tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3904461976821332291.post-7349271393434910702008-01-10T16:16:00.000-05:002008-01-10T16:16:00.000-05:00How interesting to note that, by 1975, the final "spasm" of a war between east and west was recorded: namely, that of US military and administrative withdrawal from South Vietnam. Laos and Cambodia are another story...<BR/><BR/>The Cold War, having emerged in the wake of 1945's conclusions in the European theatre, qualifies with some satisfying similarities to the underground world referred to in this 1942 piece. It's not far off of H.G. Well's much earlier distopia of amnesiac human culture, preyed upon by the perverted remnants of the (troglodyte) nations that stuck it out longest in their steel caves. <BR/><BR/>It is worthwhile however, that as technical advances are generally applied (to their worst advantage) in the pursuit of efficient killing methods, and that by 1942 most of the concepts of warfare we have normalized were widely known, if novel. Radar, Rockets, Aircraft Carriers and the surprisingly effective aeroplane (trumping naval power soon enough) were well-known to tactical thinkers.<BR/><BR/>If this article seems portentious, consider that Jean Paul Marat once wrote: Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they'll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you to pieces. <BR/>This would have been penned some years before his death, in 1793. <BR/>Boo!D.W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01291005618911349700noreply@blogger.com