from the but-an-army-marches-on-its-stomach dept.
The online analysis magazine Pieria runs an interesting piece on why the world's biggest military force keep losing wars. So far it identifies the following reasons, which I'll tersely enumerate and quotes snippets (just for teasing) and strongly recommend you read TFA in full (it makes a good read):
- Too much logistics, not enough combat
More than three-quarters of Americans in Iraq didn’t fight.
... Pecan pie, sweet ice tea, lobster and steak on Fridays, all shipped halfway around the globe. The logistical tail was wagging the combat dog. - Learn the Language
Since the interpreter just made up what he thought his bosses wanted to hear, the Marines were operating with negative intelligence.
... The moral: don’t invade a country if you are too lazy to learn the language. - Fear of Casualties
The American military is deeply committed to force protection, to not losing soldiers.
... Despite apparent American strength, its enemies know if they have a little patience and inflict a little pain, the Americans will probably leave. - War as Symbol
Fifty thousand Americans died in Vietnam. So did more than 2 million Vietnamese. If war were a numbers game, America would have been victorious.
...Lyndon Johnson only went to war because he feared being accused of “losing” Vietnam by congressional Republicans. - War, What is it good For? Absolutely Nothing
Angell observed that no German personally profited from the annexation of Alsace in 1870.
...If their primary interest was oil, American diplomats would have told Saddam to grant exclusive contracts to select oil companies and he would have gladly complied in order to avoid invasion. But Bush, Cheney et al weren’t really interested in Iraq’s oil but rather in an opportunity to demonstrate America’s awesome military power, in order to cow the rest of the Middle East and the world beyond. It didn’t work out as they had hoped.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:14PM
Probably because they enlist troglodytes who no learn English well.
Ug! Gronk want Brontosaurus steak!
(Score: 5, Funny) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:32PM
"Ug! Gronk want Brontosaurus steak!"
Another advocate of creation science heard from! :-)
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:47PM
The first line in TFS
requires your expert opinion as well.
(glad you made it back from the hunting trip, Gronk, the tribe was missing you)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:18PM
The US looses wars because it engages in conflicts that can't be, or they are not allowed to, won (win). Being a superpower is probably holding the USA back. When was the last full-force total war the USA engaged in? WWII? After that war it has been one un-winnable military-policing engagement after another that have been fought with at least one or two limbs tied behind its back -- usually for on political excuse/reason or another. It's just so hard to win when you are set up to loose.
(Score: 5, Touché) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:26PM
Maybe we should just tighten things up a bit then?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by buswolley on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:28PM
Look I hate war, but it is obvious why the U.S. does not win wars anymore. The U.S. does not win these wars because the U.S. tries not to be complete assholes.
To win a war the asshole way: This is how you win the middle east. Pick a tribe any tribe. That is your ally. The other tribes are your enemies. You burn all their crops and blockade all food supplies. You carpet bomb every city, town, village, and hut until ever man, woman, and child, cat, and dog has died horrible deaths. Your very thankful allies now move in and control the territory for you, and love you for it because you've destroyed their sworn enemies. The end.
To Not win a war the American way: Selective targets because we do not want to hurt civilians too much, and pretending that tribal politics aren't fundamental. The never end.
War is hell, old testament style.
subicular junctures
(Score: 5, Informative) by hoochiecoochieman on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:22PM
You've been living under a rock if you can't see the US being complete assholes. Or maybe your internal propaganda is so so strong that it allows you to live in a pink world of delusion.
You did that in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Just 3 examples among many, many, many.
Lost, anyway.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:41PM
You did that in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Then we stopped. Walter Cronkite announcing today's body count every evening hammered home to people what war really is. The American public does not have a taste for real war. Even WWII was 'americans coming to the rescue'. They then threw money at the 'winners' and had them fix what Germany did but with strings attached to continuing loans of piles of cash.
To 'win' a war you conquer. You dont mess around. You hulk smash everything that is in your way or could help your enemy. You make the other dudes die for their country. America does not have a taste for that sort of subjugation. The English, French, Spaniards, Japaneses, and Germans did. America basically bribed them with the Marshal plan to stop being dicks. It was actually quite clever. But many in Europe do not realize it or if they do they like the outcome...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday February 18 2015, @08:24PM
And that may be the only virtue we retain, at this late stage of decay.
" America does not have a taste for that sort of subjugation. The English, French, Spaniards, Japaneses, and Germans did. "
And guess what. It didnt work out too well for any of them, and each and every one of the nations you mentioned eventually learned the hard way that this is not actually a good path.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:44PM
The Americans (those now living there) conquered the land in bloody wars from the natives.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 19 2015, @12:40AM
Yep, that and the Civil War were the last ones we fought like war should be fought. Sherman's March should be the the definitive case study in how to win a war. You go in as brutally and horrifically as humanly possible and you continue until they're either all dead or begging to surrender in a believable manner.
The two main benefits here are 1) You win. 2) Your people see how horrible it is and try to avoid war whenever possible.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Thursday February 19 2015, @07:13AM
Those were the last wars fought in your own living-room. All the other wars are fought in foreign countries, leaving the American public in an unjust cosy feeling of invulnerability. If you think the wars on other countries were led too civilized, have a look back at e.g. Vietnam, the use of Napalm, massacres on villages etc.
The American public might have learned from their past how horrible war in their own country is. But I'm afraid that's about it. Regarding Americans partially following international rules of engagement, I don't think this is due to lack of blood-lust on your war mongers, it's more an international political decision. Even the almighty US can't / doesn't want to estrange itself from its international alleys.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday February 19 2015, @01:45AM
"America does not have a taste for that sort of subjugation"
Really? Talk to a Philippino. It was Americans who introduced concentration camps there.
Also the Marshall Plan was cheap loans and grants to rebuild Europe after WW 2. Britain got nothing. Britain has not finished paying the American loans from WW2 yet.
It was not anything to do with bribing the victors of WW2, it was all about getting Europe back to work, (especially Germany), and as such was the cleverest piece of foreign relations the US ever came up with.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 19 2015, @05:39AM
Actually I believe Britain recently finished paying off the war time debt to America. One thing is America were real dicks to the UK when it came to the strings they attached to the loans. "Sure we'll lend you money, just dismantle your * industry" type of dicks. People also forget that America only entered the war when forced to, Pearl Harbor and Germany declaring war reduced the options, otherwise they were happy to sit back and profit from both sides
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @08:48AM
Incidentally, that is exactly how Britain got an empire - for basically the whole of the c18th and into the Napoleonic wars, Britain sits back and loans to European powers to fight each other, while British navy picks off choice colonies here and there. cf: War of Spanish succession, War of Austrian succession, 7 years war, Napoleonic wars. The only time there was a fight on British soil (American revolution) the British lost.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 19 2015, @11:57PM
Well if you're going to call the colonies in America British soil, we'll have to call Canada British soil as well. The couple of American invasions of Canada did not end well for America
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday February 19 2015, @02:23AM
Do those wars go against the population will and the population is so "free and brave" they do nothing for centuries [wikipedia.org]?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday February 19 2015, @03:55AM
Cronkite lied.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120226056767646059 [wsj.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @06:59AM
"To 'win' a war you conquer. You dont mess around. You hulk smash everything that is in your way or could help your enemy."
And that's pretty much how USA, Russia and all big countries do it. Instead of thinking of what you are doing, just send men there to be cannon fodder. What a load of crap you are.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @08:04PM
Also, remember that now the US is adverse to 'boots on the ground'. In place of boots on the ground, you get 'drones in the air' flown from 7,000 miles away by some guy in an air conditioned building sipping Red Bull and eating Doritos. It's cowardly to rain fire down on your enemies while sitting comfortably at home.
Back in the day, kings and commanders and such would actually be on the battlefield. They actually had some exposure to risk. Now, the politicians (who will NEVER EVER be on a battlefield) dictate the war, and then other people play out their wishes using drones from thousands of miles away. Where is the honour in that? Then when the people getting bombed back to the stone age aren't all appreciative of our 'help" we're all surprised. Meanwhile, they get to live in their shit-hole rubble piles littered with bomb fragments that say "USAF" on them, and you wonder why they hate America (and The West).
