Saturday 28 April 2018

Vietnsm Mistakes No.2


Strategic Mistake No. 2


On the world stage our repeat of the first Vietnam mistake is failing to see that the West is already in a cold war – not of our choosing – with China and that this war is all about trade, intellectual property, and interference in our internal national affairs.


For our next lesson let's go back to the strategic analysis of Vietnam. General Westmorland started out fighting a war of attrition. Remember the grisly business of the “body count”.


To evaluate this we need to reiterate our lesson on “centre of gravity”. The definition of a CoG is "the source of power that provides moral or physical strength, freedom of action, or will to act." Thus, the center of gravity is usually seen as the "source of strength"



One wants to destroy the enemy's CofG. It is standard modern military doctrine that directly attacking one's opponent's CofG – that is to say hitting him where he is strongest – is a bad idea. Better is to work out what things this CofG itself requires to operate (critical requirements) or what its critical vulnerabilities are and deal with one or more of these.



For example, say your house has an ant problem. What is the CofG of an ant nest? It is that they just keep coming. So if you try attrition warfare against them – spraying them as they appear – sure you'll kill some, but more will just keep coming. What does the ant nest's CofG require? Well it is the queen who keeps pumping out larvae. So feed the ants a slow poison that they take back to the queen and … kill the queen and the whole nest dies.



So what was a source of strength for North Vietnam? It was that it was a brutal dictatorship whose leader Ho Chi Minh had thought nothing of killing half a million of his own people in his “reforms” already. He didn't care how many soldiers were killed. So attrition warfare was exactly the wrong move against him.



On the other hand the US had a glaring critical vulnerability. The US politicians had to face elections, so they were very afraid of public opinion. One strong lever on public opinion was the US death toll. So Ho knew that killing US soldiers was exactly the right tactic for him to use against the US.



I really hope that top military minds are working out how this applies to Russia, China, and Muslim extremists right now.
On the internal threat, I suspect strategy is not being applied, and so this is where we need to start thinking using these tools.



The two lessons so far we can apply to the destruction of Christianity and the whole moral fibre in the West are these:



1. What sort of conflict are we fighting? I suggest we need to do a re-think of our position here: Once “we” were the established “government” so to speak, Of course actors were ideas rather than people. Then a cleverly disguised neo-Communism came as a guerrilla attack.



We have been fighting rearguard actions since the 70's thinking we were still the majority voice. We're not any more. We may as well scrap the tactics we've been using – they didn't work even when we were fighting an insurgency. Now they are the government and we are the insurgents. We need to switch to the tactics that work for insurgents! And we need to get in and fight with zeal.



2. What is the source of strength of the progressives and their ideology? That will take a great deal of thinking out. But it is an important question to answer, and the more people who are pondering it the more chance of success. Though two things I've noticed already I will mention. First progressives are very often fuelled by anger and hatred. These are very powerful emotions and so are a source of strength for “the cause” but they are very unpleasant and ultimately self-destructive for the individual. If we can rescue people from bondage to these we will be doing them a favour. The second we see in young adherents to progressive ideology. They are so indoctrinated that they cannot carry on any discussion. Their only response to views that are different from theirs is to shut down the “dissent”. Their response is that anyone who questions their “orthodoxy” is therefore a fascist or Nazi and so “should not be allowed to speak”. Having thoroughly brainwashed adherents is a source of strength, but very dysfunctional.






Sunday 22 April 2018

Vietnam Mistake No.1

Strategic Mistake No.1


In case you are wondering, no, I don't claim to be an expert on Vietnam strategy, I've just read books by men who are.


Also, in case you are wondering how the story ends, it is not how we've been told. They say we lost the war. No, that's not quite accurate. We actually won the war in '73. There was a peace conference remember. Ho promised not the attack the South again. America promised – under the terms of the agreement - to re-supply the South one-for-one ammunition and equipment if the North did attack. The Russians and Chinese promised not to do more than one-for-one.


