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posted by janrinok on Wednesday February 18 2015, @05:04PM   Printer-friendly
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):

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by E_NOENT on Wednesday February 18 2015, @08:57PM

    by E_NOENT (630) on Wednesday February 18 2015, @08:57PM (#146679) Journal

    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.

    --
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