Re: Be Careful when running a plantary insurgency

Just a thought on plantary insurgencies.  If you are successful and the
group that you are kicking off will probably have space supremecy, they
could take losing a planet a great insult and frag the entire planet as
the last means of getting even.  Massive nuclear and bio attack could
leave the victors will a useless home world.

Los wrote:
> 
> John,
> Nah I don't need any examples about successful counter insurgencies.
> I've spent most of my past twenty years specializing in both fomenting
> and defeating insurgencies.... ;-)  And frankly the thought of
> conducting either a planetary scale counter-insurgency OR a planetary
> scale insurgency operation are both juicy propositions to me.
> 
> First off, about conducting a successful counter insurgency against
> someone who's occupying their planet. There are a  large host of
reasons
> for making this a difficult proposition. I know you could think of
them
> just as easy as I.
> 
> One is the sheer size of the endevour. A huge amount of resources
would
> be needed. The planet is a big place. Lots of places for the
insurgents
> to hide as LONG as they have support of the people. As far as a the
> counter isurgency having the planet balnketted with sensords from
orbit
> or whatever. Then I have to believe that similar sensoir defeating
> technolgies will keep pace, as his been teh history of warfare with
any
> technological or operational development. As far as outside resources
> go, they already have the resoruces of their whole planet. If given
any
> bit of thought to the prospect, they could have squirrelled away any
> number of vast amounts of supplies and weapons.
> 
> Again either side could argue that with suffiicient resources, they
> could attain their objectives. I'm just saying DO NOT  dismiss the
power
> of a palnet to conduct an insurgency all on it's own. It's not like a
> country which may not have suffiecient resopurces. A home or well
> established colony world, could have everything it needs to sustain
> itself.
> 
> And what if it doesn't? If it has any allies at all, key equipment or
> supplies could still be inserted, blockade or not. How easy would it
be
> in the FT universe for example to put a tight clamp down on solar
system
> say the size of ours?  Ships could be slipped through and insertions
> made. Heck there are already rules for cloaking. Speical insertion
> vehicles, specialists along the line of current day U.S. 1st Special
> operations wing of TF 160, would make a living doing just that.
Blockade
> or no.
> 
> I'm just saying, don't discount the potential for a conducting a
> successful insurgency given the right situation. And you know what,
> regardless of whether it would ultimately be successful of not, there
> are many that would undertake it anyway. Would you just roll over?
> 
> I always get embroiled in these discussions on here (foolishly I
> suppose) because people come up with these knee jerk statements made
> without IMO putting much though to the practicalities behind them. I'm
> not syaing that you, John, do this as I think you make pretty good
sense
> about a lot of stuff. Some recent and past examples...(paraphrasing
> here)
> Oh once we gain orbital superiority it's all over for the planet, they
> might as well roll over.
> We'll just use robots or AI in the future, it'll be superior to man.
> You can't conduct a successful insurgency on a planet.
> and so on
> 
> I say don't discount any possibility.
> 
> Anyone who's been in the military probably has the experience of
having
> had to carry out stupid plans made by officers that have had these
> kinds of ill thought-out ideas. Or maybe it's just me because we get
> used for some damn dangerous things, be it training or live. Just some
> examples:
> 
> "Oh let's have them infiltrate the enemies headquarters and implant a
> sensor so we can momintor commo in the TOC." (Sure lets have our three
> guys penetrate a division TOC, surrounded by teh division and guarded
by
> an MP company.)
> 
> "Well they're SEALs they can be parachuted into the ocean, they're
> expert swimmers." (4 guys drown in ten foot waves)
> 
> "Oh they're SEALs lets have them attack the airfield and shoot the
tires
> off off the President's airplane so he can't escape". (4 guys killed
in
> an abortive raid)
> 
> Well I've got to guard this power station so I'll just station one
> platoon at the power station and have the rest of the company humping
> the hills in the 110 degree heat so as to catch any infiltrators (half
> teh company is out with heat exhasution and we stillblew the thing
up).
> 
> I won't even get into the larger policy miscalculations of what was
> supposed to be sure things like Somalia, Barbarossa, etc etc. Never
take
> anything for granted and never underestimate anything.
> 
> Oh no, I'm driifffttiing...............aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh <plop>