Managing the Wheel

Military Art : Military Force and Wars, chicken and egg

This article is the first part of a series of articles, touching on military and wars. What are they, what had they been classified as? Should they be re-classified? What are the evolutions so far?

This article serves as an introduction to later articles, and opens more questions than attempt to provide the answers.


"What is the military?"

A question that most children might ask, when they first catches a glimpse of this multi-meaning, and widely used word. A group? An organisation? A collection of men and woman? A official or unofficial group? A group that wears similar uniforms so as to have a common identity?

To the man in the street, the military might imply a huge group of men and women, in an organisation that gets more and more complex with time, whose sole objective is dedicated to achieving national objectives through the use of force.

What then are terriorist groups? Are they a military force? A form of gangsters? A multi-national organisation?

Well, how about the gangsters? Are they too a military force? The modern day mafia or organised syndicate is as powerful as a small army, sometimes able to overpower the normal police units. Even in mainstream movies, the power of the modern syndicate is normally well protrayed. Armed with assault rifles and grenades, the syndicate can normally rain down a barrage of fire on the pitiful police officers, hiding behind the patrol car, calling for reinforcements.

So against such syndicate, is it an options to send in more police officers? Or simply send in the troops? Is raining artillery fire on them an acceptable options?


"What are wars?"

What are wars, battles, campaigns? If a large group (say 1000 gang members) of gangsters were to fight a rival group of similar size, can that be classified as wars? Or just mere gang fights?

Battles are fights between 2 opposing forces. It can be as long as a few hours or half a day, say an infantry charge through those trenches or up that hill, or as long as a few weeks or months, the naval battle of Midway, Pearl Harbour, etc.

Campaigns are a collection of battles, usually a string of battles, one happening after the other, or simulataneously. Campaigns normally takes place over a designated area, and are labelled by the area, etc, the iraqi air campaign, the Malayan campaign, etc.

Wars, of course, are the mother of all battles and campaigns. Wars can last from a few days to a few years.


"Chicken or Egg?"

The question is which one comes first? Is there wars, fights, between clans and tribes, and thus comes the idea of creating military forces? Or is it the other way round?

Should the next military and force restructuring, weapon procument be determined by the types of war and battles that the nation's military force might faced or will a new way of fighting a war evolve due to a the forming of new group of military or potential opponent force, or the introduction to a new class of weapons, or proliferation of them?
Currently both cases seems to be happening concurrently...

posted by Pencil @ 9:32 PM