This all depends on victory conditions. The U.S. "won" Korea, Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghanistan in the same sense that they "won" WW2 - those countries were bombed back into the stone age and the existing governments fell. But WW2 was fought as the U.S. was an ascendant (but not dominant) power among a number of peer rivals, and the U.S. was not the aggressor. It felt like a victory, because we emerged as the dominant power, with the only industrial base that wasn't destroyed, and then enjoyed the economic fruits of rebuilding a country that had been bombed back into the stone age and then capitulated. Additionally, Germany and Japan expected that U.S. occupation would be absolutely terrible, that we would be tyrants in the same way that their militaristic governments of the time were, and so when it turned out we just wanted to make money, that was a huge relief to them.
With all the post-WW2 wars, we've gone in as a dominant power, as the aggressor, to a country that is far smaller and less developed. In terms of casualties, they've been even more lopsided victories than WW2. The second Iraq war killed about half a million Iraqis and displaced about 1.8M, vs. < 1000 Americans killed, for a kill ratio of ~500:1. But what does it even mean to achieve victory here? We go in as a bully and ruin our world reputation. The average American sees zero benefit from killing Iraqis; it just means higher oil prices, larger government debt, more inflation, reduced civil liberties, and a lack of focus on domestic problems (...which may be the point). Defense contractors make out like a bandit, and the executive branch gets to consolidate power (...which, again, may be the point), but there isn't room to grow the way there was after WW2.
I don't think any other country considers any of those cases to be wins ... Perhaps maybe wars in Iraq or Jugoslavia.
I think eventual loss in Ukraine will be last nail in the coffin of US military reputation.
The US isn’t fighting in Ukraine so that’d be a strange result. Especially since our surplus weapons with novice operators have laid waste to the invasion force of what was considered to be the 2nd or 3rd strongest army on the planet..
The fight isn't over yet and there is trouble in the Red Sea and it could all turn into WW-III at some point.
> The US isn’t fighting in Ukraine
Same way that russia is not fighting a war but commencing special military operation.
US is doing it with both hands tied behind their back but it will make defeat no less devastating.
In reality US is fighting their penultimate war right now if it ends in a loss.
> what was considered to be the 2nd or 3rd strongest army on the planet..
That was summarily debunked about two weeks into the conflict. And noone but russians believes it today.
>surplus weapons
I'll grant that for the Bradley, but Patriot batteries are in rather short supply.
Tangent to all that - whether the US reputation will change or not, it’s becoming clear the russian military reputation is way, way overestimated. I’m curious what effect this will have
It would be particularly strange for US’s military reputation to be damaged by a war it hasn’t lost a man in.
In my opinion, this is a misrepresentation of the Vietnam war. The country was not "bombed back into the stone age". The U.S. merely used extremely despicable tactics like Agent Orange, My Lai etc.
I'm also not aware of the existing Vietnamese government falling (depends on which one you consider the existing one but it was not the government the U.S. wanted to fall that fell). The country resisted a superior invader like it did in the past (China) and I'm pretty sure most people would consider Vietnam the winner of the war (if there's a winner in war).
If it was simply the case of a country resisting an invader then why did the winning side engage in a bit of ethnic cleansing of their ‘own’ people after the invaders had left?
Agent Orange was used as a herbicide in the US from around WW2 up until 1978. One of the two components is still used.
> The U.S. "won" Korea, Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghanistan in the same sense that they "won" WW2 - those countries were bombed back into the stone age and the existing governments fell.
This might be taught in US schools, but outside the US we have a rather different take on how the Vietnam war ended - the US-backed government fell and the North Vietnamese government took over the rest of the country. And we learned that the Korean war ended in some kind of stalemate, where the government structures on both sides exist largely intact today.
The government of North Korea did not fall or surrender. You can argue that it was a political win if the goal was defending South Korea, but militarily, it was a stalemate.
North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam after we withdrew. It was in no way a victory for the United States. Afghanistan was arguably pretty similar, although we did install a new government while we were there.
Germany and Japan, on the other hand, surrendered unconditionally. Saying that Germany and Japan were “bombed back into the Stone Age” is a wild exaggeration, though — strategic bombing famously failed to cripple Germany’s wartime industrial production. (Strategic bombing in general is overrated.)
Your number for US deaths in Iraq is low by at least a factor of four.
You may wish to learn the actual histories of these wars before trying to draw big conclusions.
> The U.S. "won" Korea, Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghanistan in the same sense that they "won" WW2 - those countries were bombed back into the stone age and the existing governments fell.
I feel you're overlooking the critical fact that after the allies won WW2, Nazis didn't control Germany.
Whereas the Taliban remains in control of Afghanistan. To describe that as a US win doesn't really seem accurate.
The US did print a big 'Mission Accomplished' banner though, so I agree the folks who started the war do claim it was a victory.
