Why aren't the British and American forces wth all their strength and modern equipment unable to win the wars

Question

Why can't these two countries win wars against the countries they are presently fighting with when they have the most modern equipped and sophisticated armies in the world?. I know the territories are difficut to fight in mostly because of the mountains in the region but surely with all their experience these wars should have been won a long time ago. Why haven't they caught Osmana bin Laden after all this time?. Is it because they really don't want to catch him? I have heard many times that Bush has business dealings with him whilst I was on holiday in India. Is there any truth in this?

Answer 1

First of all I have to disagree with your premise that we are unable to win wars. Make no mistake, we are winning. What we aren't doing is winning as easily and effectively as we should considering the equipment we have and the caliber of troops we have fighting.
You have received some very good answers here (it's easy to tell who the veterans are) and a couple that aren't so good. I just have one small thing to add to the reasons why we aren't living up to our military potential. We have too many armchair generals and crtics in the public who are making maximum use of their freedom of speech and our governments and our military have to fight a war while maintaining their PR images for those who don't have a clue about what war is. Don't mistake what I'm saying. I am not advocating suspending our principles in order to be more effective. What I am saying is we have been going overboard trying to fight a politically correct war so as not to alienate the world, and the radical left here in the States. Look at all the criticism Israel is getting when they have been bending over backwards to avoid civilian casualties. The great moral left is so outraged by the deaths of innocent children and yet they fail to place the blame where it belongs...on the terrorists themselves. These critics don't know war so they don't know these troops like I do. Even though I haven't been to Iraq I can tell you with certainty that despite the horrendous acts of a few, both nations share a common sense of decency which is generally reflected in the charater of their troops. You have probably seen in a police drama on tv or in a movie a combat course that cops go through with pop up targets of good guys and bad guys. They need to react fast to shoot the bad guys but they have to be careful not to hit a good guy. The targets are images of people dressed so that you know by appearance which is which. One might be a little girl with a doll, the other some ugly goon with a gun. Now imagine you are moving through some Iraqi street with pop-up targets just like that course....with one difference...you can't identify the good guys from the bad guys until they shoot at you....they all look alike. I don't advocate the "kill them all let God sort them out" philosophy, but sometimes you have to make the rules, not allow your enemy to. You warn people. You let them know what is expected. If they don't act accordingly and get killed it's because they didn't follow the rules. I'm sorry that is the ugly truth, and the whining liberals who can do nothing but criticize shouldn't affect a single thing about how war is conducted. They aren't the ones putting their asses on the line. Most of them never have and never would. Another thing that affects our effectiveness is just the kind of commentary you see right here on this forum where you see Americans and Brits criticizing their own countries and agreeing with the very people we are fighting. Do you have any idea how that affects morale? Negatively for our troops and positively for our enemies. This is why we so-called NEOcons get so riled up....it's the selfish stupidity of those who don't feel any sense of allegiance towards their own country in the face of it's enemies and those who think they can make their separate peace with Islamic fascist fanatics by use of their kinder gentler attitude. Some people just don't understand the meaning of "united we stand, divided we fall".

Answer 2

Depends on what you mean by wining. Iraq's Army was destroyed or ran away, their dictator was captured. The Taliban in Afghanistan was thrown out. If that's not winning I'm not sure what you are talking about.

If you're talking about establishing democratic governments in Afghanistan and Iraq that is a little different from winning a war. Some examples like after the civil war in the United States federal troops occupied and had military governments in the southern states for almost 10 years after the war ended.

We still have troops in Japan and Germany did we win those wars?

I think you do have a good point. Military power is useful only to a point, beyond that such as nation building depends on the people that live in that nation. The only justification for a war is to remove a threat. Once the threat is removed the military should be removed. The safety and security of the defeated nation is their own concern. If they fall into chaos and civil war well thats really their problem. The more horrible the result the less likely it will be necessary to use force again.

Us and the British are just not ruthless enough. We should have destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq and left them in ruins. With a simple warning if we have to come back it will be worse. Iran and Syria should already be in ruins.

Answer 3

The reason they are losing is poor civilian leadership. During the first Gulf War the coalition force numbered over 500,000 and had no intention to stay as an occupying force. How the US and British goverments could imagine they could have a successful occupation now with less than 150,000 is very puzzling.

Keep in mind that at the start of the recent campaign, General Shinseki estimated that "severl hunderd thousand" would be necessary to succeed. What we are seeing now is the result of good military leadership being forced into bad situations by bad civilian leadership.

If the militaries of the US and UK were given more freedom to do their mission, less people would be killed. Iraq and Afghanistan would be secured. And most bin Laden would probably be captured by now.

