Sure, they're never really defeated on the battlefield due to overwelming $$$. But time after time after time, the yanks pack their shit in and effectively "lose" their original struggle by omission. It keeps happening time after time after time
Is this a deep rooted cultural thing? Just a meme? Sensationalist media? Do they really "lose" at all?
Because they fight bad wars with shit win conditions.
>>338581
The same way that every material power loses asymmetric wars. You get a calculation that the strategic aims envisioned aren't worth the amount of blood and treasure being spent to secure it.
The U.S. is still overwhelmingly the dominant military power in today's age. There's really very little that can conceivably destroy the U.S., short of Russia going crazy and launching all of their nukes for no real reason. So it's hard to justify considerable military expenses for stuff when no "real" threat exists.
It's a lot easier to justify "We need to fight to save our homeland", or "we need to fight to save our good ally" as opposed to "we need to fight because maybe, someday, if we lose here, it will start a domino effect to create more hostile states in the region which might or might not have the capacity to challenge us sometime way down the line."
As well ask why the French lost in Algeria, Caesar lost in Britain, or the Spanish lost in the Netherlands.
>>338581
>But time after time after time, the yanks pack their shit in and effectively "lose" their original struggle by omission
this has LITERALLY only happened in Vietnam, and even then, not really.
>>338693
somalia
iraq
vietnam
>>338706
Afghanistan
can you cleave a marine and get two of them?
>>338706
>>338693
Actually, the strategic goal was to show to the world that we have a big army and are willing to deploy troops.
What makes Iraq a strategic failure is the fact that there was no secular communist state or secular pirate-warlords to pick up the pieces. So we ended up with ISIS. It also showcases how terrible our military is at combating asymmetrical warfare.
>>338706
>iraq
I'll give you Somalia, but you are dead wrong about Iraq.
Gulf War was literally the cleanest military victory in history
2003 was a sloppy useless mess, but it was still a victory. "b-but Iraq is a shithole now!" still isnt an excuse of how the US #rekt Saddams entire military in a matter of months, Saddam was hanged, new government established, and then completely destroying the al-aeada branch set up there.
>>338581
Because they cannot into 3rd world nation building. Their nation building worked out well after WW2, now they try to use the same concept on 3rd world shitholes.
France, UK and Russia are far more willing to accept shady governments in exchange for control and stability.
>>338726
>"b-but Iraq is a shithole now!"
But Iraq Iran now, you handed them over on a silver plate. fucking stupid.
>>338715
>BTFO out the Taliban in a few months
>give the government to a more non terrorist guy who at least isnt activily trying to kill US citizens
>BTFO al aeada and run them out of the country
>Kill OBL or hes been dead if you are tin foil, either way, hes gone
How is it a defeat again? inb4 you say that since a country that has basically been in a constant state of war since the beginning of time is experiencing violence as a reason
>>338581
American forces like to think the locals hate the government and that they will be recieved as liberators, not as invaders. Most other cultures don't place as big an emphasis on >muh freedumbs but Americans don't understand that
keeping territory and building stable regimes to replace the ones you've destroyed isn't the same as losing wars.
The US is excellent at bombing and destroying but terrible at governing it's conquests.
>>338757
That's quite a broad generalization of green beret and cia operations, or even foreign policy in general. They've had their share of massive failures, such as the bay of pigs, but they don't just tell people about muh freedom and expect them to fight. There's often lots of trade deals, bribes, arms support, recon, et cetera.
>>338750
>But Iraq Iran now
>this meme arguemtn
also, this discussion belogs on pol
>>338764
Sort of. Japan and Korea were successful as vassals, at least financially. Chile and guatamala were sort of successful, but it wasn't clean. Middle east and vietnam is really where they failed the most. The U.S. was militarily successful in vietnam but they failed dramatically in stomping out corruption and the field logistics of the south vietnamese.
>>338752
Technically speaking afghan could be considered a pyric victory. Military operations cost over 80 times as much as al quadas and it took ten years to clean the region up and they didn't stick around and build the police force up.
