Yonkers and History (and something else...)

The battle of Yonkers section in War World Z is perhaps the most visceral and shocking scene because of it frantic pace, intensity, choice of a common foot soldier as narrator; and the maddening frustration of the military command failure on display.  With so many of the stories in the book being about politicians, entrepreneurs and "idea men" and women ( remote agents in the war against Zack), I find these more personal tales of survival very harrowing and compelling.

The zombie, to me, has always been much more important as metaphor rather than monster.  The success of the zombie genre is surely due to the pliability of these cannibals as symbols.  They can represent nearly anything.  In the original Night of the Living Dead, it was racism, the new sciences of destruction emerging from WWII, and other things.  In 28 Days Later, it was rage and aggression.  At the Battle of Yonkers, I think they represent history's tendency to repeat itself. 

Great armies throughout history have been defeated through a failure to understand the nature and mindset of their enemies.  In War World I, the British military and T. E. Lawrence had a difficult time getting the Arab Revolt to understand the new tactics and destructive capabilities of emerging technologies.  In Vietnam, we failed to realize the commitment of the Vietcong and their brutal guerrilla tactics.  In the '80s, Russia underestimated the low-tech, high-return strategies of the Taliban. We did much the same thing in 2001. 

In Yonkers, the US military falls victim to their own technological sophistication and the complacency created by that over reliance.  Additionally, ingraining tactics into the minds of soldiers is a major part of today's massive, complex armies.  A conglomeration of thousands must think as one and move as one to achieve success.  But what do you do against an enemy that is utterly incapable of the same, a mass of independent soldiers immune to the confusion and pandemonium they create?  Training an entire army to respond to such new and unnatural tactics would require huge amounts of time and resources along with careful, outside-the-box leadership.  Today's modern system just isn't set up to handle that. 

As a last observation: Why is it that apocalypses always seem to be a victory for Thoreau-types dedicated to simple living, rejection of technology, and smaller communities?  Its always the old ways (bow and arrow, pointed sticks, isolationism, and the KISS method) that win out.  Is regression just the natural result of social collapse, or does apocalypse fiction fulfill some common desire to escape all the complexities and difficulties of the modern rat race?  Does everyone sitting down to watch the news at night who sees the nonsense and disharmony going on in the world secretly want to reset the clock?  Or are you more afraid of what would happen if it did?