Special Forces

However, that operation was just a group of sailors and marines, and a good officer. It involved people doing the standard things that they do as part of their normal jobs, not elite forces, etc.

The style of operation could be called 'special forces", though 'piratical looting in a legal way' might be closer to what I was considering. The Union did this on a fair scale during the Civil War, landing troops in out of the way places to burn small shipyards, salt refining facilities, etc.

chickladoria wrote:I guess I thought of 'cutting out' operations as a type of special forces action. The purpose being political, and military. The raid to free Iris, Coris, and Daivyn was a commando raid, thus could be classified as a special force operation.

runsforcelery wrote:

Dutch46 wrote:Under all but exceptional circumstances, a commander cannot allow himself to be influenced by what the enemy may or may not do to innocent civilians which he cannot control or protect. He must instead, execute what he believes to be a strategy that inflicts the maximum amount of damage on the enemy with the forces he has available. Defeating the enemy in the fastest way possible is, after all, the best and least costly way to eliminate the danger these innocents and everyone else faces.

If one allows the consideration of what are euphemistically called collateral damages to dictate one's strategy, the enemy will soon figure that out and collocate with those entities they know will not be attacked or will not be attacked with full force. It seems to me that that is a strategy that will, over the longer term, result in higher casualties and a longer conflict.

That way lies the escalation of atrocity and the enablement of massacre. It is, unfortunately, an outgrowth of the concept of "total war," and under it, one can justify doing literally anything. It has, in fact, been so used, and by such sterling examples of humanity as Bomber Harris, Adolph Hitler, Tamerlane, and (yes) the USA in one of our worse moments. Following that logic, executing "what he believes to be a strategy that inflicts the maximum amount of damage on the enemy with the forces he has available" is a get-out-of-jail free card for massacring the entire population of a conquered city in order to encourage the next one on your list to surrender as soon as you get there and never, ever even think about giving you grief again. It works, but does that make it any less morally reprehensible? And, ultimately, does it allow you to establish anything remotely resembling amicable relations with your victims at a later time?

To be perfectly honest, the logic of your argument is very like those who advocate real politik: It's a dirty, ugly world, so get out there and be the dirtiest, ugliest fighter of them all because in the final analysis your objective validates whatever means you must pursue to achieve it. It is a form of amorality which is worse in many ways than immorality because it denies the need to hold one's own side to any standard other than that of pragmatism. I find that morally contemptible on a personal level and potentially disastrous on a strategic level unless you know with absolute assurance that you will be able to impose a permanent settlement to the conflict on your terms and the other side will never, ever have the opportunity to pay you back for what you did to it. Which, of course, completely ignores the argument that if you adopt that position, then the other side is totally justified in applying it to you in reply and leaves you no leg to stand on if you demand punishment for someone who casually shoots 5,000 prisoners because detailing guards would not be "what he believes to be a strategy that inflicts the maximum amount of damage on the enemy with the forces he has available."

I have often thought that present day relations between Germany and Japan and the Allies of WW II would be very, very different (and much uglier) if Germany had not been made to confront its Nazi past and all of the additional atrocities of which its armed forces were guilty and if Japan had not been so prepared to place full blame on the militarists who led the Empire into the War. Coupled with the Marshall Plan to help rebuild --- and the threats of Stalin and Mao Tse-tung --- that was enough to erase a lot of potential mutual hatred, but you might want to look at the more common longterm results to atrocity in places like the Balkans, the Middle East, and Ireland. It is highly unlikely that Charis is going to find itself in a position to do the same thing for all the realms currently supporting the Church after the war . . . and Stohnar is not going to thank Charis for creating any additional hatred and generational violence in his western provinces after the current war, either.

