America has lost every war in the recent past.
The problem with the post ww2 world is that the old definition of winning a war no longer holds. You just don’t see wars of conquest very often and they don’t seem to work when they happen.
The closest I can think to winning off hand is a few of the colonial civil wars. Vietnam for instance won in the sense that they outlasted the US and have a nominally communist government but it is not an outpost of the Soviet Union and it’s a major trading and tourist partner of the US.
Iraq is not led by a belligerent to the US dictator and Afghanistan isn’t home to training camps for terrorists dedicated to attacking the US (yet).
These were all extremely stupid, expensive and inhumane military actions. But the US never went into them to hold territory. So “there until we got tired of it” is as close to winning as it was ever going to be.
* Depose's Saddam government
Accomplished.
* Identify, isolate, and eliminate Iraqi WMDs
Failed. They were never there.
* Find, capture, and drive out terrorists from Iraq
Failed. Iraqi-based terrorism increased in the aftermath.
* Collect intelligence related to terrorist networks, and to "the global network" of WMDs
Failed. North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006, years after the invasion. The US accuses Iran of trying for them to this day. Chemical weapons were used by ISIS.
* End sanctions
Accomplished.
* Deliver humanitarian support to the Iraqi people, including the displaced
Failed. There were more displaced people due to the war than before and a higher need for humanitarian support which took years to complete.
* Secure Iraq's oil fields and resources, "which belong to the Iraqi people"
Accomplished. Somewhat, US and UK based companies, plus China, now runs a lot of their oil fields. Iraqi GDP per capita is one of the lowest in the region.
* Help the Iraqi people "create conditions for a transition to a representative self-government"
Arguable. Parts of the country want to secede and have armed groups. Representation and turnout is not amazing, but I guess not even in Western countries it is.
The cynical read of this statement (extract resources from the invaded countries in order to enrich the American capital class) is the primary aim for all these conflicts.
So is bombing countries on a whim.
If you want to take the high ground you have to make sure you don't first poison it with your own stupid mistakes. Iran can make a pretty credible play for reparations, and if the belligerents are unable or unwilling to pay up then Iran can selectively blockade the strait for their vessels and cargo. It is one of those little details that was 100% predictable going into this.
Note that we're talking about the US and Iran, not about Israel, though obviously they are a massive factor here it is the US that is in the hot seat, both Israel and Iran were doing what they've been doing for many years.
Do not underestimate the current administration. They have other reasons for this conflict, and so does Netanyahu.
After all their aggression, it seems absurd to paint the Iranian regime as a victim that was attacked "on a whim" and is owed reparations.
Another data point - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/one-year-war-israe...
> Since the start of the war, 13,200 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza. Another 12,400 were fired from Lebanon, while 60 came from Syria, 180 from Yemen and 400 from Iran, the military said.
So 12,400 rockets fired at Israel by Hezbollah, the vast majority of which are supplied by Iran at no cost. That's just in one year and doesn't include drones.
The Panama Canal had cost 400-500 million USD and 25-30k lives to construct, when it opened in 1914.
The Suez Canal cost around 100 million USD and 100-120k lives to build in 1869.
Charging for transit through man-made infrastructure is fundamentally different from charging for passage through a natural international waterway.
So I shouldn’t say it never happens.
The other - I don't pay taxes to the Azeris, every moment of my productive life doesn't support the genocide there, and my soul is in some way not as blackened by the atrocities there. I think people care about Palestine because they rightly feel complicity. Maybe Russian citizens - whose labor indirectly goes to supporting Azeri atrocities - are up in arms?
Nobody is disputing the fact that the US spends more money on arms than anyone else and has the shiniest of toys as a result, but "winning" in war is about effecting the outcomes that you want, not about whether your weapon systems are superior.
The US military has clearly failed to deliver the outcome that Americans wanted in many recent conflicts (Vietnam, Taliban); counting those wars as "lost" makes a lot of sense.
You are making the folly of thinking of war like lawsuits, where one side wins and the other side loses, and the losing side goes home with nothing. This is not so.
If you're walking home from work and some person tries to mug you, even if they are unsuccessful, that will permanently change your behavior as if they had successfully robbed you anyway. Maybe you'll change your route. Maybe you won't walk and drive instead.
Is it strategic deterrence, or just being so unreliably and inconsistent that insider information becomes more valuable?
Is it strategic to demonstrate a lack of planning or that you are a poor ally incapable of garnering support (either domestically or abroad)?
I'd argue that the most important thing when trying to win wars is to aim for realistic outcomes.
The first gulf war was arguably a win because of realistic goals (get Iraq out of Kuwait and stop them from invading it again), while most other interventions in the region were basically "designed to fail", and unsurprisingly never achieved anything of note (and the problem was not lack of military capability).
>If you're walking home from work and some person tries to mug you, even if they are unsuccessful, that will permanently change your behavior as if they had successfully robbed you anyway. Maybe you'll change your route. Maybe you won't walk and drive instead.
In global politics, this tends to make you want to increase your defenses so it doesn't happen again, and find local partners for that defense. This usually comes at the cost of US influence, not its increase.
Like Iran is looking at its current situation and going "The literal only deterrence we could have to prevent this is to develop a nuclear capability. The US cannot be trusted to deal with, and it is pointless to try."
A nuclear Iran can now only be avoided by scorched earth. Scorched earth will now just cause an already partly US hating population to hate them more and create matyrs. Theres no possible upside to this conflict.
Not to mention, 20 years of no Taliban. An entire generation of Afghans grew up without being under a Taliban government.