Learning the tools of modern warfare...

[Tsmuke_Becca]

Originally Posted by ScottWashburn

There is an old, old military maxim: "When it comes to war, amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics". The one enormous advantage the Na'vi have is that any RDA invasion force is operating at the end of an impossibly long logistical train. It takes six years to get anything from Earth to Pandora. Even during the age of exploration and colonization on Earth it didn't take anywhere near that long to transport forces even halfway around the world. Someone here mentioned the American Revolution. One enormous advantage the Americans had was that England was three months away by ship. Pandora is twenty-four times longer away. And the RDA doesn't have all that many ships. To wage an all-out war against the Na'vi would tie up all of their ships for decades--during which time not one kilogram of unobtainium would be going back to Earth because all of the ships would be carrying military supplies and equipment instead of gear to restart the mining operations. Faced with spending trillions of dollars and not getting a single dollar back in return, I think the RDA would turn elsewhere to get its unobtainum. (Yeah, I know that it says that it's only found on Pandora, but that's contrary to everything science knows about solar system formation. If there's unobtainium on Pandora there would also have to be unobtainium on those other moons we see circling Polyphemus.) Hopefully the RDA will have the smarts to leave Pandora alone.

Basically, this ^

If the humans go back at all, it won't be to start another war. It would be completely pointless for them to do that. The only logical reason they would go back would be for unobtanium, and they know that the violence tactic didn't exactly work against the Na'vi when they tried to get it the first time round, so i'm guessing they would try a more peaceful approach. If this is the case, there'll be no need for the Na'vi to adopt human technology.

[Human No More]

Exactly.
I have discussed the logistics before - there are 12 ISVs, so there are 6 on the way to Pandora when the RDA get kicked off. Since it will take 4.4 years for news of what has happened to reach Earth (assuming they use a normal lightspeed transmission due to the lack of bandwidth in the superluminal communications - those would also be received directly by the RDA as opposed to by anyone as is needed to happen). Once word of what they did gets back, the RDA will have lost their contract so there will not be any more ISVs - so in the 4 years, approximately 4 more will have been sent - so overall, approximately 10 more ISVs will arrive at Pandora. Each of these will perhaps contain 10-15 marines to replaces ones who were leaving, and they do not carry any weapons, aircraft or AMPsuits as those were all made locally. Hell's Gate can be assumed as the only safe place for shuttles to land - while open areas do exist elsewhere, there is no way any operation could start there without being destroyed by the Na'vi and/or Pandoran wildlife as they get out. Hell's Gate has a LOT of anti-air defences - and either way, the ISVs do not have any capability for launching an invasion, and the bets thing for them to do from their point of view would be to simply refuel and head back to Earth.

[Maelstrom]

Scott has the logistics correct. In an effort to fight a war of exhaustion, the humans would still lose. Granted, the governments of whatever nations exist at that time could easily destroy the Na'vi if they chose to, but I doubt that will be the case because I don't think JC wants to portray the humans as lacking empathy completely.

Back to the point at hand with the Na'vi adapting human weapons. I believe it would absolutely be the right thing to do because the Na'vi don't have an effective way of concentrating firepower, keeping the element of surprise, keeping their enemies on the backfoot with various attacks, or have the economy to support a war. All they really have is great movement with their own natural movements and Ikrans as well (these are from the 9 principles of war that the US follows anyways). Having machine guns instantly gives them the principle of mass, with being able to lay down hundreds of bullets down field in a minute as opposed to only a few.

You can't fight a war with inferior technology. Germany taught quite a few European countries that lesson in World War II.