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I think you stopped reading Adventured's post too early. The U.S. defeats conventional armies all the time, and Adventured was responding to the idea that Nort

by ashark 12y ago

I think you stopped reading Adventured's post too early. The U.S. defeats conventional armies all the time, and Adventured was responding to the idea that North Korea's conventional army might be a problem for the U.S. It's the guerrilla war afterward that the U.S. might lose, which Adventured goes on to address.

alfiedotwtf 12y ago
I didn't stop reading. What does "win a war" mean if you only consider initial combat? To that end, let's ignore the last 14 years and declare that the US won the "War on Terror" during the first 6 days carpet bombing of Tora Bora.
- adventured 12y ago
  Winning a war vs North Korea would be easy for the US: kill very large numbers of people indiscriminately with nukes, or stand-off and just bomb them very heavily and perpetually for a decade until nothing is left. After a very short amount of time, North Korea would be entirely incapable of shooting down high altitude bombers, the US would never have to put boots on the ground, just spend all the money on never-ending bombing raids. It goes back to what I said: the issue is what the US would be willing to do to win. It's not acceptable to defeat enemies today in a manner in which truly large sums of civilians are killed (I'm talking about killing 1/4, 1/2 of the country, vaporizing them, mowing them down with unrelenting bombardment, and then with starvation). The US could have easily won the Vietnam war, it won every major engagement. The US could have marched north with a million soldiers and run over the Vietcong, killing however many people were necessary in the process. However it would have required another level of extreme brutality, and potentially (likely?) would have ended in a direct war with Russia or China. The question for the US post WW2 has been what's acceptable to achieve victory in war, because against its adversaries that question has been the only limiting factor, not the ability to achieve victory itself. As a side note, I consider that the US won the Korean war. Given how South Korea has turned out, I consider it a staggering victory. Especially considering how difficult it was to go into Asia and hold ground with China, Russia and North Korea trying to push you out in one form or another.
  - ProAm 12y ago
    The US is never going to nuke another country over hacking, especially of a movie studio.

by ashark 12y ago

alfiedotwtf 12y ago

I didn't stop reading. What does "win a war" mean if you only consider initial combat? To that end, let's ignore the last 14 years and declare that the US won the "War on Terror" during the first 6 days carpet bombing of Tora Bora.

adventured 12y ago
Winning a war vs North Korea would be easy for the US: kill very large numbers of people indiscriminately with nukes, or stand-off and just bomb them very heavily and perpetually for a decade until nothing is left. After a very short amount of time, North Korea would be entirely incapable of shooting down high altitude bombers, the US would never have to put boots on the ground, just spend all the money on never-ending bombing raids. It goes back to what I said: the issue is what the US would be willing to do to win. It's not acceptable to defeat enemies today in a manner in which truly large sums of civilians are killed (I'm talking about killing 1/4, 1/2 of the country, vaporizing them, mowing them down with unrelenting bombardment, and then with starvation). The US could have easily won the Vietnam war, it won every major engagement. The US could have marched north with a million soldiers and run over the Vietcong, killing however many people were necessary in the process. However it would have required another level of extreme brutality, and potentially (likely?) would have ended in a direct war with Russia or China. The question for the US post WW2 has been what's acceptable to achieve victory in war, because against its adversaries that question has been the only limiting factor, not the ability to achieve victory itself. As a side note, I consider that the US won the Korean war. Given how South Korea has turned out, I consider it a staggering victory. Especially considering how difficult it was to go into Asia and hold ground with China, Russia and North Korea trying to push you out in one form or another.
- ProAm 12y ago
  The US is never going to nuke another country over hacking, especially of a movie studio.