Re: 2nd/3rd rate powers - LLAR - and now Africans...

"Eric Foley" said:

>
>Um, don't look now, but that "technological advantage" thing happens to
be
>one of the most major factors that you have to consider when assessing
>whether a military force is 1st, 2nd, or whatever rate.  A ferocious
>fighting force that gets their loinclothes handed to them by an enemy
about
>a tenth their size fighting thousands of miles from home in that day
and age
>because of a two millenia tech advantage is not something I'd call 1st
rate
>by any stretch of the imagination.  That final "if" is completely
>irrelevant; they didn't have access to any of that and when they
attained it
>they've had no idea what to do with it.

Sure, a bunch of warriors with spears and loincloths vs. machineguns, no
matter how fierce the warriors, will lose.  See the Italian campaigns in
North Africa during the '30's.

But the PAU has faster-than-light starships...	They aren't exactly
suffering from that 2000 year tech gap anymore...

Look, the original question was (to paraphrase Beth):

"Why does everyone dump on the PAU and assume they're crap?"

and John Atkinson's response was (again to paraphrase):

"Because Africa has never produced good professional militaries, except
the
South Africans"

MY point was that there are, as I and Karl have pointed out, a number of
relatively recent (within the past 200 years) examples of very competent
African fighting forces.

Yes the continent is going down the toilet at the moment.  Yes it will
take
generations to sort themselves out.

We have *no* idea what African society 100 years from now will look
like,
because the effects of the rampant corruption, AIDS epidemics, etc.,
will
have run their course and they'll have moved into whatever the next
phase
of their development is.  It might be even worse than now - complete
social
collapse.  It might be that some of the African countries get their act
together, take advantage of the *huge* natural resource wealth Africa
possesses, works to change the political situation, and develops working
modern infrastructure.	We have no idea - 100 years is a *long* time to
predict.

SO, we move into the realm of PHB (same as PSB, but "historical" instead
of
"scientific").

I think it is silly to write of 180 years of development of a whole
continent by saying "they're crap now so they'll always be crap".  That
just ignores lots and lots of examples throughout history of human
societies that changed.  Sure, there are plenty of examples of societies
that have got *worse* in that period of time, or changed very little. 
But
to say "they're crap now and they'll be crap then" requires some
explanation of WHY they are crap in the future.  Just saying "because
they're crap now" isn't enough.  It is POSSIBLE that they would be
mediocre.  It is POSSIBLE that they might even have some very good
forces.

We *know* they're not as powerful as the four "first line" nations.  We
know they DO participate in "international" affairs, because the
timeline
says so.

We know they have fleets of faster-than-light starships, which they
manage,
somehow, to PAY for and crew.  SO, we know they've advanced beyond the
stage they're at now.  As to how far...?  That's up to you in your
version
of the universe.

>The only question that matters is whether you would win a war with X
power
>with similiar amounts of force involved.  The 1st rate militaries would
win
>a war with anybody, and I do mean anybody, with similar size forces
>involved.  The reasons of _why_ they'd win, or how Western they are in
doing
>it, don't matter.

Ok, but that isn't relevant to the original post, or my response.

I'm not debating that the NAC would smash the PAU into tiny pieces if
they
went head on.  

The point was whether or not the PAU is capable of fielding competent
professional military forces.  I'm saying "maybe, it could, you can make
arguments either way, so whatever suits your vision of the universe...
there is nothing saying that they WILL FOR SURE be one way or the
other".

laserlight said:

>Adrian, KarlHeinz and Eric have all made good arguments.  I think it
boils
>down to:
>a) what are they like today? Using today rather than AD1880, or AD700,
or
>2000BC, because that's the closest to 2185 that we know about
>b) how much cultral and institutional change do we anticipate will
happen
>between now and then?
>c) what does canon say?
>d) what do the players want?
>
>In 180 years, militaries can change enough that any significant
military's
>rating could change by several notches up or down.  

Yes.

