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The US Military can crush any other military force in the world into dust. What they can't do is force people at gunpoint to adopt American and/or modern or we

The US Military can crush any other military force in the world into dust. What they can't do is force people at gunpoint to adopt American and/or modern or western values. That was never going to work. It never worked in Afghanistan even when the people trying it were Afhgani. It didn't work when the British tried it there, nor when the Soviets tried it there, and of course it didn't work when America tried it there. 20th century Afghani history is long list of people who attempted to impose social reform and ultimately lost.

pessimizer 4y ago
> The US Military can crush any other military force in the world into dust. There are no examples of this ever happening, but multiple examples of the US retreating in shame, creating opportunities for very dramatic photography as we leave our allies to die.
- sabarn01 4y ago
  Outside of the retreat in Korea after the entry of China I can't think of an example where the US lost a tactical encounter after WW2. We lost wars but not due to military reasons. We were not defeated on the battlefield in Vietnam or Afghanistan.
  - jstarfish 4y ago
    > We were not defeated on the battlefield in Vietnam or Afghanistan. When at first you don't succeed, redefine success?
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      No, I think the GP comment is fair. The US is bad at counterinsurgency and occupation, because it's not comfortable with naked imperialism. I read 'on the battlefield' as specifically referring to force-on-force military conflict, which is something different.
      - LarryMullins 4y ago
        Exactly this. And for the people talking about Vietnam.. a lot has changed in 50 years. America got stronger while most other nations, except China, got much weaker. China is the single plausible refutation to my claim above.
    - sabarn01 4y ago
      The British army defeated the colonial army at every major encounter except for yorktown and lost the war. Hannibal was undefeated except for Zamma and lost the war. Battlefield success and war success are correlated but not determinative.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- encoderer 4y ago
  Iraq 1. Iraq 2. Korea (before china entered). All hot warfare in Vietnam (Tet). D-day. Battle of the bulge. No army is perfect, can you list the retreats? We left Afghanistan after a decade? We didn’t outlast the NVA? We lost the Philippines for a few years. That’s it?
- bamboozled 4y ago
  You ever read about World War II?
sudosysgen 4y ago
The US military was unable to defeat the conventional Vietnamese military. It was very much a different war to Afghanistan. The US military failed to degrade Vietnamese logistics and force generation capability to prevent North Vietnam from invading and occupying South Vietnam. There were guerilla tactics, but the NVA was very much an industrialized and mechanized military, despite failed US attempts to degrade that. > What they can't do is force people at gunpoint to adopt American and/or modern or western values The Soviets didn't have to do it. They were acting in support of an existing Afghan state which was fighting a war against Pakistan and US funded Mujahideen which wanted to overthrow them. Plenty of people in Afghanistan were open to modern values. The issue with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is that the USSR fell, and the issue with the American invasion is that there was no pre-existing state and that the US didn't have a compelling value proposition for Afghans to die in defence of after they pulled out. Afghanistan is not some kind of bizarre land where everyone hates the concept of modernity. The Americans just didn't figure out how to organize an Afghan state, and didn't figure out how to win militarily either. The Soviets figured out the former, but they collapsed. Though their state survived the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan until the collapse of the USSR and the end of economic aid.

pessimizer 4y ago

> The US Military can crush any other military force in the world into dust. There are no examples of this ever happening, but multiple examples of the US retreating in shame, creating opportunities for very dramatic photography as we leave our allies to die.

sabarn01 4y ago
Outside of the retreat in Korea after the entry of China I can't think of an example where the US lost a tactical encounter after WW2. We lost wars but not due to military reasons. We were not defeated on the battlefield in Vietnam or Afghanistan.
- jstarfish 4y ago
  > We were not defeated on the battlefield in Vietnam or Afghanistan. When at first you don't succeed, redefine success?
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    No, I think the GP comment is fair. The US is bad at counterinsurgency and occupation, because it's not comfortable with naked imperialism. I read 'on the battlefield' as specifically referring to force-on-force military conflict, which is something different.
    - LarryMullins 4y ago
      Exactly this. And for the people talking about Vietnam.. a lot has changed in 50 years. America got stronger while most other nations, except China, got much weaker. China is the single plausible refutation to my claim above.
  - sabarn01 4y ago
    The British army defeated the colonial army at every major encounter except for yorktown and lost the war. Hannibal was undefeated except for Zamma and lost the war. Battlefield success and war success are correlated but not determinative.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
encoderer 4y ago
Iraq 1. Iraq 2. Korea (before china entered). All hot warfare in Vietnam (Tet). D-day. Battle of the bulge. No army is perfect, can you list the retreats? We left Afghanistan after a decade? We didn’t outlast the NVA? We lost the Philippines for a few years. That’s it?
bamboozled 4y ago
You ever read about World War II?

sudosysgen 4y ago

The US military was unable to defeat the conventional Vietnamese military. It was very much a different war to Afghanistan. The US military failed to degrade Vietnamese logistics and force generation capability to prevent North Vietnam from invading and occupying South Vietnam. There were guerilla tactics, but the NVA was very much an industrialized and mechanized military, despite failed US attempts to degrade that. > What they can't do is force people at gunpoint to adopt American and/or modern or western values The Soviets didn't have to do it. They were acting in support of an existing Afghan state which was fighting a war against Pakistan and US funded Mujahideen which wanted to overthrow them. Plenty of people in Afghanistan were open to modern values. The issue with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is that the USSR fell, and the issue with the American invasion is that there was no pre-existing state and that the US didn't have a compelling value proposition for Afghans to die in defence of after they pulled out. Afghanistan is not some kind of bizarre land where everyone hates the concept of modernity. The Americans just didn't figure out how to organize an Afghan state, and didn't figure out how to win militarily either. The Soviets figured out the former, but they collapsed. Though their state survived the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan until the collapse of the USSR and the end of economic aid.