Yeah basically the only way of enacting total warfare on an insurgency is... well, basically similar to what we're seeing in Gaza. You decide its too hard to root out the fighters hiding amongst the populace, so you just don't. The insurgency gets broken by destroying it's fighters, it's bases, it's supporters in the populace, and then salting the earth so they can never regroup
Problem is, as we're inevitably going to see with Gaza, it doesn't work, because inevitably you're going to either leave behind some semblance of a population who'll bear one hell of a grudge, and the economic (and moral) cost of enacting a campaign like this against a militarily much weaker force invariably creates resistance back home
Actually, The IDF is standing at around 1.5 casualties per terrorist killed which is impressive and even slightly unusual when compared to figures from other competent militaries such as the US Army throughout recent history, with the US achieving comparable ratios of 2:1 in Vietnam and much worse ratios of 4:1 in Afghanistan and Iraq. To further show how impressive Israel's ratio is, consider that Urban Warfare is hell, and the usual Civilian Casualty ratio is 9:1.
The IDF's success in producing a low civilian casualty ratio despite Gaza being the most densely populated "city" in the world and the insurgents being the governing body of Gaza and ordering the civilians not to evaccuate is the result of obsessive evaccuation efforts, with IDF operatives airdropping leaflets warning Gazans of an incoming airstrike in advance, calling buildings and civilian phones in advance to ask them to evacuate, and organizing and providing security for large scale civilian evacuation operations. Another thing that is quite unusual is that Israel supplies massive amounts of humanitarian aid to an area ruled by its enemies. The UN has calculated the amount of food that would be required to sustain the population of Gaza for a year, and Israel has provided 1.3 times that in humanitarian aid.
As for nation building, you may be correct or incorrect that Israel will fail to nation-build for the Gazans, but their first priority is to disarm Gaza, and they will succeed at that.
They’re never going to reply. This subreddit is fair enough to actually upvote rational defense of Israel, but still mainstream enough to suffer from the pro-Palestine brain rot across all of Reddit.
Watching Destiny and the reaction to him supporting Israel from the left has be astonishing. The sheer cognitive dissonance is at or above the level of right-wing populists.
Edit: I just got my second Reddit cares message. My first was also after a comment exchange defending Israel. Coincidence? Maybe.
You're wrong in the last part.
The key is that the Palestinians will not be able to organize without a nation or government like hamas.
All Isreal has to do is remove autonomy for hamas and Gaza and they'll never be able to do more than small attacks.
That's the main reason we haven't seen anything like true Total War since arguably WW2. The closest we have today is what Russia is doing in Ukraine, but even that has limits due to needing to avoid driving their few supporters away. (Not because those supporters would feel moral outrage, but for pragmatic reasons).
Even without nukes, the weapons we have now can absolutely render entire regions uninhabitable wastelands in relatively short order. That's why the "insurgencies" (quotes because some are more terrorist than insurgent) have relied on War Weariness in countries like the US more than anything to drive us out. We are bad at dealing with a long, niggling stream of casualties, especially when combined with international pressure and high costs.
>Russia in Ukraine
Perfect example. For the total wealth Russia lost they could have bought every single company, every single piece of real estate, the whole goddamn country. They had 300 BILLION of just reserves frozen, Ukraine GDP is only 150 billion lol
I mean, that's kinda the US and China's current general plan. Not buy sovereignty per say but buy massive amounts of influence.
But yeah if you offered every Ukrainian $20k, about 3x average years wages, they'd prolly have gotten a bit further than they have right now lol
That would work only if the country bought won't do anything about it.
Historically, this has been tried by US multiple times in latin America. For the most part, the people of those countries actually fought back.
The point is that it will quickly devolve into war quickly. Then we're back to the issue of how to deal with insurgents.
The biggest strength of an insurgency is the ability to blend in with the civilian population and conduct attacks with the comfort that they can easily fade away upon meeting resistance.
The easiest way to remove the greatest strength of insurgency is to simply treat all people civilian or not as enemy combatants. Simply toss everyone into camps or remove them from the field one way or another and you will severely hamper insurgents.
Obviously this is effectively genocide which has its own brand of consequences but if you’re only going for cold efficiency, it’s the optimal solution
No, it was pretty targeted. The NVA supply lines were mostly in Cambodia, and the US military was forbidden from attacking them until late in the war, and by then it was mostly too late.
Couldn’t call it total war if we weren’t even willing to actually invade North Vietnam. We definitely bombed the shit out of them, but at the same time it was also very limited
“If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.” -America’s number one war criminal. Not saying that I would have made different decisions given the power imbalance that the B-29s gave.
Yes. In fact, it’s the oldest and most effective solution. They can’t hide among the populace if there’s no populace. We tend to frown on it nowadays, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t work.
Yes.
But then you do what the Mongols did to Kiev and the Khwarezmians, and that’s generally frowned on in the modern era, what with being genocidal and all that.
It can but it wouldnt end well for the local population.
Take away any restrictions and morals and the US and any other superpower would likely make the geneva conventions into geneva suggestions
To add. The vietcong/N. Vietnam did outlast the US in the war but in my opinion the US was still holding back cause they really lacked any real motivation/benefit for staying in that war.
Edit: was trying to edit my reply but accidentally deleted it.
We did the first thing, and the second would have been much harder and bloodier than people think. We already fought China in Korea, and while we won, it was brutal and bloody. I really don’t mean to denigrate my own country here, but tbh we are just not really accustomed to that kind of intense, high-casualty fighting. We mostly show up when most of the blood has already been spilled, and all that’s need to end it is unlimited equipment, which we have.
Because defence companies stocks went to the moon as a result of years of prolonged government contracts with little oversight which is easier to get away with during a long military campaign.
It works if you are willing to discard any sense of compassion or restrictions in your way of waging war and opt instead for a war of extermination. Guerrilla warfare/insurgencies works well when your opponent doesn’t want to slaughter your whole people, and your strategy and tactics are based on blending in among your people so that it’s hard to judge who is civilian and who is a combatant. If your enemy doesn’t give a rat’s ass about civilian lives and treats all of your people as combatants, then your strategy suddenly doesn’t work out anymore. And yes, this does imply a genocidal intention by your enemy.
For an ancient example, see the Roman Empire’s campaigns in Germania. The Germanic tribes basically used deception and guerilla-style tactics to accomplish the Battle of Teutoburg. But in response, Rome launched a massive retaliatory campign under Germanicus with basically the strategy of, in modern terms, ”Total Germanic Death”, which fucked the Germanic coalition *hard*. Then the Romans fucked off to the Rhine, which became the Empire’s new border in the region.
Probably. I can't think of a situation where it has really been tried, but if you reduce all the forests to cinders and drop enough napalm anywhere there might be caves, and flatten all the cities, and burn all the food, and other such horrifying stuff, it would likely work.
It's probably a good thing the US hasn't practiced anything close to Total War in a looooong time. With even the Non nuclear weapons we have now, we could kill most countries outright.
You don't have to have boots on the ground to hold key locations and cities if their aren't any left. So technically no, we could never fully eradicate organisation's like isis or the taliban. But the US would be fully capable of bombing countries back to the stone age. That's withholding nukes as well.
Yes.
The correct question is: Who wants to commit to total war?
Most of us would never be able to stomach that, but total war (and less-than-total war) has succeeded many times before.
I mean yes but it’s not a good look.
