----- Original Message ----- From: "Howard Brazee" <howard at brazee.net> Cc: <Dragaera at dragaera.info> Sent: Friday, January 20, 2006 12:05 PM Subject: Re: High Tech vs. the Orb WAS Re: the honing of Vlad > 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. I'm not sure if you are insinuating that the bombing of Japan was an act of terrorism? (That is a whole 'nother argument!) As far as assassination, that was "legal" until the Carter administration as I recall, and that is more of a self inflicted restraint rather than any rule of war. Jeff -Was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki intended to end the war with Japan, or scare the Russians? Discus amongst yourselves. . . .