In a future major war, how could Stricom's politically correct models of small-scale conflict resolution have any relevance?
Toon reported in Science in 2007 that even a "small-scale" conflict involving 100 weapons could kill 21 million people and release enough smoke to cause "substantial global-scale climate anomalies" lasting years.
Whatever else it may be, it also threatens to be yet another small-scale conflict without end -- and of course another potential payday for the National Security Complex.
Many small-scale conflicts -- for example, Lyndon B. Johnson's intervention in the Dominican Republic and Ronald Reagan's invasion of Grenada -- proved military and political successes.
Second, the nuclear threat was of no use in cases of civil war, insurgency, and other small-scale conflicts, a fact Stalin evidently relied on in several instances.
Instead, the service will spend $14.5 billion to create new weaponry, particularly a mobile, lightweight armored vehicle that could be used for combat in small-scale conflicts as well as major wars.
Assassinations tend to hasten the end of intense wars (those with more than 1,000 battle deaths) but, prior to the second world war, made small-scale conflicts more intense.
Fighting in several small-scale conflicts such as Operation Avalanche, Operation Mountain Resolve, and Operation Mountain Viper, the division maintained a strategy of small units moving through remote regions of the country to interact directly with the population and drive out insurgents.
Admittedly, every rule has its exceptions and from full-scale colonial-style wars (Iraq, Afghanistan) to small-scale conflicts mainly involving drones or air power (Yemen, Somalia, Libya), the United States has seemingly made traditional war its own in the early years of this century.
And we have to be concerned about, for example, in North Korea, about taking actions which could lead to a small-scale military conflict, which would escalate into a large-scale military conflict, and which would blunder us into a nuclear war.
The neighborhood fight, pitting the haves and the have-mores, has served as a reminder that small-scale class conflict can still surface from time to time, even in the shadow of a tony, suburban golf course.
