When was the last time the US "won" a war?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

Is "winning" still a goal?

Do we just start a war to 'postpone hard decisions about cutting defense spending such as closing surplus bases, cutting duplicate systems, and focusing on waste'?

'We can’t absorb many casualties, so to minimize them we bomb and obliterate whole villages and towns (think Fallujah), creating a constant supply of new enemies.'

[dhol82]

1. Going out on a limb and say WWII.

Everything since then has been a clusterfuck.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

4. True

[RKP5637]

11. And a profitable clusterfuck for the MIC! n/t

[dhol82]

13. Totally!

Eisenhower warned us. Sadly, we were too young to actually make a difference for a long while.
I marched in the late 60's. Will look forward to marching January 21!
This fuck wad is a boil on the ass of humanity!

[RKP5637]

16. Yeah, it feels like the 60's again, we will have to take to the streets. This guy

and his cohorts/regime are far worst IMO than we had to deal with back then. My hope is public opinion will turn very badly against him as more finally realize what an ass they voted into the WH.

[dhol82]

20. I just worry that with the republicans controlling all three branches we are truly fucked.

At least in the past there were work arounds. Now, we got shit.

Marching is one thing, control of the government is another.

[RKP5637]

36. The avenues to get the government back under control are closing. We've not lived through

anything close to this in the US as far s I know.

[Hortensis]

33. First Gulf War. Problem for some was not nearly enough blood

was shed and we didn't make them kneel and kiss our sword, then sack their country, steal all their oil, and leave them in ruins. I'm not saying that last was a problem for all Republicans, though, because that carefully limited war, which achieved its big goals and then was cancelled, was under Republican Bush I, who put together a coalition of over 100 nations, including unofficially Russia and China.

That was the very opposite of a clusterfuck, which no doubt most would agree with if living in Kuwait. Thanks to that rescue-war, Kuwait today, for a Middle East Muslim nation, is still relatively open politically and healthy economically, though of course endangered by the many tremendous threats to the region.

[malaise]

2. Grenada 1983? n/t

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

5. Yes, but we didn't start that one...

...for once.

[HassleCat]

51. We were lucky

The cowardly surprise attack by Granada was heroically repelled by the heroes of our heroic armed forces, and we heroically counter attacked with our heroic weapons and heroic resolve.

[ManiacJoe]

3. You would first need to define a "war".

How small of a conflict are you willing to drop down to for judging purposes?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

9. Obviously the bigger the conflict, the more of a war it is.

With the obvious limitation explain by Denzel in Crimson Tide: "In my humble opinion, in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself."

IMHO, if force below regiment size is deployed, it's not even close to being a war.

[liberal N proud]

6. WW-II

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

34. But now...

...we have Homeland telling us we're under constant danger from foreign terrorists with a grudge. While that plays out, the CIA and some of our weak leaders work to create more foreign terrorists.

Some of us work for government contractors and benefit from building military supplies, munitions and selling services to the DoD. Some of us have chosen military careers which is a good thing but our civilian leaders make policies that hitch those careers to never-ending wars.

'We could win if we followed advice from Sun Tzu and learned from history and from the advice of our founding fathers. But we don’t really want to win; too many Americans benefit from unending wars.'

[liberal N proud]

38. Fear used as a tool to build support for expansion of a military industrial complex

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

40. Intelligence agencies should be limited to providing intelligence...

...and restricted from determining strategy or diplomacy.

[benld74]

7. WWII

[muntrv]

8. WWII.

[RKP5637]

10. There are huge MIC profits with these endless wars, and then all of the people employed

by the war machine. Many want them to never stop. It's just gullible Americans that see pride in our endless wars for profit.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

35. It's grown far beyond the MIC

[Bleacher Creature]

12. The War on Intelligence??

Successfully defeated the enemy 11/8/2016.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

37. "Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority...

...It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." - Daniel Webster

[doc03]

14. I would have to argue as far as "Winning" Russia contributed more to

winning than anyone. Russia lost far more lives just defending St. Petersburg than we did in the entire war.