>>338581
well by international recognition america has only lost 4 wars/coflicts
>Red Cloud War
>Russian Civil War
>Bay of Pigs Insurrection
>Vietnam War
So, saying "Why does America keep losing wars" is pretty silly.
>Vietnam
Lack of public support and a Casus Belli that was shit.
>Bay of Pigs Insurrection
Zulu time fuck up leaving key air support that was paramount to the operation late for the party which in turn left CIA and SF troops in want as the local Cuban Rebels were left to their own needs.
>Russian Civil War
Failure in political movement with in the White Russian Party as well as lacking logistical ability to send supplies to support the White Russians as well as the Political ability of Lenin to command his peers and maintain political control left the White Russians and her allies with failure
>Red Cloud War
With US Military gaining victory after an early defeat but not fully seeing an end in sight the US Government opted a negative peace treaty rather than pressing the advantage which lead to a loss instead of a stable victory.
>>338797
>as much as al quadas
what was their source of funding anyway other than bin ladens trust fund?
Pakistan?
>>338850
Not him, but they pulled a fair amount of donations from all over the middle-east.
The US plays the long game. They do not lose the long game.
>>338726
>then completely destroying the al-aeada branch set up there.
That's funny, because most of the fighting in the Iraq War was against former Baathist groups.
>>338863
Every nation loses the long game.
>>338870
most of the iraq war was foreign muslims flooding into the country to fight the evil americans by blwoing up mosque and slaughtering other muslims.
from what I read, as much as they hate America, they hated al-qeada 1000 times more.
Baathis party failed in the 70s anyway once Syrian and Iraq didnt go through with their little merger and started to hate each other
>>338581
I think Winston Churchill succinctly summed up an idea that's been reflected in many of the better answers in the thread.
>"Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war."
The US can fight wars well with our huge and ridiculously well funded military. But feeling so secure in our incomparable military might also gives us a all you you have is a hammer so lets treat every problem like it's a nail mindset. So we've failed to develop the skills needed to "win the peace".
>>338581
It's a deep rooted cultural thing. Check out Russel Wigley.
Americans started out fighting and winning wars of annihilation.It's how their nation was formed, and how they built their empire.
In contrast to Europe, where insitutions like a pan-national nobility and later a 'concert of Europe' created a tradition of war fought for limited, direct objectives.
Later, as they built their empires in Asia and Africa, the Europeans did so by setting minimum goals of control, and meeting them.
These cultural perceptions of warfare continue this day. Americans only fight Mannichean struggles of annihilation. Except physical annihilation is no longer used, and moral annihilation has replaced it. Americans fight wars to destroy entire societies and reshape them in their image, which is why they always hark back to WWII.
But because they set such limitless, absolute objectives, devoid of any advantage for themselves, they set themselves up to fail.
>>338581
most recent conflicts the us was involved in were aborted because of the public disapproving of it
being re elected is more important than napalming some third world insurgents
>>338943
Like every time they knock over a Latin American regime and replace it with a slimy dictator that'll do what they want!
Oh wait.......
>>338863
>mfw every empires day are numbered
Under what circumstances could the US be defeated in a war?
>>339063
alien invasion
>>339063
It wont be for another 40 years.
When lesser countries understand air control better, including stealing lazor cannons from the u.s. navy, then they may stand a chance.
I think a better question is why does ITALY lose wars?
>>339197
Check your facts mate, Italy has never lost a single war :^)
>>338870
uhh the baathist insurgency lasted like for only about a year
>>339210
>tricks Ethiopia into becoming a protectorate
>Ethiopia gets pissed and threatens rebellion
>starts trying to buy weapons from neighboring powers
>Italy gets mad and INSISTS that they buy from Italy
>sells them state of the art weapons, which were actually better than what the Italian military was using at the time
>proceeds to get its shit wrecked with their own guns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Italo-Ethiopian_War
>>339230
they should have taken a baath because they stink at fighting or sumething tsss
>>338581
Depends. An Abo stick would win but a modern stick it's up in the air.
