/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

Going through historical records over what actually happened in most wars (both recent and ancient) is making me frustrated over how insultingly weak, passive aggressive, incompetent, and cowardly the vast majority of people and men in general are. Apparently something like 80%+ of all pre gunpowder age battles revolved entirely around intimidating the opponent and only attacking once the enemy was fleeing and had their backs exposed. If that shit wasn’t dishonourable enough, some armours including Persian helmets or Viking berserker armour were specifically designed to make Persians appear taller and Vikings more scrappy to deter opponents rather than anything rooted in battlefield function. The same could be said about most ornamented armour which only tells me that nearly every motherfucker in history have spent generations dicksucking themselves off with meaningless trophies and amateur displays of strength before running and freaking out the moment actual battles occur. In terms of actual fighting, if it wasn’t against already surrendering fleeing opponents, civilian casualties—especially against unarmed, weakened, and defensless civilians—were usually the most common targets of both conquerors and pre socialist revolutionaries effectively rendering any actual fights between warriors as almost nonexistent in preindustrial warfare.

If that cowardly and weak shit isn’t dishonourable enough, just look at the shit going on after the introduction of gunpowder.

Mass casualties among soldiers due to exposure to disease, self inflicted psychological trauma, and tripping related accidents from the napoleonic era to the world wars; reliance on the threat (not the use) of WMDs (of course against defensless civilians because who would approach their opponents up close) to win wars; military leaders somehow getting even weaker and more disconnected from their soldiers as military sophistication improved; the list of things you can make fun of just keep going on.

Vietnam against France was probably the only time where things improved a bit with how easy it was to respect soldiers. It was by this point where stress inoculation as a concept was introduced to military training which meant you had soldiers fighting the way you’d initially imagine against armed and readied opponents instead of picking fights with literal children and adults on the brink of starvation. Does this mean that all wars afterwards suddenly became way more honorable and not over glorified duck measuring contests for who could appear the most intimidating—hell no. Stress inoculation plus Mao and Vietnam’s popularization of guerrilla tactics created a platform for where that annoying shit would die.