There have been democratic armies where soldiers elected their officers and where orders were not followed if they didn't make sense, in the Spanish civil war for example. They were defeated I admit, but they were facing a much more numerous opponent plus were betrayed by their allies. But they were effective organizations and put up a good fight.
We haven't yet seen a battle between an archistic top-down controlled and and an anarchistic bottom-up controlled armies of equal material strenght but if we ever will, I will predict the latter to win because of it's greater adaptability and innovability. Of course it can only be used if all the soldiers truly believe their cause, wich they should in every war.
And yes, I have read Sun Zu too and the example you provided is a very good one of the fascist nature of the traditional military. Isn't it a bit paradoxal that to protect democratic institutions you need a fascist one?
-------------------- If there's one thing I hate in this world it's the men who boast about the size of their marrows. --Tank Girl
When was the last time you actually gave an order to a soldier (I mean as a citizen, not as an officer)?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but concidering your view I suggest you are an American. Now let me tell you how these thing go in that country: The president has pretty unlimited control over the army, that is, he can start a war without consulting enyone (possibly calling it "peace enforcing operation" or something). What you, as a citizen can do, is to choose, out of couple of candidates, the one that you _believe_ shares your opinions of what is a "right thing" for the army to do. After he is elected, you have no control over his decisions whatsoever.
Now the president may be a good and humane person afterall so what is there to worry about. Well things aren't quite that simple. Ever played "broken telephone"? There is a bunch of people sitting in a circle and one of them makes up simple message, about five words. He whispers it to the person next to him an he passes it along. After the round is complete the message comes back to the person who started it. Suprisingly, it takes about ten people to transform the message completely, even though every individual tries to preserve it as it is. The same thing happens in an army. No matter how noble and righteous the commanders and the people behind them might be, when the order reaches the soldier after passing a dozen levels of morons, lunatics, rednecks, the well_meaning_but_stupid (the average officer material that is), it will most likely be something like "Kill'em all, let God sort'em out!" With a system like that, would you rather like the soldiers to be conditioned robots or intelligent human beings cabable of making their own decicions and maybe thinking something like: "Why are we actually murdering these people? Wouldn't we all be better off at home taking it easy? Why can't we choose our own enemies anyway?"
What I'm trying to say is, that 'The People' have very little to say what the soldiers of their armies do.
------------- There are two kids of people, my kind and assholes. --Divine
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There have been democratic armies where soldiers elected their officers and where orders were not followed if they didn't make sense, in the Spanish civil war for example. They were defeated I admit, but they were facing a much more numerous opponent plus were betrayed by their allies. But they were effective organizations and put up a good fight.
We haven't yet seen a battle between an archistic top-down controlled and and an anarchistic bottom-up controlled armies of equal material strenght but if we ever will, I will predict the latter to win because of it's greater adaptability and innovability. Of course it can only be used if all the soldiers truly believe their cause, wich they should in every war.
And yes, I have read Sun Zu too and the example you provided is a very good one of the fascist nature of the traditional military. Isn't it a bit paradoxal that to protect democratic institutions you need a fascist one?
--------------------
If there's one thing I hate in this world it's the men who boast about the size of their marrows.
--Tank Girl
When was the last time you actually gave an order to a soldier (I mean as a citizen, not as an officer)?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but concidering your view I suggest you are an American. Now let me tell you how these thing go in that country:
The president has pretty unlimited control over the army, that is, he can start a war without consulting enyone (possibly calling it "peace enforcing operation" or something). What you, as a citizen can do, is to choose, out of couple of candidates, the one that you _believe_ shares your opinions of what is a "right thing" for the army to do. After he is elected, you have no control over his decisions whatsoever.
Now the president may be a good and humane person afterall so what is there to worry about. Well things aren't quite that simple. Ever played "broken telephone"? There is a bunch of people sitting in a circle and one of them makes up simple message, about five words. He whispers it to the person next to him an he passes it along. After the round is complete the message comes back to the person who started it. Suprisingly, it takes about ten people to transform the message completely, even though every individual tries to preserve it as it is. The same thing happens in an army. No matter how noble and righteous the commanders and the people behind them might be, when the order reaches the soldier after passing a dozen levels of morons, lunatics, rednecks, the well_meaning_but_stupid (the average officer material that is), it will most likely be something like "Kill'em all, let God sort'em out!"
With a system like that, would you rather like the soldiers to be conditioned robots or intelligent human beings cabable of making their own decicions and maybe thinking something like: "Why are we actually murdering these people? Wouldn't we all be better off at home taking it easy? Why can't we choose our own enemies anyway?"
What I'm trying to say is, that 'The People' have very little to say what the soldiers of their armies do.
-------------
There are two kids of people, my kind and assholes.
--Divine