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.
Vietnam.
Vietnam did not invade and occupy USA. What are we even talking about here?
"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel
231–240 of 249 posts
Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Military objectives were achieved in Afghanistan, but not in Korea Hard disagree on Korea. South Korea is a hell of an ally, very inconvenient for the PRC.
Just because the US got a useful ally in the long run doesn’t mean that the military objective was met. That wasn’t the objective of the war. The objective of the US once they pushed back the initial invasion in the Korean War was to destroy the DPRK, force communism out of Korea, and unify the country. They failed. The war became a stalemate once China got directly involved. If Vietnam becomes a stalwart ally of the…
> That wasn’t the objective of the war
The objective of the war was to prevent the spread of communism. That goal was achieved.
Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel
#233Earlier 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…
> 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 The US isn't conventionally, even in the US. viewed as the victor in Korea (war is still in progress, with a long but imperfectly observed ceasefire), Vietnam (one of the few wars the US generally acknowledges as an unambiguous defeat, tho…
> won “militarily” and lost “politically” or some other cope
If you go by deaths, USA did very well in Vietnam. However, with wars of insurgency people like The Butcher showed that far more deaths are required to win than is palatable
I was going to respond to each of your points carefully, but since you mentioned that Iraq’s leadership remained in power after 1991 as some kind of rebuttal, I am not certain I should. Indeed, overthrowing Iraq’s government was not a war aim there.
Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is an interesting narrative but largely untrue. As the article points out, US Steel (and the US steel industry in general) was making enough profit, what they were not doing was re-investing those profits into upgrading their steel making. Instead, the "People in Charge" were giving themselves large bonuses and pay upgrades for being bosses of the "big steel." This was especially true through the 80's and 90's in…
I’m not sure that narrative on “forgetting how to build quality cars” is fair. Germany and Japan introduced a lot of new technologies and processes that would naturally be a little rocky from time to time. It is the nature of immature services. Once those matured, the new stuff quickly caught up. But it needed time. What makes you think it was the increase in executive or shareholder comp that caused the degradation…
> Do we even know if there was a degradation between a 1960 ford and 1985, or is it because the Japanese and German automakers raised our standards?
I know because I've driven cars from both eras. GM and Ford cars from the late 50s required a lot of maintenance by modern standards and they guzzled gas and they would kill you if you had a crash in one. But they were built like battle tanks: Lots of steel; very little plastic.
By the end of the 1970s, US cars were built mostly out of plastic. The issue was not that they required more maintenance. The issue was that they fell to pieces on the highway. If you left one sitting in the sun for a year, it would turn into dust. They were utter, unrepairable crap.
Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason to commit so ferociously to Vietnam was to show our other strategic partners and allies how far USA was willing to go for seemingly small things; if we’ll dump endless troves of blood and treasure for a small country in Asia, what will we do if tanks push into Berlin?
Thats a benefit to the military response, but I dont believe the massive waste of political capital, manpower, and supplies looked impressive to other countries. Especially after the abrupt exit. The use of cruise missiles has been far more imoressive.
What was more impressive was the results of the US's cultural economic and soft power efforts.
The cultural part can't be understated. By the 1960's young men world wide would rather be a rock star banging groupies than fight for the revolution. There is a reason the Khmer Rouge killed the pop stars in Cambodia.
Notable Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Germany became wealthy by aligning closely to the US. Where commies and non aligned became poorer.
Least impressive was the CIA's skullduggery and Kissinger's Real Politic.
Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 The US isn't conventionally, even in the US. viewed as the victor in Korea (war is still in progress, with a long but imperfectly observed ceasefire), Vietnam (one of the few wars the US generally acknowledges as an unambiguous defeat, tho…
> won “militarily” and lost “politically” or some other cope If you go by deaths, USA did very well in Vietnam. However, with wars of insurgency people like The Butcher showed that far more deaths are required to win than is palatable I was going to respond to each of your points carefully, but since you mentioned that Iraq’s leadership remained in power after 1991 as some kind of rebuttal, I am not certain I should.…
> If you go by deaths, USA did very well in Vietnam
Yes, if war was a game where the victory condition was killing the most people... well, actually, the Khmer Rouge would have won the wars in the region, by a wide margin.
But its not, so “yeah but we killed more people than our immediate enemy” is... irrelevant, mostly. Killing people is a means, not an ends, in war (I mean, except when your war aim is extermination, but that's not the general case.)
> but since you mentioned that Iraq’s leadership remained in power after 1991 as some kind of rebuttal, I am not certain I should. Indeed, overthrowing Iraq’s government was not a war aim there.
I’m not the one that said a unifying feature of the post-WW2 wars was that the US destroyed the pre-existing government and thereby won, when that is very much nor a characteristic of those wars in general, or the specific cited examples originally provided (leaving off Iraq I, it wasn't a feature of Korea, Vietnam, or Afghanistan, specifically cited as examples upthread, either.)
Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 w…
> I think it actually makes sense in the context of US history though.
Well sure. Most cultural quirks make sense in the context of that culture's history. All part of the rich tapestry of life, as long as they don't try to impose them on other cultures.
> Which again makes the fact that Peter Sellers' apparently hit a positive chord an interesting exception.
GP was saying it was unpopular with their American-born relations, no?
Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
All war is about equipment not people; logistics has always been the primary weapon of war. US is simply not a party to Ukraine’s war; they are supplying equipment in a very minimal capacity.
World literally does not care. If Russia wins, Russia wins. US loses, Western world loses. Loses all credibility.
Russia started it. US didn't run away soon and fast enough. Now the fight is on. If it ends with Russia winning nobody will listen to US whining "but we didn't really fight". Nobody will care. Neither opponents, nor allies. Especially not China.
Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which war did the US win post WW2? Afaict they all ended in stalemates and eventual retreat (Korea,Iraq,Vietnam,Afghanistan,..)
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…
It is interesting to compare the Iraq and Afghanistan war (the US didn't militarily defeat Vietnam, and Korea was a military stalemate) with successful recent invasions. China invaded Tibet, and Russia invaded Chechnya, and Tibet is now part of China, and Chechnya contributes soldiers fighting in Ukraine. They differ from the US invasions in that they rebuilt the invaded areas, hence "winning the peace". The US also helped rebuild Japan and Germany, which was sadly lacking in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I would call the first Iraq war a success - the US achieved it's aims of driving Iraq out of Kuwait, destruction of the Iraq military, a UN resolution approving the attack, and wide support.
Contrast this to the second Iraq war and Afghanistan, where I agree the US was perceived as a bully. It bullied Pakistan ("You're with us or against us", war threats) into supporting the invasion of Afghanistan, and the invasion of Iraq was illegal, with France prepared to veto any UN resolution trying to legitimize the war.
Re: "No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel
#240Earlier 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…
The Vietnamese didn't need active participation from China or the USSR to win. It was seen as a war of independence, with a popular Northern Vietnamese government and a US puppet South Vietnam government, whose soldiers were unmotivated. The South Vietnam government only lasted as long as it did because of US assistance.