The Nature of 21st Century Warfare

[Arnox]

So first of all, I should say right off the bat here that I have no military experience, so this is just gonna be my researched musings mostly. Take them with a grain of salt.

Now, I first started thinking about this subject when I was reading about medieval tactics. Specifically, if I were faced with the task of leading a small army to overthrow a first-world government, how would I go about doing it? The first thing that came to me was the modern precision and devastation which is at a modern air force's disposal. There's a reason governments pour so much money into ordnance delivery systems of all kinds. All it takes is just a GPS target and within a day, boom. No more target.

Here's a story about an ISIS base that got wiped off the map due to ONE SLIGHT MISTAKE over social media.

https://gizmodo.com/air-force-uses-moronic-selfie-to-bomb-isis-headquarters-1709420532

The [airmen are] combing through social media and they see some moron standing at this command. And in some social media, open forum, bragging about command and control capabilities for Da’esh, ISIL, And these guys go ‘ah, we got an in.’ So they do some work, long story short, about 22 hours later through that very building, three JDAMS take that entire building out. Through social media. It was a post on social media. Bombs on target in 22 hours.

If you think about it, that's fucking impressive. So, as this all goes to show, a direct attack on such a precise force would be utter suicide, no matter HOW MANY bodies you have. The only option here is to be sneaky. Now, there are three big things to worry about when leading this guerilla force in the hostile country. Public opinion, communications, and technological warfare.

Public Opinion

Probably the most important factor that will decide whether you succeed at toppling the current regime or fail and get crushed. A guerrilla force is incredibly hard to find and to strike against, but at the sore cost of it living and dying by public support. This is also where the current regime can really do some damage in this day and age. It is SO easy to paint someone as an enemy nowadays. To make them look like ruthless savages undeserving of any mercy. Fake videos and images can be distributed. The major news stations can be given any manner of stories to run. It's actually incredibly scary if you think about how easy it is for a government to distort the truth.

And the sad thing is, there isn't much one can do to combat this as a small underground force. HOWEVER, if standard living conditions in this country are bad enough, such conditions can act as a powerful counterweight to any misinformation given. It's much easier to rally someone to your cause when they're hungry and/or don't have any shelter or other basic things or if they struggle to obtain these things daily.

Communications & Technological Warfare

This one is much easier to tackle than gaining public support, but at the same time, it can be just as hard depending on how you build your network. On one hand, the internet is an utterly INVALUABLE tool for coordinating with the many inevitably disparate units of your guerilla force. On the other hand, if proper security protocols are not followed strictly enough, it will become easy for the government to nail key points of your resistance with air strikes.

It also extends to your enemy's communications. If you can somehow find a way to knock them out, you gain a massive upper hand. Attempts at breaking into their online network can also yield valuable information and even possibly control. Verification of all key information should be standard practice though to make sure that the information obtained is not misinformation that was purposefully planted.

-

Besides that, there are also moles from intelligence agencies you need to worry about. Logistics is also a big factor many people do not consider. You can't have a military force if you can't even feed and take care of them all properly. And then there's also issues of weapons supply. Again though, it will ultimately come down to public support. How much are people willing to support your cause. Even if its only 25% of the total population, that's still a HUGE force. You can do an awful lot of damage with that 25%. 5% even is very doable if you plan everything well enough.

Anyway though. Please be sure to let me know your thoughts on all of this. I'm especially interested in hearing what those with actual military experience have to say.

 

[Signa]

I wish we didn't hear about strikes like this. It means they now know too, and will take extra precautions to not take selfies outside their base, making it harder to track them down. It also means they could stand outside of an orphanage and get the US to strike them as a false-flag op. Just because the building was leveled doesn't mean that they knew they were compromised so.

I just hope against hope that the military is doing their due diligence with strikes like this too. They are extra-judiciary, when it comes to delivering a death sentence, so they had better wield that power with respect. I fully doubt they do though.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Ehhh ... there has been plenty of 'selfie' moments in the history of warfare.

