Does America Really Have A Strong Military?

Question

The numbers doen't lie. According to my count, in the last 100 years we've stalemated or lost just about as much as we've won.

Stalemated or Lost:
Korean War
Vietnam
Iraq (heading that way)


Won:
World War 1
World War 2
The Gulf War
Afghanistan (heading that way)


Why do you think this is the case? Have we lost or stalemated just because it wasn't a politically viable option to wage "Total War"? Or are we far more weak than we think we are?

Answer 1

What is a strong military? Is it a force that can defeat the military of any other country on the planet? If that's the definition then yes, America has a strong military. Even without resorting to nuclear weapons I think most would agree that if the USA wants to conquer your country, they can. However, for many wars that is what we call a "necessary condition" but not a "sufficient condition".

For the "won" wars you cite it was sufficient. In Germany, WWI, Germany Japan and Italy in WWII and in Iraq (the first time) and in Afghanistan we accomplished our war aims by defeating the opposing military. The defeated enemy agreed to our terms and ran their country in a way that satisfied us after the war. (in the case of Saddam, he satisfied us for a while and then we had another war).

But in the case of Vietnam and Iraq, defeating the enemy's military was not enough because there were non-military elements willing to keep on fighting forever. Even the strongest military, and America's IS the strongest, cannot achieve the political aim of getting the people of a country to accept America as a friend. Even the strongest military can only win a war, it is up to others to make a peace.

You mention "total war". First applied in WWI, this is the idea that you destroy an enemy's ability to fight by attacking manufacturing and civilian targets. But the total war required to stop an insurgency is nothing less than genocide, because it is about killing an idea. America did not do this in the "total wars" of WWI and WWII because it did not need to, again here the defeat of the opposing military was sufficient to get the peace that was the objective of the war.

Would a total war approach of levelling every city in Iraq work? That is, would it accomplish America's goals for fighting the war? No, it would not - because our objective is for the cities to remain, and be strong as a democratic US ally in the Middle east. Rather, the opposition wins by the destruction of total war, and we do not. It's not a question of "rules", it's because winning means different things to each side.

Answer 2

I think we are very powerful and have a very powerful if not the most powerful arm forces in the world. The reason you see that division between winning and loosing is two fold. I think the main reason we loose is because we are for the most part not evil. When we go to war we go thinking that we go there to help. This is true for the soldiers and the general population. I'm not talking about the true government or people in power agenda at a particular time period. Because of this we do not wage total war. Lets exclude for a moment the politics and the reason whether real or not of going to Iraq and afganistan. What we should concentrate is on the soldiers. Our soldiers are not in those countries trying to kill everybody. They really have good intentions. Again leaving the people in power aside. So, our military is there trying to dicern between who is a civilian who must be protected and who is the enemy that is trying to kill them. Thus our soldiers pay a hefty price because they just can kill everybody and for good reason. If it was another country they would go there and for every soldier kill they would level a city. This is why we have a hard time succeeding in this type of war. We are too good and we don't know how to maintain an occupation. Now take a conventional war where the enemy have an uniform and its a different story. This is because the rules of engagement changes. In an uniform war if you see an uniform soldier is ok to shoot them. In an unconventional war it is difficult telling who is who so if a soldier shoots the wrong person is a bad thing.

The second reason is that we are too helpful. There is one concept that a lot of people don't understand. this is that no matter how good your intentions are and how much you want to help you will never be able to change or help anybody who does not wants your help. This is true for everything ranging from war to trying to help your friend quit his drug habit. So, we go into these countries with a Gun Ho attitude that our way is the best disregarding what these people really want or truly analysing the situation in that country. Is like if you had a mayor fight with your husband or wife. Things are not going so well and out of nowhere this stranger decides to put a tent in your living room and he/she won't leave until your problem is solved. How well do you think that will go. A better solution would be to agree to go to a marriage counselor. Same thing with our military. We tend to favor the put up a tent in someone else's house.

Answer 3

American for the factors already indexed. It's now not bias both. Look up information. America certainly dominates Russia with regard to Navy and Air Force. In a struggle the man with some of the best Air Support goes to win nine occasions out of 10. No quantity of hatred for America can difference that. Also take into account that Russia fared a long way worse than America has in Afghanistan. There is not anything awesome approximately the Russian navy. America has higher tech and coaching wherein it counts. And as an extra man stated many Russian troops are compelled to serve 2 years within the navy after which they're long past. It's now not just like the Russian navy is loaded with skilled troops.

