All-Mercenary service?

[Stratiotes]

I await receipt of Chet Richard's book to read why I am wrong. Although I've discussed it with him and still remain convinced that this is the wrong path for us.

Fabius - Ah, the mystery of the web - from the first article of yours I read I had suspicions that you and Chet were one and the same person.

zenpundit/Jones_RE and others - I agree that you have made some good points about limitations of the militia. I don't think a militia is necessarily the the answer all by itself but I think the assets it would provide make it a very important (if not the most important) part of a national defense. With a militia, any other fulltime force such - Mercs or otherwise - could be substantially reduced and provide less of a danger of abuse (the very argument of many of our founders). At the same time, I think we have become so used to a large fulltime force that we have made an assumption that it is required or that it is superior to all others.

As an aside, I do not see the connection that some states do not go to war because of US strength. I see a lot of war still going on despite the threat of US intervention. And, at times, such as with Kuwait, our political maneuverings cancel out the threat and lead potential badguys to think we will do nothing - leading to our intervention and another war we would not have had otherwise.

[Stratiotes]

Sorry to dominate the thread but I just remembered somebody had mentioned a militia would not work well because of the size of our country.

To me, the size of our country is simply a geographical challenge that can make it more difficult for the militia or for the invader depending on how it is handled. The Swiss example is more analogous than it might seem - their area is smaller but its also very mountainous - they have a geographic challenge as well. They have learned how to use that challenge to their advantage. We could use the geography of our country - size being one factor of many - to our advantage. I just don't see how this is something that makes a militia necessarily less effective. If anything, it is an even greater challenge to any potential invader since he has even more territory he has to try and hold.

[Jones_RE]

I think you mean me, Stratiotes. And now that I think about it, I recall that the top strategists for the Empire of Japan ruled out any large scale seizure of US territory in part because so many Americans owned guns. So the poison pill factor does still apply to us. (Tangent - if we'd known how many Iraqis owned AK-47's would war planners have set things up differently?)

"Herd immunity." It's a term coined to reflect that fact that when you immunize a certain percentage of a group against a disease, that disease is no longer able to affect the group. That is, you don't have to reach a 100% immunization rate in order to protect the group, because diseases must pass from individual to individual and cannot do so under a condition of herd immunity - infected individual comes into contact with another susceptible individual.

Herd immunity is the sort of thing we reach for with a militia/poison pill strategy. We don't have to arm everyone, just a sufficient percentage to deter attack.

I think a sort of herd immunity is the desired end state with any 4th Generation conflict - a level at which individual actors or cells may be capable of violence, but incapable of spreading and reproducing more cells to follow their line of operations (to borrow from Maj. Strickland - the enemy has LOOs too, after all). All of the usual techniques of counterinsurgency are really seeking to reach this end state - but we haven't had a term for victory before.

[Stratiotes]

I think a sort of herd immunity is the desired end state with any 4th Generation conflict - a level at which individual actors or cells may be capable of violence, but incapable of spreading and reproducing more cells to follow their line of operations (to borrow from Maj. Strickland - the enemy has LOOs too, after all). All of the usual techniques of counterinsurgency are really seeking to reach this end state - but we haven't had a term for victory before.

I agree with you. And, on the AK count in Iraq - days before the war began I had read a report on AP I think about how Sadam's regime had given away automatic weapons and ammunition to citizens and required that they learn how to use them. I think there was some knowledge of how many there were but perhaps they thought none would be used against "liberators." A gross underestimation of the potential I would think.

On the insurgent side, their task is substantially easier than the counterinsurgency. The insurgent has to only install the thought that a physical occupation of their land does not necessarily mean they have to accept occupation in their hearts. They are occuppied physically but not mentally. It reminds me of the part in the movie "Hanoi Hilton" when the Cuban torturer is mocking an American prisoner with, "Don't you realize I can make you free, man?" to which the American responds defiantly, "I'm already free, man!" So long as the herd immunized to never accept physical defeat as the final defeat, they continue to have the seeds of resistance.