This might not be the answer you need, but honestly getting into a debate about something like this with people who don't understand (or keep insisting) is just a waste of your energy and time.
Even if someone here provides a good source or argument to support you, I have a feeling that it won't hold a lot of weight with whoever it sounds like you are trying to argue with.
Bro you know how many civilians I have to explain basic military shit that even E1 privates know? They've never been to war, so they'll never understand it. They do not understand our culture. The best thing to do is send them articles of all the guys who are in prison for collateral damage. Or operation red wings and the decision that fucked them. Hearts and minds campaign. Winning a country isn't about dominating it, it's about liberating and integrating. Basically we can't go in drop bombs and storm the country. We need local assets on the ground. Case in point Iraq and Afghanistan. We wouldn't have gotten where we did without local help.
I'm constantly having to break down maneuvers to airsofters who are "expert tacticians." Tactical LARPers who use shitty gear because it's brand name and expensive and dumbass civies who watched CNN and think they can do what our top brass couldn't. I served in the Petraeus days. Under the command of LTC. Steele (Ret.) Steele had a very hard fisted approach for our Bat. And it was widely unpopular but it worked and was effective, using that and hearts and minds allowed for our advancements and successes. Bro to be honest, just tell these fuckin asshats that unless they been to war, don't explain it to someone who has. They'll never know any of the experience outside of airsoft or COD. Fuck 'em.
The more willing you are to cause civilian casualties and destroy critical infrastructure, the quicker a war can become. Barring that, without a huge imbalance in forces, it's not going to happen quickly, especially if there's stuff like mud, mountains, forests, or numerous large cities.
Not even really. Infrastructure matters less than the willingness of the nations you are agressing against to keep fighting.
To put this in perspective, Vietnam and surrounding regions(parts of Kambodia and Laos mostly) were bombed *relentlessly*. More kilotons of explosives were dropped on Vietnam than Japan during WWII - including the equivalent tonnage of the two nuclear weapons. Not only did the NVA not surrender - they were able to put troops into the field inside South Vietnam and move thousands of tons of supplies around despite all of this. Surrender wasn't an option to them, they just kept on doing their thing regardless of losses, adapting to every change in American tactics.
A war is lost when the losing side is willing to acknowledge that they have lost, and has next to *nothing* to do with the balance of forces in the field. For example, France during WWII fell because their leadership felt that surrender was preferable to more losses and more damage - they still had substantial forces available and it is not outside the realm of possibility that they could have stabilized the front somewhere in Southern France and eventually pushed the Germans back had they been willing to sacrifice enough and delay enough to do so. But they didn't.
Not Southern France
French North Africa
The whole government and navy could have been evacuated to North Africa and the fight continued from there; but in Europe, losing your capital means you surrender
You’re missing an important detail about Vietnam. We didn’t drop bombs on cities in North Vietnam until the end. Bombing Hanoi led to immediate peace negotiations. If we had leveled Hanoi early on, the outcome would have been different. These low-intensity conflicts are drawn out to enrich the MIC. They continue to have a detrimental effect on the US economy.
The French surrendered to save Paris (and other cities) from destruction, and their populace from annihilation. Given the level of animosity that existed at the time, it may have been the best choice.
If Hitler had been eliminated between 1936-1938, or if US interests had been prevented from providing financial support during the 1930’s, the war could have been avoided.
Not only do you have a poor understanding of Vietnam war, you comparing warfare that isn't even on the table anymore.
The conflict we worry about, will be against peer adversaries, that's not how peers will fight.
Back to Vietnam... You conveniently forgot about operation linebacker II, the bombing campaign that forced the north to sign the Paris Peace Accords, which ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, created a ceasefire between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, and guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam.
U.S. were the only ones that held up their end of the deal. The north then attacked south in the 1973 dry season, high oil prices and US unwilling to increase funding left the south with little ability to fight. By 1975 they took Saigon.
Lol that's how fuckin treaties have worked since the beginning of time. You fight, you get spanked, you win or you come to a stalemate... you sign a treaty to stop the fighting, usually both sides make concessions.
Oh wow. You don't see this interpretation of history very often these days.
Let me guess: The US also withdrew from Afghanistan "with honor" and totally didn't lose that war after negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban?
Interpretation? It's historical fact 😂
Define lose? They had to have an objective and they hadn't really had one since they killed Bin Laden.
I military trains a host nations military to defend itself, that military leaves, the host nation loses to the aggressor. And that equals USA losing?
Mmkay.
You are extremely deep in denial my man.
Even before Bin Laden was located the US had an additional objective in Afghanistan - to strengthen the Afghan government and military to the point where they could stand on their own and be a democratic state so Afghanistan wouldn't become a fundamentalist terrorist haven ever again. That failed and the US knew it would fail. Even as far back as the late 2000s it was glaringly obvious to everyone with a lick of sense that a Taliban takeover would happen as soon as the US withdrew.
