Britain lately has been suffering completely ridiculous one sided defeats by small ill equipped poorly trained Arab forces.
I wondered how this could be so, so I purchased Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure
tl;dr
During World War II Churchill complained:
“Pray explain to me how it is that in the Middle East 750,000 men always turn up for their pay and rations but when it comes to fighting only 100,000 turn up.”
When fighting Arabs in Iraq and Afghanistan, only a couple of hundred turned up.
Compare and contrast the British army before the Crimean war, where if you had a ten thousand troops, ten thousand troops would usually fight, their officers leading from the front rather than hanging around surrounded by numerous flunkies in a large well appointed well defended base, logistics being largely provided by camp followers employed by regimental commanders, mostly female camp followers who worked vertically by day and horizontally by night, and consequently had immeasurably lower status than actual fighting men.
Partly this is Parkinsons law, but partly it is rule by priests over warriors. The typical British general regards hurting people and breaking their toys as rather disgraceful and embarrassing, and such activity is unlikely to lead to medals and promotions. They focus on activities that do not directly aim at hurting people, like raising the self esteem of Afghan women and British servicewomen.
The scab of Political Correctness suffocates today’s man so that he doesn’t know how to die because he doesn’t know how to live!
There should be laws where certain honours, as I’ve suggested, the Medal of Honor, is passed down in a family for a few generations. People generally feel better about dying, more comfortable, when they know that their work in this world is more secure. Don’t think me morbid, everyone goes one day or the next!
Also, the military tradition is basically the epitome of the respectable conservative “obedient unto death”. They need both “carrot” and “stick”…
A.J.P.
I agree. The veneration of the dead has always had a special place within Catholic tradition. Yet sadly, it was one of the practices most zealously suppressed by that Puritan strain of 17th Century Protestantism.
Get away from me, Moldburger. Maybe there are some brown people in South America you’d like to spend time with instead.
A.J.P.
Is the “schtick” of your persona in the comments section of this blog that 1) all of your posts are completely devoid of meaningful content, and 2) you sign off your initials on every post like a pretentious fedora faggot? Because that’s what it seems like. Correct me if I’ve missed some elusive contribution.
Hey faggot, five simple questions:
1) Do niggers have souls?
2) Are interracial marriages valid in the eyes of the Lá´Ê€á´…?
3) When Paul says “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.†in Galatians 3, does he also mean neither White nor Negro?
4) Will you accept sacraments from nigger priests?
5) Is Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in heaven?
Acceptable answers are yes, probably, dunno, doubtful, or no.
It should be pretty clear that “Blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the Earth” means “Florence Nightingale is the true hero of the Crimean War, which Britain must fight to prevent Russia from taking Constantinople from the mudbloods, so that Constantinople can instead be awarded to our Greek muppets, but the soldiers who fight that war should be vilified as mercenaries and deluded cucks.”
If that isn’t clear to you, it’s not my job to educate you, read your Bible.
Alan J. Perrick you’ve mentioned White ethnics before. What I’m curious about is do you consider Hungarian Protestants to be White ethnics? What about Swedish Protestants, Finnish Protestants, Estonian Protestants? What about Italian Protestants?
Also, if you had to have a 10% population of French, German, Italian, and Polish Protestants, would you prefer that to a 10% population of English Catholics?
Now presumably you would prefer everybody to be English Protestants, but I’d like a response to the question though because America sailed long past that probably about 1670 or so. One thing is that American English used to consider Scottish Protestants white ethnics, than they added them, than they added Dutch Protestants, than German Protestants, than any Protestants, than Germanic Catholics, Blacks, Southern and Eastern European Catholics, Jews, Armenians, Asians, till today when everybody is an American.
It used to be that to put one soldier in the field you needed four or five behind the lines in logistical roles to keep him supplied and fighting. As militaries become more advanced and technical I can see that percentage getting even more skewed.
The answer, of course, is to automate more military functions – but that will not sit well with the leftists that meddle in military affairs. As long as they have a say in command decisions, failure can be the only result.
> It used to be that to put one soldier in the field you needed four or five behind the lines in logistical roles to keep him supplied and fighting.
This popped into my mind, too, as a possible explanation for Churchill’s figures. Logistics etc. consumes pay and rations just as everyone else. What was Churchill’s context? What was he actually complaining about?
