How to downgrade the fleet without upsetting the public?

Jonathan_S wrote:And then France was no longer the largest continental power and England switch from fighter her to allying with her against England's former ally Prussia when it coalesced into Germany and looked to dominated Europe.

Also neither side of the war of 1812 inflicted an UTTER defeat - yet the US and England never went back to war with each other.


It seems to me that changing the beliefs or national interests can be plenty to avoid going back to war; and UTTERLY defeating an enemy is only one possible way to bring about that change (and it's not guaranteed to)

Bad example: USA at that time was near 100% the UK's kids. It was essentially a civil war about a vast barbarian wilderness on the far side of the planet with little economic value to the UK. Likewise, majority population in the UK agreed with the fledgling USA but it was not til 100 years later that the UK finally threw off the yoke of the aristocracy. And, the USA, like Australia, Canada is too far away for governance.

A better historical example would be the eternal battles between Turkey/Iran. ONE must dominate and if one does not dominate, then there is war. Or the incessant battles/wars in India over the millenia. Another example would be the historical divide in China between Interior, the northern Manchus, and the South. Effective governance control does not work due to time lag. Why some historians think China will fall apart ... and why I think China will not and is only getting more unified.

I can think of no historical example of where equal powers or near equal powers survive without war for dominance. How the world works. You are either top alpha dog, or beta dog meat. Believing anything else is utopian foolishness.

As regards to the Honorverse, it is near impossible to have the small petty wars turn into giant wars as the fence lines are the useless vacuum of space composed of light years of empty nothingness. This makes governance more like the UK and its far flung empire before the Telegraph which means local autonomy and eventually the regions going their own way.

Jonathan_S wrote:
And then France was no longer the largest continental power and England switch from fighter her to allying with her against England's former ally Prussia when it coalesced into Germany and looked to dominated Europe.

Also neither side of the war of 1812 inflicted an UTTER defeat - yet the US and England never went back to war with each other.


It seems to me that changing the beliefs or national interests can be plenty to avoid going back to war; and UTTERLY defeating an enemy is only one possible way to bring about that change (and it's not guaranteed to)

Bad example: USA at that time was near 100% the UK's kids. It was essentially a civil war about a vast barbarian wilderness on the far side of the planet with little economic value to the UK. Likewise, majority population in the UK agreed with the fledgling USA but it was not til 100 years later that the UK finally threw off the yoke of the aristocracy. And, the USA, like Australia, Canada is too far away for governance.

A better historical example would be the eternal battles between Turkey/Iran. ONE must dominate and if one does not dominate, then there is war. Or the incessant battles/wars in India over the millenia. Another example would be the historical divide in China between Interior, the northern Manchus, and the South. Effective governance control does not work due to time lag. Why some historians think China will fall apart ... and why I think China will not and is only getting more unified.

I can think of no historical example of where equal powers or near equal powers survive without war for dominance. How the world works. You are either top alpha dog, or beta dog meat. Believing anything else is utopian foolishness.

As regards to the Honorverse, it is near impossible to have the small petty wars turn into giant wars as the fence lines are the useless vacuum of space composed of light years of empty nothingness. This makes governance more like the UK and its far flung empire before the Telegraph which means local autonomy and eventually the regions going their own way.

Well, there was no big direct fight between the NATO and the East Block. They support some wars and conflicts but try to avoid direct confrontation.

Maldorian wrote:Well, there was no big direct fight between the NATO and the East Block. They support some wars and conflicts but try to avoid direct confrontation.

NATO/Eastern Block were bystanders, or in this case a buffer. It was between USA/Russia. It was not exactly an equal stand off either from a financial/technological/industrial standpoint. And of course ICBM nuclear weapons put the final nail in the coffin. Even if you "win" a "real" war, you are left a smoking pile of radioactive rubble.

