That had really nothing to do with the planes. If the US had wanted to turn Vietnam into radioactive glass, the VC had nothing that could stop them.
The problem there is that the US was trying to convert them rather than annihilate them, and then you're not actually trying to penetrate their moat, you're trying to limit casualties, whereas they're not.
And then they're not winning by having a functioning moat, they're winning by refusing to surrender to an enemy that has the ability but not the appetite to wipe them out.
> The problem there is that the US was trying to convert them rather than annihilate them.
Nice history rewriting from the amateur historian ("glass them").
The US dropped more bomb tonnage on North Vietnam than in all of WW2. They dropped more napalm than all of WW2. They even used Agent Orange to defoliate, en masse.
The only thing they didn't use was nukes. And that's because both China and the Soviets had them, not because the goodness of American hearts.
The men on the $2 pedal bikes won. In their moats and tunnels.
The B-52 analogy seems pretty spot on where the (relatively) sudden capabilities of Claude are similar to now having a B-52 where you can just fly around and find silly little moat/wall defenses and easily destroy them with your one-shot bomb-release button.
A lot better than expected, as Vietnam proved.
That had really nothing to do with the planes. If the US had wanted to turn Vietnam into radioactive glass, the VC had nothing that could stop them.
The problem there is that the US was trying to convert them rather than annihilate them, and then you're not actually trying to penetrate their moat, you're trying to limit casualties, whereas they're not.
And then they're not winning by having a functioning moat, they're winning by refusing to surrender to an enemy that has the ability but not the appetite to wipe them out.
> The problem there is that the US was trying to convert them rather than annihilate them.
Nice history rewriting from the amateur historian ("glass them").
The US dropped more bomb tonnage on North Vietnam than in all of WW2. They dropped more napalm than all of WW2. They even used Agent Orange to defoliate, en masse.
The only thing they didn't use was nukes. And that's because both China and the Soviets had them, not because the goodness of American hearts.
The men on the $2 pedal bikes won. In their moats and tunnels.
1 reply →
You may be missing the point, unsure if purposefully or not, but you can't just rent B-52 for $250 a month.
The B-52 analogy seems pretty spot on where the (relatively) sudden capabilities of Claude are similar to now having a B-52 where you can just fly around and find silly little moat/wall defenses and easily destroy them with your one-shot bomb-release button.
Amusingly, if you know about the history of B-52, it's a bad analogy. B-52s biggest war was lost.
1 reply →