With less than an hour remaining in this anniversary occasion I thought I’d put up a relevant post.
I want to write an economic history paper of innovative yet technologically inferior military tactics. Do you remember your history books from elementary school? Usually you would read a chapter about a key moment in history and important words, names, and places would be in bold print. Mesopotamia was always near the front and Eli Whitney and the cotton gin were somewhere in the middle.
In the chapters on the early American wars especially the French and Indian war, I remember guerrilla warfare always being in bold. When the Europeans came with advanced guns and faced off against the Native Americans with arrows and spears they expected an easy victory. But it wasn’t so easy, the Native Americans didn’t form ranks like the Europeans did. Instead of standing in a line and marching to battle, they hid in the forests behind trees and rocks and strategically launched inferior firepower with reasonable effect.
Can we generalize this phenomenon? Are innovations in the techniques of warfare sparked by large disparities in accessible technologies across competing forces? As a combatant in war you can excel on one of two margins, brute force or strategic cunning. When you stand no hope in terms of force you specialize on the only remaining margin.
Now call me a Ron Paulite if you will, but this sounds remarkably similar to “blowback” with an added twist — the form that blowback will come in. Not that it’s a good piece of empirical evidence but the movie Jarhead brings up this point. Technologically speaking, Dessert Storm was nothing like Vietnam. Vietnam was thousands of Marines and Army soldiers schlepping through the jungle combating face to face with enemy soldiers. What causes angst for the Marine soldiers in Jarhead is that they never really get to kill anyone anymore, they just call in the air strikes.
Now imagine your a Middle Eastern soldier, and an enemy of the United States. You don’t have fighter planes. Seems to me like you’d hide behind the rock like the Native Americans until the time was right, then strike back with cunning. Does this give us a unique perspective on foreign policy if our aim is to specifically avoiding terrorism? What is the effect of the marginal dollar spent on American military arms. Doesn’t each dollar widen the gap between our technological superiority and their military ineptitude. Does it make sense that the wider that gap gets the more desperate our opponents will become to make a dent however they can?
Food for thought. I wish nothing but the best for all the friends and families of those who died on 9-11.