Western Military Tradition?

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…the Western manner of fighting…is so destructive and so lethal that we have essentially reached an impasse!. Few non-Westerner wish to meet our armies in battle!. The only successful response to encountering a Western army seems to be to marshal another Western army!. The state of technology and escalation is such that any intra-Western conflict would have the opposite result of its original Hellenic intent: abject slaughter on both sides would result, rather than quick resolution!. ---Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage & Culture(98)

Is it the end of conventional warfare!? With Europe becoming less and less likely to engage in another war against each other, and with the likelihood of American conflict with a European nation slim, will there be another conventional war involving Western nations!? The only possibility might be a war against China, but that becomes also become less likely as China becomes more open to the rest of the worldWww@QuestionHome@Com

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Between war as the West has practiced and its disappearance are several armed conflicts involving Arab or Muslim unconventional forces: The Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban, Al Quida, and the mullahs of Iran!.

The US, and some other Western nations, are at war with these forces, and the battles promise to be long and arduous!. It may be "asymetric" but it is war, and it demands infantry to fight the war, regardless of technological advantages!.!.

The greater threat lies just over the horizon: the destabilizing proliferation of nuclear weapons material and engineering technology to make and deliver nuclear weapons!.

Abject slaughter remains a real possibility!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

I suppose it depends on the belligerents!. The current War on Terrorism is not a war against a specific state, per se, but against states that have harbored terrorist!. Afghanistan learned that they had to fight a guerrilla war against the Soviets to survive!. Same as Viet Nam!. Only by fighting a guerrilla war can a weaker foe hope to win!. Nations with large standing militaries will tend to fight a more conventional war!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Don't get so down, Kevin!. As long as there are humans, there will be war!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

There is no reason to believe that!. There is always a tendency to believe the next war will be like the last or current one!. The invasion of Iraq was expected to be like Desert Storm!. That is why there was so much support for it!. Any honest person will admit that!. We let Iraq have over a decade to get used to our tactics and still expected that!. Anyone who suggested different was hooted down!. I did not expect a cake walk!. Or it to be like 1991!. There is an old John Ford movie from the 1920's "The Lost Patrol", that shows basically the same tactics being used to resist the British in WWI in Mestompia ( as Iraq was then known)!. It was 1991 that was non-typical of tactics in the area!. But there is no reason at all to draw the conclusion there will be no more conventional wars!.!.!.!.!.That would be as big a mistake as the current misjudgment!.!.!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com