The best way to win a war.

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Daecon, Jul 26, 2015.

  1. TheFrogger Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Why would someone enter a fight they would lose..?

    The only reason I can think of is if the fighter is hoping to weaken the opponent enough for someone else to make the winning blow.
     
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  3. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    There's another option, "stalemate". Uncle Ho thought that would work.
     
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  5. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Almost
    and then there was Tet
    When the North Vietnamese decided to end the "stalemate".

    And General Võ Nguyên Giáp , the hero of dien bien phu, and the party leadership grossly underestimated the fighting and resupply abilities of the us and arvn forses, and committed between 72,000 and 80,000 troops to the battle that was to drive us out, and lost well over 58,000 dead and another 5000+ captured.
    With over 80% casualties: It was an horrific military defeat, after which the North Vietnamese were considering surrendering.
    However, "US public opinion" led by their masters in the media managed to beat them to it.

    Lose the biggest battle of the war and end up winning the war-----------wow----------ain't politics grand---------
     
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  7. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    You can thank Walter Kronkite for that one.
     
  8. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Yeh
    "thank" wasn't the word I had in mind..........
    just a QQQQQQQQQ .............. (few Qs)
     
  9. naturallygorg Registered Member

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    In some kind of fights, the best way that I know to win is to keep silent.

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  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The classic stab in the back story - and the birth of the liberal media myth. A turning point in American politics, as it was in German politics after WWI.
    Kind of like the Indian wars - win all the battles, lose the war, because it's not a war you can win.
    How do you know you can't win? You see your enemies fighting harder and better against you than your allies fight for you, and they're the same people.
    Although in the big picture the bystander's view of what the US did to Vietnam worked better than an easy and early victory might have, for the masters who got us into that one. They suddenly had friends everywhere. Nobody wanted that fate.

    Compare the defeat in Vietnam with the victory in Iraq.

    Israel is getting itself into that position. Likewise Saudi Arabia. Word is that it's the Saudis, not the rebels, who have been bombing and looting the heretical archaeological sites in Yemen - with American arms. If so, they can't win - not that one would predict a Saudi victory in any war, or a kind fate for any ally of the House of Saud and its perfumed princelings.

    But I'm absolutely sure there will be somebody to blame when that scene goes south, and it won't be this guy or anyone associated with him or the people who voted for him. Twice.
    https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/...nds-with-saudi-amb-prince-news-photo/50424788
    https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/...-us-attorney-general-john-news-photo/51709195
     
  11. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Kronkite said, during Tet, "We have a whole new war." We didn't. But the anti-war people loved it so much they actually repeated it in M*A*S*H when the Chinese attacked UN forces in Korea.
     
  12. TheFrogger Banned Valued Senior Member

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    No news is good news naturallygorg. Also, you cannot speak with your mouth full. ☺

    Incidentally to gorge (or be gorge-ous) means to consume vastly...
     
  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Ok - it was the same old war, but the American people finally realized what that was. And realizing that, they realized it was unwinnable, and always had been.

    So Kronkite was just awkwardly echoing von Clauswitz: war being politics by other means, when the politics change the war is "new" - even if it's been fought for a decade or more.
     
  14. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Ice, you don't know more history than anyone I know.
     
  15. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    By the numbers, North Vietnam and its allies were a lot closer to running out of troops and supplies than the US was, if the American public had chosen to stay. The scale of casualties and the resources available to continue fighting weren't even comparable. A few more years of fighting and the North would have either had to surrender out of exhaustion or watch its population starve to death.

    I figure it only makes sense to engage in a war when the threat they pose to yourselves and your allies is proportional to what you're willing to sacrifice to win, and you're willing to inflict the necessary levels of damage on your opponent after factoring in the damage it will inevitably cause to civilians.
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    It was your wingnut claim, at issue.
    Stabbed in the back by the liberal media?
    Kronkite, if he actually had any such turnpoint effect, bailed the US ass out of a bad spot - ten years of lies and betrayal late, but at least we got out.

    The idea that right up until being betrayed by some media liberal the US was about to "win", somehow, the Vietnam War - or the Iraq War, or the Korean War, or whatever horrible mess the warmongering minions of an imaginary Pax Americana had dragged the country into that time - is a crippling denial. It marks a refusal of Americans to face their history - not an unusual situation in a modern nation-State, but not a particularly admirable or respectable one either.

    The only way to win the Iraq War was to not start it. Likewise Vietnam, and probably Korea. We're still on the hook for Iraq and Korea, which brings up the next thing: what's the best way to lose a war?
     
    Last edited: May 11, 2018
  17. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Look at the scale of the casualties Germany and Japan suffered before they ultimately surrendered in WW2- their populations were decimated, starving and in imminent danger of total annihilation if they'd tried to continue the fight. It's not like any of the countries Iceaura listed above can sustain infinite suffering, casualties and expenses, there obviously has to be some breaking point regardless of the cause they're fighting for or against. That having been said, it's kind of wasteful to be fighting an enemy who's constantly being resupplied by your own "friends", or friends of friends of friends, unless you're able and willing to deal with the source of the interference.
     

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