TOS: A Taste of Armageddon

[Mickey_Rat15]

I always found a lot of aspects of the premise of this episode to be kinda stupid. What's the goal of the war? What needs to happen for one side to declare victory? If it's just to destroy the enemy, then why would you care if their culture can thrive? It all makes no sense.

The Goal: To avoid loss of face, having waded into a forever war, by being able to declare victory.
Victory Condition: To ensure the other side loses face by admitting defeat.
The Why: Both sides are near enough matched in pride and weaponry to not be forced into admitting defeat.

It isn't about having a war; it is about not having to admit to having lost a war, but fearing if they actually seriously go to war they might very actually lose. The only way to ensure that their own culture thrives is to allow the otherside to also do so. Hence the compromise. It is very Cold War, especially with no proxies to do the dying for them. Don't you remember the slogan of "Better dead than Red", a real and actual Cold War era political slogan.

Except "Better dead than Red" is not about a loss of face, it was not accepting a totalitarian ideology and the loss of liberty that entails.

[Beastro]

What you're describing hasn't existed since The Peloponnesian War when the rest of the Greek City states realized that Persians wouldn't stop with just their next conquest. Worrying about how your neighbors are going to react to your invasion is something that has almost always been a thing.

I'm holding issue with the reasons for it.

Previous interventions came from outside forces acting upon their own national interests and hegemonic role in the world. That has played a role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, but the primary driver is a naive idealism of working out nations problems rather than compelling them to adhere to the hierarchy of the international order.

Had the war been that and the Great Powers didn't want them squabbling, I'd have no issue. The problem is it came from Westerners not wanting to see all the bloodshed and froze things in place, as they have done in most other areas the UN has played a part where they refuse to decide the matter.

Proper peacekeeping is what Australia did in the Solomon Islands in 2003 where they exerted their will as regional hegemon and compelled peace rather than moving in and not acting to end the conflict like the UN so often does.

been a thing.
But yes, I basically think this episode is a pretty good satire of the Cold War and actually could have gone further. The whole "proxy wars" of the period between the USA, USSR, and China are all things that never actually touch the infrastructure of the nations involved but are fought in places where it can be kept out of the streets but only on the television.

Except the proxy war on the US end, at least at first, had a clear goal. That goal was predicated upon the inherent dysfunction of the Communist system. The Soviet Union would destroy itself, it was just a matter of time. All NATO needed to do was keep WWIII from happening and keep the spread of Communism from causing more havoc dragging others in.

That was the essence of Containment and the 1980s validated it. It was ruined after Eisenhower because Kennedy was restless and wanted to take the fight to the enemy, Johnson left his policies in place, Nixon wanted to end Vietnam on a high note and the Carter Era fell into detente appeasement of the Soviets that could have allowed them to throw some bandaids on many weak points they were terrified about. Precision Guided Munitions freaked them out and they were desperate to acquire the Western tech to build proper silicon chip electronics to catch up; places like Western Germany were willing to give them that until the Reagan Administration clamped down on those deals and offered others that placated the Soviets but stagnated tech development like selling cheap US grain rather than agricultural tech.

The goal of a military at war is to break the enemy's ability to make war on your nation, not to merely kill people*.

The goal of war is to compel you enemy to desire peace. That can be from catastrophic defeat or the loss of a handful of men. The Battle of Mogadishu drove the US out of the place.

Sometimes, like with existential war, it is reduced down to sheer bloodshed: Your enemy needs to be bled enough until they come begging for peace. That was WWII, especially against Japan.

I always found a lot of aspects of the premise of this episode to be kinda stupid. What's the goal of the war? What needs to happen for one side to declare victory? If it's just to destroy the enemy, then why would you care if their culture can thrive? It all makes no sense.

The Goal: To avoid loss of face, having waded into a forever war, by being able to declare victory.
Victory Condition: To ensure the other side loses face by admitting defeat.
The Why: Both sides are near enough matched in pride and weaponry to not be forced into admitting defeat.

It isn't about having a war; it is about not having to admit to having lost a war, but fearing if they actually seriously go to war they might very actually lose. The only way to ensure that their own culture thrives is to allow the otherside to also do so. Hence the compromise. It is very Cold War, especially with no proxies to do the dying for them. Don't you remember the slogan of "Better dead than Red", a real and actual Cold War era political slogan.

What the hell are you talking about? The Cold War had short term aspects of face saving, but that didn't drive the war, the competing incompatible world views of the two sides did.

The West didn't want to lose because they didn't want to be humiliated, they did so because they were scared of being subordinated to a totalitarian belief system and death would be preferable to it.

Let's put it this way: The Federation isn't scared of the Borg because they might lose face. Why then are they?

