The Powered and their Effect on War.

April 26th, 2015

Susanne Dietrich-Wolff

The Powered and their Effect on the Waging of Wars 

It is, one would suppose, somewhat dumb to start this with the phrase "powered people exist". It is a fact of life that any human -- or rather, any living being -- on this Earth is more than capable of realizing on their own. Some of the people among us are different, and they are different in extraordinary ways. They are not lesser for it, nor are they superior. They eat the same food that we do, enjoy the same things we do, fall in love just like we do, and the million other small things humans do throughout their life. 

But the truth remains that they are different. Despite being of significantly lower numbers than the non-powered, they have affected history in deep, undeniable ways. Were things just the slightest bit different, perhaps we would not have had blood be the sign of rule for centuries, but instead the fantastical powers they wield. 

The effect they have had is varied. We know, through the scant records still remaining, that the Tainos of the Antilles counted amongst themselves a figure capable of manipulating flora when the Spanish first came upon them. It has long been held that Zhao Zheng, who would later come to be known as the unrelenting Qin Shi Huang, surrounded himself with seers and divinators when he embarked on his conquest of the Warring States of China, even if we lack non-disputed sources of such claims. Even Britain's own Roaring Lion purportedly had powers of his own, an ability to exhort whoever listened to him to endure exertions beyond their natural limits. 

These, one would argue, do not seem anything but good at first glance. Yet one would endeavour to remind the reader that the powered have marked history, and done so in a matter grand enough to leave it imprinted in the minds of humanity. How, one asks?

Through war, of course. 

The Taino powered used his ability to strangle who knows how many Spanish settlers for intruding in their lands. To cause rashes, to destroy outposts, to wither crops, to force Spain into a settlement less vicious than their advantage in technology and war materiel would allow them to. Zhao Zheng used his advisors's visions to create a roadmap for his conquest of the other six states. He waged a near perfect decade and a half of war, and saw his name remain in the mouths of scholars for two thousand years since. Churchill's speeches invigorated the British people for the whole of World War II. Some (rather foolish ones, this author insists) even claim that he is the sole reason the Blitz failed, back when we were submerged in the darkness.

Even down in the south of Europe, this remained the case. The figures today known as the Hero-Monarchs of Crete brought one of the largest and most powerful empires in human history to its knees, and forced it to accept their terms at the tip of a sword. Their creation still remains, and, one would suppose, is more than a match to us, never mind its less capable neighbors.

This has been the case as long as human history has been a thing. The conflicts are smaller, true, and often not of the nation-shaking calibre that so attracts the human eye, but powered people have long affected the wars of the world, and the strategies used to wage them. Long have marching armies changed routes for fear of finding a powered in disadvantageous land, as have leaders secluded themselves for fear of a particularly zealous citizen of an enemy nation deciding to deal with what they perceive is the root of the problem. 

And yet, one assures, no one is quite ready for what comes next. 

Let's go back for a few seconds and behold that period which so often draws our eyes downwards. During World War II, global conflict that it obviously was, powered people were involved. One does not speak of the Seeker, that efficient killing machine. His effect was undeniable, true, and the kill marks on his sleeves stand as testament of the part he played. Rommel, Student and Bach-Zelewski all own their deaths to his blade, and tens of thousands of Japanese owe their lives to his arms. But he is not the subject that one wishes to touch upon, celebrated (or cursed, at the time) as he may be.

No, one speaks of the smaller figures, the ones whose names have been lost to history, and their bravery and determination lost to time. One speaks of the partisans, those who set fire to convoys, who made their mark by terrorizing the occupation authorities, who risked their lives by running supplies over the frozen Volga during the siege of Stalingrad. To the uneducated, these are figures fit only for the footnotes. Marks of the national spirit, perhaps, but not relevant when compared to Montgomery, or Patton, or Jiang Jieshi. 

To the educated, to the well-read, these are figures to who victory is half-owned. 

If war were a simple matter of numbers, the strong would not cease waging it. He who holds the more numerous army and the better equipped force will always win. He with the deeper coffers will always wage it for longer, and eventually obtain his victory. He with the more missiles, or he with the better drilled army, or he with a more loyal force, they would all be choking with victories. 

But war is not simply a matter of numbers. Or, rather, it is a matter of more complex numbers. To win a battle is not enough to win a war, nor is marching through lands enough to conquer them. Outposts must be garrisoned, supplies must be gained, and the will to oppose must be extinguished. Fortifications must be built, the people must support their state, and the men must not be afraid of their own shadow. 

But how can that be done, when outposts and fortifications are broken down during night raids by those capable of shattering walls? How can the soldiers be supplied, if those bringing the supplies can have them burned, or poisoned, by a determined foe? How long will the people's support last, if our most common import is men in boxes, brought low in the middle of the night, or when walking down a street faster than their eyes can follow? 

It simply cannot. The United States saw it themselves. Eight years they spent in Vietnam, winning nearly every open encounter, only to end up losing the war. Their own backyard proved it to them as well. The attempted intervention of the Dominican Republic saw the 'All-American' Division thrown out of the country, with more than a thousand of their own left behind.

In those cases, changes in strategy have happened. America stopped trying to force the Dominicans to follow their will through military force, instead flexing the power of their economy, and tying it to themselves, even as they allowed a man openly calling himself a 'Marxist' in the twilight years of his life to govern the half of the island. Vietnam was ideologically brought along by the Communist powers of the time, which offered material support and backing of the regimes instead of bruteforcing its way in. 

But those are weak countries, one believes. Not in a military manner, as they have proved otherwise, but in other ways. Their economies are poor, the position of their leaders not yet enshrined. They are susceptible to foreign meddling, to being prodded one way or the other, to... collapsing, were things not going well for any period of time. They are countries which are not capable of standing on their own two feet, whose people, while ready to die defending the idea of it, cannot ever agree to what that idea is. 

And there is an unspoken question there, one believes. Not a so clear-cut one, and one which, if one looks closely, we spent more than four decades trying desperately not to answer. 

What would happen, if war were to be waged not between the strong and the weak, but the strong and the strong? 

The invader, even if it wins the battle, cannot occupy forever, not even with methods that one would feel compelled to resort to. The defender will see them thrown out, sooner rather than later. But if such a method is out, then what remains? A nation with a strong economy, especially one in today's world of increased and fervent globalization, cannot be forced into cooperation. Likewise, a nation which earnestly believes its system of governance not only proper, but one which is all they've known, cannot be manipulated, nor can it be easily toppled.

Now, we are lucky, one supposes. Wars are a thing of the past, at least for us. America holds a long and complex list of allies that precludes it from ever waging war with Europe. It will never fight the Russian Federation, or China, for the consequences are clear to all. 

But the question remains, doesn't it? For now, wars are waged upon the weak by the strong. Everything this author has explained can be put away as fear-mongering, or using history and the past to wonder about things that cannot come to pass. 

And yet Miss Dietrich-Wolff would that it is the sort of question that must be asked regardless. 

For if it isn't, and my scenario comes to pass, all that will follow are nothing but atrocious mistakes.