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[smjjames]

Pretty sure 'hit me and I'll attack with overwhelming force' is on the strategical level....

[Loud Whispers]

LW, There is a distinction, and the fact that one of the options doesn't work is EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING.  The two are not the same thing. End. Of. Line.

I am not espousing that actual prevention is even possible, it would be preferable, but it doesn't function in the world as it currently stands.  And I am supporting the position that it isn't a viable option.

I'm not saying that the dissuasion method is bad, incorrect, or otherwise problematic.  Why the hell are you even arguing this?  I am stating exactly what that PM said, in somewhat simpler terms, and your statement that a dissuasion based defense is the same thing as a prevention based defense is flatly false.

I am arguing that the distinction is an irrelevant one to make. This is about as useful as saying no army has the effective means to intercept an artillery shell once it has been fired, therefore they rely upon "dissuasion," because no means to intercept artillery shells exist. Yet the powers of the world do not fling artillery shells at one another's cities because prevention, or dissuasion if you prefer, exists. Making it so that an air attack would result nevertheless in the destruction of the attacker prevents the air attack, just as much as destroying the bombers in the air or on the airfields would do. It is rather silly to argue that any strategy which prevents the US from using its assets is not a prevention if it is not a direct tactical neutralization, especially since a disruption of American logistics, communications or leadership would readily achieve a material impact upon its bombers without so much as a bullet having been fired at them

[NullForceOmega]

In military terms, preventing an attack means being able to stop that attack, this is fact and no amount of word wrangling will change it, because militaries have to have clear definitions for the words they use to prevent miscommunication.

You are making an incorrect assumption regarding terminology here, I am speaking from the military perspective, which calls these defenses two different things because they define very different methodologies to implement.

A prevention based defense utilizes hard assets to make direct attacks as close to impossible as can be managed.  A dissuasion based defense uses propaganda, displays of force, and other psychological methods to convince the enemy that attacks are futile.

These are fundamentally not the same thing, but they are often used in conjunction to maximize the effect.

Your argument is not correct LW, that's all there is to it.

[smjjames]

Stuff like radar (or general EMF) jamming would be an example of preventing an attack? Maybe not the best example since you wouldn’t be able to stop a missile from being fired, but you could certainly jam its sensors.

[NullForceOmega]

Assorted forms of ECM, AA, counter missile, camouflage and fortifications are some basic examples, I'm not current on the available hardware but those are the kinds of things that fall into the preventive measures category.

[Loud Whispers]

In military terms, preventing an attack means being able to stop that attack, this is fact and no amount of word wrangling will change it, because militaries have to have clear definitions for the words they use to prevent miscommunication.

You are making an incorrect assumption regarding terminology here, I am speaking from the military perspective, which calls these defenses two different things because they define very different methodologies to implement.

A prevention based defense utilizes hard assets to make direct attacks as close to impossible as can be managed.  A dissuasion based defense uses propaganda, displays of force, and other psychological methods to convince the enemy that attacks are futile.

These are fundamentally not the same thing, but they are often used in conjunction to maximize the effect.

Your argument is not correct LW, that's all there is to it.

Wew lad here we go
To start with I ran on the assumption that you are using martial information as assuredly as I have been, therefore you have no legs to stand on in claiming I am wrong without actually having addressed my argument at all. But since we're going to be discussing with terminology and not meaning, let me be as frank as you and tell you, you are certainly wrong.

Dissuasion is French for deterrence. It is also a US grand strategy towards maintaining overwhelming US military supremacy in potential engagements. It does not refer to the prevention of attack, but rather the attempt to psychologically influence enemy commanders and statesmen into making the choice to not develop certain capabilities; such as developing advanced missile defence systems to dissuade the USSR from investing in nuclear ICBMs. There is no official term known as a "prevention based defence," but instead what you describe as dissuasion, is in fact deterrence.

It's another thing entirely, an absolute mistake, to also believe that the US military speaks for every military. There are disagreements across militaries, which are bloody valuable - they offer us chances to learn across from one another from our different experiences, problems and solutions. Since we are being certain and precise, in British Martial terms, a maritime force launching an amphibious operation faces threats from the surface, submarines, air and land, and thus is the best example of how defence is achieved and what terminology they use. They practice what is known as an integrated or organic layered defence. And immediately the terminology makes it clear that preventing an attack does not always mean stopping that attack.

