War and money (thinking out loud)
As Marshal Jan-Jacopo Trivoulzio (1448 — 1518) said, three things are needed for war: money, money, and again money.
That's about them, and I want to talk.
I once watched a film about a coalition war in Afghanistan. The numbers are amazing. It turned out that the cost of keeping a single coalition soldier per year is about $ 1.000.000 (if the total number of troops is just over 120.000, we get $ 120.000.000.000). And this is despite the fact that during the year it was killed (more precisely, incapacitated) around 12.000 Taliban fighters. As a result, the price of incapacitating a gangster was $ 10.000.000!
"It can not be!" - You say. In fact, this figure should be more in 5-10 more, because it does not take into account the costs associated with losses (insurance payments), the long-term rehabilitation of soldiers who were injured, and many other expenses. Let's increase the index 5 times. We get $ 50.000.000 for one Taliban terrorist. This amount is comparable to the price of one, or even several modern aircraft! It seems to me that this is VERY MUCH. I ask you to note that this is with FULL superiority in almost all components of the database (lack of air defense, counter battery, rocket and many other types of weapons, etc.). Otherwise, when maintaining a database with an opponent of equal strength and armament, the cost would increase by orders of magnitude. And I want to ask a question: do taxpayers know about this, or at least guess?
Now about some features of how the coalition fought in Afghanistan, which are very revealing and instructive at the same time. Here is just one episode: in conjunction with the Afghan Armed Forces, an operation is being carried out to clean up a certain territory (by the forces of one battalion of the coalition and one battalion of Afghans). In time (preparation, conduct, departure), the operation took about two weeks. During this time, units were bombarded several times by Taliban fighters, and only in one case, after countless shootings, watering the territory with automatic grenade launchers and heavy machine guns, artillery preparation from howitzers and calling aviation the complex of houses in which there were 2 terrorists was wiped off the face of the earth.
And now about the money. 1 battalion + gunners + pilots (about 500 people in total) * $ 1000000 * (14 days / 365) = $ 19.000.000. We get the cost of eliminating 2 terrorists: $ 19.000.000, or $ 9.500.000 for a terrorist, which almost coincides with the estimate given above.
The magic of $ 10.000.000 just fascinates me. Gaddafi paid $ 10.000.000 to the victims of the terrorist attack, the Australians brought a lawsuit against Russia for $ 10.000.000 for the passenger of the plane shot down in the Donbas ... It’s like this: the terrorist and the victim are the same? Well, okay, this is so, by the way. Probably just a coincidence. Let's just note about ourselves and remember that the price of the life of the victim today is estimated at $ 10.000.000.
If we assume that for the complete destruction of the Taliban, 50.000 Talibs must be disabled, then the coalition will have to pay 50.000 * $ 10.000.000 = $ 500.000.000.000, which is comparable to the annual US military budget. From the above, a simple and simultaneously shocking conclusion can be made. With the existing model of combat operations, the coalition will NEVER WIN TALIBAN and ISIL (prohibited in Russia). Resources are not enough. Unfortunately, the coalition realized this only after 10 years and began to urgently look for cheaper options for warfare, the most natural of which was the involvement of local armies, since the price of human life for these armies is orders of magnitude lower than that of the coalition.
However, the situation is actually much worse. After all, if simple peasants were killed in the destroyed house, and they had relatives, then, having eliminated two terrorists, the coalition created, perhaps, 4 or 10 new ones, who will be registered in the Taliban ranks and will fight. It is good if no one else died there, or only one surviving relative is recorded in the Taliban. Otherwise, the number of terrorists will only grow, which happened in reality, since the number of Taliban fighters is only increasing, and with the departure of the coalition, it has significantly expanded the zone of influence, and substantial financial resources are required in order to keep the situation and the rest territory under control.
