When two states do the same it is not the same. “all of these poleis had the same basic governing institutions, what made an oligarchy different from a democracy or a tyranny? By and large the difference isn’t adding or… Read More »Collections: How to Polis, 101, Part IIa: Politeia in the Polis
Even basic armor makes a lot of difference in a fight. “If a gambeson was all you could afford, it was a lot better than nothing. Assuming you kept moving and made yourself a hard target, there was a good… Read More »Collections: Punching Through Some Armor Myths
People ignoring reality will not bring the future. “if you want to produce 10 exaflops on a chip, you can do that easily — but you will not be able to service it with memory, making it useless FLOPS (the… Read More »Why AGI Will Not Happen
Violence is not the only force in societies. “Trying to reduce all forms of authority in a society to violence or the threat of violence is an ‘boy’s sociology,’ unfit for serious adults.” https://acoup.blog/2021/02/19/collections-the-universal-warrior-part-iii-the-cult-of-the-badass/
Deep bonds are only strange to modern people. “One only needs to look, for instance, at the failure of these intense bonds to hold primacy over the bonds of family, class or tribe when efforts are made to train ‘western’-style… Read More »Collections: The Universal Warrior, Part IIb: A Soldier’s Lot
Guerrilla war is the default. “We may call this the first system of war. It is the oldest, but as noted above, never entirely goes away. We tend to call this style ‘asymmetric’ or ‘unconventional’ war, but it is the… Read More »Collections: The Universal Warrior, Part IIa: The Many Faces of Battle
There is a difference between a warrior and a soldier. “The shift to a professional military has always been understood to have involved risks – the classic(al) example of those risks being the Roman one: the creation of a semi-professional… Read More »Collections: The Universal Warrior, Part I: Soldiers, Warriors, and…
Goals are important. “But fortunately, there is also no good strategic reason to have a battle here either! The initial Italian goal was the village of Gorizia, a position of functionally no strategic value, but which had been fortified (because… Read More »Collections: Luigi Cadorna Was The Worst
WWI was just a huge clusterfuck. “the problem these generals faced was fundamentally beyond their ability or anyone’s ability to solve. We didn’t get into it here, but every conceivable secondary theater of war was also tried, along with naval… Read More »Collections: No Man’s Land, Part II: Breaking the Stalemate
Do not assume you are smarter than people in the past were. “Many World War I generals were incompetent and some were uncaring, but there were also a lot of quite capable, focused and dedicated commanders and they couldn’t break… Read More »Collections: No Man’s Land, Part I: The Trench Stalemate