Heinlein’s book Starship Troopers is about a military with the smallest percentage of logistical soldiers and officers of any military in human history. He illustrated that by having his hero, Juan “la cultura es mas importante de la raza” Rico, become an officer by the end of the book.
The US military under the Bush administration reduced the number of boots on the ground and fighting done by the US as counted by the US media by hiring contractors. The media hated the Bush administration for it, but didn’t understand why. Jim does: it means less uniforms and pensions and officer titles for the spics doing housecleaning on the base.
Yes, but, Juan Rico was a white Hispanic from Argentina. Say what you will about these people but they know what to do with a communist.
Excuse me, but Juan Rico was NOT from Argentina. It is in fact the one place on Earth we know from the text he is not from, as his mother is killed while on a trip to Argentina, and it explicitly states that this was far from home.
Other textual evidence (Tagalog being his native language) suggests he is from the Philippines.
Also the stuff in the book about them not having an tail is clearly misleading. The tail may not be “in” the Mobile Infantry,” but it’s surely a part of the military as a whole. They are transported to the site of battle in spaceships and shot out of the spaceships in capsules. Somebody maintains the spaceships, flies them, etc. The MI soldiers do a lot of armor maintenance, but somebody gets them their gear and ammunition, etc.
In any technologically advanced military, the tail will be huge.
In any advanced military, the tail will be largely civilian contractors. The state is inherently poor at creating and mantaining advanced technology, and the lesson of history is that it pretty much sucks even at the basics of keeping soldiers fed, clothed, and housed, and the higher the technology, the worse it performs, the more it sucks. When Alexander the Great was projecting force for great distances, he had ten camp followers for each soldier.
But they called them camp followers. Every soldier, including Alexander himself, fought.
Absolutely zero tail, and the usefulness of tail these days is even less.
The transition from logistics being primarily camp followers, to logistics being primarily part of the army, occurred in the Crimean war, and was driven by politics, not military practicality, indeed it was accompanied by a vigorous attack on the military.
The Crimean war was won largely by attacking Russian logistics. This was demonized in the British press. Heroes were torn down, and whores made into heroes.
The transition was part of an attack by priests on warriors. If modern technology necessitates a tail composed of soldiers, which I doubt, that was not what what drove the transition in the Crimean war.
Ukrainians tried outsourcing lots of non-combat jobs to contractors, a la US. Unlike the US, they couldn’t pay contractors 6 times what a soldier makes (actually paying the company providing the contractors 12 times what a soldier makes.) That’s US nationals. 3rd country nationals working for the US, who ladle food in the chow hall, make $1000 per month, about what a private makes, which means that the company providing them takes double that. And unlike a private, you can only use them to ladle food.
Obviously, for essential functions like maintaining radios, operating complex intelligence systems, etc., you can’t use Nepalese making $1K per month. Ditto for convoy security and route clearance.
Anyway. When it came to war, the Ukrainian contractors largely said “fuck this” and did not deploy.
There’s a minor difference between today and the days of Alexander the Great. That difference is that there’s a shortage of trustworthy countrymen whose life back home is so miserable that they’re willing to risk getting killed gruesomely and live in some shithole as second class citizens for an extended period of time, unless you pay them a ludicrous sum of money.
>Every soldier, including Alexander himself, fought.
Horseshit. Alexander had a corps of mounted messengers, who were troops. If you want to communicate with your troops, you need comms. If your comms guys are busy fighting, you have a big problem.
If you think that you can run your comms, intel systems, aircraft maintenance with civilian “camp followers,” buddy, you better be prepared to pay them six times what you pay their military equivalents. No civilian in their right mind will volunteer to eat shit in Camp Bastion and be treated like crap unless there’s lots of money on the table.
The inefficiency and expense of civilian contracting in the present day army reflects the fact that they are contracting with Washington, rather than contracting with the regimental commander, his subordinate officers, and individual soldiers.
This in turn reflects not military necessity, but the potential for soldiers to exercise political power. They want to make sure that everyone who could potentially make a coup is dependent on Washington from day to day.
How to get civilian contractors? Hijack a load of boat people and tell them if they clean your laundry you’ll feed them food that isn’t Ebola bats on a regular schedule. ezpz, unless your goal is to give lots of money to the SEIU and appease the 30 year old fat chicks on food stamps in your congressional districts who probably get less money at their jobs than the dindus they worship.