WW2 is an exceptional case in that it’s one of extremely few wars where the winners and losers are universally acknowledged
The mission accomplished banner was for Iraq, not Afghanistan. USA explicitly achieved its war aims in Iraq 2(and Iraq 1 for that matter).
Yes, I suppose the USA did achieve its goal in Iraq, in the sense that they sought to disarm Iraq of WMDs, and Iraq had no WMDs after the war.
Of course, Iraq also had no WMDs before the war, so I'm not sure the episode proves much about America's ability to win.
This is ignorant of Clausewitz's definitions, which no one has managed to supplant. It has nothing to do with emerging as the dominant power or getting average citizens any benefits.
"winning" the war means accomplishing your political objectives. Those objectives may change as the war goes on, and in the case of Korea, the objective became "keep South Korea free from North Korean domination." That was achieved.
It was unclear to MacArthur and he assumed it was "destroy North Korea, whatever it takes." That became NOT the US objective, when it became clear that China stood in the way of it.
In Vietnam the objectives were never clearly laid out, but "keep South Vietnam free from North Vietnam domination" was pretty clearly it. Thus, we lost.
Your other points are wrong: the first Iraq war's objective was to eject Iraq from Kuwait. Perhaps that goal was insufficient, but that was the goal the military undertook, and achieved.
https://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Critical-Analysis-Vietnam-War/dp/0891415637/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Critical-Analysis-Vietnam-Wa...
> The U.S. "won" Korea, Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghanistan in the same sense that they "won" WW2 - those countries were bombed back into the stone age and the existing governments fell
The US isn't conventionally, even in the US. viewed as the victor in Korea (war is still in progress, with a long but imperfectly observed ceasefire), Vietnam (one of the few wars the US generally acknowledges as an unambiguous defeat, thought right wingers will often say that we won “militarily” and lost “politically” or some other cope), or Afghanistan (recently added to the list alongside Vietnam).
Also, the prewar opposing in Korea, Vietnam. Iraq (1991), and Afghanistan did not fall, and in each case remained in power after the war (and in Vietnam and Afghanistan, the primary opposing government ended up in control of more territory as a result of the war, controlling undivided a country which it had controlled only a divided—formally in Vietnam’s case, de facto for the Taliban in Afghanistan—fraction of before the war.)
> With all the post-WW2 wars, we've gone in as a dominant power, as the aggressor
No, we haven't. Not even in a loose sense of “aggressor” in several of them.
> won “militarily” and lost “politically” or some other cope
If you go by deaths, USA did very well in Vietnam. However, with wars of insurgency people like The Butcher showed that far more deaths are required to win than is palatable
I was going to respond to each of your points carefully, but since you mentioned that Iraq’s leadership remained in power after 1991 as some kind of rebuttal, I am not certain I should. Indeed, overthrowing Iraq’s government was not a war aim there.
> If you go by deaths, USA did very well in Vietnam
Yes, if war was a game where the victory condition was killing the most people... well, actually, the Khmer Rouge would have won the wars in the region, by a wide margin.
But its not, so “yeah but we killed more people than our immediate enemy” is... irrelevant, mostly. Killing people is a means, not an ends, in war (I mean, except when your war aim is extermination, but that's not the general case.)
> but since you mentioned that Iraq’s leadership remained in power after 1991 as some kind of rebuttal, I am not certain I should. Indeed, overthrowing Iraq’s government was not a war aim there.
I’m not the one that said a unifying feature of the post-WW2 wars was that the US destroyed the pre-existing government and thereby won, when that is very much nor a characteristic of those wars in general, or the specific cited examples originally provided (leaving off Iraq I, it wasn't a feature of Korea, Vietnam, or Afghanistan, specifically cited as examples upthread, either.)
It is interesting to compare the Iraq and Afghanistan war (the US didn't militarily defeat Vietnam, and Korea was a military stalemate) with successful recent invasions. China invaded Tibet, and Russia invaded Chechnya, and Tibet is now part of China, and Chechnya contributes soldiers fighting in Ukraine. They differ from the US invasions in that they rebuilt the invaded areas, hence "winning the peace". The US also helped rebuild Japan and Germany, which was sadly lacking in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I would call the first Iraq war a success - the US achieved it's aims of driving Iraq out of Kuwait, destruction of the Iraq military, a UN resolution approving the attack, and wide support.
Contrast this to the second Iraq war and Afghanistan, where I agree the US was perceived as a bully. It bullied Pakistan ("You're with us or against us", war threats) into supporting the invasion of Afghanistan, and the invasion of Iraq was illegal, with France prepared to veto any UN resolution trying to legitimize the war.
> The US also helped rebuild Japan and Germany, which was sadly lacking in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bingo! There would be no Taliban if USA made Afghanistan an unincorporated territory like Puerto Rico, handed out passports and rebuilt infrastructure / governance.
There was a plan for what to bomb, but no plan for what to build. Basically a huge waste of time.