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Comment by eadmund | Hacker News Reader

I have a very simple proposal to insure success in any military campaign: just make all tours of duty accompanied tours, i.e. send families along with the servicemembers, from the highest ranks to the lowest, and also make deployment to a combat zone on the order of a decade or two, not a few months or a year.

I guarantee that any general staff whose wives & children are in the affected area and who will be there for the next decade will figure out how to pacify the region to the level of a Chicago or Detroit.

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That argument is very poor because it assumes that (1) pacification has so far failed for lack of proper motivation of service members, and (2) bringing their families in possible harm's way will properly motivate them.

You haven't demonstrated (1) and it disregards movitations such as a desire for advancement (higher ranks), or not getting shot at (lower ranks), and (2) can have many outcomes (there are faster ways to get home for an individual than winning a war), the least probable of which is the outcome you "guaranteed".

You're merely appealing to emotion while simultaneously disregarding all other (and much more relevant) factors leading to a drawn-out war.

How is that different from colonization?

An army of conscripts has a similar effect. When not only the "expendables" of society are sent to fight and die, politicians and voters will think differently about sending the army.

How about ships and planes?

On warships, where will the family live? Will we have extra cabins on them for people's family? The extra load on the ship's sustainability seems like it would significantly increase costs and/or reduce the amount of time between resupplying. I think that's unworkable.

Likewise aircraft. Preumably people's family don't get in the plane with the crew, so they stay at the airfield accomodation? That's often quite some way away from the danger, so it seems that it would just be a big expense and inconvenience with no other effect.

In these cases and with land forces, of course, the family woudn't want to be there, so they'd have to be rounded up and arrested and effectively imprisoned. What a legal nightmare that is! Need some big changes to the law to make that possible. Wouldn't be surprised if it required changes to the US constitution too. Running prisons of US citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan seems ridiculous. I suppose if the choice was running these prisons or just not invading, maybe the invasion never would have happened.

Do you have any evidence behind your guarantee? You seem to be saying that the general staff just didn't try hard enough, and that they'd try harder if their family was there. I'm sure they would feel more motivated, but being super-motivated isn't exactly a guarantee of success.

Isn't that a bit like saying that the Settlements brought peace to Israel/Palestine?

I've got a better idea: 24 Hour War Channel.

Every victim gets a time slot.

What if I told you war was not about making peace.

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