# Worst. Military analogy. Ever. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 28, 2003, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899 "2003-03-28T21:52:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bjohn13](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@bjohn13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bjohn13)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/21 "2003-03-30T01:00:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zenster \* > \*\*Shrub’s team initial naming of the war on terror a “Crusade.” > > Hands down, all-time winner in this category. > > What in Hades were they all smoking that day? \*\* Hmm…predominantly Christian nations bringing military forces to the Holy Lands in the Middle East. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/22 "2003-03-30T13:41:16Z")
This isn’t an analogy, but it appears the US military is having a Monty Python moment. Even if only to dismiss the idea, they’re talking about [catapulting cattle](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49102-2003Mar29.html) at Iraqis. > [@](#): > > With siege warfare looming at Najaf and other cities, the U.S. military may soon find itself seeking to use tactics that carry political risks for the administration. > > “We’re not going to catapult diseased cattle into the city or anything like that,” said one planner. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/23 "2003-03-30T13:52:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RTFirefly \* > \*\*This isn’t an analogy, but it appears the US military is having a Monty Python moment. Even if only to dismiss the idea, they’re talking about [catapulting cattle](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49102-2003Mar29.html) at Iraqis. \*\* Actually, that was a viable medeival tactic long before Monty Python used it. Where do you think _they_ got the idea? Ironically, it was used as a form of biological warfare long before germ theory was established. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/24 "2003-03-30T14:11:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*Actually, that was a viable medeival tactic long before Monty Python used it. Where do you think _they_ got the idea? > \*\* With part of the joke being that the real-world tactic was flinging the dead animals (and people) INTO the fortified enclosure. A graduate of West Point or Sandhurst would have the image easily in mind when confronted with a siege. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/25 "2003-03-30T14:38:30Z")
I still don’t see how that makes it a “Monty Python moment”. ---
**Author:** ![Davebear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@Davebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Davebear)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/26 "2003-03-30T14:41:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Smeghead \* > \*\*Dang it. MY “Darmok and Jalad” joke came in a much funnier context, and I didn’t get a single “ha”. Dagblast it all anyway. \*\* Ha! Feel better? 😉 Back to the OP. military tacticians and strategists tend to think of battles as being between “force A and force B”, in an very abstract sense. The politics involved is irrelevant, for purposes of analyzing a situation. Stalingrad was the longest, most brutal siege in modern times, so it’s natural for it to be used as an example. To a strategist, a battle analysis is almost like a compex engineering problem; it’s something to be solved. There’s no right/wrong or good/evil; only successful/unsuccessful and efficient/inefficient. If you were to ask this analyst if he was comparing our troops to the Nazi’s, he’d probably be shocked. Unless he’s used to explaining military thinking to civilians. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/27 "2003-03-30T14:44:03Z")
Hmm, the more I think about this, the less sense it makes. Catapulting cattle into the fortification is well established. Monty Python _reversed_ it and showed the guys in the enclosure launching a cow at the attackers. Then an American military planner talks about launching cattle into the cities, which is exactly how the tactic was historically used. The Monty Python connection is tenuous, at best. It’s vaguely like suggesting the current American POWs are planning some kind of “Hogan’s Heroes”-ish mayhem against their captors. ---
**Author:** ![Daniel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Daniel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daniel)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/28 "2003-03-30T15:29:52Z")
Can someone please describe that ST:TNG episode? I must have missed that one; I’m feeling quite wooshed. ---
