Why America keeps losing wars

[Ringo1]

Originally Posted by gladhands

Our wars aren’t “winnable” in any meaningful sense. We can seize territory or topple a regime, but we can’t crush insurgencies because they’re amorphous and ever-evolving.

So true. Conventional 'war' is a thing of the past, I believe.

Originally Posted by burdell

They all too often involve us in asinine wars of choice having nothing to win.

I would LOVE to get out of the war business.

Originally Posted by tickyul

Wild-eyed and unreachable objectives.......WTH were we thinking going into Vietnam, Korean, Iraq/Afghanistan?????????????

I have no idea what they thought we were accomplishing in any of those.

[Chango]

Vietnam was essentially a proxy war with Communist China and the USSR/Russia, except that we ended up doing more than just supporting South Vietnam.

Who knows... maybe going "total war" on the place would have been a fast track to WW3.... Now that I think about it, the advent of nuclear weapons redefined what "total war" would mean. There would be no rebuilding a radioactive wasteland, after all.

Basically the same situation with the latest Middle East wars... Maybe the point is to push our power/interests just enough to get our way but not so far that humanity goes extinct.

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by KenFresno

Yes they left the portions of the US they occupied as part of the Treaty of Ghent. Still wouldn't refer to the War of 1812 as an American victory.

Why not? We went to war because of the trade blockades, impressment of US sailors, and British funding of Indian attacks. After the war, all that ended. Now some historians will claim it happened due to the defeat of Napoleon but... scoreboard. It ended. While the British did not agree to end impressment, they permanently did. The trade blockade was lifted. The Indian threat was gone. The door was opened to westward expansion and led to the nation that exists today. Historians differ on who "won" but all agree the biggest loser was the Indians. And since the Indians were our biggest ongoing threat and perpetual "enemy", then that must be a "win" for the US.

One might also say that it put to rest any dim notion that other nations might have held of defeating us in our own homeland.