>>338780
>call his argument a meme
you sure proved him wrong!
>>339063
Asymmetrical warfare? Depends on the parameters of victory.
>>338581
>But time after time after time, the yanks pack their shit in and effectively "lose" their original struggle by omission.
Politicians.
>>339268
You are forgetting to take stick natural selection into play and how American sticks were bred for years to be tougher and more durable, to better hit women and slaves with. Abo sticks only evolved to become curved and return to the user.
>>338863
kek that's the exact opposite of what happens
>>338887
>most of the iraq war was foreign muslims flooding into the country
It really was. ISIS is just a continuation of what was happening there.
>>338943
Very few American wars have truly been about annilhation. Except for the Indian ones
>>339237
I'm Italian and can confirm how shit we are at war, it's not a training or equipment problem, heck in the '30s engineers where already starting development on jet engines and in WWI we got one of the best aviations and navy in the world as far as equipment and pilots/crew, the biggest military problem was and still probably is the high command. Just to give you an example one of our great generals when confronted with the military successes of Germamy in 1940 due to the use of armored vehicles said "we will evaluate the efficency of armored warfare after the war is ended" logistics were another big problem, when we sent our soldiers in Russia they were equipped with their summer uniforms, you can imagine how well it did go.
>>338581
>Do they really "lose" at all?
Not really, no.
The over-arching goal of most "unwinnable" wars the US fights is to destroy the enemy to the point they no longer pose a threat to American geopolitical interests. Actually forcing them to see things our way is secondary; Though not always preferable since if their military and nation are shattered but they're allied to an enemy nation then we won't be the ones paying to rebuild them.
>Vietnam today is a firm ally of Japan and has fine relations with the US
>Somalia is an anarchist mess that's slightly less fucked up than it was as a sovereign nation.
>Iraq... Pretty much no longer exists at this point.
>The drugs are once again flowing from Afghanistan
Really, the only wars America lost were against Cuba, Iran, and potentially against Syria if Moscow can manage to keep Assad or some other Pro-Russia regime in power.
>>339662
>The over-arching goal of most "unwinnable" wars the US fights is to destroy the enemy to the point they no longer pose a threat to American geopolitical interests
None of those countries you listed were ever a threat, or seriously enough of one to warrant military intervention aside from maybe the Gulf War.
>>339846
this
>>339846
How could Iraq have posed a threat to the US?
>>340049
Good ol' fashioned crude oil, straight from the ground.
Yee-haw!
>>338581
Modern USA don't have the capability(mentally) to enact the necessary thing to win.
If they treat Vietnam, Iraq, etcs just like they treat Japan or the Indians the U.S would win 10 out of 10.
>>340049
By becoming the dominate arabian power. The don't need to be a superpower just the greatest potential enemy of the region that can bully everyone else.
Are we counting proxy wars?
Because the US basically subjugated all of South America.
Looking at Vietnam and calling the US a military failure is like looking at WWI and WWII and calling France a military failure.
>>340049
>How could Iraq have posed a threat to the US?
by dominating and controlling all mid east oil supplies
>>340160
which they didnt do, guess why?
>>340113
>looking at WWI and WWII and calling France a military failure.
Stop this meme, France did completely fine in WWI, they held their own against the Germans.
>>340084
Japan was definitly not treated the same as indians
>>340160
>Americans fight for oil
Sick of this meme.
Whatever our shadow counsel of aristocrats is doing is more along the lines of spreading ideology and in turn markets (gov'ts) receptive to USA influence. Moreover it keeps our war economy going and keeps young men out of the job market w/out sending them to prison. Not to mention it justifies and stimulates the military industrial complex, which aside from agriculture is virtually the only industry of production here since WWII.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/world/middleeast/china-reaps-biggest-benefits-of-iraq-oil-boom.html
We're not even the one's taking the oil.
The other reason the states' technocrats make war is the postwar mentality that, left to their own devices, foreign conflicts will inevitably reach Americans abroad or at home.
