Desert storm, when it happened, the PLA generals wore this
This is what we look like now
Fine...So you look like US. Any body can don body armor, have a sh1tload of 'tactical' gear, and drive around in Hummer clones.
But the point that you and the rest of the Chinese members here consistently avoid is -- institutional memory.
Institutional memory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Institutional memory is a collective set of facts, concepts, experiences and know-how held by a group of people. As it transcends the individual, it requires the ongoing transmission of these memories between members of this group. Elements of institutional memory may be found in corporations, professional groups, government bodies, religious groups, academic collaborations and by extension in entire cultures.
Institutional memory may be encouraged to preserve an ideology or way of work in such a group. Conversely, institutional memory may be ingrained to the point that it becomes hard to challenge if something is found to contradict that which was previously thought to have been correct. Institutional memory may have influence on organizational identity, choice of individuals, and actions of the individuals interacting with the institution.
The PLA have only a 50-60 yrs library of its own unique collection while the US have its own since 1776. When it comes to warfare in all of its entirety, from people to doctrines to technology, China's institutional memory regarding warfare ended at the same time the Americans revolted against the British. China was carved up into colonial pieces by superior military might from other countries and pretty much ruled that way until the end of WW II. The emergence of a new Chinese military effectively did a 'reset' on that history but essentially the PLA have no philosophical foundation for its doctrines. It had to import it from the Soviets. The major conflicts the PLA was involved in: Korea, Viet Nam, and then Viet Nam again, the PLA broke no new grounds in terms of doctrines and technology. New grounds mean something that gave pause to theorists, from civilian to military, as to how a military managed to gain a superior position over its adversary and compelled potential adversaries to reconsider their positions and relationships to this military.
Nazi Germany's
blitzkrieg is an example. But the Confederacy's use of the submarine against the Union ships back in the American Civil War is not such an example, despite the fact that it was very much the first use of the submarine in a war. The reason is that the sub's use was limited and did not produce any tactical advantageous positions for the Confederacy in that conflict. Whereas with
blitzkrieg, while itself is not a new concept, the Werhmacht's ability to use it effectively to conquer vast stretches of Europe wrote a new chapter in the evolution of high speed and high response 'maneuver warfare' when it comes to blending people, technology, and situations at the operational level, the strata that is most responsible for influencing an outcome of a war.
Go back even further, take a man (intelligence), a horse (mobility), and a bow and arrows (portability), and what would you have for an army? The philosophical question here is this: A dead combatant versus a severely wounded combatant, any different effect to the outcome of a battle (not a war)? Answer: No. The odds of being so disabled by a single arrow is good enough that a combatant's ability to continue the fight, regardless of how the movies may portray the heroes, is so diminished that he might as well be dead from a spear or a sword stab. Combine the man, the horse, and the bow and arrow, force all elements (combatants) into a cohesive and obedient organization and you just effectively hit the 'reset' button on warfare and that chapter remained the leading edge of warfare for centuries.
Since its founding, the PLA have contributed nothing so radical, nothing revolutionary or even evolutionary, to the history of warfare. Nothing in terms of doctrines and technology. And with Desert Storm, it was intellectually forced to abandon everything it knew about warfare.
The old saying goes: Appearances can be deceiving.
But the problem for the PLA here is that in order to deceive, one must have an already established intellectual foundation and capability to do the opposite of what one is portraying to observers, and the PLA have no such intellectual foundation and capability to deceive anyone of otherwise. It can only threaten and only those who are physically inferior can be cowed by such threats.
Do not confuse restraints by US with fear from US. The PLA can look as scary and threatening as it can, but we started the new chapter in the history book of warfare and we are writing into it, from individual soldiers equipment to tank maneuvers to 'stealth' to EW to aircraft carriers organization and many more, faster than the PLA can copy out. Some of the things that we wrote, many countries in the world will never achieve.
Some people have goals as officers and others to pay their college bill, that's fine, but you got to admit, it doesn't pay very well. Most people who have other options usually don't go into it.
And to be fair the reason I said it was not to discredit you,...
Please...
...We will revisit your own words insulting the entire military establishment...
Only idiots who can't get into a good college and get a nice job go into the military. Why the hell would I do that, so that I can be like you staring at men all day, no thanks.