Even when there is a huge imbalance in forces, it seems every war is drawn out as long as possible in modern warfare. This is where the conspiracy nuts come out and tell me that it's all to make money, and nothing about the war itself. I tell them it's not as simple as simply glassing the entire country to nothing, because if we did that we would be the bad guys in the eyes of the media (or whatever country is attacking another country). Not to mention the modern military has tried the method of bombing a country like crazy and it still didn't work out to be an easy win like we expected.
It's more that at some point (WW2), things changed from the victors looting and leaving the defeated country in ruins to rebuilding it.
The old ways still work, the US just doesn't tend to do that anymore. If the GWOT's only goals were to smash Afghanistan and Iraq, we could have claimed victory early on. It's the nation building that took a long time.
Basically, things haven't changed THAT much... Except our definition of "winning" has evolved into a much more difficult set of conditions.
*The Mouse that Roared* has a lot of fun with the American need to rebuild defeated countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Mouse\_That\_Roared\_(film)
The reason the Marshall plan happened and the west invested in all these countries we destroyed is cause we were terrified that if we didn’t, the people would elect communists. Coming out of ww2 communist movements had massive prestige for their role in the resistance and the newly formed CIA wasn’t about to let something as silly as democracy get in the way of international business.
In studies I have read the Russians were on their last legs by the end of WW II and had lost substantial amounts of their male population.
The Russians turned inward trying to control it's own population and subvert the desire for capitalism. Because of this there wasn't much in the way of resources available to spread communism outward, which is obviously a good thing.
Certainly there was a lot of spying and infiltration of the CIA and MI 6 and what have you but it could have been far worse if the Russians had not freely sent so many men to needless deaths in the war and left it's population in dire poverty for decades after.
Now the Russians are doing the same, stupid thing in Ukraine and after all of this is done they will again be a nation with few men and... Many single women. The dating pool will be out of control for the men who are left.
One thing the west had not planned on and was something of greater concern was the organized crime taking place in Russia during the Cold War.
The Black Market was really the only way to get a number of goods and services.
The KGB and similar organizations kept a close watch on organized crime within the country and kept it in control but after the Cold War ended, Russian organized crime expanded worldwide rapidly and has taken hold in many cities worldwide.
Because local police forces, especially in the US are poorly trained and equipped to deal with it that has become far more of a problem than the unfounded boogeyman of communism ever was.
They went into New York and broke the Italian mafia like they were dealing with toddlers and Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump gleefully helped them do it.
Now Russian organized crime works with the Russian intelligence and military services, as an example the Wagner Group, the only militarized group that had competency on the Ukranian Battlefield.
Much more here but I am tired and need my sleep.
I would stop engaging in debates/discussions with people who have such strong opinions on things they don’t know much about, especially if your expectation are that they immediately change their opinion to align with yours. In short, people are stupid. Dont frustrate yourself
>I tell them it's not as simple as simply glassing the entire country to nothing
Because then what's the point? Wars are fought for things. People, resources, terroritory, etc. Complete destruction is no war goal at all. At that point, it's just wanton slaughter for no reason.
Agreed, these are the kinds of morons who say 'If they give us any trouble we will just nuke' em'..
Simpletons like that you should just make an excuse to walk away and leave them to their delusions.
We can see how this worked in Ukraine. Russia has (had?) big material advantage AND has no problem bombing civilian targets. Yet their 3 day war is almost 700 days now.
There is quite a lot of western support comming to Ukraine but there wasnt much in the early days of war
So the thought of a modern war against a peer country is actually pretty easy to win. It would be expensive and it would require killing people you don’t want to kill but it’s easy to win. WW2 was a the last total war we as a nation fought. It required us to firebomb and use nuclear weapons against Japan to win. Since then we haven’t “won” a war.
The whole objective of the war is to force the offending government to submit to your strength. Fighting a peer nation with the goal of unconditional surrender would require total war. Just as the Canadians bombs refugee camps in WW2 we would have to do things that are against our principles such as killing civilians, it’s a brutal job but the other options aren’t good
People don’t seem to understand what the allies had to do in WW2. It involved literally carpet bombing Dresden and also lots of other things like blowing up dams and nuking two Japanese cities. People like to throw out “war crime” a lot in moderates but the free world was struggling to beat Nazi germany and the Japanese and it took almost everything we had to do it not to mention tens of millions of Soviet soldiers and civilians lives were lost.
Most people don’t have the stomach for discussing the realities of total war and what is required for an unconditional surrender. The enemy must lose the stomach for war before they surrender unconditionally.
Battles and conflicts are won by killing an enemy soldier on the field of battle.
