tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post4331597633930312077..comments2024-03-28T16:22:14.888-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Land Power v. Sea PowerUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-83934857466507868392014-03-15T21:19:24.262-07:002014-03-15T21:19:24.262-07:00I came out of 300: Rise of an Empire thinking, I k...I came out of <i>300: Rise of an Empire</i> thinking, I knew Hollywood could do it and they sure did! It all was due to those evil white Greeks. Well, and an evil white Greek woman who sadly guided the innocent Persians astray (and killed half their court and got away with it, how was that supposed to work out?). Oh, and she was pure evil because of evil Greek men, slave men at that, bad, bad Greeks. <br /><br />On the surface pure PC. Though giving all moral agency to Greeks actually seems pretty racist. Of course, it probably has a long history that goes way back...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-51751837373197099232014-03-14T06:46:13.184-07:002014-03-14T06:46:13.184-07:00Marissa:"Seems like there's an overestima...Marissa:"Seems like there's an overestimation of Roosevelt's desire to keep casualties low."<br /><br />Both Churchill and Roosevelt wanted to keep casualties low.<br /><br />Marissa:" Does anyone know if Roosevelt favored the invasion of Japan instead of dropping atomic bombs?"<br /><br />FDR would have dropped the bomb on Japan. For that matter, if the atomic bomb had been ready in the summer of '44 (as opposed to the summer of '45), he would have dropped it on Berlin. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-84335737667242331772014-03-13T21:25:57.137-07:002014-03-13T21:25:57.137-07:00Seems like there's an overestimation of Roosev...<i>Seems like there's an overestimation of Roosevelt's desire to keep casualties low. Does anyone know if Roosevelt favored the invasion of Japan instead of dropping atomic bombs? </i><br /><br />FDR emphatically preferred A-bombing to a land invasion of Japan.<br /><br />George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower, decided* not to try to take all of Berlin in spring 1945 because they thought they thought that was the late FDR's intention -- Better to let the Reds take more of Germany than to expend 100,000 or more additional Allied casualties.<br /><br />I assume that some of the posters on this thread are Egnlish speaking foreigners. Instead, if you are American, perhaps a younger American, then you don't understand WWII history.<br /><br />* British opinions becoming less and less important as the end of the war neared.David Davenporthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03315090179595817174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-71770602541698918852014-03-13T15:07:24.568-07:002014-03-13T15:07:24.568-07:00Napoleon was the last demographic roll of the dice...Napoleon was the last demographic roll of the dice for the French. <br /><br />They still had the raw manpower to dominate Europe. Once Germany united the French were second best. Dannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-40486745099487640712014-03-13T15:04:35.384-07:002014-03-13T15:04:35.384-07:00This is where Diamond falls on his face. The India...This is where Diamond falls on his face. The Indians were an integrated part of the alliances and wars fought between the frogs and the Limeys. <br /><br /><br />They simply lacked the larger advantages of a well oiled society. Mass literacy (Guttenberg) shipping (Galleons) and Clockwork (Mechanics). <br /><br />They had a woefully deficient civil culture and were always going to go under or assimilate into the more advanced society. Dannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-68593830365290377862014-03-13T13:37:49.849-07:002014-03-13T13:37:49.849-07:00"The Germans seemed to have outfought them ma..."The Germans seemed to have outfought them man to man, gun to gun, tank to etc."<br /><br />Yes, but not by much. The total ratio of Russian to German military losses was 1.3:1. If you discount the disastrous beginning of the war it was pretty much 1:1. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-41203223038101164812014-03-13T11:58:28.767-07:002014-03-13T11:58:28.767-07:00Seems like there's an overestimation of Roosev...Seems like there's an overestimation of Roosevelt's desire to keep casualties low. Does anyone know if Roosevelt favored the invasion of Japan instead of dropping atomic bombs? <br /><br />Also, Roosevelt was a communist; he engaged in Lend Lease because he believed in the cause. He was not a great political strategist either and let Uncle Joe run roughshod over him.Marissahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11734624055833603768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-26269478355227836822014-03-13T10:35:01.210-07:002014-03-13T10:35:01.210-07:00It's a critical aspect of understanding why th...<i>It's a critical aspect of understanding why the Russians fought so bloody hard and where much of the lend lease cash actually went.