[ProfessorGAC]

45. Well, We Would Disagree, Doc

That sacrifice notwithstanding, the turning point of the war was 75 years ago today when a country that actually had the industrial power to fight a 2 front war got attacked and then turning point 2 was when Hitler stupidly declared war on the US, when the US had not declared war on Germany.

Once the US got involved full time, the end was inevitable.

[dhol82]

52. Would we have 'won' the war if Germany had conquered England and Russia?

We needed some allies to provide assistance.

By the way, Russia lost 25 million people in the war.

[cemaphonic]

57. Safe to say, WWII was a group (Allied, you might say) effort.

Russia broke the back of the Wehrmacht for sure, but without the huge US effort to retake Western Europe, the Nazis probably could have managed an unsteady peace that would have left them in control of much of Central and Eastern Europe. And earlier in the war, the British in Africa, and the steady attrition by partisans in the Balkans and Greece gave Russia some much needed breathing room to survive and eventually push back.

And the US did the heavy lifting in the Pacific.

[doc03]

60. We never invaded Normandy unitl June 6th 1944 10 months before Germany surenderd. The USSR had lost

close to 30 million lives and the had Germans in a full retreat by then. Of course we supplied everyone with weapons. As far as human
sacrifice we lost less lives than any the alies in Europe.

[BSdetect]

15. The RW still claims we won Vietnam except for the media costing us victory

Won the battles they say just not the result

[ManiacJoe]

24. It is all about the definition of "win".

The politicians did not allow for a military win, which would have left nothing but stones and mud in what was North and South Viet Nam.

If I remember correctly -- not a safe bet -- things were fairly stable when the US pulled out. But that stability did not last long.

[pinboy3niner]

32. "We were winning when I left."

A common expression among VN vets, always used comically, not politically, and often directed especially at someone who did a later tour.

When meeting a vet whose tour was earlier than yours, the common joke is "So you're the one who made them mad at us."

VN vet humor.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

39. "Sounds like a personal problem to me"

[Bucky]

55. So does Howard Zinn.

His view is that the US had a critical interest in making sure that there wasn't a thriving socialist economy in Vietnam. So although our forces were driven out in '73 and '75, we pretty much achieved our goal by bombing them to smithereens before leaving.

[sarisataka]

17. Define win

Without specific war aims, you cannot determine if you have won

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

41. Without a specific aim should we be fighting at all? n/t

[sarisataka]

61. A war without an aim

Or without an achievable goal is a failure of leadership.

Unfortunately it is easier to start a pointless war than end one. Once started wars tend to have their own momentum

[BeyondGeography]

18. Persian Gulf

[Skinner]

19. First Gulf War

At the time everyone criticized the decision not to go all the way to Baghdad. Doesn't look like such a bad decision now.

(Yes, I was against the first Gulf War.)

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

42. We sided with our allies against Saddam

The immediately preceding dispute between Iraq and Kuwait was over Iraq seeking $10 billion from Kuwait and Kuwait offering $9 billion. After that Saddam attacked. We retaliated. We spent a net of over $9 billion fighting the war.

Perhaps it would have been easier to write a check?

[Skinner]

43. Your question was when was the last time the US won a war.

Whether or not we could have avoided the war by writing a check, or whether the war was worth fighting at all is irrelevant. We fought the war, we achieved our primary objective, we declared victory, we stopped fighting the war. So yes we "won."

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

47. Agreed, the primary objective was achieved

I wanted to use the idea of "winning" to highlight how seldom we actually achieve stated objectives and to further question whether those objectives are even valid.

We tend to too quick to fight, IMO.
We also don't belong in the middle of some of the conflicts we butt into.

[onecaliberal]

21. WWII

[MFM008]

22. My brothers x girlfriend

Asked which came first.
WWI
Or
WWII.
Yeah.... 12 years of that.....

[jaysunb]

23. Greneda n/t

[ManiacJoe]

25. Another vote for the Gulf War 1991.

For reasonable definitions of war and win.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

63. I'll agree we didn't lose other than lives and money

We accomplished the objectives.