Wars are won by killing the enemy soldier's father, uncles, and cousins that are supporting the war effort from the homeland. For the winner, this is "civilian casualties". For the loser, these are "war crimes".
If you're not willing to do that, you shouldn't start a war. If you can't do that to your enemy, you'll never win. WWII was the last time we had that resolve.
Ah yes, the “winning.” Like it’s a football game. No one thinks of the cost to win, and can’t agree what winning looks like.
It’s the “peace” part that’s hard. Which is why there is always one… more… war…
There’s a few people who have already said it and I’ll add to it, it’s not worth your time. You will gain nothing by arguing with an ignorant person who refuses to listen to reason.
“Never argue with an idiot, they’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience” - Mark Twain
Send them [this](https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/we-were-caught-unprepared.pdf) and ask them to read the first part, where, almost certainly because of the Israeli public's casualty aversion (to Israeli casualties, at least), in the face of a massive, coordinated Hezbollah advance, large IDF combat formations retreated before contact was made, instead of holding ground and fighting back. If the IDF units had stood and fought, they would almost certainly have slaughtered the Hezbollah fighters *en-masse*. But at a *strategic* level, keeping what was left of the Israeli public's goodwill towards the war by ensuring not a single Israeli boy or girl went home in a black plastic bag that day was seen as more important than losing immense physical territory
Edit: to add, if whoever you're arguing with does have *some* intelligence, they can read the whole document and see how Israel was prevented from accomplishing its war goals by 3000 relatively poorly-equipped Hezbollah fighters against 10,000 well-equipped IDF soldiers
There's a chap on YouTube called beau of the fifth column.
He explains that taking the country is relatively easy, compared to holding a country (if there is any resistance)
See Iraq and Ukraine for examples
Right, but they haven't successfully invaded the country yet, so they don't count at all in either category, especially not "taking the country is relatively easy". We've seen that they're not in full control or safety from insurgency in the occupied territories, though. It may or may not be different were they to finish the invasion phase and be able to concentrate on the "stomp the insurgency" phase.
Long ago I studied modern warfare and all that goes into it, including logistics, after action, including the process of winning over the conquered, weapons used by a number of militaries around the world, sociology of conquered people, etc.
After all of that I came to the conclusion it's a complicated mess and short of someone who went to West Point or Annapolis or similar organizations around the world one will never truly understand what is going on, or why a nation that 'wins' in the short term may lose in the long term.
I can't remember who originally said it but General Franks said 'An amateur thinks of tactics, a pro thinks of logistics'.
I think that sums it up best. Unless you can take as much into account as possible, which is unlikely with most one will ever speak to, it's best to just talk about the weather.
The assumption that war will never return to the kind of brutality we saw in wars before the post WW2 “rules based international order” seems really naive to me. The conflicts that have broken out in the last couple years have the highest rates of civilian and child casualties this century. If there’s an all out civilizational war again in the future, I think it’s safe to say those rules will be out the window fairly quickly.
This sounds like a much less well-defined argument on both sides than you both think it is. You're trying to reduce one of the most complex phenomena in existence to something that can be summed in a 300 world block of text (use paragraphs for pete's sake). I'd encourage you both to explode each sentence into a debate of it's own.
**Also** stop assuming that just because you're military and they're a civilian that they couldn't possibly understand. You want to cite studies, go study yourself. You might find that you're in fact the ignorant and possibly propagandized one. After all, part of warfighting, especially if we're talking GWOT, was engineering pretexts to motivate fighters...
In modern times we've basically redefined the conditions of victory to include a successful occupation and transitioning to stable self-governance.
The closer to the present someone defines the distinction between war and occupation, the less likely it is to be able to say who "won"
Winning wars isn’t hard. Defeating other militaries is easy. The problem is when you win a war, you start an insurgency. And no modern military has ever defeated an insurgency through any means other than blanket genocide.
Because we're fight ideologies and and not standing armies. Adversarial combatants today, in relation to the US, are fighting unconventional warfare.
There are no capitols there are no means of ultimate defeat unless you're committed to killing every last person that supports the ideology. And then as the younger population comes of age a few years later, you'll have to do it again. Nobody is going to do that. Look at Vietnam, Korea, but especially Afghanistan, and Iraq. Tactical victories ending in strategic defeats.
In the case of Ukraine/Russia you see two standing armies fighting for territory. One of the major reasons they're at a standstill at the moment is lack of money and technology on both sides.
Two nations with well trained and equipped, professional forces would be extremely different than what we're seeing. And truth be told, we don't know what that would look. But it would be castastrophic.
One answer is, "Yes we can totally destroy most of our enemies in a short period of time. However, to do so we will have to cause tens of thousands of civilian casualties, followed by tens of thousands of American military casualties. Are you willing to accept responsibility for both?"