</i><br /><br />No doubt those Rooskies are hard fighters but the Germans inflicted massive casualties whether attacking or retreating. Whatever else the Soviets were doing their main advantage was huge numbers. The Germans seemed to have outfought them man to man, gun to gun, tank to etc.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-44358231821405234442014-03-13T07:52:22.622-07:002014-03-13T07:52:22.622-07:00Dan:"You miss the point with the Jared Diamon...Dan:"You miss the point with the Jared Diamond stuff about Germs. <br /><br />The real advantage was threefold: Clockwork, Printing and large ships. I'll be generous and add guns. make it fourfold. <br /><br /><br />The European had mastered extremely advanced information systems. That's the killer for the Red Injun hunter gatherer. A massive crewed weapon like a galleon, with accurate time keeping and literacy with a cheap reproduction method. <br /><br />Diamond is far too brutalist for my liking. White man's power is intellectual."<br /><br />Sure, but the critical role of disease cannot be discounted.When 90% of the enemy population is dying from smallpox, measles, etc, that is a tremendous advantage.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-84384888355518329882014-03-13T07:47:29.680-07:002014-03-13T07:47:29.680-07:00Anonymous:"Simple. No Lend Lease. Russian off...Anonymous:"Simple. No Lend Lease. Russian offensive power depended greatly on Lend Lease supplies. Russian defensive power depended on weather, climate, terrain, and the stubbornness of the Russian soldier to live under Stalin rather than die under Hitler.<br /><br />If there was no lend lease at all, the great Red Army would have literally bogged down in the Pripet Marshes in 1944, and stayed bogged when Patton would be storming Berlin."<br /><br />Yes, I've heard the old "Deprive Uncle Joe of his Lend-Lease Goodies and watch Britain and America take out Hitler while simultaneously depriving Stalin of his Empire in Europe" theory many times. And it is simply not tenable. Weakening Stalin vis-a-vis Hitler would have meant a massive increase in the number of British and American casualties stemming from a Second Front. That was a blood price that neither Churchill nor Roosevelt was willing to pay.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69550246398212111542014-03-13T07:30:29.024-07:002014-03-13T07:30:29.024-07:00Anonymous:"http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/20...Anonymous:"http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2011/07/rapid-cultural-evolution-case-of.html<br /><br />"Rapid cultural evolution was already under way in eastern and central North America when the first Europeans arrived. Had their arrival been postponed long enough, they would have encountered millions of sedentary Indians in a zone stretching from the lower Mississippi to southern Ontario. A northern Aztec Empire....<br /><br />This cultural evolution was actually accelerating when the Europeans arrived. What if their arrival had been postponed?...<br /><br />Had this fragile context taken a turn for the worse, there might have been insufficient will or ability to colonize the Americas. European settlers would have perhaps arrived on the Eastern Seaboard only in the late 1700s.<br /><br />And beyond the Appalachians, they would have found millions of sedentary Amerindians living in fortified cities and recently united under the aegis of the Iroquois Confederacy …"<br /><br />The problem, though, is that this Northern version of the Aztec Empire would have been equally vulnerable to decimation via Old World Diseases....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-18089950867040032662014-03-13T07:27:43.248-07:002014-03-13T07:27:43.248-07:00Crawfurdmuir:"Both are describing syphilis as...Crawfurdmuir:"Both are describing syphilis as it exists today, more than 500 years after it was introduced. It was a much quicker killer when it was new to Europeans, or at least so saith Wikipedia:<br /><br />'The first well-recorded European outbreak of what is now known as syphilis occurred in 1495 among French troops besieging Naples, Italy. It may have been transmitted to the French via Spanish mercenaries serving King Charles of France in that siege. From this centre, the disease swept across Europe. As Jared Diamond describes it, "[W]hen syphilis was first definitely recorded in Europe in 1495, its pustules often covered the body from the head to the knees, caused flesh to fall from people's faces, and led to death within a few months." The disease then was much more lethal than it is today. Diamond concludes,"[B]y 1546, the disease had evolved into the disease with the symptoms so well known to us today." The epidemiology of this first syphilis epidemic shows that the disease was either new or a mutated form of an earlier disease."<br /><br />True, but the simple fact is that we can compare and contrast the death tolls in Europe and the Americas, and the evidence is quite clear. Old World diseases like smallpox killed massive numbers of Amerinds.By some estimates, Old World diseases reduced the population of the Americas by 90%. Syphilis, in contrast, did not even equal the death toll of the Black Death.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-59890823592455284952014-03-12T22:56:41.832-07:002014-03-12T22:56:41.832-07:00Land power! Dodge gives you Land Power!Land power! Dodge gives you Land Power!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-52601156629167942862014-03-12T22:55:24.027-07:002014-03-12T22:55:24.027-07:00But on the other hand you the Salt Water Fallacy
