Roman vs. American COIN ops

[Bob's World]

Not true. No one "wages war on the internet." Nothing done on the internet can deliver decisive military effect. NOTHING!

I'm sure that equally competent military pundits said much the same thing a century ago, replacing "on the internet" with "in the air."

No, the tools of the modern communications age( cell phones, internet, etc) have changed the nature of insurgency forever in terms of its viral nature; making many sound military based TTPs devised over the centuries largely irrelevant. (Try to separate a populace from the insurgent in a land with cell and internet technology...)

Of course, I say that that insurgency and COIN are really far more politics than warfare, and best thought of as such, so perhaps WILF is right. These communications tools have however certainly changed how people need to govern at a minimum.

This is why the American founding fathers insured that the populace had both the right to bear arms and a free press. They understood full well that even with checks and balances between the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judical branches, that you also needed an empowered populace to keep those three from getting in cahoots with each other.

Ben Franklin would have grasped the value and the application of the internet for toppling tyrants immediately.