>>340237
>France...held their own against the Germans
>France, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Algeria, South Africa, Rhodesia, India, Canada, and the US held their own against the Germans
fixed that for you
>>340110
So they wouldn't have posed a threat to the US, they would just have become the regional power.
>>340258
Imagine if the US firebomb Baghdad and the rest of Iraq though. Or Northern Vietnam.
>>340315
>>340208
no, thats the reason for the Gulf War. Saddam was just going to steam roll Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and take all their oil fields and become the dominate financial power in the middle east.
Thats why everyone hated him, even other middle eastern countries like Syria. The whole war was about stopping him from invading Saudi Arabia, and then push him out of Kuwait. This isnt even conspiracy theory shit, this is what they were saying on the news.
>>340370
And the Gulf War wasn't even that terrible (if you ignore the nerve agent we used on our own soldiers). But America's longest war has very little to do with oil other than being Gulf War Part III: War Economy
>>338706
>>338715
It's very difficult to maintain control over a modern occupied territory
>Iraq
Nation toppled with a month
get fucked up in the occupation
>Vietnam
North Vietnamese Army got fucked up, but fighting the civilians on both sides is nearly impossible. China also backed the North
>Afghanistan
same as Iraq but much worse
Plus Insurgents in Levant are willing to die for their cause. Hard to convince a marine to blow himself up
Iraq
>>339408
but the stronger sticks are taken out of the gene pool since they are the ones harvested to do the hitting.
Americans literally believe that by invading and occupying foreign countries, the local population will thank them and welcome them with open arms. Rumsfeld and Bush are on record saying that for Iraq, for example.
>>339426
>Very few American wars have truly been about annilhation. Except for the Indian ones
The Indian ones were central to the American experience and mindset.
But once you step past physical extermination to moral and intellectual extermination, you have to add in the Civil War, World War One, and World War Two. And in intention, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq II and Afghanistan. Which is the vast bulk of U.S. Military history.
>>338966
U.S. interventions in Latin America are the exceptions that prove the rule. Americans, even in the military barely even think about them as military operations.
>>340370
and he got killt
thats why we left, we did what we needed
Because we don't actually get to fight wars anymore.
It's all "conflicts" against insurgencies.
>>340538
We just hope that stockholm syndrome will set in.
>>338850
They are also the world's #1 poppy exporter.
>>340538
Well, we dropped nuclear hellfire on Japan 65 years ago and now they're allies.
>>338581
The only ones we really "lost" were Vietnam and Somalia.
If destroying a govenrment and military and fulfilling all of our objectives isn't winning, then what is? Should we just... what, occupy Afghanistan forever, despite having completed our objectives and having no real reason to?
Should we have done that with Iraq? I mean, we allowed them to vote after we destroyed Saddam's regime and left a (unfortunately weak and ineffectual) puppet government in his place, and they voted that they wanted us to leave, and so we left. Fact is, if we had wanted to stay in Iraq, there's really not a damn thing anyone there could've done to stop us. ISIS and such came about later, after our puppet government collapsed, and largely as a byproduct of the wreck we left Iraq in.
Actually, I'd say that's the thing. We can wreck a country's shit like nobody's business, but we're not very good at rebuilding.
>>340538
>2006 /b/ meme picture
not even reading your post m8
>>338803
Is it odd that all 4 of "Wars" had only US support/troops that were never fully committed.
>>338581
All of Americas "defeats" are failures to complete objectives by specified dates, rather than actual defeats on the battlefield. Embarrassing, yes, but not really like actually losing a battle.
>BUT TECHNICALLY THEY LOST
Yes. But not because of equipment or soldier performance. All the failure was with the planners.
>>338715
Nicaragua in the 30's
Korea in the 50's
>>339210
Remember when they were part of the Axis?
>>338581
We've got a large margin of error and can get away with losing a few.
>>341477
>20 to 1
I was wrong on this, it was lower than that, especially lower if you include south Vietnamese forces.
>>340353
>Imagine if the US firebomb Baghdad and the rest of Iraq though. Or Northern Vietnam.
Yeah, especially if they used something like NAPALM.
