Sorry to say. But the Soviets carried the day during WWII. They did need a lot of help from the U.S. due to logistics. But D-Day Invasion was nothing. All the action was on the Eastern Front.
Hi Red.
Thought I’d fix up some of the things you said. You said we (the US) spend more on military than anybody else. We spend more on military than everybody else added together. Being as big as we are, we can sustain losses. We don’t have to win every conflict.
I don’t know how you came up with the figure 251 conflicts, but, since 1991, we have moved the borders of NATO from what used to be West Germany to Poland, and also the Baltic countries, and most of the former Yugoslavia. This is called winning.
More than half the countries of Latin America are today functioning democracies, with vibrant economies, and improving quality of life such as falling murder rates. No doubt, we have a lot of work ahead of us. This, too, is called winning.
Asia is a gigantic continent, with lots of diversity and cross-currents. Instead of trying to summarize, I’ll just point to one country: India.
India is just amazing. It’s the world’s biggest democracy, with an economy that is growing faster than China’s. I think of India and China as the tortoise and the hare. Yes, China sprinted out of the gate (since about 1979, when Deng came into office). But, China isn’t a democracy and, so, is being overcome by problems.
Africa is today the only region of the world stuck in poverty. Yet, there are a growing number of countries in Africa that are getting their act together.
Russia isn’t anything like us. The loss of the Warsaw Pact nations of eastern Europe and even the SSRs of the former Soviet Union have collapsed its population and economy. Nobody has ever successfully invaded Russia, not even Napoleon or Hitler; but, Russia has never won a war outside its borders either. Japan in 1904, Poland in 1921, Finland in the winter war, Afghanistan in the 1980s, and now Ukraine. And, sometimes, after losing one of these border wars, there is an internal revolution in Russia.
We have a real advantage being a democracy. When we wind up with a stupid person as president, we suffer; but, only for a time. This fall, we will replace our bumbling idiot in the White House with a man of intelligence, vision and energy. But, Russia, no. There is no way Putin will be replaced. There isn’t even a viable candidate to replace him, nor a decent opposition party. He is Russia’s dictator and his failures result in other people being purged, as in falling from a tall building or being beaten to death in prison. Democracy has its problems, but it is war better than dictatorship.
“Russia has never won a war outside its borders either. “
Huh ?
They won the biggest one of them all.
Funny, it sure looked like the Soviet Union's flag flying from Hitler's Reichstag Building in Berlin on May 2, 1945 after winning The Battle of Berlin. Unless the Ukrainian SS units were playing a trick on the Nazis still left in the city.
Sorry to say. But the Soviets carried the day during WWII. They did need a lot of help from the U.S. due to logistics. But D-Day Invasion was nothing. All the action was on the Eastern Front.
Redmen4ever,
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
Source regarding the 251 military operations since 1991: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R42738
It’s in a Congressional report (simply add them up).
No doubt we’re expansionist and succeeding in tearing what once were Warsaw Pact nations, Soviet Republics, or nations in the Russian sphere of influence (historically allied or aligned with Russia but not part of the Soviet Union or Warsaw Pact) under our control. One only needs to look at Syria, Iraq, Venezuela and Libya to see that (all oil and gas producers).
Russia and the US are not so unlike each other. In fact, I would argue that today it’s us that is more like them, with a highly centralized government in Washington (the States have lost their powers), a massive intelligence agency that is in the political sphere and used inside the nation, mass censorship and control over the public, a pseudo-democracy, a Constitution that is selectively ignored by government when convenient, with just a few oligarchs who have a disproportionate influence on government.
Both the US and Russia are oligarchies, not real democracies: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B On (((MOST))) issues where the public interest diverges from those of the oligarchs (say trade with the PRC), the interests of the oligarchs are accommodated by government.
These campaigns are about Western and US oligarchs wanting what once or still is in the Russian sphere.
Here’s the problem, winning does not make us moral nor does it justify war, i.e. Just War concept. The layperson would say: “might does not make right.” Military interventions for mere political, or for economic benefit are not what our military nor NATO are intended for. The US military is no foreign legion nor is it supposed to operate in the best interest of some political figure or economic benefactor as the Roman legions did. There is such a thing as a “just war,” but those are rather the exception today, not the norm.
Two distinct things happened which brought us to this point:
1). In 1991 when the Soviet Union and before that the Warsaw Pact dissolved, it left us as the only worlds super-power. China was an emerging power. In the words of Lord Acton: “Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.” Our policy makers quickly learned that they can rely on military force to get what they want. It became the quick and easy solution for every problem since unrivaled in military and economic power, as well as political influence we could basically do what with impunity. When you have a tool that works really well for you, guess what you tend to use?
Examples:
—No different than J. Cesar grabbing notoriety and popularity by invading Gaul, so is Lindsey Graham with Mexico: https://www.newsweek.com/lindsey-graham-mexico-military-drug-kidnapping-1786025 Threatening to attack a nation because it “sounds good” in what is political theater.
—In Serbia we wanted an end to the conflict (no direct national threat to us). The quickest, path of least resistance, and lowest cost way to achieve that was to bomb Serbia into submission. What did we really demand of Serbia? The average American doesn’t even know! We wanted the Serbs to give up land for people that were originally refugees from Albania when that country went communist. Most of these people are a Muslim (stemming from the Muslim invaders of Europe in the past) subculture found themselves oppressed in Albania. Tito let these people in: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00809A000500170170-2.pdf That is why you have so many Serbs living in Bosnia today and how you have folks originally from Albania and Muslim in the middle of what once was YU: http://www.catsg.org/balkanlynx/03_countries/3_4_map-centre/maps-grafics/UniversityofTexas_1992_Map_of_Ethnics_in_former_Yugoslavia.jpg But we conveniently do not mention any of this when we rationalize our bombing of Serbia with our “human rights, democracy, and sovereignty” cliche’s. The Croats are aligned with the Germans, so no one wanted to mess with them. Some of former YU is aligned with the Greeks. The French had ties there too. But the Serbs were/are aligned with Russia which had just imploded 4 years prior. It was a political and militarily expedient solution for the Euro’s and where we were trying to keep NATO alive (at that time NATO was being questioned). We pat ourselves on the back to this day, but was it morally right? Hardly. Will this peace last? No.
