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nine_k

How many wars did the US win (as in "achieved the political goals") since WWII?

Korean war: half won, half lost.

Vietnam war: lost.

Grenada invasion: sort of won.

Gulf war 1991: I'd say won, despite Saddam staying in power.

Gulf war II: I'd say lost, despite Saddam deposition.

Afghanistan: lost, despite the killing of bin Laden.

Syria: can't tell yet.

It's a pretty depressing tally.

With that, I'd say that the US was on the winning side of a number of wars before that: WWII, WWI, Mexican war, Spanish war.

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The goal of the US in Afghanistan was to deny Al-Qaeda the use of one third of a country to plan their operations. That required taking control of that territory from the Taliban, who were allowing Al-Qaeda to operate without restriction. The US did that. They harassed the Taliban and denied them complete control of territory for 20 years. Not sure how this could be viewed as a strategic defeat in any way

What happened to all the "we don't negotiate with terrorists" thing then?

At the end of 20 years, US indirectly had to negotiate with them.

So the other way of looking at it is, a bunch of un-educated, poorly trained, poorly equipped mountain people, who themselves are divided into many warring factions, stood their ground against the mightiest nation on earth, for 20 year, and in the end US negotiated with them for transfer of power.

Now, I see this as sheer political and administrative failure. Militarily, sure, the US has an upper hand and can pile up bodies like no other, But it failed to win the "war on terror" in Afghanistan. It could not change the govt., it could not bring stability and democracy to the region, it could not transform the society, and it could not even change the idea of itself in the minds of the Afghan people.

US is too powerful, militarily, to formulate effective strategies that further its goals. It is good in doing that economically, through sanctions, etc. But as a military force, it is too powerful for its own good.

Heh, you would think that after literal decades of (moderate) sustained success in resisting incursions from three superpowers (British, then Soviets and then the US) the Pashtuns would get a little more credit then just being called "a bunch of un-educated, poorly trained, poorly equipped mountain people."

Even Churchill said of them: "Every man is a warrior, a politician and a theologian."

To be fair, US has decades of high tech warfare experience, institutions that study war and constantly research about it, has best infrastructure, excellent means to project power and has virtually unlimited resources.

The Afghans have no proper education system, no institutions other than local commanders directing their bunch of troops and have virtually no good infrastructure. They literally live among mountains and have no good networks for transportation.

I am giving the Afghans a lot of credit, because what I said about them is true. They won in spite of that.

My recollection of how the conflict was presented was "We need to go to Afghanistan to defeat Al-Qaeda" 20 years later we're still fighting that same war, which is how many people look at the situation and say that the US hasn't achieved it's goals (i.e., has been defeated)

I suppose one could say that the US hasn't lost yet, but it's pretty tough to say that the US has won.

Honestly, at this point it feels like any discussion of the US staying in Afghanistan seems like it should devolve into a discussion of the halting problem. (/s, but only slightly)

They definitely defeated Al-Qaeda, they just didn't wipe out the Taliban.

Al-Qaeda was defeated? How does that reconcile with ISIS popping up a few years later, and Libya and Iraq still being in the grips of civil war?

Where do I even start with this. Do you just call all your favourite bad guys "Al-Qaeda" and group them all together as if they were all one organization?

You lost. Deal with it. The level of immaturity... coming up with stories to tell yourself.

We didn't lose though.

Who is pulling out? Who's puppet government is already falling? Who is taking back control of every area we pulled out of? What did you "win". Do you really like getting kicked in the nuts?

Al-Qeada and other groups just shifted to other unrested regions and even caused unrest. At a global scale the war only caused other countries harm.

Tell someone in your social circle that you're considering a business deal with a company in Afghanistan and might be flying out there next month, see what sort of reaction you get.

Agreed, We literally took over Afghanistan in a month and installed a government but somehow we lost? We just don't really have a dog in the fight anymore. This isn't defeat.

Yes, the US lost. The government in Afghanistan doesn't have much institutional depth or very firm control of the country. It's not a military defeat in the sense of having your army crushed, but an occupation that never achieves peacetime status is a failure by great power standards. Don't feel bad though, the US is the 3rd empire to make the exact same mistake in Afghanistan. It'd be comical if there weren't so much human suffering involved.

Giving up isn't defeat? If this was sports would anyone accept that definition?

The US just signed a peace deal with the Taliban agreeing to and withdraw all their troops and release aligned 5000 prisoners, the Taliban are also allowed back in government. Technically they could be in power at the next election.

What actual goal was fulfilled here after two decades of war?

I'd say we won Gulf war II, we've definitely lost Syria by now, Afghanistan probably lost.

That said, many of the well-known, long haul conflicts that the US are involved in are the ones they are most likely to lose. The ones they win they usually win quickly and are less well known.

