> but I’d be shocked if the Inca actually never thought of “kill the leader”.
Not having a plan on transfer of control in case the leader is dead or otherwise unable to lead is, for intents and purposes, the same thing as never thought of it.
> Just identifying having a highly developed material culture with having greater access to historical knowledge doesn’t cut it.
I already identified how the Romans could beat a barbarian army 10 times their size and better armed. This was done with organization, tactics, and discipline. These were developed through centuries of experience, and writing is how these things are remembered.
A big part of what West Point teaches is military history, and it's not for the lulz. It's to learn the lessons of the past. My father (Air Force) received a lot of training as an officer, I still have his training books, and it's largely military history. The military is very interested in learning from history, and you can even see the constant changes in tactics in wars like WW1 and WW2 as they learn from mistakes.
> transplanting western military practice to south Vietnam (as ARVN forces) failed while the Viet Cong flourished.
That is indeed an interesting case history. The US, though, crippled itself by being unwilling (not unaware) to employ what was necessary to win. The VC took every advantage of what they knew the US was unwilling to do. Ho Chi Minh was no fool, had spent time in the west, and had access to military history. I.e. it was not a conflict between a society with military history knowledge and one without.
I realize I’m making more of this than it warrants, so I won’t go any further after this post. We agree that military history is valuable, we disagree that it’s the causative heart of a unified theory of the history of conflict. To me, the original thought reads like a pithy observation meant to underscore the value of military history. To push it to the point where it is itself historically decisive and includes all forms of the transmission of military knowledge is unwarranted. A key that claims to fit every lock should be treated with suspicion.
> Not having a plan on transfer of control in case the leader is dead or otherwise unable to lead is, for intents and purposes, the same thing as never thought of it.
This is beginning from a result and working backwards to infer possible causes. You can raise interesting questions that way, but it isn’t evidence that the inference is correct.
Rome was sacked by the Gauls in 390, came right to the edge against Hannibal and Pyrrhus, was never really able to come to grips with the Parthians or push meaningfully past the Rhine, and in the west was finished by an invasion of Goths. It’s not so cut and dried—-events rarely are, which is why we should be suspect of one size fits all theories. Chalking Roman organization, tactics, and discipline up to historical study means including a host of technological, social and economic systems which one could easily argue were themselves decisive. My original point was that the claim is reductive, not that it’s flat out wrong.
> [Vietnam] was not a conflict between a society with military history knowledge and one without.
Yes, that point was aimed at the claim that military knowledge transcends culture. The argument in Fire in the Lake doesn’t have anything to do with the US’s willingness to do “what was necessary” (ie the old “if they only let our boys off the leash” saw). It’s about how the VC approach to recruitment, organization and indoctrination was congruent with Vietnamese cultural and philosophical practice in a way that the US imposed South Vietnamese government and ARVN organization failed to match. We modeled ARVN on US military practice because that’s what our generations of military history and institutional knowledge told us to do, and it was a mistake.
I’m not interested in refighting Vietnam on HN, but Fire is a really interesting book. Whether you come out agreeing or disagreeing with her conclusions, it’s a strong recommend.
Not having a plan on transfer of control in case the leader is dead or otherwise unable to lead is, for intents and purposes, the same thing as never thought of it.
> Just identifying having a highly developed material culture with having greater access to historical knowledge doesn’t cut it.
I already identified how the Romans could beat a barbarian army 10 times their size and better armed. This was done with organization, tactics, and discipline. These were developed through centuries of experience, and writing is how these things are remembered.
A big part of what West Point teaches is military history, and it's not for the lulz. It's to learn the lessons of the past. My father (Air Force) received a lot of training as an officer, I still have his training books, and it's largely military history. The military is very interested in learning from history, and you can even see the constant changes in tactics in wars like WW1 and WW2 as they learn from mistakes.
> transplanting western military practice to south Vietnam (as ARVN forces) failed while the Viet Cong flourished.
That is indeed an interesting case history. The US, though, crippled itself by being unwilling (not unaware) to employ what was necessary to win. The VC took every advantage of what they knew the US was unwilling to do. Ho Chi Minh was no fool, had spent time in the west, and had access to military history. I.e. it was not a conflict between a society with military history knowledge and one without.