Poll: Has war changed?
- Thread starter ForensicYOYO
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It was most certainly not the first battle where prisoners were killed. It wasn't even the first battle in the Hundred Years War where prisoners were killed.crudus said:
Also, the reason officers were killed at that battle for the first time in a long time was simply that for the first time in a long time the regular grunts had weapons capable of piercing their armor from a distance. It's easy for the officers to say it's not "gentlemanly" to kill them when they're damn near invincible, but that doesn't mean war was ever actually "gentlemanly". It's sick and wrong and a bunch of plated douche-nozzles running around the battlefield talking about how awesome they are doesn't make it any nicer.
The question is far too broad for a simple "yes" or "no" answer. I tend to fall on the "no" side of the argument. If you read Clauswitz, Liddel-Hart, Keegan and Thucycdides, you'd be bound to say no, because of the tremendous continuity in war over thousands of years. Motivations for going to war haven't changed. Fundamental strategies haven't changed. The psychology of combat hasn't changed. The limits of human perception haven't changed. The extent of our errors hasn't changed. It remains, as David Byrne said, "same as it ever was."
What has changed is how and why we use war. I don't just mean in terms of technology or doctrine. Yes, an M-16 is not a spear, but that's a superficial difference. What's really distinct about modern combat is its indecisive nature, which is a consequence of the new ways that wars are being fought, as well as the disconnect between a nation's policy leaders and its military goals and methods.
You should read Victor Davis Hanson's The Western Way of War. According to Hanson's thesis, the Greeks invented the decisive infantry battle as a way of limiting the destructive potential and duration of wars. The West adopted the overall pattern of this type of warfare, but we've lost the sense of the overall purpose of it all. Of course, if you trace Hanson's continuity of warfare from classical Greece, it shows how much things have changed from the warfare of the earlier Greeks as represented by the Homeric heroes.
What has changed is how and why we use war. I don't just mean in terms of technology or doctrine. Yes, an M-16 is not a spear, but that's a superficial difference. What's really distinct about modern combat is its indecisive nature, which is a consequence of the new ways that wars are being fought, as well as the disconnect between a nation's policy leaders and its military goals and methods.
You should read Victor Davis Hanson's The Western Way of War. According to Hanson's thesis, the Greeks invented the decisive infantry battle as a way of limiting the destructive potential and duration of wars. The West adopted the overall pattern of this type of warfare, but we've lost the sense of the overall purpose of it all. Of course, if you trace Hanson's continuity of warfare from classical Greece, it shows how much things have changed from the warfare of the earlier Greeks as represented by the Homeric heroes.
Only the weapons have changed. We still use more or less the same tactics from more 2000 or so years ago, and it's always for one of these reasons: religion, resources, expansionism or profit.
War. War never changes.
War. War never changes.
It is a well known fact that war does not change, For Ron Perlman said it wouldn't. Do not question him.
In the sense of weaponry, yes. We can kill people in way more flamboyant ways than in the past.
Guerrilla warfare has also become more commonplace (though not to say it wasn't used before), compared to the gentlemen's wars that the British and French fought.
Guerrilla warfare has also become more commonplace (though not to say it wasn't used before), compared to the gentlemen's wars that the British and French fought.
both and neither,
we still fight over similar issues and we still kill each other
only the method of killing each other has changed
we still fight over similar issues and we still kill each other
only the method of killing each other has changed
war, war never ch.... PUNCH!
you did that last game stfu
but seriously. it has been said. war never chang...
you did that last game stfu
but seriously. it has been said. war never chang...
The weapons may change, the targets may change, the battlefields may change, even the reasons for fighting may change, but at the end of the day it is one group of people killing other groups of people. So apart from what I've already mentioned, the basic structure of war has not changed.
Even the reasons don't change. In the end, people fight for fear, interest or honor. Any other motivation is a screen for one of these three.
How we fight wars? That has changed. Thousands of years ago people would line up with their spears and shields or whatever weapon they had and would charge at one another. Now-a-days war is a much less personal affair most of the time. You shoot at people many yards away whom you can barely see or you drop bombs on them from a mile up in the air.
Why we wage wars? That hasn't changed, nor will it probably ever will change. We fight for a variety of reasons. We don't like the other group. We want something the other group has. We don't want the other group to have something. We think the other group is doing something wrong. We fight for these reasons now, we have fought for them for millennia, and we will continue to fight for them in the years to come.
Why we wage wars? That hasn't changed, nor will it probably ever will change. We fight for a variety of reasons. We don't like the other group. We want something the other group has. We don't want the other group to have something. We think the other group is doing something wrong. We fight for these reasons now, we have fought for them for millennia, and we will continue to fight for them in the years to come.
The way we carry out war has changed(Fighting styles, weapons) but war itself has not. Differing factions that for some reasons have focused all their efforts on fighting that other faction. So war has not and cannot because that is the definition of a war. However as I previously pointed out the weapons and styles are different as things evolved.
War in definition doesn't change yet the way we perform in war has changed, from war being a skilled way to fight for/with thy king and country to an easy means to kill people over governmental issues