If you look at the whole situation from the point of view of business, then we have the IDEAL picture. The more terrorists there are, the more resources are needed to combat them, and these are growing contracts, jobs and increasing profits for suppliers. weapons - mainly from coalition countries. Here is a circle and closed! Only one inconvenience: their soldiers are dying, and this causes great political damage and causes discontent among the population in the coalition countries. Although this problem can be solved to some extent by investing in propaganda and manipulating public opinion. But there are certain limits and limitations in the form of the number of soldiers killed. If these losses are unacceptable, no money for propaganda is enough. That is, the balance does not converge (will be negative), and the policy being pursued will be a failure. So ALL politicians (if they are not complete idiots, which sometimes have to be doubted) are very well aware of what the "pain threshold" of the population is, and try not to approach it. If the coalition could fight WITHOUT LOSS, then it would ALWAYS fight and EVERYWHERE, because war, if properly organized, is an inexhaustible source of consumption of expensive high-tech resources and a source of perpetual development (for arms dealers). And if it is also directed against certain states that are in fact competitors for coalition countries (a potential Taliban invasion of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia), then just a fairy tale will come for the ears and pockets of corporate owners from coalition countries. Actually, all the conflicts of the last decades went exactly according to this scenario. Nothing new: after all, money does not smell, and nobody has canceled enrichment as a goal ...
Now fast forward to the long-suffering Syria. Wonderful ancient land, beautiful, friendly people. Looking at the gigantic, striking destruction, especially in the zone of the former military actions, it is impossible to comprehend HOW all this could be endured. I bow to this people.
Now about the money. Naturally, Qatar and the SA have many times more money than the Syrians, and the outcome of the war was predetermined by this circumstance. But the intervention of Russia brought some uncertainty, because money solves a lot, but not everything, and Russia is not a poor country. I recall that in one of the reports by Dubova from Donbass I noticed and commented on a large number of ATGM wires hanging on tree branches: they say that in Syria ATGMs are a luxury ... What do we see today? Syrians mock ATGM for single terrorists and their groups (not for tanks, BTR, etc.), and our specialists, in the comments on these YouTube videos, swear them for this and demand that they be brought to the tribunal for misuse of a very expensive resource (ATGM). The picture is almost identical to what it was in Afghanistan, when grenade launchers fired on "spirits", even if it was a solitary bandit.
And if we see how a bullet is fired from an ATGM by a single terrorist, then most likely this indicates the absence of suitable weapons: the fighters use what they have. After all, when shooting at a bear running at you, the price of cartridges is nothing compared to your life. So it is in Syria, and everywhere in the world. The price of weapons is incomparable with the price of human life. But this is only on condition that the resource is renewed ... After all, if you have an 1 ATGM or one cartridge left, and there will be no more, then the maximum that you can afford is to shoot for sure and only at significant targets.
If the gangster attacked you and caused you damage, then it is only natural that after being arrested and convicted, he will have to compensate you for all the damage suffered ... It is reasonable and logical. And if the court proves that his friends helped him in any form, the court will determine the contribution and measure of responsibility of everyone in the crime and “fraternally divide” the offenders' compensation to the victim. I think this is fair. Oh, if the same rules were used in interstate relations! Just imagine: they attacked Iraq, motivating the war by the presence of weapons of mass destruction, and there it was not. And have to pay compensation. According to some estimates, more than 1.500.000 Iraqis were killed, for a total of 1.500.000 * $ 10.000.000 = $ 15.000.000.000.000 + for housing and infrastructure destroyed by the war. Trillions 30-40 will turn out, that is equivalent approximately to two annual gross national product of the USA. After that, well, very scrupulously and reluctantly will approach the decision-making about the war ... Yes, dreams, dreams!
We descend on the sinful earth.
The Internet is overloaded with videos. In the frames, we see tanks and guns firing, planes flying, dropping bombs, Grads, Smerches and Buratino working, ISIS terrorists, and government fighters shooting, DO NOT GOING, lifting the machine gun above the wall or parastroke trench When you read the reports from the battlefields, you are surprised to find that the losses amounted to 2-3, well, 10-15 gangsters ... After that, taking a calculator, you try to figure out what the price of such hostilities is. And how much can you stretch financially. Once in the US Congress it turned out that by spending $ 500.000.000 on preparing 5 (five) Syrian opposition fighters, which is equivalent to $ 100.000.000 per fighter or, by comparison, two (or more) most modern combat aircraft for one fighter of the opposition, it became clear that their soldiers are much cheaper ($ 1.000.000 for a soldier per year), and urgently the sending of special forces to Syria was arranged.