Here is why I think The West is not doing things right:
1) Why is the middle east our problem? We don't need their oil anymore. Why should my tax dollars be paying to blow up brown people?
2) Drones are too impersonal. If you want to kill someone, at least have the balls to look them in the eye first.
3) Politicians make the decisions, but don't live with the consequences. I think that if politicians want to start a war, that 50% of them (chosen at random) should be shipped over to fight that war. That would sure make them think twice before starting shit.
4) Instead of dropping bombs on them, why not drop food/toys/books? Drop bags of rice or something with a pamphlet saying how ISIS (or ISIL, or whatever) are a bunch of assholes, while The West loves them so much they are sending them food and toys. You catch more bees with honey than vinegar.
Now I just have to click the 'Post Anonymously' button because I'm actually afraid that my government might read this and flag me as a potential terrorist. How fucking sad is that?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @08:31PM
The USA has been all about imperialism since it had a flag it could plant somewhere. [google.com]
The Shores of Tripoli - USA incursion in North Africa (1803)
The Halls of Montezuma - USA invasion of Mexico (1846)
Commodore Perry sails 4 warships with 61 cannons into Tokyo Bay (1853)
There was an ongoing effort by the USA military to exterminate the indigenous people of this continent for about 100 years, with Wounded Knee (1890) generally being called the last battle.
(That was actually largely the butchery of women and children.)
I have heard the USA's invasion and occupation of Hawaii (1893) called the first major instance of American imperialism. [google.com]
Depends on your definition of "major", I guess.
The Constitution defines what "war" is:
It's when a majority of Congress declares that a state of war exists with another country.
That has actually happened 5 times:
The War of 1812 was called a draw;
USA kicked ass in the Mexican War and Spanish-American War;
in the 2 world wars, the USA was on the winning side.
The War of 1812 was actually DEFENSIVE.
All other wars and "wars" fought by the USA [wikipedia.org] have simply been imperialist aggression by the American gov't.
The only reason USA fights wars is because it has exported all of its manufacturing jobs with the exception of military goods.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday February 18 2015, @10:05PM
Much of what you say is true. The Mexican War of 1848 was a naked land grab, straight up conquest. But, the Spanish and Mexicans themselves had grabbed that land. They aren't any more virtuous or deserving of that land than we are. What about the Civil War? Can't call that imperialist aggression.
It is instructive to consider a big reason why the US won the Mexican War. It's the same reason that the Greeks beat the Persians and the Romans beat the Carthaginians. The eventual winners offered the better deal-- better governance, fairer sharing-- and the soldiers and civilians of both sides knew it. The Persians and Mexicans had little heart for battle. They were only fighting for masters who didn't care much about them. They would fight as long as victory looked assured and their masters would retain the power to punish them if they didn't perform, but as soon as a battle turned against them, they would break and flee despite still having superior numbers and a better tactical position. The Carthaginians were not as hated, but they were still very mercenary. Santa Anna was incompetent, while Hannibal was a tactical genius. Strategically Hannibal was less brilliant. While going on the offensive and crossing the Alps was a good military strategy, trying to get the Italian countryside to join him didn't work too well as a political strategy. Hannibal had no success until he'd beaten the Romans again at Cannae. It still wasn't enough to win the war.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @10:50PM
Actually, in many places, the American Civil War is commonly referred to as The War of Northern Aggression. [google.com]
You must be from north of the Mason-Dixon. 8-)
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Informative) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday February 19 2015, @01:38AM
Actually, the Persians were generally better governed, with greater guarantee of what we would now call "rights" than were the "Greeks" - also a hodge-podge of variously governed peoples, united by common linguistic and cultural elements among their fractured Polises...
The bulk of the "Persian" forces were of course, Ionian - also linked to the Attic polis denizens by common language and religion, etc.
It was the various Ionian peoples who outside of the brief Athenian ascendancy produced much of the great mathematical, philosophical and architectural legacy that is now regarded "Greek". A good fraction of this civilization's flourishing history was as a part of the Achemenid empire of Cyrus' successors. None of it ever as brutal or disenfranchising as periodic Athenian tyranny or Spartan military meritocracy.
In fact, the Persian campaigns of the era faded because Attica was a backwater, not worth the trouble of acquiring, despite the restlessness it occasionally afforded Ionian and Phoenician neighbors.
The resumption of outright conflict in Alexander's time was a conflagration of Thracian aggression. There's little doubt that much of the world suffered terribly under his brief rule, and the "winners" offered little in improvement of life - in fact they remained cursed on the land from Egypt to India, generations thereafter.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday February 19 2015, @03:47AM
The Persians made many advances in governance. They were far better liked than possibly one of the most hated empires ever, the Assyrian Empire. The Babylonian state that existed between the fall of Assyria and the rise of Persia fell very quickly to the Persians, because their rulers weren't liked much better than the Assyrians (the "writing is on the wall" part in the Bible). Cyrus the Great was magnanimous to a degree that was unprecedented, allowing the conquered locals freedom of religion, and even letting some of their high officials stay on. They also set up the royal inspectors (eyes and ears of the king) to check up on local rulers and make sure they weren't being harsh or unfair.
But it was relative. Persia was still on the East side of the East/West divide, still authoritarian. They had that business of proskynesis.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday February 19 2015, @05:59PM
That "East/West" divide is non-historical and ideological. It was a political tool, devised to justify mercantilism and empire. Phoenicia is inextricably linked with Spain and Cornwall, as with Tunisia. Later the age of chivalry was born as the culture of Iranic horsemen, with love of poetry and veneration for the high status of women, entered Provence.
There are thousands of such examples. Authoritarianism is no more geographical or "Asiatic" than state-coinage. Holding such unfounded prejudice without understanding the history and origins of such masking assumptions hurts one's ability to make correct observations, and leads to a distorted perception of reality.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by wantkitteh on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:37PM
On Day 1 of Orgcon last year, they had a rapid-fire talks session that covered US drone strike strategy and it's impacts. It started with this presentation, [pitchinteractive.com] (advisory: HTML5 & JS) continued by analysing the huge escalation of drone strikes in mid-2008, suggested that aircraft raining Hellfire missiles down on can't be legitimately be described as "covert", then went on with a few examples of the methodology used. Things like blowing up the house belonging to the brother of an intended target so they could lure the target to the funeral and then blow that up as well. Or targeting a mobile phone in the middle of a call because the metadata suggested (and nothing more than "suggested") that the (completely unknown) person using it was associated (however loosely) with another suggested possible (those two words again) enemy combatant - whatever the hell that means.
Don't get me wrong, I don't sympathise with terrorists, have any connection with terrorists or feel anything but contempt and revulsion for terrorists - if my train into London hadn't been delayed by 45 minutes on the 21st July 2005, I'd most likely have been on one of the tube trains involved in the bungled 21-7-2005 London Bombings [wikipedia.org], two weeks after the successful 7-7 bombings. As it was, I had to walk through London to catch my connection outta there - nothing quite like walking by groups of crying, traumatised teenaged tourists who's continued existence was down to some bomb maker trying to use expired explosives. However, as I understand it, when America covertly supplied and supported the natives of Afghanistan when Russia invaded, effectively using them as a proxy in the Cold War, a little help rebuilding the country afterwards might have gone a long way to avoiding the mess we're in right now. Okay, yeah, hindsight being 20:20 and all that is all very well now, but sticking to the current plan isn't working out either - not for the innocents being murdered by Hellfire-laden drones, or for the Americans paying for all this while trying to recover from a recession.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by wantkitteh on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:43PM
Missed out a quote I thought you all should see:
"We kill people based on metadata" [rt.com]
- General Michael Hayden, Former CIA Director
Spoken during The Johns Hopkins Foreign Affairs Symposium - "The Price Of Privacy: Re-Evaluation The NSA", full video on linked page, quote taken from timecode 18:01
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Thursday February 19 2015, @02:04AM
Back in the day, kings and commanders and such would actually be on the battlefield.
Back in the day, those kings and commanders **were** the politicians, and they, like today, still convinced people to play out their wishes.
I'm actually afraid that my government might read this and flag me as a potential terrorist.