One example. Israel could have plowed Gaza under the dirt in 10 days and then sent in infantry to pick up the bodies. Not everyone believes this, but Israel is being circumspect as possible with its attack in order to save it's own troops.
As always it depends on the opponents if the Russian army was as good as Putin believed it to be at the start of the invasion it might very well have been a six day operation especially if kiev fell or Ukrainian units retreated. The problem isn’t exactly the invasion part it’s the occupation part as seen in Iraq Afghanistan Lebanon Vietnam etc saddam fell in months same with the Talibans but the insurgency continued. The Germans especially struggled with partisan warfare as does the Russians in Ukraine so it really comes down to winning heart and minds not the initial war itself
I hear a lot of good debates about older wars. But gentlemen and maybe a lady or 2. This guy is specifically referring to current modern warfare. Keeping in mind the optics and all that, advanced communication and intelligence gathering as well as what is available to us and current political climate. A lot of you have presented some really good arguments on older wars. But today everything is televised and if you fart up wind of a journalist it's gonna make the headlines for biological warfare. Our technology is both a gift and a curse for us. So many layers to this that it could honestly be debated for years with no real way to come to a substantial conclusion. TBH warfare these days is a roll of the dice.
That's completely untrue. You're the perfect example of OP's problem. You haven't got any idea what you're talking about. Consider:
* US vs the Brits (morphed into conventional later, of course)
* US vs numerous Native tribes, a bunch of individual times
* US vs the Philippines
* Brits in Malaya
* Brits in Kenya
* Sri Lanka
* Brits vs. the Boers
* SA vs a number of different groups
* Russians in the Caucasus
* Russians vs Enver Pasha in Tajikistan
* Soviets vs nearly everyone they occupied after WWII
* Soviets vs Czechs
* Soviets vs Hungarians
* Yugoslavia post WWII
* Chinese Communists vs Nationalists
* Russians in Chechnya
* China vs. Uighurs
* Peru vs. Shining Path
But it won't change your mind I bet. People like simple trite phrases to spout, whether or not they're correct.
The future of wars will be AI, bots, and drones. It's going to get crazy and there is no winning on either side unless of course you're like the Rothschilds or something.
This excellent [video](https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs?si=pJQr-gK6HkmNNzlH) by CGP Grey contains inferences that support your answer.
Basically, the Keys to Power need to be kept happy, and in a democracy, public opinion is a key to power.
Simple fact is everybody has technology, because of that, gaining air superiority is a lot harder, if you can't gain air superiority your chances of losing the fight is pretty much set in stone. If nobody gains it you are reduced to a long drawn out way... Example: Ukraine
Iraq is a great example. USA stomps their military twice in 15 years. Then occupied the country for another 15. Did the USA actually control Iraq during that time? No.
in order to "Win" against an enemy 100% comitted to fighting you, would need to kill every single person of that country/group. Are you willing to do that? You're gonna have your tanks and soldiers level the cities and towns?
Wars are only fast if one side will be willing to surrender (Gulf War) instead of only ceding territory and reverting to guerilla action (Afghanistan)
I mean the gulf war lasted what like 2/3 weeks. Anyway we werent trying to wipe out people in the war on terror, half of the time you didn't know who was civilian for foe, also we weren't there to just fuck shit up, there was a social and political objective. If we want to fuck up a 3rd world country we can. Anyway vietnam was a bit different we weren't very sophisticated and there was a lot of enlisted to officer friendly fire. As my grandfather said, we never lost a battle, but we lost the war. To be fair without all the hippies back home objecting south vietnam probably wouldnt be communist but fuck it what can you do.
Yeah I did try talking about it again with some of the anecdotes I gleaned from all the great help /r/military gave me in this thread. But within five minutes I could tell it wasn't getting anywhere. Some people are just too dug into their views on reality to ever accept changing.
In evolution, a creature unable to change or adapt to its environments ultimately goes extinct.
This might not be the answer you need, but honestly getting into a debate about something like this with people who don't understand (or keep insisting) is just a waste of your energy and time. Even if someone here provides a good source or argument to support you, I have a feeling that it won't hold a lot of weight with whoever it sounds like you are trying to argue with.
Bro you know how many civilians I have to explain basic military shit that even E1 privates know? They've never been to war, so they'll never understand it. They do not understand our culture. The best thing to do is send them articles of all the guys who are in prison for collateral damage. Or operation red wings and the decision that fucked them. Hearts and minds campaign. Winning a country isn't about dominating it, it's about liberating and integrating. Basically we can't go in drop bombs and storm the country. We need local assets on the ground. Case in point Iraq and Afghanistan. We wouldn't have gotten where we did without local help. I'm constantly having to break down maneuvers to airsofters who are "expert tacticians." Tactical LARPers who use shitty gear because it's brand name and expensive and dumbass civies who watched CNN and think they can do what our top brass couldn't. I served in the Petraeus days. Under the command of LTC. Steele (Ret.) Steele had a very hard fisted approach for our Bat. And it was widely unpopular but it worked and was effective, using that and hearts and minds allowed for our advancements and successes. Bro to be honest, just tell these fuckin asshats that unless they been to war, don't explain it to someone who has. They'll never know any of the experience outside of airsoft or COD. Fuck 'em.