Answer 4

Almost all the equipment is in the form of weapons and the only tjing weapons can do is kill and rarely are wars nowerdays about exerminating all the enemy leaving no survivors at all.
The logistics involved in seaching thousands of miles of barely inhabited mountains for a few people is phenominally difficult and requires lots of resources - far more than is economically profitable (and the war is for money after all is said and done) so he is pretty much left alone in his rocky hideout living like a mountain goat in a cave. Also Bin Laden is an educated intelligent man (albeit one who has gone down a bad route) while Bush is basically a puppet for businesses so Bin Laden will only be caught if these businesses think it will benfit their finances.

Answer 5

The reason we cannot win wars as quickly as we used to is due mostly to the fact that our enemies are using different tactics then in the past. Guerilla warfare using ied's, suicide bombings, and mortar attacks are terribly difficult to counter. Combine this with the fact that we are normally fighting in a foreign country in which we are unfamiliar, you get a deadly combination that takes a long time to defeat. The reason we have not caught Osama Bin Laden yet is simple, we did not pursue him with all of our might. Instead of the U.S. following Al Qaeda's trail into Pakistan, we went into Iraq. Certainly the United States and Great Britain want to catch Bin Laden, but the war in Iraq has defintely given him time to hide again. Don't get me wrong I think the war in Iraq was a good choice (Saddam can rot in an Iraqi prison for all I care). I just think we should have taken out the bigger problem first.

Answer 6

Because out and out war is very different to the underground activity we see in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Much of the 'fighting' is based on intelligence gathering and these days - USA and UK may have modern equipment, but so do Iraq and Afghanistan. The people of these countries may be poor, but the military aren't and as long as they're bankrolled, they will continue to fight. Another consideration is the fact that it's more an idealogy that's being fought against - weapons don't do much damage against those I'm afraid.

Answer 7

The UNited States and Kingdom are losseing wars becuase they do not understand their enemies. The new enemy is ideologically driven, or desperate. They have nowhere to go. We cannot win becuase we have a retreat. They do not. They live where they are fighting and they have no reason to stop fighting while we have homes miles away where we can go. We cannot just "blow them all to smitherines" becuase theyre children will replace them, their friends will replace them and their grandchildren will as well. Colonialism has beeen proven to not work. Repackaging it as liberation will not either.
As for Osama, yes the business dealings in India are true. We actually had him in custody on, ironically, 9/11 and let him go. We also had him months before in a kilitary hospital in the United Arab Emirates (at this time he was still a wanted terrorist for bombings in Kenya) and we had agents speak with him, and then had him released. I think that they figure he is worth more to their agenda when he is on the loose.

Answer 8

The truth is that our political leaders don't have the stomach for real out and out war. We live in a world where we know whats is happening in a war zone before our military leaders, the publicity of full on war would be to damaging to the leadership of both countries. But you are correct in assuming both the British and US could wage a pretty terrible war against any enemy anywhere on the globe, all that is required is public support.

Answer 9

Well basically we won the war so to speak. The Army of Iraqi was destroyed and the government overthrown in 1 month. As to the current situation? you have a low level guerilla war. The enemy does not fight in groups. They lack the ability to hold territory or engage in gunfights. We have control of the air & sea. So instead they use cheap weapons like the IED and suicide bomber. Maximum effect for little efforts. Plus they tend to attack soft targets. The enemy prefers to attack the civilians and Iraqi forces. Thats because they are easier to hit than US troops. To win a war like this requires time & a human tuch , not hi-tech. By using spies and informants we learn where the bad guys are & can destroy their bases. By rebuilding the infastructure, we employ men who need jobs. The unemployed are those with time on there hands. Thus targets for recruitment into insurgentices. We train Iraqi army & police to fight. Thus, we are able to turn more of the war to them. We engage in winning hearts & minds of the people by doing civil projects And giving medical aid. When locals see troops as providing serivces and not as invaders they gain our trust and respect. That good will is used in turn to pick up tips on insuregents and ammo cashes. That is how you win.....

Answer 10

We can blow away entire nations, without Nuclear weapons, we have MOABs. 22,000lb conventional smart bombs with nuke blast power but NO radiation.

M…..Mother
O…..of
A…..all
B…..bombs

WE have Tomahawks with fuel-air explosive war heads. The big Tomahawks can carry 10 war heads. They can burn entire cities with fuel-air explosive.

First the MOAB, when the shock wave clears, in comes the Tomahawk. The entire city is flattened and then burned with fuel-air explosive. The fuel-air explosive burns everything left and it burns off all the oxygen. There is no way to survive!

With our satellites we can target every Arab city in any terrorist nation, and then lock them all into a firing solution. Then at 3am any morning the order was given, every Arab city targeted could be blown clean off the face of the Earth, all at the same time.

We could land our troops 30 minutes later and own the entire nation. There wouldn’t even be anyone left to shoot at our soldiers. The only thing that would be left are giant smoking holes in the sand.

We're trying to be as civilized as possible and not just blast everything and everybody into dust. This is just not easy! These people know the area and where to and not to hide. We have go in and ferret them out, that takes time.