In '75 Ho's army invaded the South – about 130,000 combat troops backed by hundreds of tanks, artillery pieces and aircraft. In the US a new Democrat dominated Congress reneged on their agreement, and despite President Ford's pleas refused to re-arm the South, while Russia and China poured armaments into The North. Hence the pictures we saw on TV of people desperately trying to escape Saigon before it fell to these overwhelming invasion forces.


But I want to draw lessons from strategy failures so I shall leave that discussion till later.


The first, and perhaps most basic mistake was was about the nature of the war.


President Kennedy had decided that warfare of the future would be guerilla warfare. Partly because the nuclear stand-off between Communist and Free worlds made conventional warfare too dangerous, partly because Mao, Castro, and Guevara had produced handbooks on insurgency or “people's war” and there were guerilla armies rising in central and south America.


Kennedy had ordered army chiefs to concentrate on counter insurgency techniques. Indeed he had made in known that opposition to this shift in focus would be a career stopper.


Also the first US involvement consisted of advisors to the South Vietnamese army, who were indeed mopping up Viet Minh guerillas. However what was being faced was actually mostly a conventional war with the North invading the South.


It was really only when President Nixon carpet bombed the supply lines through the empty jungles of Cambodia – the “Ho Chi Minh Trail”, and bombed industrial and military targets in North Vietnam itself that that the war was fought appropriately for what it mostly was. And when this was done the war was brought to an end. True, Ho should not have been trusted to keep the peace agreement – but my point is that when the real nature of the war was recognised, more effective tactics were employed.


So what could we be missing about our “battles” in the West?


I am going to suggest that we are fighting on two separate fronts. Internal and external.


Internally our moral strength is being eroded. I have written already on this topic.


Externally we are facing possible threats from Russia, China, and Muslim extremists. Like everyone I pray for “peace in our time” I am just identifying possibilities. With only one of these I think we have misjudged the type and reality of conflict. That is China.


China is a bully. China is militarising its artificial islands in the South China Sea. This we see. What we do not see yet is that China is weaponising its trade links.


For China trade is to be used just like Clauzewitz's description of war as: “Politics by additional means”. Trade is a modern variation on “gun-boat diplomacy”. If you doubt this consider the trade repercussions on South Korea when it defied Beijing and allowed US THAAD missile launchers on its soil.


We are thinking of military clash. China is at present being more cunning and planning for the long term with defensive and offensive emplacements: they are using trade, and particularly to ability of a dictatorship to cut off imports, steal intellectual property, buy up infrastructure in other countries, and buy influence with “aid” gifts or loans, and corruption to enable them to force nations to do their will just as effectively as with guns.


If need to wake up to this fact we: are in a cold war but fighting it the wrong way.

Saturday 14 April 2018

Vietnam Myths

Vietnam Myths


I've confessed before to being anti-war in my youth. Indeed that remained almost sub-consciously my position until my elder son started to make comments on Vietnam. Although it was all a long tome ago, often he would say something and I would think: “Wait on! That was not what we were told at the time!” Partly because he was writing a military thriller and needed to allude to Vietnam he did some research. He bought up (isn't the internet amazing) quantities of books both for and against. I read a selection of these too and found my beliefs shattered. I, like many other well meaning people had been hoodwinked!


I have a number of reasons for dragging this past history up again. First to be fair too the men and women who fought there: they deserve to have the truth told. Then If I could be so completely won over by false propaganda, so can today's idealistic young people – there may be lessons we can learn from our past to help rescue them. Also, there were strategic errors made which subsequent military analysts have illustrated. These I think may transfer over to our non-military fight against progressivism / collectivism / statism as lessons help us adopt better strategies.


Ho Chi Minh is central to the story. He was a lying, cheating, murdering scoundrel totally devoted to International Communism.


Central to understanding what happened are three facts about Ho.


Communists, and to a large extent progressives in the West are not truth tellers. “True” is their adjective to describe anything which aids their cause. In short they are liars. Their promises are worthless. Any agreement they sign is purely a matter of expediency – generally in the hope that their more noble adversaries will feel bound by the agreement – which they never intend to let interfere with their grand plans. Ho broke every promise he made and every agreement he signed.