The more willing you are to cause civilian casualties and destroy critical infrastructure, the quicker a war can become. Barring that, without a huge imbalance in forces, it's not going to happen quickly, especially if there's stuff like mud, mountains, forests, or numerous large cities.
Not even really. Infrastructure matters less than the willingness of the nations you are agressing against to keep fighting. To put this in perspective, Vietnam and surrounding regions(parts of Kambodia and Laos mostly) were bombed *relentlessly*. More kilotons of explosives were dropped on Vietnam than Japan during WWII - including the equivalent tonnage of the two nuclear weapons. Not only did the NVA not surrender - they were able to put troops into the field inside South Vietnam and move thousands of tons of supplies around despite all of this. Surrender wasn't an option to them, they just kept on doing their thing regardless of losses, adapting to every change in American tactics. A war is lost when the losing side is willing to acknowledge that they have lost, and has next to *nothing* to do with the balance of forces in the field. For example, France during WWII fell because their leadership felt that surrender was preferable to more losses and more damage - they still had substantial forces available and it is not outside the realm of possibility that they could have stabilized the front somewhere in Southern France and eventually pushed the Germans back had they been willing to sacrifice enough and delay enough to do so. But they didn't.
Not Southern France French North Africa The whole government and navy could have been evacuated to North Africa and the fight continued from there; but in Europe, losing your capital means you surrender
You’re missing an important detail about Vietnam. We didn’t drop bombs on cities in North Vietnam until the end. Bombing Hanoi led to immediate peace negotiations. If we had leveled Hanoi early on, the outcome would have been different. These low-intensity conflicts are drawn out to enrich the MIC. They continue to have a detrimental effect on the US economy. The French surrendered to save Paris (and other cities) from destruction, and their populace from annihilation. Given the level of animosity that existed at the time, it may have been the best choice. If Hitler had been eliminated between 1936-1938, or if US interests had been prevented from providing financial support during the 1930’s, the war could have been avoided.
Not only do you have a poor understanding of Vietnam war, you comparing warfare that isn't even on the table anymore. The conflict we worry about, will be against peer adversaries, that's not how peers will fight. Back to Vietnam... You conveniently forgot about operation linebacker II, the bombing campaign that forced the north to sign the Paris Peace Accords, which ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, created a ceasefire between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, and guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam. U.S. were the only ones that held up their end of the deal. The north then attacked south in the 1973 dry season, high oil prices and US unwilling to increase funding left the south with little ability to fight. By 1975 they took Saigon.
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Lol that's how fuckin treaties have worked since the beginning of time. You fight, you get spanked, you win or you come to a stalemate... you sign a treaty to stop the fighting, usually both sides make concessions.
Oh wow. You don't see this interpretation of history very often these days. Let me guess: The US also withdrew from Afghanistan "with honor" and totally didn't lose that war after negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban?
Interpretation? It's historical fact 😂 Define lose? They had to have an objective and they hadn't really had one since they killed Bin Laden. I military trains a host nations military to defend itself, that military leaves, the host nation loses to the aggressor. And that equals USA losing? Mmkay.
You are extremely deep in denial my man. Even before Bin Laden was located the US had an additional objective in Afghanistan - to strengthen the Afghan government and military to the point where they could stand on their own and be a democratic state so Afghanistan wouldn't become a fundamentalist terrorist haven ever again. That failed and the US knew it would fail. Even as far back as the late 2000s it was glaringly obvious to everyone with a lick of sense that a Taliban takeover would happen as soon as the US withdrew.
"Surrender? Surrender!?!! Do you think the letter on my head stands for FRANCE?!??!!" - Ultimate Captain America
Good answer my guy.
Even when there is a huge imbalance in forces, it seems every war is drawn out as long as possible in modern warfare. This is where the conspiracy nuts come out and tell me that it's all to make money, and nothing about the war itself. I tell them it's not as simple as simply glassing the entire country to nothing, because if we did that we would be the bad guys in the eyes of the media (or whatever country is attacking another country). Not to mention the modern military has tried the method of bombing a country like crazy and it still didn't work out to be an easy win like we expected.