Charis is not going to adopt tactics or strategies which will enable/cause additional atrocities unless it is literally a matter of life-or-death for its own forces. That is a hard and fast decision which has been made for a multitude of reasons --- just as the Brish decided they would not use area bombing on industrial plants in occupied France which were supplying war materials to the Germans. Under your rationale, and assuming they really believed area bombing would work, then they ought to have applied it to the French munitions plants which had been taken over. Charis and the inner circle have not only moral, ethical, and philosophical objections to adopting such policies and operational concepts, but also a clear understanding that sometime within the next 20 years they are going to have to tell Safehold at large the truth about the Archangels. When that happens, they believe, they must be in the position of the side which fought a "clean war" as opposed to the atrocities and suffering inflicted by the Inquisition, so they are not going to invite any Reinhard Heydrich revenge scenarios unless they have exactly zero other options

And, to return to my original point, they have other options that are going to be a hell of a lot more effective --- given the societal, industrial, economic, and logistic constraints of Safehold --- than the type of "special forces" operations you've listed. This isn't 20th or 21st century Earth, and the operational environment is quite different. You say: "If one allows the consideration of what are euphemistically called collateral damages to dictate one's strategy, the enemy will soon figure that out and collocate with those entities they know will not be attacked or will not be attacked with full force." I'm sorry, but that is so 20th-21st-century thinking! The North Vietnamese did it with air defense missiles during the Vietnam War, Sddam did it in the Gulf War, Hamas is doing it right now in Syria and Gaza. I'll grant you all of that, but those places aren't on Safehold! Not only that, but those defensive strategies are adopted against threats the defending side knows about. Exactly how is a refusal to assassinate political figures in the enemy's rear going to cause anyone to "collocate" potential targets of assassination? How is a cavalry raid on a canal lock going to cause the enemy to move the canal lock? And how is a decision not to carry out the sorts of operations which can --- and will --- be perceived/treated by the Inquisition as civilian-supported guerilla activities to be punished by savage reprisals against local populations going to give the other side anything to take advantage of?

The return on the investment is miniscule in comparison to the advantages bestowed, virtually anything you might accomplish this way can be accomplished by other means, and the secondary costs of that "collateral" damage are higher --- on both a moral and a pragmatic basis --- than Charis is going to be willing to pay.

I must have expressed myself very poorly because I do not see most of the arguments that you put forth as having any bearing on what I meant. So, it's back to the wordsmithing drawing board for me to see if I can come up with a better way to make my point.

I was merely pointing out that (obliquely) that special forces evolve from requirements that line troops do not train for. They may simple be scouts, indigenous forces patrolling between strong points, or the like. Look at the history of the US Ranger forces, they have always been a 'special force' group, though not always in the modern restricted sense. I think that mountain troops are generally considered part of special forces, they operate in environments considered special by line troops.

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Dutch46 wrote:

I must have expressed myself very poorly because I do not see most of the arguments that you put forth as having any bearing on what I meant. So, it's back to the wordsmithing drawing board for me to see if I can come up with a better way to make my point.

My response was in the context of the original "special forces" thread and the suggestion that special forces should be used behind enemy lines for — among other things — infrastructure raids, assassinations, sabotage, etc., and the Charisian decision specifically not to do anything of the sort because of the reprisals it would produce against local civilian populations. You said:

Dutch46 wrote:Under all but exceptional circumstances, a commander cannot allow himself to be influenced by what the enemy may or may not do to innocent civilians which he cannot control or protect. He must instead, execute what he believes to be a strategy that inflicts the maximum amount of damage on the enemy with the forces he has available. Defeating the enemy in the fastest way possible is, after all, the best and least costly way to eliminate the danger these innocents and everyone else faces.

Which I interpreted to mean: (1) that a commander should plan his operations without allowing the possibility of civilian casualties to influence his pragmatic decisions; and (2) since this was in the context of the special forces thread, that you felt that "special forces operations" would, in fact, be part of a strategy "that inflicts the maximum amount of damage on the enemy with the forces he has available." I have no argument at all with the final sentence of that paragraph, but within the context of the possible employment of special forces — and my explanation of why the inner circle had specifically rejected the possibility of operations which would provoke reprisals — I took issue with the first two sentences. First, because Charis disagrees with you about whether or not a commander should take the possibility of civilian casualties into consideration, and, second, because the types of special forces operations you had discussed in an earlier post:

Dutch46 wrote:There have been many versions of 'Special Forces' over time. If folks have the idea the Charisian units would, in any way, resemble todays units that is a mistake.