[CharlesPhipps]

I feel like your assumption that there was a grand overarching plan that believed the Soviet Union would collapse on its own is something that is hindsight based. The shock of the sudden dissolution of the Soviet Union both economically as well as socially was something that was NOT predicted by the West but happened suddenly with vast geopolitical ramifications.

To be frank, the behind the scenes documentation of the CIA and Pentagon shows they believed a lot of the Soviet Union's propaganda and that they were far stronger than they actually were.

The West didn't want to lose because they didn't want to be humiliated, they did so because they were scared of being subordinated to a totalitarian belief system and death would be preferable to it.

Certainly many people believed that and I am a die-hard anti-communist but I also point out that a lot of the conflicts were driven by spheres of influence as well. Anti-communist efforts were repeatedly hampered by allying with authoritarian powers and business interests over democratic movements.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

US side of the story:

https://history.state.gov/milestones/19 ... d%20States

While the United States generally supported the concept of national self-determination, it also had strong ties to its European allies, who had imperial claims on their former colonies. The Cold War only served to complicate the U.S. position, as U.S. support for decolonization was offset by American concern over communist expansion and Soviet strategic ambitions in Europe. Several of the NATO allies asserted that their colonial possessions provided them with economic and military strength that would otherwise be lost to the alliance. Nearly all of the United States’ European allies believed that after their recovery from World War II their colonies would finally provide the combination of raw materials and protected markets for finished goods that would cement the colonies to Europe. Whether or not this was the case, the alternative of allowing the colonies to slip away, perhaps into the United States’ economic sphere or that of another power, was unappealing to every European government interested in postwar stability. Although the U.S. Government did not force the issue, it encouraged the European imperial powers to negotiate an early withdrawal from their overseas colonies. The United States granted independence to the Philippines in 1946.

However, as the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union came to dominate U.S. foreign policy concerns in the late 1940s and 1950s, the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations grew increasingly concerned that as the European powers lost their colonies or granted them independence, Soviet-supported communist parties might achieve power in the new states. This might serve to shift the international balance of power in favor of the Soviet Union and remove access to economic resources from U.S. allies. Events such as the Indonesian struggle for independence from the Netherlands (1945–50), the Vietnamese war against France (1945–54), and the nationalist and professed socialist takeovers of Egypt (1952) and Iran (1951) served to reinforce such fears, even if new governments did not directly link themselves to the Soviet Union. Thus, the United States used aid packages, technical assistance and sometimes even military intervention to encourage newly independent nations in the Third World to adopt governments that aligned with the West. The Soviet Union deployed similar tactics in an effort to encourage new nations to join the communist bloc, and attempted to convince newly decolonized countries that communism was an intrinsically non-imperialist economic and political ideology. Many of the new nations resisted the pressure to be drawn into the Cold War, joined in the “nonaligned movement,” which formed after the Bandung conference of 1955, and focused on internal development.

[Beastro]

US side of the story:

https://history.state.gov/milestones/19 ... d%20States

While the United States generally supported the concept of national self-determination, it also had strong ties to its European allies, who had imperial claims on their former colonies. The Cold War only served to complicate the U.S. position, as U.S. support for decolonization was offset by American concern over communist expansion and Soviet strategic ambitions in Europe. Several of the NATO allies asserted that their colonial possessions provided them with economic and military strength that would otherwise be lost to the alliance. Nearly all of the United States’ European allies believed that after their recovery from World War II their colonies would finally provide the combination of raw materials and protected markets for finished goods that would cement the colonies to Europe. Whether or not this was the case, the alternative of allowing the colonies to slip away, perhaps into the United States’ economic sphere or that of another power, was unappealing to every European government interested in postwar stability. Although the U.S. Government did not force the issue, it encouraged the European imperial powers to negotiate an early withdrawal from their overseas colonies. The United States granted independence to the Philippines in 1946.

However, as the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union came to dominate U.S. foreign policy concerns in the late 1940s and 1950s, the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations grew increasingly concerned that as the European powers lost their colonies or granted them independence, Soviet-supported communist parties might achieve power in the new states. This might serve to shift the international balance of power in favor of the Soviet Union and remove access to economic resources from U.S. allies. Events such as the Indonesian struggle for independence from the Netherlands (1945–50), the Vietnamese war against France (1945–54), and the nationalist and professed socialist takeovers of Egypt (1952) and Iran (1951) served to reinforce such fears, even if new governments did not directly link themselves to the Soviet Union. Thus, the United States used aid packages, technical assistance and sometimes even military intervention to encourage newly independent nations in the Third World to adopt governments that aligned with the West. The Soviet Union deployed similar tactics in an effort to encourage new nations to join the communist bloc, and attempted to convince newly decolonized countries that communism was an intrinsically non-imperialist economic and political ideology. Many of the new nations resisted the pressure to be drawn into the Cold War, joined in the “nonaligned movement,” which formed after the Bandung conference of 1955, and focused on internal development.

