No. I brought up the points not you. I never said my points were restricted to the context you want.
Fair enough, although I just didn't want to veer too far off from the point I was making.
As subs are first-strike (Boomers) units thus always deployed in certain numbers at all times. I am guessing you do not know much about the military.
I was just wondering why it's even necessary to have those units deployed at all. I don't claim to be a military expert, but I know enough that not all subs are Boomers.
Yes but that takes time and money. It put readiness at risk. Leaks such as deployments are costly to cover for. All due to nothing being news worthy.
I suppose, although if there's a security breach, they may have no other choice. I would imagine it would take a bit of time to get a message to a sub, but it seems a relatively simple matter to order them to change locations.
Shelf-life in war is not to be understatement. See Battle of Midway.
Harm is subjective as harm is not confined to the physical type.
But we're not in a war right now. Of course, we may be in a position where we still have to be ready, especially considering much of the saber-rattling and heated rhetoric going on these days. But it's a much different situation now than we faced in the Cold War.
Different enemy, different generation, different circumstances. Not to mention the fact that the Vietnamese never bombed Pearl Harbor or had anything to do with the Bataan Death March. Vietnam was never seen as any kind of mortal threat to American soil.
Yes yet no one was charged as they were part of the side that won the war.
Rules of wars are a joke.
It may have also been a case of "no jury would convict them."
Which goes to my point about the masses ideas of war. Looking bad becomes is bad.
Some people have still blamed the media for showing some of the more gruesome aspects. They felt that the media were deliberately trying to make the US look bad, and it fueled many of the protests and dissension at home.
South Vietnam was not secured territory nor was it's population backing the government en mass. Remember the Vietcong are SV citizens being helped by the NV.
Right, but technically it was still South Vietnamese territory. Comparing it to WW2, even under the concept of Total War, we would operate differently when liberating occupied territory in contrast to attacking Germany directly.
However, if the South Vietnamese government was so ineffective that they could not really govern or secure their own territory, then it fell upon the US to do it. But we still wanted to prop up that government just the same.
I think they have far different ideas about US interests than the average person does.
I'm sure they do, but some stated interests seem more ideologically-based, while others might try to see things on a more practical level. I would consider that to be separate from the issue of how our leaders actually conduct our military and foreign policies. It's the question of "why we fight" versus "how we fight."
If we're fighting for US interests, then are we talking about practical national interests – or are they more abstract, ideological, religious, and/or sentimental?
The Cold War has been over for close to 30 years now, yet our government can't seem to figure out what to do next.
Soviets did the same.
No as various acts were done to create security for the US not security for the nations targeted. A ruined nation can be in the interests of another.
I don't know that I'd consider Ho Chi Minh a complete puppet of the Soviet Union. The US considered him an ally during WW2, aiding the resistance against Japanese occupation.
At any rate, the place was pretty well ruined after WW2, yet the French still wanted to try to keep it in their empire. So, the Vietnamese fought the French, and then the Americans and other Allied powers – for decades. In the end, the country still fell into the Soviet Bloc, yet in terms of the grand scheme of things and our overall strategy, it didn't really amount to much of a loss.
The "domino theory" never really panned out like they said it would.
The point was the Press doing what it wants makes it easier for spies as media become a source instead of infiltration.
I've heard it said that a lot of Soviet spies during the Cold War spent most of their time in libraries. Even if the mainstream media doesn't publish something, one might still be able to piece together information from books and periodicals few people actually read.
I disagree as the masses wouldn't support necessary evils if they knew everything going on.
But it's not as if they haven't been told the awful truth in one form or another. At least in terms of what the government has done in the past.
Nevertheless, the people, by and large, would still support self-defense and the defense of American soil. When it comes to things like bugging Angela Merkel's phone, not so much.
Nope. See Chamberlain vs Churchill in how support can still back a weak government not creating a strong government by the fact of having "support"
When you said "toppled," I thought you meant through a popular uprising or a military coup – or even possibly through foreign subversion. With Chamberlain and Churchill, you're speaking of individual leaders, one weak and the other strong, but both working within the same governmental structure and culture.
I wouldn't underestimate the need for support, at least to some degree. All Kerensky needed to quash the Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd would have been one regiment. But they couldn't even trust their own army at that point.