There are plenty of interventions post-WWII that have been quick successes for the US, esp. in Latin America.

Yeah Syria is interesting

The problem with all these conflicts is winning is so poorly defined or multi-goal.

What's winning in Syria? Getting rid of assad and then leaving? We could probably do that in a week or less and utterly demolish the country if we wanted. The consequences of 'winning' that war under that definition would probably be pretty horrible.

But that doesn't seem to be the goal right now?

There's the wider goal of not wanting to poke the Russia bear too much while simultaneously not letting Russia run too wild (arguably they are..).

Though Afghanistan is pretty simple imho. there aren't nearly as many global power stakes... The taliban explicitly does not want Democracy so if that is 'winning' it's doomed to a loss by default.

> We could probably do that in a week or less

Eh - I'm not sure. Getting aircraft overhead would be difficult east of the euphrates when they have lots of anti-aircraft guns and they are also supported heavily by Russia.

The only Western power currently conducting airstrikes east of the euphrates is Israel and they have had planes shot down by Syria & Russia.

The US has a preponderance of military power, but I do think people are quick to assume that this means the US could easily topple lots of foreign nations. For some, that is definitely true, for others, like Iran, I think that is a misplaced confidence.

If the goal is total to level the country to the ground, we've had that capability for decades now: supersonic and stealth bombers, as well as SLBMs, SLCMs, and ICBMs. And there's always nukes of course.

The whole collateral damage aspect is pretty high. But if we were willing to deal with the humanitarian and diplomatic fallout, we could do it pretty easily.

Fair enough - we can get a lot done with cruise missiles, but as you said, it would be challenging to do without significant civilian casualties.

The anti-aircraft guns obstacle is, as you've said, more than surmountable. The likelihood of Russian reprisal, imo, is not.

Winning in Syria was helping Qatar build their Qatar gas pipeline to Europe, but Russia stepped in and didn't let that happen. It was too big of a threat to Russia's most crucial export monopoly: energy to Europe.

> There's the wider goal of not wanting to poke the Russia bear too much while simultaneously not letting Russia run too wild (arguably they are..).

Excuse me, but the goal should be that exactly. Not leaving an inch of flesh of the bear unpoked.

If you resign your emotions, and try to think about it seriously, it makes a lot of sense strategically to conduct a massive provocation.

Right now, it's completely the other way around: Putin delivers one grievous provocation after another to NATO. NATO grovels, shivers, but does nothing, for the whole world to laugh on.

It earns him client states, and satellites. You absolutely don't want your enemies flocking together.

If you turn that around, the world, and his wannabe clients that it's him now who can't do anything, but throw adorable tantrums, his construct will melt away withing years.

2 birds 1 stone.

It's also the types like Orbans, Sisis, and Assads who are only showing the voice now, because they can afford to look brave when the West is intimidated. That will pull the carpet from under them too.

Nonsense, NATO is literally surrounding its so-called 'enemies' with endless streams of base-building. NATO is not groveling or shivering - it is slowly invading proxy countries and extending the US empire, creep creep ..

* I agree. But also parent has a point, Crimea, election hacking, extrajudicial poisoning on British etc soil didn't have a robust response - that we know of at least.

I do think Trump was very dangerous and damaging in regards to NATO and pushing our allies away. By not understanding that 'america first' means so much more than simply scraping a few billion more from allies. That's playing checkers in terms of only being able to think in slogan-first 1st order logic. 2nd order or more is understanding why NATO was formed in the first place and the current role it has advancing our interests.

And I think it's critical to actively work against movements of authoritarian nationalism and hold Europe and our allies together.

I'm glad and think Biden is doing a better job in the Pacific in that regard.

I would not classify Gulf war II as a "war". It was a blatant incursion, which even Saddam knew would not last, hence the focus on looting the victim, rather than planning for an occupation.

Saddam bet that if no ones does anything concrete, he can get away with it, else, he can return back.

I would call than an "occupation" rather than a "war".

Edit : I retract my comment. I meant Gulf War I, the occupation of Kuwait.

The government was toppled, a provisional government was installed by the US, and then replaced by a government that was, at the time, US-aligned with democratic elections.

I think it was a bad war and a mistake, but I don't think we "lost."

People in USA usually call the war from 1980-88 “Iran-Iraq War” after 1991

Ah yes, I misunderstood what they were saying. I was confused because the details didn't quite match up...

> How many wars did the US win (as in "achieved the political goals") since WWII?

Depends upon whose interests are answering the question. These aren't so much "wars" as "resource shifting actions marketed as kayfabe [1] wars". This also isn't a new phenomenon. Such "wars" have existed throughout history, and is a side effect of a political sphere's emergent, loosely-defined requirements.