...and the terrorists have succeeded, despite recent propaganda otherwise. [cnn.com]
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Thursday February 19 2015, @06:02AM
He's probably Canadian where the government considers anyone who opposes them as being a terrorist. You Americans don't know how lucky you are with the great disapointment Obama and how bad things can get yet.
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Thursday February 19 2015, @05:53PM
You Americans don't know how lucky you are
I know for me particulary, I complain a lot about the state of things here in 'Merica. Thanks for the reminder that we're probably not in the worst shape, from the majority of perspectives. However, I think the US is moving in the direction you speak of, where any opposition is labeled as terrorism.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @08:41PM
You can marry little girls in the old testament.
pretty little girls.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday February 18 2015, @10:06PM
you have a valid point. today's war has no room for politeness or rules. we're beyond that, at this point.
if you go in, you should go in with total force, just short of nukes. it should not matter what others 'think' of you. they'll hate you no matter what. so, stop caring about others' opinions! be ruthless, leave a scorched earth behind and make the enemies realize that your FULL power is going to be unleashed. and not that shock-and-awe stuff; that was still restrained.
stop thinking war is a polite man's game with rules. "this is not nam, smokey, but there are STILL no rules in war!".
play the game like you mean business and maybe the enemies will get the message loud and clear.
but, you'll have to get your hands dirty. that takes real leadership. and you can't be a real leader in today's america; you are always too worried about 'focus group' polls and whether someone can use this or that against you, come next debate period.
"I'm a one-term president, I don't give a fuck and I'm going to whip ass and not care about what people think. I want this war to end and I'll use everything short of nukes to end it quickly." THAT's how you fight. but the pussification of america (oh my god, we have to be 100% safe!) is in our way.
other countries don't fight polite wars. not sure why we think we have to. each time we try (in modern times), we lose. we DID use nukes once and it DID end the war quickly. but we had more balls back then. today, no politican would dream of doing a nagasaki or hiroshima again.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JNCF on Wednesday February 18 2015, @11:26PM
we DID use nukes once and it DID end the war quickly. but we had more balls back then. today, no politican would dream of doing a nagasaki or hiroshima again.
The American government has never used nuclear weapons as an act of war in a world with other known nuclear actors. If the war machine was sure that it could get away with it, the war machine would use nukes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @01:17AM
The problem is, who do you nuke when the war you're fighting is against a tiny minority of a population that's lost their mind to religious extremism?
There's an old saying in Chinese martial arts: When in a fight, be sure to defeat and disarm your opponent, but don't make any unnecessary new enemies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @02:14AM
Another old saying: Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. ("Kill them. For the Lord knows those that are His own.") [wikipedia.org]
I'm sure that there are at least a few Internet Tough Guys (aka idiots) who will nod their heads in agreement while they read this. /shudder
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday February 18 2015, @10:19PM
Oh, wow, thanks for the insight.
How wrong I was thinking that US doesn't win anymore because long active conflicts serve Halliburton&friends' interests better [wikipedia.org], the less clear-cut the result of a conflict the better for their interests.
I haven't realized how altruistic and deeply self-sacrificial the motives of US are: not only willing to live on the expense of tomorrow [usdebtclock.org], but also destroying what value that tomorrow would bring [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 19 2015, @02:55AM
Few Americans understand tribalism. I'm not sure that I *really* understand it, but I have at least an academic grasp of it. It has been pointed out many times that Iraqi soldiers don't think of themselves as Iraqi. They are each tribesmen, each looking for an opportunity to advance his own tribe's interests. He is always watching for the opportunity to advance his own interests, both inside and outside his tribe as well. Few Iraqi soldiers give the smallest damn about Iraq, or the Army, or the US, or the world at large. He is a tribesman, and all his loyalties are with his tribe.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday February 19 2015, @04:13AM
I remember reading a story about a pilot flying over N. Vietnam. He saw a train, obviously carrying arms and asked for permission to attack it. The request was relayed to the White House, where it was denied. Yes -- that's right -- individual attacks were micro-managed from the White House. That's not the way to win wars. Also, not attacking the enemy when a clear opportunity arises is not the way to win a war.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:38PM
I thought he meant " Set up Toulouse", since it is a city in France.
(and seriously, American keep losing because they cannot spell. This is the result of two things: one, adopting the English language with its ridiculous orthography; two, being Americans. )
(Score: 1) by turgid on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:54PM
Q: Why do the French never have to wait long to use the toilet?
A: Because they've got Toulouse.
Get it?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday February 19 2015, @04:17AM
You must be British.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 19 2015, @07:36AM
Naah, mate. From my side, you can keep whatever the Frenchmen let loose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:18PM
I presume you meant to say, of course, "set up too loose", as opposed to just missing a 'something' off the end - e.g. "... set up to loose the fateful lightning of their terrible Swift Words".
Then again, maybe I'm still on the wrong track, and you were trying to say something else.
(With apologies to the Babble Hymn of the Republic)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:30PM
It's not set up to lose, or win. Red herrings both. These 60 or 70 wars you guys have going on [pitchinteractive.com] are designed to empower the industrial-military complex and ideally protect American oil interests. Nothing changed since the 80's folks, except the current monkey idiot on top of the sundae pretending to be different than that last monkey-idiot chap. Meanwhile Jeb Bush, Dick "the Dick" Cheney and all those other assholes are raking it in.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:33PM
The US looses wars because it engages in conflicts that can't be, or they are not allowed to, won (win).
Actually the premise is wrong.
Its not the wars that are lost. Its the silly insistence on nation building that is lost after the war is won.
We keep following the process of WWII, insisting on occupation after defeating the enemy, hoping to avoid the bounce-back like happened in WW1. WW1 was a fluke. Most countries win a war and either annex, or walk away from the enemy territory. We do neither. We occupy just long enough to prop up some puppet government.
There was rejoicing in the street after the fall of Saddam.
We would be better off destroying any industrial capability to rebound and just walking away.
(about here is where some people say we should never get involved in the first place. How is that ISIS working out for you?)
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @08:48PM
"Rebuilding" would be more correct (after the USA blows up all their good shit).
...and, of course, that means contracts for Dick Cheney and Halliburton.
These illegal military incursions occur when a country's regime doesn't conduct business the way the USA prefers.
The USA likes Crony Capitalists.
(The smaller the group the USA has to coerce, the easier its task; for that reason, USA hates Socialism|Marxism and will illegally try to destroy any emergence of that.)
Now, imagine Canada invading the USA and blowing up shit and killing people because they don't like some political leanings of the USA gov't.
The "American exceptionalism" thing is truly a mental defect.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 19 2015, @03:08AM
BINGO!!!!
Somehow, we managed to appear to build two nations after WW2 - and all the damned fools in Washington see that as an example of what they should be doing.
We are incompetent, even incapable of building a nation. Nation building is only done by the people who live in a country. The Japanese built Japan, and Germans built Germany. The US merely stood by, and firmly insisted how they could NOT build those nations.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 19 2015, @09:30AM
We keep following the process of WWII, insisting on occupation after defeating the enemy, hoping to avoid the bounce-back like happened in WW1.
Sounds like a good reason to me, actually.
WW1 was a fluke.
Unless, it was that other thing, not a fluke.
Most countries win a war and either annex, or walk away from the enemy territory.
Or install a government friendlier to their interests.
We don't have to overthink this. End of WWI, the victors tried an onerous tribute, but didn't have the balls to carry through when Germany reneged. In the next war, they tried nation building. That worked to an amazing degree with a few dozen countries rebuilt. Before we blame the current mess on nation building, ask yourself if the following actions build nations:
1) Permanently ban anyone with actual job experience (because they were on the losing side) from taking a role in the next government of the country.
2) Have no post-war plan in place for rebuilding a nation after you finished the war in question that toppled their previous government.
3) When dumping money on nation building projects, import your entire workforce rather than employ the locals.
4) Have a good portion of the money spent not even make it to the physical location of the nation being built.
5) Don't care enough to do anything different.
