.

The Allies (primarily the US) provided a total of something like 650,000 tons of materiel to China via The Hump, at the cost of nearly 600 aircraft and around 1700 crew lost. There were also notable Allied air units (and some ground units) in China during the war.

Which isn't to diminish their accomplishment, but it wasn't completely a solo effort.

The origin of the meme "Never get involved in a land war in Asia" is that various WW2-era generals (of whom Montgomery was the first to go on the record in 1962) thought that Allied assistance to China in WW2 had been a mistake - presumably because Chiang and Mao preferred to use the aid to fight each other and not the Japanese.

Actual gorilla warfare

I do love autocorrect sometimes.

oh no, I've gone to great lengths to make sure I always turn autocorrect off.

In that case I have no choice but to concede. Actual gorilla warfare would have the Japs on the run.

Wait forget everything else: do those casualty numbers in Ukraine have any credibility or is this a map sharpie moment?

It's not really possible to know too well, Trump just shits out words and claims at random. But decent chance it's real and he just said it was because he was briefed quite recently. Would also explain the pivot on Russia if he thought they were losers for such a drastic ratio.

But even if he was making it up and it was lower, even half with 7:1 ratio would still be fantastic.

I'm more interested in the raw numbers of dead Russians, plus the severe life-ruining casualties on top of that. Maybe it's been a very bad year so far, but I haven't gotten that impression, across the course of the war that's gonna be something like half a million dead so far out of about 30 million Russian men between 14-45?

Ukraine is probably in even worse shape, though it says something if Trump is repeating pro Ukraine fake news these days.

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