For common people in the path of destruction, a war has an unambiguous win/loss demarcation. For defense contractors if they are being honest with themselves, less so. For politicians with uncanny honesty, even more ambiguous.

With the scales involved today in not just people, speed, and destructive power, but also of information range and depth, I think it is time for a deep re-think of the "war is 'just' a political tool" paradigm.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe

The US won the Korean war, according to its objectives at the start of the war (Retain the status quo).

It did not win it according to the objectives set by MacArthur (Drive the commies into the sea). He was, incidentally, relieved of command, thanks to his escalation of the conflict to include China.

Gulf War 1991 is definitely a victory - deposing Saddam was not the goal of the US or its allies.

Similarly, Gulf War II is absolutely a loss, even though it "accomplished more" than 1991, because its strategic goals included dictating the post-war political arrangements in the country.

Victory and defeat are always relative to the parties' strategic goals.

We can win the battles but we can't win the War. Keeping the enemy out of Kuwait was the biggest win we've had since WW2. If you want to win the war these days it takes total war like in Japan/Europe. You have to break the enemy or they will keep coming back and the modern world doesn't have the stomach for it.

Korea was an American victory in the sense that we achieved the mission. It was not a military disaster caused by poor leadership like the Vietnam war. The leadership during the Korean war was extremely good and the outcome was more than satisfactory given the situation.

To be fair none of these actually involved a declaration of war, the US congress ha not declared war since ww2 - these have all been wars by stealth

I'm not really sure what the difference is between a declaration of war and an authorization of war, but we've had congressional authorization for a couple conflicts since then. I would argue that if Congress voted on it in the affirmative, it's not really a secret or stealthy war.

A declaration of war means that the government has to answer to the people for its war crimes, per international legal standards.

An authorization for war means that war crimes can be committed and war criminals can get away with it, because there is no legal basis for defining that war, except for what Politician-de-jour says it is.

> A declaration of war means that the government has to answer to the people for its war crimes, per international legal standards.

No, it doesn’t. A declaration of war has no effect at all on liability in international law. War criminals are responsible under international law whether or not war has been declared; the establishment of universal personal accountability of war criminals, including heads of state, for war crimes -- first unambiguously declared in the Nuremberg Principles -- declarations of war (which previously gave a veil of legitimacy to non-defensive war) have been pretty much irrelevant since non-defensive war was unambiguously itself declared to be a crime against peace.

> An authorization for war means that war crimes can be committed and war criminals can get away with it,

No, it doesn’t.

> because there is no legal basis for defining that war, except for what Politician-de-jour says it is.

Formal declarations of war and war authorizations have no difference in either international or, to the extent the latter is a recognized thing, most national laws in terms of what legal basis there is for defining the parameters of the war, and whatever difference in effect they might have under the terms of local law has no bearing on liability under international law.of those engaging in war crimes, crimes against peace, or crimes against humanity.

The constitution only provides for declarations of war, and requires that the congress (not the president) declare war

The war powers act has been around for 50 years now, and the supreme court has not invalidated it yet. I think it's safe to say that they believe it is constitutional.

Regardless, even if you believe that authorization for use of force is unconstitutional, that does not make it secret. Only Bill Clinton's engagement in Bosnia/Kosovo could be considered a secret war... The others were done with full authorization of Congress.

Kosovo?

Korean War: won, South Korea was transformed into an american colony a la Japan, and is now used as a platform to counter China in the east as well as trading partner and military base.

Vietnam: countered Soviet expansionism and prevented Vietnam from becoming a communist regional superpower, Vietnam has not done much besides be a trading partner for the US since.

Grenada: won

Gulf wars: overwhelming victories. Destabilized the middle east, provided an opportunity for american megacorps to heavily profit and exert massive influence. Led to Arab spring which further destabilized the middle east. The middle east is essentially no longer in the picture in the game of global hegemony, and in large part has to rely on American refineries and american corporations to handle oil extraction.

Afghanistan: success, stimulated the American economy, very successful unemployment program (provided jobs for America's high school dropouts for 20 years), justified further weapons development plans, allowed america to build tons of bases to help counter China's Silk Road initiative by destabilizing the region.

Syria: mostly a failure at this point. The hope was to break Syria and build the Qatar gas pipeline to hurt Russia's hegemony on european energy supplies. Looks like that is a lost cause at this point, but of all the wars America has recently waged, this one is probably the most justifiable.

The world is no longer about winning wars and conquering territory. It's about destabilizing rising threats to your power. It's about toppling dictators and installing democracies, which are much easier to bribe. It's about countering your enemies/competitors (Russia, china, the middle east) initiatives and causing chaos in their neighborhood.

> but of all the wars America has recently waged, this one is probably the most justifiable.

