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That strategy won’t work against a sufficiently determined adversary, if they’re willing to eliminate all potential enemy combatants (= civilians) and capture a

That strategy won’t work against a sufficiently determined adversary, if they’re willing to eliminate all potential enemy combatants (= civilians) and capture all the resources of the defeated entity for themselves.

Latteland 8y ago
There was WW2 and then everything else in terms of clarity between good and evil. The vast majority of conflicts the US has been involved in were not so clear cut, like say Vietnam, Iraq 2. I guess all the atrocities weren't visible at the start of WW2; there was a clear difference with Japan and Germany, and they could have won ww 2. Imagine a war today with the US vs China, fought over say freedom of access to the ocean, those atolls in the South China Sea.
- sangnoir 8y ago
  > There was WW2 and then everything else in terms of clarity between good and evil. Was it that clear? I think the difference between sides was on the sense of scale. Before the war, eugenics was in vogue, Jewish people were hated everywhere, the idea of lesser races wasn't even questioned, and a lot of ideas that Nazi German executed on were inspired from across the Atlantic. What the 3rd Reich did was package all these ideas into a formal ideology and industrialized death for the 'undesirables'. IMO it was less of 'good vs. evil' and more 'not-good vs. evil'.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    There was certainly anti-jewish hate in the us, remember the country clubs that wouldn't let jewish people in. the kkk might have wanted to her jews but very few people in the us, afaik, didn't want to hurt them.
  - alfredallan1 8y ago
    Yes, you’re right about all of that. But it is critical to understand/remember that those (racial motivations) were Not the underlying cause of the war. Had Hitler not started off with the lebensraum gag, nobody would have given a damn about it - in practical terms, barring a few strongly worded speeches and possible protests lodged with various German ambassadors. Claiming to fight hatred might have flown well in the media, and that’s one of the reasons the whole antisemitism and eugenics business started to be disliked - because of its association with the 3rd Reich. But no government at the time, a time when all were busy recovering from WWI, would have bothered to send troops to fight the gassing of a few million Jews. Even in recent years/decades, far too many near-genocides (of some African tribes by other African tribes), and currently, the case of the Rohingya moslems in the Burma - all it garners is sharp criticism, occasional sanctions, and a lot tall talking by the UN. And the current level of awareness and popular dislike of these issues is far greater than in the time of WWII.

Latteland 8y ago

There was WW2 and then everything else in terms of clarity between good and evil. The vast majority of conflicts the US has been involved in were not so clear cut, like say Vietnam, Iraq 2. I guess all the atrocities weren't visible at the start of WW2; there was a clear difference with Japan and Germany, and they could have won ww 2. Imagine a war today with the US vs China, fought over say freedom of access to the ocean, those atolls in the South China Sea.

sangnoir 8y ago
> There was WW2 and then everything else in terms of clarity between good and evil. Was it that clear? I think the difference between sides was on the sense of scale. Before the war, eugenics was in vogue, Jewish people were hated everywhere, the idea of lesser races wasn't even questioned, and a lot of ideas that Nazi German executed on were inspired from across the Atlantic. What the 3rd Reich did was package all these ideas into a formal ideology and industrialized death for the 'undesirables'. IMO it was less of 'good vs. evil' and more 'not-good vs. evil'.
- Latteland 8y ago
  There was certainly anti-jewish hate in the us, remember the country clubs that wouldn't let jewish people in. the kkk might have wanted to her jews but very few people in the us, afaik, didn't want to hurt them.
- alfredallan1 8y ago
  Yes, you’re right about all of that. But it is critical to understand/remember that those (racial motivations) were Not the underlying cause of the war. Had Hitler not started off with the lebensraum gag, nobody would have given a damn about it - in practical terms, barring a few strongly worded speeches and possible protests lodged with various German ambassadors. Claiming to fight hatred might have flown well in the media, and that’s one of the reasons the whole antisemitism and eugenics business started to be disliked - because of its association with the 3rd Reich. But no government at the time, a time when all were busy recovering from WWI, would have bothered to send troops to fight the gassing of a few million Jews. Even in recent years/decades, far too many near-genocides (of some African tribes by other African tribes), and currently, the case of the Rohingya moslems in the Burma - all it garners is sharp criticism, occasional sanctions, and a lot tall talking by the UN. And the current level of awareness and popular dislike of these issues is far greater than in the time of WWII.