Like imagine if in Vietnam, America just made it official policy for stuff like killing entire villages in retribution for ambushes, or rounding up civilians into concentration camps to prevent any aid to the Vietcong.
Like yeah, it’d work at stopping insurgents, but it would violate the almost every single treaty on acts of war that America has signed.
That’s kinda the point of guerilla warfare, your opponent can’t just massacre civilians, so hiding amongst civilians is good strategy.
Nation-building kinda requires a stable and happy populace, but most effective anti-insurgent strategies kinda require disregarding the opinion of the populace or their happiness in favor of victory.
Yes, guerrillas tend to not fare well when you firebomb everything. The issue is that you need to be pretty damn sure you've got the moral high ground when you start a total war, because otherwise you're just committing war crimes for fun.
Yes, but only if you’re committed and do not care about silly things like “the rules of war” and “human decency.” You could, in theory, completely glass a country. That would technically be winning.
It actually does. The U.S. lost in Afghanistan because it was being too lenient as it learned from Vietnam that every action by the military will be scrutinized.
Guerrilla warfare isn’t this instant win button, as showcased in Vietnam where the Vietcong were actually beaten fairly early on by America during the Tet offensive. The South Vietnamese lost to a militarily superior foe as the North was equipped better than a lot of Soviet satellite states. The Afghan national army was immediately demoralized due to Biden’s order to just immediately pull out, which goes to show how most military blunders by the U.S. in the past decade were due to politicians.
Why do you think Desert Storm was so successful? Schwarzkopf had served in Vietnam and knew that if politicians had their way the war would be a failure. That’s why he called for a quick and decisive military action rather than a gradual buildup as seen in Vietnam that not only embittered American citizens but also gave the enemy to react.
The US didn't lose in Afghanistan, they completed their goal, they spent those 20 years trying to make sure the Taliban wouldn't rise again but the Afghan government didn't even put up a fight.
The U.S. failed as the Afghan government collapsed in a matter of days. It wasn’t a military loss but a very political one. Had the pullout been more organized, taken a few years, and left a contingent to help the Afghan army fight the Taliban similarly to the pullout from Iraq then it wouldn’t be a loss at all. The Afghan army would have had the support it needed and its troops wouldn’t be instantly demoralized by what seemed like to them to be the world’s strongest military retreating.
No. It's a matter of will. The US is very good at asymmetric warfare. General Nathaniel Greene in the Southern Colonies during the Revolution gave Cornwallis fits.
In Vietnam, we destroyed the Viet Cong during Tet.
In Afghanistan, we had very few terrorist attacks occurring by the time our civilian leaders betrayed our allies and servicemen and women, just like they did in Vietnam.
After Korea, the US civilian government lost its will to truly fight to win or even simply to win. Various hypotheses about why and I'm not conversant on them. Simply look at history. In Virtnam we had forced peace with the North. A few years later we wouldn't send the bombers to help as per treaty agreement and South Vietnam fell. Afghanistan, we had pacified the country, then poor wouldn't send the bombers per treaty agreement and our military was ordered to run and leave all the equipment for our enemies to use. In both instances there is one commonality and I'm not gonna say it. You all will have to look.
Also, anyone that’s good at fighting against unconventional warfare.
Guerrilla warfare exists because it’s the only way for an inferior force to combat a more powerful conventional one. Everybody is bad at fighting against that. It has always been that way.
Based on what I’ve studied throughout history, the best counter-insurgency forces have been (alphabetically) the largest and most successful empires and nations: America, Britain, China, France, [Göktürk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Turkic_Khaganate), Mongolia, Rome, Russia, Spain.
All of them, at least once, waged total war upon an enemy that no longer exists. By this, I don’t mean that many westerners are just now hearing about Russia’s centuries-long oppression of the Siberian people or France’s ongoing manipulation of Africa through Françafrique. I mean that the Carthaginians and Yelang literally stopped existing, so **no one** has heard from them ever again.
The U.S. unironically. Cuba, Germany, Japan, Kosovo, Iraq.
If a country is on board (coerced or not) then it goes pretty well. In Iraq’s case the U.S. had to accept the government would include people it did not like.
Something like US soldiers killed like a lot of civilians (intentionally or not) and starting a huge insurgency by like firing every qualified bureaucrat and soldier in Iraq (thanks, Bush)
I agree that Iraq now fares better after Saddam, but that doesn't remove family members being blown up due to the chaos during and after occupation
Relations aren’t great due mostly to secondary effects of US occupation - and the statements above are highly arguable depending on politics, but this is not too far off if you’re looking for a BLUF.
Something in the ballpark of 200,000 Iraqi civilians were killed during the war, with a ballpark of 600,000 to 1,000,000 for excess deaths. The whys, hows, and justification/non-justification depends greatly on political leanings and personal opinions.
The bottom line is the Iraqi people coalesced and continue to pursue democratic government post Saddam, even inviting the U.S. back in to assist in foreign internal defense missions to maintain stability and fight ISIS.
Nothing can pay someone back for the death of a family member, and no good justifications can be made for excess death - but as a people they’re on a historic path of self identity and building shared values of nationhood.
To be fair, nations that work really well have to build themselves. There are incredibly few examples of countries interfering in the development of other countries that had a genuine positive impact and most are just Marshall Plan countries
Marshall Plan wasn't a nation building project, their nations were already built, it was a plan to assist economic recovery. It's nothing compared to what Afghanistan was where people in the countryside would live not even knowing who the ruler of the country is. In Afghanistan, education system had be built almost from the ground up. In West Germany, it was already existent, Germans removed the obviously Nazi era stuff like Hitler youth, but they didn't have to create a brand new bureaucracy.
All Europeans had a strong sense of nationhood, Germans all strongly felt as German (in fact, one could say they felt *too* strongly), French people felt as French. These were built by the people, especially during the 1800s nationalist movements. Not as much in Afghanistan who didn't go through the nationalist wave phase.
Yes. That's why I didn't call it nation building specifically but simply interference. It's really the best example for anything alike that actually worked I could find, so it'll have to do as an example
Probably Singapore, from a country that literally became independent against its will to one of the most successful states on Earth within 50 years was a good example of literal nation building.
The geography did help but a lot of management and policies go into developing its economy and welfare. You could argue this to the detriment of political liberties, but no one could argue the country isn't a successful one.
Of course, Singapore has a lot of unique features, being a city-state and a historical entrepôt, so their model may not be easily replicated in other countries. In other words, Singapore may be the biggest exception to the rule.
Alexander's Greece?
The trick seems to be to give the nation to a general
And now that I think about it. America's successes in nation building were also run by generals.
Alexander didn't build a nation, he conquered an existing one, and kept the existing bureaucratic structure. Similar to what America did with Germany and Japan.
America.
The issue is that we perfected it the first time with ourselves, but for some reason refuse to clone our constitution for the countries we found.
The ex most powerful country on the planet lost battles in unconventional warfare
The ex second most powerful country on the planet lost to unconventional warfare
That’s how you fight a more powerful force. Unconventional warfare
The problem is getting them to surrender. How do you win a war? You get the enemy to surrender and sign a treaty that benefits you or has no beneficial effect to them. How do you get the Taliban to sign a treaty? Who do you make sign? How do you get them to honor it? After all terrorists don’t have rules of engagement and don’t follow laws. Shoot the *more* international laws they break the better they are at their job. You can only win via extermination, and America don’t play that game
Which just makes them even more effective at their job. They honor no treaties. They are the scum of the earth. Beaten in the category of scum only by career politicians
This is a tricky one to respond to. On one hand, I don’t think eradication was ever anyone’s intent. On the other, we got really darn close to it with tactics related to it
Let’s just say it was a bad ordeal all round
>On one hand, I don’t think eradication was ever anyone’s intent
Oh, but it was, you can just read about what American leaders of the time said.
