War, What Is It Good For?

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

As we know the answer to “War, what is it good for?” is “Other than freeing slaves, liberating captives, toppling tyrants, stopping aggression and advancing civilization, then absolutely nothing.”

But that’s not the point right now. First let me give you a brief tour of how we got to this topic. As you know, when I’m depressed (no, not extremely, and it might be physical. Doctor at end of Jan. I’ll let you know how it goes) I read a lot of Jane Austen Fanfic. I’m at the point I’m almost past the depression and at a point I can read other things, maybe. With luck. But I’m also fascinated by the things I learn from JAFF.

Learn? Oh, not about the book, or the– Look, it’s the authors who are overwhelmingly young, female, college educated, and often beginning writers.

I keep finding out what they think history is, what really happened, what the relationship between men and women is, what religion was like in Victorian times, and yes, how the world works.

Most of the time the things I find out are … well, I can get people in my close-in group to laugh aloud by saying “So I was reading Jane Austen Fanfic” but the laughter has a groan in it, if you know what I mean.

Like, I find out that duchesses get on gigs to go buy groceries in the local market. And that two unmarried people of good birth can stay in a holiday cottage alone (how the heck they manage to do house keeping Victorian style by themselves and be “on vacation” is a mystery all by itself) and they’re not ruined, and did nothing disreputable. I also find out all the popular lies are out there, as alive and well as when I was taught them now 40 some years ago, and before I found out they were lies. Stuff like: women couldn’t own property. Women couldn’t run businesses. Everyone thought women were inferior, not just different but inferior. All of it.

But then periodically I come across something so wrong it’s not even wrong. Some concept that at its base makes my head go around three times, before I spit up pea– I mean, that betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the world and everything in it, and how things work at their base level of such proportions that I don’t even know how to reach the author. And I wonder how you can go through life into at least your twenties (from language use) without having figured out how the world works, and how the world can work.

Now, realize this book already had some annoyances going because the main character was obviously setup as a girl boss who knows everything and puts everyone in their place. The sort of “And then everyone clapped” fantasy that only happens in uber-liberal tweets.

But then we get to a place where the main woman character is having dinner with the main man character and his family. One of whom is a powerful dowager, and another is a military man. (Of sorts, in Jane Austen’s work it is obvious it is mostly an ornamental type of position, but Americans always write this as though he were a real military man.)

The story takes place during the Napoleonic Wars, and the military man is about to be deployed to the peninsula to fight against Napoleon.

The dowager is against her nephew going into such a dangerous situation and wants to buy him out of it, and then of course, female MC gives her opinion. And you know, if it were that honor requires him to go or that the children of the poor don’t get to beg off, I could just go, “okay, whatever” but no.

The Female MC informs the world that … “I would prefer these disputes were resolved by diplomatic means.”

I and any sane person would expect the dowager to slap her back with “I think so too, but Napoleon is trying to gobble up Europe to fix the mess the French revolution made in the country he took over. Unless we want to live forever as his vassals and be despoiled by his troops, we’ve got to fight him.”

But that’s not how it works in the story. No in the story, the dowager tells the young woman that no, we must have war “because that’s how we make progress.”

And before I can recover from that monumental piece of stupidity, the young woman says that of course that’s true, but so many people die, and wouldn’t it be better to solve things diplomatically, even if we didn’t have the same “progress.”

This is the point at which a physical book would have hit the wall and the electronic one went back to KU.

Think of the various issues with this:

1- War is for… progress? (WHAT?)

2- People can choose between war and diplomacy, but

3- Choose war because “progress”.

I mean, of course war can bring about some kinds of progress. Usually things that already exist and are useful for the war get money and time thrown at them and governmental blocks to their application removed. But that’s not the purpose of war.

And certainly no one sits around intending to have a war or “planning” a war for progress. Well, a pause here, sometimes I think that our liberal “elites” think that’s exactly how we should conduct war. We should only go to war if it is completely disinterested and in the name of something. Perhaps “progress” however they define it. They bloodlessly and unconcernedly send people’s sons to die for their crazy goals, because they assume this will somehow bring about “progress.”

But real wars don’t start that way. They start because someone, usually in charge of a profoundly bankrupt country, gets a wild hare to invade his neighbors and go rampaging through the neighborhood. At which point, the other countries have a choice of fighting back or being devoured.

There’s variations on this, such as countries that fall to communism, can’t support themselves anymore, and therefore go rampaging through the global neighborhood in search of food and change behind the neighbor’s metaphorical couch cushions.

War is part of the human condition. You can’t solve everything with diplomacy, because some things can’t be solved with diplomacy.

For instance, Palestinians want the Jews exterminated. Jews don’t want to be exterminated. What’s the diplomatic solution to that? Jews agree to be half-exterminated? In a way that’s what they’ve been inching to, making more and more concessions… until October 7 when they realized they had to either fight or be killed. And they’ve been fighting ever since, because their only chance is to beat the enemy so badly the enemy gives up on exterminating them.

Are there better solutions? Sure. I was right here, anchoring the line on “let’s not start shooting till we know if we can fix this mess peacefully.” Because it’s better to fix things by talking than by killing millions of other people, sure.

But sometimes some messes can’t be fixed by talking, because someone is not willing to talk and wants what he (or she, or they meaning plural because they singular is an abomination) wants. They’re willing to use force to get it, and can’t be persuaded to stop until someone brings force to bear against them.

Imagining that people decide to go to war for some abstract purpose, or gather together and say “let’s go to war, for progress!”

They go to war because circumstances escalate and escape their control. Because someone or some country is an arrant jerk and starts the atrocities. Because life isn’t neat and bloodless.