Why any future "real war" will not happen until someone can realistically claim to have an ICBM defense(of which there is none and frankly none on the horizon either). Plenty of war as this is humanity after all, but no drag down fight to the death. Skirmishes, flea bites to the death maybe, but the millions of mobilized men war? No.

Keep in mind that inherent assumptions of Weber's Honorverse are somewhat contradictory. Given asteroid mining, access to solar power and gas mining of Deuterium from Jovian type planets, there are no shortages of natural resources. Hence there is no motive to fight over natural resources. (Caveat is wormhole junctions and termini, but these can easily be bypassed.) However; there is interstellar trade on a massive scale.

Weber created the conditions that could provoke conflict by presuming the evolution of a massively dysfunctional Marxist paradise where the effeciently production of even basic subsistence products is no longer possible. Haven survives by conquering and robbing it's neighbors.

Weber eliminated the rational motive for war by postulating that the stress of waging a real war with Manticore would compel Haven to reform it's economy. Did anyone notice that this miraculous economic recovery occurred under the Committee for Public Safety?

Once Haven reformed it's economy and political structure, the fundamental motive to wage war was eliminated.

Relax wrote:A better historical example would be the eternal battles between Turkey/Iran. ONE must dominate and if one does not dominate, then there is war. Or the incessant battles/wars in India over the millenia. Another example would be the historical divide in China between Interior, the northern Manchus, and the South.

There has not been major fighting directly between Turkey and Iran since the treaty that settled their common border in 1932. At the moment neither is dominant, which causes one to question your "rule".

Again, England and France show no signs of fighting each other, despite their many wars in the past. Perhaps, like the USA and Russia, because both have nuclear weapons and it is harder to fight when the possible negative results are as bad as they could be.

tlb wrote:I am not sure that is true. The English and French have fought fiercely over the centuries without ever having one completely defeat the other (post 1066, which was a complete defeat that did not prevent future wars); yet there is no current pressure to fight each other.

Much of the post-1066 conflict between England and France was over William the Bastard's (and his heirs) desire to protect his rights AS A FRENCH NOBLE. The Kings of England remained Dukes of Normandy (and hence liegemen to the King of France) for several centuries after the Conquest. That also provided the basis for their claims to the Throne of France itself.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Keep in mind that inherent assumptions of Weber's Honorverse are somewhat contradictory. Given asteroid mining, access to solar power and gas mining of Deuterium from Jovian type planets, there are no shortages of natural resources. Hence there is no motive to fight over natural resources. (Caveat is wormhole junctions and termini, but these can easily be bypassed.) However; there is interstellar trade on a massive scale.

Weber created the conditions that could provoke conflict by presuming the evolution of a massively dysfunctional Marxist paradise where the effeciently production of even basic subsistence products is no longer possible. Haven survives by conquering and robbing it's neighbors.

Weber eliminated the rational motive for war by postulating that the stress of waging a real war with Manticore would compel Haven to reform it's economy. Did anyone notice that this miraculous economic recovery occurred under the Committee for Public Safety?

Once Haven reformed it's economy and political structure, the fundamental motive to wage war was eliminated.

The conditions at the beginning also corresponded somewhat to the Napoleonic War, where a revolutionary government tried to fight to bring the "rights of man" to the surrounding countries (in Haven the Dole was considered a fundamental "right"). To complete the analogy the massed forces were met by a numerically inferior foe, made rich by trade, whose navy was superior.

Once a war starts, for whatever reason, it has its own logic and does not stop when the reformation of the economy and political structure removed the initial motive to wage war. It stopped in this instance because it became clear that there was a common enemy, that had manipulated them into fighting the war.

tlb wrote:I am not sure that is true. The English and French have fought fiercely over the centuries without ever having one completely defeat the other (post 1066, which was a complete defeat that did not prevent future wars); yet there is no current pressure to fight each other.

Fox2! wrote:Much of the post-1066 conflict between England and France was over William the Bastard's (and his heirs) desire to protect his rights AS A FRENCH NOBLE. The Kings of England remained Dukes of Normandy (and hence liegemen to the King of France) for several centuries after the Conquest. That also provided the basis for their claims to the Throne of France itself.