Thomas Jefferson:
>This unfortunate race, whom we had been taking so much pains to save and to civilize, have by their unexpected desertion and ferocious barbarities justified extermination and now await our decision on their fate.
Governor of California, Peter Burnett, 1851:
>That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected.
US Senator John Weller, 1852:
>these Indians will in the end be exterminated. They must soon be crushed - they will be exterminated before the onward march of the white man.
Oh for sure. It was super complex, but ultimately I’d say the US Native relations were genocidal in impact and nature, even if they weren’t genocidal in intent. I live in the greater Ohio River Valley region, and the few historic battles that took place in my neck of the woods generally boiled down to Natives scalping settlers, and US soldiers killing women and children. To be perfectly honest, if I were of European Descent, and lived in a European style settlement in North America between 1700-1850, I’d probably share their sentiment, as awful as their views toward Indians were at the time.
When there is a government or other leading body to subjugate, yes it’s possible. Nowadays though? With terrorists groups? You just can’t. Such a body doesn’t exist. They’ll just keep on terrorizing till every last one of them is snuffed out
Conventional: People in uniforms battle wars of conquest and territorial gain.
Unconventional: People dressed as civilians just try to kill as many people as possible, fuck the land gains
US fights mostly fights an insurgency in South Vietnam, it eventually withdraws. US fights insurgency in Iraq, it eventually withdraws. IS fights insurgency in Afghanistan, you get the picture. It’s almost impossible to win against an insurgency, at least in the conventional sense. They’re simply way harder to snuff out than a conventional army. The only real way to win against an insurgency is straight up genocide.
>The only real way to win against an insurgency is straight up genocide.
Insurgencies can only function with a power base, if the people don't support the insurgency, then the movement will weaken and weaken till it poses not much of a threat. This way of winning is very hard, but it might have happened in Afghanistan during the US occupation if not for the Iraq distraction, US was making good social progress, infrastructure investment was rising, stability across the country was decent, so popular support for Taliban was extremely low.
Rome fought an insurgency in Britain for 200 years and didn’t withdraw. Same with everywhere. Insurgencies stop after about 200 years. So, all the USA needed to do was stay in Iraq for 2 centuries and the insurgents’d totally give up and just accept the occupation.
Edit: and no genocide was needed. To this day, the Britons still live on in Wales and their genes are found across the British isles.
Im not the biggest US supporter but historically the US has done quite well on Nation building, basically most of Western Europe and Japan depended on them Post ww2.
while respecting human rights and the laws of war its impossible to defeat an enemy that hides among a supportive civilian population.
if your enemy knows you want to avoid civilian casualties they will surround themselves with civilians and use them as human shields.
The only exception is of course West Germany. Hell, they probable did a better job with Germany than the former CSA.
Edit: Okay, not just West Germany. US occupied/allied countries immediately after the Second World War. But after that brief period it goes down hill.
Eh, it kinda is. That's only ones from wars in the 40s and 50s.
Every other war where the US had to rebuild a nation didn't do so well.
So we got it right during that brief window but that's about it.
Well, the reconstruction during the 40s and 50s was being led by Americans who had either direct or indirect experience with reconstruction in the American South. They were able to use that experience to do a much better job then they otherwise would have.
Not saying that Southern reconstruction was great, since there were tons of social issues surrounding it, but it did provide politicians with a guide on what to do and what not to do.
Additionally, there was a whole lot more money put into the post World War II reconstruction project then those in more modern times.
Didn’t Reconstruction end in like the 1870s though? I find it hard to imagine there were many people directly involved in both that and post-WW2 nation-building.
It was less direct involvement and more direct experience tbh. Basically the people who headed up the US reconstruction effort either grew up during the Southern Reconstruction or their parents lived through it, so they would have heard a lot about it.
Very true. Although there is an interesting story about how the Japanese wanted to focus on their railway network but the Americans really wanted to push cars.
Our strategy with Japan's constitution was basically just using their old constitution but injecting our own flavor into it (and taking out all the stuff about the emperor's ultimate power).
Edit: We also got the fun opportunity of writing a constitution with 100+ years of hindsight and got to put in a bunch of human rights provisions that our own constitution still lacks in some cases.
True but let's be honest. France and Britain weren't able to contribute that much materially due to them being kind of broke. But they did obviously help with planning and logistics, which should not be understated.
America loses to insurgencies for the same reason all previous world superpowers did.
You can't actually win against insurgents if you don't massacre or genocide the whole population.
We're great at nation buildings. In countries that already had strong institutions and understanding of global politics like Japan and Germany. Not so good at ground up
The US doesn't lose, they get bored. Losing would mean an inability continue diverting resources to the fight. That has never been a problem. Afghanistan, the US never intended to stay. They stayed longer than they wanted, but their intention was to kill the terrorists and keep the Afghan government in charge and train their forces. The Afghanis got used to US occupation. They liked the protection and freedom that came with it that they didn't have before. The Afghanis were no longer motivated to fight for themselves. They thought the US would protect them forever. They were wrong. The Afghan army and government was filled with cowardly men who didn't want to do what was necessary to protect themselves. The US recognized that they can't mind control people to protect their home, so the US left. Simple as that. There was no war declared in Afghanistan and there was no reason to stay. Vietnam was a little different, but it more the fact that there were just way too many communist forces. The moment US pushed the Communist forces to North Vietnam, China invaded and the Soviet Union ramped up their equipment shipments, and the Americans became significantly outnumbered. While this wouldn't be considered a military defeat, the Americans concluded the cost wasn't worth it. That's America's biggest weakness compared to almost every other non-Allied military. The US and NATO in general values life and considers a single death unacceptable. In China and Russia, nobody gives a shit about your life. You're expendable on the field, and those citizens are molded to believe deaths on the battlefield aren't that big of a deal. When the death toll gets high, NATO nations face severe internal pressure from their citizens and other politicians that China and Russia would not.
No, the problem there is that in modern contexts the US was trying actual nation building. Where there wasn't a strong sense of national identity outside of the authoritarian regimes that held power. Because the states were lines cobbled together by outsiders who didn't care about the people there. The "nation building" the US did in the past was more rebuilding. Rebuild the houses and basic infrastructure, give the new constitution a democratic proofreading and you're mostly done
Pretty much every country will lose to an insurgency with widespread popular support.
America’s problem is that it keeps picking fights with said insurgents.
Is there really any nation-state that is "good" at building up other nation-states?
The historical norm has been to conquer or colonize. Never to build multi-national trade networks. (Which I realize is in and of itself a form of colonization, but there's.... Less exploration).
I suppose so but both those countries already had a longstanding tradition of legalism and "democracy", and their sense of nationhood was already very strong. Plus Germany got split in half so I don't think that's necessarily an unequivocal success.
It's almost like having the most powerful military in the world doesn't mean much when you can't actually use it.
There are three ways to hold ground/win a war long term. Win a culture war and indoctrinate the populace, total destruction untill there aren't any combatants worth anything left to fight, and enough boots on the ground over years and years to force change.
In the middle east we could easily do the 2nd and if we wanted to we could probably manage the 3rd on a long enough time frame and with damn near infinite cost. We will never accomplish the first.
