Just something that took over my mind while trying to C&C Aaron's fic.

You know, the logistics of ninja wars in anime settings has always 
somewhat bothered me. They must be fundamentally different from any war 
ever fought on earth.

Let's look at Naruto. Even in times of peace, it must be hard to grow 
the number of ninja in a village. Assuming Naruto's year as typical 
rather than exceptional, the leaf would have to lose less than 9 ninja 
(of all ranks) a year for their ranks to grow. Yet the Chuunin exams 
alone look likely to take a team or two a year, and the missions above D 
level are explicitely rather dangerous. Otherwise they wouldn't need ninja.

Nor can ninja be replenished from the populace in an emergency like 
soldiers. The difference between a year of training and a life of 
training for soldiers is probably not an order of magnitude. For ninja, 
it is vastly more. All the genin level ninja in the leaf could not take 
one of the Kage (Kabuto doesn't count). Nor, apparently, could an entire 
army of regular soldiers.

So, all told you end up in a war in which neither side can increase or 
even maintain the number of effective combatants. Increased strength 
must come from the few ninja growning notably more powerful with experience.

The laws of the genre dictate that dramatic increases in power come only 
from 1) obsessive training, 2) desperation or 3) death of a close 
friend/teacher. There is also 4) outside items or beings of power, but 
these always end up having drawbacks or fatal weaknesses.

Therefor, the ninja village that wishes to win a war should strive their 
utmost to instill obcession, arrange deadly circumstances (among their 
weaker ninja, don't want to risk those already powerful) and close bonds 
to civilians (it is counterproductive to arrange the death of a sensei 
to strengthen the students unless the sensai is old and losing ability 
anyway).


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