Why does America still suck at war?

Question

with all the wars america has won & lost I would have thought that they should be pretty damn good at it by now. extremists with ak47 rifles & car bombs have stalled an army that feeds off billions of dollars worth of research & technology. The troops seem to be able to do a good job but it doesn't look like american military planners know what they are doing

Answer 1

Its all politics. Our military is put at such a disadvantage because of restrictions, rules, guidelines, laws, etc. that tell us how we are allowed to fight wars. These all come from the UN, Geneva Conventions, and even our own Congress. The hell of it is that any enemy we have fought through any war has NEVER conformed to the same guidelines as we do.

Another source of headaches for the military is ignorant people in this country who lack the intelligence to realize that there are people in this world who want to kill Americans and that no one else will protect or take care of us. These people shoot their mouths off and create political unrest which affects things like spending and policy regarding the military, making it more difficult to destroy those who want to bring pain and destruction to the U.S.

Answer 2

Yeah, I was just thinking about this yesterday.

It's not that we suck at war, it's just that we need our whole nation to support the war. I'm not talking about the political parties fighting it out, and the insanely stupid comments from both sides that you see here.

I'm talking a country-wide sacrifice. Here's how:

1. Obviously, the more troops on the ground, the better our chances. Since the Army is having a tough time meeting recruitment goals, we should consider implementing the draft.

2. Our factories are turning out tv's, ipods, cell phones, computers, video games, cars, etc. In WWII, we got our factories turning out tanks, ships, planes, armor, etc. And everyone supported it. If people didn't go to fight in the war directly, many of them worked in some capacity to build up our fighting machine.

Vietnam used the draft...but not the second item. That's why we failed there. WWII was successful for us, because we brought both these items to bear.

So it is with our current war.

However, military planners know what they are doing. It's the civilians running the show that need to be fired.

Answer 3

Mainly because of rules of warfare..I mean rules in war should be a punchline...Look at the Romans...They would attack, kill 95% of the people, take the women as slaves and then throw the young boys into the river so they wouldnt grow up to get revenge and then salt the fields so nothing would ever grow. Now if they would just let go and wipe out all of Iraq the war might be over in 3 days. But things change..and now you have rules and regulations

Answer 4

Like that blueshirt and others answered you. Nowadays we have this moral concept of the "innocents". In ancient past wars, the women, children and families were all part of the enemy. If the enemy was hiding with the women etc., or they were harboring the enemy, they WERE the enemy also. Ancient barbarians and Romans never gave this "concept" any thought. We could make a parking lot out of Iraq if we wanted to. We now do this "selective" fighting. Very difficult, and costs America a lot of lives also.

Answer 5

Guerilla warfare is the hardest to defend against because you never know who the enemy is. The United States became a country as a resulf of guerilla warfare and used such tactics all the way back to the French and Indian War if my memory serves me. How do you fight when a seemingly normal 14 year old girl walks down the street wearing a bomb hidden, strapped to her and stops near a group of soldiers? This is the extremes some groups are going to. They mislead and kills hundreds and thousands to serve their extremist views. How do you fight against that?

Answer 6

Because american people at home don't have the guts to go to war, support their troops to do all necessary thing to win, even evil things, while the enemy don't give any sh*t as long as they can kill any human.

How can american people expect their troops to be successful, while on the same time whining about the cost of war, the casualties suffered, the collateral damage inflicted by war.

Answer 7

I think a better question to ask is, what is the point of this question?

It's a rare feat to be able to find a question that itself shows an absolute lack of research and understanding.

But, I yield and allow the armchair generals to have their say while I sit and laugh at their pathetic attempts at criticizing strategy they don't understand.

Answer 8

You do know it is US Troops in Kabul and Bagdad and not the Taliban in Washington? So how does the America "suck at war"?
The US appears to be losing because ot the political anti-Bush agenda CBS, BBC, NBC.

Answer 9

Believe me, if we wanted to we can win a war in about an hour. Do you want us to? If we enact a scorched earth policy (like Saddam) we can have all our troops home by the 4th of July. Of course, if you think the world is pissed at us now...
America might not be good at rebuilding countries, but America is very good at destroying them. (John Stewart)

Answer 10

What do you consider winning a war? We took over Iraq in a couple weeks. We can win wars easily. They might call what we are doing now a war but it is not. It is police action.