Or, to phrase the same thing in language that does not induce crimestop, the reason civilian contractors are so expensive is that every government contract is issued from Washington with the primary motive of buying votes or benefiting influential people, rather than actually getting the thing contracted for.
>Or, to phrase the same thing in language that does not induce crimestop, the reason civilian contractors are so expensive is that every government contract is issued from Washington with the primary motive of buying votes or benefiting influential people, rather than actually getting the thing contracted for.
Again you know everything.
Local nationals are widely contracted locally for unskilled/semi-skilled labor, everything up to heavy equipment operation.
Are you suggesting that the regimental commander should contract locals for skilled/sensitive/classified support jobs?
“Excuse me, Mohammad, do you know how to operate a stack of satellite communications radios? It takes a Secret and a Top Secret crypto fill, that’s not an issue for you religiously, right?”
“Pardon me, Ahmad, could I interest you in a contract involving UAV maintenance and operations? Yeah, you’ll be flying them, communicating real-time with the guys on the ground, fixing the avionics, everything.”
“Jihad, how are you? We’d like you to bore a deep well, several thousand feet, and build our base water supply infrastructure. Yes, OF COURSE you can do it with shovels and hand-mixed cement!”
“Hello, Ali? How are things? How are the goats? How are the wives? Listen, we’ve got this signals intelligence operations center working around the clock, top secret stuff, but the last group of guys got into a big shootout with each other…I don’t know, something about a donkey…anyway, can you start Monday? I don’t know, about 20 guys with TS clearances who speak Pashtu. OK, great, see you bright and early.”
“Hussein, listen, we need this airfield built, and some guys to run fueling, maintenance and air traffic control operations, and also some more guys to fly, crew and repair the aircraft. Fixed wing and rotary, transportation, MEDEVAC and CAS. You know, like, aerial camp followers. A few hundred tribesmen should do. Not a problem? Awesome, I didn’t think it would be.”
What they really need to do is to put you in charge.
I am suggesting the regimental commander should contract with whom he damn well pleases. Back in the days when logistics was largely taken care of by the regimental commander and the camp followers a large proportion of the camp followers, including nearly all the highly skilled camp followers, for example Cardigan’s French Chef and the dual function whores, came from Europe.
Those behind the lines, loading and unloading planes at the base near Basra, managing the equipment, and all that, kissing the ass of numerous four star generals who never leave the base, and never actually shooting and getting shot at, should not get medals and honors and be counted as soldiers. They should be camp followers, whores, and comfort women.
Let high ranking officers take their french chef and their numerous mistresses along with them. But don’t issue medals to that crowd.
Officers were rotated into Helmand province every six months, and so ever six months there was a signature operation to generate press releases and look good on their record. The signature operation was usually something like assisting in dam building, or playgrounds for girls schools, or shit like that. And even when they claimed to be hurting people and breaking their toys, they were not.
The book also addresses the failure of western troops to rule, creating a vacuum filled by Islamic fanatics, but if you only have a couple of hundred actual fighting men, going to have trouble ruling anyway.
The British army has 190 Generals. Which is about the same as the maximum number of actual fighting men it can actually send against the enemy.
That sounds reasonable on the face of it Jim. Unfortunately you are thinking like an old hippy that is still mired in the Viet Nam mindset.
Contrary to the elderly hippies and greasy peaceniks Generals get very attached to their squaddies. They do not send them into battle frivolously and the best of them actually lead from the front. Do yourself a favour and read the autobiography of Stormin Norman Schwartzkopff. (He actually went on record as opposing Gulf War 1&2, and told meddling leftist politicos (publicly and bluntly) that if they were going to be involved with military affairs his resignation was effective immediately. Today’s US military is far more than military force. They can put hospitals, schools, power plants and water plants almost anywhere on the globe in one day. Contrary to the leftist media whores they can do that with the precision of a Swiss watch.
Privates do not make tacticians. The old generals are where they are because they understand not only the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses…but their own as well. The military evolved the way it did because it works.
The military should not be doing that.
They should be destroying hospitals, schools, power plants and water plants in one day.
What happens in Iraq and Afghanistan is that they fight their way into some location, build a school playground under fire. Their commanding officer has a photo opp in which he talks about girls going to school and social justice for all, then they fight their way out of the location under fire, and then the enemy takes charge of the playground using the slides as rocket launchers. (That is an anecdote from “losing small wars”. He also has a similar anecdote about building a power plant.)
