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Two Decades of War Have Eroded the Morale of America’s Troops
- quantumofmalice 9y agoThe founders were against a standing army, preferring citizen-based militias. Looking at the behavior of Imperial America, one sees the wisdom. I suppose one bright spot in this otherwise dismal time is that both the left and the right mostly agree that we shouldn't be dropping bombs on people.
- matte_black 9y agoWell, at least not on those who don’t deserve it.
- rscho 9y agoWho is to judge who deserves it? The use of force is only justifiable for defense. Defense is clearly not the main focus in US action.
- Y_Y 9y agoWhat about pre-emptive defensive? Defense from uncertainty? Defense from economic hardship? (Whoa! I really just meant to raise the questions, especially in the case of justification for recent US military conflicts. I'm not advocating for anything!)
- Density 9y agoThat's a reason to bomb the boomers, not a backwards country half way around the world.
- josho 9y agoPre-emptive Defence is a euphemism for offence and is an illegal act of war.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago> What about pre-emptive defensive? Defense from uncertainty? Defense from economic hardships? Each of this items, alone, would justify many countries in the world to suddenly attack US. Better not confuse the concepts of attack and defense.
- nickik 9y agoThose are very easy argument to make. But its very hard to find cases where they apply. Once in a while you have a case where it makes sense, but very seldomly. Most of the time you are much better at defending against uncertainty and economic hardship by putting some money assied rather then building a bunch of tanks.
- rscho 9y agoI am sorry to say that in my view, such an answer implies that you are either extraordinarily naive or nationalistic. In both cases, I see no way that we could ever agree.
- bobwaycott 9y agoBy which you mean attack before someone can attack you? Attack if you’re feeling uncertain about the prospects and outcome of diplomacy? Attack to acquire/open new markets to keep fueling the pipe dream of unfettered and constant economic growth? Each of these notions are but rationales used to start a fight, not defend against one.
- matte_black 9y agoWho is to judge who doesn’t deserve it?
- geofft 9y agoNo one deserves to be bombed. Some people should be stopped, by any effective means, but that's an entirely different calculus. If you had those people in prison, they would not deserve their prison being bombed.
- sneak 9y agoIf the american left and american right agreed on that, we probably wouldn’t have been at war for the last 17 years, sadly.
- twic 9y agoI take it that the point was that the left and the right are anti-bomb, but the centre is strongly pro-bomb.
- quantumofmalice 9y agoThe american left and right (and the maligned center) do agree on it, you can look at the polls on the syrian intervention. That's the insanity. Our foreign policy is controlled by people who do not care what we think.
- Density 9y agoEvidence of a deep state?
- skymt 9y agoMilitary-industrial complex is an older and more precise term.
- pmyteh 9y agoThat political elites (publicly) disagree with the public doesn't mean there's a deep state. It just means that your democracy isn't very responsive. 'Deep state' is being thrown around a lot these days. It's proper meaning is in relation to things like Italy's Propaganda Due lodge: a tightly-connected network of people who are in a strong sense anti-democratic, who are not publicly known but have something of a veto over the actions of an elected government. Some of those features apply to the anti-Trump official world in the US, but only in a much weaker form. And this isn't to do with it, not least because Trump is the one pushing the button.
- rdiddly 9y ago
- protomyth 9y agoWell, the Barbary pirates and War of 1812 pretty much ended that way of thinking for the United States.
- Spooky23 9y agoNot really. The US military was pretty tiny until WW2. The Europeans ignored many of the lessons of the civil war (the first modern war in many ways) because they figured that a bunch of amateur generals fighting with conscripts were not worth learning from.
- bobwaycott 9y agoThat the World Wars vastly increased the size of the US military does not negate the parent’s point that the early 19th century saw a change in the US stance on having a standing army. Edit: fat thumbs typed 18 instead of 19.
- protomyth 9y agoI'm not talking about size versus the Europeans. I am talking about the attitude of the founders towards a standing Army and a Navy. Just buying the original 6 frigates was an total change in attitude. The war before the Civil War, the Mexican–American War, is a perfect example of the change. It was also the training ground for the Civil War generals.
- pdonis 9y ago> the attitude of the founders towards a standing Army and a Navy. Just buying the original 6 frigates was an total change in attitude. I don't think the attitude was the same regarding a standing Navy. Standing Army, yes; the founders were clearly against that. But a major reason for having a standing Navy is to keep conflicts elsewhere from getting to the point where you need an Army--for example, protecting American merchant ships sailing abroad (since the British Navy would no longer protect them), which was what buying the original 6 frigates was for.
