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War Without End

nytimes.com

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Re: War Without End

#51

Post by mnm1 »

antisthenes wrote: post #15

If you are a soldier and find other reasons to fight rather than for the person next to you, then I wonder if you're fit to fight at all. You know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is.

Or you could just not become a soldier and go to begin with--then there won't be a person next to you who needs you to fight for them. But hey, why introduce logic and reason into the situation when everyone clearly wants to keep them out?

Re: War Without End

#52

Post by alan-crowe »

apo wrote: post #3

On one matter there can be no argument: The policies that sent these men and women abroad, with their emphasis on military action and their visions of reordering nations and cultures, have not succeeded. It is beyond honest dispute that the wars did not achieve what their organizers promised, no matter the party in power or the generals in command. Astonishingly expensive, strategically incoherent, sold by a shifting…

Domino Theory is interesting because it implies a strategic success condition. USA achieve their strategic aim if (a) the Vietnam domino doesn't fall. OR (b) the Vietnam domino falls gently and doesn't knock the next one over.

During the course of the Vietnam war, the communism revolution in China lost it mojo, and the impetus to spreading revolution throughout Asia declined. Viewed as a delaying-action/fighting-retreat the US involvement in Vietnam went on long enough to achieve its strategic aim.

Re: War Without End

#53

Post by b1daly »

Even though the weird Qanon movement is delusional on the particulars, when it comes to pointing out the obvious betrayal of regular folk by cabals of elites milking the system for their benefit is strikingly on point.

Re: War Without End

#54

Post by Gibbon1 »

apo wrote: post #3

On one matter there can be no argument: The policies that sent these men and women abroad, with their emphasis on military action and their visions of reordering nations and cultures, have not succeeded. It is beyond honest dispute that the wars did not achieve what their organizers promised, no matter the party in power or the generals in command. Astonishingly expensive, strategically incoherent, sold by a shifting…

My thoughts are that since Vietnam the neocons have continually pushed for one 'do over' after another to prove that 'war works'[1]. So every neocon war is a war unto itself. The worst thing is because the motivation for war is ideological, failure can't be accepted rationally. Some small success is motivation for a bigger war. Failure motivation to double down.

[1] As opposed to what every disinterest person knows, that war is terrible, impossible to control and casts long dark shadows into the future.

Re: War Without End

#55

Post by dragonwriter »

cryptonector wrote: post #23
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But in the aftermath of WWII, I think it's not surprising that this wasn't understood. Then what's our excuse this time?

As to Afghanistan? I don't know. It made sense to go in to fetch Bin Laden, but not to do any nation-building.

> It made sense to go in to fetch Bin Laden, but not to do any nation-building.

Yeah, a US policy of destructive interference in Afghanistan without stabilization after the immediate aim is acheived has never had any serious adverse long-term consequences that would militate against that.

(Neither, I suppose, in your world, has the same thing in Iraq caused problems with merely completely botched stabilization ignoring everything we've ever learned about that topic instead of no stabilization at all.)

Re: War Without End

#56

Post by Gibbon1 »

baud147258 wrote: post #46
mturmon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parallels are striking. I just finished reading Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie , which is a story of Vietnam told through the lens of the experience of one particular American officer, and later civilian consultant: John Paul Vann. I heartily recommend the book - winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and authored by someone who was on the ground in Vietnam on and off during the war. The b…

Who started the Vietnam war?

The French in the mid 19th century.

Re: War Without End

#57

Post by arethuza »

baud147258 wrote: post #46
mturmon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parallels are striking. I just finished reading Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie , which is a story of Vietnam told through the lens of the experience of one particular American officer, and later civilian consultant: John Paul Vann. I heartily recommend the book - winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and authored by someone who was on the ground in Vietnam on and off during the war. The b…

Who started the Vietnam war?

I don't think it does have a single simple cause.

You could argue:

- It was the French colonizing the country and imposing a nasty explotative regime

- The French for refusing to decolonize the country post WW2 and fightning (and losing) a war to retain their colony

- The US for refusing to help Ho Chi Minh when asked

- The US for helping the French

- The corrupt and brutal South Vietnamese regime propped up by the US

- The brutal North Vietnam regime encouraged by the Soviets and Chinese to fight a proxy war against the West

- The US for escalating after the Gulf of Tonkin incident

Re: War Without End

#58

Post by [deleted] »

baud147258 wrote: post #46
mturmon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parallels are striking. I just finished reading Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie , which is a story of Vietnam told through the lens of the experience of one particular American officer, and later civilian consultant: John Paul Vann. I heartily recommend the book - winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and authored by someone who was on the ground in Vietnam on and off during the war. The b…

Who started the Vietnam war?

[deleted]

Re: War Without End

#59

Post by ionised »

baud147258 wrote: post #46
mturmon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parallels are striking. I just finished reading Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie , which is a story of Vietnam told through the lens of the experience of one particular American officer, and later civilian consultant: John Paul Vann. I heartily recommend the book - winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and authored by someone who was on the ground in Vietnam on and off during the war. The b…

Who started the Vietnam war?

The US or the French, depending on when you think the conflict started.

Re: War Without End

#60

Post by EliRivers »

eadmund wrote: post #35

I have a very simple proposal to insure success in any military campaign: just make all tours of duty accompanied tours, i.e. send families along with the servicemembers, from the highest ranks to the lowest, and also make deployment to a combat zone on the order of a decade or two, not a few months or a year. I guarantee that any general staff whose wives & children are in the affected area and who will be there for…

How about ships and planes?

On warships, where will the family live? Will we have extra cabins on them for people's family? The extra load on the ship's sustainability seems like it would significantly increase costs and/or reduce the amount of time between resupplying. I think that's unworkable.

Likewise aircraft. Preumably people's family don't get in the plane with the crew, so they stay at the airfield accomodation? That's often quite some way away from the danger, so it seems that it would just be a big expense and inconvenience with no other effect.

In these cases and with land forces, of course, the family woudn't want to be there, so they'd have to be rounded up and arrested and effectively imprisoned. What a legal nightmare that is! Need some big changes to the law to make that possible. Wouldn't be surprised if it required changes to the US constitution too. Running prisons of US citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan seems ridiculous. I suppose if the choice was running these prisons or just not invading, maybe the invasion never would have happened.

I guarantee that any general staff whose wives & children are in the affected area and who will be there for the next decade will figure out how to pacify the region to the level of a Chicago or Detroit.

Do you have any evidence behind your guarantee? You seem to be saying that the general staff just didn't try hard enough, and that they'd try harder if their family was there. I'm sure they would feel more motivated, but being super-motivated isn't exactly a guarantee of success.

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