Further to my reply to Brad ( "KISS") earlier this morning, it's always
possible that the underdog will win. In the (most unlikely) event of a
full-bloodied American invasion of Iraq, then, as Nicholas D. Kristof
pointed out in the NYT yesterday ("Wimps on Iraq"), Saddam Hussein wouldn't
dream of meeting American tanks in open battle in the desert as he did last
time. He would put his armies within his cities where the Americans would
have to prise out the defenders house by house -- with very high costs in
casualties.
Come off it, Bush. Since Vietnam, the American public is unwilling to
accept major casualties. It's unlikely that he could win a hand-to-hand war
with soldiers defending their own territories (whatever they may think of
Saddam Hussein). The only way he could win would be by bombing all the
Iraqi cities into dust.
The following article is relevant.
Keith Hudson
<<<<
(from the New Scientist of 3 August 2002)
THE UNDERDOG WINS THE DAY
by Nicola Jones
History is scarred with the marks of unequal battles. From the Napoleonic
campaigns to the World Wars, military leaders have led armies to their
deaths believing they could win.
Some say it's bravery, others plain stupidity, to believe that you can
succeed against all the odds. But one evolutionary biologist thinks there
is a good reason for this supposed military incompetence. The underdogs win
a significant number of the battles they fight, says Dominic Johnson of
Harvard University. He thinks this is either because self-belief allows
them to fight harder and better, or because their confidence bluffs the
opponent into backing down.
To seek clues as to how their overconfidence affects the fight, Johnson and
a team from Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs analysed
historical records compiled by the US Army. They selected details of 120
conflicts, some of which were fought during the American Civil War, the
First and Second World Wars and the Yom Kippur War.
If increased performance from self-belief is the key to conquering a
superior force, then smaller armies should do just as well during a
surprise raid on an opponent as during a fully fledged battle. But if
bluffing is more important, they should do less well in surprise raids as
their opponent has not had a chance to assess their confidence.
Sure enough, Johnson's team found that weaker forces were statistically
more likely to win battles than raids, no matter who started the fight or
how big the difference in power between them (Evolution and Human Behavior,
vol 23, p 245).
"That's counter-intuitive, but it supports the hypothesis that bluffing
plays a role," says Johnson, though he admits he can't rule out other
explanations for the result.
He points out that animals and people delude themselves about their own
abilities in other situations too. Animals often choose to fight larger
rivals, and more than half of all athletes in a competition believe they
will win.
Aryeh Nusbacher, a war historian from Britain's Royal Military Academy at
Sandhurst, says that Johnson's conclusions are overly simplistic. Saying
that wars are won or lost because of confidence is "an absurdly limited
point". Even deciding which is the weaker army relies on a number of
assumptions, he says.
Johnson admits that war is intensely complicated. The weather, geography
and intelligence are just a few of the other factors that can swing a
victory. But even if blind luck determines most outcomes, Johnson says it's
still important to understand what else might decide the day.
>>>>
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Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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