[xzlzx]

IMO it’s a tad silly to say that the U.S. lost these wars. Can you really lose a war with a massive nuclear arsenal on your side? It’s crazy that this seems to never be mentioned.

This seems quite similar to Americans demanding their gun rights to protect themselves from the government. Well, I hate to inform you of this, but the government could out gun you since time immemorial. It’s a wild argument for gun rights.

[jerglingu]

> IMO it’s a tad silly to say that the U.S. lost these wars. Can you really lose a war with a massive nuclear arsenal on your side? It’s crazy that this seems to never be mentioned.

An observation not lost to the ground forces. I was in the US infantry 10+ years ago. We were well trained and lethal. We had an overwhelming technological targeting advantage. We had the support of a sizeable amount of the local population that we generally stayed a few steps ahead of the lower and mid tier rungs of whatever insurgency we were fighting (Al Qaeda in Iraq [ISIS predecessor], the Taliban, whatever-local-Afghan-village-thugs-in-later-deployments). We understood the war wasn't purely militaristic in "kill counts" or territory sieged, and the lessons of irregular warfare (hearts and minds) were beaten in to us.

The biggest issue, at least for us that actually had to kill and be shot at, was that the progressively restrictive rules of engagement (ROE) defanged us, both from lethal and willpower standpoints. There were so many nested bullet points and gotchas and just a wide breadth of rules that no person that wasn't a lawyer could keep up with it. Arbitrary things like "if you are in a gunfight with insurgents and they fall back into a cave, no matter who the insurgent is or how many casualties they were lucky to have inflicted on your forces, you absolutely cannot roll grenades into the cave." Very specific, very arbitrary, very confusing. Furthermore, it was beat into us that the full weight of the law was to fall on our heads if we screwed these things up. Which makes sense from a humanitarian point of view, but that lingering legal guillotine built in a sizeable amount of self-doubt and apprehension in us where we weren't ever sure when or if we were allowed to be lethal.

I imagine a set of ROE was drafted, and enough bureaucrats scribbled in "small edits" that the overarching sense of direction was lost in the sea of Great Ideas by Smart People and nobody with both the political clout and common sense was able to get to these revisions before they were inflicted on us on the ground. Not dissimilar to scope creep you see in software, except parties involved couldn't just vote with their feet and leave. That, and those functioning as the wars' PM's weren't as much concerned with delivering results as they perhaps were with empire building and political posturing. Just a god damn mess

[jlkuester7]

Firstly, thank you for your service!

Secondly, I think you definitely hit the nail on the head when it comes to the ROE being the main limiting factor in the "effectiveness" of the US military in being able to subdue its enemies, not just in Afghanistan/Iraq, but also in Vietnam and even to some extant in Korea. It seems to be one of the weird side-effects that nukes have on armed conflicts that when you have nukes, you really can never actually "fully commit" to a conflict. (Since going "all-in" could be apocalyptic.)

One thing I have always wondered, though, is the relationship between the ROE and irregular warfare. If the military personnel on the ground had broader discretion over their actions, would help or hinder the goal of "winning hearts and minds"?

[cloverich]

> It’s a wild argument for gun rights.

Not really, because it changes the political calculus for exactly the reasons you mentioned. If the US government wants to forcefully take over, and they aren't aligned with gun owners, they have to go through them. In that scenario its more likely they are a shade of grey evil than "lets methodically exterminate all of our citizens". In the former, gun owners standing their ground would be a major political hurdle.

I'd actually argue pro gun rights are a bit silly because those same parties aren't pro encryption / privacy. So they give up the tools they'd need to defend themselves (encryption) from all but the most direct assault. And I'd consider a soft assault by violating their privacy much more plausible.

[xzlzx]

How can you “win” a war when the other country can press a single button and eliminate 100% of the people in your country?

[anigbrowl]

Well, bring it down to the personal level - that's like losing a fistfight but comforting yourself that you could go and burn the other person's house down any time because you have a tank full of gasoline at home. I mean, you could, but that wouldn't unbloody your nose.

[ant6n]

Because they won’t hit that button. Just look at how Vietnam won.

[ClumsyPilot]

"Can you really lose a war with a massive nuclear arsenal on your side?"

How is that usefull unless you are willing to commit genocide?