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"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

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Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#211

Post by hef19898 »

l33t7332273 wrote: post #179
hef19898 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the wars mentioned have ckear, internationally acknowledged winners and loosers as well as treaties. Vietnam ended in US defeat, and French defeat before that. Afghanistan ended with US / NATO defeat and the Taliban taking over the country. The Korean War isn't over yet technically, all we have there is a cease fire. Stalemate, nobody surrendered. The US won the second Gulf War, Panama and some smaller stuff I am…

I’m not sure why people care to mention Vietnam and Afghanistan in the same breath as real wars. These are wars against insurgencies, populations, and ideologies, not governments. They’re inherently different and the only way to “””win”””(which is a loaded term with wars against insurgents. We accomplished important strategic goals in Vietnam before leaving the country to self determine) is to resort to tactics emplo…

Vietnam, the US war, was dought in South Vietnam against local insurgents and regular North Vietnamese forces. It ended with a formal peace treaty, in which the US agreed to withdraw all troops, not send further military aid to the South, return prisoners, remove mines from North Vietnamese harbours and pay, even if called differently, reparations. Vietnam was pretty much a war the US lost, and one that was not exclusively fought against insurgents.

The US won zero strategic goals, Vietnam was reunited by force under the communist North. The US goal was to orevent exactly that. Nice spin so, calling Vietnam a defacto strategic victory for the US.

And Afghanistan, seriously? Before, anti-Talobam forces controlled at least parts of zue country. Nowy the Taliban are in full controll after they over ran Kabul following a hasty retreat of NATO forces from the country, that is as clear cut a loss as it gets. Had the US led coalition left after Bin-Laden was killed, one could have declared a victory. By staying and tuening the whole affaire into a foreign occupation without clearly defined goals, the US-led coalition could only loose. And they did.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#212

Post by jltsiren »

l33t7332273 wrote: post #179
hef19898 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the wars mentioned have ckear, internationally acknowledged winners and loosers as well as treaties. Vietnam ended in US defeat, and French defeat before that. Afghanistan ended with US / NATO defeat and the Taliban taking over the country. The Korean War isn't over yet technically, all we have there is a cease fire. Stalemate, nobody surrendered. The US won the second Gulf War, Panama and some smaller stuff I am…

I’m not sure why people care to mention Vietnam and Afghanistan in the same breath as real wars. These are wars against insurgencies, populations, and ideologies, not governments. They’re inherently different and the only way to “””win”””(which is a loaded term with wars against insurgents. We accomplished important strategic goals in Vietnam before leaving the country to self determine) is to resort to tactics emplo…

Vietnam War was a conventional war between two governments and their international supporters. The government the US supported lost the war, because the US was unwilling to commit sufficient forces to win. Largely because they were afraid of a repeat of the Korean War, with China and possibly even the USSR joining the war for real. And because the US lacked the will to win, they eventually lost the will to maintain the status quo.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#213

Post by euroderf »

achates wrote: post #64
l33t7332273 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A small country winning the war against post WW2 USA seems like it would be a bit of a plot hole.

The diplomat in charge of central Europe thinks their declaration of war is a practical joke from another department, so nobody notices when their army (of about 10 crossbowmen) shows up in New York and grabs a fictional doomsday device out of a secret lab.

Of course, it helps that the streets of NY are deserted when they disembark.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#214

Post by scotty79 »

hef19898 wrote: post #133
scotty79 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US isn’t fighting in Ukraine Same way that russia is not fighting a war but commencing special military operation. US is doing it with both hands tied behind their back but it will make defeat no less devastating. In reality US is fighting their penultimate war right now if it ends in a loss. > what was considered to be the 2nd or 3rd strongest army on the planet.. That was summarily debunked about two weeks in…

How much active fighting troops do NATO countries have in Ukraine, exactly? You need those to be counted a belligerent in a conflict.

Formalities don't matter for image. And that's what US is about to lose completely. Do you think that China will say, but NATO soldiers didn't really fight? Modern war is supposedly all about equipment and ammunition. And NATO can't even afford proxy war against enemy fighting with heaps of junk apparently.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#215

Post by scotty79 »

herval wrote: post #153
scotty79 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any other country considers any of those cases to be wins ... Perhaps maybe wars in Iraq or Jugoslavia. I think eventual loss in Ukraine will be last nail in the coffin of US military reputation.

