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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
 Posted - 12/19/2007 : 9:32:54 PM
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I would never explain that sort of thing along racial lines. Not enough difference in our DNA to justify an argument along those lines.
A cultural argument, sure.
The Japanese were and are an Eastern culture. I'm about to show my Victor Davis Hanson influences here.
Eastern cultures did not and do not wage war in the same manner as cultures from Western Civilization. The differences between the two cultures became evident between the Greeks and the Eastern peoples they made war with.
Western armies fight wars of annihilation. Our object is not to make the enemy lose face and thus drive them to the negotiations table.
Our way of war is not one of outmanuevering, jockying for favorable position, ambush, quick raids that minimize casualties, kidnappings, holding people of influence for ransom, etc. We do not conduct "flower wars" and we do not "count coup". Our strategies are far less about trickery and misdirection than about finding the enemy and destroying him in detail.
Bedouins, for example, used raids and ambushes among other tribes as a way to showcase their prowess and courage. I've read that when a tribe was particularly down on it's luck, low on livestock, etc., neighboring tribes kind of "agreed" to lay off them until their situation improved.
It has never really been that way with us. When East fights East, it is not a particularly bloody affair when it comes to body counts. Historically, when West fights East it is East that suffers greater casualties.
When West fights West, you generally have the worst bloodbaths in human experience. World Wars One and Two.
I don't think Japan really understood this. If an Eastern culture had inflicted a humiliation the size of Pearl Harbor on another Eastern culture, it would have resulted in concessions. Negotiations. The war would have ended there.
I think that if they'd studied American history, particularly the Civil War, Sherman's march to the sea, General Sheridan, they may have thought differently about what was going to happen to them.
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 08:17:09 AM
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When East fights East, it is not a particularly bloody affair when it comes to body counts. Historically, when West fights East it is East that suffers greater casualties.
When West fights West, you generally have the worst bloodbaths in human experience. World Wars One and Two.
I don't think Japan really understood this. If an Eastern culture had inflicted a humiliation the size of Pearl Harbor on another Eastern culture, it would have resulted in concessions. Negotiations. The war would have ended there.
Uh, the Sino-Japanese War/World War 2 1937-1945, the Rape of Nanking ... China had the hightest number of casualties in the war after the USSR.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 08:18:53 AM
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And probably the most bloodthirsty conquerers in history (maybe even worse than the Nazis considering the numbers of killed with their far more primitive technology) were the Mongols.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 08:24:16 AM
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Perhaps the exception to the general rule. That conflict was essentially a three way fight between nationalists, communists and the Japanese.
Basically, two Eastern cultures that had bought wholesale into the distinctly Western concepts of nationalism and communism.
One of the points Hanson raises in his writings, which I did not include at first, was the "Westernization" or Eastern armies in the 20th Century. This has given rise to an increased lethality in Eastern wars.
Westernization. Hanson likes to point out that no army in recent times has ever seriously considered undergoing a process of "easternization" regarding it's weapons, equipment, training, uniforms, and doctrine. |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 08:35:48 AM
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Well you do have the Tai Ping rebellions which was the bloodiest war of the 19th century. Is this difference really matter of culture or technology? Western warfare when through a short "polite" phase in the 18th century which made warfare somewher less destructive than the earlier mercenary warfare of the 15-17th centuries and the huge citizen armies of the 19th-20 centures. In the West it really isn't until the American Civil war where you get that kind war of absolute elimination that we associate with modern war and even then fewer people died there than in China during the Tai Ping Rebellion. Also in the millenia long war between agriculturalists and pastoralists the reached its climax with the Mongols you get a form of "eilliminationism" to coin a new word that we associate with modern Western war. The Mongols in particular set out to destroy agriculural civilisations by shaughtering peasants and converting agricultural lands to grasing pastures for there heards. You really don't see anything like in the West until Sherman's March in 1864.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 08:38:50 AM
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What happened to the edit function? My previous post could sure use some editing.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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R. Dittmar
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
420 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 09:26:42 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Ericb
And probably the most bloodthirsty conquerers in history (maybe even worse than the Nazis considering the numbers of killed with their far more primitive technology) were the Mongols.