For their vision to be correct, people would need to be widgets, and we’d have to live in a world where “if only everyone” works perfectly.

It makes me wonder if these people have ever faced life outside a safe kindergarten situation where a seemingly superhuman being — the much older teacher — hovers over making sure that everyone behaves just so. And if there needs to be some throwing of food, it’s scripted and arranged, everything is bloodless and safe, and done according toa higher power.

I’d like to say these kids would all be all right once they come in contact with reality. And I’m sure any number of them — a majority — will be. After all the left keeps losing the majority of everyone by the time we get to our thirties.

But I have a bad feeling in my water there is a minority that never learns. They are the ones who become “elite” and think they can play tiddly wink with other people’s lives and goods.

For…. (spits) “progress”!

135 thoughts on “War, What Is It Good For?”

  1. There is nobody as willfully ignorant as somebody with a college education. It’s as if colleges try to remove reality from the equation.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Honestly, I’m wondering if my grandson, Wee Jamie, will get anything out of going to college, other than crippling debt and hatred of Western culture. I’m pretty well convinced that he would be better off going to trade school and learning to weld, or do fine carpentry, or even HVAC.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. This. We’re sending two of my nephews off to trade school, vet tech and small engine repair. Neither would do well in college, so why waste the money and time?

        Liked by 2 people

      2. I’m hoping that the STEM departments in colleges withstand the woke takeover, but I have to admit I’m not that optimistic. Back in the late 20th century, it was clear that TPTB were trying to push manufacturing (and STEM jobs) overseas, and thus making it harder for larval engineers and scientists to get started.

        There’s going to be a hell of a learning curve before we get back. I wonder if STEM-only schools might be an alternative. Start without the woke and be ruthless if they try to invade/infiltrate.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Sadly even students enrolled in STEM majors are required to take a boatload of liberal arts coursed so that they get the “full” experience of college. It’s been my belief that what is really accomplished by well over 50% of college serves no purpose other than funding a host of featherbedding tenured professors.

          Like

          1. One thing I was super glad to not deal with my second 4 year degree was the “must be rounded” cr** classes.

            The trend you describe was present as early as late ’70s in my non-stem classes (forestry, math, science).

            Liked by 1 person

            2. U of Redacted: 4 year BSEE (circa 1970-74)

              Non engineering requirements:

              PE: 4 semesters. Told it was state law.
              Liberal arts and such:
              1 semester Rhetoric (alternative was Speech, and my occasional stutter/brain-tongue disconnection issues said No Way in Hell).
              2 semesters Social science: Sociology. I named my Weber gas grill Max: The Carnivore Ethic and the Spirit of Barbeque.
              Foreign Language: 1 semester (credit for German, courtesy 3 years in HS). They dropped the foreign language requirement later that year.

              Fine Arts: I took 1 (? or 2) semesters of Music Appreciation. Opening lecture was the musicologist’s description of Rock ‘n Roll, using “Light My Fire” as the example. Fun course, but didn’t need it. OTOH, I later took a music theory for the hell of it. That guy loved him some atonal music. When he played Terry Riley’s “A Rainbow in Curved Air”, I was thrilled to hear something tonal.

              Like

        2. Another issue is the way the left prevents non-leftists from advancing to administrative positions. STEM fields are often run by leftists too.

          Liked by 1 person

        3. “clear that TPTB were trying to push manufacturing (and STEM jobs)
          overseas, and thus making it harder for larval engineers and scientists
          to get started.”

          ……

          Plus they discriminated against older engineers and scientist, if they were unlucky enough to get furloughed. Kind of felt sorry for those who learned that job hopping to bigger and bigger salaries was a good career move. OMG if they hadn’t socked a lot of money away. My resume at least showed loyalty (for reasons, know it was returned too, but not their choice either). Until retirement, jobs left me, I didn’t leave jobs.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. When I went into software development in CA in the 90s, ‘job hopping’ was explicitly explained to me as the expected career advancement path.

            And I wound up doing that, but as you experienced, mostly my jobs left me (companies were purchased and re-org’d) so I Had To Move On.

            So, in Nursing school I used to study in the student union building, and one day I was sharing the area with a group of CS majors. Being obviously older, I thought they would ignore me, but one asked me a question.

            I told them I thought they should have a second career in mind already. It was and still is my expectation that perhaps 75% of first-job software employment would last 5-8 years before circumstances would guide them in different directions.

            I managed around 20 years, with several year-long unemployment gaps; things were a little different in 1980.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. A co-worker at my first full time job was the poster boy for job hopping. He had started at another company in ’73, joined $DEFUNCT_SEMI_CO in ’74 then went on. Counting (rough count; lost touch years ago) he had 8 different employers from ’73 to ’86. Got raises each time, and left for greener pastures. Until his last job at $REDACTED_ELECTRONICS_CO. Got into an argument with his boss, got fired, and to nobody’s surprise but him, could not find another position.

              He thought an MBA (second-tier school; first tier said nope) would help, but his expectations that his previous employment history would get him a premium salary fell through. (I don’t know if he got offers, but his stubborn pride and his multi-volume resume would have made for interesting interviews.)

              The rule of thumb (as stated in the IEEE magazine, circa mid ’70s) was that a new engineer would be on his third employer at the 5 year point. The expectation was that #3 would be a long term gig. True for me; 22 years until the Dot Com bubble crash in 2000. First employer: 2.2 years. Second, 2.5.

