Why we can relax a small bit about totalitarian states but not terrorist entities?

by Dillon Freed
March 2, 2011

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/1307/why-we-can-relax-a-small-bit-about-totalitarian

After the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic games, many commentators, aside from the ones whose erogenous zones were agog by the (admittedly) spectacular display, declared that it was petrifying to see the numerous Chinese performers move in perfect synchronization – as if one body. The implication of course was that such a "one body" could wage a great war, and also, wage war greatly. This fear is certainly a legitimate fear to an extent, but after we pass that extent, we shall find it a tremendous weakness in our potential foes. Any state that can control people as such at once razes their creative potential – and this is not good for war.

Imagine this: a great battle being waged between China and the West on the steppes of Mongolia, and upon the Sino-side of the battlefield, the tanks, the spearhead of their attack, are found to be vulnerable in several spots to Western weapons. The Sino rank and files observe a way to fix the tank, but are unsure if they should even voice the weaknesses of their vehicles out of fear of making their superiors appear ineffectual and incompetent.

But let us say the rank and files actually do speak up about the weakness, and also present ideas of how to disabuse the situation – and let us suppose, their superiors agree with the rabble. Well, the superiors still must get clearance to fix the tanks from other superiors, and so it goes to the top. This process, with hurdles of fear of being labeled a traitor or doubter at every turn, and therefore, a lot of mincing words and tip-toeing feet, takes a long time to get anything done. In the meantime, the Anglo-American-European side has wiped out fifty-percent of the Sino tanks – game over.

Consider, for comparison, the United States' military ability to adapt. Though disciplined and order-taking, our military is vastly more ductile to situations and our men have more autonomy. Thus, when the Humvees in Iraq Invasion of March 2003 were not up-armored, individual soldiers adapted their own machines for the battle, often using their own money. And when they could not fix them, they complained. A good account of such individual initiative (as well as frustration) is found in Nathanial Fick's One Bullet Away in which soldiers jerry-rig their trucks prior to enemy engagement, and this reliance on self-reliance,and the ability to object, is one of the main reasons, according to the historian Victor Davis Hanson, why the United States military is so deadly in war.

In China, and other nations similar (think North Korea), the people have no individuality and therefore our army is much stronger in many ways which are not exactly quantifiable. Of course, I am not considering A-B-C-D attacks in this article (atomic, biological, chemical, or digital) – but in the old-fashion slug outs – I am quite certain we would win.

Totalitarian states of such overreaching power, remind me of the three Grey Sisters of Greek mythology. These sisters of the Gorgons, denizens of the netherworld, had no means to express their individuality: they shared one eye and one tooth which they had to pass amongst themselves to see and eat. Likewise, China and North Korea, shall we say, "Grey States," are made up of three as well – first, there is the great leader or leadership; second, there is the government; and third, there are the people – and they each roll one tongue between themselves. The leader has the tongue most of the time, the government less often, and the people nearly never. There is little chance for the individual to help his nation win any battle and it is often the most ignorant, the leader(s) and governors, who speak the most. That is good for the West.

Before concluding, consider and compare Islamic terrorism to these Grey States. Now that is something different. The name of the game here is improvisation and adaptation – and the best ideas rise to the top, like the video with the most views on a YouTube under a given search. Indeed, the ideas of how to slaughter and terrorize people like you and I, are disseminated via the internet world wide. There are no top down orders, just top down ideology. Everything else is a free-for-all (literally) of killing ways and means, and this urge to share ideas is actually one of the few "democratic" aspects Islamic fundamentalists exhibit. So it is that these packs of terror groups, flung across the world as a garden flings seeds in the soil, are harder to stop than massive land armies for the United States and the West – as we have seen. They may not be able to synchronize an opening ceremony for Friday night high school football, but they do have many eyes, many tongues, and are the greater danger to us for it.

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