**Author:** ![Davebear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@Davebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Davebear)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/29 "2003-03-30T15:57:57Z")
How about if you guys take the ST:TNG hijack to it’s own thread? That discussion really belongs in Cafe Society. I thought it was one of the more interesting episodes, but the OP is entitled to discuss the topic he started, without all this interference. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/30 "2003-03-30T16:13:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*Hmm, the more I think about this, the less sense it makes. > > Catapulting cattle into the fortification is well established. Monty Python _reversed_ it and showed the guys in the enclosure launching a cow at the attackers. > > Then an American military planner talks about launching cattle into the cities, which is exactly how the tactic was historically used. > > The Monty Python connection is tenuous, at best. It’s vaguely like suggesting the current American POWs are planning some kind of “Hogan’s Heroes”-ish mayhem against their captors. \*\* I guess it depends on how familiar one is with the history of cattle-pulting, so to speak, in warfare. I’m pretty well-read, and had never come across it, outside of _MP&HG_. But thanks for the education on the subject. Even in a MPSIMS thread, one often finds oneself learning new things! ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/31 "2003-03-30T17:40:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*Hmm, the more I think about this, the less sense it makes. > \*\* Yer thinking too hard, Bryan. The thread is about military similes and figures-of-speech deemed inappropriate. Some officer, most likely referencing his studies about medieval sieges, says something like “well, it’s not like we’ll be catapulting dead cattle…” RTFirefly merely picks up that a large segment of the population will have no idea as to how the heck that figure even crossed the officer’s mind, and a smaller other segment will only be able to reference a joke segment from MP&THG. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/32 "2003-03-30T22:20:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by js\_africanus \* > \*\*So when American commentators said that Afghanistan was the Soviets’ “Vietnam”, what we could legitimately infer was that the Soviets were trying to defend one half of the country from from the sort of brutal, dictatorial totalitarian regime that obtained in the USSR, China, North Korea, etc.? \*\* I haven’t actually heard this analogy used myself, but if I did I would assume it was intending to point out the similarities between two major facets of both wars, namely that both were greatly damaging to the Government of the invading country and were not popular with the citizens. I could infer that the speaker also meant to suggest that the USSR was protecting Afghanistan from the possibility of a dictatorship, but I could not back that inference up logically. Those two factors are not at all similar in the two wars. If I heard the phrase ‘this is another Stalingrad,’ and I had a low opinion of the invading country, then I might assume that the analogy was referring to the fascistic nature of the invading forces, and I would be able to back that up logically, albeit logic with a seriously biased political view. These analogies refer to large complex situations. ‘Stalingrad’ refers to a long, drawn-out siege in the second-world war in which the besieged were Soviet and the attackers were Nazis. Unless you add a specifier, such as ‘this is another Stalingrad, as bloody and drawn out as that earlier siege …’ ‘Stalingrad’ brings to mind all the foremost facets of that seige. As **Bryan Ekers** Analogy just ain’t that precise. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/33 "2003-03-30T22:37:35Z")
That should read ‘as **Bryan Ekers** points out …’ I got so caught up with getting the coding right that I messed up the normal language. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/34 "2003-03-31T01:10:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SciFiSam \* > **If I heard the phrase ‘this is another Stalingrad,’ and I had a low opinion of the invading country, then I might assume that the analogy was referring to the fascistic nature of the invading forces, and I would be able to back that up logically, albeit logic with a seriously biased political view.** I don’t follow how it is that the listener, based on his prejudices, can legitimately impose unintended meaning on an analogy intended to illustrate a wholly different point. Suppose your high school physics teacher is trying to explain the basics of relativity and uses the weight on the rubber sheet analogy to explain the warping of space. Are you then allowed to make whatever inferences you want based on your prejudices? The teacher put the weight on the sheet, therefore god must have created the stars and planets and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/35 "2003-03-31T02:44:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Daniel \* > \*\*Can someone please describe that ST:TNG episode? I must have missed that one; I’m feeling quite wooshed. \*\* I too laughed at **Kaf’s** _metaphor_. As I recall the ep, Enterprise happens upon a very powerful culture - and before the credits roll the Captain of the other ship has snapped Picard down to a nearby M Class planet inhabited by monsters. In my Jan 1995 Entertainment Weekly, or as they note, Special Obsessive - Compulsive Collector’s Edition (ranked #5 of all TNG’s) > [@](#): > > Picard chats with an alien race that speaks only in metaphor. Translating such babble as “Shaka, when the walls fell” makes you feel brainier than a Vulcan on smart drugs (Episode 102) ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/36 "2003-03-31T03:07:57Z")
