This post is actually about something that came up when I was talking with Christianne a few days ago, in terms of fighting back. She claimed to be able to 'annihilate' me, the exact word she used. I then described to her what 'curb-stomping' is, and that pretty much ended that specific conversation, before we just changed the subject to some other random conversation. It got me thinking, though...what ARE the limits to which someone will go in war to win? This also reminds me of another conversation I had with another friend, when we were discussing the war in Afghanistan. His viewpoint, albeit said somewhat lightly, was that you have to make the situation untenable for your enemy in the conflict. For every one of your soldiers that is killed, you have to raze an entire enemy village. Make the losses for the enemy so unbearable that they will simply give up. While I'm not sure I agree with that sentiment for the Afghanistan war in particular, I do agree with that general viewpoint in winning battles; damage your opponent so badly that he/she/them either does not want to fight back, or so badly that he/she/them are incapable of fighting back.
I particularly enjoy this tactic, however heavy handed it might be, when I play video games. I play a lot of games that either are sporting games (NFL, NBA, etc.), or strategy games such as StarCraft or the Civilization series. In sports games...well, I'm going to try and score as often as possible. I'm not going to be conservative...what's the point? I want to win the game, as there's no consolation prize for second place. Be as aggressive as possible, and you'll win. There are downsides to that, of course, such as screwing up/getting injured/whatever, but still, there are plenty of benefits to such an approach. Of course, you also run the risk of being called unsportsmanlike, since you're always trying to score, whether you're up 7-0, or 59-0...but, hell, I don't care. It's their job to stop me, and if they can't do their job, well, I'm sure as hell not going to do it for them. I do that in real life sporting situations too...I was lucky enough to be a part of the Victoria College Flag Football Team this year, both Men's and Co-Ed, and both teams made it to the finals, with the co-ed winning the championship, and the men's coming up short. The entire season, we went for it on every down, never punted the ball, always went for the touchdown...it was great. For those of you who do not understand football, let's just say that we were ridiculously aggressive in our approach to the game, and it clearly paid off with two visits to the finals along with an undefeated season for the Men's team (well, until the last game, lol).
As far as those other strategy games go, such as StarCraft or the Civilization series, they often have objectives such as 'Destroy the enemy's command centre', or 'nuke target ____'. I enjoy these objectives, because, again, it IS just a game, so doing certain things gains you certain rewards in terms of game mechanics...but, still. I am super aggressive when it comes to this, so I much more enjoy building a massive army and using it to wipe out every last soldier, worker, man, woman and child. If they're too weak to stop me, then...well, it sucks to be them, but I'm not stopping for anyone. I mean, often, to achieve certain objectives, it IS necessary to wipe everyone and everything out, but still, doing that regardless is fun.
Looking back through history, this is a military strategy that has worked in the past. The blitzkrieg, for example, is an all-out attack used by the Germans (first in World War I) to overwhelm their opponents by attacking on all fronts. Of course, fighting a battle on two fronts is pretty hard to do and also pretty hard to sustain, and ultimately is a large reason why Germany ended up losing WWI and WWII, but regardless, the blitzkrieg is an effective tool in combat. Looking forward to WWII, the United States of America had their own effective weapon in their arsenal...the atomic bomb. When the USA was forced to engage in battle during WWII after Pearl Harbour, what did they do? They dropped an atomic bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively ending Japan's participation in the war. What were they supposed to do? Their enemy had just demonstrated that not only were they capable of destroying entire cities, but they were willing to do it, too. If Japan hadn't capitulated after those two bombs were dropped, the Americans were just going to continue until the entire country was dust. The Emperor basically had no choice, and I don't blame him for surrendering. I'd like to say the American tactic is something I would employ myself, but I don't know if I'm psychologically capable of signing off on an order that would knowingly kill millions of people, most of them unarmed. I mean, the bombs were as much a demonstration of how mighty the Americans were (to the entire world, such as future enemies over in the Soviet Union) as they were tools to end WWII.
Unchecked aggression is bad, and I'm not saying it's a good thing...I just am saying that being aggressive in terms of battles and wars is effective, in certain situations. That can even be applied to every day things. People are always telling me 'if you want something, you have to go and get it'. Now, that's not saying that I should go steal everything that I want in life, but that I can't just passively sit back and hope for something to fall into my lap. I realize that that's what I do with women sometimes (it's funny, I wasn't like this during high school...meh, I've changed, probably for the better =P), and what I do with a lot of things, but it's the truth: if you want something, you got to go and at least take a chance and try. You don't always have to blow up an enemy to do it, either =P
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