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- _emacsomancer_ 9y ago> is that both the left and the right mostly agree that we shouldn't be dropping bombs on people. You mean in terms of voters, right? Because in terms of politicians, there seem to be an awful lot of hawks on both sides.
- quantumofmalice 9y agoYes, I mean the people. The center doesn't want war right now either, despite the best efforts of the media to whip up a war frenzy. Our foreign policy is directed by people who do not care what the american people think.
- ajmurmann 9y ago> in this otherwise dismal time While I understand this sentiment I've come to the conclusion that it's wrong and maybe even dangerous. Ultimately it got us Trump. I think this perspective on our current time is mainly cause by how the need cycle works. Someone on the a16z podcast claimed that shorter new cycles lead to more negative reporting. He suggested the thought experiment of a need paper only published every 100 year. It would contain awful stuff like WWI & II, but lots of positive we never think about like the number of diseases that have been eradicated. We have fewer military conflicts, unbelievably better build mortality, fewer famines, more individual freedom. It's not all great but it's so much better than we tell ourselves. According to Russ Roberts a study found that even economists who are pessimistic about our current situation will answer that they'd want to be alive right now when they are asked at what time in history they'd want to live. While I find myself more upset with the current state of things than ever before I must agree. Edit: formatting
- megaman22 9y agoMy half-suspicion is that there is some faction threatened by how swimmingly things have been going for the past year and a half that is trying to stir the pot, and divert attention away from worthwhile national investments into another boondoggle.
- jonnybgood 9y agoThey were against standing armies, but then they changed their mind when the capitol was burned down.
- nickik 9y agoEven then they were still agianst constant warfare. Madison specifically wrote that a society under constant war could not preserve its freedom, and he was mostly right.
- walshemj 9y agoAnd probably also when the French national guard got a bit to radical for the radical liberals that made up the founding fathers and had starting roles in several uprisings.
- Nokinside 9y agoIsn't this the constant feature of long lasting, low intensity conflicts and occupations? The morale of occupying force starts to decline under constant resistance. This has been true in the Latin America, Africa, Caucasus, Asia etc. Eventually you end up with high crime, corruption and death squads.
- wz1000 9y ago"Not only will America go to your country and kill all your people, but what's worse I think, is that they'll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad. America making a movie about what Vietnam did to their soldiers is like a serial killer telling you what stopping suddenly for hitchhikers did to his clutch." - Frankie Boyle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZwuTI-V8SI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZwuTI-V8SI
- gadders 9y agoThe same Frankie Boyle that makes rape jokes about disabled kids.
- khhh35575544 9y agoYeah he's a lovely chap. I remember him making hateful comments about a British swimmer called Rebecca Adlington's face a while back. She won a gold medal at the Olympics - so wtf does it matter if she has a big nose, and who tf is he to criticise her? Somehow his lefty fans choose to overlook the misogyny and hatred when it's mixed in with enough politically correct, anti-Trump etc. material.
- adventured 9y agoIs there a category for a serial killer that's trying to prevent another dramatically worse serial killer from killing and enslaving a nation for generations? The US didn't try to conquer North Vietnam. It didn't try to annex the nation. It got involved in an existing civil war - on the premise of fighting Communism's spread - and tried to keep North Vietnam from conquering South Vietnam for exactly the same reason it acted to keep North Korea from conquering South Korea. The US left Vietnam, the North went on with its conquering anyway. The US killed vast numbers of North Koreans in the Korean War as well, in the defense of the South. Why isn't that treated exactly the same way that the Vietnam War is? A curious inconsistentcy of popular sentiment: it's because to either wish the US had failed in Korea, or never got involved at all, is to be ok with the idea that South Korea would very likely look like North Korea today and that the South's people would have had the same horrific history the past six decades. Let's see how things turned out. South Korea: GDP per capita of Spain & Italy, ~$30,000. Vietnam: GDP per capita of East Timor & the Solomon Islands, ~$2,300.
- geofft 9y agoIf you really supported the troops, you would do everything possible to keep them out of combat zones and safe at home as far as possible. You would only ask them to make the ultimate sacrifice when their country's freedom is truly at stake and when their death would have a meaning. In the words of National Security Advisor John Bolton, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost."
