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One of the most important aspects of modern warfare is the asymmetry. It's best to pursue small efforts that can have stupidly large and devastating effect on y
by ENGNR 13y ago
One of the most important aspects of modern warfare is the asymmetry. It's best to pursue small efforts that can have stupidly large and devastating effect on your opponent.
China is investing in sophisticated information attacks to steal military and industry capabilities, disable infrastructure and remove a communications advantage from an invader.
Their heavy submarine focus threatens to obliterate trade routes and defend their own, causing others to hesitate to attack or suffer economic devastation. And their precision missiles are a described as a pocket of excellence within the army.
They can use their missiles to destroy military satellites, taking away advantages like communication and GPS. On the ground, sending missiles directly into concentrated C&C centres like air craft carriers, command posts, etc can turn the enemy into a semi-organised mob. With the enemy taken down a notch or two, suddenly China's moderately trained but extremely numerous ground forces can start to look fairly intimidating.
They mention horses for surveying as barbaric compared to survey helicopters, but what a great asset horses would be when both sides have used their precision missiles to take out all of the supporting infrastructure. No maintenance or fuel supply line needed, they even double as their own horse manufacturing line.
Whether these approaches are enough to defend or attack, who knows, but the strategy is an excellent and efficient one that shouldn't be underestimated. You can't just look at what forces they have, but what relevant effects they can achieve with those forces.
- learc83 13y ago>what a great asset horses would be when both sides have used their precision missiles to take out all of the supporting infrastructure. No maintenance or fuel supply line needed, they even double as their own horse manufacturing line. Think about what you're saying for a second. It takes years and plenty of manpower and supplies to raise a horse for riding. Riding horses most definitely do not self replicate in any useful fashion or time-frame. Horses are in no way useful, at scale, in modern warfare. They require far more training, manpower, and time per-mile-covered than a motorized vehicle. If both sides have obliterated their respective infrastructures to the point that they rely on horses, each would have long since lost the capability to wage a modern war.
- EliRivers 13y agoAsymmetric warfare is a way for small numbers of people with little more equipment than what they can carry to fight a professional, modern armed force that's occupying their nation or is very close to their borders; a significant amount of their time is spent scrounging for food and working out where to sleep. Any nation planning to fight a war asymmetrically is not planning to project power beyond its borders, and is effectively hoping that if they're enough of a nuisance (and they don't anger their own population too much doing it) the other side will get tired and go home. It is not an excellent or efficient strategy. It's bad. It relies on cells operating independently, which is massively inefficient, and it relies on those cells being armed with whatever they can scrounge; a professionally trained and equipped armed force is far more efficient and far more effective.