Before a missile is fired, the respective states attempt to minimze the material and personnel available to the enemy, through whatever means - political, logistic disruption, diplomacy and sneaky beeky operations. Then you've got all the means with which to stop weapon platforms from locating and firing upon your key assets; whether it be minimizing sound and signatures or misdirecting the enemy's expectations, disrupting their information building operations, or establishing known observation/radar/sonar units in order to deter land/sea/submarine units, or utilizing some stratagem to minimize the amount of time or places the enemy may attack from - in the Falklands this was done by situating the taskforce in between precipitous hills, greatly reducing the time enemy bombers had to target ships. Once the missile has been fired that's when you at last get onto what you describe, which involves interception of the missile or jet with the layers of defence available - surface to air missiles, fighters, CIWS and prayers, which results in an obvious halt to the attack. But even at this level, there is another method of prevention, which differentiates the hard kill from the soft kill. A physical destruction of the enemy missile or jet is a hard kill, any neutralization of it with some form of misdirection, decoy or jamming without physically countering the enemy.

Thus you can see why I argue against drawing a distinction between the physical interception of enemy bombers and literally any other method of stopping a bomber, missile, army, nation, alliance from attacking. Everything ought to run as part of an integrated defence, not a dislocated series of methodologies running in conjunction. To make things undesirable can easily affect the material status of a bomber; pilots will not wish to fly if their high casualty rates are made known, pilots will not be able to fly if the consequence of their war is to have their supply of spare parts cut off by international allies of their enemy, attrition will be severe if they are forced to fly in testing climatic conditions e.t.c.. Trying to use hard assets to make enemy attacks close to impossible will end in failure, which is why Western militaries focus on minimizing the acceptable risk to their critical assets with every stratagem available to them, not just the hard kill of enemy assets. Mobility & Intelligence fam, they are the greatest shield against an attack

[Maximum Spin]

Dissuasion is French for deterrence.

Rest of post is accurate, no objections here, but we (synecdochically, the English language) borrowed that word from Latin about 600 years ago, I don't think the French have more claim on it than we do.

[NullForceOmega]

Why did  I even try to explain this, it is so goddamn simple that I can't even articulate it because the usage of the language being spoken is so utterly different.

Okay LW, from a civilian, outside perspective, you are correct, nothing you have written is demonstrably false.  At the same time, it makes it clear that you and I are speaking from completely different positions.

As an ex U.S. soldier, my comprehension is bottom-up, and is focused on the terminology I as a soldier am expected to use to relate to my commanding officers the procedures followed, the assets utilized, and the actions taken in the course of my duty.  As a civilian, you are basically just reading back to me what amounts to a press release, or the contents of a book, or another form of what amounts to propaganda that is released for public consumption.  None of it is wrong, but from that internal perspective it is nonsense, because the measures necessary to create that organic multi-layered defense are separate and distinct methodologies that are employed as the situation demands.

When we talk about carrying out an airstrike, and whether or not it can be defended against, the dissuasion/deterrence strategy is irrelevent , because we aren't talking about the psychology, we are talking about the assets.  And from that position there are not adequate practical methods for 'prevention' of that attack.

When we talk about the decision on whether or not to carry out an airstrike, we do care about the psychology, because the people involved in ordering the attack have to weigh the pros and cons of doing so.

But the decision and the attack are separate and distinct unto themselves, and so are the methods of dealing with them.

So it is clear that we aren't actually talking to each other, because the word we are using carry very different meanings to each of us.

So I am going to apologize for exacerbating this argument, because I feel that my involvement was the more disruptive;

I am sorry to have perpetuated this misunderstanding, it was not my intent to make this into such a big deal.

[Loud Whispers]

Why did  I even try to explain this, it is so goddamn simple that I can't even articulate it because the usage of the language being spoken is so utterly different.

Because you have been taught what you ought to believe is true, as I have too, and these two views present differences. Our Englishes are different ones, but that is no reason to lament, rather a reason to have fruitful discussion. We think in our worlds and these different perspectives give us things to teach one another, because there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Okay LW, from a civilian, outside perspective, you are correct, nothing you have written is demonstrably false.  At the same time, it makes it clear that you and I are speaking from completely different positions.

As an ex U.S. soldier, my comprehension is bottom-up, and is focused on the terminology I as a soldier am expected to use to relate to my commanding officers the procedures followed, the assets utilized, and the actions taken in the course of my duty.  As a civilian, you are basically just reading back to me what amounts to a press release, or the contents of a book, or another form of what amounts to propaganda that is released for public consumption.  None of it is wrong, but from that internal perspective it is nonsense, because the measures necessary to create that organic multi-layered defense are separate and distinct methodologies that are employed as the situation demands.