The idea is to form small highly trained or even single person units that would be tasked with special assignments that could not be carried out any other way. Removal of a particularly valuable individual from the gene pool, sneaking up on the enemy camp and killing every other guard, planting explosives in the road to be set off as the command unit marches over it and a myriad of other assignments designed to introduce uncertainty and terror in the enemy. Granted, these would all be on a small scale but one should never pass up an opportunity, no matter how small, to inflict damage, casualties and uncertainty on the enemy.

are precisely the types of operations most likely to produce reprisals and least likely to be militarily effective under the conditions of military campaigning which apply on Safehold. That is, they do not constitute a way to inflict " the maximum amount of damage on the enemy with the forces he has available."

You also wrote, however:

Dutch46 wrote:If one allows the consideration of what are euphemistically called collateral damages to dictate one's strategy, the enemy will soon figure that out and collocate with those entities they know will not be attacked or will not be attacked with full force. It seems to me that that is a strategy that will, over the longer term, result in higher casualties and a longer conflict.

This is both self-evidently true and utterly false. It is indisputably true that if one allows oneself to be controlled or, perhaps a better way to put it would be neutralized, by the possibility of civilian casualties — whether the direct result of your own operations or inflicted by your opponent as reprisals or in a terror campaign — you might as well give up the war right then. It is not true that the enemy "will soon figure that out and co-locate with those entities they know will not be attacked" (or certainly not in a Safeholdian context, at any rate), which is what makes this a false argument, at least in part. But if someone like a Clyntahn figures out that there's a way to dissuade you from carrying out offensive operations by threatening his own civilian population, and if the someone like Clyntahn is right about that, then you are operationally screwed.

The problem that I have is twofold.

(1) This is the sort of logical, cold-blooded argument which is most often put forward by someone who will not have the blood of the "collateral damage" on his hands. And it is also the sort of logical, cold-blooded argument which is most often put forward by someone who has not "seen the elephant." I have a friend who is a highly experienced and decorated Marine veteran with whom I have war gamed on many an occasion, and he's told me how often he finds himself being appalled by the casualty totals civilians against whom he games are cheerfully willing to accept. It is important for a military commander to avoid being paralyzed by the possibility of civilian casualties, but it is equally — or perhaps even more important — for him to consider and remember the pragmatic as well as the moral reasons for avoiding preventable civilian casualties.

(2) I've studied military history for fifty years, and your comment that "under all but exceptional circumstances, a commander cannot allow himself to be influenced by what the enemy may or may not do to innocent civilians which he cannot control or protect" gets perilously close to the argument that "the ends justify the means." I realize that you did not specifically say that the military commander should not take measures to avoid the infliction of unnecessary civilian casualties by his own forces, but when you juxtapose that with the concerned about the enemy's "co-locating" his assets as a means to paralyze your own offensive options and bring in the phrase "what are euphemistically called collateral damages," what I am hearing is the same argument which has been made over and over again to justify attacks or strategies which one knows are going to inflict those civilian casualties in horrifying numbers. The proponents of strategic bombing in the interwar years talked about the enormous casualties which would be inflicted upon the civilian population which would thus paralyze the national will, fatally dislocate the means of production, and compel the adversary to surrender without ever engaging him on the field of battle. The fact that they were talking about hundreds of thousands of civilian dead didn't keep them from proposing this because, after all, it was pragmatically inevitable since the side which was willing to do it first would inevitably defeat the other. The area bombing of Germany I alluded to with my reference to Bomber Harris — the strategy which was euphemistically called "de-housing" — was actually an attempt to kill enough of the civilian workforce (and of the workers' children, spouses, pets, what-have-you) to disrupt the workforce. And what that amounted to, of course, was terror bombing. The American fire raids on Japan were actually more justifiable — on a pragmatic basis, at least — given the distribution of Japanese industry, but they too amounted to a deliberate attack on civilian populations in the name of pragmatism and if you had to accept a few hundred thousand dead women and children, well, that was simply the unavoidable "collateral damage." And the use of the atomic bomb was an extraordinarily clear-cut application of "defeating the enemy in the fastest way possible" by that stage of the war. (Mind you, I happen to be one of those who believe that it was almost certainly the correct decision at that point in the war, given the psychology of the adversary and the number of civilians who were already being killed in fire raids, not to mention the number of casualties any invading army would have suffered, but it remains an appalling example of military pragmatism and expedience.)