6) Bail as soon as you can.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday February 19 2015, @09:45AM
Utter nonsense. Nation building became a big deal for the US during the Cold War (which, remember, started before the end of the second world war). If the US went around 'destroying any industrial capability to rebound' then the Russians would come in and rebuild it, then have an allied state full of people with a deep hatred of the USA, a strong industrial base, and complete deniability. Do you really think that Russia and China are above doing this now? If you'd gone into Iraq, overthrown Saddam, and then pulled out, you'd now be looking at an Iraq full of Chinese-owned oil refineries with a population that regarded the USA as the country that came, made a mess, and then went home, and the Chinese as the saviours who built their country up to a strong industrial base.
The biggest military fuck up from the US in the last 50 years was not going into Afghanistan and rebuilding the infrastructure after the Russians pulled out (which would have cost a fraction of what they were spending on supporting the anti-soviet insurgents each year).
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday February 18 2015, @10:01PM
the last middle east mess was a 'war on ideology' but no one had the balls to say it that way.
trying to convert the muslims? that's what it would take, to 'win' the middle east situation.
raise your hand: you think this is do-able? in ANY century?
some wisdom would have helped. knowing what can't be done and then not trying to do it, THAT is wisdom.
we have no wisdom when it comes to wars. we have ego and money and think that's enough.
so far, we have learned nothing from our failures. I expect to see more 'wars of choice' being fought by the US until we have truly run out of resources.
also, the other issue is that of self-perpetuating business. war is big business and those who invested in it, do NOT want to see peace break out! seriously. its a threat to their business model. build 'guns', break guns, get more money to build more guns. lather rinse repeat.
it would take as much force to overturn the MIC than it would to 'just' win one of these unwinnable wars.
so, in effect, we continue to fight ourselves. some of us want peace, but those holding the country's wallets want their toys to be used and rebought over and over again. guess who keeps getting their way? yeah ;(
remove the profit from war and we won't have any more wars-of-choice. simple, right?
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday February 18 2015, @11:44PM
The USA won a more recent war: the war in Grenada.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday February 19 2015, @08:21PM
The US loses wars because it engages in conflicts that can't be, or they are not allowed to, win.
They lose because they are not fighting wars, they are occupying countries. You cannot win an occupation.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:24PM
"Exit Strategy" is perhaps a bit of an abused term, but the overriding problem with all the wars since Vietnam is that it's been completely ambiguous what defines a victory.
It's almost certainly never the case that it's the kind of conflict where a treaty settles things, because they have tended to be "war to solve abstract problem" instead of "war to settle a dispute between nations".
We collectively gloss over how wars create problems. And using them to solve problems are almost always going to fail. When it's a battle with an organized nation, those problems eventually start to create national incentives to stop fighting. When it's individuals and small groups angry at your nation(for example), bombing shit is just going to make more of them.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:51PM
bombing shit is just going to make more of them.
Strange synonym for "innocent civilian" but whatever.
I've often thought that the way we teach kids about exponential growth and infinite series is a little abstract and boring.
You could go militaristic with it:
"Todays math lesson is we're going to model the number of terrorists over time in a spreadsheet to learn something about converging and diverging series. Fire up the spreadsheet and start with 100 hard core revolutionaries. Then, each row of the spreadsheet represents firing a hellfire (tm) missile. Lets say the missile only misses the target 10% of the time and kills a little kid or a wedding party thus creating twenty new terrorists. So the next cell is (A0 - 0.90(1) + 0.10(20)). Now click and drag that to estimate the number of terrorists per hellfire (tm) missile fired. Your answer should be phrased in the form of how many missiles have to be fired to drop to zero or increase to the population of the middle east?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @12:30AM
I seriously doubt the growth in terrorist will ever become exponential, the population will eventually limit that -- unless you can come up with some way of instant human cloning. As much fun as the excel war on terror would be we could also just reset the calculation by pushing the big red button.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Spook brat on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:20PM
Good point. The U.S. campaign in Iraq certainly defeated the government of Iraq, but failed as an advance in the Global War on Terror. In the spirit of "fighting the last war" we seem to have guaranteed that state-sponsored terrorism gives way to a more distributed, grassroots model.
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(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:43PM
Don't forget Gulf War I. That was quick, decisive, and didn't overreach.
Similar smaller strikes can hardly be called wars, but have also been definitive victories (and some losses, too, like the Iran hostage rescue.)
The problem comes from wading in hip deep and pulling punches to avoid looking like "bad guys." Sorry, newsflash, if you are in-theater killing locals, you're going to be a bad guy. Either you commit genocide, or you leave behind a bunch of righteously pissed off relatives and friends of the deceased and wounded. The longer the engagement lasts, the worse it gets.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:41PM
The longer you stick around after you've won, the more pissed off the locals get.
Get in, whoopass, get out. Kuwait.
Stop trying to nation build. When you finally get pissed enough to kick the neighborhood bully's ass, you don't move in with him.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by CirclesInSand on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:34PM
Not to mention, the US has a habit of going to "war" in places that are in the middle of (or coming out of) civil wars. Ever wonder why the US won't go to war with China, Iran, or North Korea? It's because they are stable countries that would literally fight back: at home Americans would get killed eating dinner with their family. The US is completely unprepared for a real war, and can't manage anything besides bullying.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:42PM
Counterexamples:
Both Iraq wars, bay of pigs, the panama invasion, bombing Libya...
This might be pushing it, but in its own weird way, Afghanistan, aka "where empires go to die", is not statically stable, but is dynamically stable under pressure. Although this isn't as strong of an example.
Bringing up the cuban missile crisis might be a bad example because the triggers were not pulled and its generations ago, but at least in spirit, kinda?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by CirclesInSand on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:28PM
Iraq is constantly in an unstable civil war between the Sunni and Shia. Lookup "Iraq Civil War" on wikipedia to see that it could refer to : Iraqi Kurdish Civil War (1994–1997), 1999 Shia uprising in Iraq, Civil war in Iraq (2006–07), Anbar campaign (2013–14), Northern Iraq offensive (June 2014), Northern Iraq offensive (August 2014).
Bay of Pigs occurred in 1961, just after the Cuban Revolution which lasted from 1952 to 1959 (the different between a revolution and civil war is semantic).
The Libyan bombing in March 2011? Fourth paragraph from wikipedia Libya [wikipedia.org]:
Muammar Gaddafi remained in power until the Libyan Revolution of 2011 overthrew his regime. Protests in Benghazi on 15 February 2011 led to clashes with security forces and ultimately escalated into an armed conflict.... Since then, Libya has experienced instability and political violence which has severely affected both commerce and oil production.
Libya is governed by two rival governments since August 2014, one in Tripoli and one in Tobruk.
Or do you mean the Libyan bombing in April 1986, before most people here were even born? That was only 17 years after a military coup had overthrown King Idris and started the "Al Fateh" revolution. Hardly a war, it was a 1 night hit-and-run airforce bombing, even that which failed to kill Gadaffi.
Going back even further, the Cuban missile crisis didn't become a war because of Russia which was backing Cuba.
And even given those examples, you haven't mentioned Korea, Vietnam, the involvement in Yugoslavia under Clinton, etc, all of which show a pattern of US involvement only in areas destroyed by civil war. As I said, the US has no experience going to war with stable countries that will actually fight back. They are just bullying campaigns.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:30PM
Your points are well researched and convincing.
One part I worry about is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_war#Causes_of_civil_war_in_the_Collier.E2.80.93Hoeffler_Model [wikipedia.org]
Being a raw materials export nation means over 1 in 5 chance of a civil war in any 5 year period, so I admit the correlation is valid but the causation might be more complicated, like an empire inherently fights in its resource sources, and for whatever crazy reason (?) resource exporters decline into civil war at a ridiculous rate compared to non-resource exporters, so rather than being a policy of "get em while they're at war" its more like "fight our resource sources which inherently are almost always having civil wars because they're resource exporters".
It might even be simpler. Stable countries don't get wound up in wars, either foreign or civil, because they're stable... So when you cross off the list all the countries that would be stable and fierce opponents, you mostly end up with civil war victims.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 19 2015, @02:35AM
Oh, shit! I'm living in Australia [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday February 19 2015, @12:54PM
Your independence from the UK was fairly non-violent compared to Ireland's fun, plus or minus Gallipoli I suppose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:25PM
1986 was before most soylentnewsers were born? What a dipshit. Back to the playground, infant.
