U.S. Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships steam in formation during their military manoeuvre exercise known as Keen Sword 15 in the sea south of Japan, in this November 19, 2014 handout provided by the U.S. Navy. REUTERS/Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Chris Cavagnaro/U.S. Navy/Handout
Steven Metz, WPR: How the United States Could Lose a War
The U.S. military doesn’t spend much time thinking about how America could lose a war. Neither do America’s political leaders and security experts. Whether described in operational plans, strategic wargames or even fiction, the pattern mirrors the Civil War or World War II: Things are hairy at first and defeat even seems possible since an aggressor struck first, but then the United States gets serious, turns the tide and fights its way to victory. In the collective American memory, armed conflicts that have not followed this script—Vietnam, Korea—are largely forgotten or attributed to political ineptitude. Victory is still considered the norm.
While optimism is a laudable characteristic, it can be dangerous if not tempered by cold realism. The United States should plan and hope for victory in war but also needs to think about how it could be defeated. After all, America’s potential adversaries are certainly doing so.
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WNU Editor: Thinking the unthinkable. The U.S. actually losing a war.
9 comments:
Vietnam. Loss.
Well, we have to define what losing a war is. Russia is mature, even with 7,000 nuclear warhead, it never try to make USA "naked", that's too dangerous. America do the same with Russia. But China is a different case. With 1.3 billion people, Chinese think a nuclear war would be bad, but not that much for America. That's make the situation dangerous.
This has been a problem for quite some time. US officials tend to overestimate our capabilities while underestimating those of adversaries and potential adversaries. While optimism is good, it needs to be based in reality. The current assessments simply aren't.
I think the problem lies with the leadership. By nature leaders do not like to be told "NO" and they don't like to be given news they don't want to hear or see yet leaders need team members who can and will do this. The need to actually make a profit keeps some these tendencies of leaders in check. Government does not need to make a profit. As such, there's little to keep these tendencies in check. No one wants to tell the leaders NO nor do they want to present the leaders with ibformation they don't want to see or hear so we continue on with delusions and those not paying attention either because they want to believe the nonsense or are to busy to analyze the situation blithely believe the nonsense regarding American military power they've been told.
Win wars? Not since WWII. Now we fight to Sustained Stalemates. To achieve victory in the definition of WWII, it would require what current mores would describe as genocide. e.g: Firebombing German civilians. Nuking Japanese ones. Killing them by the hundreds of thousands. Imagine if the US had to fight a similar war now. Could we?
The affliction of "Presentism" resides in the Left - where they apply post-modern morals to episodes in history. If we had fought WWII under the current political rules, we would have lost it.
/Ever read, "The Man in the High Castle"? Its a thorough exploration into just that.
QUITE,
THINKABLE,
R,
To consider your country a winner after a nuclear exchange is the height of absurdity.
All true except losing WWII if it happened today. I don't think we'd win per se', but we could force negotiations and concessions quickly. The destruction that war would bring today is a direct result of WWII and never wanting to fight it again.
Not really a military loss - pretty much all battles won actually. It was a political decision, as I hope you remember. But it was never winnable for the military either - because that would have required the use of more napalm and nukes. Which was -thankfully- unacceptable. The US's real loss was being enemies with the Vietnamese people;, some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. Source: been living there for years ;)
The US would never nuke China. People would not allow it. You can't just kill a billion people and think life on earth would be normal afterwards. It would be the biggest war crime in history. Even if China were to attack first, all that would happen is a few times over nuking in return - which would kill like 50m-200m depending on Chinese's prior attack. If more, then Russia would nuke the US for acting crazy. Reciprocity is a real thing. And instinctively we all stick to it
Wars no longer are similar to WWI and WWII...addtionally, we need to think about cyber warfare, economic warfare, and what climate change will do to our calculations about national security. Like the Yankees, we live in a post Jeter world
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