Why can't the USA win a war w/o using an Atomic bomb?

[peonyu]

Originally posted by: Amused
WWII was the last true "total war."

Limited wars cannot be won.

And we won in Europe without an atom bomb, dumbass.

Russia won the war against Germany. The US came in after Germany's back was already broken and being rapidly pushed to Berlin [5-6 million Russian and German soldiers dead combined, by the time we landed in Normandy].

I wouldnt call that the US's victory, even if our media likes to make it appear that way and downplay the Russian side of it. The Russians did 80% of the real work against Nazi germany and would have won without our help.

Japan...we won that. No doubt. A bomb used tho..

 

[bfdd]

peonyu, but the a bomb didn't have to be used to win that war. there were other options.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: bfdd
peonyu, but the a bomb didn't have to be used to win that war. there were other options.

The bomb was the option against what was felt would have been wasted lived on both sides.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: peonyu

Originally posted by: Amused
WWII was the last true "total war."

Limited wars cannot be won.

And we won in Europe without an atom bomb, dumbass.

Russia won the war against Germany. The US came in after Germany's back was already broken and being rapidly pushed to Berlin [5-6 million Russian and German soldiers dead combined, by the time we landed in Normandy].

I wouldnt call that the US's victory, even if our media likes to make it appear that way and downplay the Russian side of it. The Russians did 80% of the real work against Nazi germany and would have won without our help.

Japan...we won that. No doubt. A bomb used tho..

Much of what Russia used to start the rebuilding and rearming was based on US lend-lease equipment. Had those supplies not arrived; Russia would have taken 2-3 years longer to recover and start an Eastern Front.

And you also had the African front that the Western Allies were involved with.
The US was working with 3 fronts; England 2, Germany 2 and Russia only one.

 

[PingSpike]

Because we don't want to win wars. We want to go into other people's countries, blow up half their shit, kill a subset of their population, occupy their nation and change their government...and this last part is the most important, ALL while being hailed as saviors by all who live there. Well, I also want a pony.

 

[lupi]

America wins any war it wants to win.

 

[rudder]

I won't get into a definition of winning as to spark another debate especially about 'Nam... but what good would a nuke do? What good would is it be to get rid of the taliban in afghanistan... but have the place so radioactive that they population would have to live in the U.S. until the radioactivity died down.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: peonyu

Originally posted by: Amused
WWII was the last true "total war."

Limited wars cannot be won.

And we won in Europe without an atom bomb, dumbass.

Russia won the war against Germany. The US came in after Germany's back was already broken and being rapidly pushed to Berlin [5-6 million Russian and German soldiers dead combined, by the time we landed in Normandy].

I wouldnt call that the US's victory, even if our media likes to make it appear that way and downplay the Russian side of it. The Russians did 80% of the real work against Nazi germany and would have won without our help.

Japan...we won that. No doubt. A bomb used tho..

Wow no. US supplies were critical to the war effort in Russia, particularly the tens of thousand of trucks that were sent over there to move supplies to the front.

Secondly, it wasn't a foregone conclusion that Russia could have actually won the war without an Allied invasion in France. When you look at what was actually happening on the ground, the Russians were losing men and tanks at such an incredible rate that both sides looked like they were headed towards a stalemate.

Even after Kursk, Germany was still sustaining 9 to 1 kill ratios on infantry and 5 to 1 kill ratios on armor... that's AFTER their most elite units were smashed.

Russia certainly bore the brunt of German aggression, but I think it's revisionist to say that Russia could have or would have won without US and Allied support.

 

[santz]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: Amused
WWII was the last true "total war."

Limited wars cannot be won.

That's a good point.

I agree, i have been thinking the same thing since years. its just not possible. the bad guys would just use human shields and make things worse.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01

Originally posted by: loki8481
what's the point of being the most powerful country in the history of the world if we can't use our military to project and protect our national interests?

I dunno, maybe because we are better then that? Maybe our interests should be whats in our borders? Maybe we should stop killing people for resources? Maybe we should stop killing people for profits?

No, we are not. When the chaff get separated, we throw our weight around whenever it suits us. And when push comes to shove, most Americans are OK with it.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
When we nuked Dresden it was just to retaliate for the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor.

Germans?

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Xellos2099
We could have easily won some of the past war, like Vietnam and Korea. However, due to the US policy of trying to have peace talk with them over and over again, we end up losing since US was afraid to take the victory. Some people just don't understand, either you win or you lose. Nothing nice ever happen whenever there is so call peace talk. Remember World War II? Eureope try to have peace talk with Germany and offer Poland to Germany, guess what happen?

