Was 100% guerilla warfare feasible for continental WWII?

[Marko]

That’s the aproach I preached while leaving in Switzerland. In Swiss military approach, every man (there are exceptions) receives a regular military training, and many of them keep their military firearms at their homes. This means, that in case of necessity, half of population becomes a trained armed army in a matter of minutes. That’s a good start, but I see two issues. First, it is mandatory, and second, it is centrally run (by “it” I mean both training and distribution of arms and ammo). For some reason, most people I talked to rejected suggestions to change this on the spot, before I even tried to argue. Probably I used bad approach…

Good point. Switzerland is one hell of an example.

It is a cliche but it is also the truth. More freedom means more responsibility. In a free society we would have to work toward our freedom from agression by a foreign state ourselves. But I believe that yes we would manifest that responsibility given the chance.

[Merlin]

I’m seeing much of my early Rothbardian convictions changed lately, and the position of force in the state-formation debate is my new entry. Perhaps than, it truly is the case that might makes right in the medium term. How many people would be willing to live in a war zone to have notional freedom? Although in the long run one cannot force himself into a population, in the medium term that would seem to be feasible indeed.

So perhaps the technological constrains that exist in war settle the matter. I’m refereeing, as I always do, to nuclear weapons, which for the first time in history allow small entities to defend themselves against the largest army. At least city-states (if not full anarchy) are viable now, if only the nuclear cartel can be broken.

[Marko]

The idea usually proposed is that competing private defense agencies will provide defense to paying customers. This works fine for small-medium scale things (it would probably be sufficient in stopping gangsters from recreating the state), but in the large scale it begins to face many huge obstacles.

First, if there is still a state around of reasonable strength (say, like France or Germany or the UK), it will have the full power to crush PDAs individually because it isn’t limited by having to limit its losses. Imagine this: Germany goes Ancap, things work, PDAs are set up. France doesn’t, whips the nation into a patriotic fervour, and decides to conquer Germany one slice at a time. Now Germany is still a larger nation (otherwise the type of defense would likely be irrelevant), but it has no united defense. More likely than not, many of the PDAs and local defense militias are exclusive to one area, meaning the French could knock them out of commission without facing a united front. Being a state, France would also probably be able to call up more manpower and resources than all of the PDAs in Germany combined. In peacetime, Germany’s lack of soldiers wasting taxpayer money would be a huge boon to the economy, but in wartime it would be completely outgunned. Plus, France wouldn’t be as constrained by costs as the PDAs. It could simply purchase a fleet of strategic bombers and level towns where needed, whereas the PDAs, being private businesses needing to make a profit, would be unlikely to field much heavy equipment. Finally, the PDAs would ultimately need to cut their losses and give up when the cost of fighting France becomes too high, whereas France, having an aggressive state, would likely remain fighting until utterly vanquished.

Also one other thing. Yes, lets say the French military has been whipped up into a jingoistic frenzy. So now you have the French military motivated by jingoism battling German PDAs motivated by money. Who is going to win? Obviously the more nuts French have the advantage.

There are precious few people who are going to get themselves killed for money. That takes patriotism. An effective defense is one that rellies on patriotism of the masses.

In fact fighting in a war that is bloody (lets say WWI casualty rates) is nothing but a form of charity (self-sacrifice). Looking from a narrow perspective of a single individual it simply does not make sense. The downside of the good chance of being killed or maimed is enormous. To make up for that with purely financial incentives the soldiers would have to be paid in millions, which is not feasible. Fighting only makes sense for the soldier because he imagines himself to be doing something that is good for the wider community. Like defending his people’s freedom/dignity/honor. Things like that.

[My_Buddy]

Okay, a united force of militias together with PDAs might very well work. But the issue of “divide and conquer” still comes up. They COULD unite when needed, but who says there are no opportunists willing to back the French invaders for nice governing positions in the new puppet government? Ignoring that, those militiamen would only be motivated when they were actually defending their own homelands. Why would a regular man in Saxony feel obligated to gear up and go off to fight in the Rhineland? Few people would be willing to just up and leave their jobs for the sake of fighting a distant war on the threat that the invaders might eventually reach them. A standing army, meanwhile has no constraints. Furthermore, the German defense organizations would be limited by however much money was donated by people in the area and/or profits earned (if functioning as a PDA), whereas the French would only be limited by the amount of loot their government could take from their people and eventually from German territory.

[Marko]

Ignoring that, those militiamen would only be motivated when they were actually defending their own homelands. Why would a regular man in Saxony feel obligated to gear up and go off to fight in the Rhineland? Few people would be willing to just up and leave their jobs for the sake of fighting a distant war on the threat that the invaders might eventually reach them.

Well, I don’t believe that would be the case. As said there is the factor of nationalism. A Saxon would not gear up and move up to help out in Rhineland because the invaders may eventually reach him too. He would do so in order to help out fellow Germans and to show the French they have nothing on Germans.

Here is one example of this dynamic; several thousand Japanese Americans left USA to join Japanese forces for WWII. Also many sent voluntary monetary contributions to Japan for its war effort. Only a minority did so, but those who did were so active it is estimated that on the whole the Japanese in America contributed more money for the war effort per capita that the Japanese in Japan.

A standing army, meanwhile has no constraints.

Is a standing army something you are advocating or leaning towards? Would that be in the context of a free society or in the context of a minimal state?

Furthermore, the German defense organizations would be limited by however much money was donated by people in the area and/or profits earned (if functioning as a PDA), whereas the French would only be limited by the amount of loot their government could take from their people and eventually from German territory.

This is very true. But you must consider two things:

#1 Germany, unburdened by the state would develop faster in the economic and technological sense. Within a few decades there would be a significant gap so that a small portion of German wealth would surpass a much larger portion of French wealth.

#2 We must not fall into the trap of absolute values. Values are relative. If Germans do not contribute enough to the war effort to keep themselves from being conquered then they are merely demonstrating their preferences. If parting with large sums of money is even less prefereble to Germans than falling prey to France then that is how it is. In such a scenario forcing them to cough up would be an even bigger assault on their freedom that what the French were doing.