MacArthur was right in the end. The Reds were using the Wests rules against them yet Western leadership was gutless. Especially Europe's
Patton had similar ideas, and I've encountered more than a few people who have sided with MacArthur on the matter. Who knows? Maybe an immediate decisive smash against the Soviet Bloc would have ended the Cold War before it even started, and before they gained atomic weapons technology.
I can sort of understand it myself. If Soviet expansionism was really such an immediate threat, then dealing with it in a direct and forthright manner seems the logical approach. We weren't really at war with North Korea or North Vietnam. We were at war with the Soviet Union, and yet not "officially." The Truman Doctrine of containment was supposed to keep the Soviet Bloc in check while avoiding outright war.
In the end, it apparently worked, at least in the sense that the Soviet Union was finally brought down. And even if we avoided nuclear war, the damage from the Cold War is what we're dealing with today.
No. It is called deniability for one. Second is confirming intelligence for another nation. Think about it.
Deniability to whom?
It was true when Total War was developed. People were outraged over what Sherman did as the concept of "Noble War" still existed and was practiced.. Yet Sherman's methods were proven not only correct for the time but was a foundation of modern warfare.
I think opinions varied on the matter. Sherman had a lot of supporters as well. There were somewhat mixed feelings and conflicted loyalties during the Civil War, and the Union didn't necessarily see the Confederates as "foreign" – or vice versa.
Sure. Although I blame the public for this more than the politicians. After all if the angle didn't work no one would use it. Few people consider themselves the bad guys even when they are committing genocide. They are told they are the bad guys by the victors
Or they are told by the alternative/underground press – or maybe by organizations like WikiLeaks.
I suppose the public is to blame for believing the politicians' lies, but the politicians are still to blame for their lies nevertheless.
It is about tactics used nor merely war.
Yes, although opinions still vary. If "war is politics by other means," then political support may vary depending on the pretexts and circumstances of war and/or tactics.
Watching a fiction or a controlled sport is far different than war. We know those are fictions. We know there are rules. We know there is medical assistance at ring-side.
Still, I'm not convinced that it's simply a matter of having a weak stomach. I'm sure that's true for some, but much of the opposition to recent wars has practical considerations as well.
This is his personal issue and his bubble. This calls into question his judgement in my view.
Well, yes, his judgment is most definitely called into question. But it's not all that personal, since there's millions upon millions of us living in the same bubble.
Again this goes right to my point about the masses being unsuitable to be informed and part of specific topics and decisions. They are sheep.
Then what's the point of having a democracy? Why bother giving all these "sheep" a choice at all?
It waxes and wanes. Point being some of the masses can not even handle an election. How can anyone expect those people to handle a war.
Americans have done it before, oftentimes quite successfully. Americans have traditionally been a fighting people, even if we've mellowed and softened these past several decades.
In the public political sphere? Sure. The two party system has divided and simplified issues to this point.
Another difference is that, in the past, political differences were often set aside in times of war. Even in times of peace, there was still plenty of room for negotiation and compromise whenever there were political disputes.
The US has not issued a declaration of war since WW2 not for Korea, Nam, Iraq 1/2 nor Afghanistan. Congress passed the War Powers Acts which gave the power to POTUS to use the military is a war situation without calling it a war. It is a policing action or whatever they make up. A Dem Congress BTW although it is not as if the GOP objected to it. The public is not longer considered unless they revolt or the politicians see a risk to their seats. Again see Vietnam. Once the war ended most people didn't care anymore.
But as we've seen since then, the public is still involved to a large degree. That's why there's still all this hullaballoo over leaked state secrets. If the public finds out about it, they'll pressure their representatives, which could lead to policy shifts. The public is certainly told about military actions, such as the ones you listed above, but again, support or lack thereof are still key factors.
Government no longer works like this nor has for decades.
Yes, and I mentioned the reasons why earlier.
Given the claimed support for Total War can I assume you support this if the IDF were to level Gaza right?
It doesn’t involve America, so I take no position on that issue. Although it might trigger a response from other nations, which might necessitate American involvement. Sherman advocated Total War, but he didn't wipe everyone out.