Which is the economic side of things that is a subset of the wider scope of the conflicting world views and beliefs that are in conflict.

If you're going to say that that is all there is to the matter, then sorry, the economic perspective ignores that even it itself is a grounded in belief and meaning as people believe in the concepts of money and resources being of value to pursue. This is behind when people shake their heads over natives getting into "unfair" deals selling land and other "important" items for trinkets as well as the irrational actions of both sides in the War on Terror that led up to and followed 9/11.

And no, I don't say irrational using its assume connotations of "stupid". That assumption in many is why people do not understand the motivation behind Islamism.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Your assertion is pretty vague overall. Competing world views isn't very descriptive in itself.

[Beastro]

Your assertion is pretty vague overall. Competing world views isn't very descriptive in itself.

You're expecting something like hard economic explanations from ideological and belief? The foundations of Liberalism built in since the 17th Century were seen as anathema to Communisms aim to remake the world and vice versa. You know enough to know better, but I'll throw this out anyway: https://www.historycrunch.com/ideologic ... war.html#/

If you're reaction is "Oh, that's just what they said it was about, not what it really was fought over" then you're willfully missing the point and getting tunnel vision.

Keep in mind I'm not discounting the economic side and we haven't touched on other aspects. We haven't haven't mentioned international relations theories and naked security like political realism and how the conflict was also driven by the desire of the US to defend its newly won global hegemony and the USSR to supplant it just as Germany had tried with Britain in the world wars.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

No you're loading my position. That was a basic historical account involving state defense and colonial legacy. It was a very suitable overlay for the premise of the episode.

I'm also very understanding of historical liberalism, at least as far as the point where you're trying to make it out to be some grandstanding account beyond historical economics and economic theories thereof.

[MaxWylde]

This episode really does kind of strike home for me, a veteran myself who got to see a serious glimpse into what a major war might look like in the future, where, if technology matures enough, we could see weapons deployed from the comfort of an air-conditioned room filled with computers thousands of miles away from where the action is taking place. There is a lot of talk about how soon we won't need too many people directly in theater to actually engage the enemy, such as pilots, who can make decisions based on the actual, real-time conditions as they are happening. To me, this is terrifying.

Because combat is not a video game. Real combat is so dynamic that the situation can change literally in a fraction of a second, so much so that an ambush can quickly turn into a rout of the ambusher, and then by the time you call for support to help deal with the threat, the threat is gone, and the rounds are falling on non-existent targets. Or, an ambush can quickly turn into a major retreat for your own guys on the ground, and where they are now will not be where they will be seconds from now. I've personally witnessed this from flying over a battlefield in an Apache. The amorphousness and fluidity of combat is such that witnessing it all from the vantage of a monitor screen is a little like looking at a picture through a cardboard tube; you get something of what's going on, but you're not getting the whole picture.

A Taste of Armageddon takes this not only to the next several levels, but it ramps it up to 11 because of the threat of what nuclear weapons can do. There had been talks, back then, of how the next war would not be fought conventionally, and because it would be fought with nukes, there would be no need for armies, in spite of the Vietnam War going on at the time, and the subsequent Korean Conflict and the other little wars going on around the world. If things ever came down to a nuclear exchange, then given how devastating such an exchange would be, it naturally follows that something might be done to wage war without having the raw carnage in terms of loss of infrastructure and things to deal with.

But, if I have one criticism of A Taste of Armageddon, it's this: That the loss of people is even more devastating than the loss of the structures of infrastructure, the cities, ports, airfields, factories, etc. Because those things can be replaced, with hard work and suffering. People can't be readily, and more over there are talents, skills, and wisdom people know, learn, and discover through their lives that would be lost with their own loss. But if you pay attention to this episode, it does sort of address this loss. These people are comfortable, but they lack a soul of sorts; they're a stagnant culture, content to live with a Damocles' Sword dangling over their heads in a very real way, ready to die upon command because not to do so might mean a worse fate to befall them. At the least, you can say it's also very egalitarian; Anon 7's daughter is marked for termination, and his wife died in a previous attack, so there's something somewhat honorable about these people that hasn't been lost so far, but you can imagine how the elites would do everything in their power to prevent their own loved ones from going into a disintegration chamber. The result, however, is that there's really nothing to really fight for; why really fight when you're too comfortable to do so?

What's worse for these people is that they have no objectives in mind other than senseless attacks that accomplish nothing but death itself. War is not fought simply to kill, but to take, and sometimes for ideological reasons. Why launch an attack when doing so accomplishes nothing in this regard?

I really think this episode ought to have been handled by Doctor Who, especially one of the first six Doctors.

[Nealithi]

I really think this episode ought to have been handled by Doctor Who, especially one of the first six Doctors.

An older book I read on the making of Doctor Who said many concepts and ideas they had were thrown out because they had already been done by Star Trek.