By the way, did anyone see or know the real figures of the value of the database in Syria for Russia, besides those that were announced by the president? Of course, they should be several times smaller than the coalition, but not an order of magnitude. Well, the most significant factor is the cost of our soldiers ... Yes, the cost or price, if you like, which varied in Russia from 0 (Zhukov’s famous saying about the expediency of losses during the storming of Berlin: Russian women give birth to new 25 salaries to each beneficiary) Today. Let's take 100 salaries (wife and 3 children) and 100.000 rubles = 10.000.000 rubles, or $ 200.000. Apparently, this corresponds to reality. Here the Turks offered compensation in $ 100.000 for our shot pilot. Yes, quite frankly, a little ... Especially when people talk about the pricelessness of human life from various tribunes. Actually, the cost of a soldier (as of any citizen in general) is determined by the socio-economic conditions in each given country and the prevailing market conditions in the labor market. And any state in this sense is ruthless. For example, in England, for example, marines are recruited - volunteers from the street, and the main contingent is unemployed, unsettled, undecided, very rarely ideological young people who are sent to the combat zone after 28 days of intensive training ... They learn everything from scratch starting with how to wash properly, use personal hygiene products and ending with the basics of mountain training, tactics of conducting urban combat, shooting training, etc. Rather intensive training, no clothes (just kicked out on the street), duty in the kitchen, washing the barracks and other nonsense ... But the sergeants strictly follow the discipline. People are consciously prepared to survive in the war, and everything is subordinated to this main goal. At the slightest violation of the regime, disobeying orders, they are simply thrown out of the gates of the training center, since the punishment does not make sense. It is simply expensive and unfair to prepare and take an inadequate person to a war, where other people or he himself can be killed through his fault (you have to pay for this). So everything is quite pragmatic and straightforward. Cannon fodder costs differently and has different varieties. As we see, war is a very dirty business, expensive, and everyone quite consciously and purposefully wants to minimize risks and costs. Russia, by the way, is no exception.
When you observe and analyze the developing armed conflicts in various countries of the world, even with the naked eye you see the dead end of the existing models and methods of warfare. Quite often, indiscriminate weapons are used against terrorists. Either innocent people die, or the cost of eliminating terrorists brings entire countries to their knees and, in principle, does not solve the task. An example is pirates in Somalia. And as an example of the utter failure of the use of indiscriminate weapons, we can recall the indicators associated with the use of drones United States for the destruction of terrorists: the latter turned out to be only 4% of the destroyed people! It would be nice to legally oblige to pay $ 10.000.000 (and not buy off ten sheep) for each civilian killed by mistake! Yes, put in jail as a war criminal (for life). There would immediately be fewer lovers of shooting at civilians. After all, the UN declared the equality of all people on Earth!
In this case, all the talk about collateral and unforeseen losses among civilians would stop very quickly. I imagine how the US President explains to the Americans why the police needed to kill 96 hostages-Americans in order to kill the 4 terrorists ... I think after that oh how many officials would have resigned, and the president would be excommunicated at best ... I don’t want to talk about the worst.
What is it: complete incompetence or, on the contrary, a well-planned operation, which has ALL OTHER OBJECTIVES AND TASKS, hidden from the attention of the public? Any theory is tested on boundary conditions. Really, having the experience of Korea, Vietnam and many other unleashed conflicts, has the coalition got involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria without any hope of victory? And at the cost of destroying one terrorist in $ 10.000.000, the price of victory becomes simply unaffordable, even for the US budget. What made the coalition sit in Afghanistan for about 10 years, spend a total of more than 1 trillion dollars, but did not achieve any significant results? For some reason, only after 10 years of intrigue, ordeal, and completely unpromising hostilities, an emphasis was placed on using Afghan government forces! And even negotiations began with the Taliban, during which the negotiators tried to tune the Taliban to fight ISIS (oh, how familiar it all is!), And at the same time to minimize their involvement in the conflict, and most importantly, cut funding for the Afghan government to a possible minimum, while the Taliban’s entry into the government is down to zero. (By the way, the order of Russian helicopters for Afghanistan was dictated by the desire to reduce their own expenses for the maintenance of the Afghan army, and not something else. As usual, business, and nothing personal.) When the operation began in Afghanistan, there was no ISIL, nor Libya and Syria, and the national debt was at the level of two trillion, but now it is close to 20 trillion. So, perhaps, there were simply few financial resources, the specter of default loomed (which would be worse than a nuclear war), or the goal was achieved, and it did not defeat the Taliban or Al Qaeda (banned in Russia), and a completely different, more global, undeclared and therefore more dangerous goal with unpredictable consequences for many participants who are absolutely not ready for analysis, a new perception of the situation that arises and blindly following the route specified by the leader.
