Jon_Lincicum at stream.com wrote: >Military action, at some fundamental point, involves an infantry unit that >stands on a given spot and says "This is mine unless you can come take it >away from me." > >Until this happens, the war isn't ever really won. > >An interesting thing happened in 1998 in Kosovo, when the US airforce >forced a surrender without any ground troops being involved. This is, to >my knowledge, the first and to date *only* time this has ever happened, >but the surrender was still essentially meaningless until the ground >forces moved in to occupy the country. The logistics of this ground forces >takeover was basically an unprecedented situation. > >Majikjon > > You don't have to hold territory in order to achieve all military goals. Sometimes all you want is to persuade the other army to go home. Assassination and terrorism are ways to achieve military goals. We didn't hold mainland Japan when the Japanese surrendered in WWII.