When did the US stop being good at war?

[longknife]

One of the reasons we are still here is our geographical isolation. It is a massive undertaking to invade a country separated from an enemy by oceans.

History teems with examples of how hard it is. Japan's invasion of China thwarted by the weather.

 

[longly]

One of the reasons we are still here is our geographical isolation. It is a massive undertaking to invade a country separated from an enemy by oceans.

History teems with examples of how hard it is. Japan's invasion of China thwarted by the weather.

I have been to the Bering straits in the winter; it freezes hard enough one could drive trucks across. And how many troops could we put in the field a couple hundred thousand; even though they are half our population they could put a couple million in the field . They have a draft and we don’t . Their people will answer the call and our people won’t. My own grandchildren won’t fight for the country.

 

[prison/con.net]

they don't need to do so. we have nukes, man. Nobody is ever gonna invade a country that has nuke missile subs. It just can't be done, and there's not enough madmen, in control of anything, that is, to even attempt it. The military doesn't have to go man to man, or tank to tank. Just fry the large groups, the big ships, and the population centers that support the invaders, while you're at it.

 

[Rusticus]

US and our allies won World War 2 in under 5 years on many many fronts, in many many countries. But we can't win a war against North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afganistan, Iraq again, and a terrorist group?

The only logical conclusion is either a) we're outclassed, or b) we're not trying to win.

US seems to be very good at inventing technology to kill people, training people to kill people, but absolutely sucks at winning wars. Or, we're just not interested in winning.

But why would we not be interested in actually winning and going home? Well, look at who provides all the material used in wars. The corporations and defense contractors. Could they have something to do with things? Like maybe the longer a war goes on, the more money they make?

In World War 2 this was called war profiteering and I think we took people for a walk in the woods for it. When did that change? Can we change it back? Are corporations more powerful than the actual military? Scene from "Taps" comes to mind when faced with losing their school, students seized weapons from the armory and told the developers what to go do with themselves in no uncertain terms.

Until it becomes the policy of the USA to resume winning wars and kicking ass the military and American public shoudl simply refuse en masse' to support wars we're not even trying to win any more at the expense of peoples' lives so rich people can be a little richer.

The U.S. became bad at wars when we stopped being liberators and became conquerors.

 

[Abishai100]

Apparent Scarecrow

The US was in good position after the World Wars and then solidified their willingness to fight in the Korean War but then suffered difficulties during the Vietnam War and Cold War and did not regain martial prominence until the tech-wondrous Gulf War.

The new age war is an information war and the new terrorists are cyber-terrorists. When the Taliban attacked the World Trade Center in 2001, people began talking more formally about the socio-political ramifications of news stories about companies such as Enron.

The National Security Agency (NSA) is devoted to protecting America's cyber-securities and tracking Internet spies and hackers working for terrorist cells across the world. This initiative is as important as America's ongoing inspection of global development of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

Public policy is hugely gauged now by public perception, and how the American government and intelligence agencies secure the cyber-world will affect how the world sees American trade securities (i.e., eTrade, Wall Street, etc.).

The Internet is the new farm, and capitalism the prominent dominion to defend globally. One of my favorite relevant Hollywood (USA) movies is "WarGames" (1983), because it encourages people to think creatively about how the intellectualism behind warfare has changed and how terrorism has a new 'scratch-guard face.'

Why, for example, are misshapen avatars so popular in mainstream culture now?




Scarecrow (DC Comics)

 

[prison/con.net]

who says that the US was EVER any good at it? they got VERY lucky in 1779, and 1812, with LOTS of help from the French. The Mexicans were a joke, as were the spanish. In WW!, the Germans were already prostrate. In WW2, the English and Russian bore most of the actual fighting load until at least 1944.

 

[Abishai100]

Gravity Golem

A lot of sci-fi Hollywood (USA) movies present evil characters who are fascists or supreme authorities in overly-centralized overbearing governments.

It seems that modern networking and global political trends favor the pragmatist and anyone willing and able to rise to profiteer-level powers.

Maybe that's why giant computers feel so overwhelming and even 'evil' --- they curry to selfish power-fantasies about multi-taking power-draining algorithms.

America has to keep up with cyber-warfare even if it did fall behind the world since the days of the Korean War, only managing to resurface successfully during the much later Gulf War.

The real new AntiChrist is the proverbial monolithic harlequin of cyber-profiteerism.




WarGames (Film)

 

[MDiver]

To quote Arthur Schlesinger Jr., "All wars are popular in the first 30 days."
Once a war drags on, it becomes less and less popular when the bodies keep streaming back home.
We have never had a war in which we didn't have outside help, except for: Philippines, Cuba, Grenada, and Panama. In the larger conflicts, we always needed assistance:
The American Revolution: France.
The War of 1812: France.
World War I: Multiple nations.
World War II: Mulitple nations.
Korean War: We didn't lose, we negotiated it to a truce.
Vietnam War: We didn't lose so much as withdrew because of american public opinion and outrage. We actually had destroyed the Viet Cong and pushed back the NVA. Given some more time and non-interference from the politicians, we would have won that one.
The bottom line is that once the "civilian" government began making military target and operational decisions, we stopped advancing.
Colonel Chesty Puller, General Patton, General MacArthur, as well as politicians like Senator McCain know what it takes to actually totally defeat an enemy and that is to "overwhelm" the enemy, "NOT" play surgical strike this and that target, but completely destroy them and the areas they hide in, even if it's in civilian areas. Leave nothing standing.