              Like

              1. Sister and BIL started and stayed with the same employer (HP) for most of their careers. Only leaving when the big golden parachute offer went out. BIL was definitely “retiring” regardless (age + # of years with HP 65 or >). But sister was right at the number 65 so they didn’t expect her to “retire”. Everyone who qualified got the parachute. BIL eventually went back as a “consultant” doing what he did. Sis went to two other companies for 5 years before fully retiring. At HP I don’t think sis had the same job for maybe 30 month, often less than that. Kept moving on up and over, higher pay each time. Sounds like nieces who work for Nike. Same employer, different jobs, always making lateral move or moving up.

                Like

            2. I managed a 30+ year in software of part to full time employment with 6 months to multi-year gaps, starting in the ’80s (mostly part time until ’90. Granted the first 6 months gap was accidentally on purpose. Hadn’t planned on getting pregnant my last year of school. If only because we’d been trying for 8+ years by then with “not happening”. I went back to school to change careers, one of us had to get out timber, because we couldn’t get pregnant. Born a week after my last final. Didn’t look for work for 6 months. Landed one in weeks.)

              When my career seriously took off job hopping was the thing to do. 1) I hate looking for work. 2) In ’90 my job combined the two careers. 3) Moving not an option. Eugene was about as good as we could do for job overlaps. Item #2, Subsequent jobs, not so much. But see item #1 and #3.

              Like

          2. When Agilent (formerly the non-computer part of HP) started the big layoffs, an older coworker and I (me aged 49) were in the first wave. OTOH, we got the best layoff benefits. Those who survived discovered that TPTB were shutting down the entire semiconductor operation and selling it off. It went to KKR (I think) who furthered the spinoff. My old division’s stuff is now made by TSMC.

            Agilent’s story is interesting, but kind of sad. The items that got HP started have been spun toff twice, first to Agilent, then as part of A’s “the center cannot hold” strategy to Keysight. I was quite bemused that the guy who bet the semiconductor business on the Dot Com Bubble (and lost out, bigly) managed to be the CEO for a while. (Bemused isn’t quite the right word. Stir in some disgust…)

            Like

            1. Hewlett-Packard used to make some of the best test equipment. Expensive, but worth it when you really needed reliability and precision. Now? I wouldn’t waste my money.

              Though I’ve always been partial to Tektronix scopes. As of 6 years ago, they were still keeping up the quality.

              Like

              1. I haven’t heard much about Keysight. Ed Nisely at softsolder dot com uses Siglent for his scope needs. A quick look at Keysight for oscilloscopes doesn’t trigger the “buy me” vibes. OTOH, I have a very used HP 1MHz scope that might be useful for debugging–assuming it still works. I used one of that model some 50 years ago…

                From my early years at HP (started 1979), it was given that Tek scopes were generally better than HP, especially the trigger circuits, but the inter-division prices on HP equipment made them the default. OTOH, nobody did a better* curve tracer than Tek. The oscilloscope quality gap might have closed with the digital scopes, though we used a portable 100MHz analog dual trace scope for a lot of simpler debugging/troubleshooting jobs.

                ((*)) I’m wracking my brain trying to remember who, if anybody, really tried to compete with their curve tracers. If HP ever did one, I never heard about it, and we used curve tracers every day in our test lab.

                Like

            2. Sister & BIL got fantastic golden, with a capital GOLD, parachute enticements. Later forced riffs did not get anywhere near as good packages. They are still paying for HP insurance, because while BIL qualifies for medicare advantage, and has for 3 years, sis has another 19 months.

              Like

        5. They already were corrupted. Certainly in 2009, it took 5 years to get a BS i engineering because you had a solid year of courses castigating STEM people as being unfeeling robots who made toys for evil politicians and the military.

          it was there in the late 70s but we could point and laugh and when the liberal arts departments tried to impose draconian writing requirements….a college wide writing test was give to every student at all levels.

          The engineers and hard science types stomped the test into the mud. We wrote three papers a semester in most courses complete with quotes foot notes etc and got ticked off on grammer spelling and punctuation.

          Most liberal arts majors not so much

          Liked by 1 person

        6. Don’t forget that science professors in particular are dependent on government funding, providing an entry point for woke.

          Like

        7. I dunno, my brother and his friends seem to be doing a pretty good job at avoiding the mind virus while getting their engineering degrees from Local University. Of course, these are the kind of guys where when there’s an alert at the university half of ’em are armed and ready for a fight – and grouchy that someone’s interrupting their precious study time.

          They have successfully staved off several attempts at making the program more ‘diverse’ and ‘inclusive’ (read: dumbed down), because they are paying good money for an Education, dangit. Though my brother did have to take some silly depth classes in order to graduate, which he frequently lamented.

          Like

      3. I am fifty-four years old, and back in the eighties my Silent Generation parents repeated ad nauseum “You’ll get better jobs if you have SOME college!”

        This turned out to be false. Not a willful lie, as it was true for THEM thirty years before, but times had changed. I dutifully went to college and amassed an associate degree, at which point funding ran dry. I have NEVER worked in the area of that degree.

        If I had it all to do over again, KNOWING THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW, I would instead push for trade school. I enjoyed metal shop in high school and could possibly have trained as a welder.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. We did the same to our son in late ’00 (’07 – ’12 college years). He too got a degree he doesn’t use. Too minds about it. Not that the degree wasn’t good for him and it did give him a earlier than normal shot at supervisor position, even looked at him for manager (he said, um “no thanks”, I make more money than the shift manager. Also gave up the supervisor position, and that company, for medical reasons.) But trade school would have been a good choice too. OTOH he also had other goals other than the degree related to college that for reasons beyond his control did not materialize. At least we got him through debt free.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Yep. They do so because of the outlawing of the1950s practice, imitating the US military, of aptitude testing. Once that was made illegal as “unfair” industry looked around and noticed there was in fact aptitude testing still allowed, SAT and ACT flavors, to get into a college program, and sticking with said program all the way to a degree counted at least for persistence and an ability to not totally succumb to the party-college track..

