From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Apr 20 2003 - 11:44:04 MDT
--- Adrian Tymes <wingcat@pacbell.net> wrote:
> --- Samantha Atkins <samantha@objectent.com> wrote:
> > If overwhelming military technology determined
> > outcomes the US
> > would still be a colonial territory.
>
> Guerilla warfare was, to the British, a new
> "technology". Concepts like "cover" were mostly
> foreign to their musketeers - at least, as I read it.
Also the idea of using maneuver for its own sake, to exhaust enemy
supply lines and troop morale, and not just as a means to contact the
enemy. Sun Tsu's "The Art of War" was unknown by the British at that
point, and the precepts he advised were certainly a 'new' technology.
>
> > This does not all follow. Or did the Soviets not
> > put something
> > in orbit first and field and extraordinary army of
> > excellent
> > scientiests and engineers in the cold war? Did they
> > or did they
> > not acheive sufficient military technology to
> > destroy the world
> > just as we did?
>
> But you'll note they were nice to their scientists as
> well. Very nice. Communism was an inefficient
> economic model, and there it eventually fell flat, but
> post-WWII Soviet Russia was a far cry better than the
> regimes we have put down over the past decade.
The communists also did not invent anything new in the space program.
They relied entirely on captured Nazi technology which itself was
entirely reliant on American technology (Goddard's patents) which were
never exploited here, mostly due to economic reasons but also because
military types did not appreciate technology as a weapon.
WWII never displayed a significant disparity in technological prowess.
Every axis technological advance was only months or at best a few years
ahead of allied advances, and vice versa.
The early advantage of the Nazis, though, taught the allies the lesson
about technology as a weapon. We have not forgotten it either. Since
that lesson has been learned, the US has specifically advanced itself
10-30 years ahead of every other military organization on the planet.
Some countries have a *few* weapons systems that are comparable,
usually due to US exported technology, but none has been able to attain
such across the board technological comparability/superiority in every
area. The closest are the europeans, and they are still a decade behind
today in most weapons systems. Every other country now depends on US
technology to boost their military capabilities.
Even more important, there is no other country with as advanced a
military industry. A military force is only a potent as the industry
which supports it.
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
"Pacifists are Objectively Pro-Fascist." - George Orwell
"Treason doth never Prosper. What is the Reason?
For if it Prosper, none Dare call it Treason..." - Ovid
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