5 ms·

In both cases, Vietnam or Afghanistan, US won, until it lost its sight and pulled out, leaving everything on the shoulders of a demoralized and ill-equipped loc

by genman 3y ago

In both cases, Vietnam or Afghanistan, US won, until it lost its sight and pulled out, leaving everything on the shoulders of a demoralized and ill-equipped local governance. Now this was unfair fight because this replacement was not willing nor capable to project any actual force and they crumbled fast. This is what I was talking about. Afghanistan government resistance failed because they were terrified about the perspective of them losing in the fight and then receiving the wrath of Taliban. This perspective looked real enough for them after Taliban had broken the agreements and no US retaliation followed. Finally all of it spiraled into humiliating cowardly escape of the remaining US forces. US lost because their top of the command was irresolute coward who didn't understand the consequences of his policy, short term nor long term. One bombing raid against Taliban positions may have changed everything. Now we got war in Ukraine and greatly worsening situation in Middle East and Africa because the enemy understood very quickly what the US leader really is and took their changes. We are lucky that Taiwan was not lost and this is only thanks to the bravery of Ukrainians, but all of this is again on the edge because of the insurmountable stubbornness and stupidity of US politicians.

hef19898 3y ago
The US lost in Vietnam, in fact the Paris treaty came as close to unconditional surrender as it gets without using the term. Same in Afghanistan, NATO lost hard after being slowly kicked out of the country. In both cases, none of the US or NATO strategic goals were achieved, while almost all of the opposing sides were. If you think the US won in Vietnam, Iraq won the Gulf War (number two, in the 90s).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- nulld3v 3y ago
  The parent is claiming "the US won until they lost", which I guess doesn't contradict your post lol.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Yeah, same way Germany won two world wars. Until around the half way mark, then they lost. Or a soccer team wins a match by being ahead 2 - 0 at half time and then losing 2-3.
    - genman 3y ago
      Nazi Germany won clear victories against Poland and France. Had UK given up and signed a peace with Germany then it could have been possible that there wouldn't have been what we call WW2 today at all. Given what Germans planned to do then fortunately it didn't happen. We can thank stubbornness of Churchill for this. But Germany made it even worse - it declared war on United States. But there were no treaties between Germany and Allies until Germany had unconditionally surrendered. But my claim was a little different. I wrote that US didn't lose until it "lost its sight". I would argue that it was not understood what is US actually doing in Afghanistan and when you don't have any idea what you are doing then you can't win anything.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        The Wehrmacht was stopped before Moscow by the Soviets before lend-lease supplies had any meaningful impact. And the Soviet would not have ended the war when the UK exited it. Which never was an option to begin with, a seperate peace with the western allies was one Hitler's many pipe dreams. The victory against Poland was, in the end, meaningless with the failure of Barbarossa. As was the victory against France in the West, as soon as the war in Borth Africa was lost by the axis. There never was a path to Axis victory, and winning the first to rounds by points is meabingless if you get knocked out by round 6. Should be self-explanatory.
        genman 3y ago
        In hindsight yes, most of this is true, but it is not guaranteed that all of this would have happened. Wehrmacht rapid advance was stopped, but it didn't yet mean pushing them out would have been possible without tremendous material support through lend lease, without what there wouldn't have been any adequate Red Army logistics and armor. USSR was able to produce around 40 000 tanks and this force overwhelmed German armor capacity, but they were able build this much only considering that US provided 400 000 trucks, if it was not so, considerable amount of tank building capacity would have to had been shared to build trucks, but even then the steel to build tanks came from US. On top of this USSR got 14 000 planes and also rail wagons and engines. If there was a pipe dream then it was Red Army countering Wehrmacht without US material support. Russians like to minuscule the importance of US support but it was substantial and most likely essential for their victory.

by genman 3y ago

hef19898 3y ago

The US lost in Vietnam, in fact the Paris treaty came as close to unconditional surrender as it gets without using the term. Same in Afghanistan, NATO lost hard after being slowly kicked out of the country. In both cases, none of the US or NATO strategic goals were achieved, while almost all of the opposing sides were. If you think the US won in Vietnam, Iraq won the Gulf War (number two, in the 90s).

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
nulld3v 3y ago
The parent is claiming "the US won until they lost", which I guess doesn't contradict your post lol.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Yeah, same way Germany won two world wars. Until around the half way mark, then they lost. Or a soccer team wins a match by being ahead 2 - 0 at half time and then losing 2-3.
  - genman 3y ago
    Nazi Germany won clear victories against Poland and France. Had UK given up and signed a peace with Germany then it could have been possible that there wouldn't have been what we call WW2 today at all. Given what Germans planned to do then fortunately it didn't happen. We can thank stubbornness of Churchill for this. But Germany made it even worse - it declared war on United States. But there were no treaties between Germany and Allies until Germany had unconditionally surrendered. But my claim was a little different. I wrote that US didn't lose until it "lost its sight". I would argue that it was not understood what is US actually doing in Afghanistan and when you don't have any idea what you are doing then you can't win anything.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      The Wehrmacht was stopped before Moscow by the Soviets before lend-lease supplies had any meaningful impact. And the Soviet would not have ended the war when the UK exited it. Which never was an option to begin with, a seperate peace with the western allies was one Hitler's many pipe dreams. The victory against Poland was, in the end, meaningless with the failure of Barbarossa. As was the victory against France in the West, as soon as the war in Borth Africa was lost by the axis. There never was a path to Axis victory, and winning the first to rounds by points is meabingless if you get knocked out by round 6. Should be self-explanatory.
      - genman 3y ago
        In hindsight yes, most of this is true, but it is not guaranteed that all of this would have happened. Wehrmacht rapid advance was stopped, but it didn't yet mean pushing them out would have been possible without tremendous material support through lend lease, without what there wouldn't have been any adequate Red Army logistics and armor. USSR was able to produce around 40 000 tanks and this force overwhelmed German armor capacity, but they were able build this much only considering that US provided 400 000 trucks, if it was not so, considerable amount of tank building capacity would have to had been shared to build trucks, but even then the steel to build tanks came from US. On top of this USSR got 14 000 planes and also rail wagons and engines. If there was a pipe dream then it was Red Army countering Wehrmacht without US material support. Russians like to minuscule the importance of US support but it was substantial and most likely essential for their victory.