I just went back and read what I wrote in #msg-1216229
I was fairly happy with the post at the time, but I now realize I used a poor word choice when I said the US had lost every BATTLE since WW2.
That is obviously, completely, not true - and even I would have known that.
What I should have said, what I meant to say, was "THE US HAS LOST EVERY WAR SINCE WW2." Even that would have left out Desert Storm, of course, but I think my main generalization still stands.
If you look at the full essay, and especially the final paragraphs, you can hopefully get a better idea of the points I was actually trying to make:
-IN THE LONG RUN (which I did say) "Tech" is not the most important determinate of who who wins the WAR.
-If one side has a critical mass of citizenry which would prefer to die than to lose, and the other does not, the WAR will almost always go to the side which feels it has more to lose -- and is willing to fight to the death of the last citizen - women and children included.
-WW2 was the last war I can think of where the US population, on average, felt a clear MORAL/EXISTENTIAL requirement that it win at any personal cost. Our engagement in that war, laid the groundwork for incredible post-war prosperity, by the way. Which is why it was a clear net win, on the whole (in spite of the tremendous costs paid).
-Vietnam and Afghanistan were lost by the US, before the beginning, for this reason: to the average US citizen this was merely a news story and an irritation.
There was no moral imperative, felt by the average American ensconced in ConsumerLand, to fight to the death. There was not really much desire by those who were FORCED to go to Vietnam to fight to the death. For the North Vietnamese, on the other hand, this was a heartfelt multigenerational fight to the death against foreign oppressors. I didn't give a crap about "communism". I had never been to Vietnam. There was no concern, whatsoever, that if we didn't win in Vietnam, the Vietnamese were going to come to the US and kill us all.
-You can win every battle and still lose the war. If there is LOOT, and you manage to take it out, the retreating side might feel that the death of X soldiers was worth the booty...that you might have lost a lot of Useless Eaters, but you made out like a bandit.
-Every "war" since WW2 (except, arguably Desert Storm) has been fought for no sufficiently good reason: not even economic. Specifically, NO profit AND NO existential threat felt by the critical mass of citizen-consumers in the US, makes for a loss. How could we "win", in the long run, excepting genocide (which is how we won against our native American indians)?
-Further, unless you capture massive booty by fighting the war, the more wars you fight, the more you lose economically. Lose enough, by "winning" enough non-profitable wars, and you go bankrupt. This ultimately takes down most empires. The US is doomed for this reason alone.
And, in the long run, if the oppressor of the war wins all the battles, and through winning all the battles goes bankrupt morally and financially, haven't they LOST the real war?
Anyway, that was the message I was trying to get across. Obviously, I am not a great writer. Hopefully this has clarified my argument a little (and not muddied the water further).
One final point:
Russia, IMO, has already won WW3 against the United States. It doesn't matter how long it needs to hang on until then. The more the US commits to this boondoogle, the weaker it becomes.
Enough Russians have enough reason to feel this is a fight to the death; that their backs are against the wall.
I want to tell you something you may not know about Russia: In World War 2, Hitler sieged St. Petersburg, thinking to starve the citizens until they surrendered. The citizens took to eating rats, and the glue from book bindings, in order to hold out. They won. I've met Russians, still alive, who lived through that.
Think about that. The US is a paper tiger and both economically and MORALLY bankrupt. You may feel bad about that, I feel bad about it, too. But that is where we are. We are hollowed out – in almost every sense – from within. Maybe if we just collapsed as gracefully as the USSR did, we could get back to rebuilding our Republic?
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