Posted on 06/02/2015 10:11:55 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
~snip~
Why does the United States struggle in war? How can it resolve a failing conflict? Can America return to victory?
Today, these are critical questions because we live in an age of unwinnable conflicts, where decisive triumph has proved to be a pipe dream.
~snip~
The price of military triumph was often immense. In the Civil War alone, there were around 750,000 American fatalities—more than the deaths in every other U.S. war combined. But if the costs of conflict were staggering, so were the benefits. The Civil War saved the Union and emancipated the slaves. World War II ensured the survival of liberal democracy in Western Europe. For Americans, golden-age conflicts became the model of what war ought to look like.
And then, all of a sudden, the United States stopped winning major wars. The golden age faded into the past, and a new dark age of U.S. warfare emerged. Since 1945, Americans have experienced little except military frustration, stalemate, and loss.
The martial dusk began with the Korean War, which deteriorated into a grim stalemate at a cost of nearly 37,000 American lives. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, the United States faced outright military defeat for the first time in its history—and, most shockingly, against North Vietnam, a “raggedy-ass little fourth-rate country,” as Lyndon Johnson put it.
After World War II, the U.S. constructed the most expensive military machine that ever existed—and endured seven decades of martial frustration.
~snip~
Since 1945, in terms of victory in a major war, the United States is one for five. The Gulf War in 1991 is the only success story. The dark age is a time of protracted fighting, featuring the three longest wars in American history (Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam).
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
“Why Has America Stopped Winning Wars?”
When was the las time America declared war?
Police actions are not “wars.”
The politicians fettered the military, in Vietnam.
Korea was a United Nations war, and of course,
showed the impotence of the United Nations,
before the Soviets and Red Chinese, which gave the
means to write the war plans for what became
Vietnam.
Wars end when the wives, mothers, and daughters of the enemy beg them to please make it stop.
Because it’s just so “un-faaaayer.”
Intriguing point - in all of US history, the Civil War and WW2 are outliers. Among all our other wars, they are by far the bloodiest, they are the only ones where the opponent states were stomped into nonexistence... and they are also the only ones that liberals, to this day, consider “good” wars.
Thank You for Your Service. Glad You made it back Home.
Eh, we really won in Viet Nam, we just then gave up and went home.
Democrats.
We do not define victory. You can’t win if you don’t know what that looks like.
Why has America elected the same idiot twice...?
That’s funny - he didn’t follow his own advice!
See “National Security Act of 1947/1986”.
Sounds like a hoot!
I disagree that we haven’t been winning. For example, we won in VietNam. When we pulled out in 1973 we had a friendly gov’t in VN. All we had to do was continue providing assistance (military, economic, etc...). But less than 2 years later Democrats in congress pulled all of that support out from under the VN government. This was a violation of our agreement but Democrats didn’t care. Naturally the Communists took over in short order.
The same basic scenario has played out in Iraq and likely will in Ashcanistan. Democrats can ALWAYS be counted on to assist the enemy under the guise of ‘peace’.
Because we do not try to win wars any more. We try to make the enemy into democrats in societies for which democracy is simply not relevant. It takes long term colonization- centuries- and control of the schools and their curricula for several generations to bring democracy to such a society. It cannot be brought to a moslem society unless the colonizer is willing to hang people for signs of their religion, such as men wearing brimless hats.
One Word Answer: Democrats
LOL....
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