            So they put degree requirements on their job listings, and the universities started down the paths of grade inflation and student loan debt, and so here we are, with worthless degrees, some issued at universities which have eliminated standardized testing requirements for admission, required instead of just letting companies test for aptitude.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. And so a few companies have put in “tests for placement” to “see where a candidate would be the best fit.” And also checking out the reading, writing, and basic ‘rithmatic as needed. But they are not aptitude tests, no. ;)

              Liked by 2 people

          1. Last week at work:

            “So, what is your degree?”

            (Rattles off four diplomas, none IT)

            “Wait. What?”

            (grin)

            “That last one is Infantry School. It’s the most relevant. Through bog-ugly stubborn, overcome all obstacles on your way to achieving the objective. Which is why I am the Ant Man. Those unexpected ant piles become follow-on objectives, and get solved instead of concealed. See also, about half our Wiki.”

            “uh… Yeah.”

            (Grin)

            In 22 years, they haven’t found another Jack-of-all-trades IT person like me. I keep telling them “not just veterans. Seek Infantry.”

            Too alien. (Grin)

            And this Christmas, I will be delivering a friendly family pants-kick to a young someone to make some career choice/progress. (Grin)

            Like

          2. At HP, I spent 4 years getting an MSEE degree (part time; two classes per quarter, 7AM to 9AM; full time job; sleep optional if you gave a damn). Getting an acceptable grade meant that the company would pay for tuition, fees, and books (Lord, the books! Even in 1987-1990), but I carried the float.

            I learned a fair amount, but trying to think of any course that actually helped my job. Nope. Wanted a C course, but all they offered was Pascal (shudder). Took it, but the BDSM vibe is way too strong with that language. Took C as a UCB extension course later; used that a hell of a lot. 22 years later: I’ll use shell scripts or Perl. I’ll pass on the C unless I have to. (Fixed a bug in a program I downloaded from source. Once.)

            So, 4 years of advanced college. Utility? Great for $Local_college. Not completely useless for me, but close.

            Like

            1. “Data Management” (programming by another name), ’83 – 85′, we paid out of pocket. Local community college. Not many books, most had their own packets. Classes all for various language tools, including COBOL (EEK, talk about a tool that encourages code entanglement), RPG, Pascal, Fortran, etc., no C or C++ back then.

              ’86 boss wanted me to get the CS bachelors. Full time working, one class a term, with the company paying. Except the terms were “payment on successful completion of term”. So floated the cost until compensated. Once they moved out of town I was on my own for the full freight. More than one class a term, which got me done a whole lot faster. But no one else was paying for it. One of the last classes was exploring the new “SQL concept that worked with the new fancy C++ toolkits”. Got actual C, more C++, Active C++, and C#, over the ensuing years via seminars; I was done with term long classes at any level.

              Worked in COBOL (learned to hate it, 6 years), RPG (3 years), Basic (8 years), Pascal (12 years), C/C++/Active C++ (26 years), and C# (last 8). A lot of overlap and back and forth between languages and tools.

              HP paid for sisters masters too.

              Like

      4. Brings to mind a recent article in Tablet: The Re-skilling of America.

        Though there are a number of obstacles to re-establishing valued skilled work absent the pricey paper credential in America, I strongly favor the recently expanding trend of bypassing college for skills training and employment.

        Not only because of the academy’s record of “accomplishment.”

        Like

        1. See: the success of Mike Rowe’s scholarship program for skilled trades. And the regional radio ads for apprentices – they pay for training, you work for nine months, they clear the debt and you get a hefty bonus plus benefits. Starting at $40K plus, once training is finished and you sign at least a one year contract. Must have a high school diploma or GED, and pass a basic skill test (can identify screwdriver, know not to stick said tool into a light socket to see if there’s power to the circuit.)

          Like

        2. “Reskilling”. Sounds like retirement in a rural community (for values of population. Was a semiconductor test and/or product engineer. Programmed/debugged tests and devices.

          Retirement: Small building construction (3 outbuildings, ranging from a garden shed through a powered/heated small shop to a solar-powered pumphouse). Roofing when and where needed, including the house. Redoing floors, etc.

          Metal working: 9′ pine needle rake using hay rake tines. 200 gallon fire trailer with pond intake ability. My welding looks horrible but works.

          Gardening: Hoop-house greenhouse. Raised beds.

          The pay is nonexistant, though not having to write checks with multiple zeros helps. OTOH, the body says those zeros avoid other issues… Shrugs.

          Like

    2. Under Jimmeh Cahtah’s Department Of Education, our public schools have become institutions of anti-thought, and the colleges even more so. Students are indoctrinated to regurgitate the Approved Slogans, and that we have always been at war with Eastasia. To be happy when the chocolate ration is increased from 20 grams to 18.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. up No, they use fractions for that. We’re going from 1/3 lb to 1/4 lb. Four is bigger than three after all.

        Like

      3. No, Education is now to keep Union Members employed, so they can keep donating to the Traitorous F****** Democrat Party, and the Traitorous F****** Democrats have written the Laws/Rules to keep those Unions donating to the Traitorous F****** Democrat Party. So, yes, get rid of the Department Of Donating to the Traitorous F****** Democrat Party, each and everyone of them.

        Like

  3. “War is how we make progress”? Pretty sure that’s Shadow philosophy, as articulated on Z’ha’dum for John Sheridan’s benefit. He nuked it from orbit, which is the appropriate level of response.