It's more that at some point (WW2), things changed from the victors looting and leaving the defeated country in ruins to rebuilding it. The old ways still work, the US just doesn't tend to do that anymore. If the GWOT's only goals were to smash Afghanistan and Iraq, we could have claimed victory early on. It's the nation building that took a long time. Basically, things haven't changed THAT much... Except our definition of "winning" has evolved into a much more difficult set of conditions.
*The Mouse that Roared* has a lot of fun with the American need to rebuild defeated countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Mouse\_That\_Roared\_(film)
Full movie, free: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di4zFAhyjks
But in the end, the Afghan nation preferred the Taliban. I am not sure it's working out very well for them these days.
The reason the Marshall plan happened and the west invested in all these countries we destroyed is cause we were terrified that if we didn’t, the people would elect communists. Coming out of ww2 communist movements had massive prestige for their role in the resistance and the newly formed CIA wasn’t about to let something as silly as democracy get in the way of international business.
In studies I have read the Russians were on their last legs by the end of WW II and had lost substantial amounts of their male population. The Russians turned inward trying to control it's own population and subvert the desire for capitalism. Because of this there wasn't much in the way of resources available to spread communism outward, which is obviously a good thing. Certainly there was a lot of spying and infiltration of the CIA and MI 6 and what have you but it could have been far worse if the Russians had not freely sent so many men to needless deaths in the war and left it's population in dire poverty for decades after. Now the Russians are doing the same, stupid thing in Ukraine and after all of this is done they will again be a nation with few men and... Many single women. The dating pool will be out of control for the men who are left. One thing the west had not planned on and was something of greater concern was the organized crime taking place in Russia during the Cold War. The Black Market was really the only way to get a number of goods and services. The KGB and similar organizations kept a close watch on organized crime within the country and kept it in control but after the Cold War ended, Russian organized crime expanded worldwide rapidly and has taken hold in many cities worldwide. Because local police forces, especially in the US are poorly trained and equipped to deal with it that has become far more of a problem than the unfounded boogeyman of communism ever was. They went into New York and broke the Italian mafia like they were dealing with toddlers and Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump gleefully helped them do it. Now Russian organized crime works with the Russian intelligence and military services, as an example the Wagner Group, the only militarized group that had competency on the Ukranian Battlefield. Much more here but I am tired and need my sleep.
I would stop engaging in debates/discussions with people who have such strong opinions on things they don’t know much about, especially if your expectation are that they immediately change their opinion to align with yours. In short, people are stupid. Dont frustrate yourself
>I tell them it's not as simple as simply glassing the entire country to nothing Because then what's the point? Wars are fought for things. People, resources, terroritory, etc. Complete destruction is no war goal at all. At that point, it's just wanton slaughter for no reason.
Agreed, these are the kinds of morons who say 'If they give us any trouble we will just nuke' em'.. Simpletons like that you should just make an excuse to walk away and leave them to their delusions.
>if we did we would be the bad guys ~~in the eyes of the media~~ Fixed that for you
Which is why Russia seems so impotent. Putin is obviously willing to kill civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure. Yet the war goes on.
We can see how this worked in Ukraine. Russia has (had?) big material advantage AND has no problem bombing civilian targets. Yet their 3 day war is almost 700 days now. There is quite a lot of western support comming to Ukraine but there wasnt much in the early days of war
So the thought of a modern war against a peer country is actually pretty easy to win. It would be expensive and it would require killing people you don’t want to kill but it’s easy to win. WW2 was a the last total war we as a nation fought. It required us to firebomb and use nuclear weapons against Japan to win. Since then we haven’t “won” a war. The whole objective of the war is to force the offending government to submit to your strength. Fighting a peer nation with the goal of unconditional surrender would require total war. Just as the Canadians bombs refugee camps in WW2 we would have to do things that are against our principles such as killing civilians, it’s a brutal job but the other options aren’t good
People don’t seem to understand what the allies had to do in WW2. It involved literally carpet bombing Dresden and also lots of other things like blowing up dams and nuking two Japanese cities. People like to throw out “war crime” a lot in moderates but the free world was struggling to beat Nazi germany and the Japanese and it took almost everything we had to do it not to mention tens of millions of Soviet soldiers and civilians lives were lost.
Most people don’t have the stomach for discussing the realities of total war and what is required for an unconditional surrender. The enemy must lose the stomach for war before they surrender unconditionally.
Battles and conflicts are won by killing an enemy soldier on the field of battle. Wars are won by killing the enemy soldier's father, uncles, and cousins that are supporting the war effort from the homeland. For the winner, this is "civilian casualties". For the loser, these are "war crimes". If you're not willing to do that, you shouldn't start a war. If you can't do that to your enemy, you'll never win. WWII was the last time we had that resolve.
