It Was a Viciously Sharp Slice of Mango, Wasn’t It?

When one looks at a lot of the military analysis out there, we need to acknowledge something important, there has not been a near peer military conflict that involved the west since the Korean War armistice was signed in 1953.

There have been other near peer conflicts, the Arab-Israeli wars, the India-Pakistan wars, the China-India war, and the conflict between China and Vietnam, but the neither the US nor any of the NATO powers have engaged in a war with a near peer since they fought against the Chinese on the ground, and the Russians in the air, in the early 1950s.

What this means is that no one that you are seeing on the TV right now has any meaningful experience with this sort of conflict.

It’s clear that Europe/NATO over-matches Russia in a potential war, both in number of troops and the underlying technology, excluding nuclear weapons,* but the military establishment, whose military establishment has been engaging in asymmetric warfare against brown people (see the video for the “mangoes” context) for the past 70 years likely to find such a conflict more complex, and more costly, than they anticipate, much like WWI.

It will no more be a cake walk than Russia’s current experience in the Ukraine.

In the interest of honesty, I would note that the main reason that I posted this was because I love this Blackadder clip. I love the “Mango” bit.

*Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?