Answer 4

The U.S. didn't lose in Vietnam. That's probably the biggest falsehood in modern American history. The deal was that the South Vietnamese would be trained and were trained to hold their own while the U.S. pulled out. The Tet offensive was a massive failure (Walter Cronkiet among others called it a massive Viet Cong victory, but victory is not losing over 100,000 soldiers and being forced out of the war zone) on the part of the Viet Cong and they never did recover. When the South Vietnamese were trained, the U.S. pulled out. The Democratic Congress decided to pull funding and South Vietnam fell a few years later.

Afganistan isn't much of a failure. There really isn't that large of an enemy army. Even the enemy says they only have around 4,000-6,000 troops left. The biggest problem is Afganistan hasn't been a productive country in anybody's lifetime. NATO and the UN have to start from nothing. It would probably take around $3 trillion in Afganistan to be on par with its neighbors. It will probably take 30 years just to teach them basic things of what they need to know.

The fighting in Iraq is winding down. 7 out of 18 providences are in control of the Iraqi government and the Iraqi forces are on their own in 17 out of 18 providences. The violence has dropped off 50% from the same time last year. In WWII 2,000 U.S. soldiers died a day on average.

Answer 5

As the son of a retired Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, I can tell you that we have the strongest air combat service in the world. No other country can come even close to us. We'll kick anyones ***, guaranteed! As for the Army and Navy/Marines, we have cut down a lot of soldiers. If we were in a war with China, we would get annihalated because they have billions of people. We really never lost a war, we lost the fight against the spread of communism and preservation of democracy. If we stop fighting a half war, like Bush is, and the liberal media supports us, we can defeat the terrorists. We've defeated much worse. Let's not lose to a bunch of suicuide bombing cowards!

Answer 6

We could easily win every war if we use tactics like we did in WWI and WWII........problem is we can't just go air raid entire cities and bomb them to the ground or drop nukes until they say mercy or we will be considered savages and inhumane for killing innocent lives. Funny that its war yet now we have to fight with rules. The wars you mention as stalemate or lost also have another theme.....intense media coverage working against our military..not for it. Korea coulda easily been won by simply bombing the the bejesus out of it til they gave in...same with nam and iraq......think about it..we CAN destroy every city in Iraq if we want to in a matter of hours....but we won't..its not politically correct anymore to wage war with innilation until surrender. Our military now has its hands tied and has to act like police in a guerilla war....that will never work, and the left will do anything they can prevent us from winning...it makes them look better. Sadly politics will likely prevent us from winning in Iraq which in turn will destablize the middle east even further......will be interesting to see what happens in the coming years.

Answer 7

No, the public has the attention span of a fly. If the war takes too long the public gets restless because the politicians start to talk about it and undermine the military. The end run is that we (the citizens) protest because our "boys" are getting killed and then the politicians pull us out of "harms way" before the job is done.

Its happened in every one of these losses. WWI and WWII were supported from start to end by the entire country. The others were supported at the point of entry, but then the wars lost their flavor and the "citizens" grew tired.

We are weak...I agree, but its not our military that is weak. Its the collective gut of this country that's become weak. We just can't stomach war like we use to.

Answer 8

Our military could win every war if politicians would get out of the way. Loss of life is unacceptable in America these days. Loss of life is terrible, I agree. However, freedom is not free. In Vietnam, we won every major engagement and most smaller ones, too; however, the American public decided, as it does now, that it doesn't like the war. It is a great weakness that the American public is not willing to accept casualties. The Cong knew this and so do the terrorists. They just have to hang on long enough to inflict enough casualties that the politicians demand that we pull out. We beat anyone who ever put on a uniform and met us on a field of battle.

Answer 9

We have a far superior military machine. We even have excellent trained officers and troops.

What we lack is a consistent political will to finish the job. Our politicians are always looking for the diplomatic solution. That is one reason we needed two wars to put away Saddam Hussein.

Answer 10

Don't forget, we also lost in Somalia. The US has a strong military, but military might cannot solve all political problems, and when we keep sticking our nose where it doesn't belong, somebody sooner or later is going to tweak it...and sometimes HARD!