12 March 22
Live on the homepage now!
Reader Supported News
Most successful underdog groups have three things in common, and Ukraine has all of them—including women in the fight.
In fact, history tells us otherwise.
From street-corner fistfights to insurgencies and wars, size is a terrible predictor for the outcome of human conflict. We are unique among mammals in our ability to defeat a larger, more powerful opponent; were this not so, the world would be composed of fascist mega-states and human freedom would not be possible. We readily risk our lives to defend others, as combat narratives for Medal of Honor recipients make abundantly clear. The smaller the group, the more stubbornly loyal members are to one another, and the harder—and costlier—they are to defeat.
In 1604, the Ottoman Empire decided that the small, mountainous principality of Montenegro had to be crushed. The Montenegrins were a famously warlike people who had always rejected any form of dominion and supposedly feared nothing except dying peacefully in bed. They inhabited a land that was too poor to support large concentrations of people, but the scattered population invariably came together to fight invaders. The Ottomans boasted some 12,000 men, including cavalry and artillery, and faced a mere 900 Montenegrins. The Montenegrins were unfazed, though, and sent three-man raiding parties out all night before attacking at dawn. They killed one third of the Ottoman army and sent the rest packing.
Even in personal combat, size and power have crucial downsides. Huge muscles move slower, react sluggishly, and use more oxygen than small ones. As a result, smaller fighters can sustain a higher level of intensity than larger ones, and they win about half the time in mixed martial arts—an utter impossibility for the rest of the animal kingdom. And the basic dynamics of asymmetric conflict readily scale up. Mechanized armies like the Russian force that invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s and plunged into Ukraine last month move slowly, are impossible to hide, and use huge amounts of fuel and ammunition. They can pulverize anything they encounter but cannot sustain such an effort for long. Airpower is devastating as well, but creates logistical vulnerabilities that come into play if the conflict drags on too long. There does not seem to be enough jet fuel in the world to keep enough aircraft aloft to kill all the people willing to die fighting them.
So where does this leave Ukraine? Most successful underdog groups have three things in common, and Ukraine has all of them. First, such groups need to have a clear moral purpose with deep roots in the history of the population. The ability of a group to be autonomous and self-defining—free—is one of the few things that people will readily die for, and framing a struggle in those terms makes them much more likely to succeed. (Freedom is a powerful word that often gets dragged into bogus political fights. Recent protesters who appropriated that word in this country were clearly not prepared to die in large numbers for it—a sign that the protests may not really have been about freedom at all.) The deep moral purpose at the heart of the Maidan Square protests in 2014 and in the current Ukrainian resistance makes sacrificing one’s life seem like a heroic thing to do—a sentiment probably not shared by most Russian troops.
Successful underdog groups also require fearless leadership. During the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland, an insurgent commander named James Connolly showed such flagrant disregard for his own safety that his aides had to implore him to take cover. Connolly was wounded twice and eventually tried and executed by the British for treason. Although the British army put down the Easter Rising in a week, it could not control the population and eventually granted Ireland its independence. America fought its own war against the British, and had we lost, the signers of the Declaration of Independence would have undoubtedly suffered the same fate as Connolly. Leaders who are not willing to accept the same risks and hardships as their followers in times of war will not remain leaders for long, and most of their rebellions will fail. In Ukraine, President Zelenskyy and many members of parliament are clearly willing to risk death defending their country.
The final component of successful underdog groups are women. Women impart a kind of moral legitimacy to protests that could otherwise be dismissed as simple mayhem and—like small men in fistfights—are underestimated in ways that can be exploited against overconfident enemies. During the 1912 mill strikes in Lawrence, Massachusetts, women stood directly in front of National Guard troops and mocked their manhood, despite the fact that bayonets were pointed directly at their bellies. “One policeman can handle 10 men,” a frustrated Lawrence official complained, “while it takes 10 policemen to handle one woman.”
Social sanctions against killing groups of women are far stronger than those against killing groups of men, and that can stymie even thugs like Putin. In Ukraine, young women are grabbing AK-47s and heading to the front lines, and older women are boldly haranguing Russian troops on the street.
Putin is facing a moral enemy with brave leadership and heavy female involvement. History shows that if he does not win quickly, he may never win at all.
Follow us on facebook and twitter!
PO Box 2043 / Citrus Heights, CA 95611
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.