...But on the other hand you the Salt Water Fallacy<br /><br />BTW Persians were not big on crossing seas. As they believed salt water was the abode of the devil so much so that Xerxes built a boat bridge to the Greek mainland rather than sail in them! Hence they were overwhelmingly a land empire<br /><br />Something that their "Aryan" cousins Mauryas and Gupta dynasties in Northern India also followed suit with their imperial conquests crossing contiguous borders of Afghanistan/Iran and Southern China<br /><br />It fell to the more intrepid South Indians were considered Vratya Kshatriyas(fallen riteless warriors) to conquer and colonize much of South East Asia due to whom Hinduism and Buddhism spread in those regions.ysv_raohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06078517736366792665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-40879747012472009092014-03-12T22:51:29.440-07:002014-03-12T22:51:29.440-07:00"rabies is a fluke, a disease so deadly that ...<i>"rabies is a fluke, a disease so deadly that its victims never get a chance to spread it around much..."</i><br /><br />That’s not really a fluke. A virus that infects and sickens a large portion of the host population is not going to survive as long as rabies has. It is better, so to speak, for the virus to completely kill upon infection (so to prevent the hosts from developing an immunity), but to do so sparingly enough so that the supply of future hosts is maintained. Rabies seems close to optimal in that regard.HAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-70953805669095032892014-03-12T21:32:41.983-07:002014-03-12T21:32:41.983-07:00Russians and Germans fought for nationalism. What ...<i>Russians and Germans fought for nationalism. What would Patton's soldiers have fought for? Democracy?</i><br /><br />There's something just weird about this comment. It's like a complete loss of translation. Perhaps you are very young. Anyone who grew up in the shadow of WWII in America, knew people who fought in the war, and knew the culture (it can still be found) knows that America was nationalist as sin in those days. WWII was way pre-1965.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-87762755772879170592014-03-12T21:29:11.408-07:002014-03-12T21:29:11.408-07:00And yet FDR was happy to leave the land Empire of ...<i>And yet FDR was happy to leave the land Empire of the USSR with all its territory, and more, while he was keen to undermine the sea empires of the Dutch, the French, and the British. Earlier, the USA had despoiled Spain of large chunks of its sea empire.</i><br /><br />How did FDR undermine those east Asian "sea empires", dear boy?<br /><br />The British, Dutch, and French lost their east Asian colonies because because those decaying Old Worlde imperialists lacked sufficient military strength to defend their colonies from Japan.David Davenporthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03315090179595817174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-42423025560413968242014-03-12T20:00:55.133-07:002014-03-12T20:00:55.133-07:00As you'll remember from 3rd Grade Thanksgiving...As you'll remember from 3rd Grade Thanksgiving plays, Squanto advised the Pilgrims on how to grow corn (i.e., maize). Corn was the basis of the huge pre-Columbian population of Mexico. Mexican corn had only recently been acclimated to the short growing season of Massachusetts when the Pilgrims arrived, so if Europeans hadn't arrived, the population of Indians in North America likely would have gone up rapidly as they settled down to grow corn.<br /><br />On the other hand, the settled peoples of Mexico and Peru were relatively easy for the Conquistadors to knock over by elite decapitation, while the wilder Indians of North America were, man for man, a much tougher fight.<br /><br />Similarly, the most settled American Indian tribe, the corn-raising Cherokee, were organized enough to be dealt with en masse by not obeying the Supreme Court judgment in their favor. Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-5981520337787309632014-03-12T19:53:32.134-07:002014-03-12T19:53:32.134-07:00I did some digging around this subject and it turn...I did some digging around this subject and it turns out that the Russian soldier was paid a cash bonus for knocking off a tank, shooting down a plane and confirmed kills of individual German troops. Max Hastings in Armageddon outlines the cash for scalps. It's a critical aspect of understanding why the Russians fought so bloody hard and where much of the lend lease cash actually went. Pay your troops in gold. Dannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-19538351017845191972014-03-12T19:44:34.968-07:002014-03-12T19:44:34.968-07:00The Hundred Years' War literally defined Franc...The Hundred Years' War literally defined France and England as a Nations. Dannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-47028921025455928212014-03-12T19:37:23.517-07:002014-03-12T19:37:23.517-07:00Both are describing syphilis as it exists today, m...<i>Both are describing syphilis as it exists today, more than 500 years after it was introduced. It was a much quicker killer when it was new to Europeans, or at least so saith Wikipedia:</i><br /><br />Yes, it was much more virulent in the past, but evolved less virulence among Europeans over time. This was possible because as a relatively large agricultural population, Europeans were able to acclimate to it over time. Had they been hunter gatherers with much lower levels of population, they may not have been able to.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-39457594387349571132014-03-12T19:37:11.805-07:002014-03-12T19:37:11.805-07:00"There are signs that there was increasing ag...<i>"There are signs that there was increasing agricultural settlement in North America among the Indians around the time of European colonization, and that had European colonization been postponed to the late 1700s, it might have been much more difficult to colonize North America"</i><br /><br />It was difficult as it was. Indians in what is now the US put up more of a fight than most of the Indians further south. At one point, colonists had to abandon Maine. Indians adopted firearms and horses and were part of the battle for the continent up until about the early 19th century. They lost, but so did the Spanish, the Dutch, the British, etc.Dave Pinsenhttp://twitter.com/dpinsennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12068721020928066222014-03-12T18:20:45.318-07:002014-03-12T18:20:45.318-07:00"...when Patton would be storming Berlin"..."...when Patton would be storming Berlin"<br /><br /><i>US casualties in the process?</i><br /><br /><i>Russians and Germans fought for nationalism. What would Patton's soldiers have fought for? Democracy?</i><br /><br />Which is why Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to Lend-Lease. For their nations, they would rather pay the price of Russians in Berlin than 10,000+ more of their own troops dead.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-61410850751613695682014-03-12T18:19:43.071-07:002014-03-12T18:19:43.071-07:00The European had mastered extremely advanced infor...<i>The European had mastered extremely advanced information systems. That's the killer for the Red Injun hunter gatherer. A massive crewed weapon like a galleon, with accurate time keeping and literacy with a cheap reproduction method.</i><br /><br />The early guns weren't a huge advantage, especially since the Indians didn't fight pitched battles across a battlefield. And the Indians didn't have ships for naval battles, so the galleon was only relevant as transportation. It was mainly a mop up operation. <br /><br />There are signs that there was increasing agricultural settlement in North America among the Indians around the time of European colonization, and that had European colonization been postponed to the late 1700s, it might have been much more difficult to colonize North America:<br /><br />http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2011/07/rapid-cultural-evolution-case-of.html<br /><br />"Rapid cultural evolution was already under way in eastern and central North America when the first Europeans arrived. Had their arrival been postponed long enough, they would have encountered millions of sedentary Indians in a zone stretching from the lower Mississippi to southern Ontario. A northern Aztec Empire....<br /><br />This cultural evolution was actually accelerating when the Europeans arrived. What if their arrival had been postponed?...<br /><br />Had this fragile context taken a turn for the worse, there might have been insufficient will or ability to colonize the Americas. European settlers would have perhaps arrived on the Eastern Seaboard only in the late 1700s.<br /><br />And beyond the Appalachians, they would have found millions of sedentary Amerindians living in fortified cities and recently united under the aegis of the Iroquois Confederacy …"Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-17425295023514312372014-03-12T18:02:18.411-07:002014-03-12T18:02:18.411-07:00Britain is defined by its conflict with France ove...<i>Britain is defined by its conflict with France over a 1000 year period more or less. </i><br /><br />No, Britain frequently had an entente with France against other Continental powers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com