(Score: 3, Funny) by nyder on Wednesday February 18 2015, @11:04PM
before most of us was born in the 1980's?
What, did all the people born before you die already? Shit.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @08:19PM
NO! We don't go to war in those place because they have their shit together. When trouble starts, those places nip it in the bud and don't give a shit about what the rest of the world thinks. This is somewhat related to the question: "Why can't the US win a war?"
Almost all other posters are saying the same things but in different ways. Here's the way I'll put it: Because we haven't gone to war since WWII. Because we are trying to be nice. Because we aren't fully committed. I really like the post that says: pick a tribe, back that tribe, kill everyone else. That's the kind of commitment it takes. That's also why we should be more choosy about our battles. War is ugly. When you try to make war pretty, you will lose.
(Score: 2) by pogostix on Thursday February 19 2015, @03:24AM
>>at home Americans would get killed eating dinner with their family.
That's how it should be. Motivation for peace.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:36PM
The TLDR of the article, the whole discussion, is something like "look at me, I haven't read "Fire In The Lake", at least not yet or I'm not admitting it"
The point of reading that book isn't to agree with the minor factual details which may be debatable or to agree with the moral / ethical issues which can be debated usually along political party lines. The real value of the book is it shows the path of how the USA (and pretty much every other imperial power, ever) gets suckered into unwinnable wars. The way it explains the process of getting suckered into it, is how the book provides the value.
To extend my infinite collection of awful car analogies, imagine a book about one specific F1 car racing crash, that explains the logical thought process and human factors of how an otherwise competent race car driver can none the less get suckered into some horrific crash during a car race.
Maybe a non car analogy would be something like that de-motivator poster that says no individual snowflake feels it is to blame for the avalanche. All the individual steps were logical, or at least predictable, only in the combination of all of them did it turn horrific.
I'm an older guy who's read a lot of books and this is possibly the best "public" "non-academic" "general reader" book I've ever read in my life about war. If anyone has a serious suggestion for a better war textbook, post it!
As far as how to avoid it in the future, an Imperial power cannot avoid it, by its very nature. So stew on that root cause analysis.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:38PM
Preface: The US military does more than fight wars.
1. It is a good thing that logistics is more common than killing. How do you think all that aid relief gets everywhere in the world?
2. The US military is one of the largest employers of interpreters in the world.
3. There is nothing wrong with trying to eliminate death.
4. What does that even mean? If Vietnam was considered a symbol, then why was it never officially called a war?
5. What does the average German in 1870 have to do with the US military today? Nothing.
The US military mostly does peacekpeeping, aid relief, and rebuilding that all the other countries are too callous or apathetic to contribute to beyond token gestures. I am not a die hard patriot. I am one of those people that say that virtually no one in the US military is a hero despite what mainstream news says. Yet I value their contributions for what they are. The US military keeps "losing wars" because they don't fight wars. They keep the peace that other countries should have done and provide aid relief and rebuilding services or material in volumes that dwarf anyone else. The next war that the US fights in earnest will be one of vitrification. No one wants that to happen, but the US military will win.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by n1 on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:12PM
You are not wrong in any of your assertions, in my opinion. However what I tend to find is the general motivator for the US military to engage like they do, from the initial engagement to 'rebuilding and aid relief' is: American corporate interests who are the recipients of those support and logistics contracts, operating on behalf of the US military, it's not altruism. The military industrial complex does exist, and that was not considered in your post from what I can see.
Which is why there is little engagement to resolve the conflict in Nigeria at the moment, it's not causing problems for corporate interests in the region, yet.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by n1 on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:25PM
Just for clarity, this is generally the reason for military intervention and 'peacekeeping' of any nation.
It happens to be quite helpful where our economic interests are in peril, there is usually a humanitarian crisis which makes for much better propaganda. It's fairly obvious what gets sorted out first though, once economic interests are aligned we can spend a few decades in grindingly slow diplomacy working for those humanitarian goals.
The UK/US double standard with Saudi Arabia and Iran demonstrates this quite well, economic interests are aligned nicely so we don't mind the human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. Iran however, is not economically amenable to UK/US interests therefor the human rights abuses and political oppression is an extremely important issue which we cannot tolerate.
Will we see the same call for intervention when the militants in Nigeria start gaining control over the oil in the country and stop being content with slaughtering thousands of civilians? I wouldn't be surprised.
(Score: 5, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:59PM
Iran however, is not economically amenable to UK/US interests
Yeah and why is that exactly?
Some mysterious "they" get all the credit, but its our fault from the bad old days for overthrowing a halfway decent government and replacing it with a bunch of nutcases leading to a rebellion against the nutcases and of course the USA. Its moderated a bit since then.
If "we" hadn't totally Fed up, Iran would probably be a major trading power and friend of the USA. They're far enough away from Israel for them not to directly compete so much, kind of like Egypt in its best days, and they'd be a moderating force on the area. They would probably have long since taken over the shia areas of Iraq, and thats not really all that bad because it would mean a calm Iraq, which means a calm S.A., and all those chill dudes means a calm Israel... Everyone just all around better off. Including us.
Just felt like making the point that its entirely our fault we're not getting along. We "should" be great economic allies, other than that whole unfortunate business in my grandfather's era.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday February 18 2015, @10:07PM
With Iran, even now it's blindingly obvious that Bibi Netenyahu and the hardliners in the US Congress are doing everything they can to wreck diplomacy between Iran and the US. Their stated fear is that Iran will fail to uphold their end of the agreement, but everything I've seen so far suggests that their real fear is in fact the opposite - Iran sticks to the deal, US-Iran relations eventually soften, and that ends the goal of convincing the US to do to Iran what they did to Iraq.
A fair amount of the US-Israel-Iran mess is being motivated by religious nonsense on the part of the right-wing Christians and Jews. Many right-wing Jews believe that Israel should eventually look like this map [wordpress.com] because that's what was promised in Genesis, and want the US to fight the Iranians to make it harder for anyone to stop them from taking it by force. Many right-wing Christians, by contrast, see Muslims as part of the forces of Satan, and wish to utterly destroy them by any means available, including co-opting US government power. So again, what they fear is not war but peace.
But if they really want to know about the possibility of productive diplomacy between the US and Iran, they need only ask Oliver North.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:14PM
The US military mostly does peacekpeeping, aid relief, and rebuilding that all the other countries are too callous or apathetic to contribute to beyond token gestures.
The US military does more than fight wars for the sole reason that it has a standing army. Armed forces can do three things: 1) fight wars; 2) train; and/or 3) do "humanitarian stuff".
If the US didn't have to keep a standing army, they wouldn't do the vast majority of the aid relief, peacekeeping and other sundry humanitarian activities. It's not that the rest of the world is "careless and apathetic"... it's just they don't have to find excuses to explain away the massive spending on their own military.
I can assure you that the rest of the world would gladly exchange all the humanitarian effort provided by the United States if it would stop trying to be the world's police. I; like you; value the contributions made by the United States - but I'd value it even more if they'd simply stay at home. Chances are there'd be an awful lot less humanitarian effort required if the US stopped messing around in other people's countries.
but the US military will win
I'm sure they will. For various applications of "win", of course. Just like King Pyrrhus, the United States may prefer they didn't win and; looking back; may wish they never got themselves embroiled in something so foolish.
Sorry - had to be said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:20PM
FTFY
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:17PM
I like your evaluation of the evidence and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Informative) by J.J. Dane on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:39PM
I'm no more a fan of the seemingly perpetually warring U.S Army than the next guy, but this is just trolling. And not very good trolling, at that.
Short answer: The U.S keeps losing wars because the acts it takes to win them are, as yet, unpalatable to the general public. The moment that changes, they'll start winning decisively. Hopefully I won't be around to see it...
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:22PM
Exactly, it isn't strategy, technology, or any of that bullshit. It's fear of bad PR . . . unfortunately for our troops that end up in the line of fire, the folks they end up against are under no such constraint
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday February 19 2015, @03:40PM
That's not the root cause though, that's only a symptom of the causes given in TFA.
