The Superiority Trap
How the weak guy wins.
In history we have tons of David vs Goliath stories were the stronger entity loses to a “weaker” one. Do you ever ask yourself why this happens? Everyone knows the David vs Goliath story but that does not stop these situations from repeating themselves. The Greeks successfully defending against the Achaemenid Persians, Haitians revolting against the French Empire and winning. Why does this keep happening?
Paper Targets
“Paper targets don’t shoot back” is a poplar phrase in the gun/military world. You pose a non human target a bunch of questions and it never has an answer for you, nor does it pose you any questions back. As long as you’re somewhat competent, you can make anything look good on paper. Kind of like a boxer hitting pads, anyone can look good on pads. Now, what happens when those pads start posing you questions? Will you have the right answer?
The reality of life is every move has a counter. Now whether you can figure it out in time and execute is completely up to you. A huge aspect people have the tendency to overlook is the human one. You can have the most insane technology gap but it doesn’t change this fact: The constant variable in all wars is that there are humans on both sides. You can change everything, the weapons the helicopters the spears, it wont matter. You’re still facing a human, and that human is just as smart as you are.
Questions & Answers
First world countries posed a question to the third world:
“We have all the money and all the technology and we’re going to attack you with it”.
In the past this is a question most third world countries had no answer for, but jihadists figured out an answer and posed a question of their own. Sure we can’t fight you toe to toe, but how about we fight with guerrilla tactics and build a shadow network of psychopathic religious fanatics? And constantly recruit new people and radicalize them?
Every problem has a solution but don’t get it confused, it doesn’t mean the solution is easy or ethical. No one in their right mind wants to be a suicide bomber, but if you want to fight the strongest military in the world… It might just do the trick. The US still doesn’t have an answer to the question posed to this day. They understand how to shrink the problem but can’t fully cure it. And of course, that means as soon as they’re off doing other things, the problem comes right back like a cancer.
Are you starting to get what I mean? You can be the strongest and most violent guy in the room but you’re facing other humans that are just as smart as you. Due to that fact alone, you can’t underestimate them. “The people you’re facing are just as smart as you”, “Every move has a counter”. These are lessons humans can never seem to learn. When you’re facing other humans you bring more than you need, you do more than you think is necessary and you overkill every-single-time. This is part of the reason Operation Desert Storm went so well, that operation was led by people that were around for Vietnam and they understood these lessons very well. If you chose to fight a war, no matter how strong you are, you can’t pussyfoot around.
The most recent example of this is actually Russia vs Ukraine. What happened? They underestimated the task. They didn’t bring enough and bring the necessary amount of training/experience it was going to take. The Russian’s are smart people but still fell into the same mindset, underestimating the task.
How many times must we repeat this?