Update On Frito Lay

[Darth Wong]

Quite. I've seen the question as to what the difference is between "tactical" and "strategic" scale posed before, and the answer always boils down, ultimately, to "tactical" reffering to engaging and defeating the enemy on the battlefield, while "strategic" means defeating the enemy's ability to wage war in the first place.

I tend to think of it this way.

Tactics is doing the right thing with the forces you have in place to win the battle (or otherwise achieve an objective).

Strategy is having the right forces in the right places at the right times to make tactical victories achievable.

No, strategy encompasses more than that. This common view of strategy makes it seem as if strategy is nothing more than a planning and preparation system for battles. Strategy is a much larger view of national policy, even including such things as economics and diplomacy. An arms-reduction treaty is strategic.

[PeZook]

No, strategy encompasses more than that. This common view of strategy makes it seem as if strategy is nothing more than a planning and preparation system for battles. Strategy is a much larger view of national policy, even including such things as economics and diplomacy. An arms-reduction treaty is strategic.

Exactly - strategy is what you do to achieve overarching goals, whether they be corporate, private or national. Hency why it's superior to tactics, because tactics only care about objectives and are subject to overall goals.

If you decide you want to be a nuclear engineer and plan an enrollment into university, that's your goal and your strategy of achieving it. When you start to study, you're in the realm of tactics.

And, of course, "avoiding war at all possible cost" is also a strategic decision, because you can't always have superior forces.

For example, a good current strategy for Poland in case of conflict with NATO would be known as "surrender".

[Darth Wong]

The popular view of war in the west centres entirely on battles, and views strategy as a mere support system for battles; that's what's wrong with it. Sun Tzu's idea of strategy was to achieve victory, with or without battles (preferably without).

George W. Bush believed that victory had been achieved in Iraq in 2003 because they won the battles, even though the strategic goal was nowhere near accomplished.

[Ted C]

No, strategy encompasses more than that. This common view of strategy makes it seem as if strategy is nothing more than a planning and preparation system for battles. Strategy is a much larger view of national policy, even including such things as economics and diplomacy. An arms-reduction treaty is strategic.

True, as a reading of The Art of War will actually tell you, but I was just citing the first thing that comes to mind when I hear "strategy".

[PeZook]

The popular view of war in the west centres entirely on battles, and views strategy as a mere support system for battles; that's what's wrong with it. Sun Tzu's idea of strategy was to achieve victory, with or without battles (preferably without).

George W. Bush believed that victory had been achieved in Iraq in 2003 because they won the battles, even though the strategic goal was nowhere near accomplished.

Actually, that's an idiot's view of war

Clausewitz was very well aware of that fact, as are most military academies today. Sun Tzu's ideas were revolutionary in feudalist times, where personal glory was often more important than the overall picture.

[PeZook]

Ghetto edit: Ah, a reading comprehension problem. I missed "popular" before "view of war". In that case, agreed

[Lord Revan]

yeah what most people don't realize is that you win every battle and still loose the war (if you lose sight of your goals) or loose every battle and still win the war.

[Lord Revan]

good example of strategy without battles was the finnish politics with the soviet union after 1945, Finland wasn't (I won't use "we" here as I was born 1982) neutral (if quite "pro-soviet") because the leaders felt like but because of the rather lard border with soviet union it was stretegally wise to not upset them (which btw allowed Finland (along with other things) to be quite independent with its foreign policy)

[Ryan Thunder]

yeah what most people don't realize is that you win every battle and still loose the war (if you lose sight of your goals) or loose every battle and still win the war.

I think this may be a rather extreme way to look at it. If you lose every battle with your enemies, and they're holding victory parades in your streets, you've lost the war.

I'm not sure how else you could see it.

[Scottish Ninja]

No, there's another option there: you lose every battle with your enemies, but their casualties slowly pile up and the people back home stage hunger strikes and demonstrations and dodge the draft until finally your enemies leave in disgrace, the returning troops jeered by the civilians.

That's how you lose the battles and win the war, because your strategy stood up better than the enemy's.

[Lord Revan]

yeah what most people don't realize is that you win every battle and still loose the war (if you lose sight of your goals) or loose every battle and still win the war.

I think this may be a rather extreme way to look at it. If you lose every battle with your enemies, and they're holding victory parades in your streets, you've lost the war.

I'm not sure how else you could see it.

winning and loosing a war isn't quite that simple.

remember Vietman? US forces won most battle IIRC, but in the end lost the war, due the popular opinion turning against the goverment because of the cost the war was having.

[Lord Revan]

Chetto edit:Vietnam (damn I how could I misspell something that simple).

[Swindle1984]

Well, you spelled losing incorrectly too.

[Ryan Thunder]

yeah what most people don't realize is that you win every battle and still loose the war (if you lose sight of your goals) or loose every battle and still win the war.

I think this may be a rather extreme way to look at it. If you lose every battle with your enemies, and they're holding victory parades in your streets, you've lost the war.

I'm not sure how else you could see it.

winning and loosing a war isn't quite that simple.

remember Vietman? US forces won most battle IIRC, but in the end lost the war, due the popular opinion turning against the goverment because of the cost the war was having.

Alright, yes, I suppose there are scenarios under which that could be said.

[Anguirus]

I don't usually haunt this section of the site, so when I saw this thread title I thought that Poe's videos got some kind of corporate potato-chip-giant sponsorship.

I do intend to plunge into the strategy section Wong just linked to. Thanks very much, looks like interesting reading!

