Preparing for the Last War: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

Generals are always preparing for the last war. Of course, if it ran exactly the same way as next-to-last war, there would be no point to make such a distinction, so by induction we can guess the next one isn't going to be quite the same either. Which is why the connotation is that this way they are not quite catching the train. But, hey, doing things that way won us the last war, so we're going to do them that way again!

 

 

{{examples}}

== [[Film]] ==

* The Trade Federation in ''[[The Phantom Menace]]'' invaded Naboo by blockading it on a planetary scale while continuously landing infantry and assault tanks with the expectation that [[The Slow Walk]] of their Battledroids would eventually wear down the natives. While this doesn't work because they were using a [[Keystone Army]], they tried this again during the Clone Wars; with the main difference using warship to protect their carriers in orbit while the ground forces marches towards the enemy with tougher droids and newer technology with mixed results.

* The [[Discworld]] novel ''[[Discworld/Pyramids|Pyramids]]'' has a scene involving this trope: two nations that are obviously expies of ancient Greece and Troy go to war with each other, each using the weapon that won the last war. Thus, the war begins with a dozen [[Trojan Horse|wooden horses]] arrayed on each side of the line of battle.

{{quote|"The one on the end's on rockers, sir; must be the officers."}}

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* During the "Interstellar Wars" era of the ''[[Traveller]]'' 'verse (a series of wars fought between the Terrans and the First Imperium between -2408 and -2219), the Vilani's theory of war was based on wars fought [[Up To Eleven|thousands]] of years before and had not changed. In between they had not been exactly peaceful, but most of their wars had been border wars or rebellions where they had overwhelming force, or rare succession wars fought against each other (and therefore not needing any improvement as like was fighting like). The Terrans were in a sense another border war. However not only did they have an ethos of innovation, their history of divided states [[HAD to Be Sharp|encouraged]] them to make [[Proud Warrior Race|a science]] out of warfare. And they were soon far more advanced.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' had a moment with an [[Uplifted Animal|uplifted ape]] [//www.schlockmercenary.com/2017-07-01 explaining] the concept to an alien new to the current galactic civilization.

* ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'' [[backstory]] had a conflict called "The Unexpected War", in which Canada fought USA and annexed a few states… using genetically engineered dinosaurs because "the US was so busy protecting themselves against Weapons of Mass Destruction that they never made anything to protect against dinosaur attacks".

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* The reason for the notion's popularity was [[World War I]], when Napoleonic style of warfare died because machineguns made an open massed advance suicidal, and artillery made field fortification necessary, so everyone had to adapt quickly.

** …and then [[World War II]] came, and those who expected another [[World War I]] were introduced to the concepts of mobile warfare and air war.

 

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[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]