<<Quite the contrary , the more strongly you patroll the less you tempt ambush.
By your theory halving our numbers would halve our casualties , but to me it seems that weaker forces would loose more battles , and then of course have more battles.>>
There's obviously got to be a point where the patrol is so big and so well-armed and so mobile that nobody in his right mind would dream of fucking with it. So theoretically plane would have to be right.
However all that stuff costs money. Men, fuel, ammo, logistics. And while they're out on patrol, the guerrillas hide somewhere and play backgammon. They'll come back when it suits them. Remember, they live there.
Why did a right-wing nut like Ollie North, who presumably knows something about military matters, say simply, "More troops, more targets?" I think because, getting back to the real as opposed to the ideal, the U.S. will not add anywhere near the number of troops required to produce big patrols all over the disputed parts of the country, of a numerical strength which would discourage anyone from attacking them. The patrols, in other words, will be bigger, but not big enough. So plane's probably right in the ideal world, but wrong in the real one.
Why not make a maximal, WWII effort and send over the millions of men required to do the job right? Bomb the shit out of the whole country and kill everyone who resists? Money or lack thereof. And moral outrage. The world supported that kind of effort against moral monsters like Hitler and the Nazis. It won't support the same type of thing against Third World people who are just fighting off an oil grab on their own resources. Even the American people won't support it.