**js\_africanus** - because analogy and metaphor are imprecise language tools. Some meanings may be unintended but it are nevertheless present. That doesn’t mean you can take any situation you want and make any meaning out of it that you like, as with your physics student. You couldn’t take the phrase ‘this is another Stalingrad’ and claim it’s comparing the American forces to blueberry cheesecake, because there is nothing in the term Stalingrad that suggests blueberry cheesecake. There is, however, a lot in the term Stalingrad (used when talking about a siege) that suggests Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/37 "2003-03-31T03:48:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SciFiSam \* > **js\_africanus - because analogy and metaphor are imprecise language tools. …** Metaphor is a very powerful form of communication. The important (and thread-relevant) theme of the **ST:TNG “Darmok”** episode is that Darmok’s folk have integrated metaphors into their language. If I wanted to essentially communicate a suprise invasion or unexpected resistance - or the hubris of the foe: I could say [Hannibal, as he crosses the Alps](http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/punicwar/07.htm) Rebellion? [Spartacus and his men regroup Mount Vesuvius](http://departments.vassar.edu/~jolott/republic1998/spartacus/summary.html) The use of metaphor’s of course require that all know the underlying story/fable/joke/history - and likely something of the consequence. “Churchill, heedlessly drawing the borders of Arabia” ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/38 "2003-03-31T04:27:48Z")
Yup, metaphor can be a powerful form of communication, partly _due_ to its imprecision. A metaphor well used takes into account all its sub-meanings. It doesn’t pretend they don’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/39 "2003-03-31T04:38:06Z")
Yup, metaphor can be a powerful form of communication, partly _due_ to its imprecision. A metaphor well used takes into account all its sub-meanings. It doesn’t pretend they don’t exist. Like your ‘Hannibal, as he crosses the alps,’ which also carries the implication that the invader is like Hannibal, which is probably a good thing is you want to paint a positive view of the invader. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899/40 "2003-03-31T05:53:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SciFiSam \* > \*\ ***js\_africanus** - because analogy and metaphor are imprecise language tools. Some meanings may be unintended but it are nevertheless present. That doesn’t mean you can take any situation you want and make any meaning out of it that you like, as with your physics student. \*\* I don’t see how what you’re claiming is much different from what the physics student is claiming. What makes the battle at Stalingrad notable is not who was involved but what happened. Ditto for Hannibal’s march over the Alps. If one wanted to make the comparison between X and the nazis, or between Y and Hannibal, then one would draw the link between _them_ and not some far more specific event. What’s notable about Stalingrad is not what’s notable about the nazis–there is a lot more to the nazis than getting bogged down in urban warfare. Similarly, if all our troops in Iraq got caught in a trap and wiped out, and if we sent in another whole army trained up and ready to go within a fairly short period of time, a commentator might say of the coalition, “It’s like Rome after Cannae, Al.” The commentator is clearly drawing a link between Rome’s and the coalition’s ability to continue to draw on seemingly limitless manpower in the face of staggering losses. If the commentator wanted to draw a link between the superior traning of the coalition forces and the Roman army, then he might say something like, “One big coalition advantage is that they’re as prepared as Roman legionairres, Al.” If the commentator wanted to draw a link between coalition and Roman hegemony in the region, then he would say something like, “The coalition wants Iraq to be a Roman province, Al.” Pulling the hegemony inference from the Cannae analogy is simply inappropriate and unwarranted. The Cannae example does not represent the whole of Rome and its policies and its national character; if that was the speaker’s intent, then the speaker wouldn’t have chosen such a narrow example. Stalingrad is a narrow example from which the nazi connection is a broad inference–too broad to be appropriate. If it weren’t, then nothing could ever be used as an analogy for anything because every possible one would be essentially meaningless. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-military-analogy-ever/164899.md?page=1)