I'd add the caveat that point (a) can be influenced by looking at the
historical developments of the various nations - trends.  Not because
those
trends will necessarily continue, but just that it reinforces the idea
that
"stuff changes" and that virtually any nation, under the right
circumstances, could find themselves in a position of fielding very good
military forces.

We have 180 years of history to play with - that's lots of time for
plausible explanations of WHY the PAU has some good fighting forces.  Or
not.  Whatever one likes...

>And we don't want everyone to be identical.  

Nor do we want the NAC to be uniformly good, the ESU to be uniformely
mediocre, and everyone else to suck...	There are good reasons why the
IF
could field excellent units, as could the PAU.	In SG, we're only
talking
about small units, and mostly the same for DS also.  In a campaign
setting,
the "good" units of the IF or the PAU would almost certainly be much
smaller in numbers than the "good" units of the NAC, but there is no
reason
why you couldn't have a SG game where the PAU unit on the table is
Veteran...

John A said, in response to Karl:

>> As to professional troops, various colonial troops
>> were held in quite
>> high regard, e.g.v.Lettow Vorbeck's Askari, the
>> King's African Rifles
>> or French auxiliaries - even if these were led by
>> Europeans.
>
>Led, trained, and equipped.  Sounds like the colonial
>power is doing all the work.
>

So what?

The question was whether PAU unit will always suck or not.

Karl and I are saying "not necessarily".  Maybe they have really good
units
that are completely foreign led.  Heck, there is an "Afrikaner officer,
with shades and big bush hat, standing with rifle" as part of the PAU SG
line...

Whether or not their foreign led, trained, equipped is mostly
irrelevant.
In answer to Beth's original question about why everyone always dumps on
the PAU, it is perfectly plausible for them to have some competant
forces... There is NO kind of historical determinism (or social
determinisim, or geographical determinism) at work here that
*guarentees*
that just because things are bad now they will still be bad nearly 200
years from now.  Not at the rate of change possible in our "modern" era. 

How they got the competancy - well, maybe a corrupt government paid for
it
with stolen wealth... maybe it grew naturally as a result of 180 years
of
social change after their current generation of corrupt leadership died
out
in the great riots of the early 'teens of the 21st century after they
had
ignored the AIDS epidemic for 25 years and people got sick of them...
maybe they manage to muddle through, and invest some of their prescious
and
limited resource wealth in hiring some really good trainers as cadre,
because someone is forsightful...

whatever.

The PAU has FTL starships and off-planet colonies... They aren't running
about in the jungle in loincloths with spears.	They could have good
military forces too.

In my vision of the GZGverse, they aren't top line military forces
either,
but I've played a number of games with PAU forces as "elite light
infantry"
(played as Veterans in SG) as part of a larger FSE force, for example.
Makes for interesting story...

>> the British beat them
>> silly once they had their act together, but that was
>> 2000 years of
>> technological advantage talking, not necessarily
>> just the training, quality
>> and fighting spirit of the troops.  If the Zulus had
>
>Well, by that standard wolverines and grizzly bears
>should be on the list. 

Do wolverines fly FTL spaceships and have off-planet colonies?	We're
talking about the capabilities of *people*... who do not remain fixed
and
static in time...

> However, technology does
>matter.  

Sure, and they've got FTL spaceships and off-planet colonies...

John Leary said:

>> Or do you mean good quality professional *modern
>> western just-like-us* militaries?
>- -------
>I would think this is the basis of comparison,
>folks that throw spears do not do well against 
>Powered Armor.

Right, if you're comparing the fighting strength of various modern
militiaries.

But my post in response to Beth's question was addressing the potential
of
the PAU nations to produce competent military forces, and I was
suggesting
that the human resources of the PAU are more than sufficient to justify
having at least SOME good troops...