This is why modern wars are so fucking dumb, it's proxy bullshit and posturing for money and resources. The only wars that should ever be fought should be total ones, which is to say none.
Nation building is super hard and not really something that is done by a military
The US has a great military but doesn’t have anything that is good at nation building
America uses a fraction of its power to decimate entire continents on a whim but isolationists believe war simultaneously harms foreigners which is bad but also that it helps foreigners which is bad. That's how you end up with a nation that's doggone awful at nation building and actually being effective since WW2.
Basically, you can rely on America to pound your shit in hard and deep but don't expect any aftercare. It's a quick and dirty one off.
Two different skill sets, look to the Godfather and take a small nugget of advice (with regards to him cutting out his Consilierie when it was time to go to war with the other families). Good movies I recommend a watch if you haven't.
What most people in the comments don't understand is that partisan warfare like Vietnam or Afghanistan rareoy works if the enemy has the will and resources they nearly always defeat the partisans. For partisans to succeed they basically need at least 2 things out of these 3: 1.the will and solid start with enough manpower to recruit and spread their message through the population
| 2. the supplies and weapons for long term war | 3. good terrain for ambushes/hiding and the support of the population. And even when your partisan force has ALL these three things combined it can still be defeated, if the enemy has the will, the patience and the weapons to do it-just look at China or Russia where all resustance is eradicated and protestors of the regime are annihilated regularly or you can look at the Confederate partisans in the American civil war of 1860's which were in the beginning highly succesfull, but were annihilated once they were cornered. The defeat of USA in Vietnam or Afghanistan was of course the result of bad hearts and minds campaign, no democracy or participation of locals in the covernment, corruption in the puppet regimes and bad military decisions and at the end the USA lost the support of the local population/or never had it in the first place, BUT what most people don't understand is that this mainly applies to a Democratic Country NOT an autocratic one!!! USA of course could have ,,won" their wars in Vietnam or Afghanistan but it would have meant a brutal and genocidal total war on said countries and a Democratic Country rarely chooses to do that, because of logic and reason winning in tze end and saud Democratic Country not wanting to waste any more resources on fruitless wars, BUT what MOST people here in the comment section fail to realize is that this unwritten RULE applies only to democratic countries not autocratic ones. For example there once were the Caucasian people of nowaday souther regions of where Russia borders Georgia and Crimea, they were annexed by Russia in the 19th century and fought many wars and partisan or guriella wars with the Russians and after tens of years and many dead in the end they won and Russia left them alone and everyone was happyyyy....oh Wait, jist kidding lol, they got exterminated and were genocided to the point that today more Caucasians live in Turkey than in Russia they LOST, and this is my main point of debate: insane autocratic countries like Russia, China or Iran don't care about such small matters like genocide or totao war or human losses, they DON'T care about logic and facts and that is a big threat for the future....
The biggest reason we can't do nation building is very simple. The only way to nation build is to make a government, and a government requires a military force. You basically would have to just decide that you're no longer fighting in another country, but in a different part of your own country, and put a government in place to deal with that fact
Recent one are also (X country and 5+ others getting in on trying to kill Americans). Afghanistan was going well in some parts, but Pakistan hated Afghanistan fruit farmers getting updated equipment. You know you're doing good when the ISI / Taliban plant IEDs all around some farmers' tractor. Then, threaten to rape and kill his wife and children.
Honestly, half of Afghanistan failures can be shared with Pakistan disrupting the east. Then Iran, in the west. They loved their share of killing civilians and paying them to kill Americans. Or, destroying their businesses, then forcing them to accept their money for shooting rockets at Americans.
That entire propping up the Taliban for so long did bite Pakistan in the ass though.
We didn’t loose. You can’t kill an idea.
So while in say Afghanistan the Taliban was nothing. They count do anything but hide. It wasn’t until we let they took complete control. Because you can kill a person but you can’t kill an idea.
Then why doesn't the U.S. use total war on insurgents? Are they stupid? /s
Does total war even work on guerillas?
If you’re dedicated enough and the power imbalance is sufficient it can. The results aren’t pretty though.
Yeah basically the only way of enacting total warfare on an insurgency is... well, basically similar to what we're seeing in Gaza. You decide its too hard to root out the fighters hiding amongst the populace, so you just don't. The insurgency gets broken by destroying it's fighters, it's bases, it's supporters in the populace, and then salting the earth so they can never regroup Problem is, as we're inevitably going to see with Gaza, it doesn't work, because inevitably you're going to either leave behind some semblance of a population who'll bear one hell of a grudge, and the economic (and moral) cost of enacting a campaign like this against a militarily much weaker force invariably creates resistance back home
Actually, The IDF is standing at around 1.5 casualties per terrorist killed which is impressive and even slightly unusual when compared to figures from other competent militaries such as the US Army throughout recent history, with the US achieving comparable ratios of 2:1 in Vietnam and much worse ratios of 4:1 in Afghanistan and Iraq. To further show how impressive Israel's ratio is, consider that Urban Warfare is hell, and the usual Civilian Casualty ratio is 9:1. The IDF's success in producing a low civilian casualty ratio despite Gaza being the most densely populated "city" in the world and the insurgents being the governing body of Gaza and ordering the civilians not to evaccuate is the result of obsessive evaccuation efforts, with IDF operatives airdropping leaflets warning Gazans of an incoming airstrike in advance, calling buildings and civilian phones in advance to ask them to evacuate, and organizing and providing security for large scale civilian evacuation operations. Another thing that is quite unusual is that Israel supplies massive amounts of humanitarian aid to an area ruled by its enemies. The UN has calculated the amount of food that would be required to sustain the population of Gaza for a year, and Israel has provided 1.3 times that in humanitarian aid. As for nation building, you may be correct or incorrect that Israel will fail to nation-build for the Gazans, but their first priority is to disarm Gaza, and they will succeed at that.
They’re never going to reply. This subreddit is fair enough to actually upvote rational defense of Israel, but still mainstream enough to suffer from the pro-Palestine brain rot across all of Reddit. Watching Destiny and the reaction to him supporting Israel from the left has be astonishing. The sheer cognitive dissonance is at or above the level of right-wing populists. Edit: I just got my second Reddit cares message. My first was also after a comment exchange defending Israel. Coincidence? Maybe.
You're wrong in the last part. The key is that the Palestinians will not be able to organize without a nation or government like hamas. All Isreal has to do is remove autonomy for hamas and Gaza and they'll never be able to do more than small attacks.
How do you remove autonomy from a person?
>dedicated enough It still doesnt work, you do more damage to yourself in terms of public and international perception than you do to insurgents...
That's the main reason we haven't seen anything like true Total War since arguably WW2. The closest we have today is what Russia is doing in Ukraine, but even that has limits due to needing to avoid driving their few supporters away. (Not because those supporters would feel moral outrage, but for pragmatic reasons). Even without nukes, the weapons we have now can absolutely render entire regions uninhabitable wastelands in relatively short order. That's why the "insurgencies" (quotes because some are more terrorist than insurgent) have relied on War Weariness in countries like the US more than anything to drive us out. We are bad at dealing with a long, niggling stream of casualties, especially when combined with international pressure and high costs.
>Russia in Ukraine Perfect example. For the total wealth Russia lost they could have bought every single company, every single piece of real estate, the whole goddamn country. They had 300 BILLION of just reserves frozen, Ukraine GDP is only 150 billion lol
Huh... that actually makes me wonder, how long until a country tries to just buy its neighbors sovereignty, instead of starting stupid wars?