Balderdash.
The Roman Empire was founded on roads and and towns built by soldiers. As far as America goes – yep, they can take all that out in a day as well. In fact, the power plants and communications networks were the first casualties in Gulf War 1 and 2.
The photo-ops and PR crap is a function of politics – and that in turn goes on to appease the elderly hippies and greasy peaceniks back at home. If I had my way the young ones would be impressed into slavery and the old ones would be shot and composted without a second thought!
The correct course of action in Iraq should have been the establishment of a long term civilized empire, pacified by the force of arms. The only relationship between Iraq and Viet Nam is that it was the peace that was lost (by liberals) – not the war.
The Roman legions were accompanied by huge numbers of camp followers, who only get mentioned when the legions ditch them to be massacred, as in the retreat from Germany. So while “the legions” did indeed frequently build roads, I doubt that soldiers built the roads.
Which is pretty much what “losing small wars” says though in more euphemistic and politically correct language. But you are not going to establish an empire with only two hundred men showing up to fight.
He also remarks that in the two recent wars in which guerrillas have been successfully suppressed by advanced powers, Malaysia and Chechnya, the means used were too brutal to be acceptable in modern times. (Overlooking the fact that the Cathedral has no problem in using brutal means when fighting opponents that are seriously politically incorrect)
Well Jim, when you look at the kill,ratios, 200 Kippers with air and artillery support can so take on any number of uncivilized, undisciplined rag heads the same way Rome wiped out entire tribes with one third their numbers. Again – today’s soldiers are not the weak, spoiled flower children conscripts drafted for Viet Nam. They are motivated, trained volunteers facing enemies that literally shit in the sand and wipe with their hands.
As for our Romans the history was quite clear. Sure, they lost the odd century and suffered the odd defeat as they built there empire…but the victors often ended up nailed to crosses after watching their entire families put to the sword first. Selective ethnic cleansing was only used as necessary – barbarians were far more profitable when they were docile and cooperative.
We don’t need to murder all the Moslems – just the stupider and more feral ones.
» We don’t need to murder all the Moslems – just the stupider and more feral ones.
* Who outside of PETA regularly uses the word murder when talking about animals?
* Doesn’t the word murder imply that said killing is unlawful, anyway?
We don’t need to kill a single mudslime, we just need a government that is prepared to punish mudslimes for raping human women and refuse to feed and house them. Without such a government, your military will do nothing but give water bottles to thirsty looking mudslimes looking to sign up for welfare and rape human women.
Awesome. I learn so much from this blog.
Watch Live Stream: Pope Francis’s second day in Washington, D.C.
http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2015/09/watch-live-stream-pope-franciss-second.html
Brits fought very hard in Helmand. The Brits in the combat outposts. The whole effort was doomed by failure to create mixed military units with Brit officers and NCOs and local soldiers and junior NCOs. Therefore, Brits were either on huge bases with occasional large excursions into what was in effect a national wilderness area, like in Basra, or on small platoon sized outposts with most efforts going to sustainment and small patrols pushing out for 3-16 hours and eating IEDs and ambushes.
Churchill’s quote refers to local levies.
Bullshit.
Maybe one or two hundred brits fought very hard in Helmand – but that is the maximum force that the British army was capable of projecting – an army with two hundred generals can project two hundred fighting men at the pointy end of the spear.
The occasional large operations are what the book calls “signature operations”. Every six months a new set of officers arrived in Helmand so that they could get their combat medals, and so every six months they would launch a large signature operation, which usually had as its immediate objective building a dam or getting girls into school or some such progressive nation building stuff. In each large signature operation a couple of hundred brits saw combat, but the combat was apt to be an unintended distraction while building a school playground, and the generals collecting the medals did not see combat.
I guess you know better, having been in Helmand or at least having read the dispatches from the ground (Michael Yon is a good place to start.)
It is impossible for someone who knows everything to learn anything.
You are a stubborn pig ignorant dolt.
The article to which you respond is a very short summary of “Small Wars”, written by a British intelligence officer who was involved in every small war in recent times.
I am quite sure he knows better than you.
The short of his book is that to win you need to govern, to govern you need boots on the ground, and British army has more generals than boots on the ground.
I’ve actually been to Helmand, unlike you.
It’s nice that Brit intel guy has opinions.
