Militarism

Walking down the alley that led to the village joint, the son of Ravna Gora and the son-in-law of Istria, Zvonimir Rantović, heard something that the more optimistic would define as a hum. The current repertoire was `If you knew Peggy Su tralalala i love you, oh Peggy hey Peggy Sue` and the performer was Andy Banter, a former resident of Brighton and today a locally recognized authority in the field of military tactics and global strategy, an occasional metal turner in civilian life. Sitting uncomfortably in the rickety chairs in front of the table and not expecting service from the waiter who was rumored to have already taken on a spiritual form, the two acquaintances and potential brothers poured themselves some Antifreeze, diluted with water, and in about thirteen minutes they were already on their way to analyzing the latest world militaristic trends by evoking old memories.

``And so I tell you, Iraq was a great world power, according to some the fourth strongest army in the world...'' Zvone began.

``Of course not, fourth in the world? Nonsense,'' Andy interjected.

``You don't have to believe me, you can find an edition of Jane's Defense Review in the library's ruins and see the figures. They confirm what I'm talking about,'' Zvonimir replied.

``So... how is it possible for such a large army to collapse like a house of cards in such a short time?'' Andy asked.

``That's because of the paradox, my friend. There is a paradox, they can be weak and strong at the same time. Let me explain what the difference is. Iraq was undoubtedly a great conventional military power.

But when the clash came, the Iraqi army was crushed in a couple of weeks, and the heavy losses of the coalition and the new puppet Iraqi government did not come in 2003 during the invasion and clash with the fourth army in the world, but came later, during the encounter with the Riff-raff, lame and crippled, young and old, a guerrilla amalgam in which there was everything and anything, at least conventional logic.

A similar case was with that...North Korea. They also had a huge, massive, fat and greasy conventional army that would have been phenomenal in 1959, let's say. In both cases there was something in common, and that was the rapid collapse of the conventional North army during the Second Korean War. In both 1991 and 2003, the regular Iraqi army, one of the most numerous in the world - experienced a debacle of incredible proportions. All the announcements of long resistance, secret weapons and super-special units have burst like a soap bubble.

It is not known how many Iraqi recruits died in 1991, mountains of corpses and destroyed equipment, aimless sacrifice of young lives along the entire line of the daily fluid front line. A similar scenario occurred in 2021, in the war on the Korean Peninsula. In 2003, the Iraqi aviation did not even take off. They refused to sacrifice themselves at all, having learned from the death of many colleagues in 1991. Just like in the case of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 when the pilots of the MiG-21 and Orao did not even take off, except for a few incidental cases, those who fought were on the MiG-29 which theoretically should have been modern enough for resistance...but then...it wasn`t.

Which is a good thing to some extent, it shows that there are fewer and fewer fools in the world, characters who would sacrifice themselves in a fireball in the sky. And what can we say about those poor guys who suffered in outdated aluminum cans of Soviet and Chinese origin in 2021. There is a certain sentimentality in that act, a young pilot taking off in a MiG-19 to fight a southern F-15K, something like a blind and deaf Mongoloid slowly climbing into the ring against Mike Tyson...' Zvonko burst into a monologue, obviously warmed by antifreeze.

'If someone uninformed listens to you, they will think that the Alliance forces had a picnic during that war,' Mr. Banter interrupted his friend.

'Well, now, it's not exactly that...' Zvonimir tried to reply.

But in vain, because Andrew was already getting into the rhythm.

He continued: `The Allies had three options: to bypass the Demilitarized Zone along the 38th parallel with the help of naval landings supported by air, the second was the nuclear option, and the third was a breakthrough through the DMZ. The first option is not only impossible but would be suicidal, because despite the relatively rapid destruction of the northern aviation, navy, and armored forces, the very operation of landing a huge number of troops on the enemy coast and attempting to establish a bridgehead would have brought unacceptably many casualties even for a militaristic culture like the one that was dominant in the United States.