My point is that there are two mutually contradictory elements to what we might call the philosophy of the art of war. One is the recognition that William Sherman was correct when he said that "War is cruelty; you cannot refine it." The very reason why one should not allow oneself to be pushed easily into the waging of war as a means to solve problems is that once begun, any war is going to be ugly and vile and is going to inflict "collateral damage" beyond the most pessimistic calculations of whoever chooses to inaugurate it. At the same time, one has to recognize that there are outcomes worse (or at least less acceptable) then the consequences of fighting the war. But, that's where the second element comes in. In many ways, the side most prepared to be absolutely ruthless in the tactics and strategies it adopts has a clear advantage in warfare. If that side fails to secure victory quickly, however, its ruthlessness recoils upon it. It provokes its opponent into doing whatever that opponent needs to do to survive against it, it invites reprisals, it turns occupied populations against it, and quite often it ultimately alienates its own population. Completely disregarding the fashion in which this will poison the moral wellsprings of your own nation, there are enormous pragmatic advantages in creating a situation in which occupied populations — even the populations of your enemies — prefer to see your army coming rather than the other side's. Terror enforces obedience; compassion engenders trust; and trust engenders support and acceptance of the goals for which you are fighting the war in the first place, and there is a great difference between that and simple terrified obedience.

In the specific context of Safehold, Charis and the inner circle have every reason imaginable to hold the moral high ground throughout the war against the Church and — specifically — against the Group of Four. It's not simply a question of operational and strategic advantages during the war, but also a matter of the world situation they know Safehold is going to face after the war. The inner circle is looking ahead to the time at which the Empire and Church of Charis are going to have to tell the rest of the human race the truth about the Archangels. When that happens, they are going to need all of the moral credit and credence they can possibly bank during the war. If that means that there are occasions when Charisian forces have to take otherwise avoidable casualties to avoid civilian casualties, Charis will do just that.

The above may not seem to you to constitute a direct response to what you intended to say. Within the context of how I understood the thread to be moving, I think it does constitute a response, but I also acknowledge that it is an explanation of both my own views on what I suppose we might call the morality of warfare and of the Charisian view of the moral decisions and options confronting the inner circle.

WOW!

It is such a joy to see this back and forward conversation's such as this between the author and fans

From a story telling persective I will be sad not to see SF operating behind lines helping rebel insurgents and the like. But it is nice to know that we won't see lots of small scale special force fighting for sound reasons.

As great as it is for RFC to expand upon the Safehold saga, they also point towards a situation where Gorath does NOT get leveled. :(

In the specific context of Safehold, Charis and the inner circle have every reason imaginable to hold the moral high ground throughout the war against the Church and — specifically — against the Group of Four. It's not simply a question of operational and strategic advantages during the war, but also a matter of the world situation they know Safehold is going to face after the war. The inner circle is looking ahead to the time at which the Empire and Church of Charis are going to have to tell the rest of the human race the truth about the Archangels. When that happens, they are going to need all of the moral credit and credence they can possibly bank during the war. If that means that there are occasions when Charisian forces have to take otherwise avoidable casualties to avoid civilian casualties, Charis will do just that.

