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Subject: Winning by Intimdation
Necromancer    6/25/2009 1:36:29 AM
Any examples of wars or major battles won by militaries by sheer fear of destruction or loss? Its an important question since half the battle is in the mind and the reason why this talk of European Aggressive revival is utter BS because a ragtag group of Talebans isn't even afraid of the might of the US of A and allowed 9/11 to launch from their territory I guess a long as they are not afraid they will fight. Does anyone have examples of war victories or even major battles won by inflicting pure fear?
 
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WarNerd       6/25/2009 4:54:45 AM
How about the Bible's account of Gideon's attack on the Midianite camp?
 
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Godofgamblers       6/25/2009 5:00:21 AM
The Mongols would be a prime example. Cities surrendered to lone messengers rather than face the Mongol wrath.
 
I doubt if the Taliban knew of the 9/11 plot; ignorance and fearlessness are not the same thing:)
 
 
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Parmenion       6/25/2009 6:56:44 AM
 
A Roman citizen could walk from one end of the known world to the other with just the clothes on his back with no fear of attack- just by saying "Civitas Romanae" (I think that's right) - "I am a Roman citizen". Such was the fear of what Rome would do if even one citizen was harmed this actually worked most of the time.
 
 
 
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WarNerd       6/26/2009 4:13:55 AM
Vlad the Impaler was supposed to have turned back a Ottoman attack with a massive display of impaled peasants.
 
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Panther       6/26/2009 4:48:56 AM


I doubt if the Taliban knew of the 9/11 plot; ignorance and fearlessness are not the same thing:)
 


I agree, i've grown too rather doubt it myself. The little i had a chance too read is that most of them were kept in the dark about the 9-11 plans, and then after the fact, felt betrayed by AQ and their governance was ultimately doomed!  (Note: I'm not intentionally tooting our own horn. I am just passing along what i have read from the  CTC files or other like sites from several years ago)
 
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Panther    D@mn...   6/26/2009 4:52:05 AM







I doubt if the Taliban knew of the 9/11 plot; ignorance and fearlessness are not the same thing:)


 




This should have read:

I agree, i've grown too rather doubt it myself. The little i had a chance too read is that most of them were kept in the dark about the 9-11 plans, and then after the fact, felt betrayed by AQ and that their governance was ultimately doomed!  (Note: I'm not intentionally tooting our own horn. I am just passing along what i have read from the  CTC files or other like sites from several years ago)
 
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WarNerd       6/27/2009 2:57:02 AM

One could also argue that agression and intimidation caused a lot more conflicts than it solved at that the whole argument is stupid :) 

Aggression and intimidation are part of politics, and war is an extension politics by other means.  War is the result when aggression and intimidation fail to achieve necessary results.
 
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smitty237       6/29/2009 1:12:02 AM
Guys, you are missing the most obvious one.  The Cold War was dominated by the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) in which the United States and its NATO allies were stuck in a military stalemate with the USSR and Warsaw Pact because both sides possessed nuclear weapons and both sides knew that they could face annhilation in an exchange of nuclear weapons.  As a result the two sides were forced to fight a proxy war through client nations (Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Angola, etc.).  The United States and the USSR were both intimidated by the other's nuclear arsenal.  The United States refrained from direct military intervention in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan, among others, because they feared a possible direct military conflict with Russia could escalate into a nuclear war, and Russia was forced to remove nuclear weapons from Cuba for the same reason. 
 
Eventually the Soviet Union collapsed because of political and economic reasons, but as many of a billion lives were saved because the two most powerful nations in the world were deterred from going to war from one another because of the guarantee of massive loss of life. 
 
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