1:
4th generation warfare was a weird mixture of German mobile warfare with assymetrical warfare, where the centre of gravity was not material, but mental. Namely the will to fight.
Vietnam is held as the exemplar of this.North Vietnam didn't lose the will to fight, North America did. While true, all this ignores WHY America lost the will to fight and ignore how Vietnam itself was tired of the war and Lind theories.
The first is to remember that American support of the war faltered only after the politicians did
The Tet Offensive began in stealth 50 years ago in Vietnam, but it ended up splashed on television sets all over America, helping to bring down the administration of President Lyndon Johnson.
www.google.com
The Tet offensive was never timed to concise with the American elections, despite propaganda saying otherwise. It is come at a time when Johnson was claiming victory was around the corner . At a key stage in the electoral campaign, the Tet offensive multiplied electoral challenges to Johnson. Nixon later sabotaged the peace talk and destroyed government credibility to win the election.
None of this was revolutionary. Sun Tzu, Confucius, Machiavelli, Caesar has all pointed how moral support for the war would lead to victory or defeat. Caesar stunning speech that shamed his legions into following him was a stunning case of how leadership win wars. However, Lind 4th generation war requires ACTUAL malice and propaganda to win this war. This is again, not revolutionary as the 36 strategies beauty trap shows.But the Vietnamese didn't do this.
They did not entice chennault or Nixon. There was the normal propaganda effort but no Russia bribed or convinced Conkrite. Jane Fonda and the messy propaganda shot was not successful in convincing Americans to withdraw. That was the Tet Offensive and it happened 4 years earlier. Post hoc examples is not proof that Vietnam tried this and no data exists to suggest Fonda and co was a turning point. Conkrite yes, but that was after American propaganda efforts got exposed in the Tet offensive. To put it simply, Vietnam shows that failing to maintain moral support loses one the war. It does not support Lind assertion that one can actively win the moral war via media, assymetric actions or etc.
The second is how insurgents could easily pop up and would cripple "maneuver" 3G armies. In reality, Vietnamese forces were always crippled after fights with American forces. Westmoreland strategy of attritional warfare however was offset by the fact that Russian and Chinese arms sustained Vietnam, while America never had the numbers needed to fight both the insurgency and defend the border AND defend Europe. With more and more troops committed to the Vietnam war, America would always notice that her strategic requirements in Korea, Europe and CONUS was being threatened, her armed forces worn down by the attritional war fought in Vietnam.
So yes, Westmoreland adopted a losing strategy. However tactically and operationally, the NVA and VietCong was always defeated and crippled by American advantages in firepower. They just didn't lose the war while America fighting would. So, light infantry and etc from Vietnam ? Pure bullshit. The issue was strategic problems, how America simply couldn't pour in enough troops and thus attritional warfare was a stupid strategy to adopt. Holding territory, heart and minds would had won and they did win the insurgency war in 72... Only for the NVA to invade and defeat the unpopular AVN. Proving that ultimately, Confucius was right. The three elements of a successful government was arms, food and support. If you had to sacrifice something, first arms, then food, cause without support, a government will lose any war. But Lind. Is wrong.
2.
OOC: i know this is VERY late in the scheme of thing. Still, some ideas about Vietnam, 4th Generation Warfare and etc clicked and I present to you the ideologue counterargument and how a true reformer will fight against a counter reformist. ,politics in the 3rd Reich led to Guderian reforms being ignored by the SS after all, the Victorian state facing the stress of defeat would fracture into different political factions aimed to remedy defeat. Just as what happened in Vietnam, the Goldwater reforms and then Sprey and Lind "reformer" assault on the Pentagon, history can repeat itself in Victoria.
" Well Gunner, your letter was interesting. 3rd generation , reformers... you got my attention. Spit it " At the last sentence, the Commandant voice took on a sudden silky tone of menace, lashing what looked like a gross act of insubordination by a warrant officer. Did blood fail? Was he a orc ?
Alexander took a final sip of vodka. The die was cast. As Rumford had said, action, not words matter.
" Sir. Our entire way of life is threatened. I know I shouldn't know the details. But I do sir. And the reason why is the same as why Lind, Boyd and Sprey did. Because we were smart enough to see that we going the way the Marxists did.
Sir. Remember the Numero Uno? Don't you see the similarity between their plans and the 8th Division? A single charge that overextended and was chopped to pieces? The large number of transports needed, the pillaging and foraging done that turned Toledo against us? If Blackburn had been taught by Rumford, he could had not needed the artillery that the Marxists infected the old Army with but the mobile defence in depth? That was 4th generation warfare. That tank charge? Replace it with T-34, a better tank and that's what Rumford did to those orcs sir.
Sir, Note that no special operations were used. Burns turned Toledo, albeit, by throwing his entire army at us. When Rumford was in command, we were the ones dropping the bridges and seizing the initiative, getting the Southerners to take out corrupt Washington. We didn't simply fight on one front. Sir, 4G warfare is fought on multiple fronts, multiple timeline with multiple forces. Burns tried to copy us through the use of machines. He took out our transports, our bridges so as to speak. he used defence in depth our But that is why he will fail. Because we are not machines sir. We are men.
Sir. The campaign shows two things. One. Our regular army, has now fallen into the same trap of being a statist based force. It's used 3rd generation tactic, in an attempt to inflict attritional losses on the enemy by simply charging them. Oh sure, we reach enough Lind to our basic troopers that they had initiative, relied heavily on maneuver to try and force a decision, but our generals has fossilised.
Two, our enemy is trying to learn 4th generation warfare. Sir, we are facing the first opponent to TRY 4th generation warfare on us. Their actions on the field not only show an attempt to apt Rumford, their strategic actions show an attempt to copy assymetrical warfare against us. One that we are failing to learn .
Sir. I know we are too inclined to dismiss the United States military. Infected by the Cultural war, it was a diseased animal that we, the Christian Marines put out of its misery. But sir. The army was first defeated by 4th generation warfare a century ago. We were not the first. In Vietnam....
Yes sir. Mention Vietnam to the army and they won't know it. Colonel Boyd developed his theories there by watching what the enemy did. The reformers used it to showcase what the new generation of war will look like. Non state forces in Vietnam. They tried to kill all the soldiers in a war of annihilation . More emerged, as our Army learnt at Detroit when it tried to kill the Commonwealth on the battlefield. Bombing was too expensive, wasting planes on ground targets at a cost 1000 times to 1, creating a massive supply chain that was vulnerable to enemy attack. The enemy air defence artillery chewed up lives and material, costing support due to casualties for no gains. As our airforce learnt in Detroit.
And the Navy... Sir. White Russia showed us the only way to defend against an enemy warship... Was a submarine. We instead tried to copy the old Americans by using our airforce to sink them. I have scoured the archives . Submarines were the assymetrical force that the Reich used to fend off the overwhelming navy. While Rumford had little to say about the Navy, his book archives kept mentioning how submarines are cheap and asymmetrical when deployed, how you either a submarine or a target. The Army has forgotten everything Rumford has taught us sir.
I..Sir?"
P.S OOC: It was fun writing this. Still, the fate of Alexander , who as a Christian Marine is obviously superior than that of a Army General is in Poptart hands. He can be executed. He a mere warrant officer , he should not have known the highly secret briefings that General Blackwell has discussed or the disastrous defeat at Detroit. Speaking before the commandant of the CMC was an execution of local initiative.... But Alexander skin colour is a problem. See. He might be an orc... A Black. Raised to power due to his loyalty and his family loyalty during the Collapse.
So unlike Lind and his reforms, Alexander was actually brave enough to risk his career and life.
