Yep. Looking at stuff like this is more important than kit. "Armies win battles. Nations win wars." The constant focus on technology and procurement, while understandable (and possibly even excusable) is a massive failing. Kit is only one facet of
DOTMLPF. And winning wars requires addressing all of it and across government and society from the
DIME perspective.
Further to this,
My current pre-1913 fascination has brought me here.
The 1885 Rebellion was largely the result of a single Militia Squadron, the North West Mounted Rifles out of Prince Albert and Duck Lake. They were natives and metis that signed on to the government pay roll and then were promptly ignored. They had expected to be part of the new white man's economy.
1885 was a hard year due to the usual mix of environmental and political factors. The NWMR wanted their back pay. Their families were starving.
Then they got word that Ottawa was disbanding them. And there was no pay coming. Gabriel Dumont was a Lieutenant in the NWMR and they took the field under him and created a core around which the disgruntled coalesced and Louis Riel found a parade to lead.
Duck Lake was one of two NWMR elements. The other was in Prince Albert.
The rebellion started on March 18, 1885 when Gabriel Dumont and Lois Riel formed The Provisional Government of Saskatchewan and the first battle happened a week later when a squadron sized group of RNWMP, operating in their military role, met, and were defeated by 200-250 similarly armed rebels with at least some military experience.
Batoche was on May 9-12 - 44 days after Duck Lake and 7 weeks from the declaration of the provisional government.
Loon Lake, the final battle, was on June 3, 3 weeks later.
Riel was hanging by 16 November.
At Batoche Dumont's force tied down the Government's 916 troops for 3 days and inflicted casualties.
All-in-all, 250 disgruntled Metis militiamen and a similar number of angry Natives tied down 5000 to 8000 people serving the Crown. A 10 week event.
....
Now how much imagination does it take to conflate Batoche, Oka, Ipperwash, Gustafsen Lake and the 2020 CNR blockade to justify proposing a scenario of a foreign actor encouraging three or four concurrent Batoches, supplying the disgruntled with modern weapons and comms, including drones, along with a leavening of little green men at each site. A company of foreigners supplying a platoons-worth of motivation to each of those three or four sites would give you three or four concurrent Okas with the prospect of three or four concurrent Batoches.
Batoche took 918 troops to quell out of a raised force of 5000 to 8000 police, soldiers and volunteers.
Oka tied down 4500 soldiers, and 2000 SQ with a local force of 75 that at times swelled with 2500 activists, some 500 of whom seem to have taken up weapons from time to time.
Oka lasted from July 11 to September 26 or 2 months, 2 weeks and 1 day.
It seems to me that if I wanted to take the Canadian Army, as well as Canada's police forces, out of the game in Latvia then it wouldn't take much. And add in some Best Buy drones and you can shut down the commercial air space and the ports.
Canada is no longer reinforcing. or supplying anybody, and I would guess that everybody else is busy enough that, if they notice, won't be helping us out anytime soon.
...
So back to YTZ's question - what do you do without the 20th century Yanks or the 19th century Brits? (Or, for that matter, the 18th century French),