I too have opinions.
So do guys I’ve worked with who spent YEARS in Helmand.
So does Yon, who knows those guys and spent a lot of time on the ground in Helmand.
Everyone says the same thing. Brits in combat outposts fought hard. But they did not have enough resources to push out and exert sustained influence. Brits had significantly more than 100-200 guys out in combat outposts, not to mention their SOF guys.
But, fuck it, you read a book, so what does anyone else know?
They had significantly more than 100 200 guys sitting around in heavily fortified combat outposts waiting to be attacked.
When attacked, they would necessarily call in bombers and heavy artillery, destroying the surrounding village.
They only had 100-200 guys going out to attack Taliban and enforce British authority.
The practical effect was that if your village was pro British, it got a combat outpost in the middle of it, which proceeded to level your village, while if your village was pro Taliban, it got left alone.
The British army has more generals than it can put boots on the ground.
>They had significantly more than 100 200 guys sitting around in heavily fortified combat outposts waiting to be attacked.
Because you’re a dilettante, you don’t know the difference between a “combat outpost” and a “forward operating base.”
The former has maybe 20-50 guys in it, maximum a company. It’s “heavily fortified” meaning some HESCO walls and a few machine guns. The latter has thousands of troops.
Lots of the Brits were in the former. The idea, which is fundamentally sound, is that by pushing troops out into the population, you can control it. Unfortunately, the logistics only work if you have a mixed administrative structure, like the East Indies Co. Otherwise, say you have a platoon, 30 guys. You need 6-10 of them pulling perimeter guard, watching the radios, doing sustainment activities, etc. at any given time. You can push out a patrol with maybe half of the rest, for a few hours, with the remainder forming a quick reaction force. The more you do this, the more you wear out. Every so often you get rocketed, or your patrol hits some IEDs, like this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2037292/Afghanistan-Shocking-pictures-really-happens-Taliban-attacks.html
After a month, everyone is dead on their feet.
If you want to do a longer patrol, you need a bigger total force.
>The practical effect was that if your village was pro British, it got a combat outpost in the middle of it, which proceeded to level your village, while if your village was pro Taliban, it got left alone.
Not really. What would happen was that they would plunk a COP out there wherever they decided, and then the locals would figure out whether they wanted to milk them for cash projects, use them for target practice, or both.
>The British army has more generals than it can put boots on the ground.
The British Army has global strategic units and missions. If it completely dedicated itself to conquering Afghanistan, it would be able to put more boots on the ground. Nonetheless, it put thousands of boots on the ground in Afghanistan. True, some were in mobile strike forces and others were in COPs. So what? This is the case in every counterinsurgency.
Where they screwed up (and this was politically determined) was by not building a mixed local military. Advisors were on the ground for 6-9 months at a time, and couldn’t hire or fire the leadership or troops of the units they advised, except for maybe exceptional circumstances, and then they would have to go through the local chain of command.
Two hundred or so patrollers is not enough, and a force with two hundred generals should be able to support more than two hundred patrollers.
The villagers would invariably decide to milk them for cash. But as soon as the Taliban noticed anyone benefiting from British presence, then they would send a few people around to snipe at the outpost, whereupon the outpost would necessarily call in heavy artillery and level the village, solving the Taliban’s problem.
You do not win wars by creating assets close to the enemy and waiting for the enemy to destroy them. You win wars by destroying the enemy’s assets. A combat outpost is only useful if it attacks. It is not useful sitting around waiting to be attacked.
The book sarcastically observes that the inkspot strategy was sound, except for lack of ink.
If Britain can only send a couple of hundred people against the enemy, maybe it does not need two hundred generals.
>Two hundred or so patrollers is not enough, and a force with two hundred generals should be able to support more than two hundred patrollers.
As I said, the Brits had significantly more than 200 guys out in COPs. It was sill not enough, because it’s not the equivalent of an effective police force.
>The villagers would invariably decide to milk them for cash. But as soon as the Taliban noticed anyone benefiting from British presence, then they would send a few people around to snipe at the outpost, whereupon the outpost would necessarily call in heavy artillery and level the village, solving the Taliban’s problem.
This is an intel guy’s view of the war, from a TOC.
Actually, as the villagers were milking them for cash, they would also be plinking at them. The COP would not typically represent a problem for the Talibs-it was a source of tax money, and a way to keep the boys occupied.