I only judge forumites on the content of the posts, not who they claim to be. Countering "nothing you've said is wrong, but as a blankety blank, you are wrong," makes for poor argumentation in person and worse with the unverifiable identities of online personas, not least to say, poor OPSEC. Framing me as nothing more than the bookish regurgitation of propaganda and public consumption is just absolutely haram as far as civilized discourse goes. Do you expect me to reveal personal information about myself, in order for you to permit yourself to be respectful? This is not how reasonable discussions are had online. It's b8 at best

When we talk about carrying out an airstrike, and whether or not it can be defended against, the dissuasion/deterrence strategy is irrelevent , because we aren't talking about the psychology, we are talking about the assets.  And from that position there are not adequate practical methods for 'prevention' of that attack.
When we talk about the decision on whether or not to carry out an airstrike, we do care about the psychology, because the people involved in ordering the attack have to weigh the pros and cons of doing so.
But the decision and the attack are separate and distinct unto themselves, and so are the methods of dealing with them.

There's an interesting matter of history, in that on the outbreak of the Falklands War, the US Admiralty was convinced the UK could not recapture the islands, whereas the UK Admiralty was convinced it could be won. Why the difference in opinion? Why is it that with the UK having 20 harriers operating and 220 aircraft, both came to different conclusions over the possible outcomes?

Obviously neither the US or UK were wrong or right, as neither could predict the future, and both had reasonable criteria and reasoning for coming to their conclusions. Of course the cause was that both were running under different operational procedures which in turn alter what both believed were acceptable working conditions.
The US will not deploy if they cannot deploy with overwhelming superiority, if they cannot materially counter the enemy in totality before the war has begun. My perspective is of the maritime unit, which cannot operate independently with its own methodology - it must act in formation with this integrated defence, because it is impossible for any single maritime unit to defend itself from every threat, nor is it necessary to try and defend every unit from every threat. I had hoped this would lead to a fruitful discussion, in which I wished to ask what you thought about the US perspective, in particular whether it resulted in the US being hesitant where it needed not to be and committing far too many forces where much fewer would be more profitable, but we're stuck on the irreconcilable orthodoxies of two jargons. Which is much less interesting than probing to find out why random forumites on the internet who may possibly be representative of a country's strategic mindset draw a distinction, put into separate operational procedures, between destroying enemy assets and rather unsexy neutralizations or enemy assets.

So it is clear that we aren't actually talking to each other, because the word we are using carry very different meanings to each of us.

Down the semantic rabbit hole madness lies. But it can be crossed, simply with common definitions being agreed upon

So I am going to apologize for exacerbating this argument, because I feel that my involvement was the more disruptive;
I am sorry to have perpetuated this misunderstanding, it was not my intent to make this into such a big deal.

Tbqh I don't think you should apologize, because you haven't done anything all that haram. I'm sure if emotion could carry through text this would be a lot less tense than it may seem, because ending everything with proper grammar and no slang has a tendency to raise the register, or make it sound as if both parties are perpetually cross - when I imagine, we are both typing this rather calm and neutrally.
As a result, proper sentences seem that much more confrontational.
Yet spoken speech would be much more light hearted, and casual!

[NullForceOmega]

Proper sentence structure and formal grammar is the best you will get from me when it comes to de-escalation LW.  My non-formal speech patterns rely heavily on the use of expletives, which Toady has indicated to me is not something he wants on his forum, and I find most forms of informal speech incredibly grating.  For instance, when you use the terms, 'mate', 'fam', 'haram', or other informalities/slang usages I am consumed with the desire to do violence onto others (and if you really need me to I will explain why, in detail, but to simplify it has nothing to do with you).  Since that is not how I wish to deal with people I default to less confrontational formal usages.  *It has already taken me five re-writes just to filter out my unconscious uses of above mentioned expletives.

I am perfectly willing to try to discuss things in a reasonable matter, but once I have reached the limits of my capacity to debate civilly I prefer to bow out instead of risking making stupid rage posts.  Since that is the point I have come to in this discussion I made the decision to make an apology for my behavior and disengage.

[Loud Whispers]

I respect your wishes; no more fam from me, I don't intend to cause any stress. Hope you have a good day

[martinuzz]

Please take that discussion to PMs or somesuch.

Meanwhile in Syria, Syrian-Kurdish forces, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights are accusing Turkey of using poison gas in their assault on Afrin.
They are basing their claims on local medical sources.

Turkey denies, and says it takes the greatest care to avoid civilian casualties in their operation 'Olive Branch'.

