All this is sadly because I dragged myself through the remake of John Milius' Red Dawn. Which made the original look like a masterpiece in its own right. Now that's saying something.
But films of this nature do tend to bring up that question: what would you do in that situation?
Granted the remake of Red Dawn certainly made it look (relatively) easy to overthrow the N. Korean rule of an American prefecture, but we all know that kind of scenario more or less leads to... well... death for starters.
Source material is good for understanding what real guerrilla warfare is all about and one of the best sources is the historical writer Anthony James Joes. His knowledge of the subject is infallible and his writing is actually quite intriguing. The body of work isn't as dry as you'd think, but it certainly helps if you're interested in the subject too.
[terminology]
In 1989 a team of United States analysts made it a point to specifically break up conflicts of past and future based on tactics and abilities into "generations".
First-generation warfare - In its most common usage, "First generation warfare" refers to battles fought with massed manpower, using line and column tactics with uniformed soldiers governed by the state. Much of the Revolutionary War and Civil War in the U.S. were fought in this manner.
Second-generation warfare - Second generation warfare still maintained lines of battle, but focused more on the use of technology to allow smaller units of men to maneuver separately. These smaller units allowed for faster advances, less concentrated casualties, and the ability to use cover and concealment to advantage.
The contributions of the second generation were responses to technological development. The second generation saw the rise of trench warfare, artillery support, more advanced reconnaissance techniques, extensive use of camouflage uniforms, radio communications, and fireteam maneuvers.
Third-generation warfare - Third generation war focuses on using speed and surprise to bypass the enemy's lines and collapse their forces from the rear. Essentially, this was the end of linear warfare on a tactical level, with units seeking not simply to meet each other face to face but to outmaneuver each other to gain the greatest advantage. The German Blitzkrieg of World War II is often cited as a perfect example of Third-generation warfare.
Fourth-generation warfare (4GW) - Used to describe warfare's return to a decentralized form. In terms of generational modern warfare, the fourth generation signifies the nation states' loss of their near-monopoly on combat forces, returning to modes of conflict common in pre-modern times.
The use of fourth generation warfare can be traced to the Cold War period, as superpowers and major powers attempted to retain their grip on colonies and captured territories. Unable to withstand direct combat against bombers, tanks, and machine guns, non-state entities used tactics of education/propaganda, movement-building, secrecy, terror, and/or confusion to overcome the technological gap.
Fourth-generation warfare as a term can be applied to most insurgency and terrorism for the last half century. This is also related to unconventional warfare, but at the same time can be applied to non-violent actions as well - such as Gandhi's opposition to the British Empire in India or Martin Luther King's marches.
Fourth generation warfare goals:
- Survival
- To convince the enemy’s political decision makers that their goals are either unachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit
Disaggregated forces, such as guerrillas, terrorists and rioters, lacking a center of gravity, deny to their enemies a focal point at which to deliver a conflict ending blow. As a result strategy becomes more problematic while combating a VNSA (violent-non-state-actor).
It has been theorized that a state vs. state conflict in fourth generation warfare would involve the use of computer hackers and international law to obtain the weaker side’s objectives, the logic being that the civilians of the stronger state would lose the will to fight as a result of seeing their state engage in alleged atrocities and having their own bank accounts harmed.
Most people in the U.S. live in a bubble, rarely looking outward at the rest of the world. They know little about world history or even U.S. history for that matter and care only about what effects them. Never the big picture. So when a film like Red Dawn comes out (both the original and remake) and however bad the movie is, it makes you wonder what it'd be like to have your country invaded. You have to remember there are plenty of countries that have had similar things happen throughout history.
In what I'll call the "modern era," this has happened many times over. Whether it be Nazi Germany's invasion and occupation of several countries during WWII or the Soviet Union invading and occupying over a dozen countries throughout the Cold War. Even more recent: the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands or the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
While we live in relative safety (or at least used to) the rest of the world has seen this kind of violence for years. We're really just starting to see the face of it in our backyards now and clearly we're not ready. We're more apt to bicker with each other rather than solve issues.
(More in Part 2...)
No comments:
Post a Comment