If you don't mind my jumping in here, I think I can clarify Victor David Hanson's argument a little bit. The difference between Eastern (or non-Western generally) warfare and Western warfare doesn’t just revolve around body counts or viciousness but rather the style of fighting.
If I understand Hanson correctly, he argues that Western warfare developed around what you might call the “final battle”. When two Western powers went to war against on another, each raised the largest army possible and took the field to engage the other power’s army in one huge set piece battle. What little survived of the losing side would walk (or crawl) away from the engagement utterly crushed and defeated with the source of the original quarrel settled pretty much once and for all.
Eastern warfare has always traditionally been hard to distinguish from banditry. Armed bands of men rove around stealing and using terror tactics to extort tribute. That’s essentially all the Mongols were. They did build an empire of a sort held together by extortion, but they never were much of a threat to Europe. And similar Eastern tribal fighters like the Huns and Muslims pretty much got their hats handed to them when they attempted to face European armies in the field rather than conducting hit-and-run terrorizing raids on easy targets.
There’s probably a lot of gray shading you can do on the line between the two styles of fighting. Japan in particular is a hard case because they were humiliated by Western powers late in the 1800’s and consciously decided to adopt Western technologies and strategies. As kind of a half-baked exercise, imagine “World War I” as fought by Eastern armies. The Germans would have stormed into France, stolen everything that they could and high-tailed it back to Berlin. While the Austrians were busy pillaging Serbia for what they could steal, the Russians might have taken the chance to sneak into parts of Poland and steal what they could. Had Britain taken sides, they could have raided the enemy’s ships to steal what they could. I know it’s a bit of a strange story, but I think you can see that had WWI been fought that way – merely to steal and pillage – then casualties would have been far lower than when all these armies met to fight to the death. |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 10:09:36 AM
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If I understand Hanson correctly, he argues that Western warfare developed around what you might call the “final battle”. When two Western powers went to war against on another, each raised the largest army possible and took the field to engage the other power’s army in one huge set piece battle. What little survived of the losing side would walk (or crawl) away from the engagement utterly crushed and defeated with the source of the original quarrel settled pretty much once and for all.
Eastern warfare has always traditionally been hard to distinguish from banditry. Armed bands of men rove around stealing and using terror tactics to extort tribute
I guess it would help if it could be clarified which era of Western warfare he is talking about. The European fuedal and mercenary armies of Medieval and early Modern times seem to resemble his template for Eastern style tactics more than they do the professional armies of the 18th or the national armies of the 19th and 20th centuries. The idea of a sustained effort by a regime or nation to defeat an enemy in a continuous series of engagements really didn't exist until the late 17th century. Feudal and mercenary war wer much sloppier with the armies spending much of their time "living off of the land" (a nice way of saying raping and pillaging). The bloodiest European war before World War 1 was the Thirty Years' War, and most of the carnage was the result of mercenary armies trying to sustain themeselve by "living of the land" and thereby sperading plague and inducing famine.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 10:09:59 AM
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Ah, another Hansonite.
Hanson believes that even though the Japanese adopted Western technology and tactics to a degree, they could not divorce themselves from all of their original cultural leanings.
For example, he cites the Battle of Midway. Japan dispatched forces to the Aleutians in order to try and "trick" America into diverting naval forces there. The thing is that Japan really didn't need to do that as they had superiority in numbers of ships and aircraft and more highly trained and experienced aircrews.
But they seemed wedded to the ideas of subterfuge and misdirection and ambush. These are the tactics of an underdog, not ones of a country with a temporary upper hand they must exploit as quickly as possible.
When America finally gained the upper hand in materiel, they pursued war in a more direct, Western fashion. Take everything you have, go find the enemy, fight him.
By the time of the Battle of the Phillipine Sea, the Japanese again relied on a big, complicated, unwieldly plan of trickery and subterfuge in order to achieve their goals. They did succeed in luring Halsey away to chase empty aircraft carriers, but the plan fell apart in every other respect.