You did not notice that if people have money (I mean MONEY), then they become independent? Some of them are starting to buy yachts or football clubs, while others are starting to invest in business development, new technologies, compete for new sales markets, and ultimately push out competitors from existing markets, create new markets, become main players, and reduce the taxable base. many states, which in itself boomerangs to the socio-economic situation of the population and ultimately to the stability of these states, reducing the possibilities for their further development. In the future, very quickly, such states cease to exist as independent, independent and are fully controlled by more powerful countries, up to the complete subordination of the economy and all the basic institutions of power. An example is all the Baltic countries or monarchies of the Persian Gulf, and for a long time. But it is, thinking out loud.
So, on the basis of the above, it is obvious that the conclusion is that there will be no serious war between Russia and the United States or Russia and NATO. For a very simple reason: the economy of one and the other countries is simply unable to sustain the costs of such wars, no matter how advanced and perfect this economy may be. Even the costs of war with technologically backward countries are becoming too heavy for the budget. In a war with an equal or superior rival in strength and technology, these costs should be at least an order of magnitude higher. And I am sure that all politicians (if, of course, they are not complete idiots) understand these realities very well.
And, of course, we must very seriously think about the cost of warfare and set ourselves the task of reducing it significantly (by orders of magnitude), if only we want to live normally and NOT SURVIVE, giving priority to cost-effective, rather than spectacular types of weapons possible unification and standardization - wherever possible.
It seems to me that the time has come to seriously think about creating high-precision, miniature, robotic, with elements of artificial intelligence means of warfare, the use of which is able to minimize the losses of the civilian population, infrastructure, means of production, housing, etc., and ultimately reverse situation and defeat any opponent in a matter of days (and not years). Moreover, all the necessary technologies for this, and most importantly, brains, are available in Russia.
After all, with the cost of destroying one gangster in 10 million, or even one million dollars, the country will be devastated very soon. There will be some next revolution with a long recovery period, in 20 — 50 years, or even disintegration and complete disappearance of the state from the political map of the world. Actually, this is what the West is seeking, using various pretexts and provocations to achieve its goal.
That's about them, and I want to talk.
I once watched a film about a coalition war in Afghanistan. The numbers are amazing. It turned out that the cost of keeping a single coalition soldier per year is about $ 1.000.000 (if the total number of troops is just over 120.000, we get $ 120.000.000.000). And this is despite the fact that during the year it was killed (more precisely, incapacitated) around 12.000 Taliban fighters. As a result, the price of incapacitating a gangster was $ 10.000.000!
"It can not be!" - You say. In fact, this figure should be more in 5-10 more, because it does not take into account the costs associated with losses (insurance payments), the long-term rehabilitation of soldiers who were injured, and many other expenses. Let's increase the index 5 times. We get $ 50.000.000 for one Taliban terrorist. This amount is comparable to the price of one, or even several modern aircraft! It seems to me that this is VERY MUCH. I ask you to note that this is with FULL superiority in almost all components of the database (lack of air defense, counter battery, rocket and many other types of weapons, etc.). Otherwise, when maintaining a database with an opponent of equal strength and armament, the cost would increase by orders of magnitude. And I want to ask a question: do taxpayers know about this, or at least guess?
Now about some features of how the coalition fought in Afghanistan, which are very revealing and instructive at the same time. Here is just one episode: in conjunction with the Afghan Armed Forces, an operation is being carried out to clean up a certain territory (by the forces of one battalion of the coalition and one battalion of Afghans). In time (preparation, conduct, departure), the operation took about two weeks. During this time, units were bombarded several times by Taliban fighters, and only in one case, after countless shootings, watering the territory with automatic grenade launchers and heavy machine guns, artillery preparation from howitzers and calling aviation the complex of houses in which there were 2 terrorists was wiped off the face of the earth.
And now about the money. 1 battalion + gunners + pilots (about 500 people in total) * $ 1000000 * (14 days / 365) = $ 19.000.000. We get the cost of eliminating 2 terrorists: $ 19.000.000, or $ 9.500.000 for a terrorist, which almost coincides with the estimate given above.