We now have strong evidence that both the Ghouta and Douma attacks were not chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government. In the case of Douma, the OPCW leaks have very strongly shown (in my opinion, conclusively) that it was staged and put on by the White Helmets, a US/UK funded organization. Senior OPCW officials then reedited their official's report to make it seem like the Syrian government used chlorine gas. Don't believe me? Listen to Noam Chomsky explain it. [1]

Why does this matter? It was used as a pretense for the Trump administration to bomb Syria, which it did a few days later. [2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_KgRcw7mag [2] https://www.thenation.com/article/world/opcw-leaks-syria/

> Syria: mostly a failure at this point. The hope was to break Syria and build the Qatar gas pipeline to hurt Russia's hegemony

Please open a map, and take a look where Qatar is.

IMO it’s a tad silly to say that the U.S. lost these wars. Can you really lose a war with a massive nuclear arsenal on your side? It’s crazy that this seems to never be mentioned.

This seems quite similar to Americans demanding their gun rights to protect themselves from the government. Well, I hate to inform you of this, but the government could out gun you since time immemorial. It’s a wild argument for gun rights.

How can you “win” a war when the other country can press a single button and eliminate 100% of the people in your country?

Well, bring it down to the personal level - that's like losing a fistfight but comforting yourself that you could go and burn the other person's house down any time because you have a tank full of gasoline at home. I mean, you could, but that wouldn't unbloody your nose.

Because they won’t hit that button. Just look at how Vietnam won.

> It’s a wild argument for gun rights.

Not really, because it changes the political calculus for exactly the reasons you mentioned. If the US government wants to forcefully take over, and they aren't aligned with gun owners, they have to go through them. In that scenario its more likely they are a shade of grey evil than "lets methodically exterminate all of our citizens". In the former, gun owners standing their ground would be a major political hurdle.

I'd actually argue pro gun rights are a bit silly because those same parties aren't pro encryption / privacy. So they give up the tools they'd need to defend themselves (encryption) from all but the most direct assault. And I'd consider a soft assault by violating their privacy much more plausible.

"Can you really lose a war with a massive nuclear arsenal on your side?"

How is that usefull unless you are willing to commit genocide?

> IMO it’s a tad silly to say that the U.S. lost these wars. Can you really lose a war with a massive nuclear arsenal on your side? It’s crazy that this seems to never be mentioned.

An observation not lost to the ground forces. I was in the US infantry 10+ years ago. We were well trained and lethal. We had an overwhelming technological targeting advantage. We had the support of a sizeable amount of the local population that we generally stayed a few steps ahead of the lower and mid tier rungs of whatever insurgency we were fighting (Al Qaeda in Iraq [ISIS predecessor], the Taliban, whatever-local-Afghan-village-thugs-in-later-deployments). We understood the war wasn't purely militaristic in "kill counts" or territory sieged, and the lessons of irregular warfare (hearts and minds) were beaten in to us.

The biggest issue, at least for us that actually had to kill and be shot at, was that the progressively restrictive rules of engagement (ROE) defanged us, both from lethal and willpower standpoints. There were so many nested bullet points and gotchas and just a wide breadth of rules that no person that wasn't a lawyer could keep up with it. Arbitrary things like "if you are in a gunfight with insurgents and they fall back into a cave, no matter who the insurgent is or how many casualties they were lucky to have inflicted on your forces, you absolutely cannot roll grenades into the cave." Very specific, very arbitrary, very confusing. Furthermore, it was beat into us that the full weight of the law was to fall on our heads if we screwed these things up. Which makes sense from a humanitarian point of view, but that lingering legal guillotine built in a sizeable amount of self-doubt and apprehension in us where we weren't ever sure when or if we were allowed to be lethal.

I imagine a set of ROE was drafted, and enough bureaucrats scribbled in "small edits" that the overarching sense of direction was lost in the sea of Great Ideas by Smart People and nobody with both the political clout and common sense was able to get to these revisions before they were inflicted on us on the ground. Not dissimilar to scope creep you see in software, except parties involved couldn't just vote with their feet and leave. That, and those functioning as the wars' PM's weren't as much concerned with delivering results as they perhaps were with empire building and political posturing. Just a god damn mess

Firstly, thank you for your service!

Secondly, I think you definitely hit the nail on the head when it comes to the ROE being the main limiting factor in the "effectiveness" of the US military in being able to subdue its enemies, not just in Afghanistan/Iraq, but also in Vietnam and even to some extant in Korea. It seems to be one of the weird side-effects that nukes have on armed conflicts that when you have nukes, you really can never actually "fully commit" to a conflict. (Since going "all-in" could be apocalyptic.)

One thing I have always wondered, though, is the relationship between the ROE and irregular warfare. If the military personnel on the ground had broader discretion over their actions, would help or hinder the goal of "winning hearts and minds"?

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