What losses are acceptable in war?
everything, as long as you win
all of them
>>28096967
>everything, as long as you win
Only in total war. In wars other than total war winning involves losing as few people as possible.
>>28096984
Limited war is a modern construct on powerful nations to fight weak nations. There can be no such thing as limited war between powerful nations.
>>28096958
any crash you can walk away from was a good landing
>>28097135
I'd apply the idea of limitations to also fighting between nuclear armed nations. Hypothetically speaking, if Russia and USA were to go to war in the ME, I don't think we would go to Russia and they wouldn't come to the US. Once one side lost footing in the ME, I'd hope they'd have the sense to call it quits and sign a treaty.
>>28096967
/thread
>>28096958
Reality - Ones you couldn't prevent, shit happens
Liberals - None ever or its an affront to what we should stand for and a big failure because think of their family stop bombing
>>28097342
>if Russia and USA were to go to war in the ME, I don't think we would go to Russia
Why do you think our Navy is bigger than the next 11-13 biggest combined?
In terms of tonnage one CSG > virtually every navy on the planet
>>28096958
Morally: None
Realistically: The number of deaths that happened to achieve victory
>>28096958
Anything past 20% begins to degrade the unit's combat effectiveness.
>>28096967
This
>>28096984
All war is total war, or it's not war.
It can be large scale violence, but it's not war for real unless it's about winning, and winning completely.
>>28098376
This. Believe it or not but you're not sending mindless drones to war, people like to believe they have a good chance of coming back to home.
Also soldiers have families, and those are not too keen about sending relatives to a certain death, especially in democratic countries.
>>28096958
"Losses can never be too high! They sow the seeds of future greatness!"
>>28100620
>>28096958
Depends entirely on the strategic and political objective of the war. Ideally, any casualty that does not impair those objectives, or impair progress on those objectives is acceptable. Realistically, developed nations will not accept overwhelming losses such that they impair the public perception that those goals are being reached in a timely manner, even if, in actuality they have had no effect on the progress of the objective.
But really, we won't know what the real threshold is until we actually see two developed nations duking it out in a conventional war. And that, is something that is becoming highly unlikely in our world of globalization.