The third option, an attack through the DMZ preceded by creating a "hole" in the defense line and possibly penetrating inland, is something that even the combined US-South Korean army would not be able to accomplish without endless streams of C-130 transport planes taking off from Suwon or Inchon to the US full of tin crates. And they look bad on TV. First of all, because North Korea is not Iraq on two grounds, the relief (terrain) and the lack of the possibility of generating an internal `fifth column` as was the case with Iraq (Kurds, Shiites, various opportunists, tribal strife). And that would deprive the Americans of the great advantages they enjoyed in Iraq. The similarity was in the number of inhabitants fit for military service and in the military equipment, although Iraq also had some Western hardware.

Therefore, a fourth option appeared in the minds of the military strategists from the Pentagon, similar to the one from 1999 and the attacks on the FRY when aviation and the navy were supposed to be the decisive factor. And after the Tomahawks, laser and GPS-guided bombs, Mavericks, bunker busters, AWACS, Sidewinders and other high-tech equipment seriously "softened" the regular Bolshevik dynastic army to the point that it began to disintegrate, thus enabling a quick landing on the northern coast by the Alliance - the formation of guerrillas followed and the good old, boring, easy-to-use and deadly AK, PKS, Dragunov, RPK, IED and a number of other low-tech weapons entered the scene, which from Somalia onwards (the most shocking example being Hezbollah vs. Israel 2006) heralded a new paradigm in warfare that was on the way to revolutionizing it, new tactical systems that brought serious surprises.

Then, the surprise was double, the new system meant a step back in technological terms, and this was the result of the lack of an effective strategy for anti-guerrilla warfare (counter-insurgency) because for half a century, Western strategists were obsessed with the possible Soviet breakthrough through the Fulda Pass and the vast masses of Soviet tanks on their way to the English Channel, which then normally made sense and brought them great success in conducting conventional proxy wars. Technology became too successful for conventional warfare and too big a failure for an asymmetric collision. And excessive reliance on high technology meant death for thousands of dusters. Not that the Americans didn't understand this, but developing anti-guerrilla technology would bring incomparably less profit to the military-industrial complex compared to pushing conventional equipment. $250 million for a piece of F-35, seriously? And the dustmen Hank from Alabama and Jose from New Mexico were expendable anyway, so no problem there...`

`You're absolutely right Andy,` Mr. Rantovic quietly admitted.

And he added: `Maybe they should have played it safe. Organic actions on strategic targets and after a few weeks or months of `pumping` followed by letting the propaganda dogs off the chain - pictures on the half-dead CNN of some ruins that will be claimed to be northern nuclear plants, the `threat` is eliminated and the world is once again confident in democratic values, all packaged with appropriate phraseology and iconography. Proof of the `barbaric communist atrocities` wouldn't have to be fabricated anyway, the multitude of ruins in Seoul, which was quite close enough for the northern heavy artillery, the corpses of civilians, the lobotomy, patriotism and the repeated victory of capitalism would have received a new focus.`

`And I wanted to visit Seoul so much while it still existed,` Andy said quietly...

`I had a plan to pay for an arrangement to visit Pyongyang, I've always been attracted to morbidly exotic places. But what's here is... the last I heard is that now there were vast pastures in that place where herds of wild cattle grazed, often chased by mutated Tigers.`, Zvone mentioned.

`Eh... you and I are serious idiots, buddy.` Andy concluded.

`I know,` Zvonimir confirmed.

`As if our place is any better than Seoul or Pyongyang. It has suffered fewer Megatons than some other places, but it is still far from a tourist magnet...

"Tourists..." grinned Mr. Banter, "I haven't heard that word in a long time... and I probably won't for a long time. Maybe some of our descendants will reintroduce it, if they survive. If they do... if...well blydichfudgoss," Andy was interrupted mid-sentence by a violent vomiting.

Zvone instinctively turned his gaze, which found focus as he stared at a torn advertising poster that had once advertised a career as a professional soldier in some army.

(Roger Mortis, 122)