Quote Originally Posted by tequila View Post
Except Abu Suleyman's argument doesn't seem predicated on resource constraint. We're not going to run out of soldiers or Marines anytime soon.
There are plenty of things that we are not going to run out of, perhaps ever in meaningful terms, but which still fall within the constraints of scarcity. Scarcity does not necessarily mean impending exhaustion of supply, but the presence of a limit, however large or small, and the value that we place on things because of said limit. In the case of lives, their innate value, which I initially feared was I had portrayed too lightly, is at least one of the major reasons we should spend our blood wisely.

Nonetheless, all military excursions are ones where we exchange blood and treasure for ... something. If we already know that we are not going to get what we want with the current strategy, we should immediately change direction. While we may not be able to get to the correct strategy directly, we should at least be exchanging our blood and treasure for the information of what might work eventually.

Think of the patrol that walks into an ambush. They know that they cannot stay where they are at, nor can they keep doing what they are doing. some of them will probably be killed no matter what they do, they will certainly be destroyed if they continue on their current course. While flanking left may not be the correct solution to resolve the problem, it will 1) buy them (a little) time and 2) give them information about how to resolve the problem ("oh, good their line end here" or "Nope, looks like they are on the right side" etc.). God help the patrol who in a similar situation the leader says "Let us take a moment to consider our direction carefully before we act," because many of them will soon meet him.