The magic of $ 10.000.000 just fascinates me. Gaddafi paid $ 10.000.000 to the victims of the terrorist attack, the Australians brought a lawsuit against Russia for $ 10.000.000 for the passenger of the plane shot down in the Donbas ... It’s like this: the terrorist and the victim are the same? Well, okay, this is so, by the way. Probably just a coincidence. Let's just note about ourselves and remember that the price of the life of the victim today is estimated at $ 10.000.000.
If we assume that for the complete destruction of the Taliban, 50.000 Talibs must be disabled, then the coalition will have to pay 50.000 * $ 10.000.000 = $ 500.000.000.000, which is comparable to the annual US military budget. From the above, a simple and simultaneously shocking conclusion can be made. With the existing model of combat operations, the coalition will NEVER WIN TALIBAN and ISIL (prohibited in Russia). Resources are not enough. Unfortunately, the coalition realized this only after 10 years and began to urgently look for cheaper options for warfare, the most natural of which was the involvement of local armies, since the price of human life for these armies is orders of magnitude lower than that of the coalition.
However, the situation is actually much worse. After all, if simple peasants were killed in the destroyed house, and they had relatives, then, having eliminated two terrorists, the coalition created, perhaps, 4 or 10 new ones, who will be registered in the Taliban ranks and will fight. It is good if no one else died there, or only one surviving relative is recorded in the Taliban. Otherwise, the number of terrorists will only grow, which happened in reality, since the number of Taliban fighters is only increasing, and with the departure of the coalition, it has significantly expanded the zone of influence, and substantial financial resources are required in order to keep the situation and the rest territory under control.
If you look at the whole situation from the point of view of business, then we have the IDEAL picture. The more terrorists there are, the more resources are needed to combat them, and these are growing contracts, jobs and increasing profits for suppliers. weapons - mainly from coalition countries. Here is a circle and closed! Only one inconvenience: their soldiers are dying, and this causes great political damage and causes discontent among the population in the coalition countries. Although this problem can be solved to some extent by investing in propaganda and manipulating public opinion. But there are certain limits and limitations in the form of the number of soldiers killed. If these losses are unacceptable, no money for propaganda is enough. That is, the balance does not converge (will be negative), and the policy being pursued will be a failure. So ALL politicians (if they are not complete idiots, which sometimes have to be doubted) are very well aware of what the "pain threshold" of the population is, and try not to approach it. If the coalition could fight WITHOUT LOSS, then it would ALWAYS fight and EVERYWHERE, because war, if properly organized, is an inexhaustible source of consumption of expensive high-tech resources and a source of perpetual development (for arms dealers). And if it is also directed against certain states that are in fact competitors for coalition countries (a potential Taliban invasion of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia), then just a fairy tale will come for the ears and pockets of corporate owners from coalition countries. Actually, all the conflicts of the last decades went exactly according to this scenario. Nothing new: after all, money does not smell, and nobody has canceled enrichment as a goal ...
Now fast forward to the long-suffering Syria. Wonderful ancient land, beautiful, friendly people. Looking at the gigantic, striking destruction, especially in the zone of the former military actions, it is impossible to comprehend HOW all this could be endured. I bow to this people.
Now about the money. Naturally, Qatar and the SA have many times more money than the Syrians, and the outcome of the war was predetermined by this circumstance. But the intervention of Russia brought some uncertainty, because money solves a lot, but not everything, and Russia is not a poor country. I recall that in one of the reports by Dubova from Donbass I noticed and commented on a large number of ATGM wires hanging on tree branches: they say that in Syria ATGMs are a luxury ... What do we see today? Syrians mock ATGM for single terrorists and their groups (not for tanks, BTR, etc.), and our specialists, in the comments on these YouTube videos, swear them for this and demand that they be brought to the tribunal for misuse of a very expensive resource (ATGM). The picture is almost identical to what it was in Afghanistan, when grenade launchers fired on "spirits", even if it was a solitary bandit.
And if we see how a bullet is fired from an ATGM by a single terrorist, then most likely this indicates the absence of suitable weapons: the fighters use what they have. After all, when shooting at a bear running at you, the price of cartridges is nothing compared to your life. So it is in Syria, and everywhere in the world. The price of weapons is incomparable with the price of human life. But this is only on condition that the resource is renewed ... After all, if you have an 1 ATGM or one cartridge left, and there will be no more, then the maximum that you can afford is to shoot for sure and only at significant targets.