If Charis is willing to accept higher casualties to keep the moral high ground, would it not also follow that Charis would choose not to attack Gorath as the efforts of Earl Thirsk also help undermine the current mainland regime? After all it would help their long term cause immensely should the mainland also have some form of research center that also helps prove that Charis is telling the truth about the archangels.

CJK wrote:As great as it is for RFC to expand upon the Safehold saga, they also point towards a situation where Gorath does NOT get leveled. :(

In the specific context of Safehold, Charis and the inner circle have every reason imaginable to hold the moral high ground throughout the war against the Church and — specifically — against the Group of Four. It's not simply a question of operational and strategic advantages during the war, but also a matter of the world situation they know Safehold is going to face after the war. The inner circle is looking ahead to the time at which the Empire and Church of Charis are going to have to tell the rest of the human race the truth about the Archangels. When that happens, they are going to need all of the moral credit and credence they can possibly bank during the war. If that means that there are occasions when Charisian forces have to take otherwise avoidable casualties to avoid civilian casualties, Charis will do just that.

If Charis is willing to accept higher casualties to keep the moral high ground, would it not also follow that Charis would choose not to attack Gorath as the efforts of Earl Thirsk also help undermine the current mainland regime? After all it would help their long term cause immensely should the mainland also have some form of research center that also helps prove that Charis is telling the truth about the archangels.

Do you really see Dohlar turning into a research center without getting hammered first? I don't. Thirsk has to burn out that nest of snakes Raynahld has surrounded himself with. Those nobles are the antithesis is innovation and are incentivized to limit innovation. Innovation will make base born commoners more important that land owning nobles. The source of economic power will shift from the ability to feed people towards the ability to produce goods and services. Those goods and services will continue to allow fewer and fewer people to support a given population.

That means that the share of wealth land owners have will grow steadily smaller and those that can engage in trade or production will see their share increase.

Do you honestly see that bunch of schmucks in Dohlar standing for it while they are still breathing? Not a chance. As good as Thirsk is, I don't see him pulling off the revolution. More likely he helps Dohlar rise from the ahses of what Charis has waiting for it. For that to happen, Siddermark will have kicked the AoG back to the Temple Lands. Along the way the G4 will have lost sufficient moral authority to enable nations like Dohlar to accept the notion of structural and theological reform in the CoGA.

I agree that an innovative adversary to Charis is important for Safehold during the time after the G4 is defeated and before the truth is widely accepted. Dohlar is the most likely nation to fill this bill.

@ PeterZ, no I do not see Dohlar evading a hammering. Now here is the catch, why does Dohlar need to have GORATH flattened for this to happen?

IIRC for every mainland realm it is the ARMY that is given the most prestige, which in the case of Dohlar has just been sent into battle against Charis being led by a close relative of the idiot who got their first navy crushed. IMO the army being the foremost military organization might be subject to change should the army get itself crushed in battle. Along with the importance of every noble who took part.

As for all the other changes (shift towards goods and services) this has already happened, under the authority of Clyntahn. No noble is going to argue with the inquisition about anything that is, or is THOUGHT to be important to the prosecution of Clyntahn's jihad.

Besides I just cannot see RFC putting this much into Thirsk just to have him get killed or exiled should Charis come calling with their new cruisers. Which is the most likely thing to happen with G.I Clyntahn, King Raynahld and his nominal superior all wanting to decorate his back with knives. IF however I start to see some one who could take the Thirsk's place (like-minded subordinate) in the event Charis comes calling I will (very happily) look forward to seeing Gorath renovated with heavy shell bombardment.

At this point in time, the only person in which we know of who could push forward innovation in Dohlar is Thirsk. So if he is removed we get nothing but those nobles to push innovation. Not really what I would expect to happen.

CJK wrote:@ PeterZ, no I do not see Dohlar evading a hammering. Now here is the catch, why does Dohlar need to have GORATH flattened for this to happen?