    Liked by 2 people

      1. I am all for Nuking DC, I am sure we can scrape together enough Neutron weapons to save the better museums. Sarc, but not really, wait until they all are forced back to the office, then you can then use a smaller yielding weapon. Just an Idea if DOGE doesn’t work out, or bounties, plenty of hunters out of work, meh.

        Like

  4. Strange, but most wars only drive “progress” on more efficient ways to kill people or blow things up. Some progress gets made in ways to heal or repair the injured, but only for getting them back into combat shape. Some progress gets made to improve logistics, but only to support the first ‘progressive” objective for killing and blowing things up.

    The rocket’s red glare and bombs bursting in air are all well and good for fireworks, they royally suck when you’re the ones on the ground they’re being directed at. Frankly, my odds are better with a large shield against flights of arrows than against a Hellfire missile.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I don’t know… some social and technological progress has been pushed along by war, which can be seen as a really aggressive form of competition. I mean, A lot of women entered the work force as a result of war, because there were hardly any men to do the jobs. That was eventually called ‘progress’ instead of rank necessity.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Yeah, like jet engines (V-2 anyone?) After all, who would want to go to the moon or Mars? Or go from New York to England in 7 hours?

      I’m certainly not for war for the sake of progress, but ‘nothing good comes out of war’ ain’t true either.

      Like

      1. A nit: V-2 was a rocket. V-1 was a not-quite-what-we-think-of-when-we-say-‘jet’.

        But Frank Whittle, supplied with only doubt from the British military, had a practical jet engine running on the stand in 1937, and Hans Von Ohain had a practical design running in 1939 which went on in August of that year to power a small plane in flight, all using private funds. Sure, at a later point their respective governments started funding them, albeit pretty lightly given the promise, but the development of the jet engine was not some government directed Manhattan Project.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I suppose I should have used the ME-262 as a better example, but there were many things developed or whose development was significantly boosted by war efforts that were later turned to significant non-war uses afterward, even as there were counter-examples like Nobel and dynamite.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Oh no doubt, but they would still have happened. There were long range airliners on the design boards before Pearl Harbor – the pressurized Lockheed Constellation was on order by TWA before the war, going into production in 1943.

            On the other hand, the technology for broadcast Television was arguably delayed by the war. Yes TV was used late war for some guided bomb work by the US, but the pre-war work of experimental broadcasts was put on hold, and all those folks went to work on secret radar or proximity fuses or other RF stuff, only resuming TV development after 1945.

            War pushes development of war tools, and in general near-mature tech war tools. The Manhattan Project was an “giant leap” exception. Something like the proximity fuse was more the rule – slightly ahead of state of the art, but potential immensely valuable to the war effort.

            Like

    3. Prior to the 1900s, medical advances often came from war (as did nutritional demographic studies, oddly enough, because of the needs of military recruiters and physical standards). Those were in surgery, wound care, and related fields. Granted, the progress probably would have been made without war, but perhaps more slowly. Perhaps.

      Like

      1. A lot of science is just plain weird. X-rays discovered by accident as a person who happened to have fluorescent paper around tried to do something he knew should be impossible. The utility of ether realized at/after an ‘ether jag’ (drug party)… the Branley coherer realized as tubes of metal filing happened to be Standard Lab Gear at the very dawn of radio… this Reality thing is kinda suspicious.

        Like

        1. One day, a radar engineer set a candy bar down next to a waveguide and it melted.

          “What the— Now why did that happen?”

          He wound up inventing the microwave oven.

          Like

          1. Slightly more ominously in the story I heard in college, the candy bar melted in the RF engineer’s coat pocket, piquing his curiosity and leading to the development of the microwave oven.

            Now word on how his fertility reacted to that comfortable warming effect from the microwave exposure he had obviously been getting.

            Like

    4. American Civil War was a major turning point in weaponry introducing the first self contained cartridges on the weapons side. But great strides were also made in medicine with the inclusion of antiseptic wound treatment and the use of anesthesia for pain.

      World War II caused advances in the treatment of burn trauma with techniques first for burned pilots that are now standard in hospital trauma centers. It also marked the introduction of antibiotics and sulfa drugs.

      Vietnam elevated field treatment of life threatening wounds to an entire new level saving many who would have perished in earlier wars. Again that knowledge now plays a major role in civilian trauma medicine.

      All this of course just goes to show that governments will always put forth best efforts when the results are to their benefit.

      Like

      2. Dad got an early introduction to penicillin when he broke his collar bone (“A perfect parachute landing fall.” said the instructor. Wrong said the docs.)

        He also had an adverse reaction to it. The Army Air Force being part of the Big Green Machine, the solution was Moar Penicillin. Dad survived the experience, was transferred from a Chem Warfare slot to Drafting (his civilian job), and arrived at Okinawa shortly before the instant slum clearance programs happened. (8th Air Force wasn’t solely in Europe. I have his badge.)

        Like

        1. My dad the newly-minted 2nd Lt B25 command pilot flew his shiny new B25 out to some island in the Pacific, arriving early August, 1945. He and many others were grounded for Something Special Going On.

          Never shot at anyone, or dropped a bomb in anger. He spent most of a year in Japan as a post-war PX officer. He said he was pretty happy about that.

          Like

  5. Here’s what I believe their thought process is.

    War concentrates power. (If it doesn’t, you aren’t going to fight it well.) Many people like the idea of concentrating power as a general rule rather than a specific contingency. So if they’re in the group toward which power will be concentrated, they will be inclined to favor war, because it will give them power. They are also inclined to favor other crises that can be presented as the “moral equivalent of war,” for the same reasons. I’m pretty sure you can come up with a couple of those examples.

