Why is it so hard for the U.S. to win wars?

oggreen

In WW2 thousands of troops could die in a single day and we wouldn't know their names until months or years later. Today a single troop dies and it is the first story on the national news. Millions of civilians also died, just the amount of soldier deaths would be the equivalent of 2-3 September 11s (worldwide) every day for a period of 6 years. So we say "war" but modern conflicts are absolutely nothing compared to what has happened historically. Even though these new "wars" don't seem to have the same definitive results, the alternative could be much, much worse. We're much better off with the bomb critical sites, apply sanctions and political pressure methods vs. the send entire generations off to die methods of old.

testfrequency

They are pretty good in the comment sections online. In the real world, they choose to engage in wars that provide political power for the underlying party in power, without having a clear goal or objective on how the war would benefit the average U.S. person. This becomes more and more apparent as they continue to lose, until it’s viewed as a “success” by an invented exit criteria at the 11th hour.

one33seven

Depends on the war. Venezuela was quickly won.

reactordev

Because US Leadership is inept. Have been since the 50s.

ck2

what an ugly question super easy for US to kill lots of innocent civilians tho just get rid of the agencies responsible for reviewing targets for civilians imagine one person being able to put the entire country into yet another forever war it will be 2029 and this nightmare will still be going down, sucking trillions from our economy while everyone suffers his damn ego now we are taking out civilian bridges and water supplies, Iranians will never forgive us for generations, wait a another decade or two and the idiots here will elect someone even worse btw diesel will hit all time record by the end of this year so even those who really don't care kids are being murdered for no reason might finally take it personally

jmclnx

First the meaning of "war" needs to be defined. FWIW, in the US, only Congress can declare war. IIRC, that really has not happened since Korea. Also since WW2, none of these countries posed a real danger to the US Public, plus people in the US are not invested. Compare what the public in the US had to do in WW2 compared to these "wars". If the life style of the Average US person is affected like in WW2, then you can bet these "wars" would never happen. Just look at what a slight raise in US Gas Prices cause. If gas prices did not go up, people in the US would not care at all what Trump is doing to Iran.

kqr

It's not exactly rocket surgery, is it? Because they are fighting on the other side of the world. I feel like the article glosses over this way too quickly. It's not surprising the US aren't winning. It's surprising they are at all able to do something that resembles waging war at that distance. Wars are incredibly hard to fight away from home. On the other side of the world? There is basically only one country in the history of ever that has been able to do that. The article does go on to discuss the Kuwait case and that's a meaningful discussion to have, because actually winning a war so far away is surprising. It's interesting to dig into why that might have been, and the article briefly does. But why they aren't winning is less interesting. For more meat on how important a factor distance is, Bueno de Mesquita's The War Trap presents one of the most accurate models for predicting wars[1] I know of. That model measures the fighting ability of a country by two factors: 1. It's at-home military power as a sum of population size, metal production, fuel consumption, military expenditure, etc. 2. It's power projection as the distance between its capital and the closest point of enemy land. Note that the second number is weighted equally to the sum of all other factors, because wars are a logistical nightmare. [1]: https://entropicthoughts.com/war-what-is-it-good-for

ReptileMan

Because the military industrial complex is acting like socialist jobs program. If the USA could produce 4000 tomahawks per day, instead of 400 per year the Iran thing would be over. Also USA is very sensitive about the other side's civilian deaths.

tialaramex

To "win" a war you must have specific and measurable goals. If your politicians start a war but cannot articulate such goals, you're going to lose. They'll assure you they will win, but they've already lost. They are bad at their jobs, why did you hire these morons?

expedition32

The question should be "why is it so hard for the US not to start wars". America didn't have to do this. And now they cry that nobody is helping them.

mohamedkoubaa

"You lose 100% of wars you don't wage", Don Gretzky

Oarch

I assumed the point of war these days was largely just money making. "Winning" puts an end to the grift - it's far more profitable to keep a nice long term rolling boil going.

fitsumbelay

... possibly due to the lying bumblefucks who start them. George W Bush was a lying bumblefuck who talked himself into being a war criminal who can't travel to certain countries. Trump is the kind of lying bumblefuck who lets a dependent bumblefuck that Netanyahu is to talk him into the dumbest and most embarrassing military engagement in US history of my lifetime, possibly only next to Grenada npr, btw, is in some sort of decline in news source legitimacy having to resort to these simple-minded click bait headlines ...

fofoz

In general, it seems that superpowers are no longer capable of winning wars against medium-sized powers.

fg137

Is the US expected to win wars? We all know how Vietnam went. Maybe consider that before asking the "why" question? Is Russia expected to win wars? And I would rather see none of these stupid wars start in the first place.

greenoracle9

It depends on what "win" means. The US can win the opening military phase pretty decisively. The part that keeps failing is turning that into a political end state that can survive after the shooting slows down.

francisofascii

The inside traders and people who benefit from a higher oil price are winning.

Planktonne

The US defines its objectives on a large scale (e.g. regime change, or peace in the Middle East), but doesn't then use tactics that can achieve that. What they're doing in Iran, for example, is probably best described as 'raiding'--quick, damaging strikes--but that doesn't lead to the final result they want. It hurts the attacked country, but it doesn't control it.

copper4eva

It's kind of complicated, because a lot of these are kind of political wars. Where the goal of the US is to not simply defeat the enemies, such as in WW2. They want to minimize civilian casualties and cause a regime change. Not always the easiest thing to do. They half succeeded in creating South Korea. They succeeded in Iraq, which I like to always point out because that war is often cited as a "loss" for the US. Mostly because Bush declared it over when it was really just beginning. Really hard to say what will happen with Iran. Everyone online likes to act like military prophets that know the future, but truthfully it's very difficult to predict imo. And what does happen depends probably on how deep the US invests into it. If they start sending troops in to invade, then that obviously changes things.

jimnotgym

I wonder if part of the problem is impatience? Trying to conquer whole countries at the same time? Britain didn't take India in one go. It got concessions to trade from a port, then took over the port. Consolidated its power, then took the the next one. You need a bunch of powerful locals to see how they are better off with you there.