6 ms·

Everything is winnable. But the pentagon is mostly a state/corporate subsidy program with some military capabilities as a side effect. US hasn't been in a war

Everything is winnable. But the pentagon is mostly a state/corporate subsidy program with some military capabilities as a side effect. US hasn't been in a war they HAVE to win since WWII (and even then continental US was pretty safe) so the institutional knowledge that was bought with blood is soon forgotten. Afghanistan was not won, because there was never a criteria for winning towards which the military and the state department to work. And the fact that US has the habit of cooperating with the wrong people in third world countries, makes things worse. If the US had courts in Afghanistan in which to try corruption, Afghanistan would be a better country now.

emp_zealoth 11y ago
It's like you guys refuse to learn from the past. For example in WW2 there was Bomber Mafia. Nearly as bad as F35 mafia
- hydrogen18 11y ago
  It is actually even worse. The US had the bomber mafia. But at least they were focused on the idea of hitting high-value industrial targets with daylight raids. If this had been carried out it would have removed the industrial capability of Germany. The British also had a bomber mafia. But they were obsessed with nighttime raids that just carpet bombed cities. These were safer for crews, but completely ineffective. They just destroyed cities and massacred civilians.
  - arethuza 11y ago
    You are correct that the UK nighttime raids were safer - but worth noting that they weren't safe in an absolute sense - 44.4% of Bomber Command aircrews were killed in action.
  - richmarr 11y ago
    > ... obsessed with nighttime raids that just carpet bombed cities The US and Britain agreement was to divide sorties in Europe into daytime (US) and nighttime (Britain), and pre-GPS accuracy at night pretty-much dictates aiming for vary large targets. The obsession came with Dresden, but that seems to be a different point to the one you were making.
    - rjsw 11y ago
      The pre-GPS bombing accuracy during daytime isn't any better if it is a cloudy day, which happens more often in Europe than the western US where the USAAF had trained.
    - hydrogen18 11y ago
      You are absolutely correct. But my point is the nighttime raids were not only a waste of resources, but they just killed civilians en masse. This didn't really do anything to change the war. Germany had no shortage of slave labor, so some dead civilians were just less mouths to feed. Britain would have been better off just not building those bombers and bombs. The resources could have been diverted into something else. Maybe fighter escorts for the daytime raids? I'm not trying to totally destroy the British contribution to the war. It is just that this policy of night time carpet bombing was totally misguided.
      - richmarr 11y ago
        Sure, I admit I mainly took exception to the wording, not the actual points raised. I disagree with you that RAF bombing achieved nothing though. Plenty of industrial facilities were destroyed, major dams, V2 rocket facilities, etc. If you lived in London then you'd probably be reasonably pleased by the destruction of a V2 facility, even if the long-term strategic difference was negligible. You have to understand that we Brits are quite used to our armed forces contribution being erased from history by Hollywood so can be a bit defensive about Americans making sweeping generalisations in this area. We will argue you down to the details.
        hydrogen18 11y ago
        Using the V2 is a poor example, as that was a combined effort with both the British and the Americans. While Operation Crossbow it did achieve some of its goal, I can't find documentation that it was the RAF sorties that achieved damage to the V2 and its related infrastructure. I'm not terribly well versed in the history of the V2 during WWII, so I may just be missing it. The best thing the Brits did was use double-agents to send the Germans misinformation about where they were striking. They gradually convinced the Germans that the rockets were landing on the far side of London harmlessly. The physics behind the V2 at the time clearly placed it as striking London, but the misinformation essentially demanded changes in the engineering. London was still hit plenty though, so this intelligence campaign was not a total success. If this had actually been totally successful, the Brits might as well have helped Germany setup more V2 factories. Each V2 was extremely costly in terms of materials to produce. This removed available materials from the parts of the war effort that actually needed them.
vlehto 11y ago
Germany was winnable because after the fighting U.S. and other allies we're willing to occupy the area with huge number of troops for 50 years. Also Marshall plan. Korean war was winnable for the same reason. Huge numbers there. Even today. Here you can see the long tail of Korean war. http://www.heritage.org/~/media/images/reports/chart5_1.ashx?w=520&h=429&as=1 http://www.heritage.org/~/media/images/reports/chart5_1.ashx... Vietnam was not winnable because general population didn't support such high numbers for occupation. There we're practically no U.S. troops left for the last two years of the war. Since Vietnam U.S. cannot use draft. So U.S. can only conquer one, maybe two countries while keeping Korea and Europe under control. But that leaves those troops bound on foreign soil. Which in turn limits U.S. power projection and therefore cannot be the long term solution. Wars have not changed. DoD just would love to find a way to win wars without the ensuing occupation. And that's unlikely to happen.
- bewo001 11y ago
  No, as old Macchiavelli put it: if a country is hard to conquer, it will be easy to hold; if a country is easy to conquer, it is hard to hold. The reason is that a united, highly organized country fights hard, but it won't fall apart into dozens of factions after being conquered. Unlike countries like Iraq or Afghanistan.
  - vlehto 11y ago
    I'm holding a copy of Prince and happened to find that verse. It's about Ottoman imperium and feudal France. If there is a dictator and you simply become the new dictator, then keeping a country is easy. That would have been because none of the military leaders would have any loyalty among the people. But nationalism has happened since and it's questionable if this would hold anymore. If there is large number of Feudal lords, this makes taking France potentially easy as some of them would betray the king. But on the other hand they would have loyalty of the people with them. Times have changed, otherwise Iraq should be peace of cake now that Saddam is dead.
    - bewo001 11y ago
njharman 11y ago
Why did we "have to" win WWII? What logic requiring that also doesn't require stopping China/USSR? We had to win Korea or give up influence in Asia. But, yeah 2nd gulf wars were boondoggles.