If the gangster attacked you and caused you damage, then it is only natural that after being arrested and convicted, he will have to compensate you for all the damage suffered ... It is reasonable and logical. And if the court proves that his friends helped him in any form, the court will determine the contribution and measure of responsibility of everyone in the crime and “fraternally divide” the offenders' compensation to the victim. I think this is fair. Oh, if the same rules were used in interstate relations! Just imagine: they attacked Iraq, motivating the war by the presence of weapons of mass destruction, and there it was not. And have to pay compensation. According to some estimates, more than 1.500.000 Iraqis were killed, for a total of 1.500.000 * $ 10.000.000 = $ 15.000.000.000.000 + for housing and infrastructure destroyed by the war. Trillions 30-40 will turn out, that is equivalent approximately to two annual gross national product of the USA. After that, well, very scrupulously and reluctantly will approach the decision-making about the war ... Yes, dreams, dreams!
We descend on the sinful earth.
The Internet is overloaded with videos. In the frames, we see tanks and guns firing, planes flying, dropping bombs, Grads, Smerches and Buratino working, ISIS terrorists, and government fighters shooting, DO NOT GOING, lifting the machine gun above the wall or parastroke trench When you read the reports from the battlefields, you are surprised to find that the losses amounted to 2-3, well, 10-15 gangsters ... After that, taking a calculator, you try to figure out what the price of such hostilities is. And how much can you stretch financially. Once in the US Congress it turned out that by spending $ 500.000.000 on preparing 5 (five) Syrian opposition fighters, which is equivalent to $ 100.000.000 per fighter or, by comparison, two (or more) most modern combat aircraft for one fighter of the opposition, it became clear that their soldiers are much cheaper ($ 1.000.000 for a soldier per year), and urgently the sending of special forces to Syria was arranged.
By the way, did anyone see or know the real figures of the value of the database in Syria for Russia, besides those that were announced by the president? Of course, they should be several times smaller than the coalition, but not an order of magnitude. Well, the most significant factor is the cost of our soldiers ... Yes, the cost or price, if you like, which varied in Russia from 0 (Zhukov’s famous saying about the expediency of losses during the storming of Berlin: Russian women give birth to new 25 salaries to each beneficiary) Today. Let's take 100 salaries (wife and 3 children) and 100.000 rubles = 10.000.000 rubles, or $ 200.000. Apparently, this corresponds to reality. Here the Turks offered compensation in $ 100.000 for our shot pilot. Yes, quite frankly, a little ... Especially when people talk about the pricelessness of human life from various tribunes. Actually, the cost of a soldier (as of any citizen in general) is determined by the socio-economic conditions in each given country and the prevailing market conditions in the labor market. And any state in this sense is ruthless. For example, in England, for example, marines are recruited - volunteers from the street, and the main contingent is unemployed, unsettled, undecided, very rarely ideological young people who are sent to the combat zone after 28 days of intensive training ... They learn everything from scratch starting with how to wash properly, use personal hygiene products and ending with the basics of mountain training, tactics of conducting urban combat, shooting training, etc. Rather intensive training, no clothes (just kicked out on the street), duty in the kitchen, washing the barracks and other nonsense ... But the sergeants strictly follow the discipline. People are consciously prepared to survive in the war, and everything is subordinated to this main goal. At the slightest violation of the regime, disobeying orders, they are simply thrown out of the gates of the training center, since the punishment does not make sense. It is simply expensive and unfair to prepare and take an inadequate person to a war, where other people or he himself can be killed through his fault (you have to pay for this). So everything is quite pragmatic and straightforward. Cannon fodder costs differently and has different varieties. As we see, war is a very dirty business, expensive, and everyone quite consciously and purposefully wants to minimize risks and costs. Russia, by the way, is no exception.
When you observe and analyze the developing armed conflicts in various countries of the world, even with the naked eye you see the dead end of the existing models and methods of warfare. Quite often, indiscriminate weapons are used against terrorists. Either innocent people die, or the cost of eliminating terrorists brings entire countries to their knees and, in principle, does not solve the task. An example is pirates in Somalia. And as an example of the utter failure of the use of indiscriminate weapons, we can recall the indicators associated with the use of drones United States for the destruction of terrorists: the latter turned out to be only 4% of the destroyed people! It would be nice to legally oblige to pay $ 10.000.000 (and not buy off ten sheep) for each civilian killed by mistake! Yes, put in jail as a war criminal (for life). There would immediately be fewer lovers of shooting at civilians. After all, the UN declared the equality of all people on Earth!