[ManiacJoe]

64. Is that not the normal definition of "win"?

Last edited Thu Dec 8, 2016, 12:49 AM - Edit history (1)

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

67. Sure, I'm just not impressed by a "win" which included deaths...

...on both sides, that could have been avoided by writing a check. So, yes it was a win; that's true. It was just another war that shouldn't have been fought at all.

Why is the US never so effective at the table but always first in line to begin killing?

I do get it. Saddam was an evil bastard who never should have been in power. OTOH the decision to fight that war led the area into conflicts that still exist and is part of why we have ISIS today.

[ManiacJoe]

68. There is no doubt that many things were mishandled,

to say the least.
However, that was not the question you asked.

[Ready4Change]

26. We've won several. It's winning the following Peace we suck at.

.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

50. IMHO, it's not starting them we really suck at.

As Joshua said, "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

[Lotusflower70]

27. Winning a war

I am of the mindset that no one really wins at war. In my lifetime, war has been more about profit than anything else. Although the politicians try to sell us on the idea that it's about something noble but that's bs. For the politicians that profit from war, I guess it's a win. For the rest of us, not so much.

A war that isn't a war, the war on drugs is an epic failure. No one is winning that. Except maybe prisons.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

49. War on drugs isn't even a 'war'

It's mostly a culture war and a big waste.

[Lotusflower70]

59. I agree

I just used it as an example of how the word war can be manipulated for other things.

You bring up culture war, that's another example of how different the word can be used. There is also the war on women.

[Shemp Howard]

28. The last time we won a war...

...was the last time Congress actually declared war (1941). And that's not a coincidence, in my opinion.

Presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, love to start wars, wars they don't know how to end. But Congress is different. They will declare war only when it's absolutely necessary.

Presidents get around that by asking Congress for "authorizations" instead. Wink, wink. It's a scandal how Congress so easily gives it to them.

On edit: Unlike others here, I don't see Gulf War 1 as a won war. That war ended not in a victory, but as some sort of truce, with Saddam still in power.

[Efilroft Sul]

66. Thank Dawg someone finally mentioned the actual Constitutional declaration of war.

Totally agree with your edit, too, while everyone pulls their puds on defining victory conditions for Iraqnam.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

69. Congress did finally designate Vietnam as a 'limited conventional' war

[workinclasszero]

29. WW2

Its been a while.

[Rincewind]

30. November 8,2016

We won the war on decency.

[Bucky]

54. damn you

for being right.

[Are_grits_groceries]

31. Never.

You don't 'win' wars. You just survive them in better shape.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

48. That's a rather valid way to look at it

"Winning" where an actual surrender takes place usually follows many deaths and cultural sacrifices.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

44. Viewed on entirely its own, I'd say the Gulf War.

However, you could argue that was merely the first battle in the US-Iraq war that flared up again in our 2003 invasion and hasn't really worked out as we hoped it would.

Other than minor operations (Grenada, Panama, Bosnia), I'd probably say World War II.

[Bucky]

53. Clinton won the Kosovo campaign pretty decisively. Didn't lose a single troop.

[cemaphonic]

56. By the traditional definition, we won the Iraq War handily.

We completely eliminated the Iraqi military's ability to resist, and forced the government to capitulate. Very successful war, by historical standards.

The postwar occupation was a disastrous mess, obviously, but there are plenty of examples of that. And even some of the more successful postwar occupations (post WWII Germany) were a lot more difficult and chaotic at the time than they look decades or centuries later. Just goes to show that war is not a one-size-fits-all foreign policy tool, even if you have the biggest guns on the block.

[krispos42]

65. Good point.

It's the last time we removed a nation's government through force of arms.

Afghanistan? Sorta.

Desert Storm? Nope.
Kosovo? Nope.
Vietnam? Nope.
Korea? Nope.
World War II? Yup.

[McCamy Taylor]

58. We won the Civil War.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

62. The "we" you refer to evolved from those who fought...

...on both sides and lost many friends and family members. The union survived.