rathi

War isn't fair Agna. The decentralized nature of anarchists will make them unorganized, under-quipped and outnumbered by default. The single worst flaw is the lack of organization. Even if every commune and workers council purchased a single fighter jet, unless they could organize them into a squadron with all the requisite support personal and an airbase, they would be useless. Maintaining logistical compatibility is impossible. You have no military doctrine to speak us. You can't train your soldiers to operate in greater numbers that your local level. You don't have any experienced high ranking officers, and no system to figure out who is in charge. Strategic plans are ad-hoc and best, and you can't trust rely on anyone outside your immediate command. Conscription is impossible as is wartime production. Do you want me to go on?

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He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an axe into somebody's face.

Agnapostate

Not unless you can provide actual empirical evidence of your assertions. Since I've referred to the historical reality of libertarian organizational principles stimulating populist sentiments among the Ukrainian peasantry and contributing at least partially to their defeat of the tsarists, perhaps you should present a counter-example.

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The workmen desire to get as much, the master to give as little as possible...It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. -Adam Smith

rathi

No actual examples of libertarian socialists in combat have existed for 70 years. Empirical evidence simply does not exist, not for either side.

__________________
He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an axe into somebody's face.

rathi

Let us delve into thought experiments lacking anything better. Let us suppose that the French decide libertarian socialism is the way to go, and dissolve the state. However, their Spanish neighbors want to recreate the Holy Roman empire and invade.

The Spanish invade with a measly 5 division corps, say around 80 thousand soldiers total. How can our French anarchists create a force of equal strength with their decentralized system? Consider both peacetime preparations and wartime strategy.

__________________
He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an axe into somebody's face.

Agnapostate

The inevitable deficiencies of excessively centralized organization are related to the dispersed knowlede problems identified by Hayek as deficiencies of the centrally planned economy, actually. That, along with the ideological fervency of the libertarian movement, accounted for anarchist militias' successes over opponents prior to incorporation into tradititional military bodies in battlefields already exposed to the widespread usage of firearms, not some medieval context. Simply ignoring this historical reality in order to assert the superiority of abstract theory doesn't advance your point.

__________________
The workmen desire to get as much, the master to give as little as possible...It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. -Adam Smith

Agnapostate

Considering the historical association of anarchism with stateless socialism, and the superiority of socialism above all other existing economic systems to reduce hierarchical managerial structures, I'd say not.

Though opposition to the existence of a state is a necessary condition of anarchism, it is not a sufficient one, as opposition to capitalism and other sources of unjust authoritarian hierarchy are also necessary conditions of anarchism or any principled libertarianism. Since opposition to hierarchy is the most fundamental tenet of anarchism, some anarchists do consistently support state intervention in presently existing conditions as a means of reducing injustice. Since I'm a consequentialist, I'm among them.

Libertarians, meaning libertarian socialists, are generally willing to suffer a government to the extent that it protects its constituents against coercion in addition to outright force and fraud, and reduction of the power and influence of capitalism is an integral component of that.

__________________
The workmen desire to get as much, the master to give as little as possible...It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. -Adam Smith

rathi

Dispersed knowledge is irrelevant compared to the power of unified strategy and logistics. Without something as basic as ammunition commonality, the disadvantages are crippling. There is a reason why every powerful military of the last few centuries has been heavily centralized.

The anarchists didn't win in any of those conflicts. In fact, that they were willing to be incorporated into a regular military body proves my point, not yours. They were willing to sacrifice their ideological points in order to better fight an even worse outcome.

You accuse me of ignoring historical reality? The power of the centralized military is obvious considering the wars of the last century.
You are pushing an abstract theory, considering the 100% failure rate of anarchists at war.

Why not simply answer my thought experiment? If you are correct, why would you have a problem with proving your point?

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He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an axe into somebody's face.