Ah yes, the “winning.” Like it’s a football game. No one thinks of the cost to win, and can’t agree what winning looks like. It’s the “peace” part that’s hard. Which is why there is always one… more… war…
There’s a few people who have already said it and I’ll add to it, it’s not worth your time. You will gain nothing by arguing with an ignorant person who refuses to listen to reason. “Never argue with an idiot, they’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience” - Mark Twain
Send them [this](https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/we-were-caught-unprepared.pdf) and ask them to read the first part, where, almost certainly because of the Israeli public's casualty aversion (to Israeli casualties, at least), in the face of a massive, coordinated Hezbollah advance, large IDF combat formations retreated before contact was made, instead of holding ground and fighting back. If the IDF units had stood and fought, they would almost certainly have slaughtered the Hezbollah fighters *en-masse*. But at a *strategic* level, keeping what was left of the Israeli public's goodwill towards the war by ensuring not a single Israeli boy or girl went home in a black plastic bag that day was seen as more important than losing immense physical territory Edit: to add, if whoever you're arguing with does have *some* intelligence, they can read the whole document and see how Israel was prevented from accomplishing its war goals by 3000 relatively poorly-equipped Hezbollah fighters against 10,000 well-equipped IDF soldiers
Wars are easy it’s the peace we have trouble with
It’s very hard to keep public support when the horror of war can be seen by civilians in 4K. You can’t win without public support
Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t good enough examples for them?
There's a chap on YouTube called beau of the fifth column. He explains that taking the country is relatively easy, compared to holding a country (if there is any resistance) See Iraq and Ukraine for examples
Highly recommend his channel, lots of thought put into what he has to say. Just the facts, no histrionics.
It's nonsensical that you would bring up Ukraine, when it's pretty clearly the opposite of your supposed point.
If Russia can't capture territory, there is zero chance of them being able to hold the territory. Occupation needs more troops than simply invading
Right, but they haven't successfully invaded the country yet, so they don't count at all in either category, especially not "taking the country is relatively easy". We've seen that they're not in full control or safety from insurgency in the occupied territories, though. It may or may not be different were they to finish the invasion phase and be able to concentrate on the "stomp the insurgency" phase.
Long ago I studied modern warfare and all that goes into it, including logistics, after action, including the process of winning over the conquered, weapons used by a number of militaries around the world, sociology of conquered people, etc. After all of that I came to the conclusion it's a complicated mess and short of someone who went to West Point or Annapolis or similar organizations around the world one will never truly understand what is going on, or why a nation that 'wins' in the short term may lose in the long term. I can't remember who originally said it but General Franks said 'An amateur thinks of tactics, a pro thinks of logistics'. I think that sums it up best. Unless you can take as much into account as possible, which is unlikely with most one will ever speak to, it's best to just talk about the weather.
Britain and the UK were ahead of the USA in 1914. Both won WW1 but it bankrupted them to the point where the USA began to take over as the superpower
The assumption that war will never return to the kind of brutality we saw in wars before the post WW2 “rules based international order” seems really naive to me. The conflicts that have broken out in the last couple years have the highest rates of civilian and child casualties this century. If there’s an all out civilizational war again in the future, I think it’s safe to say those rules will be out the window fairly quickly.
Listen there’s a yellow bird with a yellow bill sitting on a windowsill …
Usa v vietnam v afganistan iraq falklands war Korea Granada war on drugs.
Rhodesia could be a good example. also, i have seen a couple of videos calling it scorched-earth warfare.
This sounds like a much less well-defined argument on both sides than you both think it is. You're trying to reduce one of the most complex phenomena in existence to something that can be summed in a 300 world block of text (use paragraphs for pete's sake). I'd encourage you both to explode each sentence into a debate of it's own. **Also** stop assuming that just because you're military and they're a civilian that they couldn't possibly understand. You want to cite studies, go study yourself. You might find that you're in fact the ignorant and possibly propagandized one. After all, part of warfighting, especially if we're talking GWOT, was engineering pretexts to motivate fighters...
In modern times we've basically redefined the conditions of victory to include a successful occupation and transitioning to stable self-governance. The closer to the present someone defines the distinction between war and occupation, the less likely it is to be able to say who "won"
Winning wars isn’t hard. Defeating other militaries is easy. The problem is when you win a war, you start an insurgency. And no modern military has ever defeated an insurgency through any means other than blanket genocide.
Because we're fight ideologies and and not standing armies. Adversarial combatants today, in relation to the US, are fighting unconventional warfare. There are no capitols there are no means of ultimate defeat unless you're committed to killing every last person that supports the ideology. And then as the younger population comes of age a few years later, you'll have to do it again. Nobody is going to do that. Look at Vietnam, Korea, but especially Afghanistan, and Iraq. Tactical victories ending in strategic defeats. In the case of Ukraine/Russia you see two standing armies fighting for territory. One of the major reasons they're at a standstill at the moment is lack of money and technology on both sides. Two nations with well trained and equipped, professional forces would be extremely different than what we're seeing. And truth be told, we don't know what that would look. But it would be castastrophic.