But that source of conflict ended with the Hundred Years War (with the last attempt by an English king to claim the French crown); so from 1453 onward the fights were by nations, not dynasties.

The defeat of Napoleon was by a coalition, not just the English, so might not count as one country completely defeating the other. Either way, that does not validate the premise.

tlb wrote:

Relax wrote:A better historical example would be the eternal battles between Turkey/Iran. ONE must dominate and if one does not dominate, then there is war. Or the incessant battles/wars in India over the millenia. Another example would be the historical divide in China between Interior, the northern Manchus, and the South.

There has not been major fighting directly between Turkey and Iran since the treaty that settled their common border in 1932. At the moment neither is dominant, which causes one to question your "rule".

Again, England and France show no signs of fighting each other, despite their many wars in the past. Perhaps, like the USA and Russia, because both have nuclear weapons and it is harder to fight when the possible negative results are as bad as they could be.

That reinforces my rule. Neither is vying for domination because BOTH are Dominated by outside powers presently. Though as Russia withers and USA fades back across the ocean, a power vacuum will result.

Same rule applies to UK/France/Germany. They are dominated by outside power. No nation dominated goes picking fights with their neighbor who is also 2nd fiddle.

No one plays dominant games for 2nd or 3rd fiddle as there is no difference.

Humm,

ONE of the contributing factors to WW I was the interlocking treaties between the nations of what ended up as the two sides. Initialy Austria-Hungray made moves which triggered sections of those treaties. Those were essentialy set up to mobilize troops to either block expected adversarial advances into their own or their allies territory or to gather troops/supplies to attack external targets. What is now preceived as a signifcant problem was that, once started, the mobilization and movement to staging areas could not be called off or stopped until everybody got their people to the PLANNED locations. The transportation was primarily based on rail and everybody's transportations systems were taken over by the governments to move the troops.

As they had more or less expected, the mobilization on each side also triggered mobilization on the other and quickly went into outright warfare.


The SL's actual governing structure- the bureaucracy headed by the Mandarins- made the decision to deal with the disaffection of League Members and neutral Systems by brutally punisning them. That was, for the most part, by preemptive strikes to be seen as warnings by everybody else of what would happen if they traded with "the enemy" (the GA) or Beowulf or if they started making noises or policy changes to leave the League.

I'm certain that lots of people who had their rice bowls broken by the fall of the Mandarins etc are going to blame anyone but themselves but most of this was the League's fault, exacerbated by the Alignment working to shatter the League to make way for the Detweiler Plan.

The 1st question now is how does the League remake itself without setting up the same problems. Think of this as defeating The Empire only to have it come back as The First Order.

If you look at the terms imposed by Honor on the SL as given to Kingsford (but not yet knowing exactly the details Kingsford ended up with after the meeting(s) with Honor). They are nowhere near as bad as the terms of the Versailles Treaty. She just destroyed all the military ships in the Earth System, not parceled them out as prizes to the GA. She did NOT lay down reparations. Not that there won't be any, just that they will come in two separate and not equal parts. Not sure what the GA Star Nations are going to look for because most of what they have lost was ultimatly between each other and instigaged by the Alignment. So at this point things like getting penalties and fines for the commercial fleets because of the Lacoon actions are going to get waived/crushed. Nobody, it seems, on the GA side is looking for territorial gain from the SL.
On the SL side, OFS goes away and suddenly there are a lot of systems who have to reestablish indepence and treaties/relationships with others. They will be some of that vast group of people looking for reparations from the SL. Same with the systems who were attacked as lessons to others of thinking of breaking away from the League or trading with the GA or Beowulf.
It will be a wonder of all sorts of SL bureaucrats and members of various Transtellars don't find them selves in deep shit for their actions (going back a long time- funny thing Prolong) or possibly lynched before the can be arrested and face trials.