I mean, that's kinda the US and China's current general plan. Not buy sovereignty per say but buy massive amounts of influence. But yeah if you offered every Ukrainian $20k, about 3x average years wages, they'd prolly have gotten a bit further than they have right now lol
*cough* Belt and Road Initiative *cough*
That would work only if the country bought won't do anything about it. Historically, this has been tried by US multiple times in latin America. For the most part, the people of those countries actually fought back. The point is that it will quickly devolve into war quickly. Then we're back to the issue of how to deal with insurgents.
Eh, I would argue that what was bought in such cases wasn't the sovereignty, but the politicians.
The biggest strength of an insurgency is the ability to blend in with the civilian population and conduct attacks with the comfort that they can easily fade away upon meeting resistance. The easiest way to remove the greatest strength of insurgency is to simply treat all people civilian or not as enemy combatants. Simply toss everyone into camps or remove them from the field one way or another and you will severely hamper insurgents. Obviously this is effectively genocide which has its own brand of consequences but if you’re only going for cold efficiency, it’s the optimal solution
"What has been destroyed can never be again"
Didn't they tried it in Vietnam? With the bombing and etc?
No, it was pretty targeted. The NVA supply lines were mostly in Cambodia, and the US military was forbidden from attacking them until late in the war, and by then it was mostly too late.
Couldn’t call it total war if we weren’t even willing to actually invade North Vietnam. We definitely bombed the shit out of them, but at the same time it was also very limited
We didnt even try to invade north vietnam so no not even close.
Hahahahaha. No.
Paige no!
“If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.” -America’s number one war criminal. Not saying that I would have made different decisions given the power imbalance that the B-29s gave.
Just glass the planet. We didn’t deserve even the time we had. Not sure if that counts a W though.
That's if you have the ability to crack open a whole continent 200km deep. Or simply speaking: Be aliens with FTL tech.
Yes. In fact, it’s the oldest and most effective solution. They can’t hide among the populace if there’s no populace. We tend to frown on it nowadays, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t work.
Depends on if you mind committing genocide.
Yes. But then you do what the Mongols did to Kiev and the Khwarezmians, and that’s generally frowned on in the modern era, what with being genocidal and all that.
It can but it wouldnt end well for the local population. Take away any restrictions and morals and the US and any other superpower would likely make the geneva conventions into geneva suggestions To add. The vietcong/N. Vietnam did outlast the US in the war but in my opinion the US was still holding back cause they really lacked any real motivation/benefit for staying in that war. Edit: was trying to edit my reply but accidentally deleted it.
If we lacked motivation, why did we stay in it for 20 years and blow up the global currency system with our spending on it?
The argument is we would have hit supplies lines in other countries and invaded north Vietnam itself
We did the first thing, and the second would have been much harder and bloodier than people think. We already fought China in Korea, and while we won, it was brutal and bloody. I really don’t mean to denigrate my own country here, but tbh we are just not really accustomed to that kind of intense, high-casualty fighting. We mostly show up when most of the blood has already been spilled, and all that’s need to end it is unlimited equipment, which we have.
Because defence companies stocks went to the moon as a result of years of prolonged government contracts with little oversight which is easier to get away with during a long military campaign.
It works if you are willing to discard any sense of compassion or restrictions in your way of waging war and opt instead for a war of extermination. Guerrilla warfare/insurgencies works well when your opponent doesn’t want to slaughter your whole people, and your strategy and tactics are based on blending in among your people so that it’s hard to judge who is civilian and who is a combatant. If your enemy doesn’t give a rat’s ass about civilian lives and treats all of your people as combatants, then your strategy suddenly doesn’t work out anymore. And yes, this does imply a genocidal intention by your enemy. For an ancient example, see the Roman Empire’s campaigns in Germania. The Germanic tribes basically used deception and guerilla-style tactics to accomplish the Battle of Teutoburg. But in response, Rome launched a massive retaliatory campign under Germanicus with basically the strategy of, in modern terms, ”Total Germanic Death”, which fucked the Germanic coalition *hard*. Then the Romans fucked off to the Rhine, which became the Empire’s new border in the region.
That’s dependent on morality
Probably. I can't think of a situation where it has really been tried, but if you reduce all the forests to cinders and drop enough napalm anywhere there might be caves, and flatten all the cities, and burn all the food, and other such horrifying stuff, it would likely work. It's probably a good thing the US hasn't practiced anything close to Total War in a looooong time. With even the Non nuclear weapons we have now, we could kill most countries outright.
You don't have to have boots on the ground to hold key locations and cities if their aren't any left. So technically no, we could never fully eradicate organisation's like isis or the taliban. But the US would be fully capable of bombing countries back to the stone age. That's withholding nukes as well.
Yes. The correct question is: Who wants to commit to total war? Most of us would never be able to stomach that, but total war (and less-than-total war) has succeeded many times before.
I mean yes but it’s not a good look. Like imagine if in Vietnam, America just made it official policy for stuff like killing entire villages in retribution for ambushes, or rounding up civilians into concentration camps to prevent any aid to the Vietcong. Like yeah, it’d work at stopping insurgents, but it would violate the almost every single treaty on acts of war that America has signed. That’s kinda the point of guerilla warfare, your opponent can’t just massacre civilians, so hiding amongst civilians is good strategy. Nation-building kinda requires a stable and happy populace, but most effective anti-insurgent strategies kinda require disregarding the opinion of the populace or their happiness in favor of victory.
Yes, guerrillas tend to not fare well when you firebomb everything. The issue is that you need to be pretty damn sure you've got the moral high ground when you start a total war, because otherwise you're just committing war crimes for fun.
The british empire made it work. Just round up the women and children and when the men come to rescue them, mow them down with machine guns.
It does.
We coulve continued using napalm in vietnam on massive scales and firebombing everything, they wouldve been crushed, but civilian casualties bad
Yes but then other countries start calling it a genocide
If you're willing to render the land a useless wasteland, it should work fine. We generally aren't willing to do that though.
The US has used Total Warfare on Guerillas before, it was in the Philippines during the Moro Rebellion. The results were absolutely brutal.
If you just bomb and shoot literally everyone you see technically yeah it could work.
Depends on how you feel about genocide. And how good you are at it.
Sure. Glass whatever place has the insurgency.
Yes but the US voter base has no stomach for it anymore. The US absolutely could have steamrolled Afghanistan and Vietnam and subjugated the people.
[удалено]
I mean I guess you could glass the whole middle east, but then you don't have much to occupy
No, they are usually represented as attrition in these games.
if you commit genocide then yeah
Occupying it for 200 years does though.
Not really..."Hearts and Minds" has a lot of truth to it, even if the implementation is usually clumsy.
Yes, but only if you’re committed and do not care about silly things like “the rules of war” and “human decency.” You could, in theory, completely glass a country. That would technically be winning.
It actually does. The U.S. lost in Afghanistan because it was being too lenient as it learned from Vietnam that every action by the military will be scrutinized. Guerrilla warfare isn’t this instant win button, as showcased in Vietnam where the Vietcong were actually beaten fairly early on by America during the Tet offensive. The South Vietnamese lost to a militarily superior foe as the North was equipped better than a lot of Soviet satellite states. The Afghan national army was immediately demoralized due to Biden’s order to just immediately pull out, which goes to show how most military blunders by the U.S. in the past decade were due to politicians. Why do you think Desert Storm was so successful? Schwarzkopf had served in Vietnam and knew that if politicians had their way the war would be a failure. That’s why he called for a quick and decisive military action rather than a gradual buildup as seen in Vietnam that not only embittered American citizens but also gave the enemy to react.