The other side doesn't fear bad PR because if they lose, they die. So they'll do whatever it takes to win. If we lose...we go home. That's it. We stop sending people over there to die. We stop wasting trillions of dollars. It would probably suck for the Iraqis as they descended into civil war, but America would almost certainly be better off if we'd just lose and go home already.
We'll stop being afraid of bad PR the moment PR stops being the main reason we're waging war in the first place.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:42PM
When they stopped drafting the children of the working class--and especially the kids of aristocrats, the pool of potential warriors that was left was people who are economically desperate and/or poorly informed flag wavers.
Anyone who is currently occupied in the illegal military incursions of the USA is a VOLUNTEER.
...yet the planning to achieve "victory" is still timid.
It demonstrates that "war" for the USA Gov't is about purchasing the products of the last remaining USA industry (military goods) and doing that in quantity by stretching out the engagements.
...and they still use phraseology like "boots on the ground" to try to mask the fact that those are filled by people.
-- gewg_
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:47PM
I'm completely serious - they've either never read him or ignored what he had to say in The Art of War. Some big ones we're completely blind to:
A major problem is that the US leadership doesn't try to know their enemies well enough to be able to predict their actions and more importantly their reactions. A good example of this was Vietnam - the US didn't understand that the peasants just wanted an end to Western domination, or that that general Jiap was using techniques from the game of Go while they were trying to play something much more like American football (which worked against Germany because the Germans were trying to do the same thing). In Iraq, the US failed to understand that the vast majority of Baath Party members weren't fanatics, but were just looking for a middle-class government job and being a party member was a requirement for those jobs, so if we had said "You can keep your jobs if you renounce your party membership" we could have had a much more functional government in Iraq, rather than the mess we still have now.
The militarists in the US hate that fact, but it's true - if you can win without actually having to fight a war, that's always preferable to fighting a war. Winning without fighting not only is massively cheaper (see the next point), it also results in a lot fewer people wanting to kill you back.
The US has been (officially at least) at war with some country since 1941. There's no indication that this has in any way helped the citizens of the United States.
However, for military contractors, particularly KBR, lengthy campaigns mean more big profits, so they're going to do what they can to make victory long in coming.
I'm sure there's more, but that gives an idea of how wrong US military strategy is.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:09PM
"No matter how enormous its military and economic potential, it will never succeed in crushing the will of a people fighting for its independence."
-- General Vo Nguyen Giap
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Jiro on Wednesday February 18 2015, @10:12PM
I live in Atlanta, Georgia.
This proves that statement to be false.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @10:53PM
No, it doesn't. Confederates wanted independence. The people who lived their looked at it differently.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday February 19 2015, @01:39AM
Only if you were white. The slaves had a very different view on the meaning of that war (indeed, one of the reasons Sherman did as well as he did was that he was surrounded by an extensive ready-made spy network in the form of the slave population).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tathra on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:24PM
i think this point bears repeating. it was only a little bit before dubya's presidency that KBR - owned by halliburton, cheney's company - started getting military and overseas contracts, and once dubya was president they were almost the exclusive private contractor company for the military. it was in cheney's best interests to "create opportunities" for his companies to profit, which means sending the military out often and for long periods of time. it doesn't matter that dubya and cheney are gone because they privatized a big chunk of the military while they had the chance (we used to have our own cooks, construction workers, mechanics, etc, most if it is now done by KBR).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:00PM
" Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
Russia / Putin is trying that with his RT / We just want respect thing
I think he's read some Asian philosophy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:56PM
Bush I told the Kurds and Shias to rise up against Saddam. They did, and Saddam gave them asswhopping. Bush II had to decide: 1. Continue no-fly zone indefinitely to protect the rebels, 2. Stop the no-fly zone and Saddam mow down the rebels, or 3. Take Saddam out for good.
Yeah, it's always more complicated than Monday morning quarterbacks make them out to be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:29PM
The second part of yoru comment is confusing when compared to the first part of your comment, because you just made it sound extremely simple. 1) Saddam wins 2) Saddam wins 3) USA USA USA!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Spook brat on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:11PM
REMF here checking in, one of the 3/4 who went and didn't fight. I'll definitely give this article a read later; however, here's my response to the snippets in the summary.
1. Steak and lobster on Friday was a great morale booster. It seemed excessive to me, and I don't go for lobster generally, but when I was literally sleeping on a cot in bombed out buildings it provided some comfort. Once they got the PX set up it became more a symbol that the command still cared rather than something I wanted or needed. More generally, combat support is more than just beans and bullets. Communications, intelligence, command & control, and transportation are all non-combat roles and all contribute to the effort. Every army balances the combat/combat support ratio at a different point. Bad analogy time (sorry, no car on this one): swords and spears both have a pointy part and a place to grab; both are useful for fighting, and appropriate for different styles of fighting. The main body of the U.S. Army is arguably more like a spear (small pointy part, long handle), but I'm not sure it's obvious that it's a bad design overall. I'll have to read the article to see whether they argue that it's a bad specific fit for this theater. Remember that an army marches on its belly; great logistics can't win a war, but poor logistics will lose one. I'd rather have too much support than too little or none.
2. Painting with too broad a brush here; my unit brought its own linguists and provided language support for other units. They weren't native speakers, but they were natural-born U.S. citizens; we certainly avoided the "too lazy to learn the language" pitfall. YMMV.
3. It seems to me that the fear of casualties is more on the part of the American people and leadership than the warfighters themselves. Yes, losing a friend or a spouse due to war is terrible, but we knew what we signed up for. It makes me sad that there's such a disconnect between those who served and those we protected, and I think I have to concede the author this point.
4. I think this is related to point three, that we didn't have the stomach for losing 50k Americans in Vietnam. If the news media reaction to war casualties is that "one is too many" and "the only winning move is not to play" then how could people at home ever really feel that we'd won? Again, it's tragic to see flag-covered caskets returning home from the combat theater. What's more tragic is that, statistically, I was safer there than at home: on a per capita basis we lost more soldiers in garrison to drunk driving accidents than we lost due to combat during OIF/OEF in Iraq. Are those soldiers lives lost at home less valuable than the ones overseas? Is it somehow less tragic that a drunk driver killed a soldier than when an insurgent does? Logically and emotionally I have trouble supporting either of those ideas.
5. This. Oh, wow, totally this. Every time someone accuses me of having gone to Iraq to secure oil rights, I have to point out that we didn't get any oil out of it. We don't have exclusive control of their oil wells, we didn't claim their wells for the American nation, and we don't even have exclusive purchasing agreements with them for the oil they produce. Ostensibly, the reason we went was that we'd declared a global war on terrorists, and Saddam was himself a terrorist. Considering that we didn't really stamp out Al Qaeda in Iraq nor stop terrorism globally, the author makes a fair point here.
You won't hear a soldier who is still in the ranks make complaints (on pain of prosecution for dissention), but there's a strong sentiment that if what we're sent out to do isn't worth it, we shouldn't be going. It's usually expressed by a Private in the form of the question, "Sarge, what are doing here?" (Privates generally don't care what you threaten for punishment, they don't have much to lose) Of course, it's probably a good thing that the fights a soldier would pick aren't the ones that a politician would. There's a long debate to be had on that point, which I may or may not pick up later after I've read the rest of TFA.
Good food for thought, definitely.
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by tibman on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:46PM
Scout here. Iraq WAS some bs. But by the time we all figured that out it was too late. We were duped. We should have massed in Afghanistan, not Iraq. I still had plenty of old guys come thank me for apparently existing and walking in their neighborhood with a machine gun. Teachers enjoyed being paid a living wage and all that. The Shia are grateful to have a big hand in government. The tens of thousands of Shia in mass graves from their failed revolt after the first Gulf war may feel at rest.
Anyways, my take on it is this. The US Army does what it's told and that includes losing. If we are told to lose, we do. Told to sit in the FOB and circlejerk until our time to rotate home. Probably paying KBR 5,000$ a month rent for each shitty canvas tent with plywood floor. Why we didn't have our US Army Engineers build real bunkers i'll never know.
The steak and lobster wasn't as good as fresh goat kabobs from the locals : ) What was also really good for morale was those Green Bean coffees, mmm. It was like the storm troopers on Endor opened up a Starbucks.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:56PM
If the USA had "won" in Vietnam, how would that have affected your life or your parents' lives or your grandparents' lives?