Regarding Midway, he also believes that other aspects of Eastern thinking led to the Japanese defeat. One is that the Japanese were the worst code-breakers of all the warring powers. This is perhaps due to their rigid military discipline married to their desire to be subservient to the people above them.
Hard to explain, but I think the best way to say it is, "You have to let the long haired people do their thing." The American code-breaker who cracked the Japanese plan to attack Midway was a guy who wore a bath robe and slippers in his office in a bunker at Hawaii. He also was a chain-smoker. He ran his shop extremely loose. His boss understood that for cerebral stuff like this requiring unconventional approaches, you have to let the long haired people do their thing. Military punctillo just gets in the way.
It is impossible to imagine a WWII Japanese code-breaking shop where the men wear bath robes and slippers, chain smoke, and forgoe basic military customs. Just wasn't going to happen.
Also, the Japanese COULD have fought Midway with six carriers instead of just 4. Their two carriers in Coral Sea that were lightly damaged could have been repaired in enough time to participate in Midway. They actually made it back to Japan for repairs quicker than the Yorktown, which was badly mauled. It was predicted that Yorktown's repairs would take six months and could only be done in California.
The Japanese navy declared it would take their two carriers six months to repair and rearm with planes too. They then proceeded to make it take every bit of that time rather than rush the repairs for Midway. Hanson believes this to be a particularly "eastern" way of conducting the business of war.
Upon cracking the Midway code, the U.S. Navy knew it had to have Yorktown for the fight. No long cruise to California for 6 months of repairs would be possible. Welding crews ran night and day. Hawaii suffered blackouts due to the electricity drain of repairing that one ship.
Result, Yorktown was ready to fight in 72 hours. 72 hours instead of six months.
Hanson's main point is that it is cultural differences that are often the key to victory in war.
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 10:18:00 AM
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Would Hanson consider Russia Western or Eastern? Their armies (there was not united Russia at the time) were soundly defeated by the Mongols who then proceeded to build a huge wood pallet, put the captured Russian nobility under this pallet and held a victory feast on it, crushing the Russians to death.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 10:29:00 AM
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Citizen Carrier, but can't much of what you said about the Japanese also be applied to the Germans in World War 2? Even during their times of success between 1939 and 1941 they were walling a tight rope over disaster, outnumbered by their enemies and hoping to out maneuver and trick them to gain victories. They managed to do this until this method failed them in the USSR and North Africa and they were eventually forced into a war of attrition which they had no chance of winning.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 10:37:21 AM
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Another example would be the Confederate Arm in the Civil War. One could say they were fighting the Napoleonic War (lots of maneuvering and trickery) which served them well so far as the Union Army was fighting the same war but when the Union Army under Grant and Sherman started fighting World War 1 the Confederates didn't stand a chance.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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R. Dittmar
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
420 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 11:03:51 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Ericb
I guess it would help if it could be clarified which era of Western warfare he is talking about. The European fuedal and mercenary armies of Medieval and early Modern times seem to resemble his template for Eastern style tactics more than they do the professional armies of the 18th or the national armies of the 19th and 20th centuries. The idea of a sustained effort by a regime or nation to defeat an enemy in a continuous series of engagements really didn't exist until the late 17th century. Feudal and mercenary war wer much sloppier with the armies spending much of their time "living off of the land" (a nice way of saying raping and pillaging). The bloodiest European war before World War 1 was the Thirty Years' War, and most of the carnage was the result of mercenary armies trying to sustain themeselve by "living of the land" and thereby sperading plague and inducing famine.