EDIT: in other news, the commander of the SDF urges nations from which people have travelled to Syria to fight for IS, to takle back their citizens and put them to trial in their countries of origin.
According to the commander, the SDF is holding thousands of IS fighters, of whom many do not originate from Syria, and they don't have the means to keep holding them indefinitly.

"Here's an example", the commander says. "We have two British nationals here, Shafee and Alexanda. WHen they were with IS, they were tasked with torturing western prisoners. They commited war crimes, and should be judged by the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
But what happened instead? The UK took away their British nationality. Now I have two people here who are stateless. What am I supposed to do with them? The UK hasn't even tried to contact us about it?"

"Sadly we have no ocean here, or we would put them in rubber boats to Europe"

Then there's the Netherlands. We will take back fighters from Syria, but only if they can manage on their own to get to the Dutch consulate in Ankara, Turkey. Which is... near impossible, and won't work for the prisoners of war.

If this continues, SDF might be forced to release the IS fighters, or say fuck Geneva and massacre them all.

[Loud Whispers]

EDIT: in other news, the commander of the SDF urges nations from which people have travelled to Syria to fight for IS, to takle back their citizens and put them to trial in their countries of origin.
According to the commander, the SDF is holding thousands of IS fighters, of whom many do not originate from Syria, and they don't have the means to keep holding them indefinitly.

"Here's an example", the commander says. "We have two British nationals here, Shafee and Alexanda. WHen they were with IS, they were tasked with torturing western prisoners. They commited war crimes, and should be judged by the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
But what happened instead? The UK took away their British nationality. Now I have two people here who are stateless. What am I supposed to do with them? The UK hasn't even tried to contact us about it?"

"Sadly we have no ocean here, or we would put them in rubber boats to Europe"

Is the SDF seriously threatening Europe? Not very clever is it, when the US has dropped support, to then threaten the last of your allies when Turkey is attacking.

If this continues, SDF might be forced to release the IS fighters, or say fuck Geneva and massacre them all.

IS Jihadis do not follow the Geneva convention, are not protected by it, are not soldiers, and I'm not exactly going to see crowds of people crying over the death of fighters who have committed themselves to the destruction of their home - fighters we are actively attacking. Another important clarification, which is why you really ought to post your sources so they can be scrutinized, is that the UK cannot just revoke someone's nationality and leave them stateless, thus that commander is either mistaken or lying. The UK can only revoke the nationality of a citizen with dual citizenship, it cannot revoke the citizenship of a solely British citizen. The UK may eventually have the power to do so, but is currently incapable of doing so. The two fighters he claims to have cannot be stateless, unless the states they belong to have subsequently revoked their citizenship, or he has been deceived. The absolute worst case scenario is simply following the EU model and allowing all of our jihadis to return home, incapable of being prosecuted for aforementioned war crimes because evidence is lacking, and having them set up their own squads, recruitment and procurement drives from the comfort of their homes, with state benefits. Even prison is no obstacle to recruitment :/

[martinuzz]

"Sadly we have no ocean here, or we would put them in rubber boats to Europe"

Is the SDF seriously threatening Europe? Not very clever is it, when the US has dropped support, to then threaten the last of your allies when Turkey is attacking.

I strongly suspect the commander was being sarcastic there.

[Sheb]

Another important clarification, which is why you really ought to post your sources so they can be scrutinized, is that the UK cannot just revoke someone's nationality and leave them stateless, thus that commander is either mistaken or lying. The UK can only revoke the nationality of a citizen with dual citizenship, it cannot revoke the citizenship of a solely British citizen. The UK may eventually have the power to do so, but is currently incapable of doing so. The two fighters he claims to have cannot be stateless, unless the states they belong to have subsequently revoked their citizenship, or he has been deceived. The absolute worst case scenario is simply following the EU model and allowing all of our jihadis to return home, incapable of being prosecuted for aforementioned war crimes because evidence is lacking, and having them set up their own squads, recruitment and procurement drives from the comfort of their homes, with state benefits. Even prison is no obstacle to recruitment

Yeah, I'm not exactly going to cry for them, but generally I'm wary of giving the state the right to strip someone of his rights witout proper judicial review. Sure, the ISIS dude and dudette deserve it, but you know that they're eventually going to want to use the powers granted in such case for other stuff. And then of course you have the more general issue that you can't just dump your crap on the SDF and force them to deal with it. I sure wouldn't be happy if a country had revoked the citizenship of a jihadi that had travelled to Belgium to prevent us from deporting him.