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THE Terror / Terrorism Thread pt 4 (merged)

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General interest discussions, not necessarily related to depletion.
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War on Terrorism

Postby Tikib » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 06:58:55

Given the high energy intensity of the so called 'war on terror' ?

How much American life-time do you think has been lost because of the never ending 'war'?
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Re: War on Terrorism

Postby Paulo1 » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 11:52:20

I have always winced at those WW2 scenes of subs shooting up tanker convoys. Same crap. War is such a goddamn waste of everything, isn't it? Will we ever learn?
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Re: War on Terrorism

Postby Lore » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 12:02:05

How does one have a war on a tactic? It's like saying during WWII that we should have had a war against blitzkrieg.

The many faces of terror has to be fought against the people that have practiced it. You can't end the tactic unless you end the violence committed by the perpetrators. The tactic itself will never end.
The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.
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Re: War on Terrorism

Postby dorlomin » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 12:58:33

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tikib', 'G')iven the high energy intensity of the so called 'war on terror' ?

"Energy intensity"? No.
Massively wasteful of capital, lives and soft-power yes.

Energy, no.

WWII seen fronts with 50-150 divisions being deployed (not in the Soviet parlance for an Army Front). To take out individual factories air forces employed formations of hundreds of aircraft and they often failed. Today the same tasks are performed by individual aircraft or even just drones (given that "cruise" missiles are just a form of drone).
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Re: War on Terrorism

Postby Strummer » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 13:28:54

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', 'T')oday the same tasks are performed by individual aircraft or even just drones


I don't think we can call it "the same tasks", at all.

What you are talking about are mostly attacks against completely unprepared and/or non-matching opponents. In a proper war, there would be proper counter-measures deployed, and those attacks would get you nowhere. A drone would be detected and eliminated 5 seconds after crossing your opponent's borders. A real war today would be just as energy intensive as WWII... which is probably the reason why there won't be a proper global war anytime soon.
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Re: War on Terrorism

Postby Strummer » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 13:45:48

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'S')trummer, I see no evidence that US HellFire missiles are detected and eliminated 5 seconds after crossing our opponent's borders. We really do have air impunity.


Against which opponents? Do you think a real war against a matching opponent (Russia or China) would look like this? That's what I mean by a 'proper' war. Not your attacks against countries 100x smaller and unprepared. The original post was comparing these small attacks with WWII.
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Re: War on Terrorism

Postby dorlomin » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 14:10:20

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Strummer', ' ')A real war today would be just as energy intensive as WWII... which is probably the reason why there won't be a proper global war anytime soon.
:lol:

The premise of the OP is that the "war on terror" is energy intensive.

Yes\ No?

Wars used to soak up most of a societies POL. The current ones dont.

People love to make big sweeping statements but most of these dont hold up to scrutiny. And people round here get irked when you start looking at the details.
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Re: War on Terrorism

Postby Strummer » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 14:34:29

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', 'T')he premise of the OP is that the "war on terror" is energy intensive.

Yes\ No?


I wasn't responding to the OP. I was responding to your claim about today's war on terror tasks being the 'same tasks' as aerial warfare in WWII.

My point is that the massive scale of those tasks in WWII was massive for a reason, and that reason being proper defense. Therefore the tasks are not remotely the same. Understand?
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Re: War on Terrorism

Postby dorlomin » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 15:33:55

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Strummer', '
')My point is that the massive scale of those tasks in WWII was massive for a reason, and that reason being proper defense. Therefore the tasks are not remotely the same. Understand?

You are wrong.
The Taliban often fought in prepared positions, these were attacked by coalition airpower. This would be similar to much of the fighting in places like Burma. Then it took large formations of bombers to ineffectually try to hit a position, while in the Afghanistan war it takes one fighter bomber with one guided munition to score a hit.

Other than Yamamoto, assassination hits from air were almost unknown, it would have taken a ground team to do that (and only Heydrich was taken out like this) today we can perform decapitation strikes by drone. Now this may be deeply immoral with lots of collateral damage, but it can and is done.

In the US invasion of Iraq, 5 division sized formations were used to overcome about 18 (standard rule is you need a 3/1 advantage to invade against prepared positions).

Modern warfare is generally much less energy intensive especially against the net energy available to society.
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Re: War on Terrorism

Postby Strummer » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 15:39:19

Again, none of these examples compares even remotely to hypothetical 'real' WWII-style war against a matched opponent. It's basically either state-performed terrorism, or a military overroll of a hapless outnumbered opponent. A 'real' war would be just as energy intensive as WWII, because none of these tactics would work.
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Re: War on Terrorism

Postby dorlomin » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 15:52:31

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Strummer', 'A')gain, none of these examples compares even remotely to hypothetical 'real' WWII-style war against a.

Try reading next time.
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Re: War on Terrorism

Postby Strummer » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 15:58:52

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', 'T')ry reading next time.


I do. I'm trying to explain to you that this:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', 'M')odern warfare is generally much less energy intensive especially against the net energy available to society.


is not true. What you (the USA) are doing is not "modern warfare". It's just attacking opponents much weaker than you in local skirmishes and outright terrorist attacks. That does not equal at all to "modern warfare" between equal opponents, and you can not presume the energy intesity of such hypothetical modern conflict from these little fights and attacks.
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Re: War on Terrorism

Postby Withnail » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 16:15:35

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tikib', 'G')iven the high energy intensity of the so called 'war on terror' ?

How much American life-time do you think has been lost because of the never ending 'war'?


There is no doubt that the war on terror costs millions to kill some random guy somewhere who may or may not be a terrorist.

The game ends when the terrorists win, or something.
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Re: War on Terrorism

Postby ennui2 » Sun 28 Dec 2014, 17:21:42

Don't hold your breath, pstarr.
"If the oil price crosses above the Etp maximum oil price curve within the next month, I will leave the forum." --SumYunGai (9/21/2016)
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