    I’d say more, but I’m heading out the door. Christmas shopping waits for no man.

    Republica restituendae.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. There is also a lot of graft to be made from war…so long as it’s not you being sent off to the front lines. Thus we get ‘leaders’ like the Cheneys.

      Our ‘Fearless Leaders’ have to face consequences, or they will keep playing the War Game for their own gain.

      I have a scene in mind, between one of my characters and Putin: (both speaking Russian)

      “I could end this war by destroying your army, but why should I kill all those soldiers? They didn’t start this war. You did. You will end it, or I will end you.”

      She licked her finger and wiped it on his forehead, quicker than he could react.

      He jerked back and rubbed at the spot. “What was that?” he demanded.

      “The seeds of your doom. They have already made their way into your bloodstream, and only I can remove them. You will notice the first symptoms in a few hours. In a month, you will die.”

      “What do you want, witch?”

      “I am not a witch. I am a soldier, like the ones you send to kill and die for your own selfish gain. I’m simply a more effective soldier. What I want? Stop this war. Withdraw your forces from Ukraine and Crimea, and I will relieve you of this doom. Refuse, and the nanotech weapon I just deployed will consume you in an unspeakably horrible fashion. There won’t be much left for your state funeral.”

      Her little smile was not nice, at all. “Then I will present the same choice to whoever takes your place. Eventually, somebody will see reason.”

      Liked by 2 people

      1. If you kill enough of the enemy, the war eventually stops. This practical knowledge has been with us since we were killing each other with sharpened sticks and rocks.

        This also falls under the “terror and slaughter return” of the Gods of the Copybook Headings. There are ugly truths that exist like this. Ugly, because no sane man wants to face them. But they remain true, nonetheless.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. First you have to correctly identify the enemy. These days, it’s usually not another country’s foot soldiers.

          Kill enough of the elitist bastards behind the wars and they will stop.

          Like

      2. Cool.

        Now do the same to Victoria Nuland and her fellow band of neocons back in 1999 before they could start 10 different color revolutions/wars, spend trillions, and kill millions.

        Maybe Fauci and his gain-of-function/WEF buddies after that, since not all wars are shooting wars.

        Like

    2. My dad and I came to an impasse when discussing the aphorism, “War is the health of the State”. He could not grasp the fact that my contention that the strong state engendered by the exigencies of war is not necessarily a healthy state.

      Like

  6. “I would prefer these disputes were resolved by diplomatic means.”

    But if the “disputes” are between “progressives” and “non-progressives”, then “NO COMPROMISE”. [Sarcastic Grin]

    Liked by 1 person

  7. As a historian, I did find it fascinating that America went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan while bending over backwards to humanize instead of de-humanize our enemies. I considered it a novel experiment.

    Perhaps the British Empire building was a precedent, but, even then, there was a full-blown effort to assert the idea that the ‘barbarians’ needed rescuing and enlightenment from their own ignorance.

    Like

    1. Considering the USA had the peculiar aspect of being able, if it so desired, just BE DONE WITH IT… and tried to NOT de-humanize itself.

      Should some darn fool TRULY flip the American ANGRY switch… the world will recoil. And then be utterly bewildered as afterward, the USA…. just goes home. AGAIN.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. I sometimes wonder if anyone involved with the American mission in Afghanistan had read anything about the british experience there. It’s not like there’s a shortage of material. I have a couple of full shelves myself including family diaries about how f-cked up that part of the world is. I would have shared.

      British empire building tended to stop at the Durand line with Afghanistan. the story is told of the British regiment ordered by the political officer to hand back rifles confiscated from some Afghani Pathans. The colonel had the armourer put the barrels in a vise and kink them a bit. They wouldn’t blow up on the first firing or, perhaps, for a long time but blow up they would taking fingers and eyes with them. The epitaph “things are hard on the frontier.”

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Or the Russians. Or Alexander the Great.

        I know the USMC has a reading list that’s updated annually. AFAIK the US Army does not.

        Like

        1. The US Army does have a reading list (or lists, division CG had a published list back when). But I shutter to think what nonsense may populate those list in the current era.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. It looks to me like the US Army has had other priorities – the latest Chief of Infantry Reading List is from 2009, and the latest Chief of Staff of the Army Reading List if from when Odierno was in that job – he was 38th and the latest, George, is the 41st as of 2023. The link inside the US Army site for that list just goes to the main Chief of Staff page, but I was able to find the Odierno one using search-fu.

            On the other hand, the you-WILL-read-at-least-five USMC list (it’s split up and has sub lists by rank) is being updated mostly annually – the latest ALMARS re the fiscal 2024 reading list is ALMAR 018/23 at: https://www.marines.mil/News/Messages/Messages-Display/Article/3433942/update-to-the-commandants-professional-reading-list-for-fiscal-year-24/

            Like

            2. Yeah, I caught the redirect *sigh*. I was gonna check the list to see where the priorities were. Guess I found out. :|

              Figured Milley’s fascination with white rage was still lingering. Maybe a dead link is for the best…

              Like

      2. A gent I knew during grad school said that the good officers (USMC) passed around copies of Kipling, especially the poems about Afghanistan, to help fill in what the official cultural briefings missed.

        Like

  9. There is a reason the Apache stopped trying to kill off all of the Comanche … not diplomacy, not “humans better nature” … it was because the US beat the living sh*t out of both of them to the point they could no long make war on anyone … I don’t know what the % is that you have to kill that will make people stop wanting their enemies dead … sure 100% does it … but maybe 50% will work … who knows maybe 25% will do it … I think the Jews are trying to find that magic number … best of luck to them …

    Like

    1. Also helped that the not Apache and not Comanche, the Navaho, Arapaho, etc., that the former two picked on/decimated took the same attitude as the Aztec’s neighbors: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”, “They can’t be worse.”, etc.