—Then there is Iraq. We lied about WMD and AQ being there, so we invaded under false pretenses. Few folks trying to rationalize this war mention the casualties there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War We never left and lied about that in 2011. That was just an Obama re-election PR stunt and the MSM went along with it. However, we retained >5,100 troops in country at the time (in big secure/fortress like bases on the outskirts of cities because the locals do not like us), have a vast mercenary force there and other security personnel (US State Department and CIA) as well as Iraqi’s we pay. No one wants us there, except some of the Kurds in the North. But neither Suni or Shi’ia want us there (<3%) and we have been asked to leave numerous times, which we simply ignore (the most recent request): https://breakingdefense.com/2024/01/despite-iraqi-pms-call-us-troops-wont-likely-leave-iraq-anytime-soon-analysts/ Let me ask you this, do you think Iraq is safer today than under Saddam? Do you think the presence of radical Islamist types and AQ went up or down in Iraq after we went there? Hint, Saddam was secular, his Ba’ath party was secular...
2). 2001 changed things also. After 2001 we massively expanded the scope of powers of the “police state” (Patriot Act etc.) as well as growing the apparatus and aiming it partially inward. While the initial targets may have been legitimate, going after those that attacked us on 9-11, it quickly morphed into something else both externally and internally. Post 2001 the US became even more assertive/aggressive, using more dubious techniques (just like the Russians: torture, kidnapping, assassinations, side stepping the US Constitution even more), and while some of these technical capabilities or processes may have already been in place, example FISA, they became used much more liberally (secret courts, violations of due process, illegal search and seizure/privacy with mass surveillance: again, no different than Russia).
We took things to far and have pissed off to many folks. Sure, there are those inside the US that believe in this garbage that somehow we are Gods anointed people and that we drop freedom bombs and fire democracy missiles at all our enemies. There are some such as yourself that think some process like Democracy makes us special (there are many nations that have democratic processes) albeit our democracy is riddled with manipulations which really question how real/true it is (again, no different than Russia). Do not be surprised if Biden gets re-elected. He is the favorite by the establishment (deep state), our oligarch who own the MSM and largely pay for the political system. It doesn’t matter if Biden needs a bib and diapers, he stands a good chance of being “elected” if you want to call it that.
I would argue, that in the past what made us special was that we believed in freedom and had certain moral underpinnings (there is a reason why there is a Statue of Liberty), we were reserved with the use of military force (Reagan: powerful and willing to use force, but defensive).
1986 and the bombing of Libya was justified, they attacked a disco and killed a bunch of people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_United_States_bombing_of_Libya 1986 (retaliation / defensive - minimize collateral damage) is very different from 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya (offensive - complete disregard for consequences) We once were the “good guy” but today that’s not the case. No kidding, the jets of several US oil execs were on the ground in Libya even before the incidents surrounding the attacks on our ambassador. In fact, we had to use the jets of oil execs to evacuate some of our folks. Do you really think this is about peace (as we armed certain militias there), or democracy (we were arming warlords that were not interested in democracy), or human rights? Do you think Libya today is more secure than before our attacks in 2011? Do you think Libya today poses less of a threat regards terrorism? AFTER we plunged this nation into a civil war we have actual areas under ISIS/ISIL and other Islamist groups control, no kidding:
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.KHfMDQhr4ji_-oxfTmvbfQHaHL%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=46fd8b089c19cc3e5e9a0df19f00e085760095a3817e0a84a0d06b015d82ffb3&ipo=images (but now we have our foot in the door and are trying to pull this place out from Russia’s influence and put it under ours.)
Offensive, expeditionary campaigns where we cannot articulate a national security threat (other than some abstract idea or some boogieman that isn’t real) and are motivated by political or economic interests are NOT moral.
We have no problem overthrowing a democratically elected government and installing a despot if that democratic government collides with our economic interests (we don’t export liberty today). We have no problem with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia around which our entire Middle East strategy is based. We have no problem with the kingdom of Jordan. We have no problem with China, a single party communist regime which is regards humans rights about as bad as it gets and even as they literally drive tanks over pro-democracy students on Tienanmen Square (1989) we vote to give them most favored trade status and support their admission to the WTO regardless if it was Bush H., Bill C., or Bush W. and today Joe B. Only Trump went against the current.
Things are changing. We set wheels in motion we will regret. We (the average Joe Public) just does not realize this yet. When someone acts like a jerk and pushes folks around (coercive/threatening: Mexico, Pakistan...), lies (No NATO East Expansion), cheats (Minsk and Montreux), and does whatever they want because they’re the big kid on the playground and they don’t need follow rules (bring others to international courts but exempt oneself), not even those rules they created (Ballistic Missile Treaty or supporting Israel), they eventually have others gang up on them, and that’s what’s starting to happen: BRICS, Russia-China security alliance, even our neighbor and NAFTA member Mexico, etc. https://biblehub.com/proverbs/16-18.htm
We should have stepped on the breaks a while back, but instead pushed the accelerator peddle.
