I'm beginning to think wars are unwinnable

[Grandpa Troll]

Victories are measured differently by various view points.

Some would call a victory just being able to leave a situation behind, while some would view as a disaster or failure.

I would say no one "wins" when one looks at the overall cost of a campaign/battle/conflict/war.

Perhaps a country could consider itself liberated from oppressors but then realize what a daunting task it is to rebuild and then sustain oneself from being over run by yet another aggressor.

Tough questions to answer, no real cookie cutter responses fit well here.

Gramps

[Blake]

The only way to really win is to suppress the existing culture and import your own.

Look at how it was done in the past, like with the extermination of Gaelic/Celtic culture from much of the world...

But this is going to be hard today, because culture can flow much more freely. Then again this also makes cultural assimilation without warfare much more powerful...

[Kidlicious]

War is not meant to be won.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Kidicious
War is not meant to be won.

What does that even mean?

[Dis]

means nothing, but it sounds cool.

but if you are going to say something as outlandish as that, you need to follow up what the purpose of war really is.

As wars are large scale versions of gang fights, and I know of no gang that wants to lose. Their objective is to win to prove themselves superior in some way. You could possibly argue that they are sadists and just want to hurt and/or kill people and don't really care if they win. But that's a weak argument.

[BeBMan]

I think some wars can be won, and some can't. "Classic" state/state wars a la WWII can be won militarily. But these are usually not the wars we experience anymore (well, rarely). Still people think rather in those categories when talking about war.

The entire insurgency/asymetric warfare (or however you want to call it) stuff is totally different, and as we see there, military win alone is not enough for success.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Wycoff


What does that even mean?

KBR Inc./Halliburton has received over $17 billion from the war.

"Mission Accomplished"

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Wycoff
What does that even mean?

That Kid often tries too hard to seem poignant.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Shrapnel12
The only problem is, the Arabs are the ones who invaded first. The Jews just beat them back and then took the land.

But the Jews took it from the Canaanites. Obviously both sides should get off that land pronto.

[Barnabas]

That is not something sure, there are no proofs of hebrews emigrating from egypt into canaan, many people now think hebrews were cannaanites themselves.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Darius871


That Kid often tries too hard to seem poignant.

A six word sentence is trying too hard?

[Darius871]

Nah, just the way you say it with your eyes closed.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Darius871
Nah, just the way you say it with your eyes closed.

They're only squinted.

[Shrapnel12]

Originally posted by Darius871


But the Jews took it from the Canaanites. Obviously both sides should get off that land pronto.

If only it were that simple. I agree with the concept that both sides need to sacrifice though.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Wycoff
Longterm colonial occupations by democratic western nations over peoples who don't want them there are, on the other hand, unwinnable in the modern era. Look at the past 60 years. The only way to keep control over a large group of people who don't want you there is to act truculently, and western societies don't want to do that. That's a big reason why the colonial empires fell apart.

We could pacify Iraq if we truly wanted to. All it would take is for us to act like Nazis. We could annex Iraq and massacre millions upon millions of Iraqis, stopping only when the remaining population is too terrified and small to retaliate. That approach, though, would go against everything that we stand for, and is a completely unacceptable option.

So you're seriously suggesting the US couldn't use non-brutal methods to turn Tonga into a permanent colonial possession if it wanted to?