Levelling a village was difficult and not that common. The Talibs were the sons, nephews and cousins of the village leadership.
>You do not win wars by creating assets close to the enemy and waiting for the enemy to destroy them. You win wars by destroying the enemy’s assets.
You win a counterinsurgency by tying up the enemy’s ability to maneuver, tax and administer the population, by developing persistent intelligence and then by using it to get inside the enemy’s OODA loop. To do all that, you need to have both mobile strike forces and persistent presence in key areas (which you should be expanding from.)
>The book sarcastically observes that the inkspot strategy was sound, except for lack of ink.
You need to import concentrated ink and mix it locally.
>If Britain can only send a couple of hundred people against the enemy, maybe it does not need two hundred generals.
They should have asked you. Believe it or not, the British Army has a global mission that extends slightly beyond Gereshk and Musa Qala.
They could have had a billion in the COPS. If they were in the COPS, were not fighting except when the Taliban felt like attacking them for shits and giggles.
If you want to defeat the enemy, you have to attack them, not wait for them to attack you. Hence the Taliban saying “You may have watches but we have the time”.
Leveling a village is effortlessly easy when you have bombers and heavy artillery. Indeed, if you are forced to use such weapons within rifleshot of your own COP, it is almost unavoidable that you will level the village that you are supposedly defending.
No it does not. It used to have a global mission back in the days of empire. It used to have a pan European mission back in the days of the cold war. Now they are just killing time waiting for someone with the necessary manliness to conquer Britain and get the slow dying over with.
Recall that when the Roman Empire in the West finally fell to the Germans, the ladyboy Romans did not feel like doing anything about it. Britain is already in that state of mind. They will be hugely relieved when someone finally conquers them, much as they were transparently relieved to surrender to the Iranians in the Gulf.
The brits are good soldiers, their officers are a cut above ours as well.
That we cannot rule is due to the politicians, who’d jail us if we tried.
Mind you it’s been known to happen in terms of establishing order if you get Generals who look the other way.
Frankly it’s a miracle all the western armies aren’t routed or in mutiny given the nonsensical conditions we have to work under.
V.X.X.C.,
Don’t forget that those politicians sign the soldiers’ paychecks. That is one of the main reason I described them as “respectable conservatives” above. It’s one of the definining features.
A.J.P.
AJP (American Jewish Person?), do you know why so many womansoldiers have little dindus and officer niggers routinely get away with sexual harassment? It’s related to your refusal to answer my simple theological questions.
How about this. I’ll stop harassing you if you say the word nigger. I believe that is a mortal sin in your church, and when you go to confession the vicar will advise you to avoid the Internet and adopt a niglet before s/he will absolve you.
He cannot answer because you have triggered his crimestop.
I look forward to reading the book (and using it to stir conversations next RUSI visit).
British army is underfunded and being cut further. I joined the OTC. First night in field they ran out of bungee cables and tent pegs in the stores, and we had to make do with sticks and pieces of string to put our bashers up.
The rare occasions we got to shoot real bullets rather than blanks consisted of a shooting bunker built in world war 2, mechanical (you have to walk over to the targets after) and held 4 people at a time, so with about 16 people that was about 2 hours waiting for every 20 minutes shooting. It is said that, on an exchange trip to America, they will shoot more rounds from an M16 in one afternoon than in 3 years in our OTC.
From what I hear of the British in Afghanistan it sounds like these sort of problems on a large scale. The Danish apparently kicked a lot of ass, because the meager amount of men they sent “had money to put tanks where they like”.
But, as I’ve said, the core of the British army contains a lot of people who are competent, co-operative, friendly, and brave. People are who ready to use the local kids to clear mindfields while going home and sharing a beer with their mates. And there are still remnants of aristocratic families who do this stuff for prestige and culture rather than because they need the money. And there are plenty of veterans who know their stuff, who don’t agree with the direction the army is heading. The gurkas are excellent. The SAS still gets sent all over the world.
Yes, I’ve met a lefty officer who believed WW2 was fought to protect diversity. And I’ve met a hardline feminist officer. But there are still many competent people, grey-haired, white and angry, who still have strong values left in them, who if given funding, competent generals, and release from legal shackles, would be capable of kicking ass. It reminds me of the state of the army before WW2. I believe they are capable of re-igniting to an extent. I think it will take a generation or two to fully emasculate them.
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