Socialists in general sprout the dictum: “You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs”. Wherever they have operated they have broken the eggs but made no omelette. They have murdered millions of innocent people to no benefit. Even had there been huge benefit – would that have justified the murders? In the West we have produced the benefit without the murders! However the point is that Ho as an ardent Communist did not care in the least how many people he killed or what human misery and suffering he wrought in advancing Communism. Ho killed some 500,00 people just reinforcing his leadership and “land reforms” in North Vietnam.


Ho was a brilliant strategist and propagandist. He understood war, he had read all the manuals, and thought up some more! He was a born liar and propagandist. His adopted name “Ho Chi Minh” means literally “thr one who enlightens” but as one author pointed out in the vernacular “He who charms the pants off useful idiots.” Ho proved the truth of this by understanding American politics and playing us useful idiots in America, Australia and the West generally like a violin!


So no sooner was the peace accord signed in Geneva, granting Ho the North, and Diem the South than Ho began planning what would be a twenty year war to invade the South and spread Communism to Cambodia and Laos. Overall this would result in some six million people dying


Another important factor on Ho's side was that Communism was internationalist at that time. Since then Russia, China and Vietnam have become nationalist. (Properly we should call Russia and China “Fascist” - but it is all a bit of a case of “a rose by any other name ...”. So Ho could count on – and received – huge amounts of military and other aid from Russia and China all in the cause of spreading Communism around the world.


Why did President Kennedy get involved? His speeches focussed on protecting the people of South Vietnam – which was a real but I suspect not decisive factor. My guess is that uppermost in his mind was the safety of the US. The world was divided Communist Vs Free. True the US had just bested China in a war in Korea. But Soviet strength was certainly believed to be very great. The prospect of the Communists taking over SE Asia with Russian and Chinese backing was a real and dangerous security threat.


Next I hope to look at some of the strategic mistakes.


Saturday 7 April 2018

Truth

Everything Is Relative”


No, its not!


Well in physics some things are relative. Motions in a “non inertial frame” are indeed relative. For instance motion of two bodies moving uniformly in a straight line. Our senses will fudge this a bit even when the motion is not uniform. For instance sitting in one train next to another train at a station. The other train moves off and for an instant you think your train is the one moving.


But in physics, for an “inertial frame” that is where there is change of velocity – which of course includes moving in a circle - motion is not relative it is absolute. The moon is in orbit around the earth and the earth is in orbit around the sun, not the other way round.


In an “inertial frame of reference” motion is absolute! … That really is “Physics 1.01 – I am recalling what I learned in High school 50 years ago!


However in second-hand philosophy these lessons have not been applied – or possibly not even known. We have been told that morals are relative, even that truth is relative. Once again the old adage that if you tell a lie often enough people will believe it has been fulfilled. Mantras such as “everything is relative”, “truth is relative”, “there are no absolutes” have been repeated so often that people have adopted them as “true” without critical examination.


Today I will just illustrate the falsity of “truth is relative” by a simple story.


Fred has a gambling problem. He is now deeply in debt to Mack the Shark.


Fred comes to your church for help with his problem. After the service as everyone is standing around having coffee and chatting, a man comes in to pick up his wife and kids. He recognises the two heavy set gentlemen waiting just outside the front door as two of Mack the Shark's enforcers. He tells you this and you go over to Fred.


Fred” you say, “You said you owe money to Mack the Shark, well there are two of his thugs waiting outside the door.”


How should Fred respond?


According to the pervasive mantra, Fred should act as many people do when Christians tell them about God. He should say, “Ah well, that may be true for you, but its just your truth. Its not true for me. And walk out the door. (In which case Fred is likely facing a very painful future. Just as are the people who reject the truth about God and redemption in Christ.)


Funnily enough, in matters of this world people tend to be more realistic. What will Fred really do? Well he'll get straight on the 'phone to Mack and try to make some deal to get him to call off his thugs.


So deep down, in the practical things of life we all act as though truth is absolute! The mantra has penetrated out psyches just far enough to be dredged up as an evasion. So I think we should just call it out for what it is.


Mantra: “Truth is relative”
Reply: No its not! You live you daily life as though truth is absolute, so you are just trying to evade some issue when you say its only relative.”