What is the most important aspect of warfare and why?

Imho, propaganda is the most important factor in war. All the underhanded black ops, all the troops, all the satellites with cameras, all the ammo cannot be put to effective use without the media selling whatever theatre of conflict as altruistic and humanitarian and necessary...

reply to post by Summerian


Agreed. Supply and logistics have been the key to warfare since Roman times. And it makes sense. If you can keep your troops well equipped, well fed and well rested, its going to have positive effects on virtually every other aspect of the war effort.

reply to post by SymbolicLogic


winning -noting else matters

Propoganda

Being able to change the views of your opponents and get your own people to support you will win you a conflict.

For western nations its politics. World War Z put it the best, in western nations we have all the weapons, Technology, and people to wage an absolutely devastating war. The only thing that stops us is public support.

In totalitarian regimes—communism, fascism, religious fundamental-ism—popular support is a given. You can start wars, you can prolong them, you can put anyone in uniform for any length of time without ever having to worry about the slightest political backlash. In a democracy, the polar opposite is true. Public support must be husbanded as a finite national resource. It must be spent wisely, sparingly, and with the greatest return on your investment.

For those totalitarian regimes, attrition is the prime go to counter-move to them. Thats on the basic level can't fight a war if you don't have people making weapons for you, or filling uniforms.

EDIT: Of course this only applies to mostly modern wars, back in the days of yester-year it wasn't that hard to gather support, though it was something to be considered. Strategy and psychology both stable of war. Use questionable-tactics/propaganda/depiction to demotivate your enemy. Separate you enemy from essentially supplies by bombing factories or infrastructure, and military maneuvers and tactic to win battles.

Theres the basics of war, you win till the other-side surrenders.

Logistics.

You can have all the best training, equipment, weapons, tactics etc but without a decent logistics it is useless.

An AH64 Apache is a wonderful piece of battle winning equipment, but without fuel, ammo or spares it is just a piece of expensive scrap.

The best trained soldiers in the world are dead if they can't be supplied with food, water, ammo etc. Their ability to fight will degrade rapidly if they don't have the logistical infrastructure to be fed, cloathed, sheltered, watered and so on.

The greatest Int equipment is useless without spares, batteries etc.

All fighting forces are tied to the need for logistics. Even the Taliban rely on logistical support from the locals. When I first went into Helmand the local government leader was told that he had 3000 British troops going into his region to help support him which made him very happy. Little did he know that over 2000 of them were logistical, enginering and medical support troops. There were only about 800 of us actually doing the fighting and holding an area half the size of England (A task many thousands of troops are still struggling with today!). Then - not so happy.

To give you an idea of the scale of the logistics operation in Helmand, just take a look at the Camp Bastion Operating Base. It is four miles long and two mile wide, accomodating over 28'000 support troops for Helmand Province alone. That doesn't include the 7000+ Marines in the adjoining Camp Leatherneck. There are also the numeous Main Operating Bases with 1000+ troops in each of them. These are all there to support the troops fighting. Up North in Kandahar Provence the airfield (Known as KAF) has another 24'000+ support troops for the Northern provinces. Without them the conflict would grind to a halt in hours.

Remember:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost
For want of a shoe the horse was lost
For want of a horse the fight was lost
For want of the fight the battle was lost
For want of a battle the war was lost
For want of a war the nation was lost

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

A desire to fight.

I'd say that even more than knowing why you're fighting, the desire to line up with your own and fight is the biggest variable for longterm viability of any warfare.

Without the desire no amount of strategic knowledge, tactical advantage, comms, firepower, etc. will overcome an adversary. I think the Western powers have demonstrated this to a tee post WWII. The incredible amount, and pervasive levels, of self-loathing in Western culture probably hurts any "fight" we have. The actual fighters are bogged down in the field and then back at home.

With that said I'm not saying our fights have been the right ones. At all.

I'm just saying the lack of desire for a winning outcome is the biggest differentiator. -Mags

"'Knowledge dominance' does scare us as Marines. General George Armstrong Custer probably thought he had knowledge dominance, too. Any time you think you're smarter than your adversary, you're probably about a half-mile from the Little Big Horn."
— Colonel Art Corbett, USMC

"The battle, is fought and decided by the quartermasters before the shooting beings."
— Field Marshall Erwin Rommel

Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.
— Modern Military saying

WATER.


How can you win a pissing contest without plenty of liquids?

OP, in my opinion and experience, the answer to your question is: COMMUNICATIONS.

I am not the first in the thread or the last to say that, but the 2c is yours to keep!

God
Communications
Supplies
Firepower
Country
Family
LOL just kidding
__________________________________

Here is something NOT funny: Britain has had a monopoly on classified satcom and other such nasties for decades... they also run our HAARP and things like that, to a certain degree, because those projects are compartmentalized and subcontracted @@.

Companies like BAE systems (communications, imaging, advanced electronic warfare systems, etc) have the world by the sack, so to speak.

That is why I was SO HAPPY when I saw them lose that recent merger deal with EADS

That it not be done without extremely dire reasons and elaborate fore thought.

It has to be knowledge which includes communications, knowledge of the enemy's disposition, knowledge of ones own disposition, knowledge of capabilities and limitations on both sides.

Knowledge and information. With that you can do more with less and more wisely. If you can determine that you cannot win a battle you can escape to fight another day. If you can determine enemy plans you can defeat the enemy with inferior forces. So on and so on.

Explanation: Uhmmm?

By Crom!

Listen to Conan ok ...



Personal Disclosure: Now hear him sing ...



Let The Lamentations Begin!