Oh wait... they did.
Besides that, the important thing America did with Japan was not annihilate it to hell and back, but rather take the time post war to build up a successful economy and thriving society to create a friendship and future beneficial partner against communism and other threats.
If the US were more inclined to do so now, especially in Iraq's case, ISIS would have never appeared, or not as strong.
>>341359
A War is won when the enemies spirit has been so broken that they no longer hold the will to continue.
>>341597
You're on /his/, if you don't realize the importance of Arabs through history, you don't belong here.
>>341597
More like Arabs are too culturally and religiously broken up to form a proper nation.
>>341611
A war is only won when all inhabitants of a conquered land are dead; driven to extinction down to the last man, woman, and child. None of the countries that America has ever fought have been successfully purged of all life, therefore America has never won a war.
All wars are wars of extermination. If a single infant is still alive before your armies leave, then you have lost that war.
>>340237
Ummm... anon French soldiers were threatening to quit the field by mid war, without the British, the Foreign Legion, and Belgium not rolling over and surrendering, they would have lost Paris and the war.
>>341739
>Subhuman qualities
There is nothing subhuman about arab people, if anything it is middle eastern culture and not Arab people, its' the same vein as blaming Caucasians for the holocaust because Caucasians participated in it, that kind of ignorance should be frowned upon.
The treatment given to others by the loudest and the worst of the extremists in the middle east is outright deplorable, but that is not something you blame on the people as a whole.
>>338750
>fucking stupid
yes it was, and every american with half a brain was against the war from the start
>>341721
no, some french troops mutinied against the conditions and some of the leadership, issues which were addressed fairly quickly, and they returned to combat effectiveness, being the key allied player alongside britain
>>341739
Edgy
Go back to /pol/
>>338723
Well there was a government to pick up the pieces. But the head of that governmen was shia began oppressing Sunni in the country. When ISIL showed up the Sunni flocked to them because they seemed like the better option at the time.
>>341924
>some
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Army_Mutinies
>Nearly three and a half thousand soldiers
>Agreed to no more assaults until the Americans arrived
Yeah France totally could have held out without the help of her allies.
>>340538
vietnam, philippines, japan, germany
>>341997
>some
yes, some, your own link says that only less than a half of french divisions were affected, and only half of those 'seriously'
>Nearly three and a half thousand soldiers
yes, exactly, some
>Agreed to no more assaults until the Americans arrived
is blatantly false, as evidenced by the second offensive at verdun or the capture of chemin-des-dames
>Yeah France totally could have held out without the help of her allies.
no one is saying that
>>339210
Its hard to lose if you switch sides before you can lose.
>>340538
Except in the early years before the civil war they did welcome Americans
>>341359
Well this is why I believe that how a war needs to be conducted
>congress votes to Into War
>congress creates a War Oversite Committee made up of a Collective of House and Senate members 10 Senate 20 House
>Only thing the WOC does is investigate War Crime Activity and Reconstruction plan after the Territory is occupied and pacified
>Reconstruction must be on par with Montgomery Reconstruction Plan of Europe and establish a minimum 20 year time line
After that Generals take the helm and fight the war. Rules of Engagement need to be established by those who fight war not politicians. Although it can be said Colonel and Above are politicians.
>>341649
>let me redefine war because I know all about it being an armchair general of C&C as well as other RTS games
Edgy man straight edgy
>>342010
>japan
No, and in effect not Germany. They sort of made the first move by declaring sanctions against japan and ignoring German requests to not send supplies to Britain, but they still didn't start the war.
>>338581
see Jarhead movie fgt
>>344451
Jarheads main point is psychological and its political message is a side story.
>>338602
Underrated post. The US didn't leave Vietnam because we were beat. We left because we were sick and tired of it, and went "fuck this shit" and gave up.
>>338581
b8
>>338602
>every material power loses asymmetric wars
the only people who think that hamas or hezbollah beat israel are in those two organizations
>>347337
So, I'm curious, did you deliberately take his post out of context, or are you just really bad at reading comprehension?