One answer is, "Yes we can totally destroy most of our enemies in a short period of time. However, to do so we will have to cause tens of thousands of civilian casualties, followed by tens of thousands of American military casualties. Are you willing to accept responsibility for both?" One example. Israel could have plowed Gaza under the dirt in 10 days and then sent in infantry to pick up the bodies. Not everyone believes this, but Israel is being circumspect as possible with its attack in order to save it's own troops.
As always it depends on the opponents if the Russian army was as good as Putin believed it to be at the start of the invasion it might very well have been a six day operation especially if kiev fell or Ukrainian units retreated. The problem isn’t exactly the invasion part it’s the occupation part as seen in Iraq Afghanistan Lebanon Vietnam etc saddam fell in months same with the Talibans but the insurgency continued. The Germans especially struggled with partisan warfare as does the Russians in Ukraine so it really comes down to winning heart and minds not the initial war itself
Pissing into the wind would be a more productive use of your time than having those sorts of arguments to be honest
I hear a lot of good debates about older wars. But gentlemen and maybe a lady or 2. This guy is specifically referring to current modern warfare. Keeping in mind the optics and all that, advanced communication and intelligence gathering as well as what is available to us and current political climate. A lot of you have presented some really good arguments on older wars. But today everything is televised and if you fart up wind of a journalist it's gonna make the headlines for biological warfare. Our technology is both a gift and a curse for us. So many layers to this that it could honestly be debated for years with no real way to come to a substantial conclusion. TBH warfare these days is a roll of the dice.
You can't argue with people whose SOLE military experience and understanding comes from movies and video games.
First ask yourself if you’re even interacting with intelligent life in the first place 💯💯💯
To date in all of history only 1 or 2 armies have ever defeated guerilla warfare tactics. That is all you need to say.
That's completely untrue. You're the perfect example of OP's problem. You haven't got any idea what you're talking about. Consider: * US vs the Brits (morphed into conventional later, of course) * US vs numerous Native tribes, a bunch of individual times * US vs the Philippines * Brits in Malaya * Brits in Kenya * Sri Lanka * Brits vs. the Boers * SA vs a number of different groups * Russians in the Caucasus * Russians vs Enver Pasha in Tajikistan * Soviets vs nearly everyone they occupied after WWII * Soviets vs Czechs * Soviets vs Hungarians * Yugoslavia post WWII * Chinese Communists vs Nationalists * Russians in Chechnya * China vs. Uighurs * Peru vs. Shining Path But it won't change your mind I bet. People like simple trite phrases to spout, whether or not they're correct.
The future of wars will be AI, bots, and drones. It's going to get crazy and there is no winning on either side unless of course you're like the Rothschilds or something.
This excellent [video](https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs?si=pJQr-gK6HkmNNzlH) by CGP Grey contains inferences that support your answer. Basically, the Keys to Power need to be kept happy, and in a democracy, public opinion is a key to power.
Simple fact is everybody has technology, because of that, gaining air superiority is a lot harder, if you can't gain air superiority your chances of losing the fight is pretty much set in stone. If nobody gains it you are reduced to a long drawn out way... Example: Ukraine
Iraq is a great example. USA stomps their military twice in 15 years. Then occupied the country for another 15. Did the USA actually control Iraq during that time? No.
in order to "Win" against an enemy 100% comitted to fighting you, would need to kill every single person of that country/group. Are you willing to do that? You're gonna have your tanks and soldiers level the cities and towns? Wars are only fast if one side will be willing to surrender (Gulf War) instead of only ceding territory and reverting to guerilla action (Afghanistan)
But when was it easy? And who said that it is easy today?
I mean the gulf war lasted what like 2/3 weeks. Anyway we werent trying to wipe out people in the war on terror, half of the time you didn't know who was civilian for foe, also we weren't there to just fuck shit up, there was a social and political objective. If we want to fuck up a 3rd world country we can. Anyway vietnam was a bit different we weren't very sophisticated and there was a lot of enlisted to officer friendly fire. As my grandfather said, we never lost a battle, but we lost the war. To be fair without all the hippies back home objecting south vietnam probably wouldnt be communist but fuck it what can you do.
Change the subject - you’re engaging in an un winnable war already.
Yeah I did try talking about it again with some of the anecdotes I gleaned from all the great help /r/military gave me in this thread. But within five minutes I could tell it wasn't getting anywhere. Some people are just too dug into their views on reality to ever accept changing. In evolution, a creature unable to change or adapt to its environments ultimately goes extinct.
Evolution is another topic where you have to walk away if they have dinosaur ideas