How did murdering children and their mothers and their grandmothers on the other side of the planet improve the lives of Americans?
(Let me remind everyone that Vietnam is now "Communist". It is also a USA trading partner.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday February 18 2015, @11:14PM
A sentiment I strongly agree with, which is why I have been opposed to every overseas deployment of US forces since, well, WWII at least.
The politicians start wars for reasons of domestic politics. They dont have any clear link to any compelling national interest, they appear to be motivated primarily by campaign donations from 'defense' contractors and the poll boost they expect when they 'look tough.' It's all nonsense. We endanger our own troops as well as countless foreign civilians with no clear goal, no way to 'win' as a result, no benefit to the general welfare or the nation as a whole.
In that situation there is literally no way the troops can ever win. The position they are put in is a no-win from the start. I am sorry, but it's true, the only winning move really is not to play.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:31PM
It would be naive to associate stated objectives with actual objectives. I can think of a number of political goals that were achieved as a result of the most recent foreign wars. Not that they were goals that most Citizens would support, or even know about for the most part. Perhaps this current situation is exactly what they were trying to accomplish.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Buck Feta on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:33PM
...is not to play.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @12:35AM
You trust calculations made by a machine nicknamed after a hamburger? Lets play a nice game of Global Thermonuclear War.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:37PM
If you win a war you stop spending money or at least spend less. This is untenable to the MIC.
As with most things in a "capitalistic" society. The 'why' is always money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @11:03AM
generally companies don't wage war (there are exceptions when an army outsources to mercenaries)
'capitalism' isn't making the US government fight wars. capitalism is merely taking advantage of the corruption that's rife within the US political system
capitalism is like a farmer offering up lots of yummy slops... and congress is full of pigs that are corrupt enough to gorge themselves
if congress had the integrity to decline bribes, allow competition in government contracts and actually act in the interest of the American people instead of their personal savings accounts, capitalism wouldn't even be a factor in the decision to go to war. all politicians are lobbied by anyone and everyone, from religious groups to multinationals to mothers clubs. there is no excuse for a politician to pander to special interests for personal wealth
Ron Paul was the last true statesmen with the long proven integrity to resist lobbyists, but an opportunity passed and now America is paying for another 4 years for its ignorance and partisan squabbling. its unfortunate that parts of the world are needlessly dragged through the mud, waiting for you to come to your senses
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zugedneb on Wednesday February 18 2015, @06:58PM
Invade place, REMOVE leaders... ...profit?
US loses wars for 2 reasons:
1. the industry wants war in general, not to have it won and get over with...
2. this is the important: despite all the StarTrek episodes, US still does not seem to understand what an "old place" is.
There is ethnical problems, cultural problems, historical problems, sexual problems, and mental problems.
Look at the Middle East: US went there, removed every fucking leader, or made it possibile for some other places to boil over, when neighbouring leaders were removed.
Still, they were warned all along, that those countries are not nations, they are clans held in place by a strong leader...
3. US is a capitalism - it does not invade a place to bring education, medicin and technology, it invades it to get the resources and to bring "freedom"...
The US will not contribute, by it's nature, to the rise of competing nations...
If the locals had some problems before the US, they will keep having it, and they will be some natural resources shorter :D
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gnuman on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:05PM
I'll just address the first two.
1. US Army do not really do logistics anymore. It's all been outsourced. For example, ALL logistics in Iraq and Afghanistan were outsourced to a subsidiary of Halliburton. That contract was granted much before any war with Iraq or Afghanistan was even on the horizon, but Halliburton and its shareholders (like Dick Chaney) made billions off of it.
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/308-12/16561-focus-cheneys-halliburton-made-395-billion-on-iraq-war [readersupportednews.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halliburton#Controversies [wikipedia.org]
2. Language... well, so does this mean US should only invade English speaking countries? Maybe dust off that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red [wikipedia.org]
Language has almost always been an issue in war, and cause of war.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by EQ on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:25PM
The author is greatly mistaken. Name a permanent lost battle for the US military - a decisive one. There aren't any in the past couple of decades - maybe go back to Somalia (Black Hawk Down). The military accomplishes military objectives. The US Military has done a good job of that.
War, on the other hand are political contests anymore, especially "limited war" (which should be an oxymoron), and the US politicians seem to inevitably screw them up.
Politicians do that when they retreat after the battles are won. ex: Fallujah. It was retaken, pacified, and restored to peace by military action - and then abandoned by politicians to local radicals and outsiders (ISIS). The surge worked - then the US military was ordered to abandon Iraq before the nation was stabilized agasint internal ethnic divisions, and left to the tender embraces of the corrupt Maliki administration, and his terrible treatment of the Sunnis - which gave us ISIS. It was not an absence of military command nor competency. It was an absence of political will and political competency, aptly demonstrated by Bush (other than when he listened to his military and committed to "The Surge" and new tactics), and then Obama, of trying to fight a war with lawyers in charge of the rules of engagement and a rapid withdrawal when any challenge arose where there might be casualties. The US military is trained and ready to respond, very effectively, when allowed to do so. It was that way when and where I served.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:55PM
Winning all the battles doesn't matter in the end.... look at Vietnam.
(Score: 2) by dcollins on Wednesday February 18 2015, @08:04PM
"Politicians do that when they retreat after the battles are won. ex: Fallujah..."
I guess I usually look at that the other way around: Politicians keep writing checks that can't actually be cashed. The repetitive failure of stabilizing Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc., etc. makes these things absolutely predictable in advance. There's no point in promising that "we'll stabilize Iraq"; that's a promise outside the scope of any administration, and no one believes it's possible. No matter how you re-wrap colonialism it's still a bad idea.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday February 18 2015, @08:15PM
Wars, not battles.
It's quite possible to win most or all the battles and still lose the war. See Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya for four examples off the cuff.
"War, on the other hand are political contests anymore, especially "limited war" (which should be an oxymoron), and the US politicians seem to inevitably screw them up."
War has ALWAYS been a political contest. And no, limited war is not an oxymoron. Perhaps the US politicians simply reflect popular misconceptions, as you do.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday February 19 2015, @04:36PM
I think his point was merely that the title shouldn't be "Why the US Army keeps losing wars" but rather "Why US politicians keep losing wars" -- the Army doesn't often lose, the Army accomplishes exactly what the politicians tell them to accomplish.
Personally, I have little doubt that if you gave the army complete autonomy to plan and execute their strategy, they'd win every single time. I also have little doubt that this would be a complete disaster, because doing everything necessary to win the war doesn't always put you in the best position once that war is over. But that doesn't change the fact that by talking about why our *army* keeps losing wars, you're absolving the damn politicians who caused the problems in the first place!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Covalent on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:28PM
Our objective isn't to win. Winning is final...and the money stops flowing when you win a war. It's far more profitable to maintain an ongoing stalemate.
See 1984 by George Orwell for a rather longer example of this idea.
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:52PM
"We've always been at war with Eastasia"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Dunbal on Wednesday February 18 2015, @07:44PM
It's far, far simpler than that. There seems to be a confusion at the highest levels between political goals and military goals being one and the same. This is the ONLY reason. Defeating a military structure and destroying its equipment does not provide ANY political advantage. Only a military one. The guy who hated you before still hates you even if you kill the tanks and artillery. That guy, well, he'll have kids and one day he'll have more tanks and artillery, and an even bigger grudge. What's worse is some morons think that soldiers make good policemen or peacekeepers when history has long shown that mixing military and civilian population ALWAYS leads to disaster for the civilian population.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:11PM
There is no confusion, except in the minds of American public. Anyone who grown-up listening to every action of USA on radio and TV knows the reality.
The basic question everyone here seems to be avoiding is - why does USA go to war? Win or lose, you can only measure when you know the goal.
And for almost all the American wars, US had exactly two goals - demonstrating latest weaponry that can be sold to other nations, and to create a market more suitable for American companies, in the name of nation-building.
