Did America lose any battles?

[Watchmen]

Can I just ask you if Jesus set this example? Who exercised more tyranny than Rome? Did Jesus tell his disciples to combat the Romans in any way?

On the contrary, he lived up to his words....."You heard that it was said: ‘You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 However, I say to you: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may prove yourselves sons of your Father who is in the heavens, since he makes his sun rise on both the wicked and the good and makes it rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those loving you, what reward do you have? Are not also the tax collectors doing the same thing? 47 And if you greet your brothers only, what extraordinary thing are you doing? Are not also the people of the nations doing the same thing?" (Matthew 5:43-47)

How can you love your enemies if you are shooting at them?

Does God figure in your worldview? He has already told us about the march of world powers in Daniel 2:31-45. We have never had to take matters into our own hands. The victories were already foretold. Starting with Babylon > Medo-Persia > Greece > Rome > Britain > Anglo-America. World powers end with those we have at present.



Jesus was not a pacifist, but he never once advocated taking matters into our own hands with violence. He told us to be no part of this world because it is ruled by God's enemy (1 John 5:19) The world will function without our political participation or interference, and it will come all the way to its end just as the Bible foretells. We don't have to disobey the Christ to be a good citizen of our nation.

That is what I believe.

Did Jesus cleanse the temple?

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Pretty much. In translation, the US objective was to defend the South, rather than to conquer the North. Now, the general staffs of about 11 nations -- including Britain, Germany, Israel, and even Brazil (if I recall now) -- more or less came up with the same plan to achieve the goal of defending the South. The US refused to adopt that plan for political reasons.

Hmm...i have a book at home you'd enjoy, I think. It literally goes day by day from the end of world war 2 to the unification of Vietnam.

It doesn't offer much analysis or comment, but tries to just present what occurred on each day. Obviously hard to be 100% unbiased though.

The world's powers (not just the US) don't cover themselves in glory.
It made me feel quite sorry for the Vietnamese people (regardless of their politics or placement in the country).

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Not according to the general staffs of about 11 nations. According to them, there was a way we could have defended the South without occupying the North.

The concern at the time was that occupying the North would trigger the Chinese Army to cross the border and attack the occupying troops -- just as the Chinese did in Korea when the allies occupied North Korea. No one wanted that to happen. So occupying the North was off the table in Viet Nam.

Exactly.
The Chinese/Soviet relationship dynamics at the time made the whole area even more unstable.

 

[74x12]

A “thousand or more”? In battle?

The Tet Offensive.

America won the Tet Offensive and inflicted massive casualties on the VietCong. But lost the PR battle back home.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

The ironic thing about Vietnam, is after the Communists took over Vietnam, the Communist Chinese (their allies) started a war with Vietnam where they invdaded the North.

Not so ironic, but I get what you mean.
Sino-Russian relationship was increasingly strained through this period.
Vietnam, increasingly, didn't want to bietname a puppet state in that larger play.
It was a hard road for Vietnamese independence from larger powers.

French, Japanese (then French again), US...not like China really cared about Vietnamese autonomy. They were Allies of convenience.

Of course, Vietnam then (arguably) wanted pre-eminence in Indo-China, forcing a treaty on Laos, and clashing with Cambodia (a flashpoint for the Chinese conflict)

Cambodia actually instigated the agression, (despite being communist...or insane...) as they thought it was inevitable that Vietnam would at least pressure them.

 

[Curious George]

Not according to the general staffs of about 11 nations. According to them, there was a way we could have defended the South without occupying the North.

The concern at the time was that occupying the North would trigger the Chinese Army to cross the border and attack the occupying troops -- just as the Chinese did in Korea when the allies occupied North Korea. No one wanted that to happen. So occupying the North was off the table in Viet Nam.

Where battles were also lost.

 

[Curious George]

The ironic thing about Vietnam, is after the Communists took over Vietnam, the Communist Chinese (their allies) started a war with Vietnam where they invaded the North.

That is because the Vietnamese were also in bed with the Russians and helped invade Laos after beating the U.S.

 

[Curious George]

Not so ironic, but I get what you mean.
Sino-Russian relationship was increasingly strained through this period.
Vietnam, increasingly, didn't want to bietname a puppet state in that larger play.
It was a hard road for Vietnamese independence from larger powers.

French, Japanese (then French again), US...not like China really cared about Vietnamese autonomy. They were Allies of convenience.

Of course, Vietnam then (arguably) wanted pre-eminence in Indo-China, forcing a treaty on Laos, and clashing with Cambodia (a flashpoint for the Chinese conflict)

Cambodia actually instigated the agression, (despite being communist...or insane...) as they thought it was inevitable that Vietnam would at least pressure them.

Given the plight of Hmong people of Laos, the killing fields in Cambodia, and the poverty of Myanmar, the wars in Afghanistan, the domino effect doesn't sound so far fetched. The irony is that the U.S. might have had an Ally had they helped negotiate a transition from French Imperialism in the region. Though, the U.S. isn't the best at helping pick leaders.

 

[Deeje]

Did Jesus cleanse the temple?

Good grief! You think that equates with dropping bombs on people or firing rockets on them? Did Jesus have in mind spilling blood....or did he just want the rampant commercialism and extortion to stop? Seriously....

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Given the plight of Hmong people of Laos, the killing fields in Cambodia, and the poverty of Myanmar, the wars in Afghanistan, the domino effect doesn't sound so far fetched. The irony is that the U.S. might have had an Ally had they helped negotiate a transition from French Imperialism in the region. Though, the U.S. isn't the best at helping pick leaders.

