john t reed's thoughts on war and the military:
http://www.johntreed.com/military.html

• My guess at the moment is that the answer to that question depends on what you mean by "glorify".

• Making war seem more pleasant than it is.

  • Downplaying / hiding the unpleasant parts of war.

• Conferring benefits on people who engage in war-related behavior.
  
  

  • A police officer letting a veteran go with a warning when he catches the veteran speeding.

  • Politicians praising filmmakers who create films that put that nation's warlike behavior in a positive light.

• A: My initial guess is that war-making has been an evolutionarily-successful behavior, and that since it is an extremely risky activity, and since each individual person has an incentive to back off and let his buddies take the risks, praising soldiers is an evolved behavior (maybe only socially-evolved, maybe genetically-evolved) that encourages people to do things that otherwise they would have little incentive to do.

• it seems to me at the moment (istmatm) that you need to know what you'll be up against way before you actually start to fight; you need to know what the other side is preparing before and while you're preparing your own plan. gathering accurate information on your opponent's condition and plans is half the battle.

  • ex1: rock-paper-scissors - if there was a way to figure out what the other side was going to choose that would be the way to win.

  • ex2: some strategy games have a "fog of war" in which you can't see everything going on in the world; you need to have units present in an area to see what's going on there (ex of fog of war: starcraft; ex of no fog of war: chess and risk). a huge part of the fight then becomes gaining accurate information on what the other guy's situation is.

• istmatm that because new technology can have dramatic effects on the appropriate tactics and outcomes of war, groups can get in trouble if they fail to pay attention to these changes

• John T. Reed's article on elite-but-not-really military units is the most damning critique that i've ever read on the subject, and he provides very compelling reasons for the claims he makes:http://www.johntreed.com/ranger.html I can attest, though, that these units can attract first-rate individuals.

• Where Men Win Glory (skimmed it) - seems to have lots of info on pat tillman's experience in the rangers (wasn't a good one even before he was killed by friendly fire)

• Victory Point (read the website) - lots of info on operation red wings / fighting in afghanistan. its big thing is providing compelling arguments that "lone survivor" was not an accurate account of what happened. for example, those SEALs were not fighting off hundreds of guys; it was probably ~10-14. also, the helicopter that was sent in to rescue them was probably shot down by a heat-seeking anti-aircraft missile, not an RPG. most memorable: afghan math - take any reports of enemy combatants and divide by 10 to get the real number (100 fighters = 10 fighters).

• War by Junger - i got the impression he was trying to write another hit book (Junger also wrote "the perfect storm"). it does seem to give a good idea of what it's like at the tip of the spear in afghanistan. the most memorable thing about this book was how small it made the war seem; pretty much all the fighting is being done by a couple hundred guys at any one time. something like 80% of the bombs being dropped are being dropped in a single valley. and this book takes place just a couple hundred meters from where "victory point" takes place and where "lone survivor" takes place. a lot of the enemy fighters are from outside afghanistan, and there aren't very many of them. also, everyone at the tip has volunteered to go there; you don't just end up there by chance.

• https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/opinion/vietnam-was-unwinnable.html

  • the revisionist case rests largely on the assertion that our defeat in Vietnam was essentially psychological, and that victory would therefore have been possible if only our political leadership had sustained popular support for the war. But although psychological factors and popular support were crucial, it was Vietnamese, rather than American, attitudes that were decisive. In the United States, popular support for fighting Communism in South Vietnam started strong and then declined as the war dragged on. In South Vietnam itself, however, popular support for the war was always halfhearted, and a large segment (and in some regions, a majority) of the population favored the Communists.

  • even as American soldiers began pouring into the country in 1965, there were already enough South Vietnamese troops on hand that they should have been able to defend it on their own. After all, the South Vietnamese forces outnumbered the Communists, were far better supplied, had vastly superior firepower and enjoyed a considerable advantage in mobility thanks to transport planes and helicopters. But their Achilles’ heel was their weak will to fight — and this shortcoming was never overcome.

