[Starhawk]

Okay El-Phil first off US Casualties are not "A Couple thousand" it's just over 1,000 in a period of what threee YEARS? Compare that to the several THOUSAND terrorist casualties and your talking about a good ratio.

US Military has unfortunately killed some civilians (AS HAVE THE BRITISH) they have hardly "Shot everything" and for the most part civilian loses are inflicted by the Terrorists. The only reason British forces aren't having as many problems is also the fact that they are ocupying the less resistant parts of the country (go figure eh)

People die in war, civilians die in war and that's the way it will be forever no matter what and Urban warfare even with casualties is markedly better then simply dropping weapons from orbit and killing anything that even TRIED to show resistance.

The point of warfare is not usually the extermination of the entire enemy populace or even mass casualty infliction because the fact is your idea of simply taking any formation out from space would be even more "politically FUBAR" than sending in ground troops who yes may kill some civilians but will have a better idea of what they are actually shooting at.

I mean for all oyu know your orbital strike would be taking out a massive cluster of refugees with a military escort?

The problem is Air Power (OR Space power) probobly will never win wars because politics simply is not the answer to everything you know, as Starship Troopers (the book) pointed out, for every group that wants to solve something with politics another group will want to solve it with military force and usually the political element loses because they're too busy trying to talk.


Think about it this way El-Phil if say another country had a warship over your city would you just go "Aw what the hell I'll switch sides" Just because they ask you too? NO you probobly wouldn't because you didn't want to be part of that country in the first place and say you've got people in your city that want to fight back (even assuming you rolled over) now do you want that warship turning your city to slag just to get that handful of folks that wanted to fight back? Troops on the ground would provide them the option of going in without having to massacre the entire city and yeah ground losses would probobly be heavy on both sides but probobly a lot better then simply bombing everything from orbit.


Now lets go into another reason ground troops are far better than simply bombing the hell out of your target, they can think for themselves they know who and what to shoot at and are a lot less likely to cause an accidental bloodbath than a guy aboard a ship who just spots a mass of people and decides to open fire on them.

Troops are population control, just because you put a ship in orbit and maybe they go "Okay we'll join you" the second you leave they'll probobly snicker and go back to serving their own country and your little police force will get slaughtered.

A garrison of heavily armed soldiers will definately make any resisters think more about the military power that first took them over to begin with and will probobly make them feel a litte more wary then a few cops.


Also your not thinking about the fact that we in the modern day could effectively do what you suggest (Just sit there with a fleet and take out any formations you see) but it's not an effective way to fight a war because yeah you've got ships there HELL we have nukes that could level an entire country and yet people still resist.

WAR is the failure of politics your looking at it too much like "Oh talk solves everything" it doesn't so odds are anyone who wanted to fight you in the first place won't simply roll over and pout because your politico's are sitting up in orbit with a fleet.

Also planetary weapons batteries may be in place and your getting warships into range of their weapons could get your fleet destroyed so launching a few hundred troop shuttles may get a few of them destroyed and a lot of ground troops killed but once those troops hit the ground they could proceed to take out the weapon platforms OR even keep them intact for your own forces to use after the planet falls.

To bring my little rant to a conclusion, GROUND TROOPS unlike a space bombardment CAN take out a target in the middle of a city with minimal civilian losses while firing ANY Weapon from orbit that's not the size of a pea would probobly level a city block and ruin your little "Let's talk" idea right there.

Add this little quote to that for another example of what ground troops can do that air or space power may not:

During the first Iraq war an Iraqi soldier told a US Soldier he gave up to that when the air force bombed them "We lost a few men and a couple of tanks, but when your ground forces came in we lost the entire brigade in a single afternoon."

Basically you can HIDE From air or space power or do things to make it so they can't simply drop stuff on you, you can't hide as easily from a ground force intending to hunt you down and kill you.