The manchurians did.
Nit to mention the enormous human capital and treasure squandered on it at various times
Do you seriously not know the problems with building an incomplete wall? Or are you ignorant of the reality of the great wall? For example, that its not just one
Yea, I know it's not just one, and that it wasn't built all at one time.
It also wasn't used just for defense -- it was to pay import/export duties on the Silk Highway as well.
There is nothing in life that humans do that is perfect. Part of the history of war has always been the development of newer bigger more effective weapons to kill the enemy, and, as well, the development of newer better defenses to keep the now better armed enemy at bay. It's a type of life-or-death competition.
And it generally only stops when one side is wiped out.
The tank killer was developed because of the tank....in response to the development of ICBMs we got "Star Wars" or "SDI."
And likewise the Chinese developed their Great Wall, as did the Romans build the Hadrian Wall in Great Britain. Both depended upon garrisoned troops and both would only be effective to the degree they were well manned and maintained, if that.
The French Maginot Line was an amazing system of fortifications and artillery. The Nazis would have been idiots to try to penetrate it. Thankfully the French left the Ardennes open -- building their "wall" through that was too expensive and they rationalized the Germans would also decide the Ardennes was too hard to get mechanized stuff through. This was not really so much a failure of the Maginot Line per se but a failure on the part of the French to think like the enemy would. From the German perspective tearing through the Ardennes was so much the better choice than dealing with the Maginot Line.
They SHOULD have made the Maginot line go through that forrest....would helped.
When the soviets took over East Germany they, too, built the Berlin Wall. And manned it with machineguns and troops. Some people did get through using clever, clandestine methods .... a few managed to get through by surprise, but a lot of people who tried got shot for their trouble.
We build prisons with walls around them, often complete with razor wire and guard towers. But every once in a while some evildoer sneaks into a laundry van -- or something -- and escapes.
Even Alcatraz's (an island fortress) record is not unscathed, save the very few who swam off apparently didn't get to shore .... alive.
But we still build walls.
The next time one rails against some fortification, wall, or other system because it doesn't work ... consider, when the battery in your car goes dead do you get angry and talk of what a failure the car has been over time, or do you buy a new battery and go on.
If you want perfection, look to God.