My hot take has generally been that American actions in the immediate post war could have avoided the risk of Vietnam dropping into the communist sphere. They'd just finished fighting a common enemy, and the Vietnamese believed their independence was a likely consequence.

The French post war actions were unhelpful in the extreme.

 

[Cacotopia]

America's 5 Worst Military Defeats

link won't open for me but maybe for you

 

[Khasekhemwy]

…What would you say was the last military battle that America lost? What were the casualties?

The US, which accounts for half of global military spending, boasts by far this planet’s strongest military. We have well-trained troops and lots of technology. None, save possibly Russia and China when fighting in their near abroad, can hope to defeat us in a head-to-head battle, which is why, as you said, our enemies usually resort to guerrilla tactics, terrorism or roadside IEDs.

Yet many world problems, namely those of obtaining a stable international order in which American commerce can prosper, aren’t amenable to military solution. Iraq is the best recent case in mind. Not to say the military has no role; Air Force drones keep terror operatives on their toes and in hiding much of the time. They’ve gotten less efficient at launching attacks in the West than during the “radical’s salad days” of September 11, though they still pose grave threats in Arab countries.

Unless we do something about extreme global economic inequality, however, we can expect anger and assault to decorate our futures indefinitely.

Counting battles won or lost is useless. Something both Pyrrhus and Sun Tzu would agree on, I think.

Thoroughly in concurrence here. Effectiveness of our military, that is, its deterrent value, is best measured by whether we observe a decrease in our need for military action. Westmoreland and his “body counts” are well-known bunkum.

 

[Jumi]

America actually won the Tet offensive. The Vietcong did not accomplish their military goals and the Vietcong were almost completely destroyed.

Tet offensive was a defeat back home though as it increased protests and shocked people.

And it all ended with communists taking over whole of Vietnam, so basically a lost war since US goal was to keep the country from joining the communists.

 

[Woberts]

There was the American Civil War, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, and pretty much all of the middle east.
The Cuban Missile Crisis as a whole, even though it wasn't an actual battle.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

America actually won the Tet offensive. The Vietcong did not accomplish their military goals and the Vietcong were almost completely destroyed.

Tet offensive was a defeat back home though as it increased protests and shocked people.

If it was a defeat "at home" then it was a defeat. As usual, you appear to be using ill defined terms to shoehorn some predetermined point.

The US has the world's largest conventional military. It doesn't lose conventional battles if your idea of a battle is line up a bunch of guys on either side of a field and slug it out until only one side is left. Unfortunately for the American military, wars aren't fought that way any more.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

There was the American Civil War, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, and pretty much all of the middle east.
The Cuban Missile Crisis as a whole, even though it wasn't an actual battle.

The US lost several battles in the Second World War, and Korea. Some would argue the "Black Hawk Down" incident in Somalia would count as a lost battle. The USS Cole bombing and similar could be argued to be "lost battles" too.

 

[Stevicus]

You're not thinking strategically. I guess that makes you a good American then. But let me ask you anyway: What was the grand objective of the US in Viet Nam? Was it to conquer the North, or was it to defend the South?

Part of the problem is that the entire US strategy was mainly to "look good" for propaganda reasons. Also, we had treaty obligations to avoid being caught in making aggressive warfare, as required by the Kellogg-Briand Pact and the UN Charter. The idea of "conquest" or aggressive warfare was simply off the table, since world opinion was against that and nations were signing treaties which strongly condemned such practices among the family of nations.

The US has been more concerned about image and looking "respectable," much in the same way that Michael Corleone was striving desperately to make the Corleone Family "legitimate." That's always been our highest priority, and that's where we end up losing.

We could have simply taken the whole of French Indochina and turned it into American Indochina. If we're going to conquer, then let's conquer. If that's not acceptable to the sensitivities of US politicians, then we have to simply let it go and let them rule themselves.

It was the same with Cuba. If we wanted to, we could have sent over whole armies to conquer that island nation, but instead, they had to make it "look like" it was being done by homegrown insurgents - since they didn't want the world to think of us as some aggressive bully. And it would have violated several international treaties (not that treaties ever stopped us in our dealings with the Native Americans).

All of our failures in this area have more to do with our obsession with image over substance and practicality.

 

[ChristineM]

America did not achieve her military objectives in Iraq or Afghanistan, but was there really a battle that we lost in either of those countries? Sure, lots of skirmishes took place, with much guerrilla attacks that were costly, but can you think of a battle where roughly a thousand or more casualties resulted and America was defeated on the battlefield?

What would you say was the last military battle that America lost? What were the casualties?

As far as i am aware the only truly successful victory of he american military was against a bunch of poorly trained hill farmers at Grenada

Sure the have met their objectives now and again, usually at a far higher cost than planned.


An interesting article
Why does the U.S. military have such a staggering record of failure?

 

[esmith]

The US has lost -- or is likely to lose -- every significant war it's gotten into since it tied in Korea. But we do win battles.

Typical Americans. Geniuses on tactics, morons on strategies.

Depends on who you are talking about when it comes to strategies.

 

[LuisDantas]

I find this passive attitude disturbing. We must always stand up to defeat tyranny. I’m not advocating war mongering. But I am saying if we have the ability we must combat tyranny. Hitler being the prime example.

Tyranny is not particularly vulnerable to military action, though.

It is best fought by other forms of action, mostly preventive in nature.