The historical examples were not to suggest that spear-throwing Zulus
would
do well against PA.  But how about Zulus *wearing* PA?	Zulus with
training
and discipline and morale and experience relatively scaled to match that
of
their ancestors at Isandlawanda?  Remember, during the British and Boer
campaigns against the Zulus, the British were a 19th century
industrialized
force, and the Zulus were what, early iron age?  At best?  But they
still
put up a good fight.  Why?  Human potential, experience, training,
morale,
discipline.  Ok, it can't be compared to the Europeans of the time
(apples
and oranges), but against people of the same era?  The PAU in the
GZGverse
is NOT at the same technological disadvantage that the Zulus were when
they
were stomped by the British.  But the raw human potential is still
there.

In 180 years of historical development, it is, I believe, fair to
suggest
that they could redevelop the traditions of good military forces.

Not that they *will*, but that they *could*, and the rest comes down to
each person's idea of how the GZGverse works...

>> the best guys available...  Remember, the South
>> African army, as good as it might have been at one
>time, never actually *beat* the ANC completely.
>- -------
>Could that be because the SAA never faced the ANC
>field force in battle?   

????

The SAA faced the ANC lots of times, just very rarely in major
engagements,
in a European sense.

The ANC were a guerilla army mostly, but they were good at it.

The fact that there were no ANC armoured divisions doesn't take away
from
the professionalism of the best of the ANC fighting units.

I wasn't there, but the guy who told me about this was, and as a SAA
paratroop officer who did his bit running about in the field fighting
against the ANC, he should know.  The attitude toward the ANC is his,
not
mine.  He didn't *like* them, be he respected their competency (some of
them, anyway).

>> Africa is perfectly capable of producing good
>> military formations. 
>- -------
>Virtually all 'good' african units are/were colonial
>units.

See my comments above under "so what"

>
>Certain
>> of their cultures have LONG warrior traditions; 
>> though granted, Africa has
>> been *seriously* buggered up by colonialism and its
>> after-effects.  
>- -------
>Tribalism is not an after effect of colonialism.
>Colonialism supressed trimalism and brought an
>(virtual) end to the tribal wars, and established
>a system of law for all that had not existed before.
>Tribalism is now the law of the (African) land and 
>the rise of slavery can be traced to tribalism and
>the end of colonialism and the decline of the 
>colonial law system.

Well, that's a whole different debate.	The nature of the effects of
colonialism on the development of modern African culture is, I think,
off
topic enough even in the context of discussing PAU military forces that
I'll skip out of this one.

Happy to continue the debate off-list though.

>> Plenty of European countries in the past 180 years
>have had phases of military strength followed by
>feebleness...
>- -------
>As far a I know, no empire once lost, has been
>regained.

Sure, but we're not talking about gaining and losing empires, we're
talking
about the potential of the PAU to field good military forces.

>
>> Ok, the military history of Africa in the past
>> century or so isn't exactly
>> filled with shining examples,..."they're crap
>> now and that means they'll be crap 200 years from
>now because nothing will ever change", don't
>> you think?	
>- -------
>Africa is actually in a state of decline, slavery is
>increasing, tribal warefare is increasing, food
>production is declining, and EVERYTHING is the 
>fault of the colonials, but just what will happen
>when the black governments run of of whites to 
>oppress and murder.?
>

Complete social collapse?

Violent revolution?

Massive foreign intervention to provent more genocide?

The emergence of people who actually care, who are willing to lead the
people into something better?

Who knows how it happens, but we *know* that the PAU is a political
force
in the GZG verse.  We *know* that they have the technological base and
the
economic base to support both FTL space travel and off-planet colonies.
Maybe they didn't develop their own FTL ships, but so what?  

What does that say about their current state of decline?  It says that
something changes somewhere, right?  And if that changes, what else
changes?  If the change in their society is sufficient to enable the
support of off-planet colonies and spacecraft, is it not reasonable to
say
that the change might be sufficient to enable the development of at
least
some effective fighting forces?  I think so.

-Adrian

***************************************

Adrian Johnson
adrian@stargrunt.ca
http://www.stargrunt.ca