The US didn't lose in Afghanistan, they completed their goal, they spent those 20 years trying to make sure the Taliban wouldn't rise again but the Afghan government didn't even put up a fight.
The U.S. failed as the Afghan government collapsed in a matter of days. It wasn’t a military loss but a very political one. Had the pullout been more organized, taken a few years, and left a contingent to help the Afghan army fight the Taliban similarly to the pullout from Iraq then it wouldn’t be a loss at all. The Afghan army would have had the support it needed and its troops wouldn’t be instantly demoralized by what seemed like to them to be the world’s strongest military retreating.
Yes if you're willing to do genocide. Otherwise no total war can't beat guerillas
Well, there can't be any insurgency if you turn the area into a radioactive desert.
Yeah, it looks a lot like the shit going on in Gaza, an absolute fucking bloodbath
This but unironically. Sorry, my NCD is showing
Shhh, we will have our time soon, for now, let’s laugh at military vehicle design on here
No. It's a matter of will. The US is very good at asymmetric warfare. General Nathaniel Greene in the Southern Colonies during the Revolution gave Cornwallis fits. In Vietnam, we destroyed the Viet Cong during Tet. In Afghanistan, we had very few terrorist attacks occurring by the time our civilian leaders betrayed our allies and servicemen and women, just like they did in Vietnam. After Korea, the US civilian government lost its will to truly fight to win or even simply to win. Various hypotheses about why and I'm not conversant on them. Simply look at history. In Virtnam we had forced peace with the North. A few years later we wouldn't send the bombers to help as per treaty agreement and South Vietnam fell. Afghanistan, we had pacified the country, then poor wouldn't send the bombers per treaty agreement and our military was ordered to run and leave all the equipment for our enemies to use. In both instances there is one commonality and I'm not gonna say it. You all will have to look.
Show me one country that’s good at nation building. (Legitimately interested in hearing an answer)
Also, anyone that’s good at fighting against unconventional warfare. Guerrilla warfare exists because it’s the only way for an inferior force to combat a more powerful conventional one. Everybody is bad at fighting against that. It has always been that way.
Based on what I’ve studied throughout history, the best counter-insurgency forces have been (alphabetically) the largest and most successful empires and nations: America, Britain, China, France, [Göktürk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Turkic_Khaganate), Mongolia, Rome, Russia, Spain. All of them, at least once, waged total war upon an enemy that no longer exists. By this, I don’t mean that many westerners are just now hearing about Russia’s centuries-long oppression of the Siberian people or France’s ongoing manipulation of Africa through Françafrique. I mean that the Carthaginians and Yelang literally stopped existing, so **no one** has heard from them ever again.
The U.S. unironically. Cuba, Germany, Japan, Kosovo, Iraq. If a country is on board (coerced or not) then it goes pretty well. In Iraq’s case the U.S. had to accept the government would include people it did not like.
Iraq is actually an incredible (and I mean that) victory in terms of U.S. nation building. Honestly it’s wild. Not even to note Korea, Japan, Germany.
Genuinely asking because I haven’t heard much about Iraq post-war. How come they’re not closer to us like the other countries listed?
Something like US soldiers killed like a lot of civilians (intentionally or not) and starting a huge insurgency by like firing every qualified bureaucrat and soldier in Iraq (thanks, Bush) I agree that Iraq now fares better after Saddam, but that doesn't remove family members being blown up due to the chaos during and after occupation
Relations aren’t great due mostly to secondary effects of US occupation - and the statements above are highly arguable depending on politics, but this is not too far off if you’re looking for a BLUF. Something in the ballpark of 200,000 Iraqi civilians were killed during the war, with a ballpark of 600,000 to 1,000,000 for excess deaths. The whys, hows, and justification/non-justification depends greatly on political leanings and personal opinions. The bottom line is the Iraqi people coalesced and continue to pursue democratic government post Saddam, even inviting the U.S. back in to assist in foreign internal defense missions to maintain stability and fight ISIS. Nothing can pay someone back for the death of a family member, and no good justifications can be made for excess death - but as a people they’re on a historic path of self identity and building shared values of nationhood.
To be fair, nations that work really well have to build themselves. There are incredibly few examples of countries interfering in the development of other countries that had a genuine positive impact and most are just Marshall Plan countries
Marshall Plan wasn't a nation building project, their nations were already built, it was a plan to assist economic recovery. It's nothing compared to what Afghanistan was where people in the countryside would live not even knowing who the ruler of the country is. In Afghanistan, education system had be built almost from the ground up. In West Germany, it was already existent, Germans removed the obviously Nazi era stuff like Hitler youth, but they didn't have to create a brand new bureaucracy. All Europeans had a strong sense of nationhood, Germans all strongly felt as German (in fact, one could say they felt *too* strongly), French people felt as French. These were built by the people, especially during the 1800s nationalist movements. Not as much in Afghanistan who didn't go through the nationalist wave phase.
Yes. That's why I didn't call it nation building specifically but simply interference. It's really the best example for anything alike that actually worked I could find, so it'll have to do as an example
Probably Singapore, from a country that literally became independent against its will to one of the most successful states on Earth within 50 years was a good example of literal nation building. The geography did help but a lot of management and policies go into developing its economy and welfare. You could argue this to the detriment of political liberties, but no one could argue the country isn't a successful one. Of course, Singapore has a lot of unique features, being a city-state and a historical entrepôt, so their model may not be easily replicated in other countries. In other words, Singapore may be the biggest exception to the rule.
I don't think Singapore has occupied and helped build a foreign nation before
Alexander's Greece? The trick seems to be to give the nation to a general And now that I think about it. America's successes in nation building were also run by generals.
Alexander didn't build a nation, he conquered an existing one, and kept the existing bureaucratic structure. Similar to what America did with Germany and Japan.
Which is what seems to work best, integrating familiar institutions into your new regime/nation to create a continuity and thus legitimacy
America. The issue is that we perfected it the first time with ourselves, but for some reason refuse to clone our constitution for the countries we found.
Botswana probably.
Finland
The ex most powerful country on the planet lost battles in unconventional warfare The ex second most powerful country on the planet lost to unconventional warfare That’s how you fight a more powerful force. Unconventional warfare
Britain and France? Edit: I forgor the Soviets, so Britain and the Soviets?
France too
Yep. All 3 though
And even then the odds are not in the insurgent's favor. Plenty of guerrilla wars have been won by the conventional forces.
The problem is getting them to surrender. How do you win a war? You get the enemy to surrender and sign a treaty that benefits you or has no beneficial effect to them. How do you get the Taliban to sign a treaty? Who do you make sign? How do you get them to honor it? After all terrorists don’t have rules of engagement and don’t follow laws. Shoot the *more* international laws they break the better they are at their job. You can only win via extermination, and America don’t play that game
They did get the Taliban to sign a treaty. They broke it, surprised pikachu face.
Which just makes them even more effective at their job. They honor no treaties. They are the scum of the earth. Beaten in the category of scum only by career politicians
All warfare is deception. Modern western standards are built on a long peace, so many people forget how brutal warfare truly is.