emp_zealoth 11y ago

It's like you guys refuse to learn from the past. For example in WW2 there was Bomber Mafia. Nearly as bad as F35 mafia

hydrogen18 11y ago
It is actually even worse. The US had the bomber mafia. But at least they were focused on the idea of hitting high-value industrial targets with daylight raids. If this had been carried out it would have removed the industrial capability of Germany. The British also had a bomber mafia. But they were obsessed with nighttime raids that just carpet bombed cities. These were safer for crews, but completely ineffective. They just destroyed cities and massacred civilians.
- arethuza 11y ago
  You are correct that the UK nighttime raids were safer - but worth noting that they weren't safe in an absolute sense - 44.4% of Bomber Command aircrews were killed in action.
- richmarr 11y ago
  > ... obsessed with nighttime raids that just carpet bombed cities The US and Britain agreement was to divide sorties in Europe into daytime (US) and nighttime (Britain), and pre-GPS accuracy at night pretty-much dictates aiming for vary large targets. The obsession came with Dresden, but that seems to be a different point to the one you were making.
  - rjsw 11y ago
    The pre-GPS bombing accuracy during daytime isn't any better if it is a cloudy day, which happens more often in Europe than the western US where the USAAF had trained.
  - hydrogen18 11y ago
    You are absolutely correct. But my point is the nighttime raids were not only a waste of resources, but they just killed civilians en masse. This didn't really do anything to change the war. Germany had no shortage of slave labor, so some dead civilians were just less mouths to feed. Britain would have been better off just not building those bombers and bombs. The resources could have been diverted into something else. Maybe fighter escorts for the daytime raids? I'm not trying to totally destroy the British contribution to the war. It is just that this policy of night time carpet bombing was totally misguided.
    - richmarr 11y ago
      Sure, I admit I mainly took exception to the wording, not the actual points raised. I disagree with you that RAF bombing achieved nothing though. Plenty of industrial facilities were destroyed, major dams, V2 rocket facilities, etc. If you lived in London then you'd probably be reasonably pleased by the destruction of a V2 facility, even if the long-term strategic difference was negligible. You have to understand that we Brits are quite used to our armed forces contribution being erased from history by Hollywood so can be a bit defensive about Americans making sweeping generalisations in this area. We will argue you down to the details.
      - hydrogen18 11y ago
        Using the V2 is a poor example, as that was a combined effort with both the British and the Americans. While Operation Crossbow it did achieve some of its goal, I can't find documentation that it was the RAF sorties that achieved damage to the V2 and its related infrastructure. I'm not terribly well versed in the history of the V2 during WWII, so I may just be missing it. The best thing the Brits did was use double-agents to send the Germans misinformation about where they were striking. They gradually convinced the Germans that the rockets were landing on the far side of London harmlessly. The physics behind the V2 at the time clearly placed it as striking London, but the misinformation essentially demanded changes in the engineering. London was still hit plenty though, so this intelligence campaign was not a total success. If this had actually been totally successful, the Brits might as well have helped Germany setup more V2 factories. Each V2 was extremely costly in terms of materials to produce. This removed available materials from the parts of the war effort that actually needed them.

vlehto 11y ago

Germany was winnable because after the fighting U.S. and other allies we're willing to occupy the area with huge number of troops for 50 years. Also Marshall plan. Korean war was winnable for the same reason. Huge numbers there. Even today. Here you can see the long tail of Korean war. http://www.heritage.org/~/media/images/reports/chart5_1.ashx?w=520&h=429&as=1 http://www.heritage.org/~/media/images/reports/chart5_1.ashx... Vietnam was not winnable because general population didn't support such high numbers for occupation. There we're practically no U.S. troops left for the last two years of the war. Since Vietnam U.S. cannot use draft. So U.S. can only conquer one, maybe two countries while keeping Korea and Europe under control. But that leaves those troops bound on foreign soil. Which in turn limits U.S. power projection and therefore cannot be the long term solution. Wars have not changed. DoD just would love to find a way to win wars without the ensuing occupation. And that's unlikely to happen.

bewo001 11y ago
No, as old Macchiavelli put it: if a country is hard to conquer, it will be easy to hold; if a country is easy to conquer, it is hard to hold. The reason is that a united, highly organized country fights hard, but it won't fall apart into dozens of factions after being conquered. Unlike countries like Iraq or Afghanistan.
- vlehto 11y ago
  I'm holding a copy of Prince and happened to find that verse. It's about Ottoman imperium and feudal France. If there is a dictator and you simply become the new dictator, then keeping a country is easy. That would have been because none of the military leaders would have any loyalty among the people. But nationalism has happened since and it's questionable if this would hold anymore. If there is large number of Feudal lords, this makes taking France potentially easy as some of them would betray the king. But on the other hand they would have loyalty of the people with them. Times have changed, otherwise Iraq should be peace of cake now that Saddam is dead.
  - bewo001 11y ago

njharman 11y ago

Why did we "have to" win WWII? What logic requiring that also doesn't require stopping China/USSR? We had to win Korea or give up influence in Asia. But, yeah 2nd gulf wars were boondoggles.