IIRC for every mainland realm it is the ARMY that is given the most prestige, which in the case of Dohlar has just been sent into battle against Charis being led by a close relative of the idiot who got their first navy crushed. IMO the army being the foremost military organization might be subject to change should the army get itself crushed in battle. Along with the importance of every noble who took part.

As for all the other changes (shift towards goods and services) this has already happened, under the authority of Clyntahn. No noble is going to argue with the inquisition about anything that is, or is THOUGHT to be important to the prosecution of Clyntahn's jihad.

Besides I just cannot see RFC putting this much into Thirsk just to have him get killed or exiled should Charis come calling with their new cruisers. Which is the most likely thing to happen with G.I Clyntahn, King Raynahld and his nominal superior all wanting to decorate his back with knives. IF however I start to see some one who could take the Thirsk's place (like-minded subordinate) in the event Charis comes calling I will (very happily) look forward to seeing Gorath renovated with heavy shell bombardment.

At this point in time, the only person in which we know of who could push forward innovation in Dohlar is Thirsk. So if he is removed we get nothing but those nobles to push innovation. Not really what I would expect to happen.

Agreed. I believe that Thirsk can survive Gorath's destruction. I don't believe for a second that Charis has the resources to to crush and occupy Gorath. When they come a calling, I expect the protected cruisers to lead the way. Those can visit each port city and reduce it to rubble. Raynahld wouldn't surrender, so all Thirsk has to do is survive the battle.

I see Thirsk's fleet destroyed, Gorath's infrastructure destroyed in a raid and the ICN moving on. That leaves someone like Thirsk the opportunity to rebuild the city.

PeterZ wrote:

CJK wrote:At this point in time, the only person in which we know of who could push forward innovation in Dohlar is Thirsk. So if he is removed we get nothing but those nobles to push innovation. Not really what I would expect to happen.

Agreed. I believe that Thirsk can survive Gorath's destruction. I don't believe for a second that Charis has the resources to to crush and occupy Gorath. When they come a calling, I expect the protected cruisers to lead the way. Those can visit each port city and reduce it to rubble. Raynahld wouldn't surrender, so all Thirsk has to do is survive the battle.

I see Thirsk's fleet destroyed, Gorath's infrastructure destroyed in a raid and the ICN moving on. That leaves someone like Thirsk the opportunity to rebuild the city.

Well if Raynahld won't surrender, then Thirsk has to get rid of him somehow. I don't know when, I don't even know how, but Raynahld HAS to go. Or at least go through as much of a wake-up process as Thirsk already has, but do you honestly see that as likely?

And even if Raynahld does, as unlikely as that is, the rest of the nobles also have to wake up AND let go of their personal enmity towards Thirsk. Given that so many of them have ties of blood to Malikai, that is even less likely than Raynahld waking up.

But despite the heavy influence of the nobility in the RDA, it's more traditional to send the second son off to the Army, not the heir. Certainly at least in societies where the military is not the central source of political power. Weber knows his history 10x better than we do, do you really think it likely he forgot that? Or even bothered trying to do the mental gymnastics necessary to come up with an excuse for changing that pattern on Safehold? I could see Desnair sending all sons off to the Army. I don't think Dohlar has been portrayed the same way.

And most of those nobles will be in Gorath because that's where the court is. Likely so will many of the heirs. But without an outright nuke or maybe extremely heavy use of incendiaries, I can't see mere shelling killing off enough of them to clear the driftwood out of the way for Thirsk to rise to power.

So just crushing the army or shelling the city doesn't seem to be anywhere near enough in my book. Removing those second sons will do nothing to eliminate the built-in family ties to Malikai and that will leave Thirsk with a huge "resistance" to deal with even if he does somehow seize power. And merely shelling the city won't remove enough of those nobles -- especially not given how much the Charisians have practically bent over backwards to avoid civilian atrocities.

And do you really think just losing the war and/or their fleet and taking massive infrastructure damage will be enough to "wake up" all those nobles? If so, well I kinda half-hope you're right, but I really don't think you actually are.