      You know, kind of us right now, until President Trump is finally inaugurated Jan 2025, should an alien force show up saying “We are here to conquer. Where are your leaders?” And the response is “Here is the list of names all over the world. I’ll draw you maps.” They might be a bit surprised when they announce the leaders are neutralized and the response is “Thanks! Now go away. Or else …”

      They’ve got how many days now before that attitude changes to “Leave Now. Or else.”

      Like

    2. Since the Spanish used the Comanche to run the Apache off the High Plains, the dispute went back a ways. (The Spanish thought the Comanche were less dangerous than the Apache, back in the late 1600s. It took a while for the Spanish to get a governor who would beat the Comanche hard enough to make that assumption somewhat more true.)

      Like

  10. I have heard that old chestnut before as to how war accelerates progress. Well, in some narrow areas perhaps as massive government spending to gain technical advantages brings to fruition technologies that would have otherwise been uneconomical to roll out as rapidly. It also forces changes in social patterns that otherwise would have taken years or decades to evolve naturally. But, war is essentially destructive, not progressive. It may be necessary in the face of barbaric attempts to challenge the civilized order, but it consumes lives and treasure in the process.

    An historical example. In the early 20th Century, before WW I, the US economy was somewhere around 18% of world GDP. It grew a bit in the interwar years to somewhere around 20-25%. At the end of WW II, the US economy constituted 52% of global GDP. All the other great industrial states were either rubble or bankrupt.

    In the mid/late-1970s, there was a lot of naïve whining about the decline of the US. Our share of global GDP was in the range of 28% – a level where it remains more or less until today. What was bemoaned as the decline of America was just the natural result of rest of the world recovering from the baleful impacts of WW II – a process that took roughly two generations, and would have taken far longer without US aid in reconstruction.

    Imagine if there had been no destructive war and that the human intelligence and capital of the scores of millions of dead had not been erased from the earth, what the global economy would look like today. It beggars the imagination.

    Like

  11. They can cram their “progress” where the light dont shine.

    am sick and tired of these so called “elites”. They all bleed too, im cool with ALL of em bleeding till they stop moving

    Liked by 1 person

  12. I find it interesting that you chose to post about war today, as this is the 35th anniversary of the day on which I deployed for my first armed conflict: Operation JUST CAUSE.

    Like

  13. Speaking of Jane Austen fanfic, i just found out that King Louis-Philippe of France’s son and heir Ferdinand was killed in …. Wait for it …… a carriage accident. In fairness it was an open carriage, but still.

    Like

  14. Speaking of Jane Austen fanfic, i just found out that King Louis-Philippe of France’s son and heir Ferdinand was killed in …. Wait for i

    Like

  15. Edit report: The author is dumb.

    When you actually go out of your way to show the characters actually making a plan for once, it’d be nice if they actually, y’know, mentioned the plan later. Like, “things are not going to plan, oh no!” Or “this was not part of the plan,” when things go wrong. Not completely ignore that there ever was a plan in the first place.

    Plot hole? More like plot borehole. How did I not catch this the first time?

    Oh well. At least, at some point, there was a plan. Now to fix it.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. The world is controlled by Money, Hot Chicks, and the Aggressive Use of Force. Always has been, pretty much always will be. Examples, The Knights Templar who basically established international banking, were murdered by the Pope and King of France to get rid of their debts. (Who thought Bankers wanted their money back? Friday Oct 13th) The kidnapping of Helen of Troy started a war, Odysseus fought in a war to help get her back. I am pretty sure that was before all those yucky white people started ruling everything.

    Like

    1. Are England and France still at War, Is this just a lull in between the two fighting again? Or is it just that they hate the Germans so much lately they picking on them instead of each other?

      Like

    2. The King of France also made a solid play at killing all the Carthusians, because he wanted their iron mines, forests, and water mills, not to mention their manufactories of armor and useful iron things.

      Like

    3. The King of France also made a solid play at killing all the Carthusians, because he wanted their iron mines, forests, and water mills, not to mention their manufactories of armor and useful iron things.

      Like

  19. If declaring a war for abstract concept “progress” is weird, imagine declaring a war against abstract concept “terrorism” – that would be insane!

    Yes, I am still carrying a grudge about stupid government tricks from 23 years ago. Why do you ask?

    Like

  20. And to crown it all, “progress” as an ideal was at most a glimmer in the writings of the few theorists. It would not take off until decades later.

    Like

  21. What the leftist writers who write the “and everyone clapped” after whatever leftist fantasy was fulfilled occurs never say, is that the everyone claps because those who don’t, and those who stop clapping first, get hauled out of the room, put up against a wall, and shot.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. Yes to all above.

    And something that’s been in a my head for the past year. Has a good portion of the last thousand years of European history been spent fighting against the Islamic invasion? I’m still floored by the idea that Greece only won its independence in the 1830s.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. Yes. AD 726-1492 for the Reconquista in Spain and Portugal, AD 630s or so to present for the Middle East, and 1100s – 1912 for the Balkans. Which a lot of Eurocrats want to forget, or pretend was the aggressive Europeans beating up on the poor, harmless Berbers/Africans/Arabs/Ottomans/Tatars, what have you.

      Like

  23. what religion was like in Victorian times

    Anyone writing JA fanfic who cites anything Victorian is immediately labeled ignorant.

    Jane Austen died in 1817. Victoria was born in 1819. Every JA novel was written prior to Victoria’s birth much less people discussing even the possibility she would be Queen.

