On the other hand how effective is the US military really? Its got a lot of fancy toys but sure did just fall flat on its face despite what should have been overwhelming advantages.
It’s the big difference between grand strategy and tactics. You can win every single battle and still lose a war. Grand strategy comes from the top. If the mad emperor tells his troops to make war on the sea, is it really on the troops when they lose?
“War is a continuation of policy”, so what happens when there is no policy? What would “winning” even have looked like?
I mean do you think that every person on all the weapons of war really wanted to win against Iran or were they just showing up for a paycheck because they didn’t really believe in their orders. Like doing just enough to not get fired and everyone collectively being like yup we know it’s bullshit and stupid but let’s kill some kids I guess, I mean the computer told us to so it’s not like we can get fired over it
That’s possible but I don’t see the US army being super jazzed about going full imperialism either, maybe Cuba and Mexico might be initially tolerable but the latter is liable to turn into a horrific meat grinder which the population (rightfully) has never taken well in the United States. Every other option is either culturally a US ally or very far away which is a problem because US logistics are nowhere near as overhwelming without international support, or both.
On the other hand how effective is the US military really? Its got a lot of fancy toys but sure did just fall flat on its face despite what should have been overwhelming advantages.
It’s the big difference between grand strategy and tactics. You can win every single battle and still lose a war. Grand strategy comes from the top. If the mad emperor tells his troops to make war on the sea, is it really on the troops when they lose?
“War is a continuation of policy”, so what happens when there is no policy? What would “winning” even have looked like?
I mean do you think that every person on all the weapons of war really wanted to win against Iran or were they just showing up for a paycheck because they didn’t really believe in their orders. Like doing just enough to not get fired and everyone collectively being like yup we know it’s bullshit and stupid but let’s kill some kids I guess, I mean the computer told us to so it’s not like we can get fired over it
That’s possible but I don’t see the US army being super jazzed about going full imperialism either, maybe Cuba and Mexico might be initially tolerable but the latter is liable to turn into a horrific meat grinder which the population (rightfully) has never taken well in the United States. Every other option is either culturally a US ally or very far away which is a problem because US logistics are nowhere near as overhwelming without international support, or both.