A true peace talk can only happen when both side are sick and tire of war and all the death. We have seen in many time in human history that most peace talk are attempt to buy times to rest and recoup and then continue fighting. Why should a winning nation offer peace talk?

Youre somewhat correct. Arafat did this. After decades of violence, he came to the table and put down his (their) weapons. Its a rare occurrence though.

 

[OCGuy]

OP needs to do some research.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
When we nuked Dresden it was just to retaliate for the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor.

Germans?

:laugh:

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: bfdd

Originally posted by: loki8481
because we care about collateral damage?

I suspect that we could easily win any war we wanted to without using nuclear weapons by carpet bombing the country of choice into the stone age but don't.

^ this. Wars previously never really gave a flying fuck about collateral damage. Now we have to fight "nice" wars. Really things would be easier if we could just go in and blow everything up, but people are babies and would throw a fit if that happened so it costs us a lot more in man power and money to fight a war without trying to hurt "innocents." I'm not saying innocent people should suffer, but war is supposed to be disgustingly ugly.

This is more or less correct. These "wars" are being fought more like police actions and not as desperate campaigns where the nation's survival is at stake (and damned innocent bystanders in the enemy's country). If we really wanted to we could use neutron bombs and tactical nukes to clean out Afghanistan, and perhaps it will eventually come to that if the Taliban take over and it becomes a base for terrorists again. Also, even when nations have "won" the war, there can still be an underground that is hard to snuff out, such as the French Resistance fighting the Nazis. after the Nazis had "won" the war and fully occupied France.

The U.S. could have won the Vietnam War and the Korean War too if it hadn't been concerned about inciting a war with the Soviets and Chinese and if it didn't care about collateral damage.

 

[TheSkinsFan]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
When we nuked Dresden it was just to retaliate for the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor.

Germans?

Dresden?

I'm guessing you didn't get his joke.

 

[Modelworks]

How do you win a war where the enemy is not a centralized government ? I think many have the wrong idea about Afghanistan . It is not a war where the Taliban have set up a command structure and we just need to fight our way through the lines and take them out. Instead Afghanistan is Taliban, kidnappers, rogue terror cells, drug dealers. Before you can even attack an area you have to know who to attack . Walk into a village and people might appear normal, you might even start talking with some of them and they appear friendly. Then when your back is turned they shoot you because in his home the guy was hiding opium for the local drug lord. A friend who is there now on the front lines compared it to throwing 5 cops in a prison with 2000 prisoners and telling them, clean the place up. They could interrogate people one by one and sort out a couple hundred, but the second they take their eyes off those couple hundred they get back in with the rest of the population and you are right back where you started. That is why so many troops are needed. If you leave any one area for too long chances are it will again become corrupted.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
When we nuked Dresden it was just to retaliate for the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor.

Germans?

"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8lT1o0sDwI
(longer version) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q47bpOCTcaY

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
How do you win a war where the enemy is not a centralized government ? I think many have the wrong idea about Afghanistan . It is not a war where the Taliban have set up a command structure and we just need to fight our way through the lines and take them out. Instead Afghanistan is Taliban, kidnappers, rogue terror cells, drug dealers. Before you can even attack an area you have to know who to attack . Walk into a village and people might appear normal, you might even start talking with some of them and they appear friendly. Then when your back is turned they shoot you because in his home the guy was hiding opium for the local drug lord. A friend who is there now on the front lines compared it to throwing 5 cops in a prison with 2000 prisoners and telling them, clean the place up. They could interrogate people one by one and sort out a couple hundred, but the second they take their eyes off those couple hundred they get back in with the rest of the population and you are right back where you started. That is why so many troops are needed. If you leave any one area for too long chances are it will again become corrupted.

It sounds like the only way to win the war is--kill everyone.

 

[rudder]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
How do you win a war where the enemy is not a centralized government ? I think many have the wrong idea about Afghanistan . It is not a war where the Taliban have set up a command structure and we just need to fight our way through the lines and take them out. Instead Afghanistan is Taliban, kidnappers, rogue terror cells, drug dealers. Before you can even attack an area you have to know who to attack . Walk into a village and people might appear normal, you might even start talking with some of them and they appear friendly. Then when your back is turned they shoot you because in his home the guy was hiding opium for the local drug lord. A friend who is there now on the front lines compared it to throwing 5 cops in a prison with 2000 prisoners and telling them, clean the place up. They could interrogate people one by one and sort out a couple hundred, but the second they take their eyes off those couple hundred they get back in with the rest of the population and you are right back where you started. That is why so many troops are needed. If you leave any one area for too long chances are it will again become corrupted.