- azemetre 9y agoThose are quite the choice words coming from the man who pushed the fabrication of lies leading to the Iraq War. I suppose it's different when it's your single life versus the many lives of people you don't know.
- meritt 9y agoIf you're quoting John Bolton as someone who wants to avoid war, you probably should do a bit of research on John Bolton. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2005/04/28/boltons-conservative-ideology-has-roots-in-yale-experience/ https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2005/04/28/boltons-conservati... John Bolton was extremely supportive of the war in Vietnam. He simply utilized his privilege to avoid being drafted so he didn't have to go to war.
- geofft 9y agoYes, I'm quite aware of his attitudes to war itself—he's certainly not someone who wants to avoid it. I'm simply quoting him as someone who understands, very clearly, what's good for individual soldiers. No one better understands how America slaughters its own people than the man making sure he's on the other side of the knife.
- tylersmith 9y agoMost "support the troops" people support the troops and not the troopers.
- draw_down 9y agoSure... probably worse for the people from the areas we’ve been fighting in though.
- nickik 9y agoOf all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. —James Madison Pretty much exactly what happened. Pretty smart these guys.
- lostlogin 9y agoYes, but war also helped some groups find their place. World Wars one and two saw oppressed races (and genders) make gains due to the lack of meat for the grinders and grudging inclusion by the system of those previously excluded groups through pressing need. The inclusion helped push forward their rights, and while things often remained pretty abysmal post war it helped move things along and started movements toward more equality.
- nickik 9y agoShort terms shocks have reactions. Many of these things were already going in the right direction. 100 years of freedom (or no WW) between 1914 and now would probebly have been better for these groups.
- lostlogin 9y agoPossibly, but there are numerous examples of minority (and majority in the case of women) groups agitating for the rights that they deserved, and in many cases having the dominant groups support them. I don’t think the social change would have happened at the same rate without the wars.
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- gaius 9y agoWestern militaries were and are designed for high-intensity armoured warfare in mitteleuropa against a near-tech-equivalent opponent. That capability cannot be sacrificed incase it is really needed - but an Army designed for that isn’t good for the ongoing Middle East and Afghan situation. It isn’t trained or equipped for it and hasn’t recruited for it. What the West should have done is designated another force for that. Something like (but not exactly) keeping the Army as it was and transforming the Marines into a desert-fighting force. Or taking elements of the Army and Marines and making an entirely new force. Or something like the French Foreign Legion.
- yborg 9y agoArmies in general are not good at fighting insurgencies, especially those supported by a 3rd party that can itself not be engaged in full scale war. But your statement in general is incorrect at least as far as the US military, which has literally been engaged in continuous warfare against insurgencies and banana republics for more than 25 years. If they aren't designed for this yet, I don't know how many centuries it would take. The fact of the matter is that the US now has ballooned what it euphemistically designates as Special Operations forces to over 70,000 men - 10x the size of the Foreign Legion. If they had 700,000 men deployed in SOCOM they would still lose. The Roman Empire showed how you defeat an insurgency militarily - by exterminating/recruiting the population of the target nation. You do this by establishing and expanding colonies along with large military garrisons to protect them. This takes generations, though, and requires either finding enough volunteers to colonize, or forcibly shipping people to these colonies, which tends to not have the desired effect. The Romans accomplished this mostly by giving land in conquered territories to ex-soldiers, along with members of the conquered population as slaves. These strategems are largely taboo now, so the "mowing the grass" strategy of continual armed sweeps is what's left and just like with your lawn, it will never end.
- gaius 9y agoThe Roman Empire showed how you defeat an insurgency militarily - by exterminating/recruiting the population of the target nation. The Romans generally preferred to co-opt local elites and win hearts-and-minds. When the Catavelauni were “conquered” they had already been trading with Rome for 50 years and loved Roman merchandise and culture. Caesar showed up with his legions one day and instead of fighting they said what took you so long?? Can we be Romans now please? The US could have done this in the 1980s in most of their former enemies I reckon. Levi’s, Coca-Cola, Hollywood, Michael Jackson and Madonna. But somehow they ballsed it up...
- dustfinger 9y agoWon't this thread just degrade into politics? Maybe this article should be flagged for not being in the spirit of HN?
- MajorSauce 9y agoI personally found the article very interesting, but I'm with you that it will entice political comments.
- dustfinger 9y agoI am not judging the article in its own right, only its suitability for HN given the guidelines.