Like how Nazis used to put delinquents and 'weaklings' on Freya-Wurzburg radar and gun laying network-air intelligence duties. And subsequently used to fortify said installations with encompassing heavy barbed wire.

The problem with that is on the Northern coasts of France was agriculture heavy ... so British air recon could tell where these installations were by looking at the height of grass due to roaming grazers eating the grass around them, and said delinquent units never did things likes cut the grass inside them.

 

[Arnox]

Ehhh ... there has been plenty of 'selfie' moments in the history of warfare.

Like how Nazis used to put delinquents and 'weaklings' on Freya-Wurzburg radar and gun laying network-air intelligence duties. And subsequently used to fortify said installations with encompassing heavy barbed wire.

The problem with that is on the Northern coasts of France was agriculture heavy ... so British air recon could tell where these installations were by looking at the height of grass due to roaming grazers eating the grass around them, and said delinquent units never did things likes cut the grass inside them.

It's even more a problem now though due to the incredibly fast response times and the deadly precision that explosive ordnance these days have.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

It's even more a problem now though due to the incredibly fast response times and the deadly precision that explosive ordnance these days have.

Absolutely, but where there is a will there is a way. It's easier now, and faster ... but when you hear all the little details like predicting where sensitive equipment is because of the length of grass nearby should help to remind people that we do live in a post-secrets world. We've merely made it easier to locate people, not necessarily that the desire or actions taken to do so have diminished or haven't been equally successful in the past.

Drones are a gamechanger, though arguably it's far more effective of pushing around poor people rather than modern military force armed with electronic warfare assets.

One of the biggest successes for Russia in Syria is roadtesting its Krasukha-4 electronic attack equipment. And this is particularly relevant against things like radar primed munitions.

Arguably it's easier to make drones unusable or unreliable than it is to maintain drones in concert. Particularly if those assets are already in the field. There is an argument that throughut history, you havewhat isknownas the 'Offensive-Defensive shift'... that as known disparities in power emerge, the greater incentive to counteract it becomes apparent, and through innovation cheaper, for as long as that disparity exists.

Trenches were the answer to artillery, and the machine gun and enfilading fire was the answer to the trench run, and 'peaceful penetration' and tanks were the answer to the machine gun...and so on and so forth.

The one thing that remains static is the Mk. 1 human brain and eyeball.

 

[Arnox]

It's even more a problem now though due to the incredibly fast response times and the deadly precision that explosive ordnance these days have.

Absolutely, but where there is a will there is a way. It's easier now, and faster ... but when you hear all the little details like predicting where sensitive equipment is because of the length of grass nearby should help to remind people that we do live in a post-secrets world. We've merely made it easier to locate people, not necessarily that the desire or actions taken to do so have diminished or haven't been equally successful in the past.

Drones are a gamechanger, though arguably it's far more effective of pushing around poor people rather than modern military force armed with electronic warfare assets.

One of the biggest successes for Russia in Syria is roadtesting its Krasukha-4 electronic attack equipment. And this is particularly relevant against things like radar primed munitions.

Arguably it's easier to make drones unusable or unreliable than it is to maintain drones in concert. Particularly if those assets are already in the field. There is an argument that throughut history, you havewhat isknownas the 'Offensive-Defensive shift'... that as known disparities in power emerge, the greater incentive to counteract it becomes apparent, and through innovation cheaper, for as long as that disparity exists.

Trenches were the answer to artillery, and the machine gun and enfilading fire was the answer to the trench run, and 'peaceful penetration' and tanks were the answer to the machine gun...and so on and so forth.

The one thing that remains static is the Mk. 1 human brain and eyeball.

You know, for someone with a MLP avatar, you certainly know a lot about military matters.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

You know, for someone with a MLP avatar, you certainly know a lot about military matters.

I was an enlistee. Plus Rarity is best M7 horse and the show and comics are still charming.