Tangent to all that - whether the US reputation will change or not, it’s becoming clear the russian military reputation is way, way overestimated. I’m curious what effect this will have

It was overestimated. Latest narration is that currently they are more prepared to taking on NATO and whoever than they were for decades. Because they painfully but successfully adapted despite the pressure from Western hardware.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#216

Post by scotty79 »

l33t7332273 wrote: post #184
scotty79 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any other country considers any of those cases to be wins ... Perhaps maybe wars in Iraq or Jugoslavia. I think eventual loss in Ukraine will be last nail in the coffin of US military reputation.

It would be particularly strange for US’s military reputation to be damaged by a war it hasn’t lost a man in.

Modern war is about equipment not people. Especially in case of a conflict where one side is successfuly prevented from deploying any soldiers. War is about making the other side behave how you want them to behave. US is failing hard at that.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#217

Post by vanderZwan »

lmm wrote: post #200
selimthegrim wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never understood why all my Desi relations were gaga for this movie. All the American born ones roll their eyes without fail.

The idea that it's haram (I can't quite think of the right word; not merely wrong but disgusting) for someone to make themselves up as a different skin tone is a distinctly American cultural quirk.

I think it actually makes sense in the context of US history though.

As always it starts with the uniquely explicitly race-based slavery, and from there you can draw a direct line to non-white people being systemically "othered" and denied basic human decency one way or another (to put it mildly).

In this particular case, the history of Hollywood to deny non-white actors leading roles, but giving white actors roles where they play racist stereotypes of everyone else. Aside from the issues on an individual level that also means "non-white" cultures don't get properly represented, but depicted according to whatever racist stereotype the white actors/writers have about a culture they usually don't actually know much about.

So yeah, I am not from the US but I get it. Which again makes the fact that Peter Sellers' apparently hit a positive chord an interesting exception.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#218

Post by [deleted] »

jltsiren wrote: post #212
l33t7332273 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure why people care to mention Vietnam and Afghanistan in the same breath as real wars. These are wars against insurgencies, populations, and ideologies, not governments. They’re inherently different and the only way to “””win”””(which is a loaded term with wars against insurgents. We accomplished important strategic goals in Vietnam before leaving the country to self determine) is to resort to tactics emplo…

Vietnam War was a conventional war between two governments and their international supporters. The government the US supported lost the war, because the US was unwilling to commit sufficient forces to win. Largely because they were afraid of a repeat of the Korean War, with China and possibly even the USSR joining the war for real. And because the US lacked the will to win, they eventually lost the will to maintain t…

[deleted]

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#219

Post by hef19898 »

Qwertious wrote: post #198
mikeyouse wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s utterly bizarre that people keep insisting the US is fighting a war given we have zero troops and zero military hardware committed there.. Ukraine has destroyed hundreds of armored units and multiple $billion naval ships with literal 25-yr old weapons… all the fear of WWIII is premised on the US actually engaging since the Russians would suffer immediate and massive losses and the only way to save face would be…

>and zero military hardware committed there.. Where'd those Bradleys come from, then? Zero troops yes, but the US has absolutely shipped a ton of military hardware to Ukraine. Ukraine would absolutely fold without the inflow of NATO military hardware, that's the crux of Russia's strategy for winning - hope it can undermine Western support for a Ukraine war, and then crush Ukraine once they're on their own. That's the…

The US, like all other NATO members, shipped a ton of hardware to Ukraine. None of that hardware is operated by NATO personel, under NATO flag so. Hence, NATO is not an active participant in the war in Ukraine, despite being arms, ammunition and intelligence suppliers as well as close allies of Ukraine.

And yes, those details matter in geopolitics, a lot.

Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel

#220

Post by refurb »

kriro wrote: post #102
nostrademons wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This all depends on victory conditions. The U.S. "won" Korea, Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghanistan in the same sense that they "won" WW2 - those countries were bombed back into the stone age and the existing governments fell. But WW2 was fought as the U.S. was an ascendant (but not dominant) power among a number of peer rivals, and the U.S. was not the aggressor. It felt like a victory, because we emerged as the dominant p…

In my opinion, this is a misrepresentation of the Vietnam war. The country was not "bombed back into the stone age". The U.S. merely used extremely despicable tactics like Agent Orange, My Lai etc. I'm also not aware of the existing Vietnamese government falling (depends on which one you consider the existing one but it was not the government the U.S. wanted to fall that fell). The country resisted a superior invader…

Agent Orange was used as a herbicide in the US from around WW2 up until 1978. One of the two components is still used.
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