[Uraniun235]

From the "identifying threats" page:

In Star Trek, the Federation employs an organization known as Section 31, but the very existence of this organization is portrayed by the writers as a blemish on the good character of the Federation. One wonders how the writers would expect the Federation to collect vital intelligence data without an intelligence agency, and if they recognize the importance of this agency, one must wonder why it must be condemned to non-sanctioned "shadow agency" status.

I was under the impression that Section 31 was supposed to be secret and autonomous, completely unknown to the official Federation/Starfleet bureaucracy. Either way, there is an official "Starfleet Intelligence" agency, as mentioned in TNG The Pegasus and All Good Things (and probably others as well).

[Uraniun235]

That said, this all looks very good.

[Ender]

From the "identifying threats" page:

In Star Trek, the Federation employs an organization known as Section 31, but the very existence of this organization is portrayed by the writers as a blemish on the good character of the Federation. One wonders how the writers would expect the Federation to collect vital intelligence data without an intelligence agency, and if they recognize the importance of this agency, one must wonder why it must be condemned to non-sanctioned "shadow agency" status.

I was under the impression that Section 31 was supposed to be secret and autonomous, completely unknown to the official Federation/Starfleet bureaucracy. Either way, there is an official "Starfleet Intelligence" agency, as mentioned in TNG The Pegasus and All Good Things (and probably others as well).

Starfleet Intelligence is probably similar to the ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence), where as Section 31 is more CIA/NSA

[PayBack]

and losing a war isn't quite that simple.

remember Vietman? US forces won most battle IIRC, but in the end lost the war, due the popular opinion turning against the goverment because of the cost the war was having.

I think you can blame the media for that to some degree also. Take the Tet Offensive for example. The NLF (VC) were absolutely crippled achieving what they did during that (Tactically very little too nothing I believe). They would never recover nor be able to pull off something like that again. Militarily for the US it was great, as they finally had the enemy face to face where they could destroy them. The popular uprising the NLF were hoping for never happened.

The media on the other had said it was a great victory for the NLF and a sign of the future face of the war.. absolute rubbish. If the NLF had tried something like that again they'd have ceased to exist.

IIRC Westmoreland requested more troops to hold the ground they had so he could use his front line troops to take advantage of NLF losses. The media on the other hand said he requested them because they were losing. Again, absolute rubbish.

It was the misrepresentation of these events that had the biggest impact on public opinion and resulted in the evidential withdrawal.

[Lord Revan]

and losing a war isn't quite that simple.

remember Vietman? US forces won most battle IIRC, but in the end lost the war, due the popular opinion turning against the goverment because of the cost the war was having.

I think you can blame the media for that to some degree also. Take the Tet Offensive for example. The NLF (VC) were absolutely crippled achieving what they did during that (Tactically very little too nothing I believe). They would never recover nor be able to pull off something like that again. Militarily for the US it was great, as they finally had the enemy face to face where they could destroy them. The popular uprising the NLF were hoping for never happened.

The media on the other had said it was a great victory for the NLF and a sign of the future face of the war.. absolute rubbish. If the NLF had tried something like that again they'd have ceased to exist.

IIRC Westmoreland requested more troops to hold the ground they had so he could use his front line troops to take advantage of NLF losses. The media on the other hand said he requested them because they were losing. Again, absolute rubbish.

It was the misrepresentation of these events that had the biggest impact on public opinion and resulted in the evidential withdrawal.

probably true but it doesn't invalidate my point though (actually quite the opposite), whether it was due to media or the actions of the enemy, fact remains US lost the war even though it won most (if not all) of the battles.

[PayBack]

I wasn't trying to invalidate your argument, though I was trying to moan about the media

[Darth Wong]

I wasn't trying to invalidate your argument, though I was trying to moan about the media

Does someone actually have a representative sample of newspaper articles about the Vietnam War from around that time, in order to confirm that this oft-repeated claim about massively one-sided media misrepresentation is actually true?

I'm asking because there are an awful lot of conservative-spun myths about the public-relations war during Vietnam, such as the one about returning soldiers being attacked at the airport by hippie mobs. How do we know this isn't just another myth? I'm sure they can find articles matching their description, but unless one has a decent cross-section of newspaper articles from that era, you don't know whether they're just cherry-picking.

[Zablorg]

Closest I could directly find is this little story. It's pretty long, but it's basically just a history of the documentation of the war, which according to this guy was indeed very one-sided.

[Darth Wong]

Closest I could directly find is this little story. It's pretty long, but it's basically just a history of the documentation of the war, which according to this guy was indeed very one-sided.

That is not "close" to what I asked for at all. It's an opinion piece.

[Straha]

I wasn't trying to invalidate your argument, though I was trying to moan about the media

Does someone actually have a representative sample of newspaper articles about the Vietnam War from around that time, in order to confirm that this oft-repeated claim about massively one-sided media misrepresentation is actually true?

I had a job as a researcher for a book on college football which involved me going through micro-film for the scores from games. After hours of doing that it was boring stuff so I used to start looking at other articles in the paper. (Nothing more embarrassing than being caught by your boss looking up your own birthday paper in the New York Post.) The vietnam articles I glanced at were usually negative. Nowhere near the hailstorm of negativity that some people point it out to be (a lot of papers from the Midwest were pro-war, but against how the war was being run by Kennedy/Johnson. And then deathly against Nixon when he made it clear that his strategy was to "leave with Honor as soon as possible.") but usually rather negative. Fun reads overall. I may have time later to go to the library and glance through some of the on hand microfilms to see if I can find anything representative (finding stuff on the Tet Offensive shouldn't be hard as an example.)