Let me admit upfront I’m getting in a little over my head on this one, but I think there are still a lot of things about feudal up to pre-Napoleonic warfare that are still uniquely Western. As the feudal era progressed, I think that armies became more and more made up of heavy cavalry, i.e. knights wearing massively expensive heavy armor riding tremendously strong horses. This development was a classic Western-style arms race as each side set out at high cost to create the most destructive weaponry possible so as to totally defeat and destroy a less well armed force in battle. While I can’t say that heavy cavalry didn’t go on hit-and-run raids, it must have been enormously wasteful to do so – the medieval equivalent of using a battalion of Sherman tanks to hold up a 7-11. Even the mercenaries are part of the arms race I think because infantry weapons and tactics developed that were capable of defeating heavy cavalry in the field and by a quirk of history these weapons and tactics were localized to certain areas of Europe that in turn rented out their expertise to other powers. So again the purpose of mercenaries was to grapple with the opponent’s army and defeat it in detail. And don’t forget that the Thirty Years’ War consisted of many huge set-piece battles between opposing armies. My man and fellow Lutheran Gustavus Adolphus won several brilliant tactical victories in the field that I’d wager are studied to this day.
I think the argument is again that Western warfare has always been about grappling with the enemy’s armed forces. Raping and pillaging or “living of the land” is more of a tactic used to bring the enemy to terms or to open battle to settle the issue. Eastern warfare is about nothing but raping and pillaging (or extortion). There was seldom, if ever, any higher strategic purpose to it. |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 11:18:21 AM
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I'm a bit over my head here as well as I've never read anything on Asian battle tactics, but as number of Chinese dynasties managed to conquer some sizable empires I would guess that their tactics might have been more than merely raping and pillaging.
On the Thirty Years War you said:
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think the argument is again that Western warfare has always been about grappling with the enemy’s armed forces. Raping and pillaging or “living of the land” is more of a tactic used to bring the enemy to terms or to open battle to settle the issue
I would argue that this was a by-product of the mercenary system rather than an actual battle tactic. The dynasties "fighting" the war didn't have the infastructure that later kingdoms and nation-states had to field armies so they had to hire individuals who would raise and lead armies for them. These simply "lived off the land" as a matter of survival no matter whether they were employed at the time or not. The devastation of Germany during the Thirty Years War was more the product of a combination of the length of the war with this characteristic of mercenary armies. Germany was merely the battle ground for competing dynasties rather then the real focus of the war so the depopulation of many areas of Germany due to plague an famine was more "collateral damage" than part of anyone's military strategy. If you're a Spanish/Austrian Hapbburg fighting the Swedes and French Burbons in Germany there really isn't any need to wreck the German economy or brutalize it's population it's merely a place for your proxies to fight it out.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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thewarden
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
USA
25 Posts |
Posted - 12/20/2007 : 12:04:36 PM
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You can't confuse the number of casualties in a war with the number of casualties in battle. Any long war will kill a lot of people due to secondary effects -- disease, malnutrition, etc. So, you can have very, very deadly conflicts even with armies fighting using "eastern" approaches. The difference is the number killed in pitched battle.
Hanson's arguments, unfortunately, have become less sophisticated over time. His work on ancient Greek warfare is stunning in its originality and power, but his attempts to create a grand theory of the "western way of war" is less compelling, and his attempts to apply this to the "war on terror" are essentially incoherent in my estimation.
What Hanson lost was the sense of context and contingency that appears in his work on Greek warfare. Remember, the original question he posed was not, "why did the Greeks fight pitched battles" it was "why did the Greeks fight pitched battles when the stakes of the war were low?" His answer to that was a complex assessment of Greek culture, the role of agricultural interests, limits on training and equipment in Greek city-states, terrain, climate, etc.
As a practical matter, "western" war has rarely been characterized by annihilation. During middle ages, "flower wars" were commons, with the taking of hostages being the a prime goal of conflict -- Agincourt and Cresy were exceptions, not the norm. Indeed, that was Machiavelli's whole point as he rails against mercenaries -- they won't fight! He wanted citizen-soldiers animated by a civil religion because they, like the Romans, would actually use force to achieve political goals. But the point is that he was critiquing current military practice, not describing it. Similarly, throughout the 18th century, European warfare was largely about maneuver and deception. The wars of Louis XIV are all about that. It is precisely this context that made Charles XII and Napoleon so devastating. They went for the jugular.
In any case, culture is part of the equation. But so are political stakes, relative power of the combatants, terrain, technology of weapons, force-to-space ratios, relative cost of equipment, domestic political systems, etc.
My $0.02 |
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