  • As long as the war in Vietnam didn’t demand too much of them and they believed that victory was just around the corner, most Americans would support it. But if Johnson admitted publicly that South Vietnam could not survive without a full commitment by the United States, he knew that support would crumble.

  • As the renowned historian George Herring put it, the war could not “have been ‘won’ in any meaningful sense at a moral or material cost most Americans deemed acceptable.”

  • Perhaps the key lesson of Vietnam is that if the reasons for going to war are not compelling enough for our leaders to demand that all Americans make sacrifices in pursuit of victory, then perhaps we should not go to war at all. Sacrifice should not be demanded solely of those who risk life and limb for their country in combat theaters overseas.

• http://www.tankbooks.com/interviews/contents.htm

  • The interviews here are extremely interesting. There's a lot to be learned from them.

  • Excerpts:

    • But you don’t plan these things. You’re out there, and something’s occurring, you just do what you have enough training to do. They taught me when I received my tactical training that the worst thing you can do in combat is nothing. To do something, even if it’s wrong. And I remembered this, so I’m going to do something.

    • In those days, we were an all-volunteer force, and of course they got a lot of their men, individuals like me, and other young men who would get into some type of minor trouble with the authorities. A judge would call them before him and give them him a choice of paying their fine and spending 15 to 30 days in jail or going into the military. So a lot of them would take the military. And in those days, the basic training in the military was to weed them out; in other words either make a man and a soldier out of them or out they would go. Later on, I ended up being a recruiting instructor in the same outfit. And this was quite a problem, because as a corporal in those days I had more authority than the majors had later on as far as disciplinary actions were concerned. If we had a problem recruit, we could take him down and put him in the guardhouse and leave him there overnight, with no charge. He didn’t know how long he was going to be there and this would scare the heck out of him. When he came back, why, he’d turn out to be a good soldier. Can you imagine trying to do that today in this type of Army? No.

    • If you had a problem with the individual, they had an area behind the garbage rack where you could back and fight it out, as long as you used your fists, and when it’s over you’re supposed to get up and shake hands.

    • Aaron Elson: How did you meet your wife?
      Arnold Brown: I met her at a community dance. It was a USO activity.

    • General Patton got out of the jeep and said, "Who’s the blankety blank commanding officer of this blankety blank outfit?" You can fill in the blanks.

      At that time I was hoping the Germans would start shelling us so I could jump in a hole. And then I was thinking, well, if he relieves me of my command, with the experiences I’ve had in the past, he’d be doing me a favor. I stepped out and reported to him and said, "I am, Sir."

      He looked me over a little bit and made a few comments. Then he got back in the jeep and drove on. It was just his way of letting everybody know that he’s in charge of things and he’s up there.

    • In an attack position such as this, I always attacked with two platoons forward and one in support, and my position is always in between and slightly to the rear of the two attacking platoons, so I can keep abreast of what’s going on and if I need to commit my support platoon, I’ll know where to do it.

    • I had nine years of training and experience before I got into combat. No matter how smart a guy is, it’s no reflection on him, they’re good men, you can’t send a person because he’s got a college degree to OCS for 90 days and make a combat leader out of him, not really psychologically or they don’t know tactics. You can’t teach them in that amount of time.

    • whenever I would get in these positions where I would start to entertain the idea that there ain’t no way I can survive, I’d push those thoughts out of my mind. And I just trusted in my Supreme Being and on a guardian angel because He’d already proved to me that there was one there, you see? I might add my men may have thought I was brave, but they’d better give the credit to the Supreme Being because I was scared all the time.

    • As the commanding officer, I could never show any fear to my men. So I just stood up and moved forward.

    • In the regular Army it took you years to get any kind of rank.

• It seems like a weakness for China may be one that Russia seems to share: brain drain. They have a collectivist system that can mean that an individual could find a better deal in another country.

