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Why is it so hard for the U.S. to win wars?

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Re: Why is it so hard for the U.S. to win wars?

#51

Post by wasfgwp »

fitsumbelay wrote: post #38

... possibly due to the lying bumblefucks who start them. George W Bush was a lying bumblefuck who talked himself into being a war criminal who can't travel to certain countries. Trump is the kind of lying bumblefuck who lets a dependent bumblefuck that Netanyahu is to talk him into the dumbest and most embarrassing military engagement in US history of my lifetime, possibly only next to Grenada npr, btw, is in some s…

Bush won the conventional war in Iraq and generally the US military was quite good at that part (same in Afghanistan or the first Gulf War). They had no clue what to do after the war was won and made a complete mess of it.

Trump hasn’t got the slightest idea how to even get as far as Bush did..

Re: Why is it so hard for the U.S. to win wars?

#52

Post by ceejayoz »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #10
oggreen wrote: post #2

In WW2 thousands of troops could die in a single day and we wouldn't know their names until months or years later. Today a single troop dies and it is the first story on the national news. Millions of civilians also died, just the amount of soldier deaths would be the equivalent of 2-3 September 11s (worldwide) every day for a period of 6 years. So we say "war" but modern conflicts are absolutely nothing compared to…

> single troop dies Really, now? What national news do you watch? I have literally never seen current/breaking news stories about the death of American troops in action. It seems literally the most silent thing going on. I really don't know--are casualty numbers reported on a regular basis, from the "front"? I would sometimes, after the fact, learn of repatriation flights or interment ceremonies for fallen soldiers.…

The #2 headline on nytimes.com literally right now is "Pentagon Identifies Two U.S. Troops Killed in Jordan". (Same slot for nbcnews.com; https://www.bbc.com/news/us-canada currently has "US soldier killed and one injured after Iranian attack in Iraq" as the top slot.)

Yesterday that NYT home page featured a cell phone video of the strike as the main story.

Re: Why is it so hard for the U.S. to win wars?

#53

Post by bakies »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #10
oggreen wrote: post #2

In WW2 thousands of troops could die in a single day and we wouldn't know their names until months or years later. Today a single troop dies and it is the first story on the national news. Millions of civilians also died, just the amount of soldier deaths would be the equivalent of 2-3 September 11s (worldwide) every day for a period of 6 years. So we say "war" but modern conflicts are absolutely nothing compared to…

> single troop dies Really, now? What national news do you watch? I have literally never seen current/breaking news stories about the death of American troops in action. It seems literally the most silent thing going on. I really don't know--are casualty numbers reported on a regular basis, from the "front"? I would sometimes, after the fact, learn of repatriation flights or interment ceremonies for fallen soldiers.…

Front page of The Guardian. One death is breaking news and there were two deaths covered a few days ago and their names were released.

What national news do YOU watch? Seems like it's not good at covering the most important thing the USA is doing.

Re: Why is it so hard for the U.S. to win wars?

#55

Post by spacebanana7 »

bojan wrote: post #28
spacebanana7 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “special military operation” euphemism that both the US/Russia used in Iran/Ukraine does have a degree of truth. These wars are really military engagements with directional objectives rather than truly existential wars with binary outcomes. Modern wars really resemble Rome’s Germanic wars more than the Punic ones.

Russia's goal is direct annexation of about quarter of the Ukrainian territory and installing a lifelong puppet regime to control the other three quarters. Ukrainians stand to lose not just their voice and any semblance of economic prosperity, but also their very identity. With the exception of extreme cases like Gaza, it doesn't get more binary than that.

From Ukraine's perspective it's existential for sure. Russia however, just revises its objectives every few months according to how well/badly its prospects on the battlefield are looking.

Re: Why is it so hard for the U.S. to win wars?

#56

Post by wasfgwp »

rbanffy wrote: post #18
jmclnx wrote: post #11

First the meaning of "war" needs to be defined. FWIW, in the US, only Congress can declare war. IIRC, that really has not happened since Korea. Also since WW2, none of these countries posed a real danger to the US Public, plus people in the US are not invested. Compare what the public in the US had to do in WW2 compared to these "wars". If the life style of the Average US person is affected like in WW2, then you can…

A mobilisation such as what we saw in WWII is unthinkable because it'd crash markets. That's one reason.

The stock market did great during WW2, though.

Of course this time its not dominated by industrial conglomerates which can retool their factories to manufacture military equipment.

Re: Why is it so hard for the U.S. to win wars?

#57

Post by hackinthebochs »

enopod_ wrote: post #30
spacebanana7 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “special military operation” euphemism that both the US/Russia used in Iran/Ukraine does have a degree of truth. These wars are really military engagements with directional objectives rather than truly existential wars with binary outcomes. Modern wars really resemble Rome’s Germanic wars more than the Punic ones.

For Ukraine it's very much an existential war. If they lose, Ukraine will cease to exist. The only way of winning is, well, winning this war. It is also very much a real war, with hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides, a true massacre not seen in Europe since WW2. Trumps stupid war on Iran on the other hand is really just some air strikes, and Iran can win by just not losing, which is easy, because the US wil…

It's interesting how casually we replace concern for the population with concern for the political entity. No, the Ukrainian identity will not cease to exist with the replacement of the political entity.

Re: Why is it so hard for the U.S. to win wars?

#58

Post by mrngld »

jimbokun wrote: post #13
one33seven wrote: post #5

Depends on the war. Venezuela was quickly won.

And out current administration was too dumb to understand Venezuela and Iran are not the same country.

Based on alleged leaks in the NYT, they actually may have had a very similar tactic with Ahmadinejad. They just couldn't engineer the situation on the ground the way they thought. They got duped, to some extent, by Mossad.

But it's not as reductive and simple as your comment suggests. And there's probably still more to the story that the NYT hasn't yet (nor will for a while) leak.

Re: Why is it so hard for the U.S. to win wars?

#59

Post by wasfgwp »

ReptileMan wrote: post #17

Because the military industrial complex is acting like socialist jobs program. If the USA could produce 4000 tomahawks per day, instead of 400 per year the Iran thing would be over. Also USA is very sensitive about the other side's civilian deaths.

> Also USA is very sensitive about the other side's civilian deaths.

Well depends what you compare against. Also its generally not worth wasting precision munitions (you have a limited amount of them to start with) on non military targets.

Re: Why is it so hard for the U.S. to win wars?

#60

Post by spacebanana7 »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #15
spacebanana7 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “special military operation” euphemism that both the US/Russia used in Iran/Ukraine does have a degree of truth. These wars are really military engagements with directional objectives rather than truly existential wars with binary outcomes. Modern wars really resemble Rome’s Germanic wars more than the Punic ones.

I mean Russia definitely keeps losing very many soldiers every day, I don't think that is comparable at all. It's completely different from US vs Iran.

Rome lost loads of soldiers in the Germanic wars too. The parallel is that these wars are too expensive (for a non-existential conflict) to take to fulfilment, but also can't easily be disengaged from.
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