    Like

      1. I know and it wasn’t aimed at you because I know you know.

        Lots of others, though.

        And there are some religious differences that could be interesting. The rise of Methodist in the English working class was a Regency phenomena (and a little earlier for the start). But those aren’t people you’d write about in JA fanfic.

        Like

        1. But the thing was — take a deep breath — I used Victorian for a reason. Victorian predated Victoria to an extent. The rush of the princes to marry and produce legitimate offspring called the end of the regency. During the regency itself (very short) the Prince’s excesses were creating backlash against the freewheeling free for all ways of the nobility and upper classes.
          It was in a way a time similar to our own, and there was lip service starting to be paid to religion and good behavior, though the private lives of regency ladies and gentlemen remained…. uh… more similar to our elites’ until about halfway through Victoria’s reign.
          So, Victorian views of religion and morals are where to go for the public rationale for things.

          Like

        2. Or shouldn’t be. But the problem is rather old.

          “It is less excusable in an Evangelical novelist than in any other, gratuitously to seek her subjects among titles and carriages. The real drama of Evangelicalism—and it has abundance of fine drama for any one who has genius enough to discern and reproduce it—lies among the middle and lower classes; and are not Evangelical opinions understood to give an especial interest in the weak things of the earth, rather than in the mighty?  Why, then, cannot our Evangelical lady novelists show us the operation of their religious views among people (there really are many such in the world) who keep no carriage, “not so much as a brass-bound gig,” who even manage to eat their dinner without a silver fork, and in whose mouths the authoress’s questionable English would be strictly consistent? Why can we not have pictures of religious life among the industrial classes in England, as interesting as Mrs. Stowe’s pictures of religious life among the negroes? Instead of this pious ladies nauseate us with novels which remind us of what we sometimes see in a worldly woman recently “converted;”—she is as fond of a fine dinner-table as before, but she invites clergymen instead of beaux; she thinks as much of her dress as before, but she adopts a more sober choice of colors and patterns; her conversation is as trivial as before, but the triviality is flavored with gospel instead of gossip. ”

          George Eliot , Silly Novels By Lady Novelists

          Like

    2. Eh, the reason her father married was the sudden need for the younger sons to marry and have children. True, his older brother also married and had rather more children, but it was a possibility.

      Liked by 1 person

  24. It makes me wonder if these people have ever faced life outside a safe kindergarten situation where a seemingly superhuman being — the much older teacher — hovers over making sure that everyone behaves just so. 

    They have not.

    I am convinced that is why right of center in the current US so dominates military ranks and veterans. In living memory that was not true, but the left is so divorced from reality even just a stint as a boot is going to make the left unpalatable to many people.

    Like

  25. Only two words needed to address the idea that “everything can be solved by diplomacy”:

    Munich

    Chamberlain

    :-x

    Like

    1. “Neville Chamberlain was very keen on peace!”

      Ahhh, no. Be like Churchill. Not like Chamberlain.

      If in need of a few more persuasive words:

      Magdeburg

      Nanking

      Warsaw

      Like

      1. All valid examples of “solutions” by force (and I’m surprised anyone remembers Magdeburg). But unlike those, at which diplomacy wasn’t even tried, Chamberlain at Munich was a graphic illustration of the fact that diplomacy frequently fails when it is tried, simply because it only takes one to start a war (or a massacre if the other side chooses to not fight).

        “Peace in our time”. indeed.

        Like

        2. I first heard about Magdeburg in ‘1632’ by Eric Flint. Then did a little more reading. Yikes!

          And the Chamberlain quote is “Peace for our time.” As in, the foreseeable future. Which turned out to be less than a year.

          Like

          1. He was quoting the Book of Common Prayer. Which doesn’t make it any less painful in hindsight. I’ve read some authors who claim that he bought England time to rearm. I’m … not so certain about that.

            Magdeburg is still studied as a worst-case scenario for the application of the then laws of war, and what happens when commanders let an army do whatever it wants to.

            Like

    2. To be fair to Chamberlain:

      1. He knew Britain was unready for war, he just didn’t realize that Germany was even more unready.
      2. He more or less (according to Churchill) worked himself to death trying to make up for his mistakes

      Like

        1. We don’t, but the fact that he actually acknowledged his mistakes puts him head and shoulders above most of his co-professionals, IMHO.

          Liked by 1 person

  26. War, and the use of force, aren’t really much good for making things better.

    Unless, as sometimes happens, k1lling some specific people and breaking their stuff will make things better.

    War is also really good for clearing the table and crushing waste motion. A peace-time army is a very different thing from a wartime army.

    What I would love to see, and what #TheDonald seems to be attempting, is a battle of the people against the unholy waste and outright evil of corrupt government. A war where no one dies, but great victories are won and justice is openly done, before God and everyone.

    Not just for the United States, but for the entire world.

    The landslide election of #OrangeManBad in the US has done more to kick the props out from under corrupt socialists in Canada than anything else since Hitler in 1939. The (presumed) incoming Conservative government of Pierre Poilievre will be looking at Argentina and the USA, the two greatest victories of people against Socialists perhaps in history. If not as examples they want to emulate, then at least as what people will now want and expect.

    To my mind, if #TheDonald -really- wants to make money, the obscene kind of unbelievable wealth previously only known by European kings and Chinese emperors, he will target socialist regimes for extra-special attention. The more socialist and criminal, the more attention. Bringing those disgraceful kleptocracies down will create a boom of creativity and wealth like nothing since the Renaissance.

    You’re not going to get that by declaring war on random schmucks in the ME, like Iran. All that does is make Boeing richer.

    Like

Comments are closed.