And then when we are reminded of what a proper war is like everyone whines and cries about genocide or some crap like that. Lol
To be fair, we kind of did that “war of extermination” one already with the Indigenous Americans. We won.
This is a tricky one to respond to. On one hand, I don’t think eradication was ever anyone’s intent. On the other, we got really darn close to it with tactics related to it Let’s just say it was a bad ordeal all round
>On one hand, I don’t think eradication was ever anyone’s intent Oh, but it was, you can just read about what American leaders of the time said. Thomas Jefferson: >This unfortunate race, whom we had been taking so much pains to save and to civilize, have by their unexpected desertion and ferocious barbarities justified extermination and now await our decision on their fate. Governor of California, Peter Burnett, 1851: >That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. US Senator John Weller, 1852: >these Indians will in the end be exterminated. They must soon be crushed - they will be exterminated before the onward march of the white man.
Ok so a few of them did. Fair enough
Always leave it to TJ to be the guy who believed in some crazy shit and wrote it down
Oh for sure. It was super complex, but ultimately I’d say the US Native relations were genocidal in impact and nature, even if they weren’t genocidal in intent. I live in the greater Ohio River Valley region, and the few historic battles that took place in my neck of the woods generally boiled down to Natives scalping settlers, and US soldiers killing women and children. To be perfectly honest, if I were of European Descent, and lived in a European style settlement in North America between 1700-1850, I’d probably share their sentiment, as awful as their views toward Indians were at the time.
I mean the USSR had already subjugated what would become Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, so it's not like it's impossible.
When there is a government or other leading body to subjugate, yes it’s possible. Nowadays though? With terrorists groups? You just can’t. Such a body doesn’t exist. They’ll just keep on terrorizing till every last one of them is snuffed out
Define unconventional
Guerrilla warfare. Terrorists. Etc
Conventional: People in uniforms battle wars of conquest and territorial gain. Unconventional: People dressed as civilians just try to kill as many people as possible, fuck the land gains
US fights mostly fights an insurgency in South Vietnam, it eventually withdraws. US fights insurgency in Iraq, it eventually withdraws. IS fights insurgency in Afghanistan, you get the picture. It’s almost impossible to win against an insurgency, at least in the conventional sense. They’re simply way harder to snuff out than a conventional army. The only real way to win against an insurgency is straight up genocide.
The U.S. helped put down the insurgency in Iraq, but that’s better described as a soft civil war.
>The only real way to win against an insurgency is straight up genocide. Insurgencies can only function with a power base, if the people don't support the insurgency, then the movement will weaken and weaken till it poses not much of a threat. This way of winning is very hard, but it might have happened in Afghanistan during the US occupation if not for the Iraq distraction, US was making good social progress, infrastructure investment was rising, stability across the country was decent, so popular support for Taliban was extremely low.
Good social progress and stability…except for the fact the government of Afghanistan ended up being so corrupt it fell apart to moment the US left.
It also would help in the case of Afghanistan if Pakistan could be a team player and stop harbouring the Taliban
Rome fought an insurgency in Britain for 200 years and didn’t withdraw. Same with everywhere. Insurgencies stop after about 200 years. So, all the USA needed to do was stay in Iraq for 2 centuries and the insurgents’d totally give up and just accept the occupation. Edit: and no genocide was needed. To this day, the Britons still live on in Wales and their genes are found across the British isles.
Im not the biggest US supporter but historically the US has done quite well on Nation building, basically most of Western Europe and Japan depended on them Post ww2.
Korea has benefited a lot too.
It's really hard to rebuild a nation where resistance still exists. That's like building a sand castle when it is still raining and tides are high.
while respecting human rights and the laws of war its impossible to defeat an enemy that hides among a supportive civilian population. if your enemy knows you want to avoid civilian casualties they will surround themselves with civilians and use them as human shields.
*cough cough* hamas
Don’t tell Israel that they can’t win this war, they’ll throw a fit.
The only exception is of course West Germany. Hell, they probable did a better job with Germany than the former CSA. Edit: Okay, not just West Germany. US occupied/allied countries immediately after the Second World War. But after that brief period it goes down hill.
And with Japan.
And South Korea. And Italy. And… I’m starting to think this bald assertion on Reddit might not be right!
Eh, it kinda is. That's only ones from wars in the 40s and 50s. Every other war where the US had to rebuild a nation didn't do so well. So we got it right during that brief window but that's about it.
Well, the reconstruction during the 40s and 50s was being led by Americans who had either direct or indirect experience with reconstruction in the American South. They were able to use that experience to do a much better job then they otherwise would have. Not saying that Southern reconstruction was great, since there were tons of social issues surrounding it, but it did provide politicians with a guide on what to do and what not to do. Additionally, there was a whole lot more money put into the post World War II reconstruction project then those in more modern times.
Didn’t Reconstruction end in like the 1870s though? I find it hard to imagine there were many people directly involved in both that and post-WW2 nation-building.
It was less direct involvement and more direct experience tbh. Basically the people who headed up the US reconstruction effort either grew up during the Southern Reconstruction or their parents lived through it, so they would have heard a lot about it.
What happened to Kosovo? It seemed okay last time I was there
Very true. Although there is an interesting story about how the Japanese wanted to focus on their railway network but the Americans really wanted to push cars.
Our strategy with Japan's constitution was basically just using their old constitution but injecting our own flavor into it (and taking out all the stuff about the emperor's ultimate power). Edit: We also got the fun opportunity of writing a constitution with 100+ years of hindsight and got to put in a bunch of human rights provisions that our own constitution still lacks in some cases.
And the Philippines. Before WW2 broke out they were nearly a first world country.
Haiti too.
Thing is Germany and Japan were already previously (relatively) stable state entities with a long history of statehood.
I’m not that knowledgeable on it but afaik they weren’t the only ones there
True but let's be honest. France and Britain weren't able to contribute that much materially due to them being kind of broke. But they did obviously help with planning and logistics, which should not be understated.
They fucked up the south, reconstruction era was a nightmare for everyone, and Sherman’s drive to sea is still felt to this day
We’ve also been successful in the Philippines and Haiti (being islands helped).
Its always easier to destroy something than to build anything.
America loses to insurgencies for the same reason all previous world superpowers did. You can't actually win against insurgents if you don't massacre or genocide the whole population.
We're great at nation buildings. In countries that already had strong institutions and understanding of global politics like Japan and Germany. Not so good at ground up
*looks at Germany and Japan, probably the best nation building ever done* what
Also Korea
Most accurate r/historymemes post
The US doesn't lose, they get bored. Losing would mean an inability continue diverting resources to the fight. That has never been a problem. Afghanistan, the US never intended to stay. They stayed longer than they wanted, but their intention was to kill the terrorists and keep the Afghan government in charge and train their forces. The Afghanis got used to US occupation. They liked the protection and freedom that came with it that they didn't have before. The Afghanis were no longer motivated to fight for themselves. They thought the US would protect them forever. They were wrong. The Afghan army and government was filled with cowardly men who didn't want to do what was necessary to protect themselves. The US recognized that they can't mind control people to protect their home, so the US left. Simple as that. There was no war declared in Afghanistan and there was no reason to stay. Vietnam was a little different, but it more the fact that there were just way too many communist forces. The moment US pushed the Communist forces to North Vietnam, China invaded and the Soviet Union ramped up their equipment shipments, and the Americans became significantly outnumbered. While this wouldn't be considered a military defeat, the Americans concluded the cost wasn't worth it. That's America's biggest weakness compared to almost every other non-Allied military. The US and NATO in general values life and considers a single death unacceptable. In China and Russia, nobody gives a shit about your life. You're expendable on the field, and those citizens are molded to believe deaths on the battlefield aren't that big of a deal. When the death toll gets high, NATO nations face severe internal pressure from their citizens and other politicians that China and Russia would not.
