Comment by voidlogic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by voidlogic | Hacker News Reader

I think many of the points raise are very valid areas of improvement, for example: "Learn the Language"; Others are products of politician reality: "Fear of Casualties".

But I think the premise: "the World’s Biggest Military Keeps Losing Wars", is wrong.

1. Conventional forces have trouble wining asymmetrical conflicts unless they are allowed to wage total war (which is usually precluded by modern political/moral concerns). Nothing new here- the Romans had experience with this.

1.A Note the single "win" on the list of post-Korea conflicts was the first Gulf War, a conventional conflict.

1.B It is arguable that the U.S. is actually better than most other conventional militaries at asymmetrical warfare: http://www.warriorlodge.com/blogs/news/16298760-a-french-sol..., however that may just be a product of being better at conventional warfare improving overall fitness.

2. "Winning" define this? Winning means very different things in total war vs. occupation/garrison/nation building actions. While its fair to say the U.S. lost Vietnam, I think its fair to say the U.S. won in Iraq and Afghanistan as they are now governed by friendly democracies... Military action is just a way of attempting to physically impose political will- If a nation's military helps the leaders reach their goals, it won.

> While its fair to say the U.S. lost Vietnam, I think its fair to say the U.S. won in Iraq and Afghanistan as their are now governed by friendly democracies...

No. Iraq is fractured into halves. The northern half is controlled by ISIS, the southern by a dysfunction democracy where the elections are not about ideas and policies, but rather about Sunnis vs Shiites. Afghanistan is also sectarian. Neither are anything we'd recognize as free and stable democracies. In a lot of ways, ordinary citizens in both places are worse off than before the wars.

Our wars there were brutal, protracted, expensive, and ultimately didn't work.

Northern half controlled by ISIS? What? ISIS hold a single city in the North: Mosul. They have operational zones in Baiji, Kirkuk, Tikrit and areas of Anbar. The South isn't decided by Sunnis vs Shiites because the South is overwhelmingly Shiite.

I'd argue that Iraq's democracy, where power is strictly divided and minorities have guaranteed representatives - including a minimum quota system for women in parliament - is more democratic than the two-party "Supreme Leader" system the U.S has going on. But that's a different story.

Very few insurgent groups take and occupy territory in the way that conventional military forces do. When discussing the influence of insurgents, it's more worthwhile to talk about the territory through with they can travel and operate unimpeded. By that metric, IS does "hold" almost half of Iraq, in that they can travel throughout most of Northern Iraq without fearing attack from the Iraqi or Syrian militaries [1].

[1] http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5446d4ca6bb3f77b1e8...

>No. Iraq is fractured into halves. The northern half is controlled by ISIS, the southern by a dysfunction democracy where the elections are not about ideas and policies, but rather about Sunnis vs Shiites.

All true, but the discussion here is around the effectiveness of the U.S. military and you are referring to the political failure to build a strong enough post-US occupation Iraq.

> Afghanistan is also sectarian. Neither are anything we'd recognize as free and stable democracies.

I don't think the expectation of western-style democracies coming into existence is reasonable in that part of the world. We can all wish for it... But that doesn't mean the U.S. military (pre-whithdrawl) wasn't effective in effecting regime change and maintaining control.

>Our wars there were brutal, protracted, expensive, and ultimately didn't work.

brutal, protracted, expensive- yes, yes, yes ultimately didn't work- sure, but I would argue that was not a military failure and this discussion is about the military performance.

A better article would have been "The US sucks at post-WWII nation building"...

> brutal, protracted, expensive- yes, yes, yes ultimately didn't work- sure, but I would argue that was not a military failure and this discussion is about the military performance.

The generals are the link. They must translate political objectives into military action that delivers them. The US probably has the best fighting force, but it lacks leadership and focus. The whole Iraq and Afgani adventures look to me like the bridge in Apocalypse Now.

>All true, but the discussion here is around the effectiveness of the US military

Yes, but you're the one who brought in the factor of achieving political goals. The US most certainly did not achieve it's political goals in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Neither country is an especially friendly or reliable ally. If anything, we've set back our political goals in both regions by decades. The fact that it was civilian incompetence rather than military blundering which caused the US to squander those goals irrelevant to the question. The question is, "Did the US achieve its political goals in Iraq and Afghanistan?" The answer to that question is a pretty clear, "No," in both cases. Of course we can argue about why the answer is "No" and whose fault that is, but it's difficult to argue that the US and its allies accomplished any of their goals in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

>The question is, "Did the US achieve its political goals in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

My questions was: "Did the US millitary fail to achieve its component of political goals in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

Yes, the blogger undermines his thesis by describing what a success Afghanistan was. U.S. special forces infiltrated the country, worked with the outnumbered Northern Alliance and coordinated air strikes to devastate the Taliban to the point where they fled into Pakistan.

Of course, the Pakistanis continued to fund and arm these guys so they came back. That was a political failure rather than a military one. Had the U.S. military been allowed, they would have followed the Taliban across the border. As it is, U.S. drone attacks regularly harry the Taliban in Waziristan and prevent them from regrouping.

Now, Iraq, that was a wrong headed conflict from 1991 on. It would have been preferable to leave Saddam in power, vile though he was. Al Qaeda might still have destabilized his country, but the Sunni tribesmen were loyal to him and would not have turned as they did when the Americans had taken over.

>I think its fair to say the U.S. won in Iraq and Afghanistan as they are now governed by friendly democracies...

I dispute that Iraq is governed by a friendly democracy. Iraq, presently is largely split between the Islamic State and the post-Saddam regime currently headed by Haider El-Abadi. Neither is especially friendly towards the US at this point. Islamic State is... well, Islamic State. The Abadi administration, on the other hand, has largely fallen into the orbit of Iran, owing to their shared Shia Islam heritage.

The outcome of the Iraq War reminds me of the old joke about the French and Indian War. "Who won the French and Indian war? It was the British." Likewise, "Who won the America/Iraq war? The Iranians."

The French and Indian War wasn't the French fighting against the Indians. It was the Americans and British fighting against the French and the Indians.

Please see my response to dcposch below, it would be about the same.

Sorry about ruining the joke, but "the French and Indian War" is simply the name Americans gave to their part in the Seven Years War, a worldwide war between France (and allies) and Britain (and allies).

Britain did win.

Iraq is close to being governed by Islamic State. I'm not sure it is a good definition of "winning" either. Sounds more like US won the match, but lost the game.

> , I think its fair to say the U.S. won in Iraq and Afghanistan as they are now governed by friendly democracies...

With wins like these, who needs loses. The US army and state department failed to deliver tangible political product. End of story. Both places are a total mess and the world is more dangerous because of that.

You can lose a war, without losing a single combat, if you fail to deliver on your objectives.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com