Talk:Shock and awe
this page is suffering from a classic wikipedia sin. check the first sentence: ""Shock and Awe" is the popular phrase used to describe the strategic doctrine being threatened by the United States in its invasion of Iraq." This is an encyclopaedia. This article will be read in a year's time, and hopefully in a hundred years' time, when all this is ancient history. This article needs to be a lot less specific to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and when it discusses that it shouldn't do so in such a time-sensitive way. --AW
- Patients grasshopper. The current war is our main source of info on how this strategy is being applied. I'm sure the United States will give us other opportunities to add more content to this topic in the future. --mav
This page fails to discuss the possible legal implications of this policy in that it may possibly encourage or permit actions in violation of the law of war. --Daniel C. Boyer
- Don't worry, the US will win and the Bush Administration will make sure retroactively that whatever they did was perfectly legal. --mav
- Rhetorical question for mav: Why would one make legal after the fact that which was legal before the fact? -◈¡◈
How does this differ from blitzkrieg? -- Zoe
- Blitzkrieg = other side. Bad. Shock and awe = our side. Good. (And I ain't joking, Zoe. That's the entire extent of the difference, so far as I can tell. In a little while I'll read the article again and see if I can find any other distinction, but don't hold your breath.) Tannin
- Blitzkrieg does not have the negative connotations you speak of - at least not for me. Shock and awe does look to be different in that the focus is on rendering the leadership of a foe ineffective through a variety of means whereas blitzkrieg is more or less moving your troops into enemy areas so fast that you overwhelm them in a physical sense. Shock and awe also wants to overwhelm them in a mental sense. Also, unlike a blitz there is great care not to destroy civilian targets. So the two concepts are similar but not the same. --mav
- That's a very, very fine line to try to draw. The leadership disctinction doesn't really apply, as that was an aim of blitkrieg too (or, for that mattter, of Napoleonic tactics - the terms change but the tactic is almost as old as war itself). The "care not to destroy civilian targets" is just splitting hairs. Care for non-combatants is also as old as war itself. Tannin
- This is a simple question. Inducing a state of "Shock and Awe" in the enemy is a *goal*. This goal can be approached through several methods, and blitzkrieg warfare is only *one* such method. Perhaps you could say "blitzkrieg" is to "shock and awe" as "advertising" is to "consumer behavior". -◈¡◈
- Sounds reasonable to me. There is also the matter usage of the two - i.e., the current fad for saying "shock & awe" because it would not be PC to say "blitkrieg". cf terms like "colatieral damage" (sp!). We (all nations) are always making up new words to make things sound nicer. Tannin
Removed text:
- This is not substantially different that the concept of Blitzkrieg.
Please read the above thread. In short Blitzkrieg is one way to accomplish "Shock and Awe." --mav
Then why doesnt this article note the similiarty? The Germans in WWII said they were agaisnt causing civilian casulaties. The Germans in WWII were very interested in taking out the enemy leadership. Shock and Awe is a PC way of hiding the influence of the German military on modern American military doctrine. Much of our military is directly patterned after German WWII doctrine. The US attack on Iraq is following the doctrine of blitzkrieg, that is bypassing enemy fortifications and leaving them for follow-up troops. Blitzkrieg is not merely one way to accomplish Shock and Awe, Shock and Awe is blitzkrieg.
- Blitzkrieg=Rapid Dominance
- Then explain the the difference and similarities in the article. But we cannot, per our NPOV policy, just state the "It is so that Shock and Awe and Blitzkrieg are the same thing." Also the statement that Blitzkrieg has some type of negative connotation is bizarre ; that military concept has been doctrine for half a century and at least in the US the term does not carry a lot of baggage. But it is still incorrect to say that Shock and awe and Blitzkrieg are the same thing. --mav
Changed this to hopefully NPOV "Some people believe that the doctrine "Rapid Dominance" is a technologically updated version of Blitzkrieg."