Show 65 - Supernova in the East IV

“For any of you who are thinking maybe you just might surrender, take the easy way out, well, now that we've forced you to commit these atrocities, human beings being what they are, what do you think those Australians and Americans will do to you? Might as well not surrender, right? There's a sort of an evil Machiavellian, but at the same time sort of that twisted genius of an understanding of how human nature works that maybe trapped these Japanese into this situation.”— Dan Carlin

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Psychology & Behavior · Leadership & Management · Strategy & Decision Making

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Complicity as defection prevention mechanism

“You can have a very benign, coin-sized spider in your hotel room up in the corner, and you can know that this is not a venomous spider that can hurt you, but what percentage of people, if you cannot get that spider peacefully out of your hotel room, are going to have to kill that spider before they can fall asleep?”— Dan Carlin

Psychology & Behavior · History & Geopolitics

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Fear drives killing even when threat is minimal

“There is a very wonderful and squishy question in play in both world wars especially. It has to do with the difference between quantifiable war elements versus unquantifiable war elements. The good news about something like that is that is quantifiable evidence.”— Dan Carlin

Strategy & Decision Making · Psychology & Behavior · Leadership & Management

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Hard to optimize what you cannot measure

“Much of the justification for some of the bombing that is going to be done from the air on cities is based on this idea that you will get them to petition their governments and say, We must have peace now. We cannot be bombed anymore. Then the Germans bomb places like London, and the evidence seems to contradict that 180 degrees.”— Dan Carlin

Strategy & Decision Making · Psychology & Behavior

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Theory contradicted but escalation justified anyway

“U.S. Marines and Australian infantry developed an odd affinity. They never fought on the same battlefield, but a mutual respect developed across theaters. Marine Donald Fall: I fought with the 1st Marine Division from Guadalcanal until I got too close to Japanese mortar fire on Peleliu.”— Donald Fall

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Psychology & Behavior · Culture & Society

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Peer recognition transcends competition

“Morale is one of those things that on a tactical level, on a battlefield level, is undeniably huge. The idea is not to kill everybody on a battlefield. Traditionally, it is to kill enough people to break their will to continue fighting, to destroy their morale. Killing is a means to an end.”— Dan Carlin

Strategy & Decision Making · Psychology & Behavior · History & Geopolitics

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Does battlefield morale principle scale to nations?