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Comment by barelysapient | Hacker News Reader

World War 2 and the Korean War.

Modern US war doctrine is garbage. They believe a fallacy that war can be fought with precision weapons directed only at enemy combatants. Leaving most civilians and their infrastructure unharmed.

The best result this can bring is occupational victory. Territory can be occupied but its not been won. Only occupied.

War can only be won after completely submitting an opponent. With indiscriminate violence. Only then might an enemy submit. If not, they'll all be dead.

This calculus wins wars. Its horrible. Its inhumane. And its the genius of the Taliban. The population knows: Submit or die.

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The Korean War??? Is there a meaning to the word "success" that i'm not aware of?

The military achieved their mission: removing the North Korean army from the country of South Korea.

It was a disaster by every other metric.

Shouldn't have been to remove that army from the country of Korea?

MacArthur lost that war.

The Korean war was a defensive war. The goal was not to annihilate an opponent. It was to defend an ally. This result was achieved, thus a successful war.

Except that Macarthur, full of hubris, wanted to go to the Yalu River and beyond. Way past the 38th parallel, where the war began.

The Chinese warned that they'd enter the war if Macarthur went too far. He didn't listen, so they did and pushed the Allies way back past Seoul again. It took another 2-3 years of stalemate before the Armistice was finally signed.

Notice that the Armistice still holds, and the Korean War is still running after 71 years. Nobody has won that war. Nobody but the US wants to keep it running. Trump, Bolton, etc, weren't willing to guarantee Security for the North Koreans by ending the war. The North Koreans were willing to give up their nukes if the war was ended with a peace treaty. As we now know, nothing has changed.

Yet, the outcome was a thriving country of South Korea and a net territorial gain for the south as well. This is a successful war by the standards of how most wars are measured.

There is no 'outcome' YET. The Korean War is still ongoing.

Think of today's situation as a non-combat stalemate. much as happened in areas of trench warfare during World War one. (Both sides maintained a quiet watch-and-wait in various parts of the Front, while fierce campaigns took place in other parts of the Front.)

A question or two for you. If the Korean War is finished, why are there still 30-40 thousand US troops still occupying South Korea? Why does the US interfere with North and South Korean diplomacy? Why is it any business of the US what North and South Korea agree in, anyway?

Samsung.

The Korean war was a defensive war where the North Koreans with the help of the Chinese almost pushed the South Koreans into the ocean. American intervention resulted in heavy NK losses. Although a defensive war, it also resulted in a net territorial gain for South Korea.

Korean War is still ongoing, after 71 years. No Peace Treaty to end that war was ever signed.

World War 2 was not an American-only success:

In the Pacific war, they were helped by the Chinese who held down lots of Japanese forces for eight years in China, and the British and Indians and Australians who fought the Japanese in South Asia.

Against the Germans, the Americans, as in Asia, entered the war long after it had started. The Soviets killed eighty percent of all German casualties, and had the Great Patriotic War practically won single-handedly long before the Western Allies got ashore on D-Day in mid 1944.

Without the Western Allies and D-Day, most estimates put the end of the war in Europe around Spring 1946 with the Soviets at the English Channel.

> They believe a fallacy that war can be fought with precision weapons directed only at enemy combatants. Leaving most civilians and their infrastructure unharmed.

That is not a fallacy, but the max they can sell to the politicians.

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