In this case, all the talk about collateral and unforeseen losses among civilians would stop very quickly. I imagine how the US President explains to the Americans why the police needed to kill 96 hostages-Americans in order to kill the 4 terrorists ... I think after that oh how many officials would have resigned, and the president would be excommunicated at best ... I don’t want to talk about the worst.
What is it: complete incompetence or, on the contrary, a well-planned operation, which has ALL OTHER OBJECTIVES AND TASKS, hidden from the attention of the public? Any theory is tested on boundary conditions. Really, having the experience of Korea, Vietnam and many other unleashed conflicts, has the coalition got involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria without any hope of victory? And at the cost of destroying one terrorist in $ 10.000.000, the price of victory becomes simply unaffordable, even for the US budget. What made the coalition sit in Afghanistan for about 10 years, spend a total of more than 1 trillion dollars, but did not achieve any significant results? For some reason, only after 10 years of intrigue, ordeal, and completely unpromising hostilities, an emphasis was placed on using Afghan government forces! And even negotiations began with the Taliban, during which the negotiators tried to tune the Taliban to fight ISIS (oh, how familiar it all is!), And at the same time to minimize their involvement in the conflict, and most importantly, cut funding for the Afghan government to a possible minimum, while the Taliban’s entry into the government is down to zero. (By the way, the order of Russian helicopters for Afghanistan was dictated by the desire to reduce their own expenses for the maintenance of the Afghan army, and not something else. As usual, business, and nothing personal.) When the operation began in Afghanistan, there was no ISIL, nor Libya and Syria, and the national debt was at the level of two trillion, but now it is close to 20 trillion. So, perhaps, there were simply few financial resources, the specter of default loomed (which would be worse than a nuclear war), or the goal was achieved, and it did not defeat the Taliban or Al Qaeda (banned in Russia), and a completely different, more global, undeclared and therefore more dangerous goal with unpredictable consequences for many participants who are absolutely not ready for analysis, a new perception of the situation that arises and blindly following the route specified by the leader.
You did not notice that if people have money (I mean MONEY), then they become independent? Some of them are starting to buy yachts or football clubs, while others are starting to invest in business development, new technologies, compete for new sales markets, and ultimately push out competitors from existing markets, create new markets, become main players, and reduce the taxable base. many states, which in itself boomerangs to the socio-economic situation of the population and ultimately to the stability of these states, reducing the possibilities for their further development. In the future, very quickly, such states cease to exist as independent, independent and are fully controlled by more powerful countries, up to the complete subordination of the economy and all the basic institutions of power. An example is all the Baltic countries or monarchies of the Persian Gulf, and for a long time. But it is, thinking out loud.
So, on the basis of the above, it is obvious that the conclusion is that there will be no serious war between Russia and the United States or Russia and NATO. For a very simple reason: the economy of one and the other countries is simply unable to sustain the costs of such wars, no matter how advanced and perfect this economy may be. Even the costs of war with technologically backward countries are becoming too heavy for the budget. In a war with an equal or superior rival in strength and technology, these costs should be at least an order of magnitude higher. And I am sure that all politicians (if, of course, they are not complete idiots) understand these realities very well.
And, of course, we must very seriously think about the cost of warfare and set ourselves the task of reducing it significantly (by orders of magnitude), if only we want to live normally and NOT SURVIVE, giving priority to cost-effective, rather than spectacular types of weapons possible unification and standardization - wherever possible.
It seems to me that the time has come to seriously think about creating high-precision, miniature, robotic, with elements of artificial intelligence means of warfare, the use of which is able to minimize the losses of the civilian population, infrastructure, means of production, housing, etc., and ultimately reverse situation and defeat any opponent in a matter of days (and not years). Moreover, all the necessary technologies for this, and most importantly, brains, are available in Russia.
After all, with the cost of destroying one gangster in 10 million, or even one million dollars, the country will be devastated very soon. There will be some next revolution with a long recovery period, in 20 — 50 years, or even disintegration and complete disappearance of the state from the political map of the world. Actually, this is what the West is seeking, using various pretexts and provocations to achieve its goal.
Information