US Army stays in these countries to ensure that local population doesn't take control of things. It has, without an exception, controlled the political landscape of conquered lands until people start rebelling and army's presence starts to have a negative effect on market. Then all American presidents come-up with some bullshit reason - 'oh... too many american soldiers are losing their lives', 'oh... we accomplished our agenda of defeating terror/communism'. But the true cause is always growing contempt among locals against USA resulting in a proper boycott of American products.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @02:46AM
Bravo. In all the commentaries above, nobody raised this question straight up: all of them just circled around it, closer or farther away.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by E_NOENT on Wednesday February 18 2015, @08:09PM
Wars traditionally are existential threats--invading armies at the gate: you either fight and win, or die.
By that definition, has the USA really fought in any such wars in the past 100 years?
Maybe instead of "losing wars" it's more accurate to say we tend to "get tired of prolonged, nebulous overseas actions with overly complex political motivations, and go home."
If Mexico invades, well, then there's a real war. And I bet we'd win...
I'm not in the business... I *am* the business.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday February 18 2015, @08:48PM
Wars traditionally are existential threats--invading armies at the gate: you either fight and win, or die.
Nope.
Sorry, you don't get to ignore the vast majority of world history and use your own definition of war.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by E_NOENT on Wednesday February 18 2015, @08:57PM
Sorry, you don't get to ignore the vast majority of world history and use your own definition of war.
A bit of a dickish response, don't you think?
That out of the way, I'm probably guilty of painting with a rather broad brush.
However, the biggest (in terms of loss of life) war (WW 2) was certianly an existential one for many nation-states. For the Soviet Union, that was in fact, an existential war. Maybe 'losing the war' for Americans in the 21st century means something different, which was my point.
I'm not in the business... I *am* the business.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Hartree on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:42PM
"5.War, What is it good For? Absolutely Nothing"
Tell that to the Carthaginians.
Oh wait. There aren't any. Rome then lasted for 600 or so more years in the west and a thousand in the east.
Here's a clue: War IS good for things. That's why people keep resorting to it. Perhaps it's not the best way, but if you fail to acknowledge that it works in at least some ways, good luck in trying to prevent it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @08:17AM
Tell that to the Carthaginians.
They are called "Libyans" now. Your point was?
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Friday February 20 2015, @06:57PM
Lol no they're not, Libyans are Arabs from when a Caliphate invasion/expansion tried half a pincher move on Europe going through all of North Africa and attacking Spain. Later they got kicked out of Spain but only across the Strait of Gibraltar to Morocco.
Maybe you also believe that current day Egyptians are descendants of the ancient Egyptians who built the Pyramids? Nope, same thing there.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 1) by BK on Wednesday February 18 2015, @09:46PM
Learn the language if you want to police a country.
It wasn't necessary to learn German to or Japanese to smash those countries in WWII. These are either somehow exceptional cases, or they indicate that Pieria missed some important advice:
6: Don't occupy a stronghold of the enemy until the enemy has been thoroughly and utterly beaten. See also Dresden, Tokyo, Berlin, and so many more. Western military strategy too often presumes that only a few leaders must be killed to reduce the opponent to a rabble ready to take direction from ... western diplomats. The truth is that the motivation of the rabble remains and, if not destroyed and defeated, new leaders do eventually emerge. Killing only the visible leaders only prolongs the process and leads to an occupier's defeat.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Thursday February 19 2015, @12:09AM
Given that the Korean War was defined by Truman as a "Police Action" in it's early days to avoid an official declaration of war, how many armed conflicts since then that America has taken part in have fitted that description better? Okay, it's splitting the hair mighty fine, the boots on the ground would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between some wars and police actions, but that could be an important distinction we've lost in time - after all, can you really "win" a police action?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday February 19 2015, @12:53AM
The Korean war was a United Nations war, to which the US committed troops.
After that the USSR never again boycotted a UN Security Council vote.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @01:35AM
The war against the Kremlin's military junta (aka "communism") was won. The dominoes were held back and the Soviet union fell apart while the PRC was slowly converted over to the current US friendly Beijing oligarchy it is today.
Sure the new Russian junta that came about after the Russian oligarchy succession wars and the current Iranian nuclear program were all unfortunate setbacks, but where the south-east Asia, Africa and Middle-East are concerned, the continues efforts of destabilization through proxy wars, bribery and assassinations were all proved successful in the long run. And while it's true that the south-Americas and India remain somewhat unwieldy, the fact remains that the American plutocracy was only strengthen in the last 50 years where-by most of it's oversea competitors were overturned through wars, politics or economic processes.
Oh, and the PRC has had the "honor" of owning the "world's biggest military" since circa 1975.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @10:38AM
US friendly Beijing
China may seem friendly to the United States, but it is merely looking out for its investment. China has the US on a very short leash and is playing a very smart poker hand that has fooled the US for over half a century. China has maintained an empire for thousands of years and is very clever at long term strategy. Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" was a product of China's successful war strategy, and the US is falling into all the traps it highlights. Eventually the time may come when China will decide rule the world (possibly alongside Russia) or it may rule by proxy, installing its own puppets into the US political system (it likely already has).
(Score: 1) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday February 19 2015, @02:27AM
I don't think those reasons are the only reasons America keeps losing.
When they invaded Vietnam, where were the Vietnamese going to go? They had no choice but to keep fighting the invaders.
It's no different in Afghanistan and Iraq.
There also seems to be a feeling that the US sees themselves as the good guys, but they're actually the invader, the bad guy.
They are the people destroying the lives of Iragis, who may not have had political freedom under Sadam, but at least no one was shooting at them, and their kids could go to school in safety.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 19 2015, @02:51AM
One thing left out of the analysis, is the fact that our armed forces are always training to win the LAST WAR. That is, those leaders who proved successful in the preceding war (read that as, "those leaders who held rank at the conclusion of the preceding war") determine how troops will be trained in the future. The military has a long history of hidebound old farts drilling new troops in old strategies and tactics. Warriors long ago just laughed at the hoplites who formed up into formations, and advanced in lock step - only to have their asses handed to them. Today's leaders do the equivalent when they mock the "terrorists" who take advantage of our weaknesses.
Oh - the logistics train? More could have been said about that. That logistics train starts in Washington D.C. with lobbyists selling shit weapon systems to ten-star generals at the Pentagon. Take that F-35 for instance. Shiny new toy, which as designed MAY HAVE accomplished it's mission at an exorbitant price. But, then, every multi-star officer in Washington had to make changes to the damned thing, in the hopes that he might make it fit his own mission. Ultimately, we have a confusing, bastard mix of mission objectives, none of which can be met by the prototypes. Billions pissed away to make corporate chiefs richer, to stroke flag officer's egos, and win votes for politicians.
We could take some lessons from the Romans. Decimation for instance. The penalty for a mutiny and/or failure was to put every tenth soldier to death. We could institute that policy, and apply it to the logistics train. Start with those lobbyists, continue with all those flag officers, and work on up to those idiots in congress who voted for all those appropriations. Decimate them, and the survivors will quickly get that logistics train under control.
The grunts deserve better than they get in the field. The taxpayers deserve better. The WORLD deserves better.
Ultimately, we fight wars to make a very select group of people rich. Parasites can make millions off of the bodies in the field.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday February 19 2015, @09:17AM
"War is not the continuation of politics [a reference to the famous maxim of Clausewitz that "war is politics carried on with additional means"] war is the failure of politics."
America, apparently, fails at politics. And not even only domestically!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19 2015, @09:36AM
The war for oil was never about stealing Iraqi oil. It was about cutting off one of the large oil suppliers (Iraq), driving up the prices of their own oil.
Look at gas prices. It was a huge success.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 20 2015, @05:09PM
Admittedly, I didn't read the article. But I did look through the comments above. I have a very difficult time defining what 'win' actually means in a war. Without that, 'not winning' also doesn't mean much.
Not losing our government?
hmm, well then we've won them all since the revolutionary war. Although, some in the South may disagree. It's also arguable that the government has been 'lost' in particular elections (executive particularly).
Holding territory?
That just brings up the question, 'For How Long?'. All governments have eventually lost this one, how much time do you have to hold to win?
Making the fantastically wealthy, even wealthier ?
hmmm, I think we[1] have won pretty much all our wars[2].
[1]: not me, not 99.x% of the population either
[2]: Damn, I almost forgot, we need to define 'war'