Trafalgar, a model for November

Admiral Nelson had a brilliant strategy for the Trafalgar battle(1), one which he'd executed successfully in several prior battles - that being crash through the nicely ordered enemy ships of the line and rampage like a dervish on crack trusting his well trained and equipped captains and crews to seize and maintain initiative and brutally annihilate the enemy with better aim, greater rates of fire, and superior in close maneuver.

The Nelsonian strategy was simplicity itself, unlike a Montgomery during WWII who loved the set piece battle format; Nelson sought and thrived on the chaos of the conflict itself relying on that chaos to give his ships advantage. The French and Spanish enemies were, due to cultural and command structure differences more rigid and inflexible.

Seek and create chaos and confusion, and profit from it because you're better prepared for fighting in that situation than the opposition.

The Democrats are much like the French and Spanish, their tactics are predictable as the tides, and old as Methuselah. Their responses to attacks are scripted and rote, its the same responses you would have heard 30 years ago.

The difference this time, is the public is less inclined to buy their bullshit anymore. With 20+% of the public willing to believe Ogabe is a muslim, it seems clear that a whole suite of attacks that might have been considered marginal in the past, might just fly this year. Dive in, fling the poo, create the chaos, get the enemy rocked back on their heals wondering what truck just ran them over.

(1) An interesting, albeit quirky, Hari Seldonesque Pshcho Historical look at Trafalgar is Seize The Fire by Adam Nicolson ($1 at Dollar Tree). Nicolson essentially does a pretty complete PsychoHistory on the century prior to Trafalgar up through Trafalgar and concludes (not surprisingly), that the battle was essentially won long before it was ever even envisioned by Nelson even though the Brits were outmanned, outgunned, and further from home port than the opposition. Nicolson's claim, which is not unjustified, is the telling shots belonged to cultural and military organizational differences. Of course unlike Seldon, Nicolson is predicting the past which is pretty much a slam-dunk.

posted by Purp at 09:57 PM

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