• Quora - If the American Civil War Generals and Officers had been replaced with modern-day infantry officers (no modern weapons/just skills), how much would the military tactics and strategy change in the American Civil War?

• https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoricalWhatIf/comments/1fnd6aq/is_there_any_realistic_way_the_confederacy_could/

  • Regarding military decisions:

    • Just maybe, and not so extremely out-of-the-question, would've been a success at Gettysburg by there not BEING a 'Gettysburg,' with Confederate forces taking Harrisburg, encircling the Union army, defeating it in the field, and taking Washington DC.

  • Regarding a political change in the Union:

    • The only chance would have been if McClellan had won the election in 1864 and the Democrats won control of Congress and the Copperheads controlled the Democrats in Congress.

    • Lincoln effectively communicated his strategy to the North, and they knew by '64 that they were winning and would not be stopped. McClellan needed Illinois in order to win.

  • Regarding foreign intervention:

    • The Confederates also had bad luck that the prior year's harvest of cotton globally was very good. British and French storehouses were packed full of cotton from prior years bought cheap that they were able to burn through before India and Egypt really started producing at replacement levels.

    • Even if france and boratian needed that cotton, intervention was still relatively unlikely. Furthermore, they would be choosing confederate cotton over trade with the Union. While cotton was the largest export of the US in this era, it was not the only economic relationship (furthermore, it would not have been so simple as flipping a switch and the cotton flows again - it would have been heavily contested)

      Both powers would still be licking their wounds from the crimean war less than a decade ago, and Britian especially was very anti-slavery so there would have been a political crisis at best. France, historically, intervened in mexico while America was distracted with the US Civil War, involving less than 40,000 french soliders with the largest group being 30,000. Anything larger would have been unlikely, as Europe was a bit lively at the time with various movements that came to a head shortly after the US civil war, including German and Italian unification.

      Such a French force would have likely been decisive in several battles (battles in the US civil war tended to be 30-50,000 troops per side), but ultimately would have been ground to nothing.

    • By the time that would have happened the GAR was one of the largest, best equipped, and battle hardened armies on the planet. Even assuming that there were better standing armies in Europe (France, and Prussia at least if not GB), none of them aside from the latter would be able to move enough men and material across an entire ocean and operate effectively for the time it would be needed to defeat the Union on its doorstep. Also, consider what a foreign invasion would do for morale, it would be all but an impossible task at the end of the war.

    • Yes--by completely eschewing slavery, thus winning the support of Great Britain and France, who were ready to recognize the Confederacy and to serve as intermediaries in negotiations with the Union in mid-1863.

  • Regarding the long-term:

    • their economy collapses some 20 years later and the Union absorbs them.

• https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/could-the-confederacy-seperate-peacefully.155912/

  • I have heard that the politically deft move for a seceding state to have made, would have been to sue for secession. I am not sure about the jurisdictional question, I would think such a suit by an individual state against the federal government to legally secede from the Union might get kicked up to the Supreme Court immediately. In 1860, I think the make-up of the Supreme Court was the same as it had been for the Dred Scot decision of a few years earlier. Such a Supreme Court might be more pro state sovereignty and rule that a State could, under the right circumstances, legally secede, with some sort of payment to the Federal Government for any federal facilities that become the propoerty of the newly independent state. If such a decision were to be handed down before Lincoln's inauguration, then, Linclon would have had no legal, and very little moral authority to try and force any legally seceded state back into the Union.

  • one problem for the south was that secession wasn't widely popular there at first; in all but one state (TX), the votes for secession passed by skinny margins, and it could easily have went the other way in some of them.

• Why Hitler Lost the War: German Strategic Mistakes in WWII

• https://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Hitler-Unnecessary-War-Britain/dp/030740515X

• StackExchange - Worldbuilding - Modern military tactics and strategy effects on the past (WWII)