Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
Information Warfare Discussion Board
   Return to Topic Page
Subject: Fighting with Legends
Mikko    1/18/2010 10:46:21 AM
I would like to suggest a topic for something rarely discussed, yet most interesting and crucial aspects of war: Turning steel and flesh into legends - and legends into tools to support agendas. Now where to start. This idea came to me as I observed my own initial reactions when studying anything military. I noticed that there were two paths that fought over my attention: The path of logic and the path of Legends. Legends seem to distort logics, but logics leave legends untouched, spare for true professionals. Here's a couple examples: I might be reading an article on a Russian Typhoon -class submarine. As I read the most obvious points - the immense size and scale of the thing - I feel that the Russian Navy has to be a formidable player even today. After all, having The Largest nuclear sub in your reserve inventory must account for something. In reality? A big piece of rusting metal. Or I might be reading about the escapades of the British SAS. In my mind their heroics cast an umbrella of professionalism to many more units in the British military than would probably deserve it. In reality? People who look alike don't necessarily fight alike. I even might almost subconsciously feel that the Israeli Armed Force is fighting a war that has a taste of holiness in it. I might attribute genius to Israeli commanders or equipment solely based on their historical & mythical framework. In reality? Israelis are ordinary people and Judaism is just one of the many religions. What's most disturbing is the fact that I am intuitively inclined to be more interested on the legends than actual facts and logic; a phenomenon some leaders are guilty of themselves or use the phenomenon to their advantage in a conscious manner. A person without any military background - be it tactical or technological - sees military issues only through legends. Things like electronics&software, logistics, maintenance, reliability, ease-of-use, cost etc. are mostly of no interest to the great public. When I read about an US Navy carrier helping the Haitians I feel as if it was a hand of God. I feel as if it could do anything and expect nothing less. Why? Because it is big, it looks cool and menacing, it is called a supercarrier, it is powered by a nuclear reactor. I could go on. The field of global politics is infested with legends. Just attribute a superlative to an army or its equipment and the army in question emerges with an image and a persona. We have a need to attribute legendary features to both friend and foe, current or past. I suppose Nazi Germany is the record holder of being Legend Material. The advanced tech, the evil, the looks of uniforms and weapons, the occultism, the imagery. Are you interested in tactics or do you just want to read how good the Panther was? This drift of logics and legends is one of the reasons so many threads on this forum go south. There are people who have a need to believe in something bigger and holier than themselves, and there are people who have a need to stick to logics. These two don't mix too well. The Legend Man sees superlatives and secret capabilites where the Logics Man sees waste of resources and poor marketing efforts. Their arguments never meet because they follow different metrics alltogether. Yet legends are in many aspects much more important than reason and logics. Legends are what taxpayers, consumers, voters and young inexperienced men in arms need to function as a part of the machine. Legends sell, so sometimes it makes strategic sense to do something that doesn't make any sense on operational level. 'Facts - Beliefs' -axis is the Great Foggy Factor in most of the threads in all military forums. Most of us want to believe and need the legends, thus great multitude of threads are actually battlefields of different inclinations instead of facts. Work this axis of Facts - Beliefs in your thoughts. Incorporate your own inclinations in a thread and the quality of this site could grow to historical proportions in both quality and novelty. Whaddaya think? Mikko
 
Quote    Reply

Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest



 Latest
 News
 
 Most
 Read
 
 Most
 Commented
 Hot
 Topics