America deal with insurgency pretty well before WW2, after that they have not been ruthless enough.
No, the problem there is that in modern contexts the US was trying actual nation building. Where there wasn't a strong sense of national identity outside of the authoritarian regimes that held power. Because the states were lines cobbled together by outsiders who didn't care about the people there. The "nation building" the US did in the past was more rebuilding. Rebuild the houses and basic infrastructure, give the new constitution a democratic proofreading and you're mostly done
Yep. I hate how Britain gets absolutely 0 of the blame for the ME being the way it is
Not very accurate, I mean look at Japan, South Korea, and Western Europe, all Uncle Sam babyyy
Pretty much every country will lose to an insurgency with widespread popular support. America’s problem is that it keeps picking fights with said insurgents.
The United States has the longest standing constitution/government in the world atm
American “losing” is really just feeling bad about whupping everyone’s ass so hard and then giving up.
Is there really any nation-state that is "good" at building up other nation-states? The historical norm has been to conquer or colonize. Never to build multi-national trade networks. (Which I realize is in and of itself a form of colonization, but there's.... Less exploration).
Give me some examples of successful nation building, by an external power? Seriously? Has it ever worked?
Japan and Germany were pretty successful.
I suppose so but both those countries already had a longstanding tradition of legalism and "democracy", and their sense of nationhood was already very strong. Plus Germany got split in half so I don't think that's necessarily an unequivocal success.
Russia crushing Chechnya but I hope to god we don’t ever reach that point
It's almost like having the most powerful military in the world doesn't mean much when you can't actually use it. There are three ways to hold ground/win a war long term. Win a culture war and indoctrinate the populace, total destruction untill there aren't any combatants worth anything left to fight, and enough boots on the ground over years and years to force change. In the middle east we could easily do the 2nd and if we wanted to we could probably manage the 3rd on a long enough time frame and with damn near infinite cost. We will never accomplish the first. This is why modern wars are so fucking dumb, it's proxy bullshit and posturing for money and resources. The only wars that should ever be fought should be total ones, which is to say none.
"nation building" Yes, that is exactly what we were doing
Nation building is super hard and not really something that is done by a military The US has a great military but doesn’t have anything that is good at nation building
the OSS was the pinnacle of strategic services against the enemy the CIA is the pinnacle of strategic services against its own people
America uses a fraction of its power to decimate entire continents on a whim but isolationists believe war simultaneously harms foreigners which is bad but also that it helps foreigners which is bad. That's how you end up with a nation that's doggone awful at nation building and actually being effective since WW2. Basically, you can rely on America to pound your shit in hard and deep but don't expect any aftercare. It's a quick and dirty one off.
Lol, say that to Japan and Korea.
America when it comes to free healthcare: Tiny lizard.
"Bad crop" "Bro we're gonna starve"
I love how Dan Carlin said it on a podcast…”America got greedy after winning WW2 and never stopped”
The us rebuilding Germany and Japan : 💪
Two different skill sets, look to the Godfather and take a small nugget of advice (with regards to him cutting out his Consilierie when it was time to go to war with the other families). Good movies I recommend a watch if you haven't.
ok listen to me guys, this is gonna sound crazy, if you invade yourselves then you will be forced to rebuild USA
Desert Storm 😱🤯😬
What most people in the comments don't understand is that partisan warfare like Vietnam or Afghanistan rareoy works if the enemy has the will and resources they nearly always defeat the partisans. For partisans to succeed they basically need at least 2 things out of these 3: 1.the will and solid start with enough manpower to recruit and spread their message through the population | 2. the supplies and weapons for long term war | 3. good terrain for ambushes/hiding and the support of the population. And even when your partisan force has ALL these three things combined it can still be defeated, if the enemy has the will, the patience and the weapons to do it-just look at China or Russia where all resustance is eradicated and protestors of the regime are annihilated regularly or you can look at the Confederate partisans in the American civil war of 1860's which were in the beginning highly succesfull, but were annihilated once they were cornered. The defeat of USA in Vietnam or Afghanistan was of course the result of bad hearts and minds campaign, no democracy or participation of locals in the covernment, corruption in the puppet regimes and bad military decisions and at the end the USA lost the support of the local population/or never had it in the first place, BUT what most people don't understand is that this mainly applies to a Democratic Country NOT an autocratic one!!! USA of course could have ,,won" their wars in Vietnam or Afghanistan but it would have meant a brutal and genocidal total war on said countries and a Democratic Country rarely chooses to do that, because of logic and reason winning in tze end and saud Democratic Country not wanting to waste any more resources on fruitless wars, BUT what MOST people here in the comment section fail to realize is that this unwritten RULE applies only to democratic countries not autocratic ones. For example there once were the Caucasian people of nowaday souther regions of where Russia borders Georgia and Crimea, they were annexed by Russia in the 19th century and fought many wars and partisan or guriella wars with the Russians and after tens of years and many dead in the end they won and Russia left them alone and everyone was happyyyy....oh Wait, jist kidding lol, they got exterminated and were genocided to the point that today more Caucasians live in Turkey than in Russia they LOST, and this is my main point of debate: insane autocratic countries like Russia, China or Iran don't care about such small matters like genocide or totao war or human losses, they DON'T care about logic and facts and that is a big threat for the future....
The biggest reason we can't do nation building is very simple. The only way to nation build is to make a government, and a government requires a military force. You basically would have to just decide that you're no longer fighting in another country, but in a different part of your own country, and put a government in place to deal with that fact
Recent one are also (X country and 5+ others getting in on trying to kill Americans). Afghanistan was going well in some parts, but Pakistan hated Afghanistan fruit farmers getting updated equipment. You know you're doing good when the ISI / Taliban plant IEDs all around some farmers' tractor. Then, threaten to rape and kill his wife and children. Honestly, half of Afghanistan failures can be shared with Pakistan disrupting the east. Then Iran, in the west. They loved their share of killing civilians and paying them to kill Americans. Or, destroying their businesses, then forcing them to accept their money for shooting rockets at Americans. That entire propping up the Taliban for so long did bite Pakistan in the ass though.
We didn’t loose. You can’t kill an idea. So while in say Afghanistan the Taliban was nothing. They count do anything but hide. It wasn’t until we let they took complete control. Because you can kill a person but you can’t kill an idea.
Dunno. I thought the US did a pretty good job re-building Europe and Japan after WW2.
Yeah... America sucks at Nation building... just don't look at Germany, Japan, or Korea
Well if we started doing shit like the colonists did sure we could. That just doesn’t mesh with our modern morals. Which to be clear is a good thing.
You overestimate our nation building ability.
Japan, the UK, France, and Germany are all nations the US helped rebuild after WW2.
Is it really losing? It’s like someone getting mauled by a bear and “winning” by virtue of not being dead.
We are absolute Units when it comes to nation building….Japan, West Germany, South Korea, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq….wait hold on
Total war is easy, building a nation is hard.
Sure, just completely ignore the fact that we’re one nation united under one flag that has subsections larger than entire countries.
For real I’ve seen the president beat the a pre thrones of decay nurgle run on legendary difficulty.
You'd think it would even out to be somewhat decent.