- nickik 9y ago> This was part of the much-heralded “success” of the surge, George W. Bush’s decision to increase troop presence in Iraq and commit to a strategy grounded in the new counterinsurgency field manual General David Petraeus put out in 2006. Yeah, this was the time the US military did the bidding of the Supreme Islamic Councile and helped to ethnically cleanse Baghdad. Givin support to people like the Badr Brigades who went around with powerdrills and killed all non-Shia residents. The level of violence went down because the Sunni were defeated. They are just 20% and they have no chance against the other 60% that control the government and 100'000 marines. The US also made deals with the Tribs in the country side. This worked as long as America was there and giving them protection and support. Once the US left it took a couple years and many of these tribes joined ISIS. The narrative the this counterinsurgency thing 'worked' is utter nonsense. When Petraeus tried the same strategy in Afganistan where there was not a majority who was willing or able to utterly crush a small minority it failed completly.
- jseliger 9y agoThere's an interesting book by Tom Ricks, The Generals, that's also congruent with this article: https://jakeseliger.com/2012/12/18/the-generals-tom-ricks https://jakeseliger.com/2012/12/18/the-generals-tom-ricks. Ricks points out that there's a distinct differences between incentives / consequences for front-line troops and generals. Since the Korean War, we've basically insulated generals from consequences for failure; they get fat paydays, admiration, and cushy consulting gigs after retirement regardless of performance. Which is not true for front-line troops. In other words, high-level commanders have no skin in the game: https://www.amazon.com/dp/042528462X https://www.amazon.com/dp/042528462X.
- tejohnso 9y ago"The Founders of the republic originally wanted to force Congress to vote every two years just to keep a standing Army; these days Congress won’t even permit a vote to replace an Authorization for the Use of Military Force that was passed prior to the Iraq War and that we are now using to justify fighting against groups that didn’t even exist back then." This sounds like it would be in violation of a parent statute of some kind. Or maybe the Authorization was deliberately left open ended. Which should also be illegal.
- larkeith 9y agoAs someone fairly disassociated from the US armed forces, I wonder how much impact the confirmation that all WMD-related rationale for the Iraq war was fabricated had on troop morale and faith in stated goals.
- scotty79 9y agoI'd guess none. Lying is ok when it's done by the good guys. Especially to harm bad guys. Holywood taught us that.
- anonu 9y agoWar is necessary to fuel the military industrial complex. Without war there is no ultimate purpose in developing weapons, pouring money into r&d, exporting arms and ammunition to the rest of the world. This is a cynical view but I see America as sticking to it fairly consistently over the last two centuries.
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- ry4n413 9y agoWhat to Submit On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mnm1 9y ago> I’ve often heard veterans wish for a draft, for something that would drag more Americans into orbit around the dark star that is the country’s constant exercise of military power. Just when I think I cannot support our stupid wars and troops less, something like this comes along and does the job. I'd rather break my own leg or spend years in the hell that is American prison than take up arms for what America has seen fit to go to war to in every conflict since WWII. Maybe if we didn't have this seemingly never-ending record of fighting wars for idiotic reasons, losing almost every single one, our soldiers' and public's morale wouldn't be so low. What else can one possibly expect when fighting wars that aren't meant to end, against enemies that have never harmed us, for no fucking reason anyone can possibly explain or comprehend? To be fair, the American people have not even had a choice of a candidate that didn't support such wars from either party at least since 9/11 and for the most part even before then. The troops finally realizing how idiotic and purposeless conflicts like the one in Iraq are could be a great thing for America. If enough of them speak out or even refuse to serve, maybe we won't be involved in such crimes against humanity. But let's face it, the politicians who don't have to go to war or send their children to war seemingly will never get the message. Possibly the only thing that might change their minds is seeing their own children bleeding out in the middle of a highway and coming back in coffins. I guess this is what happens when we have a military like the US has and no actual enemies. In the meantime, actual enemies rising are generally ignored, and by the current administration even encouraged to become more powerful. At this point, I'm quite certain the idea of "winning" any of the conflicts we're currently in or will be in the near future is mere fantasy and quite delusional. So is the idea that a draft will ever be supported or come back successfully. The internet exists so at this point, I can't imagine anyone but the poorest, the dumbest, and the most violent can even twist their minds enough to not be disgusted enough by our past actions to support any war the US is or might be in. That's probably why we're enlisting klansmen and other similar lowlifes--no one else is insane or stupid enough to enroll of their own free will.