The FGM-148 weights 22.3 Kg and is current issue. On the air power vs. ground power point, I'm not talking about percentages, I'm talking about absolute numbers. In modern combat, we may lose a pilot now and then, but if we deployed ground forces to achieve the same objectives, we would clearly lose more. I assume you aren't going to dispute that sending a plane to take out a target 100 miles behind the front is just as costly in lives as having the army fight there way there. I am not talking about aircrew casualty rates from WW2. Yes, we had 650,000 troops in the Gulf War, but have not deployed even comparable numbers since. In the main, your objections are of the kind referenced above. You find some fact, or some argument, which, if construed in a certain way might make your case -- or it might simply muddy the water. I just take if for granted that my ideas are open to debate -- in fact I take it for granted that ANYTHING is open for debate. I do not object to criticism based on counter evidence, but I do object to you pointing to an article and essentially saying "here -- see! I have a fact and you have only conjecture." I did some amount of research on this article. No, I did not footnote it all. It's a blog post, intended to make people think. It is not a master's thesis. The previous discussion, frankly, was worse than this one. It was a philosophical topic! If you would like to eliminate all of the philosophy that was not put forward on the basis of controlled, well documented experiments -- you are not going to have much philosophy. It is possible, believe it or not, too arrive are some conclusions on one's own through reason and logic. I actually welcome disagreement, but I don't welcome long sarcastic diatribes of straw-man attacks, fragmentary counter examples and non-sequiturs.
Ray Comfort famously argued that the banana proves the existence of God. After all, it's perfectly shaped to fit the human hand. The existence of God is a pretty hard thing to argue - after all, logic has no power over arguments of faith, and arguments of faith have no power over logic. However, you might as well argue that Nikes prove the existence of God because they fit our feet so well. No less human effort, by way of selective breeding and husbandry, has gone into making bananas "fit" the human hand. What we know as a "banana" is a single example of a Cavendish clone that has been propagated across the world for the past 100 years. It's as perfect a monocrop as exists, and every bit as tweaked as a pair of sneakers. So above and beyond the argument, the method of argument is so flawed that there's really nowhere to go with it. This is where you are. Your initial argument was "public expectations have changed the way America makes war." You used hunches to make your point. I presented facts that were contrary to your hunches. You've now essentially abandoned your argument and are throwing up random factoids about Javelin missiles - which are deployed by two-man specialty teams, the equivalent of your BMG during WWII or a recoilless rifle crew during Vietnam. It proves my point, not yours - that we're counting "troops" differently and that the logistical chain now supports point warriors with drastically increased lethality, and that "the way America makes war" has far more to do with logistics than it does with media. But, like Ray Comfort and the banana, you insist that this one misapplied fact calls all others into question. You see, neither this nor our previous discussion were philosophical in nature. A philosophical discussion would be about the morality of publicity in warfare, or the ethics of asymmetrical combat, or the justness of participating in warfare where the stakes are so imbalanced between combatants. A philosophical discussion is one in which there are no right or wrong answers, there are discussions of intangibles, such as morals and ethics. One can arrive at "facts" through reasoning, but until those "facts" are tested, they have no more veracity than "wild guesses." So frankly, what you welcome or don't welcome is of no consequence to me. You've posted it on a public forum where it can be discussed. You're welcome to mute me, you're welcome to block me. But so long as I have the power to point out that you're using hunches as if they were facts, I shall continue to do so.