Same reason Iraq dissolved into chaos. The joint chiefs wanted 300,000 troops, but Dubya's skilled team of people including Rumsfield said they will do the job with 150,000 troops. and bright eyed Bremer said it would be no problem to dissolve the Iraqi army given that there are enough troops to get the job done.

Afghanistan is and always will be run by warlords. I say keep a ship in the Indian ocean with a shitload of tomahawks if al qaeda gets out of hand and get the heck out of dodge. The population is showing no inkling of being interested in building their own country and we cannot babysit Afghanistan forever.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy

Originally posted by: peonyu

Originally posted by: Amused
WWII was the last true "total war."

Limited wars cannot be won.

And we won in Europe without an atom bomb, dumbass.

Russia won the war against Germany. The US came in after Germany's back was already broken and being rapidly pushed to Berlin [5-6 million Russian and German soldiers dead combined, by the time we landed in Normandy].

I wouldnt call that the US's victory, even if our media likes to make it appear that way and downplay the Russian side of it. The Russians did 80% of the real work against Nazi germany and would have won without our help.

Japan...we won that. No doubt. A bomb used tho..

Much of what Russia used to start the rebuilding and rearming was based on US lend-lease equipment. Had those supplies not arrived; Russia would have taken 2-3 years longer to recover and start an Eastern Front.

And you also had the African front that the Western Allies were involved with.
The US was working with 3 fronts; England 2, Germany 2 and Russia only one.

a key point here - you guys are talking entire countries at war. We aren't fighting a traditional war in afghanistan and iraq - we're fighting a relatively dispersed group with no affiliation to one specific country, no traditional government, etc. If that were the case, we would have won the second we rolled into Baghdad (sp?) and Kabul.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: piasabird
We did not win the war in Korea. I have been to the DMZ and north korea was never conquered. We were gutless and settled for a standoff. Probably too many liberals in charge.

First the russian backed north koreans kicked our ass, then the Chinese north koreans kicked our ass. We were too chicken to escalate the war, and they were better equiped (at first). Their supply lines were too close the the war zone and we had to ship supplies all the way from the USA. At that time we had the advantage and we should have nuked all of china and USSR.

We dont have the neutron bomb, because we never made any. (Official Story)

I don't call acquiescing in the face of a war with China gutless.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: rudder

Originally posted by: Modelworks
How do you win a war where the enemy is not a centralized government ? I think many have the wrong idea about Afghanistan . It is not a war where the Taliban have set up a command structure and we just need to fight our way through the lines and take them out. Instead Afghanistan is Taliban, kidnappers, rogue terror cells, drug dealers. Before you can even attack an area you have to know who to attack . Walk into a village and people might appear normal, you might even start talking with some of them and they appear friendly. Then when your back is turned they shoot you because in his home the guy was hiding opium for the local drug lord. A friend who is there now on the front lines compared it to throwing 5 cops in a prison with 2000 prisoners and telling them, clean the place up. They could interrogate people one by one and sort out a couple hundred, but the second they take their eyes off those couple hundred they get back in with the rest of the population and you are right back where you started. That is why so many troops are needed. If you leave any one area for too long chances are it will again become corrupted.

Same reason Iraq dissolved into chaos. The joint chiefs wanted 300,000 troops, but Dubya's skilled team of people including Rumsfield said they will do the job with 150,000 troops. and bright eyed Bremer said it would be no problem to dissolve the Iraqi army given that there are enough troops to get the job done.

Afghanistan is and always will be run by warlords. I say keep a ship in the Indian ocean with a shitload of tomahawks if al qaeda gets out of hand and get the heck out of dodge. The population is showing no inkling of being interested in building their own country and we cannot babysit Afghanistan forever.

I think the democrats' justifiable hatred of Bush is more justifiably leveled at Rumsfeld. He is the moron on whose feet we can lay the deaths of the Americans and Iraqis who died because we would not commit adequately to the cause.

If you decide to go to war, half-assing it will kill more and take longer. It's worse than no-assing it.

 

[TheSkinsFan]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
When we nuked Dresden it was just to retaliate for the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor.

Germans?

"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8lT1o0sDwI
(longer version) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q47bpOCTcaY

one of the best...movies... EVER!