The fallacy here is that immediate presumption that a good college and a good job goes hand-in-hand, as in being an inevitable pair or an inevitable consequence, and that those who joined the military are essentially -- idiots.
If I am an employer, this is what I see:
- A 20 yr old Chinese man, most likely the only child and therefore a spoiled brat to boot, is mooching off ma and pa for his college education. Most likely the only job he have is part time to pay for his cell phone bill and a few restaurant outings with friends where everyone is meticulous on how much his/her share of the tabs. Other than that, he have no real responsibilities. He probably does not own a car.
- A 20 yr old American man enlisted in the USAF for two years. Out of that two years, eight months spent on basic military and some technical training. The rest he spent as a crew chief on a 40 mil$ F-15E where he went from 'ACC' for assistant crew chief to finally have his named painted as 'CC'. His signature says 'Yea' or 'Nay' on whether the aircraft can fly for the day and essentially, can theoretically send a man to his death. He can remove a higher ranked enlisted person off what he believes to be 'his' jet if he does not have confidence in that person to work on 'his' jet. He most likely will have a car. Or he may have something more daring like a sports motorcycle. Or if he is frugal enough, even both. They will probably will be used, but at least he is independent.
Most likely the American air force guy will take longer to complete his college degree since his military duties will take higher priority, from daily tasks that will force him to miss a few classes to even overseas deployments. But by the time he finally got his college degree, say two years later than the Chinese spoiled brat, he will have six years of high stress, increasing responsibilities, and diverse workplace experience to accompany his college degree. And since the USAF paid for his college, he is also not burdened with education related debts.
From an employer's perspective, who do you think is going to be perceived as the more responsible and intelligent?
If I was a chick, say a Chinese gal seeking a better life with more than just one child in the family, the Yank does look pretty good.
...but the fact you keep bring up people not being in the army as if it's something that would discredit them, which isn't true.
Of course it does...If the fool persists on making baseless assertions and insulting those who do have experience and tried to teach him something.
Save face, save what face, this is a forum, an internet forum, a place to debate, it matters not at all to me be it personal life or professional life.
Sure it does. Whenever a debate is engaged, a considerable intellectual and emotional investments are in play. I would not enter a debate with Stephen Hawkings (physics) or Thomas Sowell (economics) or even the local anonymous civil engineer maintaining the traffic lights. Would you be that foolish, even when there are so much electronic walls between them and you, hiding your face, leaving only the contents of your arguments to see? If you say no, then your electronic face is already valuable to you. You have imbued it with as much of your own character as possible, from personality to intellect to knowledge.
This is a military oriented forum. The discussions involved often have high technical contexts, not to say of things that are unique to military life. The length of your existence in this electronic world is entirely up to you but as long as you exists, whatever persona you created is just as valuable here as your real life is outside the Internet.
You tried to save your face by insulting an entire class of people -- the military -- when you found your arguments in shambles in the absence of relevant experience.
And Mao's guerrilla warfare is new. His using farmers rather than workers, his tactics of villages surrounding cities, his finishing off enemy forces rather than capturing or holding cities is in direct contrast to western theories. Also why he was pushed aside during parts of his career, and almost died. Before you said he copied, he didn't even read Marxist theories until about 1935ish, so that should tell you his western education.
Bullsh1t.
Guerrilla warfare is nothing new, not even what Mao relabeled as "The People's War". Many of the occupied European countries did it back in WW II. But if we should be generous to Mao, the only 'new' thing he may have espoused, not necessarily technically fleshed out, is that unlike discrete independent guerrilla units of old, the Chinese version should be coordinative in their tactics and methodical as to create favorable consequences for other units. We have yet to see it in action and most likely never will.
Desert storm did show US can defeat China, in 1990s quickly and effectively. However, time has changed whether you believe it or not. We may not be equals, but it's also not that far apart anymore.
Yes, you still are. If this is a race, we are 10 laps ahead with only one lap to go. But since this is not a race but the inexorable progress of life, particularly the military life, we are more like 30 yrs ahead of the PLA in terms of everything.
sir u r retired pilot am i right? thats y u dont know or may be your are avoiding truth due to patriotism ... it is the US who was taking about peace with taliban not the talibans ... who buried whom world KNOWS
