China calls for attacking Somali pirate bases

AP via CBS ^ | May 21, 2011

[Zhang Fei]

Perhaps I don’t understand China’s history well enough. Has large-scale polygamy really been that prevalent for a lot of China’s history? I didn’t realize that.

Monogamy is a Western export. Outside of the West, polygamy was the rule prior to the wholesale introduction of Western legal codes (believed by non-Western modernizers at the time to be the key to the material success and military power of the West) in non-Western countries. Men had as many wives as they could afford, whereas those who couldn't afford wives either rented or did without. There's reason to think that even in the monogamous UK, a fair number of men went without - John Derbyshire at the National Review mentioned way back that the vast majority of the UK's native population is related by DNA to some branch of the aristocracy. It appears that the lower classes did not pass on their DNA, whereas a significant chunk of the more remote branches of the aristocracy descended* into the middle and lower classes.

* Incidentally, my nom de plume, "Zhang Fei", was a warlord who worked for a distant relative of the Han emperor, Liu Bei, who attempted to revive the Han Dynasty (2nd century BC to 2nd century AD) after its collapse. The occupation of this very minor aristocrat? He made straw (i.e. dried grass) sandals for a living. His exploits - real or legendary - were detailed in the 14th century Chinese novel, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

[Zhang Fei]

I would think that it would take a force of at least 10,000 to do the job. How many fishing trawlers would it take to transport 10,000 troops and all their requesite supplies? I think that would be a lot of fishing trawlers. Let's also remember that China is not exactly next door to Somalia. It's a long way away. They would have to travel through the straits of Molaka and all the way across the Indian Ocean. A little farther than your average fishing trawler will take you.

You're right. Fishing trawlers would be a waste of money and fuel in terms of the number of crewmen required just to carry 100 or so troops each. My guess is that they'd have to rent some ocean liners a la the Falklands expedition, which utilized the QE2 and the Canberra.

Pardon my ignorance, but why 10,000? The Brits used that number to compel the surrender of a similar number of Argentinian soldiers. The Argies had fixed and rotary wing air elements, 105mm pack howitzers and 155mm field guns. The Somalis are guys with AK's and RPG's. The Brits were looking to capture and hold territory, while avoiding harm to British civilians. All the Chinese are looking to do is to butcher and bolt. Given that the Chinese would simply be probing for signs of life before blowing everyone* away and burning everything to the ground, it seems to me that they would have a relatively easy job.

* There is definitely a dilemma here, even assuming the Chinese don't care how many innocent Somalis are killed - a campaign low in friendly casualties would be high in PR costs, whereas a campaign low in PR costs would be high in friendly casualties.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Pardon my ignorance, but why 10,000?"

I'm an overwhelming type of force guy so I would go with the largest force needed to do the job. It might only take 5000. Keep in mind however when you say it would take 5000 troops, a large part of any modern Army is supporting personnel. So out of 5,000 troops, maybe half of those are grunts going on the ground. Air power is nice but utlimately you would have to send troops in to clear the Somali pirates out. What if these tribes just withdraw inland into the country and wait you out? Do you go inland? Now we're talking a longer campaign, more support etc.. No matter how easy any military campaign seems to be there are always complications. China may have a huge army on paper but getting them to the war zone and supporting their operations is where the rubber meets the road.