Do Americans realize they lost both Iraq and Afghan wars?

Under our government the civilians do run the military. Wars are fought for political purposes. So yes, when wars are lost it is appropriate to blame the civilian leadership.

Now, given that we will always have wars what can we do about our inability to develop and execute war winning strategies? It is not enough to train the generals. How do we also train the civilians?

 

Never mind.

 

I'm sure we could. Then you'd have to ask yourself "why the f did we want to win THIS?"

 

This comment is not very useful. There may have been scenarios resulting in us winning. The question is, why do we have such trouble developing winning strategies? We know how to train to win battles and campaigns. We do not know how to train to win wars. Why don't we?

 

WE lost Iraq, Afghan and Yemen. Now that's funny. You wouldn't want them if you had them to lose.

 

My God why haven't you stayed current with your information?

I think some folks find a narrative that suits them and they stick to it in spite of anything and everything that might suggest the dynamics may have changed.

Go ahead and maintain your foolish consistency and one day you will be forced, to avoid embarrassment no doubt, to revise your outdated pat narrative.

What fools ye be.

I have no time for fools.

If I did i would likely be banned for hurting your feelings.

You are wrong.

And your greatest fear is being exposed as a fool.

That day will come.

Live in dread of it until then or revise your information to reflect more recent changes in the facts.

People like you make the world sick.

 

What I think you are saying is that we understand how to use military force to accomplish military objectives. That is essential but it is never quite enough to win wars. How do we train our senior leadership to develop strategies that will win the wars we fight?

Why don't we have the debates about whether or not we should wage wars? This is not a simple problem. As much as I despise FDR and appreciate that he was backstopped by Churchill, he did make the case for war against the national socialists in Germany. He continued to make the case throughout the war. He was right to do so.

 

Given that every nation will become war weary how do we devise a strategy that takes that into consideration? Wars are fought to achieve a political purpose. The warring sides typically have different objectives, not necessarily opposite objectives.

Do you believe that only third world militaries can develop winning strategies that center around replenishing their lost fighters?

 

How dare you sirrah, such defeatist talk is both treasonous and satanic. America, the shining city on a hill, cannot and has not ever lost any war. We even won in Vietnam doncha know?. Look I see a light at the end of the tunnel. It's a neon sign, It says... "Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City"

Yeh, sure. Oh we COULDA won, we were stabbed in the back by the wimpy public who didn't understand that we had to kill all the people there to save them.

I swear to god, the only thing exceeding a conservative's stupidity is their murderousness.

 

Do you believe there is a solution?

Nations grow war weary quickly. We do not tolerate war deaths. The military is run by civilians.

Strategy matches political goals with military and other means to achieve our political goals. Strategy must be very difficult or we would win every war. How do we resolve this problem as only the dead have seen an end to wars? (with apologies to Plato, naturally)

 

Kudos to the American public not wanting to be an aggressor nation and starting a war for no good reason.

 

I can not see a winning scenario anywhere in the Middle East at all. Western developed society has absolutely no business trying to interfere with cultures that not only do not want, but are not yet capable or ready to step into modern society. The Islamic influence found pretty much everywhere prevents what we see as progress and will not be changed...the people must desire and enact the changes if they desire it, but it will take many decades or centuries and by that time western culture will have continued to progress...rinse and repeat.

The entire ME is a backward piece of the world that is best left alone and watched very closely...but, any attempt to help will be seen as invasion. I say we should have never bothered and simply allowed them all to keep killing each other.

 

Dodge then?

 

??????????

 

F

I would submit that a bigger enemy is anyone in our military that believes the crap you just posted

 

Yeah, because he calls you on your bull(*)(*)(*)(*) he's un-American. He is actually spot on

 

I think people are using the word narrative too much.

It's become a cliche now.

 

1. The easy way out is to say a given war is not winnable. Everyone will think you are wise.
2. The harder way is to determine why we do not win our wars.

Your message was more of the first and none of the second. It was a dodge. It's okay.

 

How exactly do you expect me to tell you how to win the unwinnable wars I described?

 

I often wonder how people fall into the trap of asking "how exactly" in response to a general problem?

There is nothing of value in claiming that a certain war was "unwinnable". It immediately stops inquiry into why we did not win it? If it was unwinnable then why waste any time evaluating what we must do differently to win our next war?

I suppose if it works for you it will work for the majority of the populace. I am interested in the far deeper problem. Why are we unable to develop strategies to win our wars? Is it something we are failing to do? Is it like deception operations where we completely stopped for 50 years and then rediscovered their value and so had to learn again the lessons we learned in WWII?

What does it take to develop war winning strategies? Why aren't we doing whatever it takes?

 

I'll take "Because it's cruel, inhuman and contrary to all the values on which civilization is founded" for 300, please.

 

Are you claiming that it is cruel, inhuman, and contrary to all of the values on which civilization is founded, for us to win the wars we wage?

Amazing.

 

Okay, then perhaps you might present your own solutions to warfare in the 21st century, I am sure you can give us all much more than the Pentagon staff, The Generals, The planners....or the other thousands that present data to the President.

Please elucidate as we are all awaiting the solution...by the way, No Nukes.

 

I think what caused the problem in Iraq that led to ISIS was this.

"After recounting American efforts to remove members of the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein from civilian agencies, Mr. Bremer told Mr. Bush that he would “parallel this step with an even more robust measure” to dismantle the Iraq military.."

It was a mistake by Bremer to disband the whole Iraqi Army and purge everyone. It was not in the original plans to do so, but he talked Bush into it believing it would be safer. Where were they to go? Would they be able to find jobs to feed their families? I think this led to the eventual make up of the ISIS. They only grew stronger as they went.

But, I think Obama made a big mistake of not trying to pressure Iraq to station troops there especially when he saw the opposition growing within Iraq and the fighting going on. But I think once out, Obama wanted to wash his hands of Iraq and didn't do much of anything.

About a year and half ago when the ISIS started down the desert highway from Syria to Iraq and Iraq asked for air power, Obama refused. It was his biggest mistake of his Presidency. The ISIS were sitting ducks on that highway with nowhere to hide. We had a chance to wipe them out right then. More chances of doing it as they got back on the highway, attacking city to city. Still Obama passed them off as Jr. Varsity, not a real army or threat. They took over almost half of Iraq before Obama made a move and he only did it then because of the decapitations of American hostages. By then it was to late. ISIS had buried themselves in many towns and cities and air power wouldn't dig them out.

 

10,000 weapons of mass destruction are in the atmosphere, 5000 are headed to America and 5000 to the Middle East.

You have the ability to direct a single set to the other